Author: Serkadis

One wonders if the Chinese government is setting its citizens expectations dangerously high right now.

According to Xinhua, Wen Jiabao staged a chat with Chinese ‘netizens’ whereby he promised to keep inflation under control and prevent a housing bubble.

Thing is, we’re pretty sure that the government is expected to support housing values and stock markets at the same time. While keeping the yuan pegged at a competitive rate vs. the dollar of course.

Obviously China has gotten away with setting pretty high economic expectations for quite some time already, but it seems as if almost every economic variable is now expected to be under the deliberate control of the government.

This is great for public relations while the economy is humming along, but one as to wonder if these government economic guarantees will one day come back to bite, hard. Maybe they should learn the importance of ‘under-promising, over-delivering’ rather than over-promising and then simply hoping for the best.

(Pic via China Daily)

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See Also:

• India Aims To Double Exports By 2014, Which Means Obama’s Export Dreams Are Toast
• Why Fears Of A Chinese Bubble Are Totally Ridiculous
• China Test Driving A Yuan Hike With Select Industries

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Tony Hawk: Ride wasn’t the success Robomodo and Activision (and Tony Hawk) hoped it would be, but that doesn’t mean they’re done with it.

CAIRO — Archaeologists have unearthed the massive head of one Egypt’s most famous pharoahs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Sunday.

The head of Amenhotep III, which alone is about the height of a person, was found in the ruins of the pharaoh’s mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor.

The Egyptian-European expedition under the guidance of German-Armenian archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian has been excavating the temple near the famous seated colossi of Memnon for the last several years.

The head is part of a larger statue found several years ago and Sourouzian believes its ceremonial beard is still buried somewhere nearby.

Amenhotep III, the grandfather of Tutankhamun, ruled from 1387-1348 B.C. at the height of Egypt’s New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.

His massive mortuary temple, however, was largely destroyed, possible by floods, and little remains of its walls.

The expedition, however, has unearthed a wealth of artifacts and statuary in the buried ruins, including two statues of Amenhotep made of black granite found in March.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

The latest Economist provides some interesting macro perspective for the global economy.

Despite talk of Asia de-throning the West economically over time, the trend has actually moved in reverse recently… when measured using current market exchange rates:

The Economist via Free Exchange:

Yet a closer look at the figures suggests that the shift in economic power from West to East can be exaggerated. Thanks partly to falling currencies, Asia’s total share of world GDP (in nominal terms at market exchange rates) has actually slipped, from 29% in 1995 to 27% last year (see chart 1). In 2009 Asia’s total GDP exceeded America’s but was still slightly smaller than western Europe’s (although it could overtake the latter this year). To put it another way, the output of the rich West is still almost twice as big as that of the East.

As for the popular belief that Asian producers are grabbing an ever-larger slice of exports, the region’s 31% share of world exports last year was not much higher than in 1995 (28%) and remains smaller than western Europe’s. Indeed, the shift towards Asia appears to have slowed, not quickened. Its share of world output and exports surged during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although China’s share has grown since then, this has been largely offset by the decline in Japan, whose share of output and exports has halved.

Just don’t forget the two important ‘buts’ here. One is that Asian economies are a lot larger if measured based on purchasing power parity, which is basically whereby one adjusts currency values so that a basket of similar products in each country would have the same global price. The other is that Japan’s decline has been a huge drag on Asia’s aggregate data. Ex-Japan, Asia would look a lot better than the above statements suggest.

Continue reading at The Economist >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Illusion Of Japanese GDP Growth
• India Aims To Double Exports By 2014, Which Means Obama’s Export Dreams Are Toast
• It Surely Matters… Euro Getting Murdered By Bernanke’s Hike As Asian Markets Rout

Whether a firm “deal” is announced or not, there is definitely a lot of action in Europe this weekend to prevent another week like last week — riots, inaction, and loss of confidence.

Tonight EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn flies to Athens for emergency talks, according to Bloomberg.

