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Baidu Inc.’s first-quarter earnings rose 76 percent as the Chinese Internet search giant’s revenue continued to surge. Windows 7 Activation Key

Baidu Where to buy windows 7 key, which generates almost all its revenue from search advertising Office 2007 Key, has posted double-digit earnings growth over the past year on soaring ad sales. The company has solidified its market-leading position in China after U.S.-based rival Google Inc. shifted its local search traffic to Hong Kong in 2010 following a disagreement with Chinese officials over online censorship.

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Gabor Degre | BDNSonja Burns (right) helps Vicki Ritchie turn around after she was checked by audiologist, Dr. Carolyn Gaiero (left) Tuesday in Belfast. Burns is an RN and she provides care for people at her home. She also offers a flight companion service for medical patients. Buy PhotoSonja BurnsAir Companions logo

WARREN, Maine — When Sonja Burns’ 80-year-old grandmother tripped and fell down the length of an escalator while flying by herself to Florida to visit old friends, she didn’t break any bones or suffer any obvious physical injuries.

But the accident still had far-reaching consequences for her and her family.

“When you’re an older person, and you have a traumatic event like that, it does something to you,” Burns said recently from her Warren home. “It did something to her. She started to go downhill.”

Her grandmother was never the same again — and neither was Burns, a licensed practical nurse with decades of experience helping people, including caring for people with special needs in her home. That tough airport experience planted the seeds of an idea for Burns’ business, Air Companions Inc.

Through the service, she will travel with the elderly, the disabled, the impaired, those who are afraid of flying and those who need medical attention. Her motto is, “We are your guardian angels in the air,” and she is committed to making sure vulnerable people get to where they are going safely and with dignity. Although the business has already provided her with challenges including an earthquake, she loves what she does.

“I just like the adventure of it. I like the whole thing, the challenge of it,” Burns said. “Meeting a stranger and having them trust me. Them being happy with my service. I just like it — it’s fun for me. Not to say it never gets stressful!”

In fact, the first trip she made with Air Companions, back in 2010, posed a major challenge when no one realized that the elderly, ill woman in Florida she was taking back home to Maine had no photo identification until she got to the airport.

“When you’re elderly, you stop driving. You no longer have a picture ID,” Burns said, adding that she’s grateful it happened at a small airport in the south, with a very kind-hearted staff.

“The security people were outstandingly wonderful,” she said. “They let her go, but I learned a valuable lesson.”

That’s a lesson that’s come in handy — other elderly folks she has since escorted also have not had valid photo identification, but it’s now on Burns’ checklist to make sure they do before they fly.

Another, more complicated journey happened when Burns was hired in 2010 to safely escort an elderly couple from an Illinois nursing home to Maine to be close to their daughter. Both suffered from dementia, and the husband also was wheelchair bound and ill with Parkinson’s disease.

“It was very difficult,” Burns said. “Any sicker, and I couldn’t have brought them home on a commercial plane.”

But with her husband’s help replica watches, she did it.

“We brought them home,” she said.

Valerie Taylor of Freeport was the daughter, and she said this week that she highly recommends Burns and Air Companions to safely bring loved ones to their destinations.

“She did a great job,” Taylor said, adding that her parents both passed away not long after their trip home. “She was very respectful, tender and treated them with dignity. At the same time, she saw to their needs and delivered them safely into my hands.”

Because Burns is a nurse, she was able to administer medication to her mother, which gave the family peace of mind.

“Much like a friend and a nurse — it was a nice balance,” Taylor said.

Another of Burns’ clients is a woman with Down syndrome who lives in a San Jose group home and needed to travel east to visit her brother in Washington, D.C.

“She was a very nice lady. I liked her a lot,” Burns said.

The two were sitting in the plane on the tarmac near the capital last summer when the 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit, causing the airport to close.

“We sat on the plane for an extra hour,” she said. “Rose and I just had a good time.”

She credits some of her ease with problem solving and organizing to years of being a single mother before remarrying.

“Mothers have to do everything,” Burns said. “Think on their feet. Deal with emergencies.”

She said that hers is one of the country’s few businesses concentrating on helping people travel safely. There is another in Atlanta.

“There’s not a lot of people who do it replica watches,” Burns said.

