It is hard not to notice West Fargo senior guard Christine Baltezore when she is playing on the basketball court.
At
5-foot-6, Baltezore will never be the tallest or flashiest player on
the floor, but that doesn’t stop her from making her presence known.
Baltezore
does a little of everything for the No. 3-ranked Packers, who play
Jamestown at 7 p.m. today in the North Dakota Class A quarterfinals at
the Bismarck Civic Center.
“She is the total package when it
comes to being a small, feisty guard,” West Fargo head coach Barb
Metcalf said. “She puts herself out there and flies around. Even though
she is a small guard she plays like a lion. I call her our little
mosquito. She is always buzzing in everybody’s ear.”
Another way
Baltezore sticks out is she is one of the few players who wear knee
pads. She basically is a pair of roller blades and a helmet shy of being
ready for a match of roller derby, but instead the knee pads offer
protection.
Where there is a loose ball up for grabs, Baltezore more often than not is in the neighborhood.
“It
is just one of those things I was diving on the ground so much it was
starting to hurt,” Baltezore said. “I put on my knee pads and now I feel
I can do that more, because it is not going to hurt me. I just keep
going, and I was always taught never to give up.”
Besides
basketball, Baltezore runs cross country and track. Her letterman’s
jacket is nearly out of room for more honors and patches. Baltezore also
excels in the classroom, owning a 4.17 grade-point average, which came
in handy when she was applying to the United States Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Md.
Baltezore was accepted after receiving formal recommendations from Gov. Jack Dalrymple and other state politicians.A car parkingguidance is a mechanical device that multiplies parking capacity inside a parking lot.
“It always was in the back of my mind,We offer over 600 chipcard at
wholesale prices of 75% off retail.” said Baltezore, whose father, Jim,
attended West Point. “I always wanted to do something more than just go
to college. I wanted to do something to make a difference. … I decided
to try it out with their program called summer seminar, where you go out
there an experience military life for a week.
“After that, I
knew it was something I wanted to do,” Baltezore added. “It was
difficult, but I knew I could handle it, and it would be something I
would benefit from.”
But before she goes onto Maryland to be a
pilot in the Navy, Baltezore has at least two more games to play with
the Packers, which will cap of a nice career.
Perhaps no one
knows Baltezore better than senior teammate Lexi Lennon, who averages
13.7 points per game and is committed to play basketball at Valley City
State.
“Christine and I have playing together since we were 8
years old,” Lennon said. “We tend to find each other out on the floor.
We have a good connection, and we know where the other is going to be.
It’s been great playing with her all these years. It’s going to be
bittersweet when that last game is played.”
The resolution,
passed at Wednesday’s AGM, calls for Calgary Co-op to phase out over a
five-year period the sale of products produced using battery cages and
gestation stalls. The move follows on the heels of similar decisions
made by other fast food chains and grocery retailers, including Tim
Hortons, Burger King, McDonald’s, and the U.S.You've probably seen ultrasonicsensor at some point. division of Safeway.
But
Alberta farmer groups say a cage-free edict from a retailer the size of
Co-op would likely result in product shortages. The vast majority of
pork and eggs produced in North America are currently produced using
intensive confinement cages.
“Our biggest fear would be the
product would have to start coming in from offshore,” said Alberta Pork
executive director Darcy Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said an
individual hog farmer looking to move to a group housing system for
their animals would have to spend upwards of $250,000 to upgrade his or
her barn.
“Then there are different management skills involved, retraining,This section offers sample made iphoneheadset bodies
of many type men and women in different poses. more workers required,”
he said. “There is fighting and bullying (between the animals) that you
didn’t have to deal with before. And there are safety issues now for the
farmer as well — he’s in a big pen with a whole bunch of animals. So
it’s all of those things, it’s not just that we have to make some
construction changes.”
Even some organic farmers who are already
producing cage-free pork and eggs doubt the mainstream industry can
phase out its traditional practices quickly.
“This is a system
that has been used extensively for many, many years, and to turn it
around immediately would be very hard,” said Ron Hamilton, whose organic
operation Sunworks Farm is in the Camrose area.
However,
Hamilton said the cost of cage-free systems — and the food produced by
them — will go down as the farming method becomes more common. His own
business, he said, has been growing at the rate of 15 per cent annually
as a growing number of consumers seek out alternative sources of food.
“The
consumer is talking about animal welfare issues, and we’ve seen that
grow for many years,” Hamilton said. “It’s not going to go away.”
David Finch, an assistant professor of marketing at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business, agrees.
“The
suppliers will have to ultimately change, because if they don’t,
someone else will. I look at the packed parking lots at Calgary Farmers’
Market on a Saturday or Sunday, and think the market is really speaking
with their feet,” he said.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a fridgemagnet can authenticate your computer usage and data. “The entire supply chain is clearly going in this direction.”
Finch
said Calgary Co-op has the opportunity to differentiate itself from
Calgary’s other large grocery stores by taking an animal welfare stance.
However, he said the resolution also puts Calgary Co-op’s management in
a tough spot, because some of its members are seniors or people on
fixed incomes who may not be able to pay upwards of $5 for a carton of
free-range eggs.
2013年3月7日星期四
What Was the Fire Department PIO Doing in a Car With a KVOA Anchor?
On the afternoon of Feb. 14, TPD was called to the scene of an
apparent solicitation situation in a restaurant parking lot. [You can
read a PDF version of the ten page police report here.] It is there TPD
encountered Alexander and Baker, at a location mere minutes away from
the KVOA studios. Unfortunately, the KVOA studios are situated in a
neighborhood that has a high level of prostitution, and TPD is said to
have told residents they will respond in short order if a call is made.
The call was, and Alexander and Baker were the occupants inside the
vehicle that was the source of the complaint.
No citations were made, and names were redacted from the official TPD police report, but numerous sources have confirmed it was Alexander and Baker who were questioned. In fact, when we made a request for the police report, we did so using their names. The only result was the report of the Feb. 14 incident.
Which might explain why none of this has made the news yet. One could effectively argue this isn’t really a news story. It’s just another incident involving two people who work in the same circles in a somewhat suspicious, but possibly innocuous situation. It isn’t exactly new territory for TPD (although the police report's extensive redaction is somewhat unusual).
“No charges were filed, so it really falls under the realm of gossip news at that point,” said KGUN news director Forrest Carr (For what it's worth, Baker does a segment for KGUN called "No Bad Days With Barrett"). “We don’t really see ourselves as a gossip style publication.”
Fair enough. That said, however, KGUN, and every other significant traditional media outlet in the market, did make the decision to report a demotion within the ranks of the Tucson Police Department. The investigation into Diana Lopez garnered significant coverage in December and early February by local news outlets. Lopez was penalized for sending explicit photos to a TPD colleague, with whom she was having a relationship.
While we can take the high road here and suggest that TPD’s decision to announce the results of its investigation into Lopez was really the impetus for running the story, we’d be kidding ourselves if the hook wasn’t sexually suggestive photos. In fact,Universal streetlight are useful for any project. most news outlets went into descriptive detail as to what the photos featured.
Just because a demotion occurred within the ranks of a taxpayer funded entity, it doesn’t mean the media has to report it. Indeed, it’s likely other demotions in rank have not been reported.
But that precedent creates a bit of a quandary in this case. Not because it involves Alexander, but because it involves a TFD Captain, who was questioned about the activity on company time, while in uniform, driving to the meet-up in a department vehicle. (We attempted to contact Capt. Baker by telephone, left a voicemail and followed up with an email to no response. If he does respond, we will update the story accordingly.)
Conceivably, he could argue he was sharing story information, but at best that seems curious given the location and the amount of time spent in the car. In fact, the witness who called TPD in the first place reported that the car had been seen in that location "every day for the past week."
Even if you take Alexander and Baker at their word — that they were two friends who knew each other for less than a year, who did nothing more than hug and chat in the dead end of an alley — it seems like a spectacularly poor bit of judgment by the two, both married to other people. What could they possibly be discussing that wouldn't be better off talked out over a coffee in a public place? What would any semi-rational person told this story expect was happening?
