Saudi Arabia cautious on hosting Afghan-Taliban talks

An Afghan official said on Monday that talks would be held in the Islamic kingdom this year, but on Tuesday the Afghan ambassador to Riyadh, Saeed Ahmed Omarkhail, said no formal approach had yet been made to the Saudi authorities.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,

“The kingdom has a role and has been involved in these issues in the past. The Afghan president has asked Saudi Arabia to hold talks in the past but there is nothing new,” Omarkhail said.

A Saudi source with strong government connections and a senior Afghan government source said Saudi Arabia was taking a cautious approach to the talks.

Al Qaeda has in the past carried out high profile bombings in Saudi Arabia and has vowed to overthrow the US-backed royal family.

Saudi Arabia’s objections to the Taliban’s links to al Qaeda were cited by US diplomats as the reason proposed talks failed to move forwards in early 2010, according to a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

It said Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin turned down a request from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to host talks because the Saudis “would not support such talks until the Taliban renounced al Qaeda”.

“The major problem that Saudi has in mind is that the Taliban are heavily linked to al Qaeda, and secondly it’s next to impossible for the Taliban to formally cut ties with al Qaeda,” said an Afghan official.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

Other potential sticking points include the Taliban’s use of the title “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, which Saudi officials believe precludes the movement from recognising other legitimate power structures in the country, said the Saudi source.

A senior Afghan government source said negotiations would not be possible without a Taliban ceasefire and face-to-face meetings between the two sides.

Ambassador Omarkhail in Riyadh said any move to hold talks in the Gulf Arab kingdom would not be possible until after the Taliban had established a representative office in Qatar.

“After that there will be agendas set for talks,” he said.

The Taliban announced this month they would open a political office in the Qatari capital Doha to support possible peace talks with the United States.

The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Frank Ruggiero, visited Riyadh this month but Washington is expected to leave any new moves on talks in the kingdom to the Saudis.Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding,

Saudi Arabia has had some influence in Afghanistan since it supported mujahideens against Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. It has maintained a close relationship with Pakistan and supports both countries with large aid donations.

“What matters to Saudi Arabia is Pakistan. Bringing peace to Afghanistan will help very much in bringing peace back to Pakistan,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi commentator.

Saudi Arabia has taken a more assertive role in foreign policy in recent months after last year’s Arab uprisings,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. which transformed its immediate neighbourhood and threatened to alter the power balance with regional rival Iran.

Riyadh orchestrated a Gulf Arab plan to ease a power transition in Yemen, and led Arab League efforts to isolate Syria over its crackdown on mass protests.

However, it has been frustrated before by the complex process of mediating between warring Afghan factions.

Two decades ago a Saudi prince took Afghan warlords inside the Kaaba in Mecca and had them solemnly swear to end the fighting that was destroying their country.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds,

That peace was broken before the warlords left the building as a Saudi official who was present received a phone call from Kabul saying that one side had just started shelling the other.

A Heavenly Visit

Try to imagine a father’s surprise when his son describes sitting on Jesus’ lap. His name is Todd Burpo and his experiences are described in his book “Heaven is for Real.”

Mr. Burpo is a Protestant minister who lives with his wife Sonja and their two children in a tiny town in Nebraska. When the story begins their daughter Cassie is nine and their son Colton is four.

The family is setting out on a trip to visit relatives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a Fourth of July holiday. It is the first time they have left Imperial since the previous March when their trip came close to ending in tragedy. As they drove through the city of North Platte, Todd jokingly told his son, “If we turn here, we can go back to the hospital.Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding,” Colton giggled and said, “No, Daddy, send Cassie.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,” She refused and Sonja asked Colton if he remembered the hospital. He replied, “Yes, Mommy, I remember. That’s where the angels sang to me.”

Todd turned into an Arby’s lot. He and Sonja exchanged puzzled looks while thinking of many questions to ask their son. Todd began with, “Colton, you said that angels sang to you while you were at the hospital?” He nodded his head. “What did they sing to you?” “Well, they sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho’.” I asked them to sing ‘We Will, We Will Rock You’, but they wouldn’t sing that. After a few more question about the angels, the little boy grew serious. “Dad, Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared. They made me feel better.” Todd looked at Sonja whose mouth was open then asked, “You mean Jesus was there?” “Yeah, Jesus was there, I was sitting on his lap.”

The parents had little time to absorb that shocking declaration when their son went on to say that he saw Daddy praying and Mommy talking on the phone. Since he was unconscious on the operating table,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, how could he have known exactly what they were doing?

They had not shared that information with anyone. Colton went on to say that he had gone out of his body and was looking down on the table while the doctor worked on him. Sonja’s eyes got big and Todd kept saying to himself over and over, ‘Could this be real?’

The previous year had proved extremely trying for the family even before the near-tragedy. The couple played in a coed softball league and was in the season’s final game when Todd broke his leg in two places sliding into base.
His recovery time made working at his second job impossible.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, To augment his pastor’s salary he had a garage door installation business.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. With his huge cast he could not climb the necessary steps to complete the job. Then he developed painful kidney stones which required treatment. As if that weren’t enough, a lump in his chest was diagnosed as cancer and had to be removed. All these expenses soon went way beyond his and his wife’s combined income and they were in debt.

When Todd’s cast was off, Sonja urged him to go to a church meeting in Greeley, Colorado. While he was there, Colton came down with what the doctor said was a virus going around. He got better so Sonja joined Todd with the children. The boy got terribly sick and the doctor seemed unable to help him so they took him to the hospital in North Platte. The surgeon said his appendix had ruptured and did not give them much hope. They called their church family to pray for their son and nervously waited for the operation to be over. There were complications but Colton did recover.
By the time of the family’s Fourth of July trip, Colton began mentioning events that happened during his surgery. His parents were very careful not to put words in his mouth but to wait for his description of his ‘trip to heaven.’ They were truly amazed at his reports.

One detail was the boy’s rejection of all the pictures of Jesus that were shown to him. “That’s not him” he said each time until he was shown the portrait painted by the 12-year-old prodigy Akiane Kramarik. His response amazed his parents when he said, “That is Jesus”.

I don’t see how anyone could doubt this precious child. The quote “In him there is no guile” directly applies. But I recommend this charming story whatever your beliefs.

Ruins of ancient city featured in Moundville Park

Just over 15 miles from the University of Alabama campus on the banks of the Black Warrior River, Moundville was once a cosmopolitan city with at least 3,000 Native American inhabitants living within the one-mile fortified wall and an additional 10,000 settled in the outlying land.

“When you’re looking at the mounds, you’re really looking at the ruins of an ancient city,” Bill Bomar, director of the park, said.

Called “The Big Apple of the 14th century” by National Geographic, Moundville Archeological Park is the second largest mound site in the U.S.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, and home to 26 mounds of varying sizes. Although thought to be burial mounds by many, Jeremy Davis, a doctoral student who studies the site, said the mounds of Moundville were architectural features built to elevate the home sites for elite people in the village.

“There are burials in there,” Davis said. “But there really are none in the big mounds that we know of. The burials that are there are few, and they’re in the smaller ones.”

Most of the items found in the mounds are refuge from everyday living, Davis said. Every so often, a team will come across a dedicatory offering, such as three or four pots clustered together in the corner of where a building once stood.

“It was like cracking the champagne up against the ship,” Davis said.

Moundville Archeological Park opened to the public during the Great Depression in 1939, Bomar said. Walter B. Jones, the state geologist, recognized the significance of the site and the need to preserve it to prevent erosion.

In a time where money was little and the number of individuals in need of jobs was high, Jones was able to set a Civilian Conservation Camp at the site. Members of CCC constructed the orientation building, museum building and roadways throughout the park, Bomar said.

The University acquired the park and assumed ownership in 1961 but had long been associated with the park in various ways.

“There are special advantages to having a site like this owned and operated by a research university,” Bomar said. “For one, we really echo the University’s mission of education, research and public service because what we have at the heart of what we do here is education and sharing with the public information knowledge based on the research we do here.”

Davis, originally from Savannah, Ga., came to the University to study Moundville from his undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia.

“This was the place to come if you were interested in the site,” he said. “Also, the relationship the University has with this site is unique. The fact that the University owns this site is unique, so it helps with people like me who want to study it and want to have access to it for excavations.”

More than 800 years ago, around 1120 AD, a blended group of Native American tribes settled in the area, Davis said. By 1250 AD, the population peaked and due to political and factional disputes, the abandonment of the site began by 1400 and by the end of the decade,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, only a small group lived around the largest mound.

