Renowned pianist succumbs to cancer

The day before she died, Marilyn Meier-Kapavale called to her dad as he left her hospital room and said: ??Don?t forget [the kids?] piano lessons??.

It was a typical reminder from the mum, who despite her illness, found energy to keep tabs on her three children then being cared for by their grandfather.

In hindsight, her last words to Hermann Meier last week were a poignant farewell.

??She put her hand up and said don?t forget and I thought okay, okay, then she died at 2am [last] Friday,?? Mr Meier said yesterday. ??It feels so empty now.??

Dr Meier-Kapavale, an international concert pianist and University of Wollongong guest lecturer, succumbed to a rare form of liver cancer after a 12-month battle. She was 48.

Born in Camden, she was one of two daughters of Mr Meier and his Tongan wife, the late Alisi Uimui-ki-Ha?ano Heimuli.

First tinkling the ivories at age four, it wasn?t long before Dr Meier-Kapavale was labelled a child prodigy.

By 15, she was in the United States studying with Bela Siki at the College-Conservatory at the University of Cincinnati. Then it was the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

Professor Bela Siki described the Australian as ??one of the most talented pianists of her generation??.

Completing her doctoral studies at the University of Wollongong, Dr Meier-Kapavale was always in demand as a performer, piano competition adjudicator and teacher.

She was a soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, ABC symphony orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and performed in Japan, Europe, the United States and across the South Pacific.

In 1990, she raised $15,000 to bring a classical music tour to Tonga. King Taufa?ahau Tupou IV awarded her the Silver Jubilee Medal for services to music in Tonga.

Back home she mingled with Bob Hawke, Slim Dusty and Dawn Fraser, to name a few.

??Marilyn came runner-up in 1989 as the Young Australian of the Year,?? her dad recalled. ??She was beaten by Duncan Armstrong; that?s pretty good for a piano player.??

But success didn?t change the humble musician.

??She was never put on a pedestal. We weren?t those parents who push their children. She was the one pushing us with her music,?? he said. ??Her music is wonderful. I?ll have it forever.??

When diagnosed with cancer, Dr Meier-Kapavale was head of keyboard at the University of Southern Queensland.

??She was doing chemo with remarkable results until this February when she moved back home,?? Mr Meier said.

Just a few weeks ago she visited Wollongong.

??I took Marilyn down to the beach. We sat while the kiddies were playing, there was nice surf, the air blowing all over her. We were going to be doing a lot more of that.??

Dr Meier-Kapavale is survived by her children - Marie-Luise, 12, Grace, 10, and nine-year-old Beni. Her funeral will be held at Camden Uniting Church at 10am on Tuesday.

Source: http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/renowned-pianist-succumbs-to-cancer/2608554.aspx?src=rss

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Buzz over Higgs boson hits new heights

ATLAS Collaboration / CERN

This diagram shows the results of a proton-on-proton collision in the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector last September, with four muons indicated by red tracks. Such a result could be consistent with the Standard Model with or without the Higgs boson, depending on the analysis of multiple events.

By Alan Boyle

Has the Higgs boson finally been detected? It's almost gotten to the point that if a discovery of some sort doesn't come out of next week's update on the multibillion-dollar subatomic search, it'll be a big surprise. But how far will the announcement go, and what will it mean for the future of physics?

To refresh your memory, the Higgs boson is the only fundamental subatomic particle predicted by theory but not yet detected. It's thought to play a role in endowing some particles, such as the W and Z boson, with mass ... while leaving other particles, such as the photon, massless. The Higgs mechanism, proposed by British physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s, could have played a role in electroweak symmetry breaking, which was a key event in the rise of the universe as we know it.

---

The Higgs boson is so key to the current understanding of fundamental physics that Nobel-winning scientist Leon Lederman nicknamed it the "God Particle"?? a term that has been making other physicists wince ever since. Another religion-tinged cliche would be to call it the "holy grail of particle physics," as CERN physicist John Ellis has. He says finding the Higgs is a key goal for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider.

"That's one thing that we're really looking forward to with the LHC," Ellis told me five years ago. "In fact, back when we persuaded the politicians to stump up the money to build the thing, that's probably what we told them."

Last December, the teams reported that they saw "tantalizing hints" of the Higgs' existence at a mass of around 125 billion electron volts, or 125 GeV. But the confidence in those results was not yet high enough to claim a discovery.?Now the teams behind the collider's CMS and ATLAS experiments have collected higher piles of data, at higher energy levels, sparking higher expectations.

An hour-long BBC Horizon documentary focuses on the hunt for the Higgs boson.

The 5-sigma fetish
When physicists talk about their confidence, they talk in terms of statistical "sigma" levels. The higher the sigma, the less likely that the results are just a fluke. In particle physics, 3 sigma constitutes strong evidence, but it takes 5 sigma to accept the results as a discovery. At the 5-sigma level, statisticians say there's roughly one chance out of 3 million that you're leaping to the wrong conclusion, as opposed to a 1-in-1,000 chance at the 3-sigma level.?That distinction makes a big difference when you're sifting through billions upon billions of proton-on-proton collision reports.

Last year, the best that the LHC teams could do was 3.6 sigma for ATLAS, and 2.6 for CMS. Now physicists are looking for a 5.

For three weeks, the teams have been running the numbers on their experimental results in secret, so as to avoid any chance that one analysis will influence the other. Their results are to be announced during a presentation at the CERN nuclear research center in Geneva, which will be webcast starting at 9 a.m. CEST (3 a.m. ET) on July 4. Although no official word has leaked out, the unofficial word is that someone looking for a discovery could get to the magic number.

"Reports from the experiments indicate that at least one of them, if not both, will reach the 5 sigma level of significance for the Higgs signal, when they combine 2011 and 2012 data and the most sensitive channel. So, this will definitely be the long-awaited Higgs discovery announcement, and party time for HEP [high-energy physics] physicists," Columbia mathematician Peter Woit wrote on his Not Even Wrong blog a week ago.

