Today is the first official ?Small Business Saturday? [TNW United States]

Today, November 27, 2010, is the first-ever ?Small Business Saturday,? a day dedicated to supporting small businesses ?that are getting our economy going again.? It?s a day to support the small businesses we love like our local coffee shops and restaurants.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault announced the day less than a month ago on November 8th, 2010. Declaring it ?Small Business Saturday,? the nationwide campaign is meant to spur business for small merchants on a day that falls between the big corporate shopping day better known as Black Friday and Monday?s online shopping, Cyber Monday.

The campaign has successfully used social media to get the word out. Their Facebook page, garnered over 1 million fans in less than a month.
To get the word out, American Express launched a national ad campaign and social media campaigns through Facebook and Twitter. They are also rewarding small businesses through social media. American Express will give the first 10,000 business owners that sign-up $100 of free Facebook advertising. And Facebook has even rallied for the cause, donating $500,000 in Facebook credits for these small business owners to use in the future.

?Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the glue that holds communities together, and we?ve always sought new ways to support them ? something that became even more important when the national economic downturn began,? said Mayor Bloomberg. ?When Ken Chenault told me about his idea for Small Business Saturday, I jumped at the opportunity to participate. We?ve all heard about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, if you have the opportunity to shop on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, make it a point to visit local small businesses. It really can make an enormous difference for merchants in our communities.?

?Small business is the engine of job creation in the US economy,? said American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault. ?It is also among the sectors hardest hit by the recession. By spreading the word about Small Business Saturday, we can help raise awareness about the critical role small businesses play in cities and towns across the country at a time when they need support the most.?

For every person who ?likes? Small Business Saturday on Facebook, American Express is donating $1 up to $500,000 to Girls Inc. to empower young women to be entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/11/27/today-is-the-first-official-small-business-saturday/

school closures due to weather lee majors idaho road conditions beaverton school district

Blog - Poker n' Face

Crytek: the PC is "a generation ahead," but PS3 and 360 holding it back

Crytek believes that because developers are focusing on the PS3 and the 360, the game quality on the PC is being held back. This is happening despite the company saying that the PC is already "a generation ahead" of Sony's and Microsoft's consoles.

Crytek is currently working on Crysis 2 for all three platforms. The original Crysis was an exclusive for the PC. That being said, Crytek has already stated that Crysis 2 will be graphically superior on the PC.

"As long as the current console generation exists and as long as we keep pushing the PC as well, the more difficult it will be to really get the benefit of both," Cevat Yerli, founder, CEO, and President of Crytek, told the latest issue of Edge, according to CVG. "PC is easily a generation ahead right now. With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won't be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks."

Developers have very low sales expectations for the PC, compared to consoles. It's a vicious cycle: the PC market doesn't give the same revenue as the console market, so companies don't spend much on the PC version of a game. This is certainly true for games like Unreal Tournament 3: it would have been much better had it been released as a PC exclusive.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41323-crytek-the-pc-is-a-generation-ahead-but-ps3-and-360-holding-it-back.html

thanksgiving word search printable cranberry relish sweet potato casserole columbia house

Charting His Own Course Against Prevailing Winds

But Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican who played that role long before it had a brand name, is standing against his party on a number of significant issues at a politically dangerous time to do so.

A reliable conservative for decades on every issue, he nonetheless fought President Ronald Reagan ? and prevailed ? on apartheid penalties and over the Philippine presidential election. He went head to head with Senator Jesse Helms in the 1990s over the nomination of William F. Weld, former governor of Massachusetts, as ambassador to Mexico.

Now, in the heat of the post-primary lame-duck Congressional session, he is defying his party on an earmark ban, a bill that would create a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, a military spending authorization bill and an arms control treaty with Russia.

He even declined to sign a brief supporting state lawsuits against President Obama?s health care law because he saw it as political posturing.

Now Mr. Lugar?s willingness to buck his party is leading to talk that he will face a primary challenge from a Tea Party candidate when he runs for re-election in 2012. It is a possibility that Mr. Lugar, who said the current environment in Washington was ?disappointing? and ?without a doubt? the most polarized he had seen since joining the Senate in 1977, understands clearly even as he declines to modify his positions.