Furthermore, if there’s suspicion of misconduct, on the taxpayer dime,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. the media doesn’t need to wait for a departmental investigation to report potential concerns.
KVOA’s handling of this situation to date is interesting as well. Either the company believes whatever story Alexander shared, or is hoping this goes away. Alexander anchored the noon newscast on Feb. 14, but Tom McNamara stepped in to handle duties at 4,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a cableties tile and floral motif. an especially unusual occurrence during sweeps period, where stations deem it the most critical to have anchors and reporters in their assigned slots.
Alexander is currently off the air (news director Cathie Batbie-Loucks says Alexander is "on vacation") but to this point KVOA’s approach has seemed different than how they handled a situation with 26-year station news veteran Martha Vazquez. Vazquez, the noon and 4pm anchor prior to Alexander, was cited for a misdemeanor shoplifting incident in mid February 2012. Instead of keeping her on, KVOA forced Vazquez to resign.
The Tucson Weekly was the first to report the Vazquez story, and then the Arizona Daily Star—and Weekly—ran numerous stories and follow-ups. TV news outlets KGUN and KOLD made no mention of the Vazquez incident.
"Reporting on alleged misdeeds by a direct competitor presents an ethical challenge,” said Carr in a facebook post in reference to the station’s decision not to cover the Vazquez story. “It gives the impression that the report might be motivated, in whole or in part, by a desire to make a competitor look bad. Ethical news reporting does not allow hidden agendas, real or perceived. So, misdeeds by a direct competitor must rise to a pretty high level in order to overcome that perception. Had it been our own anchor, we would have felt compelled to report it,TBC help you confidently handsfreeaccess from factories in China. but in this case, not otherwise. Newspaper reporters don't face this problem, given that they compete only indirectly with TV, which leaves them free to pursue the story."
To date, newspapers and other non-TV news outlets have stayed away from the Alexander/Baker situation, despite the fact that seemingly every media outlet in town has the police report in hand, even though further developments—such as a reprimand by TFD—could change that dynamic.
As for KVOA, consistency may not be its forte.Site describes services including iphoneheadset. The station allowed former reporter/anchor Brandon Gunnoe to remain on the job despite a DUI conviction, forced Vazquez to resign over a misdemeanor shoplifting incident, but has Alexander on board , even though Alexander could be in violation of the station’s loosely interpreted morality based contract language, a common inclusion in any signed deal between the station and talent.
No citations were made, and names were redacted from the official TPD police report, but numerous sources have confirmed it was Alexander and Baker who were questioned. In fact, when we made a request for the police report, we did so using their names. The only result was the report of the Feb. 14 incident.
Which might explain why none of this has made the news yet. One could effectively argue this isn’t really a news story. It’s just another incident involving two people who work in the same circles in a somewhat suspicious, but possibly innocuous situation. It isn’t exactly new territory for TPD (although the police report's extensive redaction is somewhat unusual).
“No charges were filed, so it really falls under the realm of gossip news at that point,” said KGUN news director Forrest Carr (For what it's worth, Baker does a segment for KGUN called "No Bad Days With Barrett"). “We don’t really see ourselves as a gossip style publication.”
Fair enough. That said, however, KGUN, and every other significant traditional media outlet in the market, did make the decision to report a demotion within the ranks of the Tucson Police Department. The investigation into Diana Lopez garnered significant coverage in December and early February by local news outlets. Lopez was penalized for sending explicit photos to a TPD colleague, with whom she was having a relationship.
While we can take the high road here and suggest that TPD’s decision to announce the results of its investigation into Lopez was really the impetus for running the story, we’d be kidding ourselves if the hook wasn’t sexually suggestive photos. In fact,Universal streetlight are useful for any project. most news outlets went into descriptive detail as to what the photos featured.
Just because a demotion occurred within the ranks of a taxpayer funded entity, it doesn’t mean the media has to report it. Indeed, it’s likely other demotions in rank have not been reported.
But that precedent creates a bit of a quandary in this case. Not because it involves Alexander, but because it involves a TFD Captain, who was questioned about the activity on company time, while in uniform, driving to the meet-up in a department vehicle. (We attempted to contact Capt. Baker by telephone, left a voicemail and followed up with an email to no response. If he does respond, we will update the story accordingly.)
Conceivably, he could argue he was sharing story information, but at best that seems curious given the location and the amount of time spent in the car. In fact, the witness who called TPD in the first place reported that the car had been seen in that location "every day for the past week."
Even if you take Alexander and Baker at their word — that they were two friends who knew each other for less than a year, who did nothing more than hug and chat in the dead end of an alley — it seems like a spectacularly poor bit of judgment by the two, both married to other people. What could they possibly be discussing that wouldn't be better off talked out over a coffee in a public place? What would any semi-rational person told this story expect was happening?
Furthermore, if there’s suspicion of misconduct, on the taxpayer dime,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. the media doesn’t need to wait for a departmental investigation to report potential concerns.
KVOA’s handling of this situation to date is interesting as well. Either the company believes whatever story Alexander shared, or is hoping this goes away. Alexander anchored the noon newscast on Feb. 14, but Tom McNamara stepped in to handle duties at 4,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a cableties tile and floral motif. an especially unusual occurrence during sweeps period, where stations deem it the most critical to have anchors and reporters in their assigned slots.
Alexander is currently off the air (news director Cathie Batbie-Loucks says Alexander is "on vacation") but to this point KVOA’s approach has seemed different than how they handled a situation with 26-year station news veteran Martha Vazquez. Vazquez, the noon and 4pm anchor prior to Alexander, was cited for a misdemeanor shoplifting incident in mid February 2012. Instead of keeping her on, KVOA forced Vazquez to resign.
The Tucson Weekly was the first to report the Vazquez story, and then the Arizona Daily Star—and Weekly—ran numerous stories and follow-ups. TV news outlets KGUN and KOLD made no mention of the Vazquez incident.
"Reporting on alleged misdeeds by a direct competitor presents an ethical challenge,” said Carr in a facebook post in reference to the station’s decision not to cover the Vazquez story. “It gives the impression that the report might be motivated, in whole or in part, by a desire to make a competitor look bad. Ethical news reporting does not allow hidden agendas, real or perceived. So, misdeeds by a direct competitor must rise to a pretty high level in order to overcome that perception. Had it been our own anchor, we would have felt compelled to report it,TBC help you confidently handsfreeaccess from factories in China. but in this case, not otherwise. Newspaper reporters don't face this problem, given that they compete only indirectly with TV, which leaves them free to pursue the story."
To date, newspapers and other non-TV news outlets have stayed away from the Alexander/Baker situation, despite the fact that seemingly every media outlet in town has the police report in hand, even though further developments—such as a reprimand by TFD—could change that dynamic.
As for KVOA, consistency may not be its forte.Site describes services including iphoneheadset. The station allowed former reporter/anchor Brandon Gunnoe to remain on the job despite a DUI conviction, forced Vazquez to resign over a misdemeanor shoplifting incident, but has Alexander on board , even though Alexander could be in violation of the station’s loosely interpreted morality based contract language, a common inclusion in any signed deal between the station and talent.
A technological game-changer for Upper Gwynedd police
Sitting in his patrol cruiser along Sumneytown Pike on Wednesday
afternoon, Upper Gwynedd Township police officer Chad Staub’s laptop
emitted the beep he was hoping for. A photo of a silver Ford Fusion
popped up on the screen — the vehicle, a rental car reported stolen from
Philadelphia International Airport on March 1, had driven past him a
split-second earlier.
Staub followed, ran the tags and confirmed that it was, indeed, the stolen Ford, pulled it over and successfully recovered the vehicle. An arrest is pending.
It all happened thanks to a new piece of equipment — an Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system — that’s been in the department’s hands for just over a week. Wednesday marked the first time Upper Gwynedd police used the technology to recover a stolen vehicle, and the incident illustrates the system’s benefits, as well as a limitation or two the department soon hopes to overcome.
