| Daily report | Winner, loser and the top10
Ford Motor Co. reported Friday its U.S. light vehicle sales fell 3.9 percent in January, even when compared with a weak performance a year ago. Ford said it sold 159,355 light vehicles for the month as it continued a strategy to wean itself from low-profit rental car and other fleet sales. That was down from January 2007 when the company sold 165,877 cars and trucks. Shares rose 21 cents to $6.85. Today's Top 10 OPEC WON'T PUMP MORE OIL OPEC decided against pumping more oil in a rebuff to Washington and a possible prelude to cuts as early as next month should the wounded U.S. economy sap demand for crude. GANNETT PROFITS PLUNGE Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the nation, said falling revenue from broadcast and newspaper ad sales along with an impairment charge drove fourth quarter earnings down 31 percent.
Pedro Martinez willing to talk - or not talk - about a new contract
Told he would be facing the Cardinals in his spring debut as a Met, Martinez playfully shouted to Santana about St. Louis' batting order: "Albert Pujols, No. 1. Albert Pujols, No. 2. Albert Pujols, No. 3." Then, as Martinez readied for his session, Santana countered: "Get ready! Fasten your seatbelt!" Unlike Santana, Martinez will wait a full turn through the rotation, until next Thursday, before he pitches in a spring game. Martinez said nothing health-wise should be inferred from that deferral. He noted he's always had a later spring start date, even earlier in his career with Montreal. He suggested his April stats - 10-2 with a 2.90 ERA as a Met - speak for themselves. "I was never a fan of rushing. I never did it in Boston, either," Martinez said.
A secret Oregon for any season
It was there, on a deck looking out at the windsurfers and Neahkahnie Mountain, that on my first day I embarked on my first strenuous vacation activity: studying the house owner's foot-high pile of activity brochures.
Without driving more than 10 minutes, I could go boogie-boarding. Crabbing. Golfing. Horseback riding on the beach. Bicycling in the bike lanes along U.S. 101. Kayaking on the Nehalem River. Shopping for antiques in Wheeler.
Or I could just sit back and watch, in the words of one brochure, the "world class" rainbows.
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Struever to unveil massive expansion at Tide Point
Baltimore developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. has proposed an extensive expansion of its successful Tide Point business park in Locust Point that includes nearly 200,000 square feet of office space, a parking garage and several new residential buildings, according to city documents and sources familiar with the project. Struever Bros. representatives are scheduled to present their plans Thursday afternoon to the city's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel. The developer has been working behind the scenes with a task force of the Locust Point Civic Association, a neighborhood group whose endorsement would help Struever Bros. gain approval from the city's planning commission and City Council. The neighbors and developer last met Feb. 19 in a closed-door session at Tide Point to refine the project.
Vampire Weekend's Debut Worth the Hype
Their lyrics provide a virtual tour of the life and education of the young and privileged, gleefully bounding from Cape Cod to campus, from sophistic grammatical references to the finer points of Beaux Arts architecture. Sure, Vampire Weekend is effete, but it's ultimately charming. While its members clearly revel in their fortunate world, their name-dropping never gets too obnoxious, and it never obscures the emotional content of their songs. They make sense of how the thrill you get from seeing your crush walk to class is just about the same as discovering an obscure band that changes everything you thought about music. If you long for the days when you were an annoyingly well-read, hyper-energetic college kid who geeked out over music and pop-culture trivia — or if you were never any of those things, but always wondered what it would feel like — this CD will feel as comfortable to you as a well-worn Ralph Lauren cardigan.
Wounded Nation
It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and complex networks of national and international corporate and public fraudsters. Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions' sting. A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions. But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have been too successful for their own good. The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take their constitutional independence seriously and investigate the top ranks of the former liberation movement itself. The Scorpions have probed into, and successfully prosecuted, ANC MPs who falsified their parliamentary expenses.
The Legend of Richard Scruggs: More Myth Than Fact?
He filed a class action RICO suit in October 1999 on behalf of up to 46 million patients who were members of six health maintenance organizations. He accused the defendents of falsely telling members that decisions about their treatment and coverage were based on medical necessity, when in fact cost-cutting guided these decisions. This litigation, he claimed, had "the power to dramatically improve the quality of health care throughout the nation." Scruggs outlined a multipronged attack: He expected institutional investors and Congress (where his brother-in-law Trent Lott was a senator) to fall in line and pressure HMOs to make sweeping changes. "We understand how to play this game now in ways that haven't been played before," he announced to Newsweek in 1999. Scruggs enlisted some of his co-counsel from the tobacco crusade and hooked up with another famous lawyer, David Boies of Armonk, N.Y.-based Boies, Schiller & Flexner.
Tax cuts have not just been for the rich
Since all the weather was offering this week was cold or snow, I figured I might as well do our taxes. It's the only time of the year when I give any thought to how much we pay in income tax. There are tax watchdogs out there that remind us how expensive it is to live in the United States, but I've never really felt the bite.Once I won $10,000 at work and I was sorely disappointed when my winnings had the taxes taken out, but most of the time I accept federal income tax as a way of life.
I've been listening to talk radio the conservative nuts and they've been spewing their venom at the Democratic candidates and their plan to spend us into prosperity. Then this week a friend sent me an e-mail with some of the same rant. When I get those e-mails, I like to find out whether they are true and then let the sender know his information is bad.As hard as I tried, I couldn't debunk the fact that since 1999, my taxes have dropped 46 percent.
Woman sentenced in fatal DUI
They have the choice to find another means of transportation, but they choose not to. That is intentional! I agree that alcoholism is a disease; however, it doesn't mean that you have to inflict that disease on others. I feel sorry for the victims family and especially for Mr. Erb, who not only had to suffer the injuries he sustained in the accident, but he is also the one who has to deal with seeing his friend killed. Have you ever witnessed a motorcycle accident? It isnt something that just goes away! I witnessed a friend killed in a motorcycle accident last March, and it is something that stays with you. You have vivid pictures of the accident, and keep wondering why it happened. Akaim - Fair and Just Punishment
(02/27/2008 )
Unlike feloniousjoe and the other bleeding hearts, I think the sentence was deserved and fair if not a little on the light side.
2008 new-car preview: The ones to watch
Redesigned versions of the Honda Accord and Chevrolet Malibu aim squarely at the Toyota Camry, the most popular passenger car in the U.S., and Focus is revamped to rekindle interest in what has become Ford's best-selling car largely by default.
For Chrysler, the big news is the redesigned Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivans, and General Motors gets its first full-fledged hybrids, which it turns out the industry's first truck-based hybrids.
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