The Acid 3 is a strong and versatile pedal the features a large platform and Crankbrothers popular clipless system in one lightweight pedal.

Advance Auto Parts has the Champion 46515 Power Equipment 3500 Watt Generator for $300 - 15% off with coupon code AP55 [Exp 5/9] = $255 with free shipping. Includes a $50 gift coupon off a future purchase of $100+ with same code. Or it's $300 − 20% off with code P20 = $240 with free shipping (no gift coupon). Features 4,000 peak watts of power, run time of 12 hours, and a 4-gallon tank. [Compare]

Why the 2011 Singapore election is worth watching Jakarta Post Singapore is known for its single dominant party system that is unrivaled by any other country in the 21st century. First, the electoral campaign process has been tweaked with notable effects. Parliament passed several key changes to the electoral ... Singapore votes as ruling party faces tough testThe Associated Press Opposition hopes for boost as Singapore votesAFP Singapore holds general electionBBC News Bloomberg -TODAYonline -Reuters Africa all 300 news articles »

I'm looking for a good quality Plasma TV stand for around $300, or a wall mtg for a 50" plasma where to buy? Which would be the best choice of the two? Thanks:confused:

PREP SOFTBALLSouthview 100 000 0 - 1 4 0Anthony Wayne 000 000 0 - 0 9 1WP-O’Reilly. LP-Kurfis. Knepper (S) 2-3.Perrysburg 201 000 5 - 8 11 0Maumee 000 000 0 - 0 2 4WP- Rich; LP Fowls; WIlson (P) 3-4, RBI.Evergreen 120 200 3 - 8 11 3Patrick Henry 330 120 x - 9 14 5WP-Meyer. LP-Pierce. Moll (P) 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI.Gibsonburg 100 000 0 - 1 4 1Eastwood 100 103 x - 5 9 2WP-Foster. LP-Henline. Foster (E), 1-1, HR, 3 RBI.Elmwood 075 14 - 17 15 0Otsego 000 00 -- 0 5 3WP-Lee. LP-Thomas. Beckford (E), 3-3, 2 RBI.Liberty Center 000 00 - 0 2 1Patrick Henry 502 3x - 10 11 0WP- Meyer; LP- Sturgill. Koppenhofer (PH) 2-2, 3b, RBI.Springfield 340 130 0 - 11 13 2Rossford 000 020 0 - 2 6 2WP- Buck; LP- Longeway; Cordrey (S) 3-5, 2b. 2 RBI.Delta 130 000 0 - 4 5 1Archbold 800 001 x - 9 7 1WP- S. Wyse; LP- Shindorf; C. Wyse (A) 3-4, 2b, 2 RBI.Genoa 000 73 - 10 10 1St. Ursula 000 00 - ?0 ?0 4WP-Hoyles (no-hitter). LP-Tylicki. Harmeyer (G) 2-3, 2B, RBI.Whitmer 000 1 0 - 1 5 5Evergreen 160 (11)x - 18 13 1WP- Pierce; LP- Deer;. K. Ducat (E), 3-4, 2 GS HR, 9 RBI.Woodmore 003 000 000 - 3 5 0Lake 000 110 101 - 4 11 0WP-Densic. LP-Phillips. Schnell (L) 3-4, 2 RBI (GW RBI)Notre Dame 163 00 - 10 6 0Woodward 000 00 - 0 0 1WP-Wilkins (no-hitter). LP-Hester. Brickman (ND) 2-3, 3B, 2 RBI.Bowsher 100 00 - 1 5 2Clay 442 1x - 11 8 1WP-Gallaher. LP-Aiken. Laberdee (C), 2-2, 2B, 3 RBI, 2 runs.Marion Harding 200 000 - 2 8 0Napoleon 035 103 - 12 15 0WP- Meyer; LP- Backenssto; Pilkington (N) 3-3, 3b, 3 RBI. Northview 000 000 2 - 2 6 3Bowling Green 003 006 x - 9 13 2WP- Ackenberger; LP- Benton. Ruehl (BG) 3-4, RBI,PREP BASEBALLSt. Francis 110 040 0 - 6 9 1Central 000 100 0 - 1 1 1WP- Zmuda; LP- McNair; A. Joyce (SF) 2-4, HR.Delta 220 001 5 - 10 13 0Ottawa Hills 101 100 1 - 4 8 3WP-Abbott. LP-Jarecki. Abbott (D) 4-4, 4 2B. Southview 000 00 - 0 1 7Anthony Wayne 062 8x - 16 9 10WP- Allen; LP- Fisher. Lindke (AW) 1-2, 2 RBINorthview 210 300 0 - 6 8 0Bowling Green 500 203 x - 10 11 2WP- Ireland; LP- Reynolds. Lane (BG) 2-3, 2b.Maumee 001 200 2 — 5 7 2Perrysburg 212 601 x — 12 10 1WP-Schmenk. LP-Laranga, Kruzel (P) 3-3, 2 HR, 3 RBI.Montpelier 201 010 0 - 4 6 2Swanton 023 011 x - 7 7 2WP: Robinson; LP: Walsh; Michalkiewicz (S) 2-3.Springfield 0(16)32 2x - 23 19 0Rossford 300 50 - 8 5 4WP-Brodbeck. LP-Recknagel. Sobczak (S), 4-5, 2B, 4 RBI.Delta 100 000 0 - 1 5 1Archbold 001 003 x - 4 10 0WP- Miller; LP- Beverly; Bentrager (A) 3-4, RBI.Whitmer 320 000 0 - 5 8 0Start 000 010 0 - 1 4 2WP-Ricica. LP-Sponsellor. Durham (W) 3-4.Liberty Center 100 100 0 - 2 5 6Bryan 432 000 x - 9 12 2WP- Blaylock; LP- Snow. Bacon (B) 3-4, R, 3 RBI

El grupo papelero Miquel y Costas invertirá 45 millones de euros en la construcción de una nueva planta en La Pobla de Claramunt (Anoia), donde ya cuenta con otra factoría. La fábrica, que se ubicará en un terreno de 14.000 metros cuadrados, empleará a 60 personas y prevé que genere otros 300 puestos de trabajo indirectos.

The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, Grand Rapids Symphony close Classical Season with ... The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com Timelessness gives classical music much of its charm. The Grand Rapids Symphony closes its 2010-11 Classical Series this weekend with music spanning more than 300 years. Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers was on stage with her 17th century Stradivarius violin, ...

HOSUR: Three hundred students studying in Er. Perumal Manimekalai Engineering College have got placement orders in leading companies during the campus interviews conducted recently at the college campus in Koneripalli near Hosur.

Portland based TimeStream Software has announced Walt Disney World Guide 3.4, an update to its popular Notescast app for the iPhone and iPod touch. The new app showcases all of Walt Disney World Resort with over 300 pages of in-depth information and more than 750 high-quality original photos. It is a powerful trip-planning and in-park resource showcasing every park Attraction, Parades, Restaurants, Annual events, What's New, What's Coming, Hotels, Ticket Information, Author's Tips and more.

  Little Straw is a nice colt has a great bloodline, don't know if any one around here cares about that but he has WGC in bloodline.He has been handled all his life is utd on vaccine's worming, is halter broke gentle seems very willing to learn good around kids as i have a 5 year grandson around him alot. He is the right age to train the way you want, can be registered Half American Saddlebred. Fixing to start working on loading with him. Don't miss out on a good quality horse! Asking 300 OBO due to herd reduction.Prefer e-mails for more info.

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In 1832, a war broke out in Illinois between the American settlers and the Sauk under the leadership of Black Hawk. The war lasted 15 weeks and resulted in the deaths of 70 non-Indians. While historians often call this Black Hawk's War, it was not an invading force of Sauk warriors, but rather a migration of men, women, and children.

In many respects, Black Hawk was an unlikely leader. He was not a physically attractive, charismatic leader who could inspire his people with his words. He was in his sixties at the time of the war. He was a traditionalist who honored the old customs and ways, never wearing white people's clothing or tasting alcohol in any form.

Background:

In 1828, the Indian agent told the Sauk that their village of Saukenuk had been sold and that it was time for them to move west of the Mississippi River. Mess-con-de-bay (Red Head) was adamant that the Sauk did not want to leave the bones of their ancestors. Mess-con-de-bay, a chief and a man of considerable standing, was simply dismissed by the agent as a "vile unprincipled fellow" and as a "poor trifling, mean, insignificant old man".  