Because she is still building Air Companions, she is willing to negotiate prices with her clients, who must pay for all her own traveling expenses on the job and a basic rate of $50 per hour when she is with a traveler. When she’s not with the traveler, she charges $250 for a day of traveling to where she’s going.

“If they rented a special plane, it would be tens of thousands of dollars,” Burns said. “Even though I’m not cheap, [my services are] way less expensive than that.”

Taylor said Burns helped her work out the different possibilities for bringing her parents home.

“She did all the legwork and information gathering, and gave me options,” she said. “It worked out very well.”

That’s Burns’ goal.

“I just was born to be a caregiver, that’s all replica watches,” she said.

For information, call Sonja Burns at 975-9262 or visit her website, aircompanions.com.

News Desk: In a surprising development, Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh has dropped his case against Army Chief Gen VK Singh in the Supreme Court Tattoo Gun Machines, saying he would approach the appropriate forum.

Tejinder Singh had moved the Supreme Court against the Army Chief, after the latter claimed that the former tried to pay a Rs 14 crore bribe to him to clear the Tatra -Vectra deal in 2010.

The Army Chief’s claim was corroborated by Defence Minister AK Antony Tattoos Kits, who had received the complaint at that time. Although he asked the Army Chief to take action Intenze Tattoo Ink, Gen VK Singh did not pursue the matter further for unknown reasons.

Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh sought a CBI probe against the Army Chief on charges of professional misconduct, saying Gen VK Singh had authorized bugling of offices of the Defence Ministry. He had also filed a defamation case against the Army Chief.

Shown below is an open letter to the authors of a recent Fortune article: “Big Business should stop ignoring Washington.” I would welcome your thoughts:

• Do you feel Big Business leaders are ignoring Washington?
• Do you feel Big Business knows best?
• Any thoughts you would like to share with the authors of the Fortune article?
• Any other comments you would like to share?

——————
Glenn Hutchins, Vice-Chairman of the Board, Brookings Institution
William Galston, Ezra Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, Brookings Institution

Gentlemen,

I read with interest your recent article “Big Business should stop ignoring Washington,” and thank you for highlighting an important set of issues.

You list a number of challenges facing America, and assert we can remove these barriers to growth if: Big Business stops ignoring Washington, and politicians do what Big Business recommends. While I agree with you about many of the challenges we face, I disagree that our problem is “Big Business ignoring Washington.”

Based on the evidence, Big Business isn’t ignoring Washington. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (an umbrella group for America’s largest companies) spends more than $60 million per year lobbying Washington. General Electric spends more than $25 million per year lobbying Washington. The top 10 industry lobbying clients (the list is shown below) spend more than $200 million per year lobbying Washington. Indeed, Big Business spends around $3 billion per year lobbying Washington, and employs about 20 lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Big Business gets a good return on the time and money it spends on Washington. On average, for every dollar Big Business spends to lobby for targeted tax benefits, it receives back between $6 and $21 (see 1 and 2 below). As the New York Times noted, one reason General Electric pays no U.S. income tax on its $14 billion per year in earnings is its aggressive lobbying.

Most disturbingly, Big Businesses that lobby distort our regulatory and legal systems. By comparison with non-lobbying firms Tattoo Machines Suppliers, firms that lobby face significantly slower government enforcement action in fraud cases (See 3 below).

Leaving aside the question of influence — why, exactly, should Americans trust the competence of America’s Big Business leaders? President Bush’s economic policies (which brought our economy to near-collapse) were driven by Big Business leaders. Consider Bush’s Treasury Secretaries: Hank Paulson (2006-09, former Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO), John Snow (2003-06, former CSX CEO) and Paul O’Neil (2001-03, former Alcoa Chairman and CEO). Under the guidance of Bush’s Big Business leadership team, U.S. unemployment doubled (from percent to 8 percent), and an annual Federal government budget surplus of 1 percent of GDP became a budget deficit of 10 percent of GDP.

Under Bush’s Big Business leadership team, the United States significantly reduced bank regulation, trusting our Big Business leaders to take responsibility for their own actions. America’s Big Banks took advantage of this lack of supervision to vastly expand their risk-taking. When things went badly, they needed a $700 billion bailout from the Federal Government Tattoo Machine Equipment, and trillions in support from the Federal Reserve (the largest government bailout in America’s history). If it hadn’t been for Washington’s intervention, a number of our largest financial institutions (for example, Citigroup, AIG) would no longer exist to offer Washington their advice.