Since then, other physicist-bloggers have been fine-tuning the expectations. Here's a selection:

• On the Resonaances blog, physicist Adam Falkowski (a.k.a. Jester) has a countdown clock ticking toward the Higgs discovery. "It is not clear, at least to me, if either of the two experiments will pass the 5-sigma fetish. But it does not really matter. ... What's going to change next Wednesday is that the status of the Higgs will be upgraded from 'almost certain' to 'beyond reasonable doubt.'"
• On Quantum Diaries, Southern Methodist University physicist Aidan Randle-Conde advises against trying to combine the data from the two teams to get to 5 sigma. "With all this pressure to get as much out of the data as possible, it's tempting to move too quickly and do what we can to get a discovery, but now is not the time to rush things," he writes.
• On the?ViXra Log, Philip Gibbs says that when CERN's researchers report their progress, "it is likely that the main question they are investigating will switch from 'Is there a Higgs Boson?' to 'Is it the Standard Model Higgs boson?'"
• On a blog titled "Of Particular Significance,"?Rutgers physicist Matt Strassler advises caution,?but also suggests getting "the cases of champagne ready, in case the time has finally come to pop the corks." He points out that a discovery announcement would by no means be the end of the story. "Even if we see strong evidence of a Higgs-like particle ... the correct understanding of that particle?? in particular, determining whether it is or isn't a 'simplest Higgs'?? may take years."
• As we approach H-Hour, you can expect to hear more via all these outlets as well as other blogs such as Cosmic Variance?and "A Quantum Diaries Survivor."

Physicist Gigi Rolandi discusses the Higgs search in a CERN video.

Hedging on the Higgs
What Strassler and Gibbs are saying is important: Technically speaking, CERN is unlikely to announce that the Higgs boson has been definitively discovered. It's more likely that physicists will talk about a new particle that has a signature consistent with the Higgs but has to be investigated further.

CERN hinted at that approach last week in the news release announcing Wednesday's webcast. "It's a bit like spotting a familiar face from afar," said the center's director general, Rolf Heuer. "Sometimes you need closer inspection to find out whether it's really your best friend, or actually your best friend's twin."

Gigi Rolandi, a senior research physicist at CERN, used a similar analogy in a video released this week, referring to crops of corn (which he calls maize, as most Europeans do), wheat (which he calls corn) and poppy flowers. Some particles are as easy to spot as a red poppy in a wheat field, he said. But not the Higgs.?"The search for the Higgs is more similar to looking for a single plant of maize among many, many corn plants, than looking for a poppy among the corn," he said.

We'll get a foretaste of Wednesday's proceedings on Monday, when Fermilab is due to provide its final update on the Higgs boson search, based on the full set of data from the now-closed Tevatron. Will Fermilab try to steal some of CERN's thunder, at least for a couple of days? Stay tuned....

Previous episodes in the Higgs hunt:

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12488155-higgs-boson-buzz-hits-new-heights?lite

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Before and After Plastic Surgery: The Starting Point of Enlarging Your

Posted June 29th, 2012.

If you?re considering augmenting the size of your breasts with surgery, understand that there are many different ways you can go with this type of surgery. One of the best ways to determine the look that you want, initially, is to look at Before and After Plastic Surgery photos of women who have had Breast Augmentation surgery in the past. While you may be limited to the type of finished product that you have because of the individual shape and size of your breasts, this will give you and the cosmetic surgeon a good idea of what you want.

The next step in the breast enhancement surgery process is to determine what type of surgery and what type of implants you?ll want. While it may be surprising to some people, there are more than one type of surgery to augment the size of the breasts and there?s also more than one type of implant that can be used as well. The difference in the types of surgery and the type of implants may be the feel or the look of the augmented breasts and the different surgeries and implants can also have an impact on the overall cost of the procedure well.

When you visit a cosmetic surgeon for this type of procedure, it?s important that you try to think of every relevant question which you can and ask these questions during the consultation. However, regardless of how prepared you are, you may find that you overlooked an important question.

You can try and reach the physician and ask him or her the question or you can make use of a Breast Implant Forum for a potential answer to that question as well. These forums will usually have past and present cosmetic surgery patients. These forums are also often visited by cosmetic surgeons and cosmetic surgery experts. In these cases, you can usually either find an answer to the question you have or you can simply ask the question and wait for the various responses that you?ll likely get on these forums.

Whether you?re trying to find answers for upcoming breast enlargement surgery or you?re simply looking for more information to decide if it?s right for you, looking at pictures, speaking to plastic surgeons or simply visiting an online forum is an excellent place to start.

Source: http://www.audiolib.org/medical-health-news/before-and-after-plastic-surgery-the-starting-point-of-enlarging-your-breasts/

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UMHealthSystem: Former @umichfootball coach Lloyd Carr meets peregrine falcon hatched on Univ. Hosp. roof that was named in his honor: http://t.co/XeaoYcEa

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Source: http://twitter.com/UMHealthSystem/statuses/218734879448367104

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Study in China links BPA exposure to brain tumors (Americablog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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BBC launches a live streaming sports app for Facebook

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Legal illegal immigration | Right Wing News

President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly that blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30; who are in, or graduated from, high school or have served in the military; and who have not been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors. And while most Americans sympathize with helping those who were brought into the United States as toddlers, raised as de facto Americans and followed the rules, the policy of exempting hundreds of thousands en masse in the long run may create far more problems than it solves.

First was the cynical timing. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House and could easily have enacted such a law over all opposition. So why was the edict handed down in a tough campaign year?

Then there is a problem of constitutionality, an especially serious issue for former constitutional law lecturer Barack Obama, who ran on the premise that he would restore respect for the separation of powers. But as seen in the reversal of the order of the Chrysler creditors, the attempt to shut down a non-union Boeing plant in South Carolina, the decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and the recent use of executive privilege not to hand over Fast and Furious documents, this administration sometimes just bypasses a now-difficult Congress to rule by fiat.

The move contradicts Obama?s earlier claim that a de facto amnesty ?would not conform with my appropriate role as president.? He later reiterated that ?some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own,? but ?that?s not how our system works.?

In theory, the federal government currently treats illegal aliens on a case-by-case basis, as it allots limited resources to determine who most urgently should be deported and who need not be. The president has added some vague qualifiers to his blanket proclamation concerning schooling and criminal activity. But given that in a state like California, Hispanic males are dropping out of high school at a rate of nearly 40 percent, will the new policy result in summary deportations? That is, once we have chosen those who will not be deported, do we then go after thousands who dropped out, went on state assistance or have been convicted of crimes? And how do we authenticate age and length of residency?