“It’s something else, like nothing I’ve ever seen,” says Staub,Creative glass tile and fridgemagnet for your distinctive kitchen and bath. the department’s fleet manager, pointing to the two small, flat black boxes slightly bigger than the palm of his hand that are mounted on either side of the trunk lid of his police car, one facing forward and one facing behind. They’re Mobile Plate Hunter-900 units, the brains of the ALPR system, each housing sophisticated cameras that employ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan the letters and numbers of a license plate and convert the image into computerized text in mere milliseconds — each MPH-900 can capture and process up to 3,600 license plates per minute, whether the car it’s attached to is moving or standing still.
That information is then instantly sent to both the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance Network — if it’s the tag of a car that’s been reported stolen, or if a person associated with the tag is wanted, or if the tag is related to an Amber Alert, terrorism alert, or other emergency situation, an alert will appear on-screen, again in milliseconds, as it did for Officer Staub on Wednesday.
“You still need to verify everything, so if it pops up and it says the car is stolen, we don’t just pull them over,” Staub explained. “You have to go through the system manually after that, but it gives you the alert and you can investigate further and take action.”
Having an extra couple sets of technologically advanced eyes to help identify vehicles that patrol officers may not even be aware need to be checked out or stopped, said Staub, makes his MPH-900s a “game-changer.”
According to Stephanie Battista, the Northeast field operations manager for the New York-based ELSAG North America — makers of the MPH-900 and one of a handful of companies in the ALPR business — the OCR technology was initially developed nearly 20 years ago by the Italian postal service for the purpose of quickly reading ZIP code numbers. “When it reads the license plate it interprets the syntax of the letters and numbers,” she explained, adding that about 1,300 police departments in the U.S., and around 30 in the greater Philadelphia area, currently use the technology.
But it’s not cheap: Each MPH-900 unit costs about $18,000. Upper Gwynedd Police Chief David Duffy said his department was able to obtain the ALPR system through a grant from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force, which began using ALPR more regularly following 9/11; since then, state, regional and local law enforcement agencies have discovered the systems can be an effective day-to-day tool, too.
In the grant application process, said Duffy, “I included the fact that Upper Gwynedd Township is home to the largest employer in Montgomery County—Merck,” and pointed out the township’s central location and easy access to numerous major routes, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Rts 309, 202 and 63. The department learned in January they were selected to receive an ALPR system, and at the end of February they acquired the MPH-900s and installed them on Staub’s car.
“You can move them from car to car, but it’s not the easiest thing to do,” said Staub, who’s the department’s guinea pig in terms of seeing how well the system works on a daily basis and figuring out any bugs and reporting them back to ELSAG,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic chipcard and hose. which trained Staub how to use it. “Once all that’s taken care of, then we’ll start to train other officers on it,” he said, adding that he hopes the cost of the system will eventually come down so more patrol cars in the fleet can be outfitted with MPH-900s.
Staub said that the MPH-900 cameras are each capable of picking up plates across about two lanes, so for example he can pick up all the plates on the four-lane Rt. 202 if he’s sitting in the median. And if he’s on a two-way road, if an alert pops up on his screen “it’ll tell you which camera hit, so I know which direction the car was going,Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck.” said Staub.
But there are a few limitations, Staub’s noticed. For one thing, he said, it sometimes has trouble reading specialty license plates — fron disabled to firefighter to wildlife conservation or even Penn State alumni tags — that have the smaller letters. “Pennsylvania doesn’t help us when it comes to tags,” said Staub. “It’s a lot harder to read them and there’s so many — I think Pennsylvania has something like 40 different types of tags.”
He said that for every 50 cars that go by, the MPH-900s will have trouble reading perhaps five. “They haven’t really perfected reading those specialty tags yet, but hopefully they’ll get there,” said Staub.Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck.
But perhaps the biggest issue is the fact that he has to manually update the system every 12 hours so that they have the latest NCIC and CLEAN data. “If a car is reported stolen it’s entered by our county dispatch into the database and once it’s entered it’s available,” he said. The problem is that data might be added to the system in between the department’s twice-a-day updates. However, explained Staub, the system allows him to run prior tag reads later on in case something was updated, which is how he was alerted to the presence of the stolen Ford Fusion.
“I can go into the computer and see where I ran the tag, the location and time and date, in case I want to see if it’s in the area again,” said Staub. The system told him he’d read the stolen car around 4 p.m.Source buymosaic Products at Other Truck Parts. on a weekday going east on Sumneytown Pike, so he hung out at that same location around the same time, and sure enough, the vehicle soon drove by.
Soon, he said, there will be a central server that updates all the data automatically in real time, eliminating the need for manual data downloads, like some of the police departments in Philadelphia already have.
And as far as privacy issues go, Staub said that the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tags he reads every day stay in the system for 30 days and then they’re automatically purged unless that information is needed for a criminal investigation and then the department downloads it. “When it reads a tag, it doesn’t tell me your name and all that stuff,” said Staub. “All it does is it hits on the number if it’s wanted in the database. So it’s not like I’m running everybody’s tag and getting their information back, like I can do if I’m running the tag on a vehicle I’ve stopped.”
Eventually, Staub’s heard, PennDOT will be giving law enforcement data on revoked, suspended and expired tags to put into the ALPR system, “so we’ll have even more knowledge at our disposal,” he said. Another benefit of the system, he added, is that “it gives you an idea of what’s coming through town, if there’s more criminal activity here than we realize.”
Staub followed, ran the tags and confirmed that it was, indeed, the stolen Ford, pulled it over and successfully recovered the vehicle. An arrest is pending.
It all happened thanks to a new piece of equipment — an Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system — that’s been in the department’s hands for just over a week. Wednesday marked the first time Upper Gwynedd police used the technology to recover a stolen vehicle, and the incident illustrates the system’s benefits, as well as a limitation or two the department soon hopes to overcome.
“It’s something else, like nothing I’ve ever seen,” says Staub,Creative glass tile and fridgemagnet for your distinctive kitchen and bath. the department’s fleet manager, pointing to the two small, flat black boxes slightly bigger than the palm of his hand that are mounted on either side of the trunk lid of his police car, one facing forward and one facing behind. They’re Mobile Plate Hunter-900 units, the brains of the ALPR system, each housing sophisticated cameras that employ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan the letters and numbers of a license plate and convert the image into computerized text in mere milliseconds — each MPH-900 can capture and process up to 3,600 license plates per minute, whether the car it’s attached to is moving or standing still.
That information is then instantly sent to both the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance Network — if it’s the tag of a car that’s been reported stolen, or if a person associated with the tag is wanted, or if the tag is related to an Amber Alert, terrorism alert, or other emergency situation, an alert will appear on-screen, again in milliseconds, as it did for Officer Staub on Wednesday.
“You still need to verify everything, so if it pops up and it says the car is stolen, we don’t just pull them over,” Staub explained. “You have to go through the system manually after that, but it gives you the alert and you can investigate further and take action.”
Having an extra couple sets of technologically advanced eyes to help identify vehicles that patrol officers may not even be aware need to be checked out or stopped, said Staub, makes his MPH-900s a “game-changer.”
According to Stephanie Battista, the Northeast field operations manager for the New York-based ELSAG North America — makers of the MPH-900 and one of a handful of companies in the ALPR business — the OCR technology was initially developed nearly 20 years ago by the Italian postal service for the purpose of quickly reading ZIP code numbers. “When it reads the license plate it interprets the syntax of the letters and numbers,” she explained, adding that about 1,300 police departments in the U.S., and around 30 in the greater Philadelphia area, currently use the technology.
But it’s not cheap: Each MPH-900 unit costs about $18,000. Upper Gwynedd Police Chief David Duffy said his department was able to obtain the ALPR system through a grant from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force, which began using ALPR more regularly following 9/11; since then, state, regional and local law enforcement agencies have discovered the systems can be an effective day-to-day tool, too.
In the grant application process, said Duffy, “I included the fact that Upper Gwynedd Township is home to the largest employer in Montgomery County—Merck,” and pointed out the township’s central location and easy access to numerous major routes, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Rts 309, 202 and 63. The department learned in January they were selected to receive an ALPR system, and at the end of February they acquired the MPH-900s and installed them on Staub’s car.