If an announcement is imminent, it sounds as though German purchases of Greek debt will be part of the plan. Still, however, any plan would also require massive spending cuts in Greece, and the ability to actually make that medicine go down with the public.

On Thursday evening we predicted some kind of big announcement this week intended to scalp the Euro shorts. We could be very close.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• If This Guy Is The Source Of Greek Bailout Reports, You Should Be Very Skeptical
• Bailout For Greece! (Again)
• Careful Euro Bears, Greece Will Try To Dropkick You Next Week

Filed under: Ford, Toyota

Toyota is bracing for lower February sales as its massive recall and the ensuing media storm have cast a shadow over the automaker. Just how low can Toyota go? The Detroit Free Press says it could see its lowest US market share in over five years this month, with about 12 percent of U.S. sales.

Most analysts anticipate that Toyota will have a very rough month, but the big question on their minds is which automakers stand to gain the most from Toyota’s pain. Edmunds and TruCar reportedly think that winner will be Ford, as they estimate that the Oval will see a 35-percent sales increase. If correct, that’ll vastly outpace the nine to 14 percent increase for the month that was previously forecasted.

Despite Ford’s anticipated performance and projected double-digit gains for the industry as a whole, the market is still struggling. After all, these February 2010 sales projections are increases in relation to the dismal February 2009 numbers, which came as the recession helped deliver the industry its lowest sales levels in 30 years. February 2010 sales are also expected to be generally lower because of the multiple east coast snowstorms that kept customers out of dealerships for much of the month.

[Source: The Detroit Free Press]

Report: Ford to benefit most from Toyota’s woes in February sales totals originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today’s music video is ‘Rio’ from Mike Nesmith.

This video was posted to You Tube by Asilazi

This might seem a strange song to be playing for Sunday Music, and then adding the title ‘Something Very Special’. However, as I have mentioned in numerous earlier Sunday Music posts, some songs really do have an interesting history. If the truth is to be told, this song should go down as one of the most influential songs in the history of modern music. Again, that sounds like a pretty wild claim for a song that never even made it into any of the charts in the U.S. and perhaps 99 people out of 100 would not even have heard it, and even less would have any idea as to why it actually is such an influential song.

Since starting the Sunday Music series nearly fifteen months ago, I have often mentioned this song. In all that time, I have been specifically looking for this clip, which is the original video clip of this song. There are a couple of versions with the song being played over images of Mike, and also of the Monkees, and also two live versions, but this clip has been impossible to locate until it was recently posted to You Tube, so to actually find this recently posted copy is indeed something special indeed, and it actually gives me the chance to tell the story of this most influential song.

Mike Nesmith was one of the four members of The Monkees, that manufactured U.S. band of the mid to late 60’s. They had some pretty big hits, but in actuality, the boys were just a front for those behind them in the shadows who cleverly manipulated them to be what they wanted them to be. As the Monkees became more successful, the 4 guys actually started to want to have some say in their direction, and even to write and play and record some of their own music. Their first hit was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Their second was ‘I’m A Believer’, a cover of the Neil Diamond song, in a time before Neil Diamond was Neil Diamond in his own right. Neil also wrote a couple of their other hits. All the four guys in the Monkees did was to provide the voices for these songs. Seeking to be masters of their own destiny put them into conflict with those who just wanted ‘bubble gum’ music and tensions developed. Nesmith actually had a couple of songs placed onto Monkees albums, and one actually became a minor hit for the band. Rather than give into the four guys, management instead effectively sidelined them, and the band literally just folded.

