Source: USA Today

School districts across the country are facing budget cuts, so, in an effort to raise revenues the are reportedly now considering placing advertisements on their Web sites.

School districts in Virginia and Arizona already have ads on their official sites, while officials at districts in South Dakota, Wisconsin and California say they are planning to place ads soon.

“Because of the economy, districts are just desperately looking for any source of revenue they can get their hands on,” says Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

“This is really tricky stuff for school districts, though,” says Richard Colvin, director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University in New York. “They have to be very careful about the image that they’re projecting.”

The 130,000-student San Diego Unified School District has lost about 25% of its revenue in the past three years because of state budget cuts, says chief district relations officer Bernie Rhinerson.

Officials there are developing a plan they believe could generate at least $100,000 annually by selling ads, he says. “I would like to attract advertisers that have an educational message,” Rhinerson says, adding that National Geographic could be an example of that. Susan Linn, a Harvard Medical School psychologist and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says “when schools start allowing commercialism, the students really suffer.”

Ad streaming
School districts of course would have to be very cautious about who they allow to advertize because if they also were to perhaps work with a small business lender in order to generate additional income, the messages on the ads could not violate district policy in anyway. Getting a small business loan to fund upgrades for Web site management might be an option too.

Advertisers should also do their best to boost visibility. The best way to do that is to enlist the help of an SEO services company. These Seo company providers work with advertisers to get their placement high up on Google and other online search engines for optimized search results.

In Arizona, the state Legislature in January approved schools having ads on their Web sites. The 33,000-student Paradise Valley Unified School District in the Phoenix area plans to have online ads by summer, says spokeswoman Judi Willis.

Gilbert Public Schools, outside Phoenix, already has ads on its Web sites. Mercy Gilbert Medical Center decided to advertise to help out the local schools and to reach a target audience of Gilbert residents, says spokeswoman Julie Graham.

In Virginia’s 76,000-student Prince William County Public Schools, school Web sites include clickable business logos that take visitors to their Web sites.

“It’s not gaudy and it’s done in a manner consistent with our school system philosophy,” spokesman Ken Blackstone says. The district began Web ads in fall 2008, and met its goal of raising $75,000 in the first year of advertising, he says.

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My Take: There are so many stories out there right now about how many teachers are being laid off from their jobs, cuts in spending, and of course the swelling classroom sizes that make it harder and harder for our kids to get a quality education. If the schools need to raise money, I say let them do it anyway possible, whether it’s selling Scentsy products or graphic tees for extra money, or having students to do a weekly car wash, or even a silent auction. Kids could even draw their own T shirt designs and have the shirts made and then sell them. Those drawings and designs would probably be a big hit with parents and other students.

By the way, if you don’t know what Scentsy candles are, those are the fabulous wickless candles you can buy. They smell great, they look great and they don’t have wick that you have to worry about burning down or replacing.

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Unusual Finds

Aviation gifts, unique signs and other one-of-a kind gifts are available onlinie that will stir the imagination and fill nostaligic space in your life.  dThat includes those great wood propeller/s from old prop planes.  These make great gifts for people and are fun to decorate your home or office with.

Source: Associated Press

What happens to Woody the cowboy, Buzz Lightyear and friends when the kids get too big to play with toys?

“Toy Story 3,” which screened Tuesday for theater owners attending their annual ShoWest convention, poses a new question for the gang from the 1995 hit that launched computer animation into the feature-film world: Is there life for a toy after your kid grows up?

“Come on, let’s see how much we’re going for on eBay,” laments John Ratzenberger’s Hamm the Piggy Bank as he and the other toys ponder a lonely future, with their owner, Andy, heading to college and leaving them behind.

Though the film is not yet finished, with much of the animation still in rough form, the screening provided a sneak peek for one of summer’s most anticipated releases.

“The youngest kids who saw `Toy Story‘ and `Toy Story 2‘ when they first came out are now kind of heading off to college. That’s the position Andy’s in, so it’s very strange and nostalgic for people to see this character that is part of their childhood kind of growing up with them and facing the same life changes,” said “Toy Story 3″ director Lee Unkrich, who was a film editor on “Toy Story” and co-director on “Toy Story 2.”

“For anyone who’s had a transition in their life — heading off to college, parents sending their kids off to college, people getting out of college and heading off into the workforce. Those are major transitions. Our characters in their own way are dealing with similar transitions,” Unkrich said in an interview after the screening.

For Andy’s favorite playthings, Woody and Buzz (voiced again by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen), the transition threatens to end their long partnership as the toys argue over what steps would be best for their future.

A WorkOut Video?
There are so many theories for how Buzz and Woody and Co. will end up once they’ve been tossed to the proverbial toy box in the sky. Woody could end up as a host of online poker Web sites. He’s got the temperament for it, and everyone knows that playing casinos online takes humor. Lots of it. Buzz is such a task master, he’d almost make a great Pilates workout sergeant for the home video workout market.

Due in theaters June 18, “Toy Story 3″ also features returning voice cast members that include Joan Cusack, Don Rickles and Wallace Shawn. Among new voice co-stars are Whoopi Goldberg, Ned Beatty, Timothy Dalton and Michael Keaton.