?I?m always optimistic,? he said in an interview in his office on Wednesday, ?that good reasoning, good will and proper spirit is going to lead to constructive results even as I describe, as I have, intense polarization that I think is currently there.?

Even after the midterm rout that will remove many long-serving members from Congress, the idea that Mr. Lugar would be vulnerable to a primary challenge is a chilling notion to many Republicans, a symbol of symbolism gone too far.

?If Dick Lugar,? said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, ?having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.?

Mr. Danforth, who was first elected the same year as Mr. Lugar, added, ?I?m glad Lugar?s there and I?m not.?

Mr. Lugar has a long history of carefully chosen battles. He had a deep admiration for Reagan, with whom he worked closely on several military issues, yet at times opposed him.

In the 1980s, Mr. Lugar pressed legislation with tough sanctions against South Africa intended to help end apartheid and free Nelson Mandela, a bill vetoed by Reagan.

?I had the sad responsibility as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee then leading the debate to overthrow his veto,? Mr. Lugar said. ?The net result of this in due course was the freedom for Nelson Mandela,? he said, adding that he felt vindicated when Mr. Mandela visited the Capitol for lunch. ?At the time, not everyone in Indiana agreed with this.?

Further, as a United States representative to monitor the Philippine election between Corazon Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, Mr. Lugar publicly disagreed with Reagan, who said at the time that voting irregularities had occurred on both sides, while Mr. Lugar saw fraud only on behalf of the Marcos campaign.

As such, disagreeing with his colleagues these days on legislation backed by Democrats seems like small change. ?There is nothing going on presently that seems to me that has the significance to the world or in terms of foreign policy as those two events,? he said.

The exception, he added, is the New Start treaty, under which the United States and Russia would pare their nuclear arsenals and resume lapsed mutual inspections, a signature foreign policy goal of the Obama administration. Republican colleagues have opposed the treaty and would prefer to push the matter into the 112th Congress, which begins in January, potentially dooming it.

This has upset Mr. Lugar, who called on his colleagues to ?do your duty? before they broke for Thanksgiving. Nuclear disarmament is an issue Mr. Lugar has pursued most of his career; in the 1990s he teamed with Sam Nunn, then a Democratic senator from Georgia, on their own program to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Obama became involved in the Nunn-Lugar efforts as a senator and traveled with Mr. Lugar to Russia in 2005.

Mr. Lugar?s recent breaks with his party have stirred the attention of Indiana Tea Party groups, who have him in their sights. ?Senator Lugar has been an upstanding citizen representing us in D. C.,? said Diane Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis Tea Party. ?But over the years, he has become more moderate in his voting.?

Removing him ?will be a difficult challenge,? Ms. Hubbard conceded. ?But we do believe it?s doable, and we think the climate is right for it and we believe it is a must.?

Mr. Lugar said he understood that despondence over the economic crisis, a sense that government is more intrusive and a fear that the country?s position on the global stage is becoming more precarious ?are the underlying concerns? of partisan troubles. But, he said, ?The people speaking to them are speaking to them in extremes.?

While Republicans enjoyed much success in the midterms in Indiana, most winning candidates had tenuous or no ties to the Tea Party movement. One thing going for Mr. Lugar about 2012, said Matt Bergbower, an assistant professor of political science at Indiana State University, ?is the Tea Party here has been sort of secondary in nature.?

Mr. Lugar will leave nothing to chance. He conducted an internal poll after the election that showed that his popularity was high, and wrote a three-page letter to a family he saw featured in a newspaper, identified as Tea Party supporters, explaining his background as a small-business man and an observant Methodist.

?I?m very conscious of it,? Mr. Lugar said of a primary threat. ?I?ve been in public life a long time.?

But in the end, he said, ?I will continue to be Dick Lugar, and I will try to do the best job I can? in explaining his positions to the people of Indiana. ?It?s not my nature to simply seek controversy.?

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e881036def2b6280b0c22457220c83b1

sweet potato casserole columbia house thanksgiving math worksheets easter 2011

Today is the first official ?Small Business Saturday? [TNW United States]

Today, November 27, 2010, is the first-ever ?Small Business Saturday,? a day dedicated to supporting small businesses ?that are getting our economy going again.? It?s a day to support the small businesses we love like our local coffee shops and restaurants.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault announced the day less than a month ago on November 8th, 2010. Declaring it ?Small Business Saturday,? the nationwide campaign is meant to spur business for small merchants on a day that falls between the big corporate shopping day better known as Black Friday and Monday?s online shopping, Cyber Monday.