In Illinois, both the Secretary of War and the state governor called for the removal of all Indians from the state. American squatters then took over a Sauk village while the Sauk were on their winter hunt. The American squatters were told that the Sauk were not going to return to the village.

Later that winter, Sauk warrior Black Hawk, concerned about rumors that the Americans had occupied their village, traveled alone through the cold, snow-filled countryside, to see for himself. He found an American family occupying his own lodge. Through an interpreter he told them to leave and not to trouble Sauk lands. The family ignored the demand.

By spring, squatters who had moved into the Sauk village turned their cattle loose into the Sauk cornfields. Black Hawk talked with the American Indian agent and was told that the Sauk should give up all notions of ever returning to Saukenuk again. The agent recommended that the Sauk establish a new village west of the Mississippi.

Disturbed by the agent's advice, Black Hawk went to talk with Wabokieshiek, the Winnebago prophet. Wabokieshiek, who was in his mid-forties, presided over a village that was generally described as a mixture of many nations. He told Black Hawk that the Sauk should return to their village and that there should be no trouble between the Indians and the American settlers.

Sauk leader Keokuk then attempted to persuade the Sauk at Saukenuk to join the new Sauk community on the Iowa River. Black Hawk looked upon Keokuk as a traitor to his own people and refused the invitation. Black Hawk and his people attempted to live in their traditional village in a peaceful manner.

In 1830, the Indian agent for the Sauk expressed the hope that the government would provide justice for the Sauk and prevent squatters from taking over their land. The government, however, put the Sauk homelands in Illinois up for sale. When the Sauk returned from their winter hunt, they found settlers with legal titles plowing up the graves of Sauk ancestors.

In 1831, Black Hawk's Sauk returned to their village of Saukenuk following their winter hunt. The Sauk numbered 1,200 to 1,600 people with an estimated 300 to 400 warriors. In previous years, the Sauk had returned to their village after the winter hunt in a peaceful manner. In spite of this peaceful past, the Americans responded by calling up a force of 700 militia volunteers to protect the citizens of the state from the Sauk invasion.

Once again, Black Hawk consulted with Wabokieshiek, the Winnebago prophet. The prophet told him to stay calm and peaceful. If they offered no resistance to the soldiers, the prophet told him, the soldiers would not force them to abandon their land.

The Sauk met in council with the Americans. Before General Gaines could make his opening remarks, Kinnekonnesaut jumped to his feet and spoke. Gaines became visibly irritated. He then simply read his prepared address. It seemed to the Sauk that he was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to talk with them from the heart.

Keokuk complained to the Americans that the Sioux make life difficult and dangerous for them west of the Mississippi. He also pointed out that it was too late in the season to plant crops. He suggested that the Americans allow Black Hawk's people to remain in the village so that they could harvest the corn which they had planted.

When Black Hawk addressed the council, General Gaines demanded:

"Who is the Black Hawk that he should assume the right of dictating to his tribe? ...I know him not-he is not a chief-who is he?"

Black Hawk told the general that the women owned the fields, not the men. Then a woman selected by the other women addressed the Americans. She explained that the women owned the land and that they had never sold any of it, nor had they consented to transfer any of it to the United States. Gaines dismissed her comments and said that the President did not send him to make treaties with women nor to hold council with them.

The general ordered the Sauk to move within three days. He did, however, agree to provide them with corn to replace the corn which they would be unable to harvest. Twenty-eight chiefs and warriors signed the Articles of Agreement dictated by General Haines. The Sauk were to cross the Mississippi and never return to Saukenuk.

In order to avoid any confrontation with the state militia, Black Hawk left the state, leading some of his people to Iowa. Here they found little food and starvation began.

As soon as Black Hawk left, the American militia moved into their old village of Saukenuk and burned many of the lodges. The volunteer soldiers also vandalized the Sauk cemetery.

The War:

Black Hawk led about 400 Sauk warriors and their families back into Illinois in 1832. Their goal was to reclaim their traditional village of Saukenuk. The result of this move was a series of conflicts known as the Black Hawk War. The initial response by the Governor of Illinois was to mobilize the state militia, and President Jackson was determined to crush Black Hawk. Indian agent William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) writes of the Sauk:

"a War of Extermination should be waged against them. The honor and respectability of the Government requires this: -- the peace and quiet of the frontier, the lives and safety of its inhabitants demand it."

A force of 275 American volunteers overtook Black Hawk who had only 40 warriors with him. Facing odds that seemed to spell disaster, Black Hawk sadly sent out a delegation to discuss surrender. Even though the Sauk delegation was carrying a flag of truce, the Americans opened fire. Black Hawk decided that if he was going to die, he would die fighting. Rallying his warriors, they made a suicidal attack against the larger force. They ran shouting into certain death, and then, to their surprise, the American volunteers broke and ran. In memory of the American commander, the battle became known as Stillman's Run.

Following their victory at Stillman's Run, Black Hawk led his warriors through the countryside, burning farmsteads and taking scalps.  In Illinois, they attacked the American fort on the Apple River. Following this they battled a militia force at Kellogg's Grove, killing five Americans.

At the oxbow lake of the Pecantonic in present-day Wisconsin, Black Hawk's warriors battled American militia troops. The eleven Indians in the war party were defeated in a matter of minutes. Militarily this was a minor skirmish, but psychologically and symbolically it showed the Americans that the Indians could be beaten.

At Wisconsin Heights the Americans again engaged the Indians in battle. The Americans estimated that they killed 40-68 Indians, though Black Hawk later claimed that he lost only six warriors. Unknown to the Americans, some Kickapoo had joined the fight and nearly all of their warriors were killed at Wisconsin Heights.

At the Battle of Bad Axe the Sauk were finally defeated. At this battle, more than 1,300 Americans attacked the Sauk. When the Indians tried to surrender, the troops set upon them clubbing, stabbing, and shooting. It is not known how many Indians died in the massacre.

About 200 Sauk escaped from the massacre at Bad Axe by making their way across the Mississippi River where they were attacked by a Sioux war party.

Black Hawk, Wabokieshiek, Chakeepashipaho, Little Stabbing Chief, and about 25 others slipped away from the band before the beginning of the massacre.  They made their way through Winnebago country and established a clandestine camp on Day-nik (Little Lake) near present-day Tomah, Wisconsin. They were discovered by the Winnebago traveler Hishoog-ka who then notified his village chief, Karayjasaip-ka, of the band's presence. The Winnebago sent a delegation which included Chasjaka, who was Wabokieshiek' brother, to persuade Black Hawk to end his struggle and turn himself in to the Americans. The Sauk returned to the Winnebago village where they were greeted cordially.

Black Hawk gave his medicine bag to Karayjasaip-ka. His medicine bag had been passed down from Muk-a-ta-quet, his great-great-grandfather, to Na-na-ma-kee, his great-grandfather. For Black Hawk, this medicine bag symbolized the very essence of the soul of the Sauk people.

Together with Wabokieshiek, Black Hawk set off for Prairie du Chien to turn himself in. At the Indian agent's house, an hour before noon, on Monday August 1832, Black Hawk and Wabokieshiek appeared at the door as if they had materialized out of nowhere. Thus ended the Black Hawk War.

Aftermath:

Following his surrender at Prairie du Chien, Black Hawk, the Winnebago prophet Wabokieshiek, Sauk chief Neapope, and several others were sent to Washington, D.C. This journey would greatly enhance Black Hawk's fame and reputation.

They had a brief meeting with President Andrew Jackson. While Black Hawk attempted to explain to the President why he had gone to war-saying that he had been driven to war by the injustices against his people-Jackson was disinterested.

The party was then sent to Fort Monroe in Virginia where they were to be imprisoned. While at Fort Monroe, there was a procession of well-known artists who painted their portraits.

After only four weeks at Fort Monroe it was decided to release the prisoners, but only after they had been taken on a tour of the United States to impress them with the immense size and power of the country. Throughout the tour of the eastern cities, the group was met by large crowds and were treated as celebrities.

In 1833, Black Hawk told his life story to government interpreter Antoine LeClaire who published it as Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk. The book became a best seller and went through five editions during the first year.

I am sure this theme has probably been exhausted by now but please indulge me anyway. I am looking for a good P&S; (NOT POS) camera in the $300 range. My primary motivation is to be able to take relatively decent watch photos as opposed to the horrendously amateurish blackberry shots i currently...