“You can move them from car to car, but it’s not the easiest thing to do,” said Staub, who’s the department’s guinea pig in terms of seeing how well the system works on a daily basis and figuring out any bugs and reporting them back to ELSAG,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic chipcard and hose. which trained Staub how to use it. “Once all that’s taken care of, then we’ll start to train other officers on it,” he said, adding that he hopes the cost of the system will eventually come down so more patrol cars in the fleet can be outfitted with MPH-900s.
Staub said that the MPH-900 cameras are each capable of picking up plates across about two lanes, so for example he can pick up all the plates on the four-lane Rt. 202 if he’s sitting in the median. And if he’s on a two-way road, if an alert pops up on his screen “it’ll tell you which camera hit, so I know which direction the car was going,Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck.” said Staub.
But there are a few limitations, Staub’s noticed. For one thing, he said, it sometimes has trouble reading specialty license plates — fron disabled to firefighter to wildlife conservation or even Penn State alumni tags — that have the smaller letters. “Pennsylvania doesn’t help us when it comes to tags,” said Staub. “It’s a lot harder to read them and there’s so many — I think Pennsylvania has something like 40 different types of tags.”
He said that for every 50 cars that go by, the MPH-900s will have trouble reading perhaps five. “They haven’t really perfected reading those specialty tags yet, but hopefully they’ll get there,” said Staub.Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck.
But perhaps the biggest issue is the fact that he has to manually update the system every 12 hours so that they have the latest NCIC and CLEAN data. “If a car is reported stolen it’s entered by our county dispatch into the database and once it’s entered it’s available,” he said. The problem is that data might be added to the system in between the department’s twice-a-day updates. However, explained Staub, the system allows him to run prior tag reads later on in case something was updated, which is how he was alerted to the presence of the stolen Ford Fusion.
“I can go into the computer and see where I ran the tag, the location and time and date, in case I want to see if it’s in the area again,” said Staub. The system told him he’d read the stolen car around 4 p.m.Source buymosaic Products at Other Truck Parts. on a weekday going east on Sumneytown Pike, so he hung out at that same location around the same time, and sure enough, the vehicle soon drove by.
Soon, he said, there will be a central server that updates all the data automatically in real time, eliminating the need for manual data downloads, like some of the police departments in Philadelphia already have.
And as far as privacy issues go, Staub said that the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tags he reads every day stay in the system for 30 days and then they’re automatically purged unless that information is needed for a criminal investigation and then the department downloads it. “When it reads a tag, it doesn’t tell me your name and all that stuff,” said Staub. “All it does is it hits on the number if it’s wanted in the database. So it’s not like I’m running everybody’s tag and getting their information back, like I can do if I’m running the tag on a vehicle I’ve stopped.”
Eventually, Staub’s heard, PennDOT will be giving law enforcement data on revoked, suspended and expired tags to put into the ALPR system, “so we’ll have even more knowledge at our disposal,” he said. Another benefit of the system, he added, is that “it gives you an idea of what’s coming through town, if there’s more criminal activity here than we realize.”
Ozmott leading mobile "gold rush" for shoppers
Whether it’s the possibility of Google Glass or the ever-evolving
mobile app market, everyone is eyeing what the future will look like for
merchants and consumers in 2013 and beyond. Generations once promised
hoverboards or given futuristic juice boxes, impossible to open (Capri
Sun), finally have the future in their hands.
The next “gold rush” for companies and marketers is to utilize mobile to create real-time, personalized incentives for consumers. Think of it as bringing the Amazon model to brick and mortar. Every store has advertising, specials, signage designed to attract eyeballs and influence purchases.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. It’s a standard. It works.
Still, it’s generic. It’s designed for the masses because it has to be. Now imagine if the advertising seen was directed specifically to an individual, based on habits and preferences. Those who desire to opt-in could eventually receive a push notification with specific deals, all designed to drive and increase purchases for the merchant while prodiving value to the consumer.Why does floortiles grow in homes or buildings? Consumers already know this model online.
Ozmott, a mobile shopping app that integrates with any and all existing POS systems, is young but this is its potential. This is where it can help both consumers and merchants get more out of every interaction.
There’s a tremendous amount of energy and funds being invested in driving engagement from consumers on their smartphones. It’s estimated that, sometime within three to seven years, mobile payments will become common place and acceptance will increase. What everyone is trying to figure out is how we get there, and what those mobile payment systems will look like.
There are a lot of apps and payment platforms looking to bridge the mobile gap between consumers and retailers. The problem is we’re currently mired in the ‘chicken or the egg’ scenario: consumers aren’t adopting these apps as fast because the merchants aren’t there,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlight Head Descriptions. and the merchants aren’t coming onboard because no app/platform has captured enough users to merit their adoption at the POS with expensive new terminals or software downloads.
I think it boils down to value, which is why apps such as Ozmott and Access’ My Deals Mobile are so intriguing. To get consumers to acquire a new behavior, there has to be something in it for them.Buy Wickes Porcelain bestrtls today.
Consumers are habituated to reaching into their wallets and swiping a card or grabbing some cash. We learned from smartcards and contactless payments (which seemed like the next big things at the time) that there has to be something other than just “another way to pay.”
That’s why mobile coupons are such an important part of loyalty programs and eventually, mobile wallets. They’re a very simple way to add value in-store or at the point of sale, which gets consumers habituated to shopping with their mobile devices.
Mobile apps that play in the purchasing decision of consumers are becoming the norm. From consolidating daily deals to rewarding consumers for purchases, apps allow the purchasing process to become a sport - consumers are able to quickly find for the best deal for their purchase instead of spending precious time searching through individual retailer websites and email blasts. In the upcoming months, more and more consumers will experience the benefits of mobile apps and appreciate the time - and money – they’ll save using said apps.A Dessicant chinagembeadsfactory is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal.
Loyalty programs are a big deal these days. From coffee-shop punch cards to drug stores aggregating your history of shameful purchases in return for free shampoo, everybody wants to give something back to the customer. And of course, they also want to keep the customer coming back.
Now, Montreal’s transit authority, STM (Société de transport de Montréal), is launching a loyalty program for transit riders. Currently in pilot under the name “Apollo,” the plan offers special deals and discounts from merchants and cultural organizations to participating holders of STM’s fare-payment option of choice, the Opus card.
STM’s program differs from other loyalty programs in that rather than accumulating points for rewards down the line, participants can derive instant benefits, using their mobile devices.
Users provide basic data about likes and dislikes, which is then funnelled into a system built by STM and its technology partner, SAP. The system has the ability to recognize where a rider is on the transit system. As a result, merchants can make on-the-spot personalized offers based on a rider’s stated preferences and geographic location (recognizing privacy concerns, the system is firewalled to ensure that no specific customer can be identified by the marketing group).
For example, if you’ve identified yourself as a doughnut aficionado, you might exit the subway and get a text offering a free coffee at the Timmy’s down the street. (If there isn’t a Timmy’s down the street, you’re not in Canada.) Or, if your falutingness is a little higher, you could be presented with opera tickets at a discount.
There are also potential transit-oriented benefits. For instance, program participants can be rewarded for using transit more frequently, and they can receive real-time “premium information” about congestion on the system so they can change their routes accordingly.
STM hopes the plan will drive increased ridership and bring in new money from business partners. The partners benefit by reaching a large group of targeted customers likely to use their services. And users, of course, get info and offers designed to gratify instantly.
The program is currently in testing with about 20,000 users, and is expected to roll out to a broader group sometime this spring.
The next “gold rush” for companies and marketers is to utilize mobile to create real-time, personalized incentives for consumers. Think of it as bringing the Amazon model to brick and mortar. Every store has advertising, specials, signage designed to attract eyeballs and influence purchases.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. It’s a standard. It works.
Still, it’s generic. It’s designed for the masses because it has to be. Now imagine if the advertising seen was directed specifically to an individual, based on habits and preferences. Those who desire to opt-in could eventually receive a push notification with specific deals, all designed to drive and increase purchases for the merchant while prodiving value to the consumer.Why does floortiles grow in homes or buildings? Consumers already know this model online.
Ozmott, a mobile shopping app that integrates with any and all existing POS systems, is young but this is its potential. This is where it can help both consumers and merchants get more out of every interaction.