Nesmith went off on his own with his first solo venture after the Monkees, with his own band, The First National Band, and their second song was the hit ‘Joanne’. He then formed his second band, The Second National Band, and at the same time, opened his own recording studio, as part of his multimedia Company, Pacific Arts. This band’s second album was ‘From A Radio Engine To The Photon Wing’, and the single lifted from that album was this featured song today, ‘Rio’. It was not picked up by radio for one reason, the song’s length at nearly 6 minutes, in a time when any song that was being played on Radio was mostly around 3 minutes in length, and radio station managements typically frowned on longer songs, unless they were absolutely perfect in every sense, and this song seemed to be, well, pretty average really, so it got virtually no airplay whatsoever. The song did absolutely nothing, anywhere, except for Australia and New Zealand, where the song actually made it to Number One in both Countries, and therein lies the real story of this songs fame and now legendary status, although it is still mostly unknown.

For this song, Nesmith did something totally unheard of in the music industry. He spent a good deal of his own money making a movie clip of the song. Prior to this, nearly every song that had a clip was just a voice over of the song with images of the band or the singer, or a clip of the band performing the song live, or in the studio playing along as the audio was cut over the top of them as they lip synced along with the audio. Record Companies just wanted the single to sell, or the album, and promotion on this scale with a video was almost as an afterthought, if at all. Some clips were a little more elaborate, but not much really. Nesmith actually made a themed short movie of his song, something that had been done before, but never on the scale that Nesmith did. He spent Millions on the clip, something that would never have been approved by an outside studio. Other bands and record Companies just shook their heads in utter amazement that anybody could do something so positively foolish on a scale like this. Nesmith spent more money on this one clip than most Hollywood producers were spending on full length feature movies at the time. It was considered an absolute folly on the part of Nesmith, as people inside the industry just shook their collective heads in amazement. They also looked somewhat justified when the ‘movie’ and the song went straight down the toilet, so to speak.

So, just why did this song do so well in Australia and New Zealand?

Two things.

The first is its release was around the same time in 1977 as a song by Peter Allen. That song was ‘I Go To Rio’ which again was a locally produced song that did well here, but again did not translate too well outside of those two Countries, Australia especially, the Peter Allen song a completely different song altogether, with the only similarity being the word ‘Rio’ in the title. Radio here in Australia did pick up on the Mike Nesmith song because it had the same name in the title as the Peter Allen song, and even though the length was frowned upon, it was catchy enough to gain airplay alongside the Allen song, and sometimes the two were mistaken for each other, especially during request programs.

The second reason it did so well is because of two popular TV shows just gaining footholds in both Countries. The first was a weekly TV music show called Countdown in Australia. This show had been going since 1974, almost three years and had a huge following in Australia. It was a show that featured Australian bands, some clips from overseas, and a weekly Top Ten slot at the end of the program where the current Number One was played in full. The video of the Nesmith song, being as it was, at the absolute cutting edge of music for TV got virtually weekly airplay, helping the song gain widespread popularity, and besides the length, regular airplay on radio, where it had the added bonus of similarity with the Allen song. It was the perfect song for this format.

In New Zealand, they had a similar program, Radio With Pictures, and the same thing happened there, as the song rocketed up the charts, and also got regular time on the TV program.

Nesmith heard of the popularity of the song, and how it was doing so well, and then rushed to Australia and New Zealand on his own, without the band, just to help along with promotion of the song. While in New Zealand, he saw Radio With Pictures, and then in Australia, Countdown. Impressed by the format of these shows, and the way they specifically differed from Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, these two new shows being basically the music with just introductions, and Nesmith wondered if this format might actually translate to the U.S.

Back in the U.S. he worked on the format and came up with a made for TV show called Pop Clips for the Nickelodeon Cable Network. It became quite popular, mainly along the lines of the Australian and New Zealand formats, just the clips with what amounted to a video jockey, the TV version of Radio’s Disc Jockey. In 1980, Nesmith, ever the thinking businessman, sold the format, and the show to Time Warner, and they then further developed the format into MTV which started in 1981.

This song ‘Rio’ was then included in a video package titled ‘Elephant Parts’, again with purpose made video songs and humorous clips as well, in fact one of those short humorous clips is shown at the end of the song here in today’s clip. This video, ‘Elephant Parts’ has the huge distinction of being awarded the very first Grammy Award for a music video.