“In a place where you have a chief who has exclusive claim to that office, a person who has that claim because they are born into it, that’s kind of a contentious thing and a lot of people want that position,” he said. “You can draw a direct parallel to Tudor England and disputes over who is going to have what position, that same sort of thing happened in Moundville. It happens in every ranked society like that.”

Inhabitants came from different tribes, but the specific tribes are unknown because there was no writing system, Bomar said. Possible ancestors of the Moundville people include the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek tribes.Injection molding and Plastic molding supplier;

The Moundville Archeological Park museum, which underwent $5 million in renovations a few years ago, contains 250 artifacts, including the famous Moundville Duck Bowl, which according to Bomar, is arguably the most important prehistoric artifact found in the United States.

“We wanted to adequately tell the story of the ancient Moundville people through an immersive exhibit that really brought the culture to life,” Bomar said. “[We also wanted] to balance that with a presentation of the artifacts that really reflected the sophistication of the Moundville people.”

A group of Native American advisors, archeologists, folklorists, exhibit designers and educators came together nine years ago to create a storyline,Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding, that of a group arriving at Moundville, and plan other details of the museum, Bomar said.

Native American artists painted the murals on the walls and created many of the exhibits, Bomar said. Native American models were also used for the figures in the exhibits with artists from New York taking molds of their heads.

In addition to the annual Native American Festival held each October,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. the park offers guided tours for school groups and a menu of other services like Native American dance and art, Bomar said. The site also has hiking trails and offers audio tours, a recreated Indian village, a conference center overlooking the Black Warrior that can be rented and 28 campsites.

The University’s anthropology department is offering an eight-week field course this summer for students of any major, David said. ANT 269 is a six-hour class that offers a rare opportunity for students to dig at the park.

“Moundville’s history is America’s history,” he said. “Why do we look to Egypt to talk about human past when we have these amazing cultures right here in the southeast like Moundville?”

Pulse quickens in Mich

It looked like the end of the millennium would also be the end of Michigan manufacturing.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings,

The state lost 47 percent of its manufacturing employment, nearly 423,000 jobs, between 2000 and 2010 as the U.S. auto industry went into a frightening decline.

But like a patient who surprisingly wakes up from a years-long coma, manufacturing is staging an impressive comeback here. Michigan added 26,400 manufacturing jobs in 2011, nearly 12 percent of all new manufacturing jobs nationwide, according to final annual figures released last week. And the 2011 numbers build on gains from 2010.

“Michigan really has made a turnaround,” said University of Michigan economist Don Grimes. “A real chunk of that is manufacturing.”

Experts are debating, though, whether the growth in factory jobs can be sustained. They’re also questioning whether Michigan’s continued reliance on autos and manufacturing is healthy for the state’s future.

U-M economists George Fulton, Joan Crary and Grimes predicted in November 2011 that growth in the manufacturing sector will continue, but slow to about 10,000 jobs a year through the end of 2013 as company inventories are replenished from the Great Recession.

About a third of those jobs will be in the auto industry, according to U-M’s forecast.

A separate forecast on automotive jobs by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor is even more bullish. It predicts Michigan will add 15,000 auto assembly and parts jobs this year.

That’s likely to make Michigan even more dependent on autos and manufacturing, said George Erickcek, senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo.

Despite staggering manufacturing job losses, Michigan’s shares of U.S. manufacturing and auto jobs have barely budged since the start of the Great Recession at the end of 2007.

Michigan is 42 percent more concentrated in manufacturing jobs than the rest of the nation and eight times more concentrated in auto employment than the country, according to data Erickcek compiled in December.

“If you look at us relative to the nation, we’re just as dependent on autos as we were before the recession,” he said. “But on the other hand, we have an industry others are dying to get.”

Some say Michigan should focus on creating more “knowledge jobs” that require higher education levels and pay higher wages than hourly manufacturing jobs.

“If the Michigan economy of the future is built on a base of factories, farms and tourism, we will be a low-prosperity state, said Lou Glazer,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. president of Michigan Future Inc.

Still, the return of manufacturing jobs is a welcome development for a state that has long believed its prosperity depends on building things.

“Because the sector is so extensively networked in the local economy, the effects of its direct contributions to job growth also spill over into other parts of the private sector,” Fulton said.

Lower manufacturing costs here, combined with rising labor and shipping costs overseas, are allowing automakers to build small cars at a profit for the first time in Michigan.

General Motors Co., for example, is building the tiny Chevrolet Sonic at its Orion Township plant near Pontiac, saving 1,500 jobs at a plant that had been slated to close. Previously, GM had been planning to build the Sonic in Korea.

Ford has announced that it will add additional production of its redesigned 2013 Fusion,Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding, built in Hermosillo, Mexico, at its Flat Rock plant and add 1,200 jobs to a second-shift at the plant.

The shift’s been noticed outside Michigan, too. In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama said, ” Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s No. 1 automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.”

“There is a resurgence,” said Jay Baron, president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. “We’re more competitive now.”

That’s especially true in Michigan’s bedrock tool-and-die industry, which was devastated over the past decade by auto industry demands that it match prices from Chinese builders of dies used to stamp out doors, fenders and other parts for vehicles.

Unable to compete by building their own dies, many tooling companies bought them from Chinese suppliers. But the practice backfired due to poor quality and missed delivery schedules.

“The automakers convinced die shops to buy tools from China,” said Mark Schmidt, president of Atlas Tool Inc. in Roseville. “Some of the largest shops in our industry went out of business doing just that.”

Now the focus has shifted from low cost to fast delivery as automakers step up development of dozens of new models for an expanding market.

“The automakers don’t have time to look around the world for the cheapest price,” Baron said. “It takes three weeks to get tooling delivered from China. Three weeks is a big deal right now.”

More work being done in Michigan is actually creating shortages of skilled labor in areas such as engineering, design and other technical areas.

“The availability of technically competent people and suppliers is in short supply,” Baron said.

Grimes said the resurgence of manufacturing jobs follows Michigan’s usual pattern of recovery from a recession. Manufacturers need more workers to refill depleted inventories as demand for everything from cars to office furniture increases.

But the sector also is benefiting from a variety of other factors, including rising labor and shipping costs in developing countries, as well as favorable currency exchange rates that make Michigan and other states more attractive for factory investment.

And while there is no precise data on the subject, anecdotal evidence suggests manufacturers are bringing back some jobs that were lost to China, Mexico and other low-cost countries.

“The U.S. is becoming a better deal,” said William Strauss, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Manufacturers aren’t just selling domestically. Michigan companies exported $44.7 million worth of goods, mostly auto-related, in 2010, up 37 percent from 2009.

President Barack Obama and others are pushing efforts to boost exporting and the “insourcing” of jobs that were outsourced to China,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, India, Mexico and other developing countries over the past several decades.

“That’s exactly the kind of commitment to country we need – especially now, at this make-or-break moment for the middle class,” Obama said.

In his State of the Union speech, Obama outlined incentives for companies to bring back jobs to the United States. He said his administration also wants to end tax advantages for companies that move jobs offshore.

Madurai's merchant community terms FSSA detrimental

The merchant community in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, has called the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, (FSSA), detrimental to the interests of farmers and self-help groups in its present form and urged the Centre to postpone the enforcement of the Act.

S P Jeyapragasam, president, Tamil Nadu Foodgrain Merchants' Association, Madurai, told FnB News,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, “The Act, which came into force from August 5, 2011,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, would curtail farmers' opportunities to sell their products at competitive prices.”

According to the Act, the farmers who grow the food products and the traders are liable for action for deficiency in the quality of agro products. “The errant farmers and traders would have to pay a fine ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, and the minimum sentence in prison is six months,” he said.

When asked about the maximum term in jail, he said that depends on the offence. He stressed on the fact that the deficiency in the quality of agro products due to the changes in the weather should also be taken into consideration.

Jeyapragasam said the government was selling liquor and tobacco products while admitting that the consumption of these products was injurious to health. “The government that sells these products tends to penalise traders heavily if the product they sell is found to be substandard,” he rued.

After explaining how unreasonable the government was being in awarding penalties to the traders without taking into account the change in the quality of the product due to the changes in weather, he said, “The laws should be universal.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased,”

He also said the products made by members of self-help groups cannot be brought under the purview of the FSSA. “They will be wiped out of business.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, Sections and clauses of the Act are rather harsh. Moreover,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, what works in a developed country cannot be implemented in a country like India, where basic sanitary conditions need to be uplifted and seasonal variations need to be taken into account.”

The law had also stipulated that about 250 food testing laboratories be set up across the state before the Act was implemented, but work had not begun on any of these yet, he pointed out. The association reiterated the demand, and said that it would make sure every district had its food testing laboratories.