The American automobile industry was also incompetently managed, and faced liquidation. No Big Business leader offered the vision and financing to restructure the American auto industry. As you may recall Tattoo Starter Kits, Washington (specifically, the Obama administration’s courage and managerial competence) saved the American auto industry.

Big Business’ managerial performance in the 2008 financial crisis isn’t an inspiring endorsement of advice from, or the managerial competency of, America’s largest corporations.

If you feel I’m being unfair to America’s Big Business leaders, I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in more detail.

Finally, you comment: “At a recent conference … one business leader after another expressed deep frustration with our dysfunctional federal government …”

Perhaps the next time you hear Big Business leaders complaining about “our dysfunctional federal government,” ask them how much they spend on lobbying Washington, and whether their vast lobbying dollars help solve America’s problems or just further their own private interests? I respectfully suggest that our Big Business leaders’ vast spending, on lobbying for their private interests, contributes greatly to making our government dysfunctional.

My point is not that America’s Big Business leaders are solely responsible for our current problems — they aren’t. But they’ve certainly played a role in creating these problems.

To quote President Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Perhaps it’s time America’s Big Business leaders stop asking what Washington can do for them, and ask instead what they can do for their country.

I look forward to hearing from you and participating in a constructive discussion about how we can make America a better place.

Regards,

Steven Strauss

About the Author: Steven Strauss was founding Managing Director of the Center for Economic Transformation at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). He is an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University for 2012. He has a Ph.D. in Management from Yale University and more than 20 years private sector work experience. You can follow him on Twitter at: @Steven_Strauss

Sources: All campaign and lobbying data is from www.opensecrets.org, unless otherwise noted. Data on unemployment rates, budget deficits, etc., is from www.wolframalpha.com, unless otherwise specified.

Appendix: Listed below are 2011 lobbying expenditures of the top 10 corporate lobbying clients:

1. US Chamber of Commerce – $66.4 million
2. General Electric – $26.3 million
3. Blue Cross/Blue Shield – $21.0 million
4. ConocoPhillips – $21.0 million
5. American Hospital Assn – $20.5 million
6. AT&T Inc - $20.2 million
7. Comcast Corp – $19.3 million
8. Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America – $18.9 million
9. National Cable & Telecommunications Assn - $18.5 million
10. Boeing Co – $16.1 million.

Harvey Weinstein’s recent battle to secure a PG-13 rating for Bully was a classic example of film industry power brokers attacking the messenger instead of heeding the message. Whatever crude language may have been included in the original edit of the film was language being spewed by kids who feel compelled to attack those they perceive as vulnerable targets.

Classic demonstrations of “boys will be boys” behavior were a frequent feature of Malcolm in the Middle, where the testosterone-charged Reese (the oldest of three brothers) loved to pick on younger kids Cheap Emilio Pucci Dresses, bully them into doing his homework, and embrace violence as a one-size-fits-all solution.

With today’s youth spending so much time playing violent video games — and action movies aimed at a demographic of teenage boys who like to see things explode and watch people get beaten up — it should be obvious that poor parenting can’t be the only factor contributing to a nation of adolescent thugs.

Whether kids see bullying as a way to prove their superiority, exert their newfound masculinity, or simply as an opportunity for comic relief at someone else’s expense, it’s important to understand that bullying is nothing new. Even after college hazing rituals have resulted in accidental deaths and numerous gay teens have committed suicide, many parents and school administrators cling to the misguided belief that being the victim of bullying “is all part of growing up.”

Herndon Graddick, the new President of GLAAD recalls that:

“It wasn’t until I left Alabama for California that I learned that everything I had been taught was essentially bullshit. I got pissed. Kids across the country are making themselves miserable and, frankly, leading themselves to the brink of suicide because of the bullshit they learn from a bigoted society and it’s the role of GLAAD to fix that. We’re no longer the silent sort of invisible presence in our community. My ambition is for gay people and transgender people to be treated fairly in the media just like anybody else. I think it’s finally time for us to grab our power and really use it to make sure that we’re not sort of treated as second-class citizens anymore. I think it’s time for our community to go on the offensive. We’re not going to be the punching bags anymore.”

