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Page 93 of 133
Saturday, June 27, 2009
On Friday, the United States House of Representatives passed House Resolution 2998, better known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, following days of debate. The final vote was 219–212, with only 8 Republicans voting for the legislation, and 44 Democrats voting against it. The resolution addresses the “greenhouse effect,” and calls for a 17% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and an 83% reduction by 2050. In addition, the legislation will establish new requirements for utilities, and various incentives for “going green.”
The resolution was sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman of California, and Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts. At 3:09 a.m. (EDT) on Friday morning, a 341 page amendment was added to the resolution. In an attempted filibuster, House Minority Leader John Boehner read the majority of the added amendment, and stated that “…when you file a 300-page amendment at 3:09 a.m., the American people have a right to know what’s in this bill.”
Reactions to the legislation have been mixed, with opponents and advocates speaking out. The President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin Knobloch, said that the Union was “thrilled that Congress has finally caught up with science and the American people in recognizing the need to switch on clean energy.” A report by the The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, stated that the legislation would “damage the economy and hobble growth.”
Most House Republicans opposed the bill for going too far in its regulation, with GOP chairman Mike Pence saying that “raising the cost of energy is a bad idea in prosperous times.” Democrat Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand, opposed the bill for not going far enough, calling it an “illusion” that “locks us into a framework that will fail.” Kucinich pointed out that the bill gives subsidies to coal, which is not a clean source of fuel, and includes greenhouse gas emitters such as trash incinerators under its definition of “renewable energy.”
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Submitted by: Laurel Lindsay
You probably know that semi-trailers are vital to the transportation industry. Retailers, manufacturers, and even people living in remote areas rely on them to carry large quantities of goods through cities and remote areas alike. Used heavy trucks are for sale everywhere, and they can be a valuable addition to an expanding business, proving to be an investment that can pay off in some surprising ways. Here are some common uses for semi-trailer trucks and a hot tip or two for buying them in each usage situation.
Delivery for Hire
If you ve seen the new TV show Shipping Wars , you know there are an awful lot of opportunities out there if you re selling delivery services. Do you live near farmers who regularly have crops they need hauled after harvest? A semi-trailer can haul 1,000-1,200 bushels of grain. Do you live near a military base where families need to move frequently? A semi-trailer can transport the belongings of several families at once, and all the big stuff will fit. Know someone that needs to carry a few cars from one place to another at a cost that s cheaper than a commercial driver? A semi will solve that problem.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dc5iiT0f1s[/youtube]
The semi-trailer side of the used heavy trucks market is a goldmine of opportunity for someone wanting to get into the heavy transportation business. Many people who work for a trucking company buy their own semi-trailer as soon as they can to increase their profits, and the profits are even better if you are an independent contractor. Tip: when looking at used heavy trucks for sale, check the trailer carefully for structural damage, mold, and rust. Get on the ground and slide under the truck to look at its undercarriage too. This is where a lot of damage gets missed during an inspection.
Pickup and Hauling Services
Do you own a successful landscaping or construction business? Maybe you ve found a great source for cheap quartz and gravel if you can pick it up, or you know a place to get inexpensive lumber for fences and decks. Are there businesses around that hire out heavy duty pickup or hauling jobs? A semi-trailer can haul up to 80,000 pounds in most places without requiring an overload permit. This type of used heavy truck really gives you an awful lot of cargo space, and the opportunity to rent out your services or equipment.
Tip: are you interested in used heavy trucks to haul planks, soil, rock, demolished buildings or other materials regularly? Ask to see the maintenance log before you commit to buying any used semi-trailer. If the seller tells you it got lost or he will find it later, refuse to buy unless you see proof that regular maintenance was performed. You don t want to risk the truck breaking down if it s something your bread and butter depends on daily.
Semi Storage
During down times semi-trailers are, oddly enough, sometimes used as storage units!If it s not being used for hard labour, some truckers are opting to double its value and use it for temporary storage. If you live in an area where parking a semi is permissible or you can rent a space inexpensively for one, you too can use a semi-trailer as storage space. Your semi-trailer can store equipment for your landscaping business during the off-season, from tractors to lawnmowers. If you re waiting to move into a new home and don t want to pay extra for a commercial storage unit, use your semi-trailer to house items that do not require climate control. You might even retain its income capacity during periods of inactivity by renting it out as a short term alternative to a storage locker.
Tip: used heavy trucks for sale by the owner are always in variable condition. Ask if you can take one to a mechanic to be inspected before you buy it. Check specifically for leaks or cracks in the trailer so the elements don t ruin any goods that might be kept there for periods of time.