Their ranks thinned over the years as some of their friends were thrown away, donated or “yard-saled,” Andy’s toys face their own mortality — that moment when they ask themselves what reason they have to exist without a child to play with them.

The toys’ new adventures take them to a seeming paradise, a day-care center with a never-ending supply of kids. But there they find a rigid regime run by a cuddly but deceptive teddy bear who decrees what toys will end up with the gentler older children and what ones will be tormented as “toddler fodder.”

“Toy Story 3″ is the 11th feature film from Disney-owned Pixar Animation, which recently won its latest Academy Award with last year’s blockbuster “Up.” Pixar films have won five of the nine Oscars for feature-length animation since the category was added (the other winners are “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille” and “WALL-E“).

Pixar personnel knew as far back as 1999’s “Toy Story 2” that they might want to return for another sequel.

“We don’t make sequels just for the sake of making them, but in this case, we truly loved these characters and this world,” Unkrich said. “They’re the foundation of our company. We think of them as people. We don’t think of them just as cartoon characters, and so we really wanted to visit that world again. But we didn’t want to do it if we couldn’t come up with something great.”

The key creative team at Pixar gathered for a two-day retreat at the same cabin where they cooked up the original “Toy Story.” They had been kicking around an idea for “Toy Story 3″ for years, but they quickly realized it would not hold up as a feature film.

The first day went by and no fresh ideas struck. So they decided to watch “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2″ again.

“We hadn’t seen them in years, so we all huddled around a laptop. We didn’t even have a TV,” Unkrich said. “We watched the movies and really, really enjoyed them. And when they were over, we were thoroughly depressed, because we thought, well, how can we possibly make another movie worthy of being with those two?

“We were depressed for a moment, but then we thought, well, we made those movies, so if anyone’s going to pull it off, it’s going to be us. So we met the next day, and luckily, the seeds of this came together.”

The franchise all rests on the simple, clever masterstroke Pixar came up with on the first movie: That toys come alive when people are not alive.

“Toy Story 3″ producer Darla K. Anderson jokingly hinted that in that regard, the movies border on documentary.

“I think it’s a fact that toys come alive. I can’t believe we’re questioning it,” Anderson said. “When you’re 4 years old, I believed my toys were connected to me in living, breathing ways.”

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My Take: It’s a little sad to think of Buzz and Woody being tossed into the toy box and forgotten, especially if your kids are fans and they, too, are about to head off to college. Hard not to get all teary eyed thinking about all those Toy Story birthday party invitations and matching cups and plates you put out for the backyard birthday parties when they were little ones. Today, we create custom design invitations for our parties on the Web and if the kids are home longer than a minute, they are usually playing with their online video games, not action figures. Such is life.

I would love to see Toy Story done live in theaters, frankly, because I think it would be a great show. I could see the choir risers as a bunch of bedroom furniture to make it feel like you are in a little boy’s room. The aisle lighting could be flashlights only for effect, and the whole theater a house. Good thing there are options for free movie downloads because I doubt anyone in my family would go see Toy Story 3 with me. They are just too darn busy these days. I like the idea of a Buzz video. I just wonder how he’d get on and off that Pilates exercise equipment in animation.

Speaking of exercise, I was on hold with a call center for my bank the other night a commercial came on for my local YMCA.  I did some research and found out that this is a new brand of advertising for non profits: they get a bank to sponsor them with a “free” ad on their hold lines in exchange for getting good press for helping out a local charity.  Call centers do a lot of not so altruistic things, however, like annoy you all day with the high-tech predictive dialer software they use to reach customers who don’t really want to be reached.

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Now Showing

There are so many ways to download movies these days from the Internet that the idea of buying DVDs seems superfluous. Some sites will offer you several free downloads a month with a regular membership, while others, such as Netflix online give you the option of watching as many movies as you like right on your laptop for one monthly fee, and still keep the option of receiving hard copy DVDs in the mail, just in case you want to do it old school.

Garage Update: Every guy’s dream is to have a clean garage floor, right?  One of the cheapest ways to get one without having to redo the floor entirely is to lay down special garage floormat tiles or sheets.  They are washable, changeable, and come in lots of great colors to go with your mood.  Also, they protect your floor from wear an tear and keep the space looking organized and neat.

Downloading Games

The popularity of the gaming consoles has led to a rise in game download sites. In fact, with a quick search online you will find many sites offering various game downloads as well as information on how to get these games. However, it can be hard to tell which sites are reliable, virus free and provide quality games. A good place to download games for Wii offers the largest network on line. If you want to download Wii games, this site offers a great variety. Do not give your information or money to any site you do not trust or that feels wrong and trust your instincts.

Source: Yahoo News

London’s Gatwick Airport has issued a formal apology to a man who was asked turn his “Freedom or Die” T-shirt insight out for security purposes.

Lloyd Berks, 38, was stopped recently by security officers as he headed for a family skiing holiday in Austria, according to media reports.

“When I went through the metal detector, first they told me to take my trainers off, then they took my wallet off me. Then the guy who checked me told me to turn my T-shirt inside out,” he said, cited by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“He said: ‘Some airlines get a bit worried by T-shirts with what you have got on, it might be a bit threatening’. I thought he was joking at first. It is turquoise and white, it is just a design T-shirt, it is not gothic or in your face and the slogan is quite small. I asked if I could cover it up with my cardigan and he said that would be OK,” added the Briton, who was travelling with his partner, Donna, 38, and children Callum, six, and Kaydee, four on February 27.