Second man jailed for botched armed robbery

A second man has been jailed for a botched armed robbery where the raiders had to be rescued by the fire brigade after they had been locked in by an accomplice.

Ian Jordan (aged 33) was one of the men trapped inside the gold storage business with two staff members who had been bound and gagged during the raid.

His accomplice, Aidan Murphy (aged 32) of Stag Park Avenue, Mitchelstown, Cork was jailed for five years last year for his role in the raid.

Gary Byrne (aged 30) of Edenmore Crescent, Raheny was found guilty last week of taking part in the raid. Byrne fled in the middle of the attempted robbery, leaving his two accomplices locked in. He is to be sentenced next month.

Jordan of Belclare Grove, Ballymun pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to attempted robbery and possession of ammunition at the Bullion Room, Bolton Street, Dublin on August 10, 2010.

The court heard Jordan was a cocaine addict and was pressured into taking part because he had a €30,000 drug debt.

Judge Martin Nolan said it was a planned operation and “not a spur of the moment idea”. He noted Jordan’s co-operation with gardai and his efforts to get drug free before jailing him for five years.

Defence counsel, Mr John O’Kelly SC, said Jordan was under threat from drug dealers because he had lost a consignment of drugs he was storing for them.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased,

Jordan’s house had been badly vandalised just before the raid.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, He has 17 previous convictions including one for storing cannabis for someone else.

Counsel said Jordan was a skilled carpenter with three children. He submitted that his client co-operated with gardai and entered an early guilty plea.

On a previous date, Garda David Brennan told prosecuting counsel, Mr Vincent Heneghan BL, that the Bullion Room had an elaborate security system. It took two people with separate keys to open the safe and a password had to be phoned through to a security company before the vault would open.

On the morning of the incident, a female member of staff and a security guard were opening the shutters on the outside of the store.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, Murphy, Jordan and Byrne, all dressed as builders, came up behind them and forced them inside at gunpoint.

Murphy pointed the gun at the female and demanded one of the keys. He then made her phone in the password, telling her: “Make sure it’s the right one or I’ll fucking kill you.”

They then tied up both staff with cable ties and put duct tape on their mouths. Murphy couldn’t find the other key required to open the safe.

This was because Byrne had already fled,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, taking the keys and locking the shutters behind him.

When Murphy and Jordan realised they were locked in and couldn’t access the safe they started “frantically searching for a way out”.

They tried to escape through the ceiling tiles and to knock a hole in a wall using hammers, all to no avail. Gardai had been alerted by then and the raiders could hear their radios through the shutters.

The fire brigade were called and had to cut a hole in the shutter to free those inside where the men were immediately arrested.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,

The female member of staff pointed out to gardai where they had hidden the gun in the ceiling tiles. It was found to be an imitation.

Stopping Apartments From Making Tenants Sick

On a cold January day, the wind funnels down Creston Avenue in the Morris Heights neighborhood of South Bronx like a river through a canyon. Buildings seem slightly closer to the street here, and the tall towers loom over the narrow street and sidewalk. A couple of teenage girls walk down the street, laughing and shoving each other.

Some new construction gleams incongruently on one side of the street, but most of the other buildings on this block are much older, with a foregone elegance still barely visible in the stonework and tiles.

Yet inside these buildings residents complain of deteriorating living conditions.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, On a survey tenant after tenant writes of mice and cockroach infestations, peeling paint,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, broken toilets, inconsistent heat and hot water, and a front door with no lock. “The hallways smell like urine” writes one.

Tenant Johannie Burdier says the building was poorly maintained, dirty, and sometimes simply scary. She tells of a former building manager who, she says, took money from people in exchange for access to sell drugs from inside the building. A resident for seven years, Burdier lives in the building with her aunt and her eleven year old daughter. She says for much of her time there they were lucky if there was heat or hot water in the apartment.

Another resident, who works the night shift, writes that they were frequently robbed in the unlocked building entrance. “Always, always, always, they assault us and take our money and our things in the doorway. Why?” asks the tenant, writing in Spanish, “Why is there no lock on the door or security camera?”

These complaints are more than an inconvenience. Constant anxiety, prolonged exposure to molds, unchecked vermin and inadequate heat and hot water – all these things make people sick. The vast majority of people living in failed buildings are low-income and uninsured. When they get sick, they go to the hospital. And the city is left holding the bill.

A new pilot program, created by housing advocates and healthcare workers, aims to increase awareness of the public health costs resulting from distressed, overleveraged buildings. The program sends healthcare providers and social workers into buildings on the brink of receivership to identify and treat housing-related illnesses. The team hopes to help tenants, compile data on the health outcomes of living in buildings in poor condition, and eventually determine the actual cost to the city.

Dina Levy, Director of Organizing and Policy at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, or UHAB, says that what is happening in these buildings is a public health crisis. “It’s an outrageous moral problem, but it’s also a financial problem in whatever geographic space it’s happening in.”

She explains that when banks and owners fail to care for buildings, the costs of that failing often shows up in the medical bills of the people who live in those buildings, and that these tend to be low-income people without healthcare, so that cost is ultimately absorbed by taxpayers and the city. Until now, she says, there has been anecdotal evidence that people in certain buildings are getting sick, but a study would provide the first quantifiable direct connection.

“What we have observed is that people are getting sick and don’t have the resources to get adequate medical care,“ she said. “Why are banks and landlords allowed to harm people physically, and why should we be paying the cost of that?”

The project has gone out to buildings four times since Labor Day, and plans to do more outings this year. Members of the Committee of Interns and Residents of SEIU Healthcare, collaborating with the Family Medicine Department at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, the Pediatric Department at Jacobi Medical Center, Urban Homestead Assistance Board (UHAB), and Workforce Housing, created the Doctors’ House Visit Program as part of a larger community outreach program, the Healthy Bronx Initiative.

Tim Foley, Political Director of the Committee of Interns and Residents for SEIU Healthcare, said that the committee was drawn into involvement in the project by its members. “We were getting feedback from members who were frustrated to only be dealing with the effects of illnesses and not the causes. “

The most recent visit was in November,As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile, to a building at 2239 and 2241 Creston Avenue in the Bronx. One attending physicians and three resident physicians went to the building, accompanied by a social worker and an administrator with Bronx Lebanon. They visited with residents in twenty-one of the building’s fifty-four apartments.

The team had three specific goals: to help bring relief to tenants suffering health consequences from their building; to gather data for a Bronx-Lebanon study of the correlation between poor housing and chronic health problem; and to give tenants information on their rights regarding the condition of their building.

Levy says that as of July 2011, 2239 Creston had 431 outstanding code violations, while 2241 had 431 violations. The former owners, Victor and Alan Fein, originally bought the Creston buildings along with several others in the Bronx on a loan from Astoria Federal Savings Bank. Three of those projects – including the Creston --have since gone into foreclosure.

A Village Voice article from March 2010 names the brothers as owners of three Bronx properties listed as being among the city’s worst. The article says the Feins have operated since the mid-'90s under various company names including Cherokee Partners and Apache Properties. Workforce Housing Advisors,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, an affordable housing development firm led by ex-city developers, is working on a public-private financing deal to purchase and renovate the buildings.

Orlando Moronta, the building super, has lived in the building since 1998. He says the Feins barely contacted him in the decade he owned the building. He tells of unscrupulous former building managers who rented out apartments while telling the owner they were vacant, in order to pocket the money, and rented to people engaged in drug activity. Since the building went into foreclosure, Moronta says things have actually improved slightly. He says the number of violations is down and there have been recent mold remediation efforts and lead paint removal.

Tenant Johannie Burdier said she tried avenues to address problems in the building. She tells of taking her complaints directly to the Fein brothers’ office on Bronx Park East,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, where she says a relative of the brothers would dismiss her complaints and call her a liar. Fein Property Management did not respond to a request for comment, other than to say that relative was no longer working there.

Calling 311 didn’t help either. Burdier the city would investigate and order the brothers to make the repairs, and then when no repairs were made, would send out workers. But she said often the repairs were never made, because the landlord or an employee would always show up and order the city workers off of the premises.

Chicken chuckers duck weather issues

They had the determination. They had the drive. They had funky chicken hats.

Surely they had a hard-to-beat strategy?

“Strategy?” said Val Nesset to her fellow team, The Mother Cluckers. “We had one, right?”

Turned out the team from Buffalo was winging it in their first foray into the world of chicken chuckin’ Sunday.