While Graddick’s sentiments are laudable, it’s important to understand that bullying isn’t restricted to incidents of homophobia. Whether one examines films like 1989’s Heathers, 1994’s Disclosure, or 2004’s Mean Girls, it becomes obvious that girls learn how to manipulate, shame, and gang up on their peers just as maliciously as boys opt for violence as the ideal solution to any challenge.

A tendency to bully others may offer early warning signs about one’s likelihood of becoming an abusive spouse and/or co-worker, a pathological liar, a professional criminal, or a Republican presidential candidate. Need more examples? Think about the behavior of Catholic bishops, and hotheaded celebrities like Bill O’Reilly, Nancy Grace, Mel Gibson, Grover Norquist, and Rush Limbaugh. Or sit back and enjoy all six seasons of The Sopranos.

From 1782’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses to 1954’s Lord of the Flies, bullying has been a staple of literature. These days it seems to have formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist religions.

Despite the tendency of many Americans to think that the whole world revolves around them, the phenomenon of bullying takes place in any society where power games lead to one person attempting to dominate another. Three films recently screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival show what non-homophobic bullying looks like in other parts of the world.

* * * * * * * * * *

In Surveillant (an 18-minute Canadian short by Yan Giroux), a teenager shows up for his first day on the job as a monitor at Montreal’s Parc Dufresne. He soon discovers that, to the gang of teenage bullies who stalk the grounds at all hours of day and night, he’s little more than fresh meat ripe for an initiation.

As the new employee drives a tractor around the park, mowing the grass and collecting garbage, he continues to be harassed by the park’s denizens (who have obviously taken their cues from horror films). Here’s the trailer:

In Alfie Barker’s five-minute short entitled Assumption, a British minority student discovers that someone has written the word “loser” in his school notebook. Instead of succumbing to intimidation, he calmly and methodically goes to the top floor of a local parking garage, folds the page from his notebook into a paper airplane and sends it flying out into the world below him. The boy’s method of coping is simple: turn something hateful into a thing of beauty and send it back into the world.

* * * * * * * * * *

Written and directed by Tusi Tamasese, The Orator stars Fa’afiaula Sanote as Saili, a Samoan dwarf who, in addition to facing ridicule because of his physique, carries the social stigma of having married a woman who was banished from another village. Saili is currently being bullied by a woman who wants to plant yams near the graves of his parents as well as by the male villagers, who show little respect for him.

Fa’afiaula Sanote stars as Saili in The Orator

After humiliating Saili at his place of work, three men are sent by the villagers to Saili’s home to request an ifoga. According to Samoan culture, three elements are necessary to sustain an ifoga (a ritual where the offending party pleads for pardon from the offended party):

A sense of remorse and shame by the perpetrator, Accountability by the family and village, and Forgiveness by the victim’s family. Traditionally the culprit(s) must kneel while covered in fine mats. Ritual acceptance by the offended party occurs when they approach the ifoga party and pull away the mats.

Saili keeps watch over his dying wife in The Orator

With his wife, Vaaiga (Tausili Pushparaj) in failing health, his unmarried teenage daughter, Litia (Salamasina Mataia), newly pregnant Christian Audigier Clothes sale, and having recently lost his job, Saili’s predicament takes a turn for the worse when, as he is digging his wife’s grave, his obnoxious brother-in-law (Ioata Tanielu Poto) steals Vaaiga’s body during a rainstorm. According to the film’s production notes:

Death has no place in Samoa. Every Samoan who lives his culture speaks to the dead. The dialogue between the living and the dead is the essence of a Samoan spiritual being. It is this dialogue that provides the substance and direction to his life. In order to understand this dialogue, you need to analyze the mythological, the spiritual, cultural, and historical reference points of Samoans. People bury their relatives in the front of their homes so that they still see them, talk to them, and be in their presence. Poster art for The Orator

Because Saili’s size is no match for Poto’s might — and his culture has a highly developed tradition of oratory (prior to the arrival of any missionaries, communication in Samoa was exclusively oral) — the dwarf must find the emotional strength to become a talking chief, or orator.

Shot on the island of Upolu, Tamasese’s film has a rare visual splendor (thanks in large part to Leon Narbey’s magnificent cinematography). Though the dialogue may be sparse, The Orator is filled with a brooding tension. Tim Prebble’s beautiful score and sound design more than compensate for any lack of scintillating conversation.