When in Rome: There are complaints about overzealous security workers all over the world, and certainly London is no exception. Even the a California security guard patrol services company would have likely had to explain their actions on this one had they acted in a similar fashion. Any good Fairfax CA unarmed security guard knows airports are loaded with crazy T-Shirt-wearing travelers.

Gatwick apologized for the incident, a spokesman said, stressing that the airport “does not apply a policy relating to appropriate/inappropriate T-shirt slogans worn by passengers passing through airport security.

“While safety and security are our highest priorities, we also expect staff to apply common sense and judgment.

“The reported incident sounds unnecessary. We would apologize to the passenger for any inconvenience or embarrassment caused.”

The security officer involved was spoken to about the incident as part of regular line-management assessment, said the spokesman. “It was done with the best intention,” he said.

But he added: “We thought it was a little bit over-zealous.”

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My Take: As they say in G.B. “That was simply over the top.” No one in this day and age should have to defend the words on their own clothing, unless they are of course in an army, navy, or marine issued-uniform and under the control of the federal government. How ridiculous it is to me to think that someone would even be paid to take on a security job with that kind of narrow-minded, paranoid opinion of something as innocuous as a T-shirt slogan. What’s next at the world’s airports? If they get any more personal with their efforts to provide security, they might as well start setting up kiosks in the terminals offering services that will actually benefit travelers, such as a mortgage restructure center; a travel desk for booking yacht charters; or even an accounting firm to handle payroll services and other business issues for you while you’re on the road.

It’s silly I know. Airports are for traveling. But the heightened security alerts, coupled with everything from body scanners to microscopic-sized shampoo bottle requirements are really taking traveling to new heights. I’ve been in and out of an online defensive driving course NJ in quicker time than it takes to check in for a domestic flight from New Jersey to Boston. I’ve completed a six-week NJ defensive driving program online with fewer security restrictions and hassles than it takes to get through a TSA check point. Frankly, flying is getting harder and harder for many people to afford and with the new time constraints being put on the effort via the time you have to spend in ‘security’ checks, you could have driven to port of call, taken a cruise to Athens, hopped on an number of the Greece yacht charters they’ve got to offer, and returned back home again. Makes you want to just simply skip the world traveling and see the great outdoors in your own backyard.

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Other Resource

Mortgage mess?
Homeowners are not the only mortgage holders who have been benefiting from the federal government’s trouble asset relief program or TARP. The program has offered many struggling companies out there help with loan restructuring commercial to help business owners hang on to their factories and buildings. If you are a business owner who needs help with the mortgage on your company building, check out the list of options at http://www.federalreserve.gov/bankinforeg/tarpinfo.htm

Paying Out
It’s getting more and more efficient for small companies to utilized the outsourced services offered by a business payroll solutions company. The time and costs involved in payroll issues for companies with 10 or more employees is handled much more efficiently by outsourcing.

Source:  NY Times

It had been quite a while since Marisa Tomei  picked up a Hula-Hoop, since her childhood in fact,  and she had not figured it would become a part of her adult work out routine.

That is, not until two and a half years ago, when a friend asked her to come to a hooping class in Los Angeles. The class wasn’t about the familiar plastic hoops that Wham-O popularized in the 1950s and 1960s and are spun around the waist — rather, it was about heavier, wildly adorned, adult-size hoops that are spun around practically every part of the body.

Ms. Tomei, the Academy Award-winning actress, was instantly hooked.

“You just can’t help but laugh and smile when you’re hooping,” she said. These days she hoops several times a week and credits the regimen with helping her get in shape for nude scenes in the 2008 movie “The Wrestler.”

Last year Ms. Tomei started working with Gaiam, the company that helped bring yoga to the masses, on a “Core & Curves” workout video that will be released March 30. And when Gaiam asked her to work on another video, she had a ready idea for them: hooping.

In December, Gaiam shot a hooping workout video with Ms. Tomei that is scheduled for release in May. More are in the works.

“We’re working with Marisa Tomei in potentially the same way that Jane Fonda worked with aerobics,” said William S. Sondheim, president of entertainment and distribution at Gaiam. The collaboration, he said, “may be the catalyst to take hooping from a cottage-based industry status that has been bubbling under for a few years into a significant and new form of fitness.”

Ms. Tomei is the same age now — 45 — that Jane Fonda was when she released her first aerobics video in 1982, but she does not invite a comparison. “I’m not even going to go there,” she said. “I’m just a girl with a pink hoop.”

Star Power
Hollywood heavy hitters like Tomei and others have a way of quietly getting a trend kick-started.  From promoting the benefits of natural aroma therapy and vegetarian diets, to mattresses and even health insurance, stars can literally take a product and carry it to the mainstream if the match is a good one.   You wouldn’t exactly want to take advice on the best natural skin care products from a B-movie character actor.  The brand and the name recognition go hand in hand.

Some exercise professionals say they doubt that hooping will make the leap to become a workout routine with mass appeal.