But this year’s annual International Chicken Chuckin’ event gave no one home turf advantage. Organizers switched to rubber chickens over the frozen kind for the first time due to balmy weather.

Instead of sliding frozen chickens on Martindale Pond, participants in the fundraising tournament gathered in Lakeside Park to hurl rubber fowl into truck tires.

Nesset’s fellow chucker Larry White said he was counting on the ice, having advantageous experience with frozen turkeys on linoleum.

“It’s kind of like bowing,” he said. “Turkeys are 9 to 16 pounds. You can get good at it.”

Their team of five was made up of professors and a PhD student from the University of Buffalo, who flocked to Port Dalhousie with Nesset. A library and information sciences teacher, she lives in both Buffalo and Port Dalhousie with her husband, who was on a rival team Sunday.

She vowed The Mother Cluckers will be back next year, having invested $6.50 each in chicken hats they bought via the Internet.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,

They weren’t the only ones to display colourful gear.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, Others wore raccoon tails, rubber chicken hats and Scottish kilts.

Dave Prentice, owner of the Kilt and Clover pub that co-ordinates the event, said 26 teams were out Sunday in Lakeside Park, with the $80 entry fee per team being donated to charity.

“It’s going to be quite significant for Hospice Niagara,” Prentice said. “It’s no chicken scratch.”

It was the 12th year for International Chicken Chuckin’, though not the first without ice.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, Prentice shudders to think of the 2004 tourney, which was held in rain and mud.

“It was 10 degrees and the chickens were melting. It was awful.”

In order to avoid that fowl occurrence this year, 16 rubber chicken dog toys were purchased from a pet store, though Prentice admitted they were actually ducks.

Ducks wearing purple bikinis.

No matter the feather, or weather, nothing could have kept longtime chucker Michael Kearns from the event.

“It would have taken no less than an act of God to keep me from here,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,” said Kearns, of the team That Episode of Who’s The Boss Where Tony Sees Angela Naked in the Shower.

Kearns joked he bathed in Swiss Chalet sauce and meditated in a chicken coop before catching his flight from Calgary for the event.

The team was the chicken chuckin’ champion in 2006 and a semi-finalists in 2007.

But with the new duck chuck this year, their previous ice time counted for little. It was anybody’s game.

And the Buffalo team, White said, had a professor of anthropology on its side.

“She was able to study the long and ancient tradition of chicken chuckin’.As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile,”

North Side home has original woodwork and leaded glass

In the early 1900s, before House of the Week was a glimmer in some editor's eye, The Post-Standard published reports of well-heeled citizens who purchased homes or land on which they planned to build.

On May 19, 1906, the newspaper reported that a lawyer named Frank T. Miller commissioned architect Gordon A. Wright to "prepare plans and specifications for a house." Although Miller had not yet worked out all the details, he said he wanted the house to "be of brick construction, with stone trimmings ... (finished) in a manner to produce a combination of convenience and attractiveness."

The 3,483-square-foot brick home Wright designed and Miller had built at 1504 Park St., Syracuse, is on the market for $289,000.

The two-story home, on nearly a half-acre, has a long asphalt driveway, a detached two-car garage and fully fenced backyard. There are four bedrooms and a full bath on the second floor, and a powder room on the first floor. The partially finished basement has a small utility lavatory.

The front door opens to a small vestibule with oak and leaded glass door dividing it from the spacious foyer. Dark-stained oak woodwork in the foyer and throughout the home features wooden pegs and brackets. Ten-inch-high baseboards provide balance for the 9-foot ceilings.

The front-to-back living room has oak flooring and a stretched canvas ceiling -- often called a balloon ceiling -- edged with crown molding. The brick wood-burning fireplace has a terra cotta hearth and mantel. The generous windows in the living room and throughout most of the home are original, with oak trim and brass handles. Many of the windows are covered by pleated shades and sheer panels with formal swags, cornices and draperies.

The oak flooring continues in the formal dining room,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, which is located to the right of the foyer, on the other side of a wide oak pocket door. The room, which has a crystal chandelier, easily accommodates a table for 10 and has a large, built-in oak breakfront with glass doors. A plate rail lines the textured plaster walls and there is a powder room on the other side of a service door.

A step-down library,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. also off the foyer, has wainscoting of dark oak and built-in bookshelves with glass fronts.

The modern L-shaped, eat-in kitchen has a black and white ceramic tile block floor and an abundance of white, raised-panel cabinets. Solid surface counter tops surround a five-burner gas cook top and an electric oven. The twin round stainless steel sinks were imported from Italy. A portable island may be stowed away, flush with the cabinets, or pulled out to provide additional work space on its fold-out laminate counter top. All appliances will remain in the house.

A second kitchen in the partially finished basement has a four-burner cook top and electric oven as well as a separate grill surrounded by ceramic tile. The basement kitchen, with its access to the home's back entrance and driveway,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, would seem to be ideal for large-scale entertaining or a catering business.

A dramatic oak center staircase starts in the foyer and pauses at a spacious landing between the first and second floors. There, an oak and leaded glass door with sidelights and transom divide it from a carpeted sitting area that may have originally been a porch.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop.

The upstairs floors are maple. The four bedrooms share a full bath with a marble floor, jetted tub and separate, walk-in shower with glass and brass doors. Overhead are recessed lighting and heat lamps.

The master bedroom,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of which has a walk-in closet, easily accommodates a king-size bed. An adjacent room, with double pocket doors dividing it from the open hallway, could serve as a nursery, reading room or yoga retreat.

HRI Properties installs solar panels at its properties

To cut down on the high upfront price that some say have kept solar panels out of reach for many households, local developer HRI Properties has installed the equipment at six of its developments in the New Orleans area as part of a $10 million project, taking advantage of federal and state tax credits and covering the initial investment to lease the equipment and help tenants spread the costs out over a decade. The equipment, which went into operation at several of the properties at the beginning of the year, is expected to generate 1.05 megawatts of solar energy, which is enough to power about 250 apartments, said Hal Fairbanks, vice president of acquisitions for HRI Properties.

Residents at those properties, including River Garden, which replaced the St.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, Thomas public housing complex, the American Can Company apartment complex in Mid-City and soon the loft-style apartments at the Blue Plate Foods building, will lease the equipment with a monthly fee,Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. paid for from money saved on electricity bills, Fairbanks said.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.

He expects units to save about $50 a month on average in utility costs. The leasing fee is generally about 75 percent of the savings realized through net metering, which lets customers generate their own electricity and then send extra electricity back to the utility for a savings.

"What we try to do is use existing incentives to make it economically feasible to lease at an attractive rate to an end user at no upfront costs," Fairbanks said.

Under the arrangement, HRI purchases the equipment and takes advantage of the available tax incentives,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of which cover up to 80 percent of the cost of the panels. The company has also received a $2.1 million grant from EmPower Louisiana, a program administered by the Department of Natural Resources that was funded with federal stimulus money.

The installations are complete at all of the units except American Can and the Blue Plate building, which Fairbanks said will be finished soon. Other properties include a new apartment complex in Houma and a renovated historic building in Shreveport.

"We're trying to be as sustainable as possible," he said, adding that the buildings are designed to be energy-efficient,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, from the insulation to the appliances. The energy generated from the panels will reduce utility costs for residents and lower the operating costs of the buildings by offsetting individual units and common electrical loads, he said, like hallways and community rooms, and in large part, the air conditioning.

So far, residents have reacted favorably. "I think they're interested, and they're excited about it not only for the savings but just knowing that they're contributing to some of the energy being sustainable and using resources wisely," he said.

In some ways, the effort is similar to one undertaken in recent years by Make It Right, the Brad Pitt-led push to rebuild the storm-ravaged Lower 9th Ward with affordable, energy-efficient housing.

The nonprofit has established a separate entity that worked with local housing development agencies to lease out the equipment over a 10-year span.

Pierre Moses, a project manager with Make It Right, said Thursday that the solar program recently worked with Volunteers of America on a multiunit, multifamily development in Covington, which is different from the single-family units that the initiative has become known for.

Make It Right has set out to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward loaded with green features like solar panels and rainwater collectors, with half completed so far.

Moses called this latest project "a natural progression for us" to start looking at other opportunities and expanding the effort.

"We're sort of exploring options on how to expand our program," he said. "I think that there's certainly just a vast amount of demand for a solar solution that doesn't require an upfront capital outlay. We understood that a while ago, but we were still focusing on organizations that had synergies with Make It Right."

Searching for the Cape's old movie theaters

It's a 30-mile drive from his home in East Falmouth to the Cape Cinema. Kind of a long way for a part-time job, but being a projectionist is in his blood, Chip Gelmini said.