Not long ago, the president, in explaining his personal desire for some sort of amnesty, lamented to Hispanic leaders that they needed to ?punish our enemies? at the polls. But is illegal immigration always the single most important issue for Hispanics? Some polls show the Latino community divided almost evenly over open borders. That is understandable, given that the presence of 11 million to 15 million illegal aliens masks the national profile of Latino success. In terms of the rates of assimilation, integration, intermarriage and economic ascendency, Latino Americans who legally immigrated to the United States are mirroring past experiences of successful southern European immigrants.

In Southwestern states, American citizens of Hispanic ancestry share in the increased costs associated with spiraling incarceration rates, plummeting test scores and overtaxed social services, which at least in part reflect the difficult efforts to accommodate those who arrived illegally from the poorest regions of Latin America. A cynic might argue that employers and identity-politics elites jointly welcomed in illegal aliens, the former wanting cheaper labor, the latter wanting more constituents. But driving down wages in hard times and increasing government costs is not always beneficial for small businesses and entry-level American workers ? increasing numbers of them Hispanics.

Finally, is it wise to tie our immigration policy so intimately to race and ethnicity, rather than individual merit and circumstances? Presently we equate massive influxes with Latin America and particularly Mexico. But we forget that Asians now comprise the largest group of new immigrants. Almost all come legally, and many arrive with capital, college educations and specialized skills. Following the president?s election-year example, are we to expect the Asian community, in the fashion of Latino lobbyists, to demand even more visas for kindred groups? Should we now waive the immigration rules for economic refugees from the collapsing European Union?

The president?s decision is politically tainted, constitutionally suspect, cynically timed and poorly thought out. But it did result in one unintended consequence: We are reminded once again that there are millions of foreign nationals dying to reach the United States ? and to stay at any cost after they get here.

(Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of the just-released ?The End of Sparta.? You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.)

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Google: 400 million Android devices, one million activations a day

Google has just kicked off its I/O keynote with some big new numbers to share. It now says there are 400 million activated Android devices out there, and one million activations per day. That's up from the 100 million activated devices it announced at Google I/O last year, and 200 million it announced last fall, while the activations per day are up from the 900k it confirmed just earlier this month. As Google was quick to point out, that translates to about 12 devices activated every second, and it's happy to note that things are "definitely not slowing down."

Google: 400 million Android devices, one million activations a day originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yoga and Meditation Benefits | e-Fitness For Life

In Yoga, mental performance is recognized as the thing and the entire body being the patient. It teaches to begin the force to your other parts with the body. Right here is the only sort of exercise that is highly proficient in involving the mind and soul. Meditation is enrichment in your soul. A meditative state is constituted being a classification of yoga. The spiritual advantage of meditation is definitely an ultimate kingdom come or enlightenment which are often misunderstood by many. Yoga and Meditation has many benefits for you to yourself must be stronger internally. Their benefits will certainly cause you to interested in this process form of exercise.

1. Yoga increases flexibility. It involves practicing different Yoga postures, which activly works to different joints of your body. This turn helps eliminate common ailments like backaches, headaches, etc. Increasing flexibility is critical. Yoga has positions that functions the main body especially the joints who are not often used during exercise. Correcting Yogic stretching develops all the body. After the liver is trained together, it is going to develop harmony and balance in your body. When resisting muscle tissues are typical trained, flexibility will function faster for the reason that contrasting muscle group?s interact with each other not against or without the other.

2. Yoga can also help you control blood pressure. Regarded as alternative healthcare which you can use to control: hypertension, beats per minute, temperature, respiratory function, high stress level, rate of metabolism. Which is the technical side. But the controlling the harmful these have equal benefits about the physical side. For instance, controlling the harmful blood pressure levels can assist in eliminating the danger of being hypertensive (ailment that corresponds to our hypertension).

3. Yoga tones the muscles. You can find gone the excess fat without sweating. Additionally, it can stimulate your muscle without exercising way too hard.

Whilst in meditation, it will eventually increase your body lustre and our health and wellbeing. It has to pay attention to one particular perhaps the body. Zinc improves the blood flowing. Cells will receive more oxygen and nutrients. Meditation may also transform your concentration. It strengthens mental performance and keeps it under control that should allow you to provide guidance to the body effectively.

4. Meditation lowers your oxygen consumption. It decreases by 10 to 20%, bringing about a deep state of relaxation, a lot more effective when compared to a night of sleep. It cuts down on pre- menstrual syndrome and anxiety and panic attacks by lowering the quantities of blood lactate.

5. Meditation keeps your heart healthy. Yes, meditation can certainly help maintain heart healthy by upping your the flow of blood, which slows your heartbeat. Less work with your heart. Furthermore, it boosts the manufacturing of serotonin which influences mood and behavior. (A minimal a higher level serotonin is owned by depression, obesity, insomnia and headaches and enhances the immune system.)

6. Meditation helps build your endurance. Meditation decreases respiratory rate and muscle. This act lets you create your endurance. People who higher endurance tend to be more productive each day. Having the capacity to accomplish many things gives people the feeling of happiness through fulfillment. If there is one reason to start on yoga and meditation, this absolutely should close the sale.

7. Meditation cuts down the activity of emotional distress. What provides the best of us? Our emotions. Everybody experiences emotional distress without or with us even alert to it. Never allow your feelings acquire the best of u. Allow relaxation important things about meditation assist you keep the cool through these emotionally battering moments.

8. Meditation helps resolve phobias. Essentially the most difficult things people is often face with is their fears. It is actually challenging over the anxiety about heights, water, enclosed spaces, open spaces, and also spiders. We all have our own fears a.k.a. phobias, and now we all have to face them one method or another for us to take pleasure from life for the fullest. Because of this , meditation comes in handy. Meditation has this unique method of helping our minds resolve our phobias. Although, it won?t work signifigantly though with constant practice, meditation may help you make it happen.

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Hacked eHarmony passwords analyzed for holes

1 hr.

Suzanne Choney

It makes sense that users of an online matchmaking?service would use the word "love" in a password, ?but it's not really the best choice.?A?recent analysis of 1.5 million hacked eHarmony passwords found that "love" was the most "common word in passwords" used by the service's?subscribers, with "dog" not far behind.

"While the psychological meanings of these passwords are for the medical profession to decide, the security ramifications are clear," wrote Mike Kelly, security analyst for Trustwave, a security company that analyzed the passwords, hacked in a recent breach that also happened to users of LinkedIn and Last.fm Internet radio earlier this month.