“My gut tells me it will be a personal tool to use occasionally in fitness, like a medicine ball — I think it will be a fad,” said Neal Pire, an exercise physiologist and a fellow with the American College of Sports Medicine. “As a group exercise class, I don’t see it taking off, because it’s too difficult to do a lot with it.”

But to hooping enthusiasts, the sight of Michelle Obama hooping on the front lawn of the White House this past fall was a happy omen. They predict that it is just a matter of time before hooping has its day in the sun.

“This whole culture has sprung up in the last few years, and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue,” said Philo Hagen, who helped found the Web site Hooping.org in 2003. The site, which started as a part-time gig but is now Mr. Hagen’s full-time job, gets 20,000 to 40,000 unique visitors each week, some of whom organize meet-ups in public parks.

“The Internet was supposed to be this thing that brought people together, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily true generally, but it is with hooping,” Mr. Hagen said. “We all found each other all over the place.”

The promise of hooping is similar to many other emerging workout routines: you exercise while having fun.

“Anyone can hoop, and most people will be hooping within five minutes,” said Susan Guralnik, 43, who started hooping five years ago and now teaches it in the Los Angeles area.

“A lot of my students want to do it for the exercise, but they also like the playfulness of this,” said Allyson Makiej, 46, a full-time hooping instructor in Lowell, Mass. “But it can also be nondenominational meditative. It’s a calming tool.”

One of Ms. Makiej’s students is Kathy Little, a 44-year-old mother of two who started taking hoop classes three years ago and credits them with helping her lose 18 pounds. “I do it more for the fitness part of it,” she said. “For me, it’s all about core strength. It’s not like you’re in Pilates and your instructor is telling you to hold it for eight seconds. You’re holding it to keep the hoop up, and that’s just fun.”

Gabriella Redding tells a similar story: She took a hoop class to help get back in shape after having a baby. By the following year she was so hooked on hooping that she became a cofounder of Hoopnotica.com, which sells hoops and DVD’s and has helped formalize the sport by certifying instructors.

“That’s the market I want: women who want to lose weight,” Ms. Redding said.

Hoopnotica opened in 2006 in Marina del Rey, Calif., and Ms. Redding said it has been growing steadily, to more than $1 million in sales in 2009. She said she believed the sport was about to grow exponentially.

“As soon as the gyms buy into it, then it will explode, the same way yoga did,” she said.

And a celebrity spokeswoman can only help. “We need a Marisa Tomei right now,” said Jonathan Baxter, 35, a hooping instructor based in Carrboro, N.C. “Hooping needs a marketing push. Everything else is right there.”

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My Take:  It seems like exercise is one of those ties that bind us to the rich and famous, no matter how we try to create our own personal bubble in the world for that.  I’m not a big fan of Hula hoops, and frankly they remind me of props to go with Halloween costumes, or something you’d see kids doing outside a line up for Bon Jovi tickets .  It may be fun and joyful, but it conjures up a much less serious tone than say yoga or Pilates, both of which carry a more professional air about them and the adult costumes or workout wear are muted tights and stretchy shirts.   Not a lot of flash in either exercise routine.

Speaking of concerts, did you know that you can now buy concert tickets and tickets to many other events including sports events directly from your cell phone? The Mobi Tickets technology allows you to purchase a ticket via your cell phone for which you receive back a barcoded ticket or “mobi-ticket” which is scanned at your point of entry.   Seems like a pretty simple way to bypass those long lines and of course a great way to cut down on paper tickets.  The downside: Nothing to put in your scrap book.

I’d be leery of buying tickets on your cell phone to events over the border, like in Canada for example.  Be sure check on line before you purchase your tickets to make sure your potential seller is not linked up with any Ottowa fraud attorney.  You could have to hire an Ottowa criminal lawyer to help you get your money back if you choose a seller who cannot honor the cell phone bar code process once you get to the event. 

Other Resources:

The Dallas Fort Worth area is among the most congested in the country and, not surprise, has one of the highest numbers of accidents on its freeways and highways than any other major metropolitan city in America.  If you are in an accident in the are and need a good Fort Worth car accident law firm, check online.  The folks at the DMV offer a guide to all state driving laws and information about hiring a Texas car accident law firm.

Click here for more info.

Source: Los Angeles Times

New scientific evidence may show that a top-notch medical journal supports taxing junk foods such as soda and pizza would actually help people consume less junk food and slim down.

Researchers tracked the diet and weight of 5,115 people who participated in a 20-year study designed to identify risk factors for cardiovascular disease. That information was linked to data on food prices, which fluctuated over the two decades of the study.

The researchers zeroed in on four food items: soda, whole milk, pizza and hamburgers. They figured that when prices rose, demand would fall. And that’s exactly what they found for soda and pizza – a 10% price hike was associated with a 7% decrease in soda consumption and an 11.5% cutback on pizza.

Other studies have linked changes in price with changes in consumption, but they failed to close the loop by showing that people who ate less junk food actually slimmed down. This report did – in a fashion. The researchers were able to link price, calories and weight in a formula that predicted a $1 increase in the price of soda would cause people to consume 124 fewer calories per day and lose 2.34 pounds.

Using this model, they concluded that an 18% tax on soda would cause people to shed 5 pounds over the course of a year. The results were published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine.