“Show where you are going without forgetting where you are from,” that’s the newest tagline for the latest Chrysler – Imported from Detroit commercial featuring Ndamukong Suh – an American football defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions of the NFL. Suh attended Grant High School in Portland, Oregon where he earned Parade All-America honors and [...]

Fitch Expects to Rate Terra-Gen Finance, LLC's $360MM Loan Facilities 'BB-' Business Wire (press release) CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings expects to rate Terra-Gen Finance, LLC's (Terra-Gen) $300 million term loan facility and $60 million working capital facility 'BB-'. The Rating Outlook is Stable. The expected rating is based on Terra-Gen's ... and more »

Wanna know the coolest thing about this piece? My boss gave me the chunk of wood two weeks ago when I was out in California! The spout is ebony and the piece is finished with General Finishes Seal-a-cell and Arm-R-Seal..

Even better, he also gave me a nice chunk of old growth Redwood he said was around 300 years old. Trying to think of something special to start with it this weekend.

Finished piece is a little over 7” in diameter and about 4.5” tall.

Cheers,
Richard

I was getting tired of my HJC CS-15 helmet. I bought it without doing any research and really found I didn't like it for several reasons. Earlier in the week I dropped my helmet and scratched up the face shield pretty good and put a small crack in the side of the shield. I could have easily gotten a new shield, but this was just the excuse I needed to get a new one. I went down to a local shop that has a huge selection of helmets so that I could try some on and then most likely order one online to save some money. I really wanted one with a drop down sun visor, so I looked around online at a few that had this feature including a couple GMax helmets, an HJC, and the EXO-1000 and a couple others I think. I wasn't really impressed with the HJC and GMAX helmets I looked at. I also looked at many other helmets with the drop down visor. There was one Scorpion EXO 1000 at the store. It was a size bigger than I normally wear, but it was also 35% off. I gave it a try and found that it fit very snug (I looked online and later found that these tend to run a size smaller than stated). At $160 I couldn't pass it up. I've had it for about a week and have about 300 miles riding with it. One big negative is that it is heavy as shit. There's no getting around that. It was easily the heavies helmet I tried on at the store or ever (not that I have a ton of experience...). However, the weight really doesn't bother me and I had it on for just over an hour straight once with no additional fatigue or anything. I immediately noticed this helmet is much quieter than my HJC, even with all the vents opened. The vents on this are really nice. I can actually feel the difference really noticeably with them open. There is also a cool feature on the face shield where there is a knob that you can push to crack open the edge of the face shield just enough to let a little air in. This helmet is much more aerodynamic than my HJC. I base this on turning my head at highway speeds. In the HJC, the wind would noticeably pull on me quite a bit when I turned to look behind me. This is very, very reduced in this new helmet. There is an inflatable cheek pad that is pumped up with a small pump under the chin. It is comparable to the pump shoes that were popular in the early nineties. I thought this was kinda gimmicky and stupid when I tried it on in the store. However, after pumping it up a little once on the highway, I noticed that it cut down on the noise a little bit when inflated. I think it's more comfortable when uninflated, but the small bit of noise reduction is kinda nice. The drop down sun visor is awesome. I don't like the idea of tinted shields in case I have to drive at night and I don't keep a spare on me. However, I almsot ALWAYS forget my sunglasses, but have to travel west in the afternoon daily. It is really, really, really nice to have the built in visor. There is a lever on the left side that you slide up and down to raise and lower it. The operation is smooth. My only complaint with this feature is that I wish the visor dropped down a little lower. But, it's still a great feature. The face shield is anti-fog and it really works. I immediately noticed the huge difference with this helmet compared to my HJC. I can actually sit still with the vents closed and the shield down on a cool morning with zero fogging. I am really impressed. The only other negative I can think about is field of view. I feel as though the top of the face shield is a bit too low. I find that if I am in a full tuck, I have to bend my head up more than I did with my HJC to see far enough in front of me. It may also be that the padding is thicker with this melmet, which make it wider. It may be the increased thickness of the helmet that makes it seem as though the top of the shield is too low. It's not terrible and I'm sure that given a few more weeks, I won't even notice it, but it is still a negative. I'm probably missing some things. But, overall I am very happy with my purchase. I wish it was lighter, but it's got a ton of features and feels very solid and well made. For $160, I don't think I could have done much better.

The models are built to a 1:43 scale and only 300 of each will be made. Each one sells for just under $90. The first model released is the GT Street program based on the Porsche 911 Turbo.

Hi all

Has anyone seen problems

lets say we have this 2 users..

62 | admin
100 | helloworld
200 | 022e3222
300 | 62

$user1 = JUser::getInstance('helloworld ');

First user is founed ok ...

$user1 = JUser::getInstance('022e3222') ;
$user1 = JUser::getInstance('62'); <----- will get the admin........

Maui County is considering making what is already the highest real property tax on time shares in the nation even higher. It’s part of an across-the-board increase in property taxes that’s being contemplated by the Maui County Council. At a hearing on Thursday, the council heard from landowners upset by a proposal to double the minimum tax on land from $150 to $300, according to the Maui News. But while rates for other categories would rise by anywhere from 50 cents to 70 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, the tax on time shares would increase by $1 to $15 per $1,000 of assessed...

Edicion impresa 07/05/11

Este fin de semana en el estadio Antonio Domínguez (Arona) se disputará el Campeonato de Canarias de la Juventud para cadetes y juveniles. Serán casi 300 los deportistas que luchen por las medallas y por un puesto en la selección canaria para el Nacional Autonómico.

Leer

A Cape Coral man is accused of breaking into a neighbor's home in the northeast and stealing a laptop valued at $700. Andrew Joseph Ziemba, 25, of 1517 N.E. Van Loon Terrace, was charged Tuesday with one count each of burglary of unoccupied dwelling unarmed no assault battery, fraud false owner information pawned items less than $300, larceny grand ...

What a dream!

I arrived at the hotel — Hilton San Diego Bayfront it should be — and was so excited to meet a few FileMaker developers that I used to communicate with. The whole incident was full of excitement that it always used to be, I think. I had had only been there once in 2009.

Somehow, at one point, what most vividly clear was I had to talk to Shin because there seemed something I had to discuss with her. About? Yeah, strange enough, the air ticket. Because the last time I was talking to her and Koji, they told me that Northwest had the best deal and with the equipment to connect to the pc. So, where was my air ticket then, I recalled at the hotel, which I had had no memory that I bought it nor anyone contributed to sponsor me. Then, doubts started to flood into my mind, like the Inception in the movie that, this might not be "real." The next thing It *worried* me gradually was, I had to get back to my world of no-air-ticket!

That moment it actually told me that it was so real that I could be in dream. How strangely *real* it was. Should I be in San Diego in August this year? Deadline to register is June 17, if I want to save $300 US.

http://www.filemaker.com/developers/devcon/

iPhone

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I ended up with two yellow dialed watches and this one just doesn't get on the wrist so I have decided to move it. It has a SW200 movement and keeps excellent time. I have the OEM Rubber strap and buckle and a NATO that you can see below. I am asking $300 *firm* and that includes shipping to...

ABU DHABI - Road bars conforming to the traffic system may well be the way to prevent motorists from jumping the red signal and stop pedestrians from crossing the street when the traffic light turns...

Hey Dubai Fan - Please read the full version of this exciting Dubai News article and also other News from UAE on our website Dubai Informer

A few notable happenings for a more stylish weekend: EVENTS Unique L.A. design and gift show Saturday and Sunday: Score goodies from over 300 local designers and artists including Loomlab and Love Nail Tree at the nation's largest independent design...

Unless you’re a fan of the NFL, chances are you’ve never heard of the new face of Chrysler’s ‘Imported from Detroit’ campaign, Ndamukong Suh. For those of you whom the name doesn’t ring a bell, Suh is a young football player who was recently named Defensive Rookie of the Year. In the summer of 2010, the 24-year old signed a five-year contract with the Detroit Lions worth $68,000,000 with $40,000,000 guaranteed – no, we got the zeros right….

Even though the Ford family is signing his checks, Suh is the star of Chrysler’s latest ‘Detroit’ ad for the new 300 sedan titled “Homecoming”. The commercial plays up the values of humble beginnings and hard work ethics with Suh putting up a face that makes you ask “why so serious?” Hit the break to watch the advert.

