TampaYankee

While many or all of your complaints do apply to some sites they are without foundation at this site. This site was formed, in part, because of some of the concerns you voice in your query. From inception we have been dedicated to providing a level playing field for clients and escorts where clients get a fair airing of their experience and escorts get a fair opportunity to reply. Negative reviews are readily accepted if they pass a reasonable vetting process. That same vetting process also applies to positive reviews. There are no special posts to clear for a negative review. Also, we never accept third-party attempts to influence the review process, be they savvy professionals or not. The review acceptance process involves only the reviewer and site management (me). Once acceptance is achieved the escort is invited to make a response. We have no "conflict of interest between sites' income streams and other objectives". We take no money from escorts for listings or other adds so we have nothing to lose if they are displeased by the post of a negative review. In fact, we have lost several escort listings because we posted and would not take down a negative review. That is the cost of doing business on a level playing field. In addition, we observe client discretion to the utmost. The only information an escort receives about a client is what the client puts in the review (or tells the escort in the privacy of their meeting). Many clients are concerned about repercussions from a negative review. That is their personal nature and understandable at some level. Offering another site will not assuage those fears to which our experience can attest. Please do not interpret this response as an attempt to dissuade you from your quest. We share your concerns and desires and we took action to remedy them, candidly without great success. IMO the biggest hill to climb will be overcoming the many readers and reviewers willing to accept the status quo. Most readers and clients have no idea about the shenanigans that are engaged in with these sites as they only read the reviews without consulting the forums where any complaints are aired for as long as they are allowed to stand. Those who do care mostly drop out it seems. Should you go forth maybe you will fare better than we have.

Western U.S. Republicans to urge appeals court to back gay marriage By Eric M. Johnson4 hours ago View photo (Reuters) - Republicans from Western states are expected on Tuesday to urge a U.S. appeals court to rule state bans on gay marriage unconstitutional, an aide said, citing shifts in the cultural standpoints of some conservatives in a broad national debate. Former U.S. senators Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas were among some 20 Republicans who signed a legal brief to be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver. The court is to hear cases from Utah and Oklahoma, where federal courts have ruled state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. "Marriage is strengthened and its benefits, importance to society, and the social stability of the family unit are promoted" through nuptials between gay and lesbian couples, said a copy of the 33-page brief provided to Reuters. The Republican group cited constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law, proper limits to government's role in citizens' personal lives, and individual freedom, among other reasons. There is growing momentum for a legalization of gay marriage in the Western region and across the United States, with judges striking down restrictions in several states including New Mexico, Virginia and Texas. The mood is reflected in polling, too, with support for gay marriage surging in the decade since it first became legal in Massachusetts. Just more than half of Americans now support the idea. In all, 17 states plus the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage, including eight states where it became legal in 2013. Utah and Oklahoma would be added to that list if federal court rulings overturning gay marriage bans on constitutional grounds are upheld by the U.S. Appeals Court in Denver. Hearings are slated for April. Rulings there could render same-sex marriage legal in states within the court's circuit - namely Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, although an opposing decision by the U.S. Supreme Court could bar them. Sean Gallagher, a Denver lawyer and Republican who helped prepare the so-called friend-of-the-court brief, said it reflects changing attitudes of conservatives, moderates, and libertarians in those states. "Traditionally, there have been concerns that it will affect the integrity of the family or will affect the ability to raise kids. The reality is there is no objective proof of that," Gallagher told Reuters in an interview. Gay advocates have notched other wins in the West, with the New Mexico Supreme Court ruling in December to allow same-sex marriage and Nevada dropping its defense of a state ban earlier this month. Nevada's top lawyer said the state's arguments in support of a voter-approved ban on gay marriage were no longer sustainable amid a shifting U.S. landscape, a move that was backed by Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican. Gallagher, who was chief counsel for former presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign in Colorado, said the changes are in part generational. "If you talk to people under the age of 30, gay marriage is just not an issue - whether they are Republicans or Democrats," he said. (Editing by Mark Heinrich) Read original article at: http://news.yahoo.com/western-u-republicans-urge-appeals-court-back-gay-085857009.html

He's been quietly lurking, as recently as yesterday. I suspect he is in MTL and heavily distracted as I would be if I were there.

I love the Pacific Northwest in the summer. The rest of the year, not so certain. I don't do soggy well. I love the Northeast in the summer. The rest of the year I am very certain. If you can stand the cold and snow then the summers and autumn are beautiful. For retirement, probably Ft Lauderdale for all the reasons Tomcal said and one he didn't but I'm sure weighs on his mind -- dancing boys. CA and NY too expensive. Texas to hot and hostile. NC beautiful, especially Asheville area, but hostile too. The most beautiful place I ever lived and I could retire there quite well (I think anyway, it's been 35 years since I left) is Maryland - the Baltimore/DC corridor. Beautiful countryside with rolling pastures and hardwood forests. The most beautiful Spring seasons with the dogwoods and all manner of other flowering trees as well as beautiful flowers cultivated and wild. Nearby fruit orchards -- apples cherries, berries, peaches,... And the amenities of the big city nearby -- Baltimore and DC. Summers are hot and humid but short lived. The Fall, beautiful with the country side ablaze with color in November. Winters are no big deal usually, this year being an exception there and through all of the South. As a mix of beauty, climate, and city amenities it can't be beat, or couldn't at one time.