The Orator gives a sobering view into how dishonor, dysfunction, and despair exact their toll in a pair of small Samoan villages. Here’s the trailer:

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

Ferrari 288 GTO 25th anniversary reunion at Concorso Italiano – Click above for a high-res image gallery

With just 272 produced, the 288 GTO is the rarest of Ferrari’s modern supercars. And because it wasn’t officially sold here in the United States Tattoo Supplies, there’s just a slim chance you’ll ever spot one on the road. However, with 2009 being the 25th anniversary of the 288 GTO’s introduction, there was talk of organizing a record gathering that would bring many of the cars together. Joe Sackey Tattoo Supplies, Italian car expert and author of the upcoming The Book of the Ferrari 288 GTO, took the reigns of organizing an event in Monterey this weekend, including a display of the cars at Concorso Italiano. We counted fifteen 288 GTOs in total, including an ultra-rare Evoluzione model that was used by Ferrari to develop the F40. Get your filling of Italian supercar goodness by browsing the high-res gallery below.

Related GalleryFerrari 288 GTO 25th Anniversary Reunion
Photos copyright ©2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.

On March 24 Discount Bandage dresses, Los Angeles Times media critic Tim Rutten   expounded on the controversy  surrounding the cancellation of an opinion section guest-edited by Hollywood produce Brian Grazer. The section had been commissioned by the paper’s editorial page editor, Andres Martinez, who resigned when it was cancelled. Martinez then named Rutten as one of the “disgruntled newsroom” staffers who’d objected to the section on ethical grounds (because Martinez has dated a publicist who works for a firm that does work for Grazer). Rutten responded with a high-minded column entitled “These Rules We Live By,” which is distilled and decoded below for non-Angelenos, especially those (you, Zell!) who might accidentally purchase the paper without knowing what they’re getting into:

Full-Figured Rutten: … [A] substantial number of my more than 35 years at The Times were spent on the paper’s editorial pages — first as an assistant editor of the op-ed page, then as editor of Opinion and, finally, as an editorial writer. I was 24 when I first joined the section, and I vividly recall how daunting it was to be surrounded by vastly more experienced colleagues, many of them genuinely distinguished. I also remember being struck with how an attention to ethics wove itself through even the most mundane parts of our daily work and by — what seemed at the time — a fairly stultifying insistence on propriety.

There was a reason for that.

When Otis Chandler took over as publisher of The Times in 1960 Replica DKNY Clothes, the paper was justifiably held in low regard, and the editorial pages were, by any reasonable measure, positively disreputable. Ever since his great-grandfather, Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, had purchased the paper, its editorials had been used mainly for two things: One was to reward the proprietors’ political friends (all Republicans) and to punish political enemies (invariably Democrats). The other was to advance the financial interests of the Chandler family and their associates.

Slimmer Rutten: I’m a dead-ender in the Cult of Otis Chandler. He took a horrible GOP rag and created something that looked like a great paper and was properly liberal like a great paper. It didn’t really perform the function of a great paper (i.e., stirring up public debate) but we didn’t know better. Some say Cult members are living as if the last two decades never happened. That’s unfair. We are living as if the last four decades never happened–still fighting Otis’ battles of 1960.

Full-Figured Rutten: … Otis Chandler was determined to change that, and, working closely with the then editor of the editorial pages, Anthony Day, remade the department and instituted a system of daily checks and balances under which the editorial page editor reported simultaneously to the publisher and to the newspaper’s editor. Moreover, the paper’s senior newsroom editors — the managing editor, the associate editor and the national, foreign and business editors, etc., were brought onto the editorial board. (The point was to create a crowd too big to fit into anybody’s back room.)

Slimmer Rutten: Most MSM writers probably think packing the ed board with news editors and creating elaborate checks and balances is a good way to produce timid, deadly dull editorials. It is! As Charles Trueheart said of Anthony Day’s editorial page: “At the Los Angeles Times, everything remains to be seen.”  But for us, stuffy was classy!

F.F.R:The animating principle was a sense that the editorial pages were the place where The Times most directly expressed its conscience as an institution, something exercised as a public trust. Whatever readers thought of the editorials’ conclusions, it was regarded as essential that readers believed those conclusions were reached honestly and dispassionately.

