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July 2009

Academy's 'Keeper of the Oscars' dead at 47 (AP)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 17:07 — admin

LOS ANGELES – Steven Miessner, the motion picture academy's devoted "Keeper of the Oscars" who each year donned his signature white gloves to get the golden statuettes ready for their closeup before a worldwide audience, is dead at age 48.
Miessner died at his home on Wednesday of a heart attack.
Leading up to the Academy Award ceremony, Miessner would take loving custody of the Oscars as they arrived from the R. S. Owens foundry in Chicago, logging them into a computer file, keeping them safe and secure, and then on the big night, giving the coveted statuettes one last rubdown backstage before handing them to the show's trophy presenters.
He would then record which individually-numbered Oscar was presented to whom and later, arrange with the winners to get their statuettes properly engraved.
Academy colleagues, stagehands and reporters alike marveled at Miessner's dedication and enthusiasm as he worked with the statuettes — a job that was actually a year-round process, according to Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"He maintained the computer files on the current whereabouts, so far as can be known, of every Oscar ever awarded," Unger said. "He also was the liaison with R.S. Owens when a vintage statuette needed refurbishing."
In addition to his Oscar duties, Miessner was an executive assistant to academy executive director Bruce Davis and president Sid Ganis.
A member of the academy staff since 2002, Miessner "was central to the day-to-day operations of the organization," said Unger.
He is survived by his mother,
Miessner, a sister and a brother.
Funeral services were pending.

Firm forged letters to lawmaker on climate bill (AP)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 14:52 — admin

WASHINGTON – A Washington grassroots lobbying firm has acknowledged forging anti-climate bill letters purporting to be from a local NAACP chapter and a Latino advocacy group to a Virginia lawmaker, and a congressional committee said it was launching an investigation.
The office of freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello discovered that a half-dozen letters it received had nearly identical language signed by a made-up person at Creciendo Juntos, the Latino group, and five fake members of the Albemarle-Charlottesville branch of the NAACP. The lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates, apologized to the groups.
The firm blamed the faked letters on a temporary employee who, it says, has been fired.
But one of the climate bill's primary sponsors, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said Friday that his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming would investigate the matter.
"This fraud on Congress shows that some opponents of clean energy have resorted to forgery and theft to block progress," Markey said in a statement, calling it "an appalling abuse."
The letters, which were sent before the House narrowly passed the legislation last month, say, "please don't vote to force cost increases on us, especially in this volatile economy," and urge Perriello to make pro-consumer changes to the bill "to protect minorities" from energy cost increases. Perriello voted for the bill, and Republicans have been hammering him for it ever since.
In an e-mail to The Associated Press Friday, Bonner & Associates' president, Jack Bonner, said the firm discovered the fake letters and contacted both groups to apologize.
"This should not have happened — we had a bad employee — but through our internal checks, we found the problem," Bonner said.
Creciendo Juntos board member Tim Freilich said he received an apology from the firm last week. Creciendo Juntos is a network of service providers to the Latino community in the area.
"This was clearly no mistake — it was a deliberately forged letter," Freilich said. "This type of activity undermines people's faith in our democratic process, and it clearly needs to be stopped." Freilich said his group is neutral on the legislation.
When Creciendo Juntos informed Perriello about it, his staff recognized the language, went back to the files, and found the five nearly identical letters sent on behalf of the fake NAACP members, said Perriello spokeswoman Jessica Barba. The NAACP told Perriello's office that none of the "signers" of those letters was affiliated with its chapter.
Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau and senior vice president for advocacy, said the group was "appalled" by the forged e-mails.
"These tactics illustrate that discriminatory tactics normally used to deceive voters are now being used to deceive the Congress," he said in a statement Friday, adding that the letters "are completely false and the NAACP is diametrically opposed to the claims made in the correspondence."
Barba said: "We see this and other shady tactics from the far right starting to backfire with fair-minded folks. The reason why the NAACP and so many other organizations supported energy independence legislation was because of its potential to create new jobs."
In a news release following the vote on the climate bill, the National Republican Congressional Committee said that Perriello had demonstrated an "utter lack of concern" for middle-class families in his district.
The (Charlottesville, Va.) Daily Progress first reported the forged letters.