"Perhaps most telling," Kelly wrote, was that the analysis "also revealed more than 99 percent of the passwords used had no special characters," such as "!" or "$," something that security experts?often?recommend including in?passwords.

The good news? "Password," often the most common word in passwords, "was only found in 240 passwords," Kelly wrote. " 'Love' was found most often of all the words we checked, which is not surprising due to the fact that these are passwords from eHarmony users.? Also interesting to us, was that we found 'dog' more than twice as often as we found 'God.' ?Would that hold true if this were a Christianmingle.com dump?"

Trustwave, in its blog posting, also took eHarmony to task for not using what it deemed to be?a secure?enough format for users'?password storage.

A spokesperson for the matchmaking site told msnbc.com that eHarmony could not comment on Trustwave's findings.

"The security of our users is of the utmost importance to us," she said. But, "due to our ongoing investigation and cooperation with law enforcement authorities, we cannot comment on these specific points."

Trustwave said among the most "interesting" base words in eHarmony passwords it found were, in this order: Love, dog, 1234, luv, sex, God, angel, lover, 123456, Jesus, date, harmony, eHarmony, forever and ? yep, "password."

"We found it interesting that we saw the Top 100 dogs names more often than the top 100 baby girl names" in passwords,? Kelly wrote. "Also, that National Football League teams were seen less than National Hockey League teams. Does this say anything about eHarmony demographics?"

Here's a percentage breakdown by Trustwave of hacked eHarmony passwords that include the following info:

Top 100 baby boy names of 2011???47,478 (4 percent)
Top 100 baby girl names of 2011 ?? 25,670 (2 percent)
Top 100 dog names of 2011 ?? 41,700 (3.5 percent)
Months of the Year (abbreviated) ?? 26,358 (2 percent)
Days of the week (abbreviated) ???12,492 (1 percent)
Years 2000 through 2012 ?? 13,143 (1 percent)
Top 25 worst passwords of 2011 ?? 4,894 (.5 percent)
National Football League team names ?? 1,367 (0 percent)
Major League Baseball team names??? 8,725 (1 percent)
National Hockey League team names ?? 2,491 (.5 percent)
100 most populated U.S. cities ?? 2,392 (0 percent)
100 most populated world cities ?? 2,197 (0 percent)
Curse words ?? 10,144 (1 percent)

Overall, while Trustwave said it saw "many patterns we expected, we also saw many more that surprised us." Wrote Kelly:

The eHarmony dump is just further proof that organizations need to not only store passwords in stronger, salted formats than was previously acceptable, but also need to enforce stronger case-sensitive password policies.? Users, as a whole, still do not understand the need for strong passwords, and will continue to set passwords that meet only the minimum requirements.

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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Some Thoughts on Overseas Investing in U.S. Real Estate - Yes

Overseas investor buying of U.S. real estate is a consequence of trade deficits that have built up huge surpluses of U.S. dollars that must be recycled into dollar-denominated assets. Perhaps we should welcome the investment as both necessary and positive.

What few media pundits seem to grasp is that when our trade deficits transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to other nations, those dollars have to end up in dollar-denominated assets like bonds, stocks or real estate.?Mish of?Mish's Global Economic Analysis?has tirelessly explained this dynamic many times: when U.S. dollars (USD) end up in another country as a result of our gargantuan trade deficits, the dollars don't just vanish into some other currency. One way or another, they have to flow into one dollar-denominated asset or another.

Many people have missed the difference between dollars used to settle accounts and dollars held as a result of trade deficits.?Many of those emotionally wedded to the belief that the U.S. dollar is doomed gleefully grabbed onto the news that China and Japan will swap currencies directly (yen and yuan) rather than intermediate the trade with U.S. dollars. This was mistakenly seen as a nail in the coffin of the USD.

If I am in Japan and I have yuan due to trade with China, and I want to exchange those yuan for yen, I only need USD for about 10 seconds to intermediate the exchange. Cutting out the USD simply cut the exchange costs and lowered the daily trading volume of the USD.

This reduction in the transactions needed to exchange yuan for yen did nothing to change the dollars held by China or Japan as a result of their trade surpluses with the U.S.

This also didn't lower the amount of assets or credit (debt) denominated in USD. In other words, the effect on the value of the dollar is trivial.

No matter how many exchanges the USD sitting in overseas accounts are pushed through, they still end up in dollar-denominated assets somewhere.?If China exchanges its surplus USD to Saudi Arabia in exchange for oil, the USD didn't vanish or become yuan: the USD were simply transferred to Saudi Arabia, which can either exchange them with another nation for goods or services, or they use the USD to buy dollar-denominated assets: bonds, stocks, U.S.-based companies, land in the U.S., etc.

Every time overseas holders of dollars start using their monumental stash of USD to buy real estate in the U.S., domestic pundits freak out and declare "X is buying America!"?What the xenophobic pundits fail to understand is the overseas holders of USD have to buy something with their surplus dollars, and if they're sick and tired of buying negative-yield bonds (i.e. the bond yield is lower than inflation) then they have little other choice but to buy land, buildings and businesses in the U.S.

The largest overseas owners of U.S. assets have long been the Europeans, chiefly the English.?Tremendous sums have been sunk into the relative safety and dynamism of the U.S. economy, going back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

"Foreign investment in the U.S. last year totaled $234 billion, a 14% jump over $205.8 billion in 2010, with around?two-thirds of the cash coming from Europe."

There is an element of implicit racism at work when the cries of "we're being taken over" swell after the Japanese or Chinese make a signature purchase of U.S. assets: beneath the surface, the message is clear: it's OK for Caucasian Europeans to buy huge swaths of American land and built capital, but not OK for Asians to own the same percentage of assets.

Let me put this bluntly: if you don't want overseas investors to buy American assets, then stop running gigantic trade deficits with them.?Once you transfer hundreds of billions of dollars a year, each and every year, to overseas accounts, the owners of those USD will have to buy something denominated in dollars. And since we presumably made those trades of our own free will to our own benefit, then it's hardly cricket to get all hot and bothered when those owners of USD seek the same thing we do: assets that return a higher yield at a lower risk.