Read more »

I'll be joining these fifteen bartenders in Cognac, France this June for the finals of the 2011 G'Vine Gin Connoisseur Program. Over 300 bartenders from 32 countries (!) competed for this, so a big congratulations to the finalists. They are: Jill Saunders (Beaufort Bar at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK) Terry Cashman (The Hoxton Pony, London, UK) Torsten Spuhn (Modern Masters, Erfurt, Germany) Rene Soffner (Roomers Bar, Frankfurt, Germany) David Gonzalez (Shikku Izakaya, Madrid, Spain) Gegham Ghazaryan (Xandom, Alicante, Spain)...

[Visit Alcademics.com for the full post.]

Listen to the Audio

JIM LEHRER: The jobs numbers for April were released on the same day, today, as a new report that finds executive pay is soaring once again.

Jeffrey Brown picks up that part of the story.

JEFFREY BROWN: The Associated Press, which released the study on CEO compensation, put it this way: In the boardroom, it's as if the great recession never happened.

CEO pay, including salaries, bonuses, and stock options, was up 24 percent last year, to a level higher than 2007, just before the recession hit. The 10 highest-paid executives made a combined $440 million. Six of them came from the world of media and entertainment, including the heads of Viacom and CBS.

The study came a day after the Fortune 500 list was released, showing corporate profits increased by 81 percent last year, or more than $300 billion.

And we look more at pay, profits, and jobs now with Deborah Wince- Smith, president and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness, a nonpartisan group that works with business, universities and labor to enhance American competitiveness. And Vineeta Anand, she studies corporate governance and other issues as chief research analyst in the AFL-CIO Office of Investment.

Welcome to both of you.

VINEETA ANAND, AFL-CIO Office of Investment: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: Deborah Wince-Smith, I will start with you.

Start with the CEO pay issue. What explains the fast rise and quick return to pre-recession levels?

DEBORAH WINCE-SMITH, Council on Competitiveness: Well, I think one of the main issues is that we're seeing tremendous success of U.S. corporations, in terms of their profits, their revenue and their share value.

So, that is a good sign that shows that we are continuing to rebound from the recession and that we are really going to see increased productivity and standard of living that ultimately comes from this wealth generation.

JEFFREY BROWN: Vineeta Anand, a good sign to see these hikes in CEO pay?

VINEETA ANAND: Well, actually, as shareholders -- and we are shareholders representing workers through the pension plans -- we are very worried, because CEOs and the rich have gotten richer in the United States, whereas everybody else has been left behind.

The disparity has grown so that, in 1980, CEOs made about 42 times the pay of an average worker. And in 2010 it was 324 times. So, that's a huge jump. And it is as if the recession never happened.

You quoted the AP numbers. And our own database we launched earlier last month, Executive Pay Watch, showed that 299 of the S&P 500 CEOs made a collective $3.4 billion. And that could support 103,000 workers making average wages.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Deborah Wince-Smith, what -- that reflects what a lot of people wonder. And we just heard a segment where we talked about slower growth and a lot of people feeling pain for a long period of time. So, what's the other side of the -- the positive sign that you are seeing in CEO pay growth?

DEBORAH WINCE-SMITH: Well, putting aside CEO pay growth, I think what we really need to look about -- look at is the fact that what is going on in the global economy is a fundamental restructuring.

We have really left a 20th century non-high-skilled economy. The jobs of the future are requiring entirely different skill sets. So the disparity we're seeing in income is often directly linked to educational levels and skills levels.

You know, we can't in the United States compete on low wages or standardized products or services. We have to compete on this higher-value work. Now, the fact is the American worker is 10 times more productive than a worker in China. In the long run, that is fantastic.

But, of course, it means that automation, the use of all these new technological capabilities that drive this productivity does displace workers who don't have those skills and where we don't need those types of performance anymore in the workplace.

JEFFREY BROWN: And does -- and...

DEBORAH WINCE-SMITH: So, really, what we need to be focused on is, how do we transition to this new economy? How do we have the education, the skills and the training so we can really capitalize on our entrepreneurship, our innovation, our great research and development?

Because we can't really be looking back. We have to look forward.

JEFFREY BROWN: Vineeta Anand, a new economy?

VINEETA ANAND: Well, you know, Jeff, we have been talking about a new economy since the 1980s. We have been talking about how the United States left behind manufacturing and moved into service, and now into the information age in the 21st century.

But the fact of the matter remains that what you are seeing is almost 14 million people are still unemployed, as Judy said a little while ago, and, as David Leonhardt said a little earlier in the show, that if the jobs continue to grow at the rate they're growing, we're in a really troublesome spot.

So, it is not education. It's not that we lack the technical skills. It's the fact that companies are not hiring. In 2010, they had a record $1.89 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. They are not using it to create jobs.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, that goes -- Deborah Wince-Smith, that also goes to this other study we cited, the Fortune 500, and the huge growth in corporate profits.

And, yet, there's still -- we have -- we heard it again just now. We have been hearing it for months. There's a -- it's better on jobs, but there's still a reluctance to hire.

DEBORAH WINCE-SMITH: Well, first of all, I want to say that we are really a great manufacturing nation. And there is a big recognition at the Council on Competitiveness -- we're working on this -- that we have to not only maintain our manufacturing prowess; we have to lead this whole new change in how things are designed, built, logistics, supply chain. This is a tremendous opportunity for our country.

But, you know, the issue of corporate profits, companies sitting on, you know, over $1.5 trillion, where are they investing it? Are they investing it in the United States? There is a global race for the best investment, the best high-value activity.

And, so, what is the environment for that capital? You know, we had some very powerful data at the council about three years ago that the value of profits U.S. companies make outside the United States is three times the value of all our exports.

But are they bringing that money back? Well, they are facing double taxation. We're facing the highest corporate tax rate in the world, a very tough regulatory environment. So are the jobs going to be here, or are these jobs going to be around the world, where there is tremendous demand and also where there's a growing middle class?

You know, 80 percent of all middle-class consumers will be outside the United States by 2020. So, we have to make sure that we are not hobbling our companies' determination of their investment by things that put us uncompetitive against the rest of the world.

Let's not compete on the cost of capital and on wage structure. Let's compete on invasion and high skills.

And one thing I want to add, we have a tremendous shortage of middle skills. Do you know a skilled welder in this country, without a college degree, but high technical skills, makes $100,000 a year, and we're begging for them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, I mean, it's interesting, Vineeta, and there's a lot of things you would agree on about the kinds of things that need to be done. But you're -- you're saying you're worried, in the meantime, that this is all -- this is all exacerbating income inequality.

VINEETA ANAND: Yes.

Actually, in 2009, income inequality rose to levels that we saw before the Depression. The top 20 percent of Americans controlled 90 percent of all wealth. In the meanwhile, the median household wealth fell to about $62,000.

So, what we're seeing is, the divide is continuing to grow. And the reason for that is, very largely, that the rich are getting richer. CEOs are continuing to make more money. Last year, as AP said, 24 -- a 24 percent increase -- we said 23 percent increase -- but the fact remains is, the average worker who had a job got a 3.3 percent raise, and many people didn't even get a raise.

So, while I agree with Deborah -- I think she's right in one sense. We need to bring jobs back to the United States. But we also need to have the government help. The government has to help create jobs. We have to invest in the infrastructure. We won't get up to the levels we saw in the Clinton administration otherwise. We had a 3.5 percent unemployment rate. Does anybody remember that?

JEFFREY BROWN: All right.

I don't know the answer to that, but we will continue this discussion.

Vineeta Anand, Deborah Wince-Smith, thank you both very much.

VINEETA ANAND: Thank you.

Listen to the Audio

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to those special military units that brought down Osama bin Laden.

Ray Suarez has that.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Fort Campbell!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

RAY SUAREZ: The end of an eventful week found the president praising troops at Fort Campbell, Ky., after a very public victory in the long war against al-Qaida.

BARACK OBAMA: Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals -- intelligence, military -- over many years, the terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

RAY SUAREZ: But elsewhere on the sprawling base, well beyond the cameras' reach, the president earlier met with members of the special operations team that killed bin Laden.

BARACK OBAMA: It was a chance for me to say, on behalf of all Americans and people around the world, job well done.

RAY SUAREZ: Among them, operators from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, often called "SEAL Team Six," and pilots from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, nicknamed "Night Stalkers."

Along with comrades from other so-called special missions units, like the Army's Delta Force, they work for the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. After the disastrous 1980 attempt to free hostages in Iran, JSOC was formed to use the top special forces units of the U.S. military and today is a vital tool in the American arsenal.