So, even though this song is all but unknown, it has a distinct place up there in the Pantheon of modern music, so as you watch the video, be fully aware that Mike Nesmith has another claim to fame other than the one always mentioned when his name comes up.

Mike Nesmith is the man who actually gave us the themed video clip, and helped start up the Music Video era.

“Reno! Why Reno?”

“Not Reno, Rio! Rio de Jennero!”

Filed under: America (USA), Australia, History, Music, Video Tagged: Mike Nesmith, MTV, Music, Music Video, Video

Article Tags: Alan Caruba

The New York Times once again is Al Gore’s “enabler”, publishing a February 28 opinion editorial, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”, despite the mounting evidence that global warming was and is a complete fabrication.

In November 2009, the Telegraph, a British newspaper, carried a story, “Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire”, so let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that Gore just wants to save the world.

Heavily invested in the “carbon credits” scam and technologies whose success depend on people believing fairy tales about “clean energy” alternatives such as wind and solar energy, Gore has enriched himself by trumpeting the biggest hoax of the modern era.

It is no surprise that The New York Times published his latest collection of lies. The reportorial record of the Times has been decades of lies about global warming. Whatever patina of respectability it once had has been eroded by its participation in the fraud. Why should it stop now?

Source: factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com

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Ok, I’ll admit it — I didn’t see any studies presented at CROI this year that will immediately transform HIV care on a day-to-day basis.  Nothing that will alter practice right now.

Nothing like last year’s NA-ACCORD, or 2008’s surprising DAD study, or 2007’s raltegravir studies, to name a few recent examples.

(All subsequently published, of course — links are to the papers.)

Still, as usual, lots to think about:

• Does expanded HIV treatment reduce new infections? Maybe …
• Could the rest of the country expand HIV testing and linkage to care the way they have done in Washington, D.C.?  Wow, those are impressive data.
• Can a 4-drug-in-one pill treatment compete with what we have, or will have?  You decide.
• Is boosted atazanavir as good as efavirenz?  Seems so.
• What are the long-term consequences of these changes in renal function or bone health? The  extent to which our treatments accelerate aging remains a major open question.
• Is there any doubt that letting the CD4 cell count fall increases the risk of non-AIDS complications? I don’t think so.  (Multiple other papers with similar findings.)
• Is tenofovir the only drug associated with renal dysfunction?  Not according to this study.
• Could there be a (broader) role for a CCR5 antagonist?  Especially one that is once-daily and does not require boosting? This drug looks promising, but frankly I don’t see it unless a better tropism test can be worked out — or even better, if there’s some non-antiviral utility to these drugs, or (hope of hopes) they can be part of a “cure”.
• Is “intensification” dead?  Maybe not, but it’s clearly on life support.  See studies with raltegravir, maraviroc, and enfuvirtide for the evidence.

But just when we think we have it all figured out, there are these two excellent overviews of how we neither have a cure for HIV (Maldarelli) nor can we treat all our patients successfully (Eron).

These are great summaries of two remaining challenges in the field, and well-worth the web casts — which are viewable here.

Though a Cook County judge recently declared him innocent, Chicago Heights police maintain the 34-year-old owner of Spanky’s Grill used to sell drugs out of his restaurant.

Brandon Johnson, of Park Forest, was charged with felony marijuana possession after police in January 2009 found three pounds of marijuana, $7,000 in cash, a loaded handgun and drug-packaging paraphernalia inside his office at Spanky’s Grill, 322 W. 14th St.

After a bench trial, Cook County Judge Frank G. Zelezinski found Johnson innocent of the charges Feb. 10 at the Cook County courthouse in Markham.

“This whole situation was dumb,” Johnson said. “In the end, everything was proven wrong. My business was doing so good, I was a target.”

But Chicago Heights Police Chief Michael Camilli said Johnson was someone police suspected of selling more than just hot wings.

“I will tell you, (the judge) got it wrong this time,” Camilli said, adding the case against Johnson fell apart when a witness failed to testify in court. “I still think (Johnson) got lucky.”