The campaign has successfully used social media to get the word out. Their Facebook page, garnered over 1 million fans in less than a month.
To get the word out, American Express launched a national ad campaign and social media campaigns through Facebook and Twitter. They are also rewarding small businesses through social media. American Express will give the first 10,000 business owners that sign-up $100 of free Facebook advertising. And Facebook has even rallied for the cause, donating $500,000 in Facebook credits for these small business owners to use in the future.

?Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the glue that holds communities together, and we?ve always sought new ways to support them ? something that became even more important when the national economic downturn began,? said Mayor Bloomberg. ?When Ken Chenault told me about his idea for Small Business Saturday, I jumped at the opportunity to participate. We?ve all heard about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, if you have the opportunity to shop on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, make it a point to visit local small businesses. It really can make an enormous difference for merchants in our communities.?

?Small business is the engine of job creation in the US economy,? said American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault. ?It is also among the sectors hardest hit by the recession. By spreading the word about Small Business Saturday, we can help raise awareness about the critical role small businesses play in cities and towns across the country at a time when they need support the most.?

For every person who ?likes? Small Business Saturday on Facebook, American Express is donating $1 up to $500,000 to Girls Inc. to empower young women to be entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/11/27/today-is-the-first-official-small-business-saturday/

cranberry sauce recipe thanksgiving word search printable cranberry relish sweet potato casserole

2 Brothers Will Rule in Wisconsin

The State Capitol here will undergo one of the most marked shifts in the nation after this month?s election, from Democratic dominance to Republican control. But another remarkable change is coming: Representative Jeff Fitzgerald was picked to be the next speaker of Wisconsin?s State Assembly, and Senator Scott Fitzgerald was chosen as majority leader of the State Senate, creating a rare fraternal alignment, experts say, for any state in recent memory.

While all sorts of relatives have served at various times in state legislatures (including husband-and-wife teams, siblings and, after this election, a mother-and-son duo among New Hampshire?s lawmakers), the Fitzgeralds? particular circumstances as simultaneous leaders of both chambers are extremely unusual.

?A lot of people think we turn it off at home,? Representative Fitzgerald said the other day of the brothers? propensity to talk politics and policy during daily cellphone calls, at family birthday gatherings and pretty much everywhere else they happen upon each other. ?But no,? he said. ?It only gets worse.?

The brothers, both conservative Republicans and veteran legislators, acknowledge that they battled as boys over the ?things boys fight about,? Senator Fitzgerald said. More recently, they have cast only a few opposite votes here and there, on the state budget, for instance, and on ethanol standards.

But in a Capitol in which some Assembly leaders have barely been on speaking terms with their counterparts in the Senate, the Fitzgerald brothers are predicting particular cooperation between the chambers (even if Senator Fitzgerald persists in portraying the Assembly as ?big, loud and raucous? and Representative Fitzgerald mocks the Senate for regularly heading home, so he asserts, by 2 in the afternoon).

At 47, Senator Fitzgerald is older, shorter and, even he acknowledges, more stubborn than his only brother. Representative Fitzgerald is 44, the jock of the family, and more laid back. Senator Fitzgerald followed their father, Stephen (a former sheriff of Dodge County) into politics in 1994, then Representative Fitzgerald ran a few years later ? blessed with built-in name recognition that most politicians could only dream of, but mildly worried, too, that there might be ?fatigue? over seeing yet another Fitzgerald on the ballot.

Representative Fitzgerald lives in Horicon, a small city 50 miles northwest of Milwaukee ? and five miles from Senator Fitzgerald?s Juneau home. Senator Fitzgerald represents his brother in the Senate, while Representative Fitzgerald?s district narrowly misses his brother?s home. They tease each other during the political season (?I?ve noticed a lot of your opponent?s signs in yards!?). They also have shared a political opponent, Vittorio Spadaro, who challenged one brother in one cycle, then the other.

Come January, the Fitzgeralds, who had grown used to leading the minorities in their chambers, will lead an Assembly of 60 Republicans, 38 Democrats and an independent and a Senate with 19 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Many legislators are new. Among the Democrats who lost jobs: the current Assembly speaker and senate majority leader.