I have raised hackles by suggesting that the U.S. remains a very attractive "safe haven" for overseas holders of USD.?The people who are emotionally attached to the "dollar will be destroyed" ideology are often equally attached to the notion that the U.S. is an internationally unattractive place to live/invest.

Yes, I share the concerns about the erosion of civil liberties and the extreme over-reach of the State and concentrations of private capital in the U.S. These are real and worrisome trends I have covered in depth for years.

But we need to see the U.S. through overseas eyes--for example, from a Chinese perspective.?Since we have many close friends in China, Japan, Korea and Thailand, and have traveled extensively "on the ground" in these nations over the past 20 years, I have multiple first-hand reports of conditions and perceptions in Asia.

The first thing that is attractive about the U.S. is the wide open spaces--just look how much of the country is sparsely inhabited. Compared to places constantly teeming with people, the U.S. is wide-open. (Recall that the U.S. is?Meiguo?in Mandarin:?Beautiful Country.)

Just another landscape in America, ho-hum....

The northern side of Mt. Rainier (Sunrise):

Also noteworthy is the air is generally amazingly clean in the U.S. Even smog-ridden Los Angeles is relatively clean compared to Chinese urban air quality.

Then there's the rule of law, which despite constant abuse still exists in the U.S. Your assets will not be expropriated at the whim of a senior Party official.

These same conditions also make Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Chile and Europe attractive places to invest surplus currency. The difference between all these places and the U.S. is of course the size of the currency holdings needing a home: the long-standing trade deficits with China have stockpiled hundreds of billions of USD in China. That alone powers a much greater interest in U.S. real estate.

Despite its bloated Plutocracy and numerous structural problems, the U.S. is exceedingly stable compared to other nations and remarkably dynamic compared to less-dynamic safe-havens such as Japan.

Lastly, there are enclaves serving dozens of nationalities in the "98% of us are immigrants" U.S. (92 languages have been identified among students of the Los Angeles Unified School District.) Your religious faith, class origins, caste and all the other social attributes than limit your social and financial mobility in much (if not most) of the world don't matter that much in cosmopolitan parts of America. In general, people here are too busy to care about your personal history: just get the job done and don't rip-off/exploit others, and you are good to go about your business.

Those with assets in China are feeling increasingly insecure.?Even if your wealth was earned legitimately, as opposed to being skimmed via corruption or officially sanctioned theft, it doesn't matter: when the blowback to corruption and inequality arises, everyone with assets will be a target.

THE phrase ?naked official?, or?luo guan, was coined in 2008 by a bureaucrat and blogger in Anhui province, Zhou Peng?an, to describe officials who have moved their family abroad, often taking assets with them. Once there, they are beyond the clutches of the Communist Party in case anything, such as a corruption investigation, should befall the official, who is left back at home alone (hence ?naked?). Mr Zhou says the issue has created a crisis of trust within the party, as officials lecture subordinates on patriotism and incorruptibility, but send their own families abroad.?

You do not have to be corrupt to be ?naked?, however. Sending your family abroad is simply a state of maximum readiness. It does not suggest huge confidence in a stable Chinese future. Many wealthy businessmen have also been preparing exit strategies. One of the most common legitimate routes involves immigrant-investor programmes in America, Canada or Hong Kong, typically requiring an investment of up to $1m. Chinese nationals have rushed to apply for these. Three-quarters of applicants for America?s programme last year were Chinese.?

In 2011 the central bank published an estimate on its website, attributed to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, that up to 18,000 officials had fled the country between 1995 and 2008 with stolen assets totalling 800 billion yuan ($130 billion at today?s exchange rate). The bank then claimed the figures were inaccurate, and scrubbed them from its website.?

Officials who can afford to send their families abroad are usually the most powerful, and the most aware of China?s problems. Says Mr Li of Peking University,??They know better than anyone that the China model is not sustainable and that it?s a risk to everybody.?

In essence, investing a mere $1 million in U.S. business and promising to hire Americans will yield up a highly-valued green card. From an overseas point of view, wages in the U.S. are not that burdensome: Apple store employees, and millions of other workers, earn $11.25 an hour.

We have to put all this overseas investment in perspective.?There are roughly $62 trillion in net assets in the U.S., and over $20 trillion in real estate. $200 billion or even $2 trillion isn't going to buy a dominant piece of the U.S. economy.

There are positives to overseas investors buying U.S. properties.?Everyone who owns real estate wants their parcel to start rising in value, and the only way that can happen is for demand to exceed supply. The "creative destruction" of capitalism only works if owners who have failed to capitalize on assets move on and turn the assets over to those with capital and a desire to rework the assets into productive uses.

The irony is that the driver of overseas buying of real estate--trade deficits--could decline as oil prices slip and imports from China decline in recession. Those complaining about overseas buying may withdraw their complaints if the drivers of overseas investment dry up and the buyers vanish, leaving the U.S. real estate market vulnerable to another cascade down in valuations.

At that point, people may wish Chinese investors were still buying in Toledo.?

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We are like passengers on the Titanic ten minutes after its fatal encounter with the iceberg: though our financial system seems unsinkable, its reliance on debt and financialization has already doomed it.We cannot know when the Central State and financial system will destabilize, we only know they will destabilize. We cannot know which of the State?s fast-rising debts and obligations will be renounced; we only know they will be renounced in one fashion or another.
The process of the unsustainable collapsing and a new, more sustainable model emerging is called revolution, and it combines cultural, technological, financial and political elements in a dynamic flux.History is not fixed; it is in our hands. We cannot await a remote future transition to transform our lives. Revolution begins with our internal understanding and reaches fruition in our coherently directed daily actions in the lived-in world.