S.R.: The idea of a “dispassionate” ed page might seem silly to you. These are opinions Replica Herve leger strapless, you say–readers can decide. But this is L.A. We aren’t just a bunch of guys making arguments. Oh, no. Our opinions are going straight into gullible Angeleno brains, so they must be free of corrupting biases Buy Hale Bob Dresses! We’re like judges–another “public trust.”

F.F.R.:Unfortunately, the system that assured this has been whittled away over the years, and recently the editorial pages were placed directly and solely under the publisher’s supervision.

S.R.:Most big MSM papers (NYT, WSJ) separate news pages from ed pages Buy DKNY Dresses, with publisher running the latter–as Martinez wanted. In the Cult of Otis, we believe in the merger of news and editorial. It gives us more power to fight the evil Chandler GOPs Bandage dresses sale! But just because my position is idiosyncratic and doesn’t mean I can’t get all righteous about it.

F.F.R.: If you’ve been following the rather turgid little soap opera that Martinez has created around himself, this little bit of history won’t strike you as a digression.

To summarize: Martinez resigned in pique after The Times publisher, David D. Hiller, told him he couldn’t go forward with a Current section that was being guest-edited by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. Hiller intervened when it was learned that Martinez has been dating a Hollywood publicist whose firm represents the producer. In fact, the agency obtained Grazer’s business after Martinez’s girlfriend’s boss facilitated the arrangement between the producer and The Times. … Hiller may have been slow to see a preposterous idea masquerading as an innovation — there’s a lot of that going around these days — but he had no trouble at all recognizing an ethical train wreck when he saw it coming.

S.R.: At most MSM institutions, the key value is factual accuracy. I boast about the “rigorous” factual grillings during the Golden Age of Otis. True, there are at least two highly suspect factual assertions in the above paragraph: It’s not  clear that Hiller “had no trouble at all” recognizing an “ethical” problem. He seems to have hesitated until the last minute, saying there was only the appearance of a conflict. And Kevin Roderick questions the part about obtaining Grazer’s business. But I’m sucking up to Hiller here! Maybe I can convince him this is what really happened.

F.F.R.:Like most of my colleagues at The Times, I’m fundamentally uninterested in other people’s personal lives .. .

S.R.: I am a pompous ass.

F.F.R.:… but I’ve always subscribed to the late Abe Rosenthal’s standard for journalists: I don’t care whether my colleagues sleep with elephants, so long as they don’t cover the circus.

S.R.Martinez wasn’t “covering” anything. He was asking someone to ask other people to publish their opinions. Next week there will be more opinions. Most MSM papers think it makes no sense to stamp out ”conflicts of interest” in the opinion section–it’s where all sorts of conflicted players (pols, union officials, CEOs) make their case. But inside the Cult of Otis it makes sense.

The Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Buy Christian Audigier Clothes, Compass Cheap Chanel Dresses, and Patriot are helping Chrysler defend its market share in a declining sales environment. Between these new models and incentives on Dodge and Chrysler vehicles, Chrysler has managed to stay 0.1% ahead of the market’s year-on-year drop in sales. The Wrangler Unlimited is proving a noteworthy boon, helping lift Wrangler sales by 71% year-over-year. Steve Landry, Chrysler’s EVP of North American sales said, “The four-door has really created a halo effect for the Jeep brand Herve Leger v neck sale, bringing people into the Jeep showrooms and it has improved our two-door sales.”

Although Chrysler-brand vehicles lead the way among the Big Three in incentives Discount Chloe Dresses, Jeep has placed little reliance on them. The numbers mean that Chrysler’s market share has actually improved a tiny bit Herve Leger sale, from 12.85% to 12.86% in the US. It’s a minuscule improvement to be sure Discount Hale Bob Dresses, but for a company that has been through the wringer over the past few months (years, some would say), it’s still a great statement.

[Source: Freep]

Today’s Obamaism: Replica Herve leger strapless

Obamnipresent (oh-BAHM-nuh-PREZ-uhnt) adj. Pertaining to Barack Obama’s ubiquity in discussions overheard in restaurants Cheap Herve leger strapless, subways Buy Herve Leger v neck, bookstores, newsrooms, etc.

Example: After hearing an elderly woman mention the name “Barack Obama” for the third time in as many minutes Discount Karen Millen Dresses, even Josh agreed that the candidate was Obamnipresent.