Had one chamber flipped but not the other, the Fitzgeralds would not be nearly as optimistic about what comes next. The outcome of a divided Capitol, Senator Fitzgerald said, is ?horse trading instead of compromise, and you end up voting for some really bad garbage.? As it is, Representative Fitzgerald said he was preparing to reintroduce a series of jobs bills that went nowhere when Madison was run by Democrats.

Yet these will hardly be simple times. Wisconsin faces a budget gap ? more than $2 billion by some estimates ? and a majority of voters who were clearly searching for something other than what they had. ?I?m ready for it,? Senator Fitzgerald said. ?If we don?t ruffle feathers this time, I think people are going to say we?re not doing what we said we would do.?

Before their caucuses selected them this month, the Fitzgeralds worried that some might object to granting so much power to one family. ?Do you think they?ll let us?? Senator Fitzgerald remembered thinking. This is a nation that hates ? but also adores ? its political dynasties, and the Fitzgeralds easily won.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8874f6148062676054b34ef20b51e756

sweet potato casserole columbia house thanksgiving math worksheets easter 2011

US government seizes 77 piracy and counterfeit domains

The US government has seized at least 77 domains belonging to sites associated with P2P file sharing and counterfeit goods. It appears that their owners were not notified, and the court system was apparently skipped, according to TorrentFreak.

The seizures were carried out suddenly and without warning by a branch of Homeland Security known as ICE. Many of the seized domains were online stores offering counterfeit goods, but there were also a few piracy websites, including a torrent search engine.

Torrent-Finder.com was a meta-search engine, meaning it didn't host BitTorrent links itself, but it offered an interface that loaded a selection of other BitTorrent search engines in iframes on the page. In other words, it didn't host copyright material, nor links to copyright material, but rather links to links to copyright material.

All of these domains now display the image shown above. Here is the corresponding text:

This domain name has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C. 981 and 2323.

Willful copyright infringement is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution (17 U.S.C 506, 18 U.S.C 2319). Intentionally and knowingly trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to ten years in federal prison, a $2,000,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution (18 U.S.C. 2320).

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41321-us-government-seizes-77-piracy-and-counterfeit-domains-.html

thanksgiving games cranberry sauce recipe thanksgiving word search printable cranberry relish

Obama Gets 12 Stitches After Basketball Game

?After being inadvertently hit with an opposing player?s elbow in the lip while playing basketball with friends and family, the president received 12 stitches today administered by the White House medical unit,? the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement.

?They were done in the doctor?s office located on the ground floor of the White House.?

A second White House statement, a couple of hours later, said that Mr. Obama was injured when another player turned into the president, ?who was playing defense, to take a shot when the elbow hit the president in the mouth.?

That statement did not name the player responsible for the elbow, but it listed several players who were not: Mr. Obama?s nephew Avery Robinson; Reggie Love, an Obama aide who played basketball for Duke University; and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Shortly after 5 p.m., the identity of the elbower emerged: Rey Decerega, the director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Mr. Decerega said in a statement that the game was all in good fun ? and did not apologize.

?I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport,? he said.

?I enjoyed playing basketball with him this morning. I?m sure he?ll be back out on the court again soon.?

The White House said Mr. Obama was given a local anesthetic while receiving the stitches.

The stitches were made with a smaller filament than is typically used, which increases the number of stitches but makes a tighter stitch and results in a smaller scar.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ca8ec4c5b09b38e54d3e8b1eff9f967b

sweet potato casserole columbia house thanksgiving math worksheets easter 2011

Health Law Faces Threat of Undercut From Courts

The judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, has promised to rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the law?s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance, which takes effect in 2014.

Although administration officials remain confident that it is constitutionally valid to compel people to obtain health insurance, they also acknowledge that Judge Hudson?s preliminary opinions and comments could presage the first ruling against the law.

?He?s asked a number of questions that express skepticism,? said one administration official who is examining whether a ruling against part of the law would undermine other provisions. ?We have been trying to think through that set of questions,? said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case freely.