There’s a tremendous amount of energy and funds being invested in driving engagement from consumers on their smartphones. It’s estimated that, sometime within three to seven years, mobile payments will become common place and acceptance will increase. What everyone is trying to figure out is how we get there, and what those mobile payment systems will look like.
There are a lot of apps and payment platforms looking to bridge the mobile gap between consumers and retailers. The problem is we’re currently mired in the ‘chicken or the egg’ scenario: consumers aren’t adopting these apps as fast because the merchants aren’t there,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlight Head Descriptions. and the merchants aren’t coming onboard because no app/platform has captured enough users to merit their adoption at the POS with expensive new terminals or software downloads.
I think it boils down to value, which is why apps such as Ozmott and Access’ My Deals Mobile are so intriguing. To get consumers to acquire a new behavior, there has to be something in it for them.Buy Wickes Porcelain bestrtls today.
Consumers are habituated to reaching into their wallets and swiping a card or grabbing some cash. We learned from smartcards and contactless payments (which seemed like the next big things at the time) that there has to be something other than just “another way to pay.”
That’s why mobile coupons are such an important part of loyalty programs and eventually, mobile wallets. They’re a very simple way to add value in-store or at the point of sale, which gets consumers habituated to shopping with their mobile devices.
Mobile apps that play in the purchasing decision of consumers are becoming the norm. From consolidating daily deals to rewarding consumers for purchases, apps allow the purchasing process to become a sport - consumers are able to quickly find for the best deal for their purchase instead of spending precious time searching through individual retailer websites and email blasts. In the upcoming months, more and more consumers will experience the benefits of mobile apps and appreciate the time - and money – they’ll save using said apps.A Dessicant chinagembeadsfactory is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal.
Loyalty programs are a big deal these days. From coffee-shop punch cards to drug stores aggregating your history of shameful purchases in return for free shampoo, everybody wants to give something back to the customer. And of course, they also want to keep the customer coming back.
Now, Montreal’s transit authority, STM (Société de transport de Montréal), is launching a loyalty program for transit riders. Currently in pilot under the name “Apollo,” the plan offers special deals and discounts from merchants and cultural organizations to participating holders of STM’s fare-payment option of choice, the Opus card.
STM’s program differs from other loyalty programs in that rather than accumulating points for rewards down the line, participants can derive instant benefits, using their mobile devices.
Users provide basic data about likes and dislikes, which is then funnelled into a system built by STM and its technology partner, SAP. The system has the ability to recognize where a rider is on the transit system. As a result, merchants can make on-the-spot personalized offers based on a rider’s stated preferences and geographic location (recognizing privacy concerns, the system is firewalled to ensure that no specific customer can be identified by the marketing group).
For example, if you’ve identified yourself as a doughnut aficionado, you might exit the subway and get a text offering a free coffee at the Timmy’s down the street. (If there isn’t a Timmy’s down the street, you’re not in Canada.) Or, if your falutingness is a little higher, you could be presented with opera tickets at a discount.
There are also potential transit-oriented benefits. For instance, program participants can be rewarded for using transit more frequently, and they can receive real-time “premium information” about congestion on the system so they can change their routes accordingly.
STM hopes the plan will drive increased ridership and bring in new money from business partners. The partners benefit by reaching a large group of targeted customers likely to use their services. And users, of course, get info and offers designed to gratify instantly.
The program is currently in testing with about 20,000 users, and is expected to roll out to a broader group sometime this spring.
2013年3月5日星期二
Chavez Propped Up Cuba, 'Father' Figure Fidel Castro
From the moment Hugo
Chavez assumed the presidency in Venezuela, he formed a very close bond with
Cuban President Fidel Castro — one that boosted Cuba’s economy through trade,
advanced its health care system and bolstered its military might.
"Venezuela is traveling towards the same sea as the Cuban people, a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace," Chávez said during a visit to Havana in 1999, the same year he rose to power.
One of the first major ties between the two countries came in 2000,Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck. when the two presidents inked an agreement under which Venezuela sent 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba at a heavy discount. The shipment was nearly doubled by 2005.
In exchange, Cuba sent thousands of specialists in the fields of education, the arts, sports and medicine to Venezuela.
In 2005, the two countries hammered out a contract to bring tens of thousands of health care workers, including doctors and nurses, to Venezuela and establish them in brand-new health care centers.
Chávez and Castro signed a declaration ripping the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a program supported by the United States as an "expression of a hunger to dominate the region."
Cuba also helped Venezuela free itself from U.S. influences on its military by helping train its soliders in guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency.
In 2007, Chávez signed an agreement with Cuba to embark on a series of technical projects, including the construction of an underwater fiber optics cable.
Venezuelan and Cuban scientists also worked together to improve their countries' food production — spearheading a research project to improve the growing of rice.
Last summer, as The New York Times reported, Chavez announced an agreement with Cuba to create a factory to produce Coppelia ice cream, famous in Cuba for its tropical flavors.
Washington has kept a weary eye on the ongoing cooperation between Venezuela and Cuba with the idea they are trying to dominate the Caribbean economically and militarily. And both sides have fired verbal shots.
President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slammed Cuba as an “outpost of tyranny.’’ She labeled Chavez a “negative force’’ in Latin America.Universal streetlight are useful for any project.
Chávez called Bush’s diplomatic efforts "a false democracy of the elite.’’
The friendship between Venezuela and Cuba long predates Castro. Diplomatic ties between the two powers were first established in 1902. In 1913,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. they agreed to an extradition treaty.
The bond between the two men was often described as a father-son relationship — with Castro was seen as a father figure to Chavez.
Seventeen-year-old Annalese Bacon died when the drunk, drugged, speeding driver of the car she was in lost control and crashed at Reporoa.
Her mother Darlene Fiveash said her 17-year-old daughter met the driver, Trent Robertson, just a week before the fatal crash.
In October last year, Robertson was drunk, had been smoking cannabis and was driving a car with home modifications at speeds of up to 130km/h when he lost control between Taupo and Rotorua, crashed into a fencepost and flipped the car onto its roof.
Annalese was a front seat passenger in the vehicle and died at the scene.TBC help you confidently handsfreeaccess from factories in China.
Yesterday, Robertson was sentenced at the Rotorua District Court to three years prison, and had his licence suspended for five years, for driving dangerously causing death,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a cableties tile and floral motif. driving with excess blood alcohol causing death and driving while suspended.
"Venezuela is traveling towards the same sea as the Cuban people, a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace," Chávez said during a visit to Havana in 1999, the same year he rose to power.
One of the first major ties between the two countries came in 2000,Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck. when the two presidents inked an agreement under which Venezuela sent 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba at a heavy discount. The shipment was nearly doubled by 2005.
In exchange, Cuba sent thousands of specialists in the fields of education, the arts, sports and medicine to Venezuela.
In 2005, the two countries hammered out a contract to bring tens of thousands of health care workers, including doctors and nurses, to Venezuela and establish them in brand-new health care centers.
Chávez and Castro signed a declaration ripping the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a program supported by the United States as an "expression of a hunger to dominate the region."
Cuba also helped Venezuela free itself from U.S. influences on its military by helping train its soliders in guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency.
In 2007, Chávez signed an agreement with Cuba to embark on a series of technical projects, including the construction of an underwater fiber optics cable.
Venezuelan and Cuban scientists also worked together to improve their countries' food production — spearheading a research project to improve the growing of rice.
Last summer, as The New York Times reported, Chavez announced an agreement with Cuba to create a factory to produce Coppelia ice cream, famous in Cuba for its tropical flavors.
Washington has kept a weary eye on the ongoing cooperation between Venezuela and Cuba with the idea they are trying to dominate the Caribbean economically and militarily. And both sides have fired verbal shots.
President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slammed Cuba as an “outpost of tyranny.’’ She labeled Chavez a “negative force’’ in Latin America.Universal streetlight are useful for any project.
Chávez called Bush’s diplomatic efforts "a false democracy of the elite.’’
The friendship between Venezuela and Cuba long predates Castro. Diplomatic ties between the two powers were first established in 1902. In 1913,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and bobbleheads. they agreed to an extradition treaty.