The steep climb up the iron stairs to the projection booth is more ladder than stairs, especially when carrying a 40-pound box containing six reels of 35 mm film. The void between rungs is like a frame of film, each with its own bedraggled winter spider web and drab brown occupant, a Chaplinesque tramp surviving on slim pickings.Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of

The air in the projection booth is thick with the toasted incense of 70 years of popped corn. Built like a pillbox with slits for windows, cement walls and a heavy fireproof door, it's a reminder that, not so long ago, highly flammable film threading through the projectors was illuminated by an open flame, a bright arc like the intense white heat of a welder's torch.

The heavy metal door, with its movie poster framed by strips of masking tape bearing the names of films gone by, was designed to seal off the booth until a fire went out on its own or help arrived.

Still, it wasn't fire that doomed the Cape's many old movie houses. Once dubbed movie palaces, they were the focal point of almost every Main Street.

Boxy, sometimes fronted by outsized garish facades, these buildings once drew sold-out audiences to see their dreams writ large, in black and white, and then color.

"It was definitely something that you went to every Friday or Saturday night. It was almost like a religion," said Cape Cinema manager Eric Hart.

Whether you remember a larger than life Betty Grable or Faye Dunaway, or you just recall the bubble gum that plastered the bottom of the seats and the fossilized soda that plastered the floors like a tar pit, going to the local movie house was a shared experience for many growing up in the years before TV.

"In the winter, it was the only thing we had," said Falmouth resident Eric Turkington, 64, a former state representative, of the Elizabeth Theater. "I remember occasionally there were live local acts appearing there. Do recall a lot of bubble gum under the seats and the sticky floor, but to us it was a palace."

It was entertainment for the masses, and Cape towns, like many across the country in the years leading up to World War I, became a little less isolated. Between 1914 and 1922, 4,000 movie theaters were built in towns and cities across the U.S., including many that linger in the memories of Cape moviegoers.

"That was the place to go," Mary Sicchio of the Falmouth Historical Commission said of the Elizabeth Theater, now a clothing store.

It's not ancient history we're talking about here. Even with the advent of television in the 1950s and VCRs, most of these theaters — like the Elizabeth, the Tudor-themed Summer Theater on Main Street in Hyannis, the Port Cinema in Harwichport, the Orleans Cinema on Route 6A and others — were still in operation in the mid-'70s, early '80s. Corporate ownership, and the decision that audiences preferred brand-new multiplexes to the threadbare movie palaces,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, spelled the end for many.

For some, their size and interior space proved amenable to retail. Chatham's Orpheum, the Orleans Cinema and others became CVS stores. Others met a harsher fate,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, demolished like the Port, or the Idle Hour, which opened in 1911 on Main Street in Hyannis and was destroyed by fire set by vagrants in 1972. There's still an empty lot still where it once stood.

But a new appreciation for the village cinema seems to be taking hold. Last week, a committee dedicated to bringing back Chatham's old Orpheum Theater announced they had collected more than a million dollars in pledges and donations for a proposed $2.7 million purchase and renovation after a CVS store recently moved out.

A 2010 survey of Orleans residents and homeowners found that nearly 60 percent wanted to see a movie theater back in the center of town, the highest consensus rating of any project. The Orleans Community Partnership does want some kind of theater venue as part of its plan to revitalize the downtown, but may be leaning toward a performance center that shows movies and can host live performances, said partnership spokesman Steve Bornemeier.

"It would be great to have some of those theaters come back," said Paul Schneider, a television and movie director and producer who teaches film at Boston University, "but it's tough to compete with things like 3D."

Both he and Hart agree that film quality varies widely from one 35 mm film copy to the next, depending on how they've been handled. Digital and other newer technology projectors at least promise consistency, but can be difficult to squeeze into old theaters, Schneider said. Hart thinks there may be a market for smaller theaters that run both commercial and more artistic films, but Schneider cautioned against banking on nostalgia.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.

"Younger audiences don't have any nostalgia whatsoever. They are interested in the best quality, 3D, whatever," he said. "Alternative theaters like the Coolidge Corner (theater in Brookline), there will be allegiance, but I don't think it will be easy."

Gelmini,Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. 51, knows the days of film, and of projectionists, may be drawing to a close, but he remains enthralled by his craft.

"If I'm not careful, I'll feel it," Gelmini said as he threw a series of copper-colored knife switches that pre-dated fuses and modern breaker panels and turned on the electricity in the booth. Fans connected to dryer vents that snaked to the ceiling drew the heat away from the xenon projector bulbs that recently had replaced the old carbon arc lamp. His afternoon was spent in a strictly timed and choreographed routine, switching projectors, threading new film, rewinding the spent reel, then cleaning and oiling the projectors and the film, if necessary.

If he was doing his job right, the audience would never know he was up there.

Hunched, peering through small panes of glass at the screen far below, the bulky 1942-vintage projectors will soon literally be pushed aside, moved a few feet over to make way for a digital HD projector whose films arrived as portable hard drives.

"I'll keep them around for another couple of years," Hart said.

Gelmini started out working in the small community movie theaters in the '70s, just as their stars were fading. His taste in film betrays his allegiance. Until "The Artist," a movie about making silent movies, pushed it aside, his favorite was "Grease," the first movie he ever showed.

Morinville’s youth worker has plenty of plans to keep youth engaged

With piercings, a sleeve full of ink, and an office full of pop culture images and quotations from people she finds inspiring, it is easy to see Morinville’s new youth worker is comfortable in her skin. It’s an appropriate level of confidence for someone whose job is to make sure Morinville’s youth are comfortable in theirs and comfortable in the community they live in.

“I’ve been working with youth since I was a youth, so I was really excited to come into the role,” Richards said, adding she started with the Town of Morinville two days before motivational speaker Ian Hill came to town to talk about youth last October. “It was really good to start then. I kind of hit the ground running a little bit. I got to meet a lot of people in the community that probably would have taken a couple of months to meet.”

Since that time, Richardson has been meeting more people in the community as she molds the new position to one she feels will best serve the community and its youth. One direction the job is taking her is making sure youth have a voice.

“I think that there’s definitely need for a lot of mentorship with the youth, and to give them a voice,” she said.Information on useful yeasts and moulds, “I think that there are a lot of kids that don’t think they’re being heard or they don’t think some people care about their issues.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,”

Richardson said it is a situation common to many communities in Alberta, but she feels Morinville has an opportunity now that it has a youth worker to have someone meet and connect with youth. “That’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of months is getting to know them, going to their events, meeting with them for coffee, meeting with them at lunch time,” she said, adding she’s discovered more programs for youth are needed. “There’s quite literally nothing for youth to do in the community. There are some great things with the youth group on Fridays and at Higher Grounds, but there is not a lot of youth-focused recreation or youth-focused programming on a weekly basis.”

The youth worker has not been idle in her goal to create an active calendar for Morinville’s teens and tweens. Over the past four months she has set in place a number of initiatives and programs.

One initiative has been expanding the Youth in Action Committee, started last year at Georges H. Primeau School, to Morinville Community High School. Richardson meets with the Primeau committee on Tuesdays and usually has 10 to 12 students participating; however, meeting with the high school version of the committee has drawn as many as 35 students to the lunchtime sessions.

“These high school kids – their scope of the world is so much bigger than we think it is,” Richardson said. “A lot of people think that these kids only see school and their friends, but they really see global issues as well as community ones, too.”

In December MCHS Youth in Action members conducted a vow of silence in support of youth around the world who have no voice on issues like child labour or lack of education. Richardson had anticipated seven or eight participants but wound up with approximately 35. “It was really powerful to see these kids who didn’t even know about it pick up that duct tape and pick up that pen, and put it on their mouths,” she said. “That was spontaneous.”

Richardson explained the Youth in Action Committee is composed of a diverse group of students, allowing her to get a handle on what both athletic and artistic students are interested in doing in the community.

On the athletic side, Richardson said after school dodge ball has been an effective program that is returning to Primeau on Fridays beginning in February. “One day I had 67 kids there, which was pretty awesome,” Richardson said of the popularity of the program.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

A new program Richardson is organizing, open to all Morinville youth and their families are movie nights at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre. The inaugural event was held in early January and with little-to-no promotion other than a few posters and word of mouth, it attracted 90 youth and their family to see two movies,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. one geared towards high school students and one for younger students.Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of “There was nothing but positive feedback from parents as well who thought it was a great idea,” Richardson said. “That’s something we’re going to try every month.” Richardson has scheduled another double feature movie night for the Family Day weekend.

Got a cold sore? Don't kiss baby!