MARC AMBINDER, "National Journal": This wasn't the first time or fifth or 10th or 20th time that JSOC has -- has conducted secret ops in Pakistan without -- without the knowledge of the Pakistani government.

RAY SUAREZ: "National Journal"'s Marc Ambinder writes about intelligence and national security matters, and to the extent possible, JSOC.

MARC AMBINDER: Since 9/11, the units have turned into an army, a secret army within an army. They have incorporated intelligence elements, logistical elements, technological and development elements. And they really became the tip of the spear in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

RAY SUAREZ: Since 9/11, JSOC has handled among the highest-profile and sensitive operations.

In 2003, JSOC operatives killed Saddam Hussein's sons and captured the Iraqi leader himself. In 2006, JSOC tracked down al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike. And, in 2009, snipers from SEAL Team Six killed Somali pirates holding an American mariner off the Horn of Africa.

But JSOC's tactics in Iraq also led to revelations of detainee abuse and torture by American forces under the command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who later led the war in Afghanistan.

Over the last decade of war in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, JSOC has quadrupled in size, from 1,000 to 4,000 personnel, as it's been asked to perform more and more tasks.

CIA Director Panetta said Tuesday on the NewsHour the high operational tempo gave policy-makers confidence they could do this job.

LEON PANETTA, CIA director: These teams conduct these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan.

RAY SUAREZ: JSOC now works intimately with the CIA on both intelligence and operational matters. Though it operates in near-total secrecy, its missions are national security priorities.

And that has created a quandary, says Ambinder.

MARC AMBINDER: Let's be very clear what happened. The U.S. violated the sovereignty of a country to carry out a targeted assassination of someone. Now, 98 percent of us, including myself, think it was exactly the right thing to do -- right thing to do. But it absolutely has the potential to and probably should increase the public debate, or at least the public's knowledge, of this entity called JSOC.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on special operations and the SEALs, we turn to former SEAL Team Six member retired Navy Commander Ryan Zinke. He's now a Montana state senator. And former Army Special Forces officer retired Col. Kalev Sepp, he also served in civilian special operations posts in the Pentagon. He's now an assistant professor at the Navy Postgraduate School.

And, Senator, let me start with you. Just a short time ago, Vice President Biden called the units that pulled off this operation in Afghanistan some of the most capable fighting forces in the history of the world.

Who are they? How do you end up training, being picked for one of these units?

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE (RET.), U.S. Navy SEAL: What you are seeing is, is two tier-one forces, which really represent the best of the Navy and the Army.

On the SEAL side, it takes five years to -- in order to become -- when a young man says, I want to be a Navy SEAL, that process alone is a long and arduous journey. It represents about a 90 percent attrition rate. And then, when you're finally a member of a SEAL team, is that you will have a couple deployments under your belt, show you that are a superior performer, and then you are either asked or request an interview with SEAL Team Six, at which you go to another selection course, of which 50 percent fail.

So, really, when are you talking about the caliber of these individuals, both in dedication and skill level, it really represents the best of the best.

RAY SUAREZ: And by the time you become a member of that team, I guess you are no longer a real youngster either. How -- what is the average age in a unit like Team Six?

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE: Well, we used to call it the old man club. When I was active, it was -- we were about 34, 35 years of age on average.

But, you know, what you have to understand, too, is these guys have been fighting a war for over 10 years. They are hardened combat veterans. They have -- they have conducted operations in hundreds of compounds. And they are experienced. They know what they are doing. This is a routine operation and -- you know, for these guys anyway. They know what they are doing. They're pros.

RAY SUAREZ: Col. Sepp, what can these units do that conventionally trained forces can't or are not assigned to do?

COL. KALEV SEPP (RET.), U.S. Army: Well, Sen. Zinke answered part of that question in describing how they are selected for these missions.

There are simply operations, military operations, that are directed by the president that require a very high degree of assurance of success and to minimize risk -- there will always be risk -- by -- putting together people and teams that -- you know, that are physically powerful, highly intelligent, and then have a body of experience and maturity that attend to that, and then are connected to all the support systems, the aviation units that move them, the intelligence structures that -- that prepare the -- their understanding of their target for them.

These are truly national mission forces.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let's -- I would like to get some more examples from both of you of the kinds of things that these men are taught to do that conventionally trained people just wouldn't learn in basic training, as generations of American service people have experienced.

Colonel?

COL. KALEV SEPP: The historical piece would be -- explain some of this.

The Son Tay raid into North Vietnam in 1970 -- that is the idea of being able to go deep into the -- you know, the heart of an enemy country right next to their capital and attempt a rescue of prisoners that are held at a prison camp is the -- is the modern model for the capabilities that a -- that these mission -- that these special mission units are supposed to be able to provide for the president.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator, some examples?

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE: When you look at weapons of mass destruction or hostage takeover, Achille Lauro, or any of those high-profile missions where you cannot fail, I think that this is the force. This is the force the president would call on.

They are constantly in training. They are war-hardened. They are a very expensive force to run as well. I mean, the resources that are brought to bear with these forces are -- are phenomenal.

And the other thing to understand is, is that for every one SEAL that was on the ground in the compound, there's 200 or 300 supporting cast members that are also doing the job, from intelligence collection, to bringing the fuel, loading the ammunition. I mean, these guys have a lot of great people behind them that are supporting the effort.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator, are you surprised at all that we're even having this conversation? In this week's "TIME" magazine, there is a quote to a report from a former SEAL, "I can't say a word about Team Six. There is no Team Six."

And, yet, here are you and I talking about it.

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE: Well, I was, quite frankly, shocked at the early confirmation by senior officials that used the term SEAL Team Six.

And in previous operations, it's been special operations. And, occasionally, you will break it down to Army Special Forces or Navy Special Forces. But I think this is the first time that we have had early confirmation of SEAL Team Six.

And, of course, when that happens is -- the public wants to know, who is SEAL Team Six? And, of course, Richard Marcinko in books, and then, pretty soon, with the technology available today, you are able to find, you know, Sen. Ryan Zinke in Whitefish, Mont., as a former member.

RAY SUAREZ: Colonel, do the JSOC units from the various branches of the services work together at all, or, under JSOC, do they remain very much Navy, Army, Marine, distinct units?

COL. KALEV SEPP: Oh, the strength of the Joint Special Operations Command is the -- is the cohesion that these units have in working with each other.

Elements of it tend to be pure only in the sense of where they are recruited from and formed. The -- there is an Army special mission unit. There is this Navy SEAL special mission unit. There is aviation units from the Army and Air Force.

But in the -- in the -- over the past 10 years, the duration and intensity and demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other locations around the world, in the counterterrorism missions that these special mission units have, have driven them to work together as a whole, as a complete team.

RAY SUAREZ: I'm glad you brought up the operational tempo, because it is reported that there is very high demand for the skills in -- that are embedded in JSOC.

We have a long tradition of civilian oversight of the military in this country. Is that weakened at all by a unit that seems a little bit beyond the reach of that civilian oversight?

COL. KALEV SEPP: The unit is under very direct control of the national executive authority of the United States.

It is -- they are -- although they maintain a very tight classification of, you know, the capabilities of the unit, who the membership are, what their tools and weapons and support capabilities are, in fact, they're -- they're under very tight review and control. And the evidence of that is the president's direct role in ordering this mission to capture or kill bin Laden inside Pakistan.

RAY SUAREZ: Sen. Zinke, same question.

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE: Well, I don't think so.

I think the technology is moving so rapidly forward. One is, you do need a force like this. And the demands on special operations forces have increased and will continue to increase. But when you look at the complexity of the operations that face these troops, I mean, it's no surprise that you do need years of experience.

And the fact that the president of the United States can look and observe on operations, you know, in foreign countries down to detail about almost a room-to-room clearance, well, you know, I think should give one pause, both that, A., you can command and control it from further away, and, B., that the level of scrutiny, I think, has never been more intense and more relevant and clear in operations that are being conducted.

RAY SUAREZ: Sen. Zinke, Col. Sepp, gentlemen, thank you both.

COL. KALEV SEPP: Thank you.