The bond between the two men was often described as a father-son relationship — with Castro was seen as a father figure to Chavez.
Seventeen-year-old Annalese Bacon died when the drunk, drugged, speeding driver of the car she was in lost control and crashed at Reporoa.
Her mother Darlene Fiveash said her 17-year-old daughter met the driver, Trent Robertson, just a week before the fatal crash.
In October last year, Robertson was drunk, had been smoking cannabis and was driving a car with home modifications at speeds of up to 130km/h when he lost control between Taupo and Rotorua, crashed into a fencepost and flipped the car onto its roof.
Annalese was a front seat passenger in the vehicle and died at the scene.TBC help you confidently handsfreeaccess from factories in China.
Yesterday, Robertson was sentenced at the Rotorua District Court to three years prison, and had his licence suspended for five years, for driving dangerously causing death,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a cableties tile and floral motif. driving with excess blood alcohol causing death and driving while suspended.
My Republican Weekend
As we walked through the bland doors of the Hyatt Regency,Source
buymosaic Products at Other Truck
Parts. we had no idea what was waiting for us on the other side. Imagine for one
moment a Turkish bazaar, right after it rear ends a traveling medicine show.
Carnival barkers swarmed around, chanting names and phrases over and over while
handing out pieces of paper.
We barely had time to register this before we also came to the unfortunate realization that we had entered the wrong door. It had to be the wrong door because everyone was walking in the exact opposite direction we were walking in. We were the salmon, they were the falls. We steered ourselves and plowed into the mob heading towards us, all of them sporting patriotic pins and clothing, gripping wine glasses and beer bottles with a steely determination,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic chipcard and hose. and all thinking the same thing...Karl...Karl...Karl.
"We" in this case referred to me and Melissa Griffin, ace political writer for the San Francisco Examiner. And we were trying to get our press passes so that we could join in the crowd barreling toward that ballroom.
Ok, I need to back up here for a moment. When I found out that the Republicans were having their confab right down the road in Sacramento, I knew I had to go. Now stop the wagging of heads and rolling of eyes. I know you think is a "Democrat goes to Sacramento to make fun of the Republicans" story, but that was not my intention. Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I did want to make fun of Karl Rove. The rest, though, I was determined to keep an open mind about. I mean, and the end of the day they put on their L.Creative glass tile and fridgemagnet for your distinctive kitchen and bath.L. Bean pants one leg a time just like us, right? And I was curious to see this legendary fractionalization up front, this divisive split between Rove's Victory Project and the Tea Partiers that I've been reading about. We in the fourth estate love nothing more than a train wreck, and from all accounts you can hear the screeching brakes on the GOP from a mile down the track. Of course there is the additional benefit of the media being demonized by the GOP at every turn. Put that all together, and I was sharpening my knives the whole way up from San Francisco.
I had great hopes too. Besides the aforementioned Karl Rove, there were threats of frenzied GOP parties late into the night, and knickknacks for sale such as bumper stickers that said things like "Keep Honking, I'm Reloading" -- all of which made me completely ill-prepared for the chaos we had just walked into. Although by all counts election of the major officers was pretty much a done deal, the walls of the Hyatt were plastered with campaign posters like an election at a high school (paging Tracy Flick, paging Ms. Tracy Flick). The campaign staffers would descend and feverishly push paper into your hands. Campaign flyers? Nope. Positions and issues? Um,Buy Wickes Porcelain bestrtls today. no. The flyers were announcing where that candidate's party was that night.
That's right, the battle for the hearts and minds over the future leaders of the Republican Caucus was apparently a battle over their livers. This was not terribly surprising given a chat with a bartender later that day. Apparently, when the staff arrived to set up the bar (which opened at 10:30 a.m.) hey found people waiting. They commenced serving drinks at 10:31, and went nonstop until they started prying glasses out of people's hands at 2:30 a.m. Which would explain the gimlet-eyed nature of the clientele. They really were gimlets. Could we be looking at the first coalition of the swilling?
There was no time to ponder this, as the wine-toting crowd swelled into the ballroom to hear the words of Karl. The press was barricaded up against the back wall, with a rope making sure we were kept far away from Rove. He powered up to the stage while the room wobbled to their feet and gave him a less than thunderous response. It turned out to be completely warranted as Rove spent almost half an hour insulting California at every turn, while the room quietly pushed their salads around their plates. When he wasn't blasting California, he was extolling his home state of Texas and telling everyone how happy he was that businesses were going to leave California. He glared at the room and informed us that "California used to lead the country, but no longer, and I say good!" I expected a riot to break out, but a few of the people around us had actually fallen asleep. Finally the mighty Rove told the room to get off their asses, and get back in the game. Then he got back in his car and scrammed as fast as he could.
"He Who Shall Not Be Named" had lived up to everything I hoped. He displayed every bit of arrogance, spite, and complete disregard for his audience that I had hoped for. He made a joke about Al Gore and the Internet. He made jokes about Democrats doing "goofy things." He trotted out the (at this point cliché) "we are turning into Greece" schtick. He made fun of the president. It was all sadly predictable.
And then their savior blew town as fast as his PAC-funded airline ticket could manage. The room suddenly deflated, and were left standing wondering what to do next. The only answer was of course to head back out to the carnival outside. The show in the hallways between the candidates' conference rooms was a lesson in surreal excess. There were purses, festooned with enough faux bling to make Liberace blush. The bumper stickers with their strident slogans. On a table were dozens of photos of grinning delegates posing with the now departed Rove. In the corner was a vendor from Orlando selling pins and jewelry, alongside some truly heroic paintings of George W., Reagan, and Lincoln done in a vaguely "color by numbers" fashion. When I asked him if he was doing well, he sadly shook his head.Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck. Given the wares, I inquired if he had also attended the Republican national convention in Tampa. "They didn't want vendors there," he said. "It's not for small business." Ok, so much for that platform.
It turned out we were not the only salmon swimming upstream in that building. There was an undercurrent of understanding that things were not going the way they had envisioned just a short 12 months ago. The previous year, the powers that be told these exact people that inevitable victory was coming that fall, that the forces of conservatism would once again resonate with the electorate, and their Mormon chosen one would lead them back. And instead, as one candidate put it, "we got our asses kicked."
And then just like that, it turned around. One of the many press flacks that trolled the crowd accosted Melissa and I. He was introducing the press to Marcelino Valdez. Valdez is 33 years old, living in Fresno, and just got elected Central Valley Region vice chairman. He is being groomed by the GOP, and not just for the obvious reason. Yes, he is Latino, and yes the GOP got their clock cleaned last year in part because they only got about 11 Latino votes The need to get right with this important voting block was palatable. On Friday night a mariachi band entertained the delegates. Get it?
We barely had time to register this before we also came to the unfortunate realization that we had entered the wrong door. It had to be the wrong door because everyone was walking in the exact opposite direction we were walking in. We were the salmon, they were the falls. We steered ourselves and plowed into the mob heading towards us, all of them sporting patriotic pins and clothing, gripping wine glasses and beer bottles with a steely determination,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic chipcard and hose. and all thinking the same thing...Karl...Karl...Karl.
"We" in this case referred to me and Melissa Griffin, ace political writer for the San Francisco Examiner. And we were trying to get our press passes so that we could join in the crowd barreling toward that ballroom.
Ok, I need to back up here for a moment. When I found out that the Republicans were having their confab right down the road in Sacramento, I knew I had to go. Now stop the wagging of heads and rolling of eyes. I know you think is a "Democrat goes to Sacramento to make fun of the Republicans" story, but that was not my intention. Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I did want to make fun of Karl Rove. The rest, though, I was determined to keep an open mind about. I mean, and the end of the day they put on their L.Creative glass tile and fridgemagnet for your distinctive kitchen and bath.L. Bean pants one leg a time just like us, right? And I was curious to see this legendary fractionalization up front, this divisive split between Rove's Victory Project and the Tea Partiers that I've been reading about. We in the fourth estate love nothing more than a train wreck, and from all accounts you can hear the screeching brakes on the GOP from a mile down the track. Of course there is the additional benefit of the media being demonized by the GOP at every turn. Put that all together, and I was sharpening my knives the whole way up from San Francisco.
