| The save the Sonics mailbag
Big Smooth always looking stoned and refusing to jump on his jump shots, but inexplicably making most of them. Detlef imitating Dirk before anyone knew who Dirk was. Mac 10 providing the spark off the bench with gritty D and timely threes. And do not forget about the heart and soul of the team ... Steve 'The Chef' Scheffler, who was an 11 out of 10 on the Bill Simmons Unintentional Comedy Scale. If you were at the Key for any of those playoff games in the mid-'90s, you would understand that Seattle is a basketball town. You think the 12th man at Seahawks games are loud? Try listening to the KeyArena crowd when Karl Malone was at the stripe in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. City: Seattle
Name: Kyle PLEASE tell me why this city should get its team ripped from them? You can't hear the announcer over the cheering ...
Corzine warns of property tax, tuition hikes, closed hospitals
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Thursday said property taxes and tuition may soar and hospitals close if the state doesn't raise more money to solve fiscal woes, but a key senator said relief from the nation's highest property taxes remains a top priority. Speaking on WOR radio, Corzine said just cutting state spending cannot solve state financial problems. The Democratic governor has proposed significantly increasing highway tolls to pay state debt and fund transportation. "Cutting has to be a part of it, but it is not the total solution," Corzine said. "And people who think that, I think, really are unrealistically suggesting that we cut municipal aid or school aid, which means higher property taxes. Or cut higher educational aid, which means higher tuitions.
Snapper rules mean healthy fishery
Skeptics contend that there are plenty of fish in the sea. But most of the population we see is very young, years away from achieving maximum spawning potential.The red snapper is a remarkable fish that can live to over 50 years of age, producing increasing numbers of offspring as it matures. Catching smaller, younger fish is a serious threat to the rebuilding of this vital fish population, robbing our waters of generations upon generations of snapper.Strengthening the snapper population has never been solely an environmental question. Building a sustainable red snapper fishery is critical to a healthy Gulf economy, as well. The future of Florida charter boats, commercial fleets, seafood buyers, restaurants, fishing gear makers and retailers, and hotels, motels and marinas is riding upon thriving fisheries.Just as there are no impenetrable walls separating state and federal waters, successful fisheries management depends on strong cooperation between state and federal entities.Florida's vote on Thursday marks the day when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission can join the actions of the federal council and other Gulf states with complementary rules for red snapper and help speed population recovery and its associated benefits.If the state fails to act, the recovery effort will be hamstrung possibly necessitating further limitations in federal waters, up to and including early closure of the season.The federal government and two Gulf states have stepped to the plate.
Suicide kills more than war and murder
Lithuania posts 70.1 male and 14.0 female suicides per 100,000, while Russia has rates of 61.6 and 10.7, according to the WHO. Another factor was that such countries had undergone extreme changes. "Even though many people have benefited from those changes, many people still feel left behind,'' Prof Mishara said. "People don't kill themselves because they want to die,'' he said. "People kill themselves because they can not see any hope to feel better in the future.'' Share this article What is this? .
An infernal tax scheme comes back
Add a $20 tax to cars, trucks and motorcycles. Tax speeders. Add a $1-per-pack tax to cigarettes. Add a one-cent tax to the statewide sales tax and perhaps another one-cent regionally. Expand the sales tax to groceries and to 174 categories of services, using the proceeds to reduce property taxes on homesteads and cars, trucks and motorcycles. Georgians who prefer Democrats and who feared that putting Republicans in control under the Gold Dome represented a lurch to the right needn't have worried. This is where the old gang left off. House Speaker Glenn Richardson appeared last week before the House Ways and Means Committee to propose something that Democrats never dared bring forth when Zell Miller and his band started studying tax revision 16 years ago.