There is a lot involved in comparing and choosing from all the used heavy trucks for sale out there. There s a lot of driving around to see various vehicles, a long checklist of must-haves, not to mention the mechanical tests they have to pass.But after you ve made it through the buying process,a semi-trailer will pay for itself over time and make many business needs much easier to fulfill.
About the Author: Browse Used Heavy Trucks for Sale:
dunlopsterling.com/index.php/inventory/used-heavy-trucks-for-sale
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Monday, June 2, 2008
Today, United States Senator Ted Kennedy underwent surgery for a brain tumor at Duke University Medical Center. Kennedy, 76, was diagnosed with malignant glioma, a common but dangerous form of cancer, after suffering a seizure on May 17.
Kennedy has met repeatedly with friend and medical advisor Dr. Lawrence C. Horowitz to plan a course of treatment. The first, of the major phases of that treatment has now been completed, and it is expected that chemotherapy and radiotherapy will follow.
“I am pleased to report that Senator Kennedy’s surgery was successful and accomplished our goals,” said Dr. Allan Friedman, the chief of neurosurgery at Duke, who performed the surgery. “After a brief recuperation, he will begin targeted radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital and chemotherapy treatment,” Friedman added.
In talks with the press, the senator has focused on his future beyond surgery. In a prepared statement issued by his office, Kennedy stated, “after completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president.”
Friday, February 1, 2019
Bruce McArthur, from Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday admitted his guilt in eight murders. McArthur pleaded guilty to each crime at the Superior Court.
Beginning in 2010 and continuing for seven years, McArthur murdered gay men; all but one victim was found dismembered in large planters at a house he had access to. The eighth was discovered in a nearby ravine. McArthur’s first victim of the eight was 40-year-old Skandaraj Navaratnam, a former boyfriend and employee of McArthur. The 67-year-old killer had kept a bracelet of Navaratnam’s.
Other items kept from victims include a notebook from one victim and further jewellery from another. A search of McArthur’s van found an alleged murder weapon, which was not publicly identified; inside McArthur’s home was a bag with syringes, a glove, duct tape, zip ties, and a bungee cord. Six of the murders were, according to agreed facts heard in court, “sexual in nature” and five of those involved ligatures.
Several of the deceased had links to an area of the city known as the Gay Village. Many were vulnerable, but the final victim, LGBT activist Andrew Kinsman, 49, was quickly reported missing. It is now known McArthur was twice interviewed by police during the killings before he was linked to them.
McArthur travelled selling socks and other undergarments. He also ran a small landscaping business.
Sentencing is scheduled for February 4. McArthur faces a mandatory life sentence with a minimum term of 25 years for first-degree murder; the prosecution can seek to run these consecutively.
Toronto Police, which indicated on Monday a “significant development” was likely at Tuesday’s hearing, face allegations they failed to react quickly enough to the series of disappearances. Some members of the local LGBT community have been critical; mayor John Tory on Tuesday suggested a broader probe into the surrounding circumstances may be required. National LGBT news source Daily Xtra?’s editorial director, Rachel Giese, said she felt Tuesday’s pleas might provide “some solace for the families and friends of the victims, and for the community more broadly,” but would not answer questions being asked of authorities.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
This year Israel turns sixty and it has embarked upon a campaign to celebrate its birthday. Along with technology writers for Slate, PC Magazine, USA Today, BusinessWeek, Aviation Weekly, Wikinews was invited by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli Foreign Ministry to review Israel’s technology sector. It’s part of an effort to ‘re-brand the country’ to show America that there is more to Israel than the Palestinian conflict. On this trip we saw the people who gave us the Pentium processor and Instant Messaging. The schedule was hectic: 12-14 hours a day were spent doing everything from trips to the Weizmann Institute to dinner with Yossi Vardi.
On Thursday, the fifth day of the junket, David Saranga of the foreign ministry was able to arrange an exclusive interview for David Shankbone with the President of Israel, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shimon Peres. For over an hour they spoke about Iranian politics, whether Israel is in danger of being side-lined in Middle Eastern importance because of Arab oil wealth, and his thoughts against those who say Israeli culture is in a state of decay.