Before the drug bust, Johnson owned two Spanky’s Grill restaurants in Chicago Heights – the one on 14th Street and the other at 109 S. Halsted St., which still is open. He also franchised out a Spanky’s Grill at 8510 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago. It has closed.

The Chicago Heights code enforcement department would not renew the business license for Johnson’s restaurant off 14th Street after his arrest, Camilli said. The license was not renewed because police found marijuana on the property, causing him to shut down his business.

Johnson lamented the loss of the restaurant, claiming it brought him the most money of all three restaurants.

Now having been found innocent, Johnson said he wants to open more restaurants and give back to the community by forming a children’s football league.

“I want my good name restored, and I want to be looked upon as the hard worker I am and the young businessman I am,” he said. “I want Spanky’s Grill known as a restaurant with quality food and good prices.”

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Bu sinesses owned by two men with close ties to the current and former Chicago Heights Park District superintendents have reaped more than $700,000 in no-bid work from the park district.

Park District Supt. Alex Lopez – who’s also the mayor of Chicago Heights – says he was not aware the park district deals violated state law on competitive bidding of contracts.

Nor, he said, was he aware that his mayoral executive assistant was benefitting from a city contract.

Here’s what officials records show:

Since 2004, the Chicago Heights Park District paid South Suburban Chemical and Supply $382,963. In 2009, the City of Chicago Heights paid South Suburban $4,594.

The company is owned by Frank Perez, a former park district human resources director and current mayoral executive assistant to Lopez. Lopez has worked full-time as the park district superintendent since 2006.

Records show the Chicago Heights Park District paid GF Janitorial Services $348,750 since 2004. While Gary Finnin owns GF Janitorial Service, David Gonzalez, the park district superintendent from 1999 until 2006, is the registered agent for the company. That means he submits the corporation’s annual reports to the secretary of state’s office every year.

His accounting company, Gonzalez and Associates, does accounting work for GF Janitorial. Gonzalez and Associates has billed GF Janitorial Services $1,200 a year for its accounting services since 2004, Gonzalez said.

But he insisted the money his firm is getting from GF Janitorial Services had nothing to do with the firm getting hired by the park district while he was in charge of it.

“It’s not like we’re getting them business so we can be employed,” he said, adding that he was just supporting local companies in his work as park district superintendent.

Perez, too, denied his company’s work for the park district and city had any ties to his positions in either governmental agency or his political connections.

“I’m not voting and I’m not authorizing the work either,” Perez said. “The money is for costs – cleaning supplies, soap products – I’m just as competitive as anyone else locally.

“I’m a local business. Why wouldn’t a local government support local business? I don’t see what the issue is.”

Lopez said while Perez’s business with the park district and city might appear to be improper, he believes it was co nducted legally.

“If (Perez) is authorizing the contract, I see where there would be conflict,” Lopez said, pointing out that Perez would not have been the park official to approve the work for the district.

Lopez said he was unaware Perez’s company was getting money from the city, which he conceded could be seen from the outside as a “possible conflict.,” But he said he didn’t view it as such because Perez, in his position with the city, did not cast a vote in favor of the deal.

Peter Murphy, president and CEO of the Illinois Association of Park Districts, said state law requires park districts to award all contracts of more than $20,000 through a competitive bidding process.

Park board President Joe Stanfa said it’s the park district superintendent who doles out work to vendors, and if a contract exceeds $20,000 the superintendent is supposed to bring it to board for approval.

But Lopez said he thought the $20,000 threshold applied to each bill submitted by a contractor, not a total for the work.

Under such a setup, all the deals with South Suburban Chemical Supply and GF Janitorial Services wouldn’t have first required competitive bidding on the work, he said, because none of their individual invoices would have exceeded $20,000.

Lopez said he planned to have his attorneys review Perez’s company’s contract with the city and whether the park district deals should have gone through the bidding process first. And he said he would “have no problem,” having businesses bid for the work if it is determined the park district is required to do so by law.