It’s In the Diet
Every study and top journal in the country has put out one study or another on the impact of diet on weight gain, so this isn’t exactly new news. Nutrition plays a key role in maintaining a healthy weight, and that does not necessarily include things like sports supplements or cleansing products. Healthy diets, they say, should try to included a good balance of greens, international foods, specialty food, bulk foods from earth-sources rather than from animals, and keep animal products and sugars down low on the list.

This has got to be the most persuasive study to date showing that a sin tax on soda or junk food would actually have the desired effect — and not just aggravate people who care to indulge in an occasional root beer (or threaten their sense of personal freedom). Soda tax advocates may embrace it as proof that their policy goals are justified.

But keep in mind – this is only a model, and models don’t necessarily reflect the real world. For instance, it is often said that 3,500 calories equals one pound of fat. But endocrinologists and other scientists understand that if you permanently reduce your daily caloric intake, you won’t keep losing weight – your body will simply adjust to its new energy level. This is why it can be so difficult for dieters to keep pounds off. It’s also a good reason to question the conclusion that an 18% soda tax would make the average American 5 pounds lighter.

What’s more, models are only as good as the data that’s plugged into them. Not to impugn the CARDIA study (which tracked those 5,115 volunteers), but these folks consumed an average of 2,972 calories per day at the start of the project and reduced that to an average of 2,403 20 years later, according to lead researcher Kiyah Duffey of the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Kudos to those study participants, but do they reflect what’s happening across the United States as a whole? A 2004 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that between 1971 and 2000, daily caloric intake rose 22% for women and 7% for men.

Senior researcher Barry Popkin, a nutrition epidemiologist who heads UNC’s Interdisciplinary Obesity Center in Chapel Hill, said the results would be more persuasive if they were based on better data linking a wider array of food prices, dietary intake, body composition and other variables for specific individuals. That might take a good while – for the Archives study, the team spent five years matching price data to each person for each moment in time. In the meantime, the continuing debate on the merits of soda food taxes will have to proceed without hard scientific evidence.

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My Take: I love the idea of taxing junk food personally. I think of sodas, candy and other ‘bad food’ products as nothing but recipes for hypertension and obesity in our kids. And there is nothing more disheartening to see than a young, overweight girl trying to squeeze into a pair of stretch jeans for women. Ditto for older women, of course, who wear sexy low rise jeans without realizing that they just don’t work because they don’t fit properly due to excessive fat rolls spilling over the sides and tummy.

I think of the sin tax as no different from taxing the electronic cigarette. Physicians diagnostics have long shown that the impact from smoking is among the leading causes of heart problems and of course lung cancer. But now we have the popularity of electronic cigarettes on the rise and for many younger people, these are just as addictive as the real thing. I say tax anything that is bad for your health and perhaps even take it a step further and jack up health care costs for those who fail to do anything about their choices when it comes to what they eat, drink and smoke.

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Print it: Imprinted bags are of course all the rage right now with many stores switching to canvass bags instead of plastic bags as way to cut down on their own corporate carbon footprint and that of their customers. You can still purchase wholesale plastic bags online as always, however, and they come in many different forms of recycled materials. These are great for shopping, gift bags, storage and other uses.

Look like a star

Foremost among Dothan Alabama plastic surgeons, they are ready to transform whatever personal particular woes you have about your appearance into a source of pride. There’s no reason to feel less than gorgeous- let us reveal your inner beauty through minor outer alterations. We also specialize in Dothan, Alabama, breast implants.

Source: CNN
The term “foodborne illness” was coined over the past few decades. Yet humans have been infected by cryptic-sounding pathogens like Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Cyclospora cayetanensis for centuries and beyond.

“The first description that we have of symptoms associated E. coli 0157 infection goes all the way back to the Bible,” said Mansour Samadpour, a microbiologist and food scientist at the University of Washington. “These are not new bacteria by any stretch of the imagination. What is new is our proclivity for quantifying how we co-exist with these gnarly pathogens.

A new report by the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University estimates that the health-related cost of foodborne illness in the U.S. at $152 billion per year (see state by state breakdown from the group Make Our Food Safe here).

As it turns out, $152 billion is nothing to scoff at.

“This is a problem,” said Robert L. Scharff, the study’s author and former economist with the Food and Drug Administration.

The gravity of the problem begins to sink in when it is compared to previous cost estimates of foodborne illness, which ranged from $6.5 to $35 billion per year, according to government data compiled by the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety.

This new report casts a wider net. It includes obvious things like the financial cost of medical care, loss of life and missed workdays; also less-tangible costs like pain and suffering, and costs to others in society.

The Make Our Food Safe Coalition - a group of ten public health and consumer organizations - considers this new report fodder for more stringent food safety laws.

According to the group: “Continued outbreaks of foodborne illness over the last several years - from spinach to peppers to peanut products - have demonstrated that these outbreaks are not random, unpreventable occurrences, but are due to widespread problems with our food-safety system.”

For a scientist like Scharff, the numbers are a tool, a remedy of sorts.

“The value of these numbers is to look at what type of benefits we can attain if we prevent these illnesses,” said Scharff, currently an assistant professor in the Department of Consumer Sciences at Ohio State University. “If we invest $10 billion in a program that reduces illness by 10 percent, then cost savings to society would be $15 billion, so that would pass a cost benefit test.”