CMDR. RYAN ZINKE: Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Lenovo has the Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 - 06465UU 15.6" Notebook (Black with 1.3MP camera) for $949 - $300 off with coupon code USPY5U505 [Exp 5/12] = $649 with free shipping. [Compare]

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Newegg has the Klipsch HDT-500 5.1 High Definition Home Theater System for $600 - $300 off with coupon code KLIPSCH5X6 [Exp 5/8] = $300 with free shipping. Features center and 4 satellite speakers, subwoofer with 8" driver and 120W RMS amplifier with crossover, phase & level controls. [Amazon Reviews : Compare]

Once again, Dell Home takes up to 75% off select Pinnacle Speakers Audiophile home theater systems, as listed below. With free shipping, each is from $300 to $2,200 off and at the lowest total price we could find. Sales tax is added where applicable. The deals:

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TigerDirect.com offers the Acer P215Hbmid 21.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor, model no. ET.WP5HP.001, for $119.99. Coupon code "TFF29596" drops it to $109.99. With $9.56 for shipping, it's tied with last month's mention and among the best prices we've seen for a 22" name-brand LCD monitor with HDMI. (It's a current low by $8.) Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include a 1920x1080 (1080p) native resolution, 300 cd/m² brightness, 5ms response time, 50,000:1 contrast ratio, and HDMI, DVI, and VGA video inputs. Coupon expires May 9.

Over the last year I've gotten know Vijay Govindarajan, the brilliant professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. I've not met Vijay; we've only talked by phone and he is one of those people you occasionally run across who instantly...

Will Apple pull the old chip switcheroo again, and embrace ARM CPUs on its Macs instead of Intel silicon? You bet it might, say new rumors, because it could mean your MacBook lasts pretty much all day on a charge.

Only a handful of years ago, Apple abandoned its long relationship with IBM and the PowerPC line of processors for shiny new Intel silicon. The switch from G5 to Intel caused an upheaval of epic proportions among the user community and for the people who code for Apple software--and even required Apple to nursemaid the transition with special dual-mode compatibility code in its OS X for years. But Apple's never looked back, and thanks to a few early-access treats from Intel, and special treatment like the unique one-off processor designed to make the original MacBook Air such a paradigm-breaking machine, the two have kept working together. That may, according to a new and surprisingly emphatic rumor, all be about to change.

SemiAccurate, a publication that was previously correct in predicting Apple would swing away from using Nvidia GPUs, is the source of the latest rumor. It's based on some insider information, and some smart deductive work: In just a few years, ARM is expected to transition its CPU design to full 64-bit addressing, which would significantly boost the computing power, while retaining the core light power requirements that's a characteristic of ARM's design. A transition to ARM CPUs in two to three years would enable Apple to quickly make use of a whole new class of super-powerful chips that eat batteries much less quickly than competing chip architectures. And it would come just a short while after Apple takes its first steps in incorporating lessons from iOS devices like the iPhone (which runs on an ARM chip) back into its computing operating system OS X, with the latest update into OS X Lion.

And don't forget Apple already has lots of ARM design expertise in-house, thanks to its acquisition of PA Semi for close to $300 million in 2008.

With two more generational tweaks to OS X, and continued development of iOS, Apple could easily make OS X work on ARM chips instead of Intel's. This would also align how code is written for pretty much every device Apple makes. Supplying an emulation system, like it did for the transition to Intel chips inside Macs, wouldn't be difficult, and the fact that Mac apps are now slightly cheaper to buy (thanks to the Mac App Store, and halo effect of the iOS App Store) would mean users wouldn't feel hard done by when, in say four to five years, Apple stopped supporting Intel x68-only software for its ARM-based Macs.

But there's one big reason Apple would want to pull off this trick, which would be timed to the A15 ARM generation: Mobile computing. There's an undeniable move away from desktop PCs that was initially driven by advances in laptop tech, boosted by the netbook phenomenon, and is now being rocketed into the stratosphere by the tablet PC paradigm. Users now expect ever-more powerful portable machines. And though Intel has teased its next-gen low-power 3-D chip solution, the main reason it's currently shut out of the tablet market is that its chip architecture simply can't compete with ARM chips in terms of power consumption.

The iPad works for around 10 hours on a charge, while the new 11-inch iMacs run reliably into four hours of usage, and Apple's existing bigger MacBook Pros can go up to 7 hours with the Wi-Fi on...all with existing tech. Imagine in 3 years' time, with evolutions in battery design, screen technology (so they consume less power when lit) and solid-state memory advances, a MacBook sporting a low-power-consumption, super-fast ARM chip. Hypothetically, that Mac could run for 18 hours or more on a single charge.

If Apple's desktop Macs ran ARM chips, too, then perhaps they'd need much less cooling--leading to quieter, more efficient power needs. And who wouldn't like to run apps on a top-end Mac Pro with four ARM CPUs aboard, sporting up to 32 separate processor cores?

[Image: Flickr user junesey]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

Most Innovative Companies 2011: Apple.

Chrysler's redesigned full-size sedan tones down the menace, and some of the swagger, of the previous-generation car.

150 mg SR/day, titrating up to 300 today, but haven't taken the second dose yet. I don't really feel much different. On the first day I felt like things were a bit better, but that was probably just placebo effect. Today, for some reason, I am cleaning. I mean I have a reason to do it, but I...

$50.00
The knitted scarf was hand knitted with pink flammé novelty yarn, which could be used with several laps around the neck, finished with fringes of the same wool.

Details:
-Dimensions:
Length fringes included 69.29 in - 1.76 m
Length without fringes 64.57 in - 1.64 m
Wide 6.69 in - 0.17 m
-Weight 10.58 oz - 300 gr
-Materials: Bulky novelty yarn flammé (30% wool/70% acrylic)
-Colors: pink.

Long and narrow offers many possibilities to be used, either as cowl giving several laps around the neck or loose and long, in the sides of the flaps of the jacket or coat.
It is the most simple scarf, that can be used in any style, teens or adults. A great gift for anyone which will be certainly loved.

Care:
Wash with cold water less than 30º.
Do not use chlorine.
Do not dry in the sun or dryer.
You can wash dry.
Do not iron.

Item ready to be shipped.
Hand knitted in a smoke free environment.

Looking for more scarves? Follow this link:
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I am in California right now, allegedly for a brief vacation and the Bar Mitzvah of a cousin, though I've spent the better part of the day, of course, on conference calls. We got to the hotel in Redundant Beach around 12, and naturally our room wasn't ready. So we dropped our bags and my daughters, wife and I borrowed bikes from the hotel and went for long bike ride on the Strand.

Around 2, we stopped at a little restaurant in Hermosa Beach, and because we had no locks for the bikes sat outside at a dirty little table so we could keep tabs on them. I must have looked away for a moment, because I suddenly saw some creep riding away with one of the bikes. I imagined having to pay the hotel $300 for a crappy piece of shit bike. I jumped up from the table, grabbed my bike and went after the guy.

In about a minute I caught him. I yelled with my loudest voice (which would cow Pavarotti) "Hey, gimme back the bike."

Apparently I scared the crap out of the punk-ass hood. "I thought it was a rental, man," he said to me. "Did you ask anyone if you could take it?" "I did, and no one said no" he answered.

I grabbed the bike out from under him, lifted it up and rode back to the restaurant carrying it in my right hand.

Not bad for a 53-year-old alte kocker wearing bedroom slippers.

TechArt Releases 1:43 Scale Models of Its Porsche 911 Tuning Program Inside Line The bright orange paint job only looks better on the life-size version of this Porsche 911. | May 06, 2011 | TechArt The models are built to a 1:43 scale and only 300 of each will be made. The first model released is the GT Street program based on the ...

Filed under: Sedan, Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Chrysler, Celebrities

Chyrsler hit a high note when it employed the services of Eminem to show off the new 2011 200 sedan. That commercial put the exact type of spotlight on Detroit that the city was looking for. The automaker is going back to the same well stylistically for a new spot featuring the 2011 Chrysler 300. It's still tied to The D, but this time shows a person returning to their roots back in Portland, Oregon.

That person is Ndamukong Suh, defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions and NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. He's returning to the place that made him the man he is, and he's using a new Chrysler 300 to take him there. It's not as overtly dramatic as the Eminem ad, yet it still works at both pulling you into a piece of Suh's world and showing off the new sedan. Click past the jump to check it out.

Continue reading Ndamukong Suh returns to his roots with the 2011 Chrysler 300

Ndamukong Suh returns to his roots with the 2011 Chrysler 300 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 06 May 2011 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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6 May, 2011 : - Imagine more than 300 frothing girls ready for surfing action, fun games and to party, taking over Double Six Beach for one day – watch out boys! The Rip Curl Girls Go Surfing Day program originated in Australia and has grown ever since. In Indonesia the program is now in its 7th year and is a huge event on the surfing calendar.