Stanfa defended the park board’s role in awarding the work to the two companies, saying it would have been Lopez who handled all of the details of the deals.

“The superintendent’s responsibility is to handle the day-to-day operations,” he said, adding he did not know whether the bills from the two companies came up in the monthly bills that the board reviews and approves.

Lopez “would be the point person of interaction with the vendors, not the board,” Stanfa said.

In his defense, Lopez said he was conducting business the way Gonzalez had as a park district superintendent before him, and Gonzalez said he was following the practices of his predecessor.

Gonzalez also said South Suburban Chemical and Supply worked for the park district before his tenure as park district superintendent, although a Freedom of Information Act request turned up no bills for the company prior to 2004.

Multiple messages left for Finnin were not returned.

POLITICAL TIES

Frank Perez’s company, South Suburban Chemical and Supply, has received more than $375,000 in business from the Chicago Heights Park District, where Chicago Heights Mayor Alex Lopez works as superintendent.

Perez now works for the city as Lopez’s executive assistant, and the two have a long history together. It could even be argued that Lopez might not occupy the city’s top spot had it not been for Perez.

Perez served as a 2nd Ward alderman in Chicago Heights from 1995 until December 2006, when he decided not to run for re-election. In April 2007, Lopez was elected as a 2nd Ward alderman, taking Perez’s old seat.

In May 2007, Perez became the executive assistant to then-city Mayor Anthony DeLuca. According to payroll records, his salary has jumped significantly every year since got hired.

He earned $29,123 in 2007, $53,370 in 2008, and, $74,521 in 2009. Perez also drives a city-owned 2007 Ford Explorer valued at $24,481, records show.

Two years after Lopez was elected alderman, the Chicago Heights City Council voted Lopez in as mayor. He replaced DeLuca, who resigned to fill the Illinois House seat vacated by George Scully (D-Flossmoor), who was appointed to be a Cook County judge.

In addition to his work with Lopez, Perez and former Chicago Heights Park District Supt. David Gonzalez have a political history together.

In 2001, Gonzalez used his political influence to assure Perez would be the Democratic nominee for Bloom Township supervisor. But Perez lost in the general election to Republican incumbent and current Bloom Township SupervisorThomas “TJ” Somer.

From 2006 to 2007, Gonzalez’s political committee, the Southland Hispanic Democratic Organization, paid Perez $12,000 in consulting fees, according to campaign records.

---

WORKING FOR THE MONEY

Since 2004, South Suburban Chemical and Supply and GF Janitorial Service have received more than $700,000 in business from the Chicago Heights Park District. What services have the companies provided?

South Suburban Chemical and Supply provided:

Janitorial services and cleaning supplies to the district’s golf courses.

Cleaning supplies to the district’s recreation center.

Cleaning supplies to the district’s maintenance garage.

Janitorial services for the district’s preschool in the building at Commissioners Park.

GF Janitorial Service provided:

Janitorial services, carpet cleaning and cleaning supplies for district’s recreation center.

Carpet cleaning for the district’s golf courses.

Cleaning up of the basement at the west golf course.

Janitorial services for the building at Commissioners Park.

Stripping and refinishing the floors for the building at Commissioners Park.

Stripping and waxing the floor for the preschool at Commissioners Park.

---

big contributors

South Suburban Chemical Supply and GF Janitorial Service have gotten more than $700,000 in work from the Chicago Heights Park District.

According to campaign records, the two companies and their owners are also big political contributors to political action committees operating out of Bloom Township.

GF Janitorial has donated a total of $6,300 to Friends of Chicago Heights, the Bloom Township Democratic Organization, the Regular Republican Organization of Bloom Township, Citizens to Elect Thomas “TJ” Somer and the Unity Party of Bloom Township.

Gary Finnin, who owns GF Janitorial Service, donated $3,220 to the Regular Republican Organization of Bloom Township and Families United for Effective Leadership.