Yankees get versatile INF Hairston from Reds (AP)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 13:49 — admin

CINCINNATI – The New York Yankees acquired infielder Jerry Hairston Jr. from the Cincinnati Reds on Friday, giving them a versatile player who has appeared at six positions this season.
The Reds received minor league catcher Chase Weems in the deal.
Hairston confirmed he was traded before the Reds' scheduled game against the Colorado Rockies. He is batting .254 with eight homers and 27 RBIs, having played shortstop, second base, third base and all three outfield positions this season.
With speedy outfielder Brett Gardner on the disabled list with a broken thumb, the Yankees moved to shore up their bench. Hairston gives the AL East leaders an experienced player who could spell several stars, including third baseman Alex Rodriguez, shortstop Derek Jeter and left fielder Johnny Damon.
The 20-year-old Weems was batting .260 with a homer and 14 RBIs in 55 games with Class-A Charleston this season. He was picked in the sixth round of the 2007 draft.

GOP PACs Dominate (CQPolitics.com)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 11:31 — admin

Republican-affiliated political action committees appear to be out-raising their Democratic counterparts by a nearly two-to-one margin, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

A CQ MoneyLine analysis of PACs tied to lawmakers and candidates found that Republicans had raised more than $10 million during the first half of the year compared to the $5.5 million for Democrats.

The figures seem to buck a trend earlier this year of individual Democratic candidates and congressional campaign committees raising more than the Republicans.

The final mid-year PAC reports aren't due until midnight today. But eight of the 10 PACs with the largest receipts reporting so far are controlled by Republicans, including two failed presidential candidates.

Among the funds showing the largest receipts since the first of the year were former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Free and Strong America PAC, which raised more than $1.9 million, and former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's SarahPAC, with $732,868.

Country First PAC, an arm of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, pulled in $523,483.

The Republican PACs also hold an edge in cash on hand, with $6.8 million compared to the Democrats $5.2 million.

The 10 PACs reporting the largest receipts so far this year are:

1. Romney's Free and Strong America PAC -- $1,924,375.

2. The conservative Democratic Blue Dog PAC -- $1,106,887.

3. Every Republican Is Crucial, tied to Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. -- $855,879.

4. Senate Conservatives Fund, tied to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. -- $797,071.

5. Palin's SarahPAC -- $732,868.

6. Freedom Project, tied to House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio -- $725,499.

7. McCain's Country First PAC -- $523,483.

8. 21st Century Democrats -- $452,816.

9. Republican Main Street Partnership PAC -- $365,887.

10 Senate Majority Fund, tied Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. -- $358,214

Probe of Ukrainian reporter's killing questioned (AP)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 09:58 — admin

KIEV, Ukraine – The lawyer for the family of a slain Ukrainian journalist said Friday she doubts the arrest of a key suspect will help police track down those responsible for the crime.
Authorities are not trustworthy and are trying to conceal the identities of the people who set up the grisly murder, said Valentina Telychenko, who represents the widow of Heorhiy Gongadze.
Prosecutors deny Telychenko's allegations. They say she has no knowledge of the investigation, which they say is being conducted professionally and is almost finished.
Gongadze, who wrote about high-profile corruption, was kidnapped in September 2000 and his beheaded body was discovered outside Kiev several months later.
Last week, authorities arrested former senior police officer Olexiy Pukach, the main suspect in the case, who had been in hiding for several years. With his help coroners located what they believe are fragments of Gongadze's skull and are now trying to identify them.
Pukach's arrest came during a visit to Ukraine by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Ukrainian officials denied there was any connection, but pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has long vowed to fight corruption and bring killers to justice. He also is trying to shake off Russian influence and courting U.S. and European support.
Yushchenko met with the heads of the country's law enforcement agencies on Friday and urged them to "put an end to this case that is shameful for Ukraine," reiterating a point he has made for years.
"I know about the pressure being exerted on the investigation today," he said, suggesting that unspecified government officials were seeking to manipulate the investigation. "I know how uneasy it is for law enforcers to work today."
Opponents and rights groups have accused then-President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the slaying. The killing sparked months of protests against Kuchma after his former bodyguard released tape recordings in which a voice that sounded like Kuchma's is heard complaining about the journalist and suggesting subordinates deal with the problem. Kuchma has denied the allegations.
Prosecutors believe that Pukach took Gongadze to the site of the murder with the help of three others, who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms last year, and then personally strangled him. Experts believe Gongadze was decapitated after his death.
But Telychenko said she was pessimistic that the arrest will help solve the crime. "Pukach's detention is very important, but it doesn't guarantee that those who ordered (the crime) will be uncovered," she told reporters.
She accused the authorities of collaborating with the masterminds of the crime, who she believes were senior government officials in Kuchma's administration. She refused to be more specific about who was allegedly stalling the probe.
She asked the prosecutors to assign a new group of investigators to the case and to conduct forensic tests of the skull with the participation of foreign experts.
Yuriy Boichenko, spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, dismissed Telychenko's recommendations, saying the investigators were fully competent and on track to solve the crime. Foreign experts may be allowed to participate in the forensic tests at the victim's family's request, he said.