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Shimon Peres spent his early days on kibbutz, a bygone socialist era of Israel. In 1953, at the age of 29, Peres became the youngest ever Director General of the Ministry of Defense. Forty years later it was Peres who secretly gave the green light for dialogue with Yassir Arafat, of the verboten Palestine Liberation Organization. It was still official Israeli policy to not speak with the PLO. Peres shares a Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzak Rabin and Arafat for orchestrating what eventually became the Oslo Accords. The “roadmap” that came out of Oslo remains the official Israeli (and American) policy for peace in the Palestinian conflict. Although the majority of Israeli people supported the plans, land for peace was met with a small but fiery resistance in Israel. For negotiating with Arafat, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shouted at Peres, “You are worse than Chamberlain!” a reference to Hitler’s British appeaser. It was during this time of heated exchanges in the 1990s that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a Jew who thought it against Halakhic law to give up land given by God (Hashem).
Peres is the elder statesman of Israeli politics, but he remembers that he has not always been as popular as he is today. “Popularity is like perfume: nice to smell, dangerous to drink,” said Peres. “You don’t drink it.” The search for popularity, he goes on to say, will kill a person who has an idea against the status quo.
Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Shimon Peres, the President of Israel.
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- Best Hair Transplant Surgeon In Manhattan
Submitted by: Chris Chew
Many people will like to lose weight to have a slim, attractive and healthy body. However, when it comes to doing it, they baulk at expensive gym memberships or the rigors of some starvation diets or at the idea of not being able to eat what they want.
Contrary to popular beliefs, losing weight can be a simple and uncomplicated matter. All you need to do is to bear this concept in mind. In order to lose weight successfully, you need to expand more calories than you consume. That is all there is to it. Over a period of time, you will reach your desired weight if you adhere to the concept and barring any medical conditions that make you otherwise.
So let us start with the calories you are eating everyday. You do not need to go on any starvation or fad diets. All you need to do is just to choose the food you eat more carefully.
Firstly, begin to consume less high calorie or empty calorie food and drinks. Start with avoiding sugary stuff. Consumption of sugary food and drinks will cause a spike in your blood insulin and this will cause your body to store fat. So if you need to have the cup of coffee or tea, then drink them without sugar. Yup, not even artificial sugar as that can also cause your body to accumulate fat, but is too much to explain here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm7gWLmjck8[/youtube]
That being said, avoid any other beverages that contain sugar of any kind. That means your lemonade, soda or any syrupy drinks. Many people who have a sweet tooth can already notice a drop in their weight once they avoid all the sweet stuffs.
Next, zero in on the food you eat. Do you snack with high carbohydrate foods such as cakes, confectionaries, pastries and the likes. These foods are high in caloric content, many of them contain sugars and worse, transfat. You can do without all these. Again, if you snack with these foods frequently, and once you avoid them, you will soon see the pounds dropping away.
Stay away from alcoholic beverages. Alcohol contains plenty of empty calories which do nothing good to your health, but make you put on weight. Oh, so you thought that drinking food juices are fine. Well, they are not! Once you squeeze out the juices from the fruits, many of the fruit’s benefits are lost. The juices may contain some vitamins, but they are simply sugar drinks. As for the vitamins and minerals, you can get them from your vegetables or actual fruits.
Now that you have a caloric reduction in what you eat, let us look at some activities that you can do to ramp up your calorie burning furnace. Take your dog out for regular walks or volunteer to do it for your neighbors who have pet dogs. Do that once in the morning and evening. Let your hair down and enjoy the walk and the scenery.
Don’t like dogs? Then join a dancing class. Dancing can burn a lot of calories. Furthermore, you will get to meet new friends with the same interest and who knows, maybe even your life partner.
Whatever it is, just take up some activities which you can enjoy and keep your body moving to burn off the extra calories. These activities when done with regularity together with good eating habits will help you to lose weight gradually.
So you see, losing weight does not mean that you need to go hungry on some diets, you can still eat what you want except with some exceptions or joining expensive gyms to workout in. Losing weight can be fun and even enjoyable.
About the Author: Chris Chew is a sought after fitness consultant who counts models, actors and other celebrities as his clients. Read his free articles at
What To Eat To Lose Weight
and
Lose Weight For Girls
Source:
isnare.com
Permanent Link:
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Friday, April 11, 2008
Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine. The magazine, which is free to read online, was started as a resource for the low budget moviemaker and features book, independent film, equipment and software reviews as well as articles on film distribution, special effects and lighting.
He says that one of the goals of the magazine is to “connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many…..often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted “shots” with Hollywood, that they can quickly forget their similarities.”
When asked if films made on a shoestring budget can really compete with those made for millions of dollars, he replied, “no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain.” And so he does in the interview below.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sweden’s first royal wedding since 1976 took place Saturday when Crown Princess Victoria, 32, married her long-time boyfriend and former personal trainer, Daniel Westling, 36. The ceremony took place at Stockholm Cathedral.