Since 2002, South Suburban Chemical and Supply donated $6,260 to the Bloom Township Democratic Organization, the Southland Hispanic Democratic Organization, the Chicago Heights Unity Party, and the Unity Party of Chicago Heights.

Frank Perez, who owns South Suburban Chemical Supply, personally donated $865 to the Democrats of Bloom Township and the Chicago Heights Believe Team.

Perez denied his donations played a role in his company’s employment with the park district.

“I can contribute money to any party I want,” he said. “Any candidate that has the same agenda I have, I’ll support that candidate. It has nothing to with the park district.”

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

When Miller G. Green was 18, he spent 39 days on death row at Mississippi State Penitentiary.

“I didn’t harm nobody,” the Country Club Hills resident said. “I didn’t even have a gun.”

Green was imprisoned because he used the white-only entrance of a Jackson, Miss., bus station and tried to purchase a ticket to New Orleans. The clerk told him to go to the back, and when Green refused, he was carried off to the city jail.

Green, now 66, told his story of imprisonment and life in the South during the 1960s, to students and faculty at Tinley Park High School.

A group of about 50 people gathered in the school’s auditorium to listen to Miller and other African-American presenters speak during the school’s Black History Month expo.

Green said he tried to buy the ticket because he was a Freedom Rider. All Freedom Riders, who were mostly young college students, wanted to test the new laws that outlawed segregation in the terminals of buses, trains and waiting areas.

After being in the city jail for two weeks, Green and the other riders were taken to the county jail. From there, he was sent to the state penitentiary.

While in jail, he witnessed death first hand.

“When we went to take a shower, we had to pass the electric chair or the gas chamber,” he said in his soft voice. “So every day, we were reminded we could be put in the gas chamber.”

Green said that didn’t stop him from being a part of a movement he believed in.

“I believe in God and God calls on certain people to do certain things,” he said. “When God called on me to become a Freedom Rider I was engulfed with that spirit and He removed any fear I had.”

Green said he was ready to die rather then live in fear.

“When Emmett Till was killed, it traumatized the whole state. At night, when you walked and you heard a car coming, you automatically ran because you thought it was the Ku Klux Klan,” he said. “But because of those conditions, I would’ve rather been dead than live like that.”

Green said he was released from prison in the summer of 1961. He then went to college and participated in Civil Rights events. Now, the former boutique and salon owner said he travels the state speaking to local high school and college students about his experience as a Freedom Rider.

Senior Priscilla Perez helped organize the expo and was pleased with the turnout.

“I hope the students gained a new found appreciation and knowledge of African-American history,” the 17-year-old said. “I hope this event inspired them to do more for their community.”

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Looking for work? So are Deborah Hayes, who lost her job at Saturn in Tinley Park after the dealership closed last year, and Joan Frazer, who wants to supplement her part-time job as a substitute teacher.

The two Mokena residents joined a handful of others last week at the Mokena Public Library to apply for a position thousands will soon hold across the Southland: census worker.

“It’s evening and weekends, so the hours fit in perfectly with my work,” Frazer said. “You can’t find a lot of jobs like that.”

The U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting about 14,000 workers throughout the Southland, said Jennifer Sciacca, the bureau’s regional recruiter for Wisconsin and Illinois.

While much of that recruiting has already been done, the number of needed workers is likely to go up in April once the bureau determines which homes didn’t send back their questionnaires.

“We wanted to be conservative with our initial testing,” Sciacca said. “We based our recruiting numbers on actual hiring for the 2000 census.”

Census workers are the rank and file of the massive 2010 census operation, knocking on doors and helping residents fill out their questionnaires. Hayes, who worked two previous special censuses in the 1990s in Mokena and Tinley Park, said the job takes patience but makes for interesting days.

“You need someone who pays attention to detail, someone who’s willing to walk in the rain and the snow,” she said.

