| Fast rail offering hip personalised travel
E-TICKETS, on-board DVD rentals, events, and even new encounters French rail's new iDTGV trains are testing a new way of travel. Music blares from a speaker in a bustling bar and conversations get louder as customers just out of Paris meetings trickle in, settle down and order drinks. The barman hands over a beer, spilling a little as the brightly-coloured buffet car on the top deck of a customised high-speed TGV train rolls into its three-hour journey to the Mediterranean port city of Marseille. Joined to a regular TGV train, this iDTGV, playing on the French word "idee" or "idea", is operated privately, but owned by the national SNCF rail company and designed as a laboratory for future rail travel. Planned party train on the way The iDTGV was launched in December 2004 and offers cheaper tickets, internet reservations, and services aimed at pleasing passengers, including a soon-to-be launched party train, to help the SNCF better compete with low cost airlines.
Orbitz Worldwide Signs New Distribution Agreement With Avis Budget ...
CHICAGO, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: OWW) , a leading global online travel company, today announced that it has reached an agreement with Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NYSE: CAR) to distribute Avis Rent A Car (http://www.avis.com) and Budget Rent A Car (http://www.budget.com) inventory through its Orbitz (http://www.orbitz.com) and CheapTickets (http://www.cheaptickets.com) consumer brands and corporate travel offering, Orbitz for Business (http://www.orbitzforbusiness.com). "We're pleased to renew this alliance with two car rental brands that have a strong history with Orbitz Worldwide and its customers," said Sam Fulton, vice president and general manager, transportation, Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. "As Orbitz Worldwide works to offer more environmentally sound alternatives to our customers, we're pleased to immediately make available Avis Budget Group's fleet of gas/electric hybrid vehicles." In April 2007, Orbitz launched http://eco.orbitz.com, a microsite that enables its customers to book more environmentally friendly travel.
Vote on Fairfax School Zones Splits Neighbors
Like many fastidious school shoppers, Carly Mannava planned ahead. She bought a map of Fairfax County high school attendance zones, combed through data on the Internet and pushed her twin sons, Vijay and Vikram, in a stroller around campuses to envision where the toddlers would someday become college-bound scholars. .
State GOP uses Obama’s middle name until chastised
Senate, he wrote a bill requiring the government to delineate, online, how it is spending all our money. He has voted to spend more on veterans' disabilities & on the medical care they will need after John George Washington McCain's war is finally over. He has co-sponsored a bill to eliminate more corrupt lobbyists like Jack Abramhoff. He co-sponsored a bill to send money to help the displaced in the Congo. Et cetera, et cetera. There are plenty of congressional websites where you can find his name. By: HokeyPokey on 2/28/08 I sure hope Bill Hobbs had the good sense to take his foot out of his mouth before he aimed at it and fired. By: Fundit on 2/28/08 What are McCain's accomplishments? Besides being a POW. While very heroic, it hardly prepares one to be POTUS. His votes in the Senate are not that different of late from Clinton.
Science China Aims to Capture All Coal Carbon Pollution
The second hot scientific topic is the question of whether global warming is even bad. Definitive answers are not in, but most reasonable scientific research has concluded that most effects are negligible and that the results of global warming could be beneficial. Last is whether it is temporary or permanent.The Earth is certainly warming, as are other planets in the Solar System, sugesting a Solar event. Another fact, is that the Earth has been much warmer than it is today in the recent past. Greenland was aptly named because it was far more temperate than it is now. A single erupting volcano can spew out more "pollutants" than over 100 years of human activity. And certainly everyone has heard of the "ice ages" where periods of the earth were at different temperatures. So you can believe that the Earth goes through regular temperature cycles, or you can believe that the Dinosaurs died out because they couldn't control the pollution in their dino-factories.
Should You Say Yes to Rental Car Insurance? It Depends
When renting a car, many consumers purchase unnecessary insurance and end up wasting money," says Walter Bell, Alabama insurance commissioner and NAIC president. Renters should check whether their personal auto insurance policy and a credit card used for the rental provide sufficient coverage without buying additional insurance, NAIC says. Many credit cards include some collision and theft protection, but the benefits are usually secondary to personal auto insurance or the coverage sold by a car rental company. .
HMS gets 40-hospital contract with Community Health Systems
Health care software system and technology provider Healthcare Management Systems is expanding its relationship with hospital operator Community Health Systems Inc. Franklin-based Community Health (NYSE: CYH) will deploy HMS' clinical and financial systems in more than 40 of its facilities. As it is, HMS has deployed clinical and financial systems in 71 of Community Health's hospitals. The new installations will take place over a two-year period. Community Health is the largest publicly-traded hospital company in the United States. Financial terms of the 40-plus facility installation were not released. HMS, based in Nashville, develops sells and provides support for integrated clinical and financial hospital information systems and services.
McCain chides Obama on campaign spending
He is not the real choice of the Republican fat cats nor the leaner cats down in the rank and file. And that's why, of course, they will do anything they can to shut down the incredible Barack Obama fundraising machine." Obama, in an opinion piece in USA Today on Wednesday, said he may be willing to agree to spending limits - but only if McCain guaranteed that outside groups would not spend millions to run ads "swift boating" him as they did to Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Obama's fundraising advantage was once again clear as his campaign raised $36 million in January - the most ever for a single month during a competitive primary - which allowed him to run ads in two dozen states and out-organize his rivals. McCain, who has had to take out a series of loans to keep his campaign afloat, has accelerated his fundraising and raised $11.7 million in the same period.
Faith and Politics: Rules of the Game
Even if we wanted to keep the two absolutely separate, we'd be fighting a losing battle. Religion has always been deeply embedded in U.S. politics, for better and for worse. How could it be otherwise? You can't ask people to leave their personal values out of their political choices. And in a country so massively saturated with religion, you can't ask people to leave their faith out of their personal values. So religion will be in politics whether we like it or not. Given that the faith-politics mix is inevitable, and sometimes a force for progressive change, why do so many progressives demand "Religion out of politics!"? The answer we always hear is, "They're trying to impose their religion on me." But what exactly does that mean? Was Dr. King trying to impose his religion upon the southern racists when he demanded integration because blacks, too, are "children of God"? More recently, progressive faith-based coalitions have won living wage campaigns.
|