I had great hopes too. Besides the aforementioned Karl Rove, there were threats of frenzied GOP parties late into the night, and knickknacks for sale such as bumper stickers that said things like "Keep Honking, I'm Reloading" -- all of which made me completely ill-prepared for the chaos we had just walked into. Although by all counts election of the major officers was pretty much a done deal, the walls of the Hyatt were plastered with campaign posters like an election at a high school (paging Tracy Flick, paging Ms. Tracy Flick). The campaign staffers would descend and feverishly push paper into your hands. Campaign flyers? Nope. Positions and issues? Um,Buy Wickes Porcelain bestrtls today. no. The flyers were announcing where that candidate's party was that night.
That's right, the battle for the hearts and minds over the future leaders of the Republican Caucus was apparently a battle over their livers. This was not terribly surprising given a chat with a bartender later that day. Apparently, when the staff arrived to set up the bar (which opened at 10:30 a.m.) hey found people waiting. They commenced serving drinks at 10:31, and went nonstop until they started prying glasses out of people's hands at 2:30 a.m. Which would explain the gimlet-eyed nature of the clientele. They really were gimlets. Could we be looking at the first coalition of the swilling?
There was no time to ponder this, as the wine-toting crowd swelled into the ballroom to hear the words of Karl. The press was barricaded up against the back wall, with a rope making sure we were kept far away from Rove. He powered up to the stage while the room wobbled to their feet and gave him a less than thunderous response. It turned out to be completely warranted as Rove spent almost half an hour insulting California at every turn, while the room quietly pushed their salads around their plates. When he wasn't blasting California, he was extolling his home state of Texas and telling everyone how happy he was that businesses were going to leave California. He glared at the room and informed us that "California used to lead the country, but no longer, and I say good!" I expected a riot to break out, but a few of the people around us had actually fallen asleep. Finally the mighty Rove told the room to get off their asses, and get back in the game. Then he got back in his car and scrammed as fast as he could.
"He Who Shall Not Be Named" had lived up to everything I hoped. He displayed every bit of arrogance, spite, and complete disregard for his audience that I had hoped for. He made a joke about Al Gore and the Internet. He made jokes about Democrats doing "goofy things." He trotted out the (at this point cliché) "we are turning into Greece" schtick. He made fun of the president. It was all sadly predictable.
And then their savior blew town as fast as his PAC-funded airline ticket could manage. The room suddenly deflated, and were left standing wondering what to do next. The only answer was of course to head back out to the carnival outside. The show in the hallways between the candidates' conference rooms was a lesson in surreal excess. There were purses, festooned with enough faux bling to make Liberace blush. The bumper stickers with their strident slogans. On a table were dozens of photos of grinning delegates posing with the now departed Rove. In the corner was a vendor from Orlando selling pins and jewelry, alongside some truly heroic paintings of George W., Reagan, and Lincoln done in a vaguely "color by numbers" fashion. When I asked him if he was doing well, he sadly shook his head.Source solarstreetlight Products at Dump Truck. Given the wares, I inquired if he had also attended the Republican national convention in Tampa. "They didn't want vendors there," he said. "It's not for small business." Ok, so much for that platform.
It turned out we were not the only salmon swimming upstream in that building. There was an undercurrent of understanding that things were not going the way they had envisioned just a short 12 months ago. The previous year, the powers that be told these exact people that inevitable victory was coming that fall, that the forces of conservatism would once again resonate with the electorate, and their Mormon chosen one would lead them back. And instead, as one candidate put it, "we got our asses kicked."
And then just like that, it turned around. One of the many press flacks that trolled the crowd accosted Melissa and I. He was introducing the press to Marcelino Valdez. Valdez is 33 years old, living in Fresno, and just got elected Central Valley Region vice chairman. He is being groomed by the GOP, and not just for the obvious reason. Yes, he is Latino, and yes the GOP got their clock cleaned last year in part because they only got about 11 Latino votes The need to get right with this important voting block was palatable. On Friday night a mariachi band entertained the delegates. Get it?
NHS births
The huge rooms are equipped with the latest gadgets, comfortable
furnishings and bright windows overlooking the city beyond.
Registered nurse Nikole Bannister said the new obstetrics department is a vast improvement over the facilities where she currently works in the St. Catharines General Hospital.A Dessicant chinagembeadsfactory is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal.
“This is all brand new equipment for us,Why does floortiles grow in homes or buildings?” she said as she walked through one of the 17 comfortable, private rooms on the fourth floor of the new Niagara Health System hospital on Fourth Ave.
Bannister won’t just be labouring at work in those rooms, caring for patients. In July, she will be in labour in one of those rooms, as a patient.
The first-time mother is five months pregnant.
“I’m excited because I get my own private room,” she said. “That’s probably the biggest thing for me. Currently at the St. Catharines General we only have two private rooms available, so it’s first come-first-serve.Universal streetlight are useful for any project.”
Not only is she guaranteed a private room, it comes equipped with an on-suit shower.
“For me as a patient, I don’t want to be sharing a shower,” she said. “That for me is huge.”
Registered nurse Jocelyn Audette will be delivering her third baby in the new hospital about a month after it opens its doors on March 24.
She spent the bulk of her career working in the obstetrics departments in Niagara Falls, but has been working in Welland for the past six months.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said.
Although it’s a longer drive from her Chippawa home, she said it’s worth travelling the extra distance.
“It is a little further, but it’s much better prepared for every other possibility,” she said.
Jennifer LeMay,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlight Head Descriptions. a registered nurse who currently works in Welland’s obstetrics department, listed several of the many improvements the new consolidated obstetrics department has over existing facilities.
“It’s just amazing,” LeMay said. “When you see the rooms, it’s just phenomenal.”
One big improvement over existing facilities is the access to new equipment.
For instance, she said the Welland hospital’s obstetrics department does not have access to an ultrasound machine in the wee-hours of the morning.
And if a mother goes into labour in the middle of the night, and medical staff are unsure of the baby’s position in the womb, they have no choice but to use an X-ray — exposing the mother and unborn child to radiation.
“We will have portable ultrasound machines on this floor,” she added.
There will also always be an obstetrician on site at the new hospital — meaning there will be no waiting for the doctor even if the mother goes into labour in the middle of the night.
Another advantage is the location of two dedicated obstetric operating rooms — just down the hall from the delivery rooms.
If a Caesarean section (C-section) needs to be performed, LeMay said patients no longer have to be moved to another part of the hospital for the operation.
At times, she said the stretcher wheels have gotten caught in the groove between the elevator and the hallway floor.
“That was a big thing. It was very difficult moving a patient in the elevator for a stat C-section or any emergency,” she said. “It’s a huge safety thing.”
The operating rooms themselves are a vast improvement over existing facilities, with walls lined with material that’s very similar to Corian countertops found in expensive homes, and specially designed flooring that’s highly resistant to bacteria.
Bannister said the new operating rooms are equipped with monitors that allow physicians to consult with specialists anywhere in the hospital building and beyond — technology that has until recently only been available in teaching hospitals in large urban centres.
Moms and babies will normally be discharged within 72 hours of having a C-section performed, and parents will be given an opportunity to naturally bond with their babies despite the unnatural delivery method.
“Babies will be brought out of the OR for a very short time to be seen by the pediatrician, and then they’re going to come back in and we’re going to initiate skin-to-skin contact.”
The amenities are just as impressive in the pediatrics department, a short walk down the hall from obstetrics.
It features 22 private rooms, including several with a negative air pressure system to minimize the spread of infection.
There are also two playrooms for the children to keep busy when they’re feeling up to it, as well as a family apartment where parents can stay at the hospital to remain close to their ailing child.
It’s also decorated with children in mind, featuring colourful decorations and even LED lights set into the ceiling to look like glowing stars.
After 36 years spent working in Welland’s hospital, Mary Stranges is taking on the role of one of two charge nurses overseeing the new pediatrics department.
As nice as it is, Stranges said she’d hoped to retire while working in her hometown hospital.
“I’m nostalgic,” she said.
There’s an oil painting of Dr. Anthony Hsu hanging on the wall at Welland’s pediatrics department. The much-loved pediatrician who died in 2003, “looks at me everyday,” Stranges said.