With unemployment at historic highs, there’s been a big rush to apply for census jobs in some areas, Sciacca said. But recruiting has been sluggish in other areas, a quirk that Sciacca thinks might foreshadow a dip in those towns’ headcounts this year.

“Maybe there’s been a shift in population,” she said. “The response rates are reflective of those changes.”

Have questions about snagging a census job? Here’s everything you need to know.

How do I apply for a job?

Visit www.census.gov or call (866) 861-2010 to find out where you can take the census worker test.

Who is eligible for a job?

Applicants must be at least 18, have a Social Security number, have a valid driver’s license and be able to speak, read and write English.

How much will I make?

Pay for Southland census workers starts at $17.50 an hour. Jobs run for two to six weeks, and workers are on the job 20 to 40 hours a week.

Will taking a census job affect my unemployment benefits?

That depends on a number of things, including your employment history and how long you’ve been collecting benefits, an Illinois Department of Employment Security spokesman said.

In general, you can earn half of your weekly unemployment check before your benefits are reduced, and then they’re reduced on a dollar-by-dollar basis.

So if you’re getting $300 in unemployment weekly and your census job also pays $300 a week, your unemployment check will be reduced to $150 weekly.

Does the Census Bureau hire people with criminal records?

The government runs a background check on all applicants and determines whether to hire people with criminal records on a case-by-case basis.

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Megan Fox’s yearbook picture is quite the anomaly, I think many of us look back at our high school yearbook photos in horror, or at best bemusement, but not Megan Fox. Her yearbook picture shows she was already hot in high school, and you can already feel the raw charisma that would later make her a star.

These yearbook pictures are presumably from Fox’s time at St. Lucie West Centennial High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. Megan actually only spent a few years there before testing out and graduating early at the age of 17. Fox has spoken extensively of her time at St.Lucie West, claiming she was never popular, due to an aggressive personality and the fact that she got along better with boys. I think we can kind of see some evidence of that in these yearbook photos.

More pictures from Megan Fox’s old yearbooks after the jump:

Article Tags: Alan Siddons

Insulated by an outer crust, the surface of the earth acquires nearly all of its heat from the sun. The only exit for this heat to take is through a door marked “Radiation.” And therein lies a tale…

Recently, I chanced upon an Atmospheric Science Educator Guide [PDF] published by NASA. Aimed at students in grades 5 through 8, it helps teachers explain how so-called “greenhouse gases” warm our planet Earth.

These guides are interesting on a number of levels, so I recommend that you look them over. But what caught my eye was this:

Question: Do all of the gases in our atmosphere absorb heat?
Answer: (Allow students to discuss their ideas. Don’t provide the answer at this time.)

Indeed, that’s a good one to think over yourself. Almost all of what we’re breathing is nitrogen and oxygen — do these gases absorb heat? Lakes and rocks absorb heat, after all, and thereby reach a higher temperature. So can nitrogen and oxygen molecules do the same?

Well, I won’t keep you hanging. After allowing students to discuss it, the instructor is instructed to give them the final verdict.

Click source to read FULL report by Alan Siddons

Source: americanthinker.com

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Article Tags: Statement

The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.

The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry, ‘The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’.

The submission details our response to the questions listed in the call for evidence, which was prepared with input from the Institute’s Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group.

What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

Source: publications.parliament.uk

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Article Tags: ClimateGate

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails has been accused of making a misleading statement to Parliament.

The University of East Anglia wrote this week to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee giving the impression that it had been exonerated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). However, the university failed to disclose that the ICO had expressed serious concerns that one of its professors had proposed deleting information to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the university’s Climatic Research Unit, has stepped down while an inquiry takes place into allegations that he manipulated data to avoid scrutiny of his claims that manmade emissions were causing global warming. Professor Edward Acton, the university’s vice-chancellor, published a statement he sent to the committee before giving evidence to MPs at a public hearing on Monday. He said a letter from the ICO “indicated that no breach of the law has been established [and] that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie”.

But the ICO’s letter said: “The prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence.”

Source: timesonline.co.uk

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