We're getting ready to head to Baltimore May 16-19, 2011 for RailsConf B'more: Round Two. We have some fun events planned. We hope you'll join us if you'll be there too.

Ignite RailsConf

Date: Monday, May 16, 2011 Time: 6:00pm Location: Sheraton Inner Harbor, 300 South Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201 Expect: awesome 5 minute talks from 15 great speakers Ignite RailsConf is back again. Snag an Ignite RailsConf ticket to partake in the fun. Dr. Nic will be doing "Ignite Karaoke" a guaranteed 5 minutes of humor as Nic presents slides he's never seen before. Oh, and don't forget to stick around and join us for the after-party at Max's Taphouse. We'll have appetizers and beer for all. Should be a blast.

JRuby Hackfest at BohConf

Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 Time: 1:50pm-5:15pm Location: BohConf at the Baltimore Convention Center Bring: questions, code, desire, your laptop Expect: answers, fun, hacking, beer, and snacks At RailsConf 2008, in Portland, we had our first JRuby hackfest. Over 100 people showed up and we had a great time. It was cool to see applications leveraging Java technologies. We met new users who wanted to try debug some issues running their applications on JRuby. We also had some folks who wanted to help contribute patches to JRuby. Mix in some some snacks, beer, and great people....OMGZ...the event totally rocked. It is time for history to repeat.

Rubinius Office Hours

Brian Ford will be on-deck at RailsConf holding Rubinius help desk hours. If you have Rubinius questions, or want to share feedback about your experience with Rubinius, holler at @brixen in Baltimore or swing by the Engine Yard RailsConf booth to find out more Rubinius help desk details.

EventMachine RubyConf

Last but not least, there's also some planning in the works for EventMachine RubyConf, a half day event that will take place during RailsConf. Time, date and location are being worked out and will be announced shortly. Watch @emrubyconf for details. See you at RailsConf, or another event soon!

Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer, publisher and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition®, Drawn™, Fairway Solitaire™, and My Tribe™.

We are looking for a talented Senior Linux Administrator who is interested in working with a fast, growing group of smart and dedicated people, helping make us the #1 casual gaming destination.

Responsibilities:

• Maintain and manage operational Linux environment with 300+ servers
• Work with developer to architect and enhance applications
• Monitor system performance and plan for future capacity and scaling
• Carry a pager and participate in an on-call rotation

Skills and abilities you should bring to the table:

• Deep understanding of Linux internals, including kernel and tcp stack tuning
• 5+ years of UNIX/Linux systems administration in a 500+ server environment supporting highly available, customer-facing services
• Extensive experience with the following applications: MySQL, Apache, Postfix, and Memcache
• Experience scaling web applications in a highly available environment
• Basic understanding of Java/JVM
• In depth understanding of TCP/IP networking fundamentals, including basic network engineering and routing knowledge
• NAS/iSCSI experience a plus (Network Appliance preferred)
• Excellent communication and project execution skills

Nice to have experience:

• Ubuntu/Debian experience
• Perl, Python, and PHP a plus
• Experience working with virtualization and cloud services

Come be the Big Fish in the Pond!

To apply for this position, please visit our careers page at www.bigfishgames.com/careers and complete your online profile to upload your resume.

• Location: Seattle, WA
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

İzmir Büyükşehir’deki yolsuzluk operasyonunda tutuklanan işadamı Hakan Say, ihale alabilmek için CHP’ye 300 bin lira verdiğini itiraf etti.

Tracey Emin's raw unpretentiousness – and the use she's made of her life in her work – has captured the nation's attention for 20 years. But its brilliance lies in its use of words

A cunt is a rose is a cunt. This is the title of a Tracey Emin monoprint from 2000. It's a reclining female nude, legs and torso neatly nicked off above the chest and at ankle and shin level, a body sloping backwards from the raised legs downwards, so that, held vibrant and prominent right at the centre of the drawing, there's not just the vibrating smudge and scribble of female genitalia but also a sense of something solid emerging from it, a shape cut in air, made by the crook of the upper knee and the line of the lower thigh.

"A cunt is a rose is a cunt" is Emin's reworking of the famous/notorious line from Gertrude Stein's 1913 poem "Sacred Emily": "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose". This was probably inspired in turn by Juliet's comment on Romeo's name, 300 years before Stein: "What's in a name? – That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" (and Shakespeare was a writer not averse to the odd pun on the word "cunt" himself). What would Stein, the great literary experimenter, have made of Emin's emendation? Here's what she said in 1935 when some students in Chicago questioned her about it:

Now listen. Can't you see that when the language was new – as it was with Chaucer and Homer – the poet could use the name of a thing and the thing was really there. He could say "O moon", "O sea", "O love", and the moon and the sea and love were really there? And can't you see that after hundreds of years had gone by and thousands of poems had been written, he could call on those words and find that they were just worn out literary words? The excitingness of pure being had withdrawn from them; they were just rather stale literary words. Now the poet has to work in the excitingness of pure being; he has to get back that intensity into the language. We all know that it's hard to write poetry in a late age; and we know that you have to put some strangeness, as something unexpected, into the structure of the sentence in order to bring back vitality . . . Now you all have seen hundreds of poems about roses and you know in your bones that the rose is not there. All those songs that sopranos sing as encores about "I have a garden! oh, what a garden!" . . . Now listen! I'm no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying ". . . is a . . . is a . . . is a . . ." Yes, I'm no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years.

The "can't-you-see?" of this. The insistence on "listen". The repeating immediacy – now, now, now. The emphasis on the importance and excitement of aliveness; the intensity. The focus on strangeness; the understanding that something strange introduced into the structure of things renews things: Stein's isn't a bad lens through which to see Emin's own practice. For Emin a word like "cunt" is excitingly multiple. In her work it ranges across the whole spectrum of resonance, from affirmation, celebration, punchy frankness to unpleasantness, insult and mundanity, via the still-thrilling buzz of the just-not-said, and all simultaneously, all in the swivel of a repetition, the shape a word cuts in time. There's also, here, the cheek, the wit of her retake on Stein's rose, since for sure Stein knows that a rose means more than just a rose. "And then later," Stein says of her ring of words, "what did I do? I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun." Emin, too, is a caresser and addresser when it comes to verbal and conceptual certainties and ambiguities. Inherent ambiguity is something she's well aware of if you look at the photograph, from the same year as A cunt is a rose is a cunt, called I've got it all, in which she sits with her legs splayed open, clutching notes and coins to her cunt as if either the cash is exploding out of her in fairground fecundity, spilling out as though she's a giant fruit machine, or she's in the act of cramming it into herself.

The thing about Emin is that she's really good with words. Maybe no one, until now, has so energised, understood, made visible, the possibilities of this particular, powerful word: cunt. Partly such energising is art's responsibility, one that works, by means of what WG Sebald calls "keeping faith with unsocial, banned language", to question, understand and, with any luck, transcend the proscriptions and the inarticulacies of whatever time we happen to live in. There's a parallel in Emin's punk insertion of the word "fucking" into the construct "red, white and blue" in her neon of 2002, Red, White, and Fucking Blue, where the word "red" is red neon, the word "white" and the "&" are white neon, and the words "Fucking" and "Blue" are blue neon, and suggest everything that could make you feel blue (in all senses of the word) in the cliché of the concept of being British. Plus, there's her general democratising, the total unpretentiousness – for instance, in one of her Princess Diana monoprints of 1999, on which she writes "Regardless of class or status no woman deserves what thoes cunts put you through – LOVE WAS ON YOUR SIDE." With Emin, art is about articulation: its questions, impossibilities and, above all, the fluidity and changeability of register. At the same time it's really very British, reminiscent of something a bit Lawrentian. Mellors, the close-to-nature gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) – a novel that's all about chatter, and the upper, the lower, the chattering classes – can switch rhetorical registers with ease, talking to his penis one minute ("Ay, th' cheek on thee! Cunt, that's what tha're after. Tell lady Jane tha wants cunt"), the next minute laughingly aphoristic to Constance Chatterley ("Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in kindred love"). Something in this resembles the versatile split-second shift from cloy to edge, from acrid to sentiment and back again, in Emin's work; the neon Be Faithful to your dreams (1998) next to Good Smile Great Come (2000) next to MY CUNT IS WET WITH FEAR (1998) next to Love is What You Want (2011). (Elsewhere in her work Emin has played this last one as Love Is What You Wont.)