Over 1,200 guests, including many rulers, politicians, royals and other dignitaries from across the world, attended the wedding, which cost an estimated 20 million Swedish kronor. Victoria wore a wedding dress with five-metre long train designed by Pär Engsheden. She wore the same crown that her mother, Queen Silvia, wore on her wedding day 34 years previously, also on June 19. Victoria’s father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, walked Victoria down the aisle, which was deemed untraditional by many. In Sweden, the bride and groom usually walk down the aisle together, emphasising the country’s views on equality. Victoria met with Daniel half-way to the altar, where they exchanged brief kisses, and, to the sounds of the wedding march, made their way to the the silver altar. She was followed by ten bridesmaids. The couple both had tears in their eyes as they said their vows, and apart from fumbling when they exchanged rings, the ceremony went smoothly.
Following the ceremony, the couple headed a fast-paced procession through central Stockholm on a horse-drawn carriage, flanked by police and security. Up to 500,000 people are thought to have lined the streets. They then boarded the Vasaorden, the same royal barge Victoria’s parents used in their wedding, and traveled through Stockholm’s waters, accompanied by flyover of 18 fighter jets near the end of the procession. A wedding banquet followed in the in the Hall of State of the Royal Palace.
Controversy has surrounded the engagement and wedding between the Crown Princess and Westling, a “commoner”. Victoria met Westling as she was recovering from bulemia in 2002. He owned a chain of gymnasiums and was brought in to help bring Victoria back to full health. Westling was raised in a middle-class family in Ockelbo, in central Sweden. His father managed a social services centre, and his mother worked in a post office. When the relationship was made public, Westling was mocked as an outsider and the king was reportedly horrified at the thought of his daughter marrying a “commoner”, even though he did so when he married Silvia. Last year, Westling underwent transplant surgery for a congenital kidney disorder. The Swedish public have been assured that he will be able to have children and that his illness will not be passed on to his offspring.
Westling underwent years of training to prepare for his new role in the royal family, including lessons in etiquette, elocution, and multi-lingual small talk; and a makeover that saw his hair being cropped short, and his plain-looking glasses and clothes being replaced by designer-wear.
Upon marrying the Crown Princess, Westling took his wife’s ducal title and is granted the style “His Royal Highness”. He is now known as HRH Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. He also has his own coat-of-arms and monogram. When Victoria assumes the throne and becomes Queen, Daniel will not become King, but assume a supportive role, similar to that of Prince Phillip, the husband of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tuesday, World Bank released the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development. In discussing Iceland, it suggests mandatory paid parental leave for mother and father have played an important role in changing norms in the country. Parents have a government mandated nine months leave, three for the mother, three for the father and three to to distribute between the two. Leave is paid at 80% of their wages. The report describes the changes in gender relations in Iceland as “promising” in terms of impact at work and at home.
Iceland’s boys and girls mean scores for the Programme for International Student Assessment mathematics test were nearly identical with boys just edging out girls with both scores around 510. Girls outperformed boys on the literacy test with a mean score of approximately 525 to 480. Iceland’s girls mathematics performance was similar to that of girls from Estonia, Germany and Belgium. Their performance on literacy was similar to Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Estonia and Belgium.File:MargretSverrisdottir.jpg
Mortality rates in Iceland for 1,000 people aged 15–60 sits at 56, significantly better than the United States at 107, China at 113, India at 213, Iraq at 285, Afghanistan at 479, Malawi at 481 and Zimbabwe at 772. One of the reasons the report cites for Iceland’s relatively low mortality rate is it not located in a conflict country or in an HIV/AIDS affected country.
Iceland was one of 23 countries that currently have over 30% of its Parliamentarians who are female. Other countries with over 30% representation include Rwanda, Argentina, Cuba, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In the mid-1990s, there were only 5 countries. The report cites the 1983 creation of the Women’s Alliance, an all women’s political party, as bringing additional attention to women’s issues and deliberately attempting to increase the representation of women in Icelandic politics.
Despite some of the good news highlighted in the report about Icelandic women, there exists a systematic gender difference in earning potential. Icelandic women in both the private and public sector earn approximately 22% less than their male counterparts. Icelandic men have slightly more access to the Internet than Icelandic women by about 2%. Despite this slight disadvantage for Icelandic women, it is much better than some countries where the percentage differences are much greater. These countries include Austria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Turkey, and Macedonia.