While many newly empowered Republican lawmakers have vowed to repeal the health care law in Congress, a more immediate threat may rest in the federal courts in cases brought by Republican officials in dozens of states. Not only would an adverse ruling confuse Americans and attack the law?s underpinnings, it could frustrate the steps hospitals, insurers and government agencies are taking to carry out the law.

?Any ruling against the act creates another P.R. problem for the Democrats, who need to resell the law to insured Americans,? said Jonathan Oberlander, a University of North Carolina political scientist, who wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine last week that such a ruling ?could add to health care reform?s legitimacy problem.?

So far, there has been only one ruling on the merits among nearly two dozen legal challenges to the health care act. Last month, a federal district judge in Michigan upheld the law. But another judge, Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., has joined Judge Hudson in writing preliminary opinions that seemingly accept key arguments made by state officials challenging the law.

Unlike the judge in Michigan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, both Judge Hudson and Judge Vinson were appointed by Republican presidents.

?We are not operating under the assumption that those two judges are inevitably going to rule against us,? the administration official said. ?But of course we?re planning for the possibility that judges will reach different conclusions.?

The novel question before the courts is whether the government can require citizens to buy a commercial product like health insurance.

Because the Supreme Court has said the commerce clause of the Constitution allows Congress to regulate ?activities that substantially affect interstate commerce,? the judges must decide whether the failure to obtain insurance can be defined as an ?activity.?

Lawyers on both sides expect the issue eventually to be decided by the Supreme Court. But the appellate path to that decision could take two years. In the meantime, any district court judge who rules against the law would have to decide whether to block enforcement of one or more of its provisions, potentially creating bureaucratic chaos.

Such a decision would prompt a flurry of appeals, as the Justice Department almost certainly would ask the judge and then the appellate courts to stay, or delay, the injunction pending the outcome of higher court rulings.

Administration officials, as well as some lawyers for the plaintiffs, agree that Judge Hudson seems unlikely, based on his comments from the bench, to enjoin the entire law. The judge volunteered at a hearing last month that his courtroom was ?just one brief stop on the way to the Supreme Court.?

If he does not enjoin the law, the immediate impact of a finding against the insurance mandate would be limited because that provision, and others that might fall with it, do not take effect for more than three years.

Virginia?s attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a Republican who filed the Richmond lawsuit, argues that if Judge Hudson rejects the insurance requirement he should instantly invalidate the entire act on a nationwide basis.

Mr. Cuccinelli and the plaintiffs in the Florida case, who include attorneys general or governors from 20 states, have emphasized that Congressional bill writers did not include a ?severability clause? that would explicitly protect other parts of the sprawling law if certain provisions were struck down.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7060646b65027ec99a53ad6b31868745

turkey brine thanksgiving quotes nfl power rankings week 12 westminster abbey

Folders, Printing, and Email Coming to iBooks Soon? [TNW Apple]

Create, rename, or delete a collection: Tap Collections to display the collections list. Tap New to add a new collection. To delete a collection tap Edit, then tap and tap Delete. You can?t edit or remove the built-in Books and PDFs collections. To edit the name of a collection, tap its name. When you finish, tap Done.

Move a book or PDF to a collection: Go to the bookshelf and tap Edit. Tap each book or PDF that you want to move so that a checkmark appears, then tap Move and select a collection. An item can be in only one collection at a time. When you add a book or PDF to your bookshelf, it?s put in the Books or PDF collection. From there, you can move it to a different collection. You might want to create collections for work and school, for example, or for reference and leisure reading.

View a collection: Tap Collections, then tap an item in the list that appears.

You can use iBooks to send a copy of a PDF via email, or to print all or a portion of the PDF to a supported printer.

Email a PDF: Open the PDF, then tap and choose Email Document. A new message appears with the PDF attached. Tap Send when you finish addressing and writing your message.

Print a PDF: Open the PDF, then tap and choose Print. Select a printer and the page range and number of copies, then tap Print. For information about supported printers, see ?Printing? on page 39.

You can only email or print PDFs. These options aren?t available for ePub books.

via ?Collections?, PDF E-Mailing and Printing coming to iBooks | 9 to 5 Mac ?Collections?, PDF E-Mailing and Printing coming to iBooks | Apple Intelligence.

Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software

Source: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/11/27/folders-printing-and-email-coming-to-ibooks-soon/

cranberry relish sweet potato casserole columbia house thanksgiving math worksheets