Insurance Companies as We Know Them Are About to Die And here's what's going to replace them BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL Read this copyrighted article at: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116752/ezekiel-emanuel-book-excerpt-end-health-insurance-companies

No, but it is too late to win.

The Best Time To Book A Plane Ticket, According To New Study The Huffington Post | by Suzy Strutner Finally, there’s a scientific answer to that magic number of days before a flight when tickets are at their cheapest. The answer? Are you ready? Are you reeeally ready? Fifty-four days before takeoff is, on average, when domestic airline tickets are at their absolute lowest price. And if you don’t hit 54 days on the head, you should usually book between 104 to 29 days before your trip -- within the “prime booking window” -- for the lowest possible prices. In this window, ticket prices typically hover within $10 of the lowest price they’ll ever reach. At least that’s what the data from 2013 tells us. The folks at CheapAir spent the last year analyzing over four million airline trips. They tracked ticket prices from 320 days before takeoff all the way up until the day before, calculating precisely which day each one hit its lowest point. Air travelers tend to believe they’ll find the lowest of low prices when they book “at the last minute.” This, according to all present data, is one hundred percent false. The researchers found that, on average, a ticket was at its highest price on the day before the flight. The second-highest price was two days before the flight, the third-highest was three days before… and so on, all the way to 13 days before the flight. This pretty much solidifies the rule that you should NEVER book your ticket within two weeks of a flight… a mistake that 36 percent of CheapAir users made when planning their trips. While the researchers found that 54 days was indeed the magic number for booking on average, they’re quick to point out that this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule: your flight’s “best price” window depends a lot on the specific trip you’re taking. If you’re going somewhere incredibly popular at an incredibly popular time -- like spring break in Florida, for example -- you should book well before the “prime booking window” begins. When there’s constant, strong demand for a flight, the researchers explain, airlines have no incentive to lower ticket prices as time goes on. The same principle holds true for flights to hard-to-reach airports in small cities: there’s little airline competition here, so ticket prices don’t drop nearly as much over their lifespan. Foreign countries are incredibly popular destinations with hard-to-reach airports, so the researchers suggest booking much earlier than the 54 days recommended for domestic flights. Here are the “magic numbers” for some common international destinations: Europe: 151 days before your flight Asia: 129 days before your flight The Caribbean: 101 days before your flight Mexico: 89 days before your flight Latin America: 80 days before your flight Happy booking, travelers! Read the original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/01/best-time-to-book-a-flight_n_4875266.html

On the face of it the ruling seems logical. The guy is not there to object then there is no objection. However, there is more than passing potential for police abuse to arrest the guy on trumped up or overzealous charges. This needs to be carefully watched with the same exclusionary rule for a warrantless or ill-gotten warrant searchs. Else, the cop will just arrest whoever they need in order to remove objectors. There will be abuse.

I'm just happy my card is in the black.

He's a pretty boy but his attitude sucks.

They grow under the rocks.

ABC Warns Supreme Court That It May “Reconsider” Free TV If Aereo Wins By DAVID LIEBERMANFebruary 24, 2014 1:22 PM That would be a problem, the network says in a brief filed today, because “Millions of Americans still rely on free over-the-air broadcasts to receive television programming.” What’s more, “broadcast television not only continues to carry the majority of the country’s most popular shows, but also remains a critically important source of local and national news.” Broadcasters would have little choice but to “reconsider the quality and quantity of the programs they broadcast for free over the air,” ABC asserts, because a Supreme Court ruling that deems Aereo to be legal “would launch a race by cable and satellite companies to develop competing methods to capture copyrighted content and re-sell it without paying for the right to do so.” Aereo says that its subscription streaming service merely leases to consumers the antennas and other technologies that they already can use to watch over-the-air television for free. But ABC counters that Aereo violates a part of the Copyright Act of 1976 called the “Transmit Clause.” It gives a copyright owner an exclusive right to “perform the work publicly,” even with new technologies. The clause “was added to overturn Supreme Court rulings adopting the very ‘equipment provider’ defense Aereo is advancing,” ABC says. Congress didn’t want decisions “to turn on technical specifications — that is why it extended the public-performance right to ‘any device or process’.” The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 22. See original article at: http://tv.yahoo.com/news/abc-warns-supreme-court-may-reconsider-free-tv-212258825.html

Jackson's presidency was an unfortunate one to which the five tribes can attest. His genocide differed from Hitler's in that he acquiesced to let those who could survive the Trail of Tears forced march live in a foreign barren land that stretched beyond the then foreseen boundaries of the United States.