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Mexico airport shooting points to running problems

Mexico's Federal Police officers arrive to the scene where a shooting took place in Mexico City's international airport on Monday, June 25, 2012. Two people were shot to death and one was wounded at one of the airport's terminal and according to the federal Public Safety Department, at least one was an officer. Details of the shooting are still unclear. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Mexico's Federal Police officers arrive to the scene where a shooting took place in Mexico City's international airport on Monday, June 25, 2012. Two people were shot to death and one was wounded at one of the airport's terminal and according to the federal Public Safety Department, at least one was an officer. Details of the shooting are still unclear. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Airport police officers block the entrance where a shooting took place in Mexico City's international airport on Monday, June 25, 2012. Two people were shot to death and one was wounded at one of the airport's terminal and according to the federal Public Safety Department, at least one was a Federal Police officer. Details of the shooting are still unclear. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

An airport police officer cordons off the scene where a shooting took place in Mexico City's international airport on Monday, June 25, 2012. Two people were shot to death and one was wounded at one of the airport's terminal and according to the federal Public Safety Department, at least one was a Federal Police officer. Details of the shooting are still unclear. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

A federal police officer lifts a strip of crime scene barrier tape, as he leaves a marked-off area of the Mexico City's International Airport, where a shooting occurred around the food court at Terminal 2, Monday, June 25, 2012. Men wearing what appeared to be police uniforms opened fire in a food court at Mexico City's international airport on Monday, killing three federal policemen on an anti-drug mission. Two officers died at the scene and another died later of his wounds at a local hospital. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? From cash in chili pepper cans to cocaine in cardboard boxes, Mexico City's international airport has long been considered the capital's main transport hub for drugs and other contraband that seem to move as smoothly as any cargo and usually with no fuss for passengers.

A deadly shootout among federal police on Monday changed that, drawing attention to a darker side of the country's premier airport generally considered safe and efficient in its handling of more than 27 million passengers and 400,000 tons of cargo a year.

Tourists passing Tuesday through the modern Terminal 2, where the shooting occurred, seemed unfazed. But airport workers in the building, with giant walls of white concrete perforated with thousands of decorative holes, said the fatal shooting had shattered their sense of safety.

"I couldn't believe it because there was so much security," said Maria Eugenia Cruz, 52, who has worked as a custodian for five months but was on her day off when the shooting occurred. "I'm afraid of another shootout."

Two federal police officers suspected of working for drug traffickers opened fire on fellow officers in a crowded food court Monday, killing three policemen as panicked witnesses dove for cover.

The slain officers were on an anti-narcotics mission as they sought to catch the suspected criminals in the act of drug trafficking, said a federal police official who wasn't authorized to speak on the record. A police statement said the suspects, who were identified in surveillance camera video, were involved in a small-time drug ring. They remain at large.

"It was a huge error to try to capture people inside an airport because it's a sensitive area," said security expert Raul Benitez at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "It can cause a tremendous international scandal that hurts the image of the police and the airport."

Cartels are known to pay off police, cargo companies, security firms and even pilots and flight attendants to carry drugs and money, including more than $1 million packed into food cans and more than half a ton of cocaine in 13 cardboard boxes with tape bearing the logo of Mexicana Airlines.

Last year, customs agents found $2.5 million rolled up in spools of telephone cable headed for Venezuela, and an Aeromexico pilot was stopped in Madrid carrying 90 pounds of cocaine. That was several months after three Aeromexico flight attendants were caught in the Madrid airport with 300 pounds of cocaine in their luggage, a case that also saw the arrests of private security company employees operating the security checkpoints in Mexico City's airport.

In 2008, federal police chief Edgar Millan was gunned down inside his Mexico City home possibly in retaliation for investigating drug trafficking at the airport. The previous year, the severed heads of three employees of a customs brokerage firm were found near the airport and in the nearby state of Mexico. The decapitations were apparently retaliation for the seizure of a half-ton of Colombian cocaine at the airport, officials said at the time.

Benitez said Mexico's main airport has, in fact, become an alternative route for drugs from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador headed to Europe, while cash comes in from the United States.

It's the same problem in many international airports. U.S. federal agents swept through Puerto Rico's largest airport earlier this month, arresting dozens of baggage handlers, airline workers and others suspected of smuggling millions of dollars' worth of cocaine aboard commercial flights for at least a decade. Airline workers have been arrested in international smuggling operations involving airports in Detroit, Houston and New York, to name a few in the U.S.

Monday's shooting added another deadly chapter to the Mexico City airport's problems. The federal Public Safety Department said the slain agents were taking part in an 18-month investigation into corrupt federal and local officials who were part of a cocaine trafficking ring. The operation has seized 648 pounds (294 kilograms) of cocaine at the airport.

Mexico's customs agency said it doesn't keep a running total of all confiscations at the airport.

The police official said the wanted officers may have once belonged to the federal highway police, a separate agency that was absorbed into general federal forces. While Mexico has dramatically expanded its federal police force with newly trained and vetted officers, some veterans of earlier forces still work under the old corrupt system in which officers routinely collaborate with criminal organizations.

Despite Monday's violence, U.S. Embassy officials said they have no plans to issue a separate travel warning for the airport, aside from their standing recommendations for Mexico.

Tourists passing through Terminal 2 on Tuesday also said they weren't worried, at least not yet.

Mario and Luisa Ortiz, of Argentina, said they vacation in Mexico every year and were on their way to the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta.

"The narcos and the violence don't affect us, " said Mario Ortiz, a 51-year-old banker. "That's a Mexican problem."

Associated Press

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Human-powered copter breaks record with 50-sec flight

1 day

Devin Coldewey

A team at the University of Maryland has blown away a long-standing (or long-hovering) record for human-powered flight. A Japanese team stayed aloft for 19 seconds in 1994, and no one has been able to do better until Thursday, when the Maryland team stayed aloft for 50 seconds. They fell just?short, however, of the 60 seconds required to qualify for a decades-old $250,000?prize.

Gamera II is the name of the helicopter the team constructed in order to claim the Sikorsky prize, created in 1980 in memory of the helicopter?pioneer Igor Sikorsky.?The contest requires that the craft reach 3 meters of altitude ? and that it stays there for a full minute.?

The newest version of the craft weighs only 71 pounds, 30 less than the previous one, which?stayed aloft for 11 seconds in 2011. Gamera II?harvests power from arm movements as well as pedals, transmitting more power to the four large rotors. These and other improvements allowed the team to break the 18-year-old record and post a time of 50 seconds in the air at 2 feet up. Watch the video of that flight below:

The team will continue to make attempts at the 60-second goal, though they would still need to go significantly higher to claim the prize money, even if they hit the minute mark. The solution is not as easy as simply pedaling harder. Gamera II takes advantage of an aerodynamic characteristic of low-altitude craft called ground effect, which reduces the energy needed to hover, and that advantage decreases the higher the craft goes.

The researchers from Maryland are not the only ones working on the problem: A private team called Atlas recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise some funding for their attempt on the Sikorsky prize. The requirements of the prize may be straightforward, but they are also extremely difficult, so chances are it will take some time and effort, not to mention money and materials, to make it happen.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

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Why Small Businesses Need to Understand Their Legal Obligations ...