The numbers most people care about: 76 million cases of foodborne illness each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Numbers do not lie, and what they suggest is that foodborne illness is an ongoing problem.

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My Take: Consider this announcement among one more to add to the growing list of reasons for creating your own vegetable garden at home and going vegetarian, if possible. The rapid-fire way in which our food is processed, packaged and delivered to your local market is enough to make you wonder. But what happens inside those food packing plants stays inside food packing plants for the most part, and we often take our lives into our own hands when we buy certain types of foods, especially fresh vegetables that are packaged for the supermarket chains.

If you live in Pennsylvania and get your meat over the border in Maryland, who do you answer to when you find out you’ve bought tainted meat? You’re better off with a Montgomery County PA criminal lawyer to help you go up against the big supermarket chains, because they are well-armed against big lawsuits. It isn’t the same as when you try to sell junk cars, or make custom birth announcements. This is the food we eat and the risks can be life-threatening if we are not careful about what we eat, who makes it and how it’s handled along the way. If you do want to junk a car you might consider calling the local Salvation Army and donate it. The proceeds are used to cover many localized charitable organizations who care for the indigent and mothers in need, some of whom can barely afford formula and clothes, let alone fancy baby announcements.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, if you are in the state and you need to find a reputable Montgomery County PA juvenile law attorney, try the folks at attorneysdelivered.com, which offers a pretty extensive, state-by-state resource guide for legal representation.

Other Resources:

Lighten Up

Njoy products make it possible to smoke in public without being tossed out on the curb. You can literally and legally light up any one of the number of electronic cigarettes on the market today and you won’t be hassled for it. Click here for some interesting facts about e-cigs.

Source: CNN

Fans of the video action game God of War will be pleased to hear the sequel is near completion.

So says developer Stig Asmussen, who has just put the final touches on what has been called the most eagerly awaited video game of 2010: the fantastic action-adventure sequel “God of War III.”

The game, coming March 16 for Sony’s PlayStation 3 console, is the culmination of nine years of work for director Asmussen and the rest of Sony’s creative team for the “God of War” series. High-profile games rarely live up to massive hype, but early reports on “God of War III” — in which gamers battle gods from Greek mythology — have been glowing.

” ‘God of War III’ is expected to deliver the most bombastic, over-the-top action-adventure game ever,” said video game analyst Scott Steinberg, author of “Get Rich Playing Games.” “The demo was phenomenal. This has never been a series known for a light touch.”

A description of the forthcoming game on PlayStation’s site even promises “new heightened levels of brutality and gore.” Hollywood also is considering a movie adaptation of the series — which Sony says has sold over 8.7 million copies worldwide — although no project is imminent.

The “God of War” series debuted in 2005 and follows the exploits of a former Spartan warrior named Kratos as he seeks revenge against Ares, Zeus and other Greek gods who wronged him. The 2007 “God of War II” ends with Kratos enlisting the aid of the legendary Titans in his quest.

The popularity of the first two games (not counting two lesser “God of War” titles), plus the fact that that “GOW III” is expected to be the end of the series, has fans clamoring for this final chapter. At last year’s Spike Video Game Awards, “God of War III” was named Most Anticipated Game of 2010.

Some observers even wonder whether “GOW III” can top the all-time fastest-selling PS3 exclusive game, “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots,” which sold a whopping 1.7 million units in its opening week in 2008.

MORE GORE FOR THE GLOW Critics of previous sequels say with all the efforts to replicate the previous versions’ intricate action sequencing, vivid graphics capability and interactive components, some sequels have failed so miserable to measure up that they may as well have run off pages on a color imagerunner and slapped them on a Web page. Without a streaming link to past episodes, they say, fans get bored with the product and then not to have much interest in the next version.

Demo and gameplay videos reveal that “GOW III” is expected to pick up where “GOW II” left off — with a massive assault on the gods’ stronghold of Mount Olympus. The ambitious scale shown in previews is what Asmussen had hoped to achieve when he took over the “God of War” franchise. Sony hired Asmussen away from Midway Games in 2001 to work as the lead environmental artist on the series.

“I built a number of the major levels of ‘God of War’ and worked on the early designs,” said Asmussen, who drew on his previous experiences to help him achieve his vision for “God of War III.”

Asmussen said they never originally intended to make a trilogy but realized they had a hot property on their hands after the original “God of War” won the Game of Show award at the E3 gaming conference. They immediately jumped into working on “God of War II.”

Working with director Cory Barlog on “God of War II” helped give Asmussen a greater understanding of all the skills needed to put together a blockbuster title — skills that would be put to the test after he was named game director for “God of War III,” he said.

He said work on “GOW III” began while developers at Sony’s studios in Santa Monica, California, were still working on “GOW II.” A small group of designers and developers began testing the limits of a new console: the PlayStation 3.

“First, it kind of scared the crap out of us,” Asmussen said of the PS3, which hit stores in 2006. “We knew the expectations were going to be high.”