Fever blisters - also called cold sores - are fairly common, but they have nothing to do with a cold.

These sores typically appear on the outside of the mouth, on the lips. The majority (about 95 per cent) of fever blisters are due to a virus, typically herpes type 1. Because the sores are due to a virus,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, they're contagious and most people will be exposed to the virus during their lifetime.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,

Children are typically exposed via contact with an adult, sibling or relative who has a fever blister, or with other children who've mouthed toys or other objects that may have been contaminated with the virus.

In many cases, exposure is asymptomatic, while other children will develop painful vesicles appearing both inside the mouth, on the tongue and gums, as well as on the lips 3-5 days after exposure.

This initial illness is called herpetic gingi-vostomatitis. The initial infection tends to be more uncomfortable and may take up to two weeks to resolve. The most difficult aspect is oral discomfort, so it's important to make sure infected youngsters stay hydrated. Popsicles are often helpful for this.

Once you've been exposed to the herpes virus, it remains in your nerve endings,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, where it may be dormant and asymptomatic for years.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, About 60 per cent of children are positive for HSV-1 by adolescence. At times of stress, sun exposure, fever, or menstrual periods, the virus may become active again, and result in a fever blister.

Children who develop a fever blister are also contagious and may spread the virus to others by touching them, or picking at the lesion and then touching Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists.other people or objects with their mouths.

Fever blisters may be treated in most cases with a topical antiviral applied directly to the lesion. Prescription medications are available that may shorten the duration of a fever blister by a day or two, especially if started early and applied frequently. If you child experiences recurrent core sores, speak with your pediatrician about the use of oral antiviral medications.

Remember, if you have a fever blister, don't kiss your baby! Although the most viral shedding occurs after the initial HSV infection, you remain contagious with each fever blister, so it is best to take precautions for a few days after an outbreak.

Harbaugh Strides Confidently Where Other Coaches Faltered

In a wild divisional playoff game against New Orleans on Saturday, Smith threw for three touchdowns and ran for one as San Francisco won its first postseason game in nine seasons.

With all due respect to the Tim Tebow story line, the miracle of this season is the resurrection of Smith and the 49ers under Harbaugh, their first-year coach.

Until Harbaugh came along, Smith, the overall No.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, 1 pick in 2005, was on the scrap heap. He was injured, booed, demoralized, subjected to pay cuts. Today, the 49ers are one victory from the Super Bowl — they meet the Giants next week in the N.F.C. championship game — and Harbaugh is in the process of becoming a rare breed: a successful college coach who flourishes in the N.F.L. He made the transition look easy, taking over a team that went 6-10 last season and finishing the regular season 13-3.

“I thought he’d do well,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, but, boy, rolling in at 13-3 in your first year is almost unheard of,” Denny Green said.

Green coached Stanford from 1989 to 1991,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. then, like Harbaugh, left for the N.F.L. Green coached the Minnesota Vikings from 1992 to 2001 and the Arizona Cardinals from 2004 to 2006 and now coaches Sacramento of the United Football League.

The road from college to the N.F.L. is littered with the shattered egos of coaches who thought they were big and bad enough to take on the pros: Lou Holtz, Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino, Steve Spurrier, Pete Carroll. Each was humbled to varying degrees and scampered back to the sanctuary of the college campus.

At least in my mind, there has never been a mystery as to why so many college coaches fail at the professional level: control and ego. Many won’t even try. There is an unwillingness — or inability — to deal as equals with former scholarship players who once looked at the coach as the be-all and end-all.

Holtz had his rude awakening in 1976 when he was the coach of the Jets. He resigned with one game remaining that first season after going 3-10. He went on to have a stellar college career at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina.

“In college, you control every single facet of the football program, from recruiting to handling players,” Holtz said last week. “You have more control of their lives, academically. They’re at the age where they’re growing, making decisions; you can mold them into the manner you want.”

Another significant difference between colleges and the pros is that coaching acumen is far more important in the N.F.L., where talent is more or less even.

“In the pros,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, the difference between winning and losing in the pros is so minuscule because they all have pretty decent athletes,” Holtz said. “The N.F.L. is more talented, it’s more skillful.”

For Holtz, compensation has a lot to do with the differences between the two levels. “When you lose in college, there’s absolutely nothing except devastation,” he said. “You lose in the pros, you’re still getting $18 million.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,”

Saban left the Miami Dolphins for Alabama after two seasons; Petrino slithered away from the Atlanta Falcons with three games left in his only season and took the Arkansas job. Spurrier resigned after two dismal seasons with the Washington Redskins and eventually took the job at South Carolina, following Holtz.

Carroll keeps bouncing back — he made the playoffs last season with a losing record with the Seahawks — but even he would be hard pressed to call his N.F.L. career a success, beyond being richly compensated.

Then there is Harbaugh, who, with a good but hardly superstar rsum, has revitalized a demoralized San Francisco franchise.

“Jim has the great ability to see himself, or parts of himself, in other players; I think that’s where the Alex Smith connection comes in,” said Tom Crean, the basketball coach at Indiana University. For two decades, Crean has had a unique view of Harbaugh and his brother John, the Baltimore Ravens’ coach. Crean has been married to their sister, Joani, for 19 years.

Stray dog upsets birds at Montgomery Zoo

An unexpected, four-legged visitor created a brief fuss at the Montgomery Zoo on Saturday morning and set the birds all a-flutter in a self-defense alarm system.

The black dog that apparently had delivered a litter recently didn't bark, but the closer it got to the aviary, the louder the sounds from the blue and gold macaws flapping around inside their cage.

"They see the dog as a predator," said Ken Naugher, enrichment and conservation manager. "That's why they're making so much noise."

It took a few minutes, but Naugher and other personnel eventually got the dog under control and made sure it received attention outside the zoo.

Frigid temperatures earlier in the morning held down the crowd, but,Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway. as the sun warmed up the location, more families began to arrive to tour the 42-acre wildlife park.

Birds and monkeys always seem to attract the most attention just inside the front gate, and Naugher spent part of his morning answering questions about the animals.Injection molding and Plastic molding supplier;

He kept a close eye on the birds to make sure none appeared to have suffered from the cold. Temperatures at one point dipped to below freezing. By 10 a.m., however, it had jumped into the high 40s.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists.

Naugher said two concrete boxes inside the macaw aviary serve as a heater for the birds. He called it a "nest box" and said it amounts to a "good insulator during cold weather."

"Body heat warms up the whole box," he said. "We do all we can to make sure that the birds don't wind up with frozen toes. That can happen if it gets too cold."

Not far away from the bird cages was a glass-enclosed exhibit area occupied by a sloth bear. Cloaked in a heavy black fur coat, it appeared to be dozing as spectators peered through the glass to look for some sign of movement.

Naugher said the Montgomery Zoo has more than 500 species ranging from giraffes to snakes.

Within a few months, the zoo is expected to have its newest attraction, a sky lift that will transport visitors about 35 feet or more over the facility,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, offering a birds-eye view of the exhibits.

"It's something that everyone should enjoy," said Naugher, who indicated that details will be worked out soon as to price and how long the trip will last.

Pittsfield Plastics and Engineering growing despite tough economy

Several new machines have been installed at Pittsfield Plastics and Engineering's facility on West Housatonic Street and President and CEO Thomas W. Walker is proud to point them out as he walks through the plant.

Walker stops at one machine that is partially clad in plastic wrap because it hasn't been used yet. He said it can cut plastic tubing to within 1/5000ths of an inch.

"This," Walker said, "is going to get us a lot of business."

Despite the current economic ups and downs,Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, Pittsfield Plastics and Engineering is doing quite well.

The company recently added 12,000 square feet of manufacturing space when it expanded into the area that Sinicon Plastics occupied before moving to its new facility in Dalton two years ago.

The move increased the square footage Pittsfield Plastics has for the production of molded plastic parts and custom design molds to 80,000. The company also spent more than $1 million to add 11 new and used machines to its plant, including two 500-pound Haitian injection presses that were added at the end of 2011. The company is currently expanding its tool room and is considering adding another 20,000 square feet.I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile.

Walker, whose group has owned the company since 1997, said Pittsfield Plastic's diverse product line has enabled the firm to grow while others have faltered. The company manufactures spools, reels and bobbins that producers of bare wire, insulated wire, tape, film, textile monofilaments and other stranded items use to package their products. The company's products are sold in the U.S.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,Can't afford a third party merchant account right now?, Canada, Europe and South America.

According to Plastic News,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. a trade publication, Pittsfield Plastics earned close to $15 million last year as sales grew by 22 percent.