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Small businesses doing business internationally need to understand their legal obligations so that they don?t become another ING, the bank recently levied with 619 million USD in fines. The fines penalize ING for its failure to abide by US trade laws. ING to pay $619 m to settle sanctions case.

Any small business worth its salt has aspirations of becoming successful. Success may be equated with achieving a certain amount of profitability or the ability to stay afloat. It may also mean growth, from a company generating thousands of dollars to one valued in millions or billions; from a regional or national entity to one with a multinational presence.

This is what happened to ING, which started life in 1991 as a small local Dutch bank. Through additional acquisitions, today ING is a multinational banking presence employing just under 95,000 employees worldwide. ING?s 2011 net profit was 3,675 million euros.

As the company grew, however, whether knowingly or unknowingly it repeatedly violated US trade sanctions. US trade sanctions prohibit or place restrictions on individuals and companies operating under U.S. law from doing business with embargoed countries. The countries may be embargoed because of U.S. concerns about human rights violations, terrorist or nuclear proliferation activities, or U.S. Government dislike of the government?s policies.

In mid-June it was announced that ING is to pay a penalty of US$ 619 million to settle allegations that it had violated U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba and Iran since the 1990s. The fine represents the penalty and interest on over 20,000 individual transactions from the early 1990s ? in other words since the company?s inception. The allegations against ING are that it helped facilitate the movement of billions of dollars by Cuban and Iranian companies in violation of the US embargoes against these two countries.

There are also sanctions against doing business with individuals or companies on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List which contains such harmless sounding names as ?A.T.E. International Ltd? of the United Kingdom, and ?Shipley Shipping Corporation? of Panama. They could be innocent of any wrongdoing. However, taking money from them or shipping them an order is prohibited so long as they are on the SDN List.

The unlicensed export of specified products or services is also banned. Fines for violation of any of these rules can range from $50,000 to $10,000,000 for each violation. A trader who is found to have willfully violated the rules may incur increased penalties, loss of exporting privileges, and/or imprisonment.

There is no statute of limitations on these violations. So ING was charged with violations dating back to or shortly after its inception as a small, local bank. This is why the time to begin paying attention to the legal do?s and don?ts of doing business internationally is NOW!

Contact me to discuss how you can develop a cost-effective approach to complying with the legal requirements of doing business internationally.

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Officials: 1 feared dead in Canada roof collapse

ELLIOT LAKE, Ontario (AP) ? At least one person was feared dead and another trapped inside the rubble of a roof collapse at mall in northern Ontario, authorities said Sunday.

More than 24 hours after the collapse, rescue workers were unable to reach the victims because the structure was too unstable. They said it would take until early Monday morning before the structure was deemed safe enough for search and rescue teams to go back in. Images taken with the camera show a hand and foot in the dusty debris, said Ontario Provincial Police Insp. Percy Jollymore.

Fire officials heard tapping Sunday morning in another part of the rubble, but nothing had been heard for hours. They said they also tried to reach that person by drilling through a wall, but found the structure too unsafe to risk entering far enough inside.

"Some of our search members this morning heard a couple of taps," said Bill Needles, a spokesman from the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team which travelled from Toronto. "They called for a quick silence on the site and there was a couple more taps. That was an indication to us that we were dealing with a rescue."

He said the operation was still a rescue mission and they were still hoping to find people alive.

Police compiled a list of nine people missing since the collapse Saturday, but the names were being crossed off as members of the community accounted for their loved ones.

At least 22 people suffered minor injuries in the roof collapse Saturday afternoon at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake.

A special emergency crew was working to stabilize the scene, but authorities said the process could take another 12 hours.

A portion of the roof that serves as a parking area crumbled down two floors into an area near the food court, leaving behind a gaping hole which was 12 meters (39 feet) by 24 meters (79 feet). It also downed hydro lines and triggered a gas leak.

Emergency officials quickly cleared out the mall and closed surrounding roads. Mayor Rick Hamilton declared a state of emergency.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he was in touch with Elliot Lake's mayor and thanked emergency crews in the city for their efforts.

"As we anxiously wait to learn more about anyone thought to be missing in Elliot Lake, our thoughts and prayers are with their families, and also with those who have been injured and indeed with the entire community," McGuinty said in a statement.

Hope mingled with frustration in the close-knit community as residents waited for news.

"There's a fair amount missing," said Heather Richer, who owns a restaurant in the mall and was at work when the collapse took place. "I'm hoping everyone's found, but I'm giving up hope on whether they're going to find them alive."

Richer, who was particularly concerned about an acquaintance who was unaccounted for, described Saturday's thunderous collapse as a nightmare.

"It was almost like a little mini earthquake, like a big bang, and then gone," she said. "There was nothing there. Everything started to cave in, water was pouring out of the pipes."

Joe Drazil, a Zellers store employee, said several cars appeared to have fallen through the gaping hole near some escalators.

"You can see the roof with the cars hanging inside," he said. "Everybody was cleared from the whole mall. After that, there was numerous police and emergency vehicles coming from all over."

Shopper Jean-Marc Hayward was having coffee when the roof collapsed about 20 feet (6 meters) from him. He said a big hunk of concrete tumbled down through two floors and that it sounded like an explosion. "It was a big loud crash. It didn't just go down one floor it went down two floors," he said.

Hayward said a lottery terminal kiosk was located directly under the roof that caved in.

Hayward said he saw one man with a bloody face. A dwarf who has trouble with his legs, Hayward said he couldn't run out. "I was sucking in dust," he said.

Hayward and others have said the mall roof has leaked water for some time. There have long been buckets and tarps around the mall to collect leaking water, Hayward said.

"It's obvious there has been a lot of damage in the structure because of the water," Hayward said. "A couple of years ago they said they fixed all the leaks in the mall, but they didn't. You could tell every time it rained."

Stephan Powell of Toronto Fire Services could not confirm if rescue officials had been briefed about the water leaking issue.

Levon Nazarin, the mall's owner, choked back tears as he read a statement to community members on Sunday.

"To those who have been injured and to those families with missing individuals we offer our deepest sympathies," he said.

Community members expressed anger to town officials for not doing something about the constant leaks.