Something in it is prefigured, too, in work by groundbreaking writers like Angela Carter, a genius of verbal and narrative reclamation and emendation, and the American post-beat writer Kathy Acker, whose seminal, anarchic 1978 novel Blood and Guts in High School is also a work of words and pictures with its graphic genital line drawings, including one of the labia labelled underneath in typewriter typeface "My cunt red ugh". (Acker was influenced, in turn, by the 1960s and 70s feminist performance artists, for instance Carolee Schneemann, one of whose practices was to pull a rolled scroll out of her vagina then read out what was written on it.) Somehow Emin goes beyond; with her, it's as if Warhol and Valerie Solanas were rolled into the same person, but minus his posture of obliquity and spaciness, minus the violent fixity of her political focus. Something else, something unexpected and difficult to articulate happens. As Jennifer Doyle says, about looking at Emin's repeated graphic versions of what Courbet calls "the origin of the world", "I couldn't help but think: 'Isn't this how Judy Chicago and Georgia O'Keeffe are supposed to make me feel (but don't)?'".

Emin's ear for the right word in the right place, and for the resonances of "rightness" and "wrongness" in word and place, are at the basis of her art. Take her play on meaning in the pair of neons, Is Anal Sex Legal and Is Legal Sex Anal (both 1998), so simple and so complex at once, so centrally about how (and where) words mean, and so witty about proscription, with shades too of Lewis Carroll's Alice lazily falling down the rabbit hole in a swoon pondering do cats eat bats, do bats eat cats? "And what is the use of a book", thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?" Emin – while she brings straight to the surface all the things, including survival, Freudian strangeness, child/adult sexualities and innocences, which go unsaid or remain subconscious in the work of a writer like Carroll – is drawn to the place where meaning and consumption come together, fascinated by the conversation that happens when words and pictures meet, a dialogue most of us come across as soon as we first look at books. "I love writing," she says. "I think every artist has a backbone to what they do. For some it could be photography, painting, the ability to make a formal sculpture stand, but for me it's writing." For her, art is language and, as she put it in the press release for her very first show, "art has always been, a lot of the time, a mysterious coded language. And I'm just not a coded person . . . What you see is what I am."

This unpretentiousness has made Emin a national symbol. Her uncodedness, her frankness, her direct use of her own life in her work, have made her a repository, in the media and to some extent in the general public's eye, for all that's contentious in contemporary art. It's easy to dismiss, simplistically, her complex and redolent use of self-portraiture as ego-posturing. But the thing is, there's no pinning her down. There's no reducing Emin. No matter how – or how much – the media strings her up (one minute lunatic, the next the new William Blake), her work engages the nation, and has engaged it now for more than 20 years, in a dialogue about art and life and the crossovers between both. It does this at what might be called a language-sensitive place. She is multitalented, multifaceted; aesthetically endlessly versatile; there's no form she won't try. Somehow nothing circumscribes her.

From Blake's illuminated books to Stevie Smith's strange, pithy little illustrated verses, from Fra Angelico to Magritte's not-pipe; from the terrible increasing tension in Charlotte Salomon's Leben? oder Theater? to Gilbert & George's Dirty Words Pictures: artists and writers have worked for centuries with what happens when text and visual art come together. For Emin, it's another of her many modes of dialogue. In one of her monoprints, a girl wearing high-heeled shoes, with a smudge for a face, stands next to the words "dog" and "brains". Is she saying it about herself? Is she hearing it said about herself? The instability makes something momentary into something piercing and shaming.

In her book those who suffer love (2009), 11 monoprints by Emin of a woman masturbating accompany the text like a restless flickerbook; but the repeated shifts of the body up against the text make the text come alive, while the text itself, sometimes banal, sometimes funny, sometimes anguished, rubs up against the body to make the whole thing both pathetic and satisfying. Its title, a statement in its own right and an adjectival phrase, is a typical Emin reflexive. Considered carefully, it becomes more than itself, in the same way that the title of her celebrated tent-work, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995) played on the phrase's colloquial sexual meaning and was mischievously, seriously, quite literally, a list of everybody she had ever gone to sleep next to.

I wonder if, along with My Bed and the now lost Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (which was destroyed in the Momart fire of 2004, and which Emin refuses to remake), one of Emin's most enduring images will prove to be the photograph Monument Valley (Grand Scale) (1995–97). In it, the artist is off centre, sitting in the desert on an old bright-green chair whose sides are lined with orange piping, so much in the foreground that the great slabs of Monument rock are miniaturised behind her, with the wide blue sky above her only slightly scuffed with clouds, the word "THANKS" appearing from behind her right leg and a book called Exploration of the Soul in her hands, open as if she's about to give a reading. She's looking straight at us. Her gaze is direct but distanced – shrewd, serious. There's both silence and the promise of voice in it. There's a waiting, a discrete openness.

The book is one she wrote in 10 days, an autobiographical work written with the considered rawness for which Emin has now become known. In the early 90s she toured America, giving readings to anyone who came to hear, sitting on her travelling storyteller chair, which was a gift to her from her grandmother (it originally belonged to her great-grandmother), which she patched with the names of the places she visited, like a suitcase. The chair is now an exhibit in its own right (There's a lot of money in chairs, 1994). It's a dialogue itself in the form of a chair, one that holds its own narrative shape between Emin and her grandmothers, between past and present histories. The work is about a girl who comes of age via the legends of her English mother and her Turkish-Cypriot father, their material ups and downs, then the girl's own horrific early sexualisation, first by abuse, then by rape, at the age of 13, at the hands of a local man, someone well known for having "broken in girls". "When I got in, my mum said, 'Tracey, what's wrong with you?' I showed her my coat, the dirt and the stains, and told her 'I'm not a virgin any more.' She didn't call the police or make any fuss. She just washed my coat and everything carried on as normal, as though nothing had happened." Exploration of the Soul ends with the story of Emin at the age of seven going to a children's party, from which she is sent home because "you don't have an invitation". The next morning the child Emin asks her mother, "What's an invitation?" It is a model fable of exclusion, of how language itself is used to exclude.

Emin is a great recycler. Much of Exploration of the Soul appears again in her book of "memoirs and confessions" Strangeland (2005), a work of echo and resonance and rewrite, in which – as in her video-poem Why I never became a dancer (1995) – she works with a repeating structure, one that shifts from abjection to empowerment and transformation. In it she declares "You don't have to be born with balls to have balls."

By her own authority, Emin writes with a gift of fused subjectivity and objectivity reminiscent of a writer like Nell Dunn (the titles of whose 1960s novels Up the Junction and Poor Cow read now almost like the titles of Emin works). Dunn, an upper-class girl who decamped to south London and wrote with what proved to be a transformative lack of judgmentalism about the working classes, has a talent for fusing roughness and beauty into something at once fragmentary and whole, seen from both outside and inside simultaneously.

"Instead of feeling on the outside, I realised that there was an outside and it was called 'being an artist'." Strangeland's first image, of her birth, is an infant vision between death and life, somehow wrong, voiceless: "When I was born they thought I was dead. Paul arrived first, ten minutes before me . . . I just rolled out, small and yellow . . . I somehow felt a mistake had been made. I couldn't scream or cry or argue my case . . . They put me into a little glass box and slowly I came round." Its final image, of the adult Emin in Egypt longing to smash through the glass case in a tomb and take into her arms a "tiny mummified foetus" is one of sheer empathy. "Dead for thousands of years, not completely formed, but he had soul. He still had soul," writes the artist who knows what spirit is, who can go from the word "drunk" to the word "soul", from inebriation to metaphysic, in the space of a single strip of material, and hold them both in equal measure (Drunk to the bottom of my soul, 2002).

It's all about connection. It's one word after another, with Emin. Give her a blanket and she'll make it speak. Give her the fabric of things and she'll find voice in it. Give her a cliché and she'll take it apart to give it back its full original whack of power again. Give her words, she'll write them backwards and forwards; she'll send them off in all directions; she'll work them into everything; she'll put them where you least expect. She'll make you wonder what they mean; she'll show you they're right and they're wrong. She'll take them to pieces then sew them back together again. She'll light them up.

Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want is at the Hayward Galley, Southbank Centre, London SE1 (0844 875 0073), from 18 May to 29 August 2011. www.southbankcentre.co.uk