When production on “GOW III” began in 2007, Asmussen was given a script outline with major points on characters and locations, but it was missing a true narrative to tie it all together. “I needed to really understand [the script], and the best way to do that is fashion it into something that fits my vision,” he said. “I created a new plot … [with] a lot of the locations and characters, but used them differently.”

Asmussen believes the PlayStation 3 system gave his team the opportunity to take the game to a more sophisticated level. He cited one particular sequence where Kratos is battling a horde of enemies on the back of a Titan, which is talking to him while climbing up a mountainside. It is something they could have never done on the PlayStation 2, he said.

“This is going to be a generational-defining game using this technology. Others are going to see what we did and realize they can use the PS3 like that as well,” he told CNN.

There are more weapons available to Kratos than in “GOW II,” and they are accessed on the fly instead of through a power-up menu.

Steinberg, the video game analyst, has demoed “God of War III” and said the gameplay is fast and furious. He described it as “heavy metal meets Greek tragedy.”

Steinberg believes games like “GOW III” and “BioShock 2″ raise the excitement level for hard-core gaming by making games that involve more than just bloody button-mashing.

“‘GOW III’ is as much about storytelling and atmosphere as it is whacking away until horns, tusks and arms go flying,” he said.

Asmussen said there will be no “God of War IV,” no matter how well the third chapter does. But the lessons learned with “GOW III” will be used to make other titles enjoyable for future players.

“We think about the fans all the time,” he said. “We have an enormous amount of pride here. We won’t accept failure.”

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My Take: Not a fan of the gore of the Greeks online. I’d frankly rather watch a remodel of a piece of Grandview real estate or shop for quotes to compare health insurance quotes with my current rates, than watch online battles between mythic epic warriors on my laptop. For the time it takes to get through those games you could have raised orchids under fluorescent grow lights on your Piermont real estate. They suck up your time and your computer’s graphics capability faster than you know it, and they don’t really have much entertainment value for anyone who isn’t male or between the ages of 11 and 33.

I have older friends who play video poker and other games online, and that’s bad enough if you ask me. It doesn’t take any big lightbulbs to go off in my head to figure out that a lot of problems with teen violence can be linked directly to these online war games. Forget TV. Kids aren’t watching that much of it these days anyway if they are old enough to handle a joy stick and slide in a DVD.

And, by the way: if you have teenagers getting ready to get behind the wheel, you need to do much more than compare insurance quotes options for young drivers. You now need to be prepared to show your kids report cards to potential insurers and if they have anything less than a B average, expect your rates to be astronomical. Teens are not only aggressive on video play, they also are among the riskiest drivers in the world to insure, thanks to texting and other online activities.

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Source: Los Angeles Times

The birthplace of a long-revered off-beat copy-cat of the Rose Parade no longer suits the message behind the annual Doo Dah Parade, so it’s pulling up stakes and going to a more suitable neighborhood.

It was in Old Town Pasadena that an irreverent parade named after a campy British rock group known as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was born. And for the last three decades, it’s where the Doo Dah Parade has stayed, drawing thousands to watch the offbeat and flamboyant entries — the BBQ & Hibachi Marching Grill Team, the Church of the Ornamental Lawn Decorations, Human-Powered Cupcakes and Martinis in the Morning.

Started out of the now-defunct Chromo’s Bar by a group of friends, the first Doo Dah Parade took place Jan. 1, 1978 — a date the Rose Parade would have dominated were it not for its “Never on Sunday” policy that pushed it to the following day.

“It was a collective-consciousness kind of thing,” recalled one of the original organizers, Corky Peterson, 62. “We worked this whole thing from the bar’s pay phone. People called up wondering what was going on. The parade was like a way to let off steam.”

But a couple of years ago, the current parade’s producers said, they began to feel that the festivity and its setting had lost some of its organic appeal. With a growing Doo Dah crowd and Old Town now a commercial shopping mecca where consumer favorites like Abercrombie & Fitch and the Cheesecake Factory dot the background, they believed the spirit of the parade was getting lost.

It also appeared to be heading toward becoming the very thing it had hoped to parody.

“We were on the cusp of predictability, and that’s something the parade was not about — it was about being spontaneous and improvisational,” said Tom Coston, president of Light Bringer Project, a nonprofit arts organization that produces the Doo Dah Parade.

“By moving it, we’re peeling a few layers away so it becomes less of an entertainment vehicle and more of a public art event,” Coston said.

Coston said he thought Lamanda Park, an eclectic neighborhood with antique stores, auto body shops, family-owned boutiques and old-time ambience, could benefit from a high-energy event.

Shauna Novotny, owner of Novotny’s Antique Gallery, said she would welcome the Doo Dah Parade in front of her East Pasadena business, even if attendees weren’t interested in patronizing her store.

“I think it’s a great idea to move it to this direction and give people a chance to mingle in this area and see what we’re all about,” she said. “It puts a new perspective on things.”

The parade could also help with name recognition of the neighborhood. “It’s not necessarily known as Lamanda Park but is known as that stretch of Colorado with trees and the little stores,” said Paul Little, president of the city’s chamber of commerce.

“It’s a really nice area and has a unique personality — it’s sort of what it probably felt like back in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, except the cars are newer.”