Middle-class, upscale consumers slow down spending
More signs that a declining economy has begun to hit middle-class and upscale consumers surfaced Thursday amid a new batch of weak retail earnings reports and sour financial news from the Nashville-based J. Alexander's restaurant chain. "Perception is reality when it comes to spending," said Robert Derrington, an analyst with Morgan Keegan & Co. "If the perception that the valuation of your wealth is deteriorating, whether it comes from the fall off of a 401(k) fund, weaker home prices or a perception that your job might be at risk, consumers are going to cut back whenever uncertainty is in the air." .
Washington approach to Georgia roads way off mark
When it does, it returns to fund transportation priorities that may not align with Georgia's. And it returns earmarked for projects like the $87 million allocated to the 26-mile commuter rail line from Atlanta to Lovejoy, or $3 million for clean-fuel buses for MARTA when U.S. Reps. Jack Kingston of Savannah and John Lewis of Atlanta requested $300,000. And in the midst of a war and a tanking economy, members of the Congress of the United States are convening to decide whether safety improvements costing $500,000 should be made on Glenwood Road in DeKalb County, as requested by U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson. They did, thereby transferring to Washington a problem that should have been solved at the county level or, absent that, at the state level. Not surprisingly all nine members of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission appointed by Congress are in agreement that federal gas taxes should be raised by 5 to 8 cents a gallon every year for five years.
O2 Tube trial takes mobile payments underground
O2 has today launched a six-month pilot of NFC (near-field communications) wallet phone technology in London, describing it as the "largest and most comprehensive trial in Europe" of a technology that's already big in Japan. But even as the 500 guinea pigs get their hands on the Nokia 6131 NFC clamshell handset being used in the trial, O2 admitted there's no prospect of an imminent rollout of mobile wallet NFC as a business model. The 500 mobile wallet testers will be able to use the phones to pay for travel across London, as well as for other services such as accessing smart posters at The O2 to download information or ringtones. A smaller number - 225 - also have access to a Barclaycard Visa application preloaded with 200, which they can use to pay for low-value goods at selected retail outlets.
A Growth Maven's New Favorite: Gold
NOT MUCH ESCAPES THE ATTENTION OF THIS wise and wily investor. Near visionary in his ability to identify trends and capitalize on them, Joseph McNay has made a lot of people and institutions wealthy in the 40-plus years he's been plying the investment trade. He manages more than $3 billion at Essex Investment Management in Boston, a firm he founded, including its flagship long-short fund and a natural-resources fund. One of the all-time greats of growth investing, McNay is now pounding the table for, of all things, gold. Attention must be paid. Barron's: Are we in a recession or are we perhaps talking ourselves into one? McNay: We certainly are in an economic slowdown, and my personal opinion is that we are in the early phases of a recession. Whether we are in a recession or not is irrelevant because we are slowing down, and results are becoming more negative.
THE AGE OF SHIVA
Most of the time we just feel sorry for everybody. Much of the novel focuses on Meera's complex feelings, first for her sisters and parents, then for her husband and finally for her child, Ashvin. When she looks at her beloved son, Meera launches into soliloquies that are half dithyramb, half goo and suffused with obvious sexual innuendo. For instance, the novel opens this way: "Every time I touch you, every time I kiss you, every time I offer you my body, Ashvin. Do you know how tightly you shut your eyes as with your lips you search my skin? Do you know how you thrust your feet towards me, how you reach out your arms, how the sides of your chest strain against my palms? Are you aware of your fingers brushing against my breast, their tips trying to curl around something to hold on to, but slipping instead against my smooth flesh? "Ashvin.
Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'
The idea was to keep Iraq and Iran engaged in a war for as long as possible...we armed Saddam to prevent a Shiite domino effect. As long as Iran and Iraq could keep each other militarily occupied, neither could wreak havoc on its neighbors. It worked for a while and it served to stem Iranian influence in the region for decades. Almost as soon as the "Coalition Of The Willing" invaded Iraq, Saddam was deposed, his sons were killed and Moammar Ghadaffi gave up his nuclear weapons programs. Iraq and Libya are not presently threats to their neighbors and the possibility exists that a Democracy in the heart of the Arab world may flourish for a century. Bush was right. .
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