The two-level mall in this northern Ontario community is approximately 200,000 square feet (18,580 sq. meters). It houses a grocery store, restaurants, a number of retail outlets, a hotel, and the constituency office for a member of the provincial parliament.

Rhonda Bear, a spokeswoman for the mall, which is run by Eastwood Mall Incorporated, referred all questions on the collapse and the condition of the mall to its lawyer, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

"All our concern right now is our prayers are with the families," Bear said.

____

Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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Direct Response ? Online Marketing ? Website Tips | Web Design ...

Direct Response ? Online Marketing ? Website Tips

Most businesses have some sort of web presence these days. Everyone from mom?s making crafts to magicians who do kids? parties have a website. It doesn?t really matter how big your business is; if you are selling something then you should be using the internet to connect to your customer base.

But even if you have a sweet site and get a lot of regular traffic to go with tons of page views, you still need to ask yourself a question regularly. Is my site creating more leads? Leads usually equal money and money keeps your business in business.

Direct Response is a specific type of marketing that has the goal of an instant response from the customer base or consumers. Ideally you have a better feel for what works and doesn?t work based on the response. Since it takes place between the customer and owner it also serves as a connection for each customer to the business. Often people appreciate it when they know their feedback is being given to someone who can then make decisions that directly affect them.

One of the most power aspects of the internet is the ability for people to get in direct contact with small businesses. So what is your site doing for you? If the answer is, ?Just looking pretty,? then you have a problem and are missing out.

Let?s look at some basic Direct Response options:

• Do you have a lot of Contact Us links and ways to direct customers to ask questions, report problems and concerns, or inquire about services?
• Do you use a message board or thread link to allow people to open a dialogue with the business and other customers?
• Is there a spot to sign up for or opt-into a mailing list or regular newsletter?
• Do you have a special spot where people can sign up for specials or coupon type deals?
• Do you have a Facebook page linked to your webpage to allow people to Like you and add comments thus spreading you about their social network?

Obviously not every business will have a need for all of these options, but you should have at least something. One great reason is to ensure you have an active email list for customers that you can then incorporate into a marketing plan. Another reason is so that other businesses or even affiliates have a simple way to contact you in the case of partnering. Many people prefer the simplicity of a quick email rather than using the phone.

Tips about Direct Response

• Keep at it. This is a part of your business on the internet and should be regularly reviewed to ensure you are getting new leads or customers. Just like the freshness of your website, direct response should be looked at quarterly or even monthly.
• Respond to everyone personally. Even if your business is huge make sure someone is responsible for getting back to a customer or potential customer. People appreciate a polite response.
• Incorporate social media as part of your response. Sites such as Yelp or Facebook can be huge tools for a business if used properly. You want to know what your customers are thinking (good or bad) so you can make informed decisions for a more profitable business.
• Ask a few friends to look over your site for honest feedback about it. Maybe you and the web designer think everything is simple and looks great but the average customer has a problem with the interface or is confused. Not everyone has the same web savvy as you do.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2012 at 8:15 am by Lounge Lizard and is filed under Business, Interactive Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Baseball: Marian Catholic’s Wail 2012 Coach of the Year

By Pat Disabato pdisabato@southtownstar.com June 22, 2012 11:16PM

Marian Catholic baseball coach Phil Wail, his wife, Kate, and their son Alexander, show off the Class 3A state championship trophy. | Supplied Photo

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Updated: June 24, 2012 2:13AM

Marian Catholic began the season as many expected, winning 10 of its first 12 games.

The Spartans, ranked No. 9 in the preseason, boasted a potent 1-2 pitching punch of Arizona State recruit Brett Lilek and Western Illinois-bound Robert Nunn.

They also had a Division I outfielder in Devin Pickett, who committed to Iowa, and a havoc-wreaking leadoff hitter in Rob Cifelli.

The strong start, however, was followed by an 8-15 stretch, putting a once-promising season in jeopardy.

Marian was 18-17 when the Class 3A playoffs began, hardly resembling the team once considered a contender for the state championship.

Coach Phil Wail gathered the troops for a little heart-to-heart talk, stressing a back-to-the-basics approach.

?We had to go back and stress fundamentals,? Wail said. ?As coaches, we self-assessed and we felt like we had to devote more time into fundamentals at practice. We told the players, ?This is it, guys. You?ve got to come together and play for each other or your season is done tomorrow.? ?

Tomorrow never arrived. Wail?s message resonated with his players.

The Spartans reverted back to their early form, winning seven straight games, capped by a 10-2 win over LaSalle-Peru in the Class 3A state title game.

Wail?s ability to get his team to regroup and play up to its potential made him the choice for 2012 Beggars Pizza/SouthtownStar Coach of the Year.

?Oh, wow, that?s awesome,? Wail said. ?It?s quite an honor. Being highly ranked in the papers is sometimes tough on 17-year-old kids. Other programs have such a strong history, every season is a 25-win team.

?Over here, we?re usually a .500 team, and the kids put a lot of pressure on themselves. But they eventually believed in themselves, worked hard, bought in and made the coaching staff look good.?

Wail, a 1998 Marian Catholic grad, could relate to his players challenging season ? to an extent.

?I was on a team my senior year at Marian that was pretty similar to this team as far as expectations,? he recalled. ?We played T.F. South, which had Curtis Granderson and Clif Novak, and we beat them to advance to the regional finals. But then we lost to Tinley Park.?

There would be no losses in the playoffs for these Spartans ? the first Southland team since Lockport in 2005 to bring home a state title.

?It?s still unreal,? Wail said. ?It was a tremendous experience.?

And one that?s a little more gratifying since Wail had starred on the baseball diamond and football field at Marian.

?It?s just special to be able to go through this with the kids,? Wail said. ?The seniors get to go out as the best.?

After a successful playing career at Marian, Wail continued to play baseball at South Suburban College and Dana College in Nebraska. He stayed on at Dana as pitching coach for two years before landing the head coaching job at Woodbine High School in Iowa.

Home called, however, and Wail took an assistant job at Bremen, just a stone?s throw from his grade school, St. Christopher?s, in Midlothian.

Wail is an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Heritage Junior High in Lansing, where he resides with his wife, Kate, and infant son, Alexander.

?Teaching and coaching was the way to go for me,? Wail said. ?I know the game, which made me a better player than my talent. It?s something I love doing.?

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MPS to sell Biverbanca stake for $251 million: sources

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