Old is new again? Indeed, this stretch of Pasadena certainly differs from the gentrified environs of Old Town, even if the architecture of both can be traced back to similar periods. This area is still struggling to get a foot in the door from a retail perspective, although the old craft shops selling hobbie tools have been replaced with more contemporary retailers. However, the model trains stores may be gone, but there are still a couple of pretty good dive bars in the area.

“The side streets are independent restaurants and shopkeepers, and a lot of very artistically driven people, so that component is most definitely still here,” he said. “We’re certainly a much more polished environment, but we still are very organic.”

Many Old Town businesses were disappointed to hear of the Doo Dah Parade’s departure and said they will miss the spike in revenue that came with the event.

“It was one of our big days of the year,” said Aaron Powell, manager of Old Towne Pub on Fair Oaks Avenue. “We counted it almost like a holiday, like St. Patrick’s Day or New Year’s.”

Peterson, who hasn’t attended the parade he helped create in years but will serve as this year’s grand marshal, said he’s in favor of the change in venue.

“I think it’s going back to the people,” he said.

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My Take: Frankly, I’m glad to hear about the moving of the Doo Dah parade out of Old Town and into an area far from the promotional golf shirts and custom cutting boards from Crate and Barrel. Don’t get me wrong: I am all about contemporary gifts and fun promotional products. I even understand that in order to find really nice, suitable personalized gift items these days, you’ve got to be close to trendier shops. But Old Town truly has outgrown the funky and fun Doo Dah revelers’ idea of a parade. This is an off-beat, crazy and sometimes outrageous take off of the more gentile Rose Parade that also traverses the streets of Old Town on its way east on Colorado Boulevard each NewYear’s day.

But the thing is, the Doo Dah doesn’t really fit the trendy Old Town anymore, with its fancy retailers and shoppers cruising up and down the street in everything from Hause of Howe clothing.

to Ed Hardy. No, this is no parade for Mek Jeans and Gucci sunglasses. The Doo Dah Parade is a beer swillin’, rock-n-roll throwback to a much more bohemian time in Pasadena’s storied cultural lineage and to move it further east, where the neighborhoods and the retailers are less bourgeois and more Woodstock, simply makes good parade sense for a parade about good old nonsense.

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Pay Tracking

Looking for a more efficient way to handle your business payroll solutions? There are many online versions of traditional hard-copy time and attendance trackers who can not only keep a handle on your employees’ hours, but also their vacation requests, their sick time out, holiday pay and many other features that used to be offered only through the HR department in house. ADP is among the most widely used. You can start by checking their site here.

There is always treasure to be found somewhere as long as you have your trusty metal detector with you! You can return to the same locations repeatedly and still find treasure. However, there are many places that you can use metal detectors and may not have thought of before.

Treasure is just lying around waiting for you to come find it. All you have to do is go and get it. Just think about the events that are taking place in your area right now where you could possibly find treasure. Think about the historical sites in your area where you could possibly find treasure.

Do you live near the ocean or a lake? The beach is a great place to search. People are always going to the beach and losing items, valuable items. Besides, digging in the sand is a lot easier than digging through dirt. You should be able to find watches, rings, earrings and change of all kinds on the beach.

What about that open air concert at the park, the one where you had to go through a walk through metal detector to get in. Remember all the items people were pulling out of their pockets? Guess what? Some of those items were probably stomped into the grass and you can find them. Try going anywhere and even was engineered and you will find items like change and jewelry. You might even find a few sets of keys.

Go to any place that people gather and you will always have a chance to find something with your trusty metal detector. Treasure hunting with your metal detector can actually be preferable as well as enjoyable. Just remember, your metal detector is nothing like an airport metal detector. As if you did not already know that!

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Top 10 Positioning

With the best search engine optimization campaign, you could be in the top 10 of Google/Yahoo/MSN before you realize it. One SEO service uses a strict process that is designed to achieve and sustain top 10 positioning in the search engines. Stuffing your keywords in the meta-tags is just no longer sustainable technique as any good SEO company knows. Half the battle is on-page optimization that will create a search engine friendly, cleanly coded, themed web page by implementing specific natural keyword proximity and integrating all of the up-to-date SEO elements into your website. You want a web page that is easily readable by the search engines and has a common theme for ranking purposes it.

There are many online casinos that are fly-by-night or just our not legit. They are there just waiting to get you their trap. Online casino websites are popping up all over the Internet these days and you need to be careful.

You need to check the reviews on the various casinos online to determine whether they are legitimate or not. Actually, there are many websites whose sole purpose is writing reviews on various online casinos. It is their business to get hands on experience on how the casinos operate. They go online, join a casino, and find out what kind of bonuses they offer, their method of payment, who developed their gambling software, where they are located in the world and other very important information. This information will help you get a good perspective on online casino gaming before you invest your hard-earned cash and lose it all.

You might locate an online gambling community website that has chat capabilities. There you will be able to talk to other online gamblers openly about their experiences and which online casinos they have visited. This might be the best place to get your information. People who have won are far more likely to give you good information.

For the average person, gambling is a fun and relaxing event, unless you are a professional gambler. To make sure that your experience is fun and safe you should take your time in choosing an online casino. You should be responsible enough to read the reviews and check out the online gambling community’s before you make your final decision to become a member of any online casino. This will at least make it possible for you not to lose too much and possibly to be a winner.