“I’m sad to leave. I’m happy for the progress and everything else, but I’m very sad to be leaving.”
NHS supervisor said the new hospital “is really a state of the art facility that has all the appropriate technologies and best practices not only for us to treat illness but to prevent illness.”
“I think the facility also looked at the realty of the changes that are coming in health care — more technology, more distance access, more multidisciplinary care teams, more sub-specialization, and certainly more critical mass,” he added.
The new consolidated obstetrics and pediatrics departments also resolve a growing problem at existing sites — staff shortages.
Only a few days ago, the obstetrics department at the Greater Niagara General Hospital was forced to send expecting parents elsewhere to deliver their babies.
One nurse called in sick, but that was all it took to essentially shutdown the short-staffed hospital department until an additional nurse could be brought in.
Smith said the NHS is facing “a real challenge” ensuring there’s appropriate staff levels, and it’s a problem that has helped convince hospital administrators that the consolidated programs are needed.
“At the moment we do our best with coverage for all of the sites, but there are times when closures have to occur,” Smith said.
By consolidated the program from all three hospitals at a single site, bringing all existing staff together, there should never again be problems like that occurring.
“In the model that’s emerging, we will ensure that we do have 24/7 access in a consolidated environment with a state-of-the-art physical plant, with well-trained nurses to focus on best practice, and an adequate number of nurses to cover 365 days a year.”
Smith said the new consolidated programs should also help resolve physician shortages because the working environment would enhance recruitment efforts.
“We have physician numbers that are not growing and they’re unlikely to grow in the current configuration,Product information for Avery Dennison bobblehead products.” he said.
Smith said the opposition from south Niagara communities to the consolidated programs is the result of “emotional attachment and a perception of what health care is like, and the reality of practice today and the model of practice that’s coming.”
He said people who have opposed the consolidation, “very legitimately and appropriately yearn for the model that we can have more services in smaller communities. I can completely understand that that would be their preferred desire. Unfortunately, we have been unable to pursued them that that model of care is no longer sustainable.”
Registered nurse Nikole Bannister said the new obstetrics department is a vast improvement over the facilities where she currently works in the St. Catharines General Hospital.A Dessicant chinagembeadsfactory is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal.
“This is all brand new equipment for us,Why does floortiles grow in homes or buildings?” she said as she walked through one of the 17 comfortable, private rooms on the fourth floor of the new Niagara Health System hospital on Fourth Ave.
Bannister won’t just be labouring at work in those rooms, caring for patients. In July, she will be in labour in one of those rooms, as a patient.
The first-time mother is five months pregnant.
“I’m excited because I get my own private room,” she said. “That’s probably the biggest thing for me. Currently at the St. Catharines General we only have two private rooms available, so it’s first come-first-serve.Universal streetlight are useful for any project.”
Not only is she guaranteed a private room, it comes equipped with an on-suit shower.
“For me as a patient, I don’t want to be sharing a shower,” she said. “That for me is huge.”
Registered nurse Jocelyn Audette will be delivering her third baby in the new hospital about a month after it opens its doors on March 24.
She spent the bulk of her career working in the obstetrics departments in Niagara Falls, but has been working in Welland for the past six months.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said.
Although it’s a longer drive from her Chippawa home, she said it’s worth travelling the extra distance.
“It is a little further, but it’s much better prepared for every other possibility,” she said.
Jennifer LeMay,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlight Head Descriptions. a registered nurse who currently works in Welland’s obstetrics department, listed several of the many improvements the new consolidated obstetrics department has over existing facilities.
“It’s just amazing,” LeMay said. “When you see the rooms, it’s just phenomenal.”
One big improvement over existing facilities is the access to new equipment.
For instance, she said the Welland hospital’s obstetrics department does not have access to an ultrasound machine in the wee-hours of the morning.
And if a mother goes into labour in the middle of the night, and medical staff are unsure of the baby’s position in the womb, they have no choice but to use an X-ray — exposing the mother and unborn child to radiation.
“We will have portable ultrasound machines on this floor,” she added.
There will also always be an obstetrician on site at the new hospital — meaning there will be no waiting for the doctor even if the mother goes into labour in the middle of the night.
Another advantage is the location of two dedicated obstetric operating rooms — just down the hall from the delivery rooms.
If a Caesarean section (C-section) needs to be performed, LeMay said patients no longer have to be moved to another part of the hospital for the operation.
At times, she said the stretcher wheels have gotten caught in the groove between the elevator and the hallway floor.
“That was a big thing. It was very difficult moving a patient in the elevator for a stat C-section or any emergency,” she said. “It’s a huge safety thing.”
The operating rooms themselves are a vast improvement over existing facilities, with walls lined with material that’s very similar to Corian countertops found in expensive homes, and specially designed flooring that’s highly resistant to bacteria.
Bannister said the new operating rooms are equipped with monitors that allow physicians to consult with specialists anywhere in the hospital building and beyond — technology that has until recently only been available in teaching hospitals in large urban centres.
Moms and babies will normally be discharged within 72 hours of having a C-section performed, and parents will be given an opportunity to naturally bond with their babies despite the unnatural delivery method.
“Babies will be brought out of the OR for a very short time to be seen by the pediatrician, and then they’re going to come back in and we’re going to initiate skin-to-skin contact.”
The amenities are just as impressive in the pediatrics department, a short walk down the hall from obstetrics.
It features 22 private rooms, including several with a negative air pressure system to minimize the spread of infection.
There are also two playrooms for the children to keep busy when they’re feeling up to it, as well as a family apartment where parents can stay at the hospital to remain close to their ailing child.
It’s also decorated with children in mind, featuring colourful decorations and even LED lights set into the ceiling to look like glowing stars.
After 36 years spent working in Welland’s hospital, Mary Stranges is taking on the role of one of two charge nurses overseeing the new pediatrics department.
As nice as it is, Stranges said she’d hoped to retire while working in her hometown hospital.
“I’m nostalgic,” she said.
There’s an oil painting of Dr. Anthony Hsu hanging on the wall at Welland’s pediatrics department. The much-loved pediatrician who died in 2003, “looks at me everyday,” Stranges said.
“I’m sad to leave. I’m happy for the progress and everything else, but I’m very sad to be leaving.”
NHS supervisor said the new hospital “is really a state of the art facility that has all the appropriate technologies and best practices not only for us to treat illness but to prevent illness.”
“I think the facility also looked at the realty of the changes that are coming in health care — more technology, more distance access, more multidisciplinary care teams, more sub-specialization, and certainly more critical mass,” he added.
The new consolidated obstetrics and pediatrics departments also resolve a growing problem at existing sites — staff shortages.
Only a few days ago, the obstetrics department at the Greater Niagara General Hospital was forced to send expecting parents elsewhere to deliver their babies.
One nurse called in sick, but that was all it took to essentially shutdown the short-staffed hospital department until an additional nurse could be brought in.
Smith said the NHS is facing “a real challenge” ensuring there’s appropriate staff levels, and it’s a problem that has helped convince hospital administrators that the consolidated programs are needed.
“At the moment we do our best with coverage for all of the sites, but there are times when closures have to occur,” Smith said.
By consolidated the program from all three hospitals at a single site, bringing all existing staff together, there should never again be problems like that occurring.
“In the model that’s emerging, we will ensure that we do have 24/7 access in a consolidated environment with a state-of-the-art physical plant, with well-trained nurses to focus on best practice, and an adequate number of nurses to cover 365 days a year.”
Smith said the new consolidated programs should also help resolve physician shortages because the working environment would enhance recruitment efforts.
“We have physician numbers that are not growing and they’re unlikely to grow in the current configuration,Product information for Avery Dennison bobblehead products.” he said.
Smith said the opposition from south Niagara communities to the consolidated programs is the result of “emotional attachment and a perception of what health care is like, and the reality of practice today and the model of practice that’s coming.”
He said people who have opposed the consolidation, “very legitimately and appropriately yearn for the model that we can have more services in smaller communities. I can completely understand that that would be their preferred desire. Unfortunately, we have been unable to pursued them that that model of care is no longer sustainable.”
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