Club Management Software

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 09:43 — admin

Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, software consists of a machine language specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Software is an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer hardware in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.

The term "software" was first used in this sense by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all computer programs. The theory that is the basis for most modern software was first proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.

Club Management Software

India orders arrest of American in Bhopal gas leak (AP)

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 08:46 — admin

NEW DELHI – An Indian court issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of the former head of the American chemical company responsible for a gas leak that killed at least 10,000 people in Bhopal 25 years ago.
Warren Anderson was the head of Union Carbide Corp. when its factory in the central Indian city leaked 40 tons of poisonous gas on Dec. 3, 1984 — the world's worst industrial disaster.
More than 555,000 people who survived the initial disaster are thought to have suffered aftereffects, though the exact number of victims has never been determined. Many have died over the years from gas-related illnesses, like lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.
On Friday, in response to a recent appeal by a victims' group, Prakash Mohan Tiwari ordered the arrest of Anderson, who is reportedly living in the U.S. Tiwari, who is the chief judicial magistrate of Bhopal, also ordered the federal government to press Washington for the American's extradition.
Anderson was arrested immediately after the disaster, but he left the country soon after. The Indian government has since said that it did not know where he was, but CNN-IBN television recently reported he is in the Hamptons — a wealthy area outside New York.
In Bhopal, victims and civil rights activists who gathered outside the court cheered at the news of the order. They threw slippers at an effigy of Anderson and hit it with brooms, as they danced in the streets.
In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470 million in compensation to the Indian government and said officials were responsible for the cleanup. Victims accuse New Delhi of delaying distribution of the funds.
The government says its efforts were slowed when Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Co. took over Union Carbide in 2001, seven years after Union Carbide sold its interest in the Bhopal plant. Meanwhile, Dow maintains that the 1989 settlement resolved the legal case.

Baltimore Back Pain

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 05:22 — admin

Following completion of entry-level training, newly graduated medical practitioners are often required to undertake a period of supervised practice before full registration is granted, typically one or two years. This may be referred to as "internship" or "conditional registration".

In some countries, including the United Kingdom and Ireland, the profession largely regulates itself, with the government affirming the regulating body's authority. The best known example of this is probably the General Medical Council of Britain. In all countries, the regulating authorities will revoke permission to practice in cases of malpractice or serious misconduct.

Baltimore Back Pain

Sales Tax Consulting

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 04:04 — admin

Sales Tax Consulting

Ideally, a sales tax is fair, has a high compliance rate, is difficult to avoid, is charged exactly once on any one item, and is simple to calculate and simple to collect. A conventional or retail sales tax attempts to achieve this by charging the tax only on the final end user, unlike a gross receipts tax levied on the intermediate business who purchases materials for production or ordinary operating expenses prior to delivering a service or product to the marketplace.

This prevents so-called tax "cascading" or "pyramiding," in which an item is taxed more than once as it makes its way from production to final retail sale. There are several types of sales taxes: Seller or Vendor Taxes, Consumer Excise Taxes, Retail Transaction Taxes, or Value Added Taxes.

Daily Fantasy Baseball

Thu, 07/30/2009 - 12:07 — admin

http://www.dailyfantasybaseball.net

The first full documentation of a baseball game in North America is Dr. Adam Ford's contemporary description of a game that took place in 1838 on June 4 (Militia Muster Day) in Beachville, Ontario, Canada; this report was related in an 1886 edition of Sporting Life magazine in a letter by former St. Marys, Ontario, resident Dr. Matthew Harris. In 1845, Alexander Cartwright of New York City led the codification of an early list of rules (the so-called Knickerbocker Rules), from which today's have evolved.

Major League baseball finally made it to the West Coast of the United States in 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively. The first American League team on the West Coast was the Los Angeles Angels, who were founded as an expansion team in 1961.



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