Since Slate first launched its Encyclopedia Baracktannica in February Herve leger strapless sale, more than 800 readers have written in with their own Obamaisms, from “Barack Ness Monster” to “Post-Baracalyptic.” The best of these entries, along with Slate’s original Obama neologisms, are collected in a new book: Obamamania Cheap Christian Audigier Clothing! The English Language, Barackafied, available now.

In conjunction with the publication of the book, we will be publishing a new Obamaism every morning and adding it to the Obamamania widget above, which you can add to your Facebook or MySpace profile or Web site.

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Advertising revenue at newspapers has fallen off a cliff and may tumble all the way to the bottom of the Marianas Trench if the promised recession arrives. Average circulation is down Fake Bell & Ross Watches for sale, too, and the combined trends are prompting publications from the New York Times to Newsweek to the Washington Post to the Boston Globe to the Twin Cities’Star Tribune to Sam Zell’s Tribune Co. and beyond to offer senior employees buyouts.

Some newsrooms are saying goodbye with a wad of cash to their most experienced and decorated hands. At the New York Times Replica Seiko Watches, Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse has taken a buyout, critics David Ansen and David Gates are leaving Newsweek, and prize-winning bylines at the Washington Post are likely to depart as the paper completes its third round of buyouts in six years.

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Yet, good news can be found inside the bad news. Some of the exiting veterans have held their plum positions for years, even decades, and have given no signs of leaving—this is not always a good thing. News organizations rely on turnover to keep them vital, and in many cases buyouts (hence “two cheers”) may help revitalize a few franchises.

While I hold the 61-year-old Greenhouse in great esteem and will miss her coverage, it’s worth noting that she had covered the Supremes for nearly 30 years. Disco was still big when she took the assignment. Starsky and Hutch was on television. In passing the baton from Greenhouse to 47-year-old whippersnapper Adam Liptak, the Times has a chance to reconceptualize its court coverage. (Of course, you can teach somebody like Greenhouse a few new tricks, but new editor-reporter teams are usually more daring and inventive.) In the Web era, is the best use of the Times’column inches the traditional day-after-oral-arguments story and the day-after-decisions dispatches? Is there a more creative way to report on the court? Should Liptak cover the court with more argument and greater point of view, the way he covers the law in his current Sidebar column? Whether dug-in journalists are excellent or mediocre, their departures give publications the opportunity to reinvent themselves.

The “retirement” of the buyout brigade has the added benefit of loosening the ugly stranglehold the boomers have over the press. I may be risking self-extermination by advocating wholesale boomer expulsion, but there are just too many of us—especially the older variety—in top slots for journalism’s good. The sheer weight of our presence blocks the promotion of the next generation of talented journalists to the most desirable beats.

We like our nice salaries, we enjoy our benefits and vacation time, we dig our place in the pecking order, and we expect to live forever. So why should we leave? Our intransigence not only gives our product a rancid boomer tang—who can blame nonboomers for being repulsed?—it tends to stifle innovation.

Meanwhile, over on the Web Fake Concord Watches, where news staffs tend to be younger and less tradition-bound, the sort of experimentation newspapers and magazines should be engaging in is a part of the daily routine. If not for age-discrimination legislation and other statutes, our bosses would have cleared us out with sharp-bladed bulldozers long ago and replaced us with younger Replica Seiko Watches sale, more-adaptable, and less-expensive minds. Yes Imitation Panerai Watches, you heard right. Newsrooms must cut their budgets to survive, and the high-salaried boomers (and pre-boomers) are liabilities.

Fortunately Fake Tonino Lamborghini Watches, the one thing boomers understand is money, and the offer of a couple of years’ salary in the form of a buyout has been too great a temptation for many of them to resist. Whenever a journalism vet boards the SS Buyout—no matter how good he is—his departure initiates a series of reassignments that help replenish a news organization’s juices by bringing down the median age of reporters and editors and making it possible for his publication to add a lower-paying entry-level slot. (Some of the bought-out have returned to their publications without leaving by signing on as contract employees. Others, like Greenhouse, have segued to gigs in academia: She’s bound for a job at Yale Law School. Others have not been as fortunate.)

Lower salaries for journalists are not a good thing, but neither are the lower profits earned by their publications. It could be that the relatively high salaries journalists have earned in the last 30 years were a function of the monopoly profits their news organizations earned, and that the average salary may have peaked around 2000, about the time the number of news jobs peaked.

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