"We've picked up more market share," said Walker, who owns Pittsfield Plastics with Duncan Cooper and Thomas Holmes. "We've been going after a lot of old-line customers who need improvement in their reels. And we listen to our customers."

Plastics manufacturing in the Berkshires began in 1881, according to the Berkshire Plastics Network, but didn't become prominent until 1928 when General Electric Co. discovered that plastic provided a perfect insulation for the electrical equipment that it manufactured.

The economic downturn, competition from foreign companies, and high health insurance and utility costs all hampered the plastics industry during the mid-2000s.

But William Mulholland, the dean of Lifelong Learning and Workforce Development at Berkshire Community College, who has provided job training for employees of several local plastics firms, including Pittsfield Plastics, said the industry is beginning a comeback in Pittsfield.

"Right now, it is coming back, and it's coming back where the niche market is," Mulholland said, referring to a term that is used to define a specific portion of a market.

"Nationally, the U.S. is looking at advanced manufacturing as an integral part of the economy," Mulholland said.

Pittsfield Plastics currently has 96 employees, a substantial increase from the 22 workers the company employed when Walker, Cooper and Duncan took over the business 15 years ago. Pittsfield Plastics employed more than 100 workers last spring, but Walker said small fluctuations in the company's work force are common.

"They come and go," he said, referring to his employees.

According to Mulholland, Pittsfield Plastics "puts an awful lot into the development of their people" which he said is a key to success in the modern day plastics industry.

Argentine industry ‘under risk with new ‘super-license’ imports’ system

This week the Argentine government announced that written legal documents must be submitted to the tax agency, AFIP, ahead of approving imports. The measure becomes effective next February first.

Argentine manufacturers immediately reacted and said that the latest measures to closely monitor imports pose limitations and “put national industry under risk” for which the government should find a balance.

“Limitations always provoke reactions and worries among the affected sector. I do understand the government’s need to control imports in order to protect our domestic industry and the foreign currency reserves; it should look for reaching a healthy balance” said the former head of the Argentine Industrial Union Héctor Mendez during a radio interview.

Méndez also recalled that Argentine domestic industry depends heavily on imports. “My expertise in the plastic industry, where it currently takes one and a half years to bring a plastic injection mould is an example of what I’m saying.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, So, I can assure that in case imports stop or get blocked, I’ll have to stop all factory production.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.”

“It’s a delicate situation. At this point Argentina should have learnt what the cons of foreign dependence are. But it seems not to be the case. This is a country in which cars, just to give an example, are manufactured with 70% of their materials being imported. There is still much to be done in order to achieve a true national industry.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds,”
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Importers also questioned the Argentine government measure that sets a greater control on purchases made abroad.

Head of the Chamber of Importers of Argentina (CIRA), Diego Pérez Santisteban, bashed the measure: “More than 80% of imports go toward production in Argentina... given that there isn’t the fluency necessary for importing these types of products, there will be further problems ahead,” he said.

The CERA exporters’ chamber also asked the AFIP to “suspend” the resolution, which requires an advance import sworn statement to be submitted to the agency, and that the importing sector is calling a “super license”.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

SEBI action on merchant bankers, a bit too late?

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has to be congratulated for the tough action against seven companies who made initial public offerings (IPOs) and their lead managers. SEBI has banned five merchant bankers who had managed seven of these IPOs. Surprisingly, in the case of Tijaria Polypipes, there was no order against the merchant banker—Hem Securities, the firm which has been pulled up for price manipulation in the past. Atherstone Capital, Almondz Global, D&A Financial services, Chartered Capital and PNB Investment Services are the other merchant bankers who have been barred from the primary market.

Moneylife looked at the track record of these merchant bankers and SEBI followed same course by sending a circular to merchant bankers. It has been decided by SEBI that the merchant bankers shall disclose the track record of the performance of the public issues managed by them. However, the regulator has failed to ask them to disclose any regulatory action taken against them in the past.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,

Why is this important? Hem Securities, lead manager to the IPO of Tijaria Polypipes, has been charged by SEBI a number of times in the past. The current investigation also revealed that 1,409 retail allottees had got the subscription to the IPO through Hem Securities, and, 1,303 of them had sold the shares on the first day of trading at a premium to the issue price.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. Tijaria Polypipes, which got listed on 14th October, with an issue price of Rs60, got listed at Rs62. It barely reached its all-time high of Rs67.80 on listing day, when its downfall began. It closed 70% down on listing day and is now trading more than 85% below its listing price. Surprisingly, this has not led to any action being taken against Hem Securities which has been pulled up for price manipulation a couple of times before in the past.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds,

In December 2002, Hem Securities was charged for indulging in price manipulation in scrip of Global Trust Bank. It was accused of indulging in creation of an artificial market in scrip of Global Trust Bank and for parking shares to circumvent SEBI Takeover Code, 1997. It was just barred from trading at that time. In January 2006, the regulatory charges faced by Hem Securities was that it did not issue contract notes, it dealt with un-registered sub-brokers and for illegal and unauthorized grant of trading terminal to client. Here SEBI let it off with a warning.

Four years later in January 2010, Hem Securities charged with alleged indulgence in irregular transactions in scrips of Lupin Laboratories,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, Aftek Infosys, Shonkh Technologies International, Global Trust Bank, Adani Exports, Himachal Futuristic Communications and Global Telesystems. In this case, it reached a settlement with SEBI through a consent order where the firm had to pay Rs90 lakh as settlement charges. This has not hampered it though as we can see in the current case. This just shows SEBI’s consent orders is a big sham and there should be stricter punishments. Hem Securities had transactions in the IPO of RDB Rasayans and was the syndicate lead manager for PG Electroplast and Onelife Capital, as well.

Moneylife contacted SEBI as to why there was no action against Hem Securities, but no reply was received.

Almondz Global Securities, a merchant banker to two of the seven IPOs—PG Electroplast and Bharatiya Global Infomedia—had lead managed eight other IPOs in the past.

One of these was Empee Distilleries, which was listed in November 2007. The issue price was Rs400 and it hit its all-time high of Rs489 on the listing day. The price started declining almost immediately thereafter and was down 86% at the end of the year.

A few months later Almondz was merchant banker to Tulsi Extrusions. The scrip hit an all-time high of Rs132 on listing day, up 55% from its issue price. A year later it was trading 85% below its issue price. Same was the case with First Winner; the stock was down 86% from its listing price. Texmo Pipes which was launched in March last year and is now 82% down. All the seven IPOs managed by Almondz in the past three years are down 80% from their launch till date. It is clearly worth asking why these price movements were never investigated, especially since Almondz has been pulled up in the past for some procedural violations in 2008 and 2009.

It is the lead manager who signs the ‘due diligence’ certificate which vouches for every fact in the prospectus or offer document. In the recent cases, the documents have been riddled with inadequate disclosures or outright falsehoods.

D&A Financial Services Pvt Ltd, which was the lead manager for Brooks Laboratories, was pulled up for non-disclosures, for failing to make proper disclosures by mis-statements in the IPO prospectus. The merchant banker has been the lead manager for two other public offers, both of which need to be investigated as well. In the case of Shilpi Cable Technologies which was launched in April, the stock fell 31% on listing day from its issue price of Rs69. The scrip has been on a decline ever since and is now trading at 86% below the issue price.

D&A Financial Services also happened to be the investment banker for M&B Switchgear, the IPO in which we have suspected manipulation since day one. The IPO went up 70% on day one and is currently 68% down from its issue price of Rs186.

Chartered Capital and Investment, which was the lead manager for the IPO of RDB Rasayans, was barred for mis-statement in the prospectus relating to related party transactions and interim utilization of IPO proceeds and failing to exercise due diligence. The firm has been charged by BSE in the past for procedural violations.

SEBI also barred PNB Investment Services for failure to carry due diligence with respect to non-disclosure of repayment of Inter Corporate Deposit (ICD) to different entities in the IPO of Taksheel Solutions and Atherstone Capital Markets for inadequate documentation and failure to exercise due diligence in the IPO of Onelife Capital Advisors. Midfield Industries, another IPO managed by Atherstone Capital Markets, launched in August 2010, went up by 23% on the listing day. In the next three months it went up 200% from its issue price of Rs133 to around Rs400, and then soon after the decline started in the beginning of December 2010. By the end of December the stock was trading at Rs90 down 32% from its issue price and down 78% from its price a month back. Apparently this was also overlooked by the regulator, as well.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

No amenity overlooked in Ellicott City estate

Whether your interest is in entertaining on a lavish scale; tinkering with cars in one of six heated garages; or enjoying your private sport court, swimming pool and cabana,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, the estate at 3885 Whitebrook Lane in Ellicott City, Md., has what you want.

This 20,000-square-foot home, which rests on more than 3 acres of landscaped grounds,Injection molding and Plastic molding supplier; provides a true private retreat to meet the highest standards of opulence. Part of the Preserve in Howard County, this manor home was built in 1997 and is on the market for $4,999,000.

The estate’s grounds include a gated circular drive that leads to the garages, which have space for 10 cars, and a brick motor court. A brick courtyard is surrounded by a heated swimming pool, a hot tub and a cabana, with an adjacent sports court.

Multiple patios, courtyards and a screened porch with a ceiling fan offer plenty of space for entertaining outdoors and admiring the perennial gardens. The corner site backs to trees for additional privacy.

Indoors, the custom-designed rooms include seven bedrooms, 10 full baths, two powder rooms and extraordinary detailing, such as custom millwork, six-piece crown molding, professional lighting,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, hardwood flooring and five fireplaces. The home also has an indoor swimming pool, saunas, waterfall baths with mosaic surrounds, and an elevator. The property has three kitchens.

The elegance of this home is apparent from the moment guests arrive in the circular driveway and step up to the front door. Each piece of glass was individually selected for the door surround and the windows in the entrance hall. The grand foyer features hardwood flooring, a spectacular chandelier and a curving double staircase to the upper level.

The main level includes a music conservatory with walls of floor-to-ceiling windows, recessed lighting, up-lighting, a custom-designed ceiling medallion and hardwood flooring. Nearby, the formal dining room has hardwood flooring and a dramatic chandelier. In addition, this level has a formal living room with a fireplace, a library, a family room and a great-room bar.

The bar, designed to resemble an Old English pub, has mahogany-stained wood walls and an 11-foot copper-painted tin ceiling. This room includes an imported fireplace, and archways link the pub and the family room with the hallway.

The main-level kitchen includes state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances, including wine cabinets, warming drawers, an indoor grill and several dishwashers, ovens and stoves. The oversized center island includes an attached dining table for casual meals.

The adjacent morning room has floor-to-ceiling windows and an atrium door to a patio.

The master suite covers an entire wing of the home, with a hand-painted and stenciled bedroom with a gas fireplace and a separate sitting room overlooking the swimming pool.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. A private exercise room, a den, and a lavish master bath with a mosaic-tiled jetted tub,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, a sauna and a steam shower round out the suite.

Four additional bedrooms are on the upper level and two bedrooms are on the lower level. Every bath in the home has furniture-grade vanities, marble, ceramic tile or hardwood flooring, multiple sinks and unique features, such as carved or hand-painted ceilings and dramatic sconces.

The lower level has been designed for the ultimate in relaxation, with a game room, an exercise room, a playroom and a lap pool set in a spalike room with mirrors, lounge chairs, low lighting and a sauna.

A wine-tasting room has been designed for discerning visitors, and nearby is a full kitchen perfect for catered evenings. The lower-level great room has several stone walls with arched brick accents and a raised-hearth fireplace. Nearby is a theater room with tiered seating.

The home has a high-tech security system as well as entertainment, lighting and HVAC controls that can be operated by remote control, iPad, iPhone and a keypad.

Testing product design to the max

However, while increasing numbers of designers and manufacturers are using this technology to test products, some are actually using these machines to make the products themselves. 3D Systems, for example, says use of its machines by clients has revolutionised the dental and hearing aid manufacturing process. In fact the increased use of “RP” machines in manufacturing has changed the industry accepted terms of “Rapid Prototyping” to “Additive Manufacturing”.

3D Systems sells rapid prototyping machines, materials for use with different application in the machines and a service where companies can have their CAD designs printed without actually purchasing a printer themselves. Its portfolio of 3D production printers suitable for use with polymers include stereolithography (SLA), which uses a UV photopolymer, and Selective Laser Sintering machines, which use powdered thermoplastics.

3D Systems supplies SLA machines to a US company called Align Technologies,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, which have shaken up the orthodontic market. Align use the SLA 7000 and more recently the iPro 8000 SLA System to print its range of Invisalign braces. Not only are these clear and therefore less obvious for the wearer,Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, they are also created in a unique way. It is estimated that over 50,000 aligners are made each and every day, making this the largest additive manufacturing application in the world by a wide margin.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,

“The business has been around in the US for over 10 years but is relatively new to Europe,” says Lee Dockstader, vice president of business development . “An impression is taken of your teeth, which is then X-ray scanned and software breaks down the realignment of your teeth so that they are straightened over 24 steps.

“For each stage the software generates a computer model of the patient’s teeth and the rapid prototyping machines make a physical model of the different stages,” says Dockstader. “Then a thin bit of plastic is formed around the plastic teeth and it is this piece that forms the aligner and the printed teeth are thrown away.”

A similar manufacturing idea has already shaken up the worldwide customised hearing aid market. Ten years ago 3Shape,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. a small Denmark company, created a scanner and software application that revolutionised the manufacturing process for custom hearing aids.I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile. The 3Shape manufacturing process produces custom hearing aids at a much faster rate than those that are hand made as it is an extremely specialist job. “It takes a year to be able to train someone to make these products by hand so their remake rate is acceptable,” explains Dockstader.

With the 3Shape process, an audiologist takes a mould of an individual’s ear, which is then scanned and computer software works out where the internal workings of the hearing aid should go within this shape. A CAD model is created and sent to the production software, which then prints it on the Viper SLA System using biocompatible resin. Each individual hearing aid can cost up to Euro 4,000 and each machine can print a couple of hundred a day.

The majority of the world’s custom hearing aids are now made with this process. Dockstader estimates that between aligners and hearing aids alone more parts are printed per day on 3D Systems machines than all the other additive manufacturing systems combined.

Another unusual application for rapid prototyping has been found by California-based business Bespoke Innovations. It uses the 3D Systems’ SLS technology to create customised cladding for prosthetic limbs. Scott Summit founded the business with an orthopedic surgeon in a bid to offer limbs that were personalised to the user. “I wanted to create a leg that had a level of humanity,” Summit says. But there is also the added bonus that the limbs are dishwasher safe.

Market Ready

Although real estate agents and designers often recommend decorating with neutral colors to make a home more appealing to a buyer, it may not make sense to replace your tile if it’s in good condition, since the cost could be difficult to recoup.

“What it boils down to is that the apartment has to be at least clean, including the bathroom,Alfa plast mould is Plastic moulds Manufacturer and plastics Mould Exporters in India since 1992,” said Phyllis Pezenik, vice president and managing director for brokerage services at DJK Residential, in New York. Brightly colored tile “probably won’t be in many people’s taste,” she said, but “if the apartment is in good shape and everything is clean and neat,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, it shows that you’ve maintained it.”

Instead of retiling the bathroom, Ms. Pezenik suggested offsetting the bright tile with a very plain shower curtain and towels. And “if there’s any paint above the tiles, use a very neutral color” there, she added, “like an off-white or a very pale gray.”

DeeDee Gundberg, product development portfolio director at the tile and stone company Ann Sacks, also recommended keeping the tile. “I’ve seen turquoise and black tiles in a bathroom that were just fantastic,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Not for everyone, but the overall look was beautiful and therefore I don’t think would deter a buyer.”

In an extreme case, though, if the tile is an eyesore in an otherwise tastefully renovated home, it might be worth the investment to replace it with something neutral, said Mimi Fong, owner of the interior design firm Luminosus Designs, and a member of the National Kitchen and Bath Association. “It could be the difference between getting an offer or not,” she said.

Ms. Fong recommended installing large-format ceramic tiles for a contemporary look. “Definitely don’t use 4-by-4 tiles,” she said.The magic cube is an ultra-portable, “That would immediately date your bathroom. It will look like a 1970s or 1980s leftover.”

In terms of color, “you can never go wrong with the classics,” she said.

“Creams,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of beiges and whites paired with beautiful hardware will sell a bathroom,” she added.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, Or tiles that mimic the look of natural stone: with that option, she said, “you can get a very good look for little money, and they’ll be much easier to maintain” than real stone.

Her favorite sources include Ann Sacks, Nemo Tile and Walker Zanger.

A more basic option, Ms. Gundberg said, would be to use 3-by-6-inch or 6-by-6-inch tile that could be installed with staggered joints for a traditional look, or in a straight grid for a more modern look.

If you decide to leave the existing tile in place, there’s always the chance you’ll get lucky and find a buyer who likes it, Ms. Pezenik noted: “You might get that one person who says, ‘Wow, I’ve been looking for that tile my whole life.’ ”