Interesting what very conservative Republicans might think once they are removed from the active politics of Washington. Lots of meat to this article and a conservative I can agree with, at least partly.

Obamacare's 'Cadillac Tax' Could Help Reduce The Cost Of Health Care By WILLIAM H. FRIST, M.D. Like much of the Affordable Care Act, the Cadillac tax—Obamacare’s solution to a tax subsidy created during World War II—offers a solution to an important problem, but is fraught with unintended consequences. Ideally, the tax would prompt employers to offer more cost-effective plans, with some shift of risk to employees along with mechanisms to help employees spend healthcare dollars wisely. For many reasons, that is not likely to be the reality. The Cadillac Tax was designed to raise revenue for the ACA and it will. But we cannot continue to be the little Dutch boy with our finger in the dam. There is an opportunity here to allow the impact of the Cadillac tax to be positive and encourage real restructuring of healthcare spending. Most economists thinking seriously about the depth of our deficit agree that the Employer Sponsored Insurance (ESI) tax subsidy is a significant part of the problem. ESI subsidies date back to the freeze on wage increases during World War II. To offset the freeze, the ESI allowed companies to use pre-tax dollars to pay for generous health benefits tax-free. Of course that was nearly 70 years ago. Today, wages are free to rise, yet the ESI subsidy still costs $250 billion a year. What’s more, that cost only benefits about half of Americans: those with employer-sponsored health insurance. Today, the ESI subsidy encourages overspending in health care by allowing money to be taken out of the normal wage tax structure and put into a safe haven if spent on health plans. The tax structure encourages the misappropriation of fund towards bloated health plans and is regressive. The ability to funnel wages into health benefits is not just the purview of the wealthy. State and local government workers often find much of their compensation tied up in health benefits. Governments and many unions use the subsidy to compensate middle-income workers at a lower cost to the employer. How the Cadillac Tax works Rather than simply repealing the old tax structure, the Obamacare solution is an additional tax, a penalty imposed on “Cadillac” or very high cost health plans. It calls for a 40% excise tax on employer-sponsored plans spending more than $10,200 per employee (or $27,500 per family). This number includes employer and employee-paid premiums and employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) or Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs). There will purportedly be some adjustment for areas where healthcare is more expensive and for employees in high-risk jobs, but the regulations have not yet been promulgated. The purpose of the Cadillac tax is threefold: to address cost of the ESI, to help finance the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and to reduce employer incentive to overspend on health plans and employee incentive to overuse services encouraged by these high-cost plans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) originally projected the tax would raise $137 billion over the first decade starting in 2013. However, due to effective lobbying by pro-union groups and others, the tax is delayed until 2018 and CBO expects it to raise $80 billion between 2018-2023. Other experts estimate as much as $214 billion raised by 2023based on indirect revenue from wage increases. But beyond its role as a funding mechanism, the Cadillac tax could have significant unintended consequences for employees and the health system as a whole. Based on the plan size defined by the tax, in 2018, about 16% of employer-sponsored plans will be affected. However, if healthcare spending continues to exceed inflation, a greater percentage of plans will qualify as “Cadillac plans”—spending more than $10,200 per employee or $27,500 per family— each year. The tax is tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) +1% for the first 2 years of implementation but then just the CPI. If healthcare spending continues to grow at approximately 6% per year (the historic average, though it has grown at a lower rate in recent years), the Cadillac tax will swallow 75% of employer-sponsored plans by 2029. The Cadillac Tax will change the way employers offer health coverage This should be a significant enough impact to change employer behavior, but will the change be positive or negative? I can see at least three major potential impacts of the incentive created to slim down “bloated” health plans. First, employers will move toward reducing the cost of plans to avoid the tax, but not to curb overall health care spending. A 2013 survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans revealed that of the 879 single-employer plans they surveyed, 40% of employers responded that they were currently making changes in their insurance plans to avoid the tax and 16.8% stated they were seriously considering it. The most obvious strategy for lowering employer contribution is to pass costs to employees, either as higher employee premiums, higher deductible plans, removing employer contribution to HSAs and FSAs, increasing co-pays and coinsurance, or just decreasing covered services. While these changes may avoid the tax, they will only decrease the healthcare costs of an employer’s work force if the employee then turns around and spends their healthcare dollars wisely. Alternatively, if employees just avoid healthcare they need due to cost, it could result in more expensive hospitalizations and sick days down the road. Second, “high-cost” plans are not necessarily “benefit-rich” plans. Sicker populations, including the elderly and chronically ill, and populations with more women are simply more expensive to insure. Despite attempts to tailor their plans, employers will not be able to decrease their community rating if they have large numbers of older employers and women. Especially considering the ACA requires more comprehensive coverage for some areas like preventative and obstetrical care, creating a “bare bones” plan is actually antithetical to the rest of the ACA. To dodge this internal inconsistency, workers will likely find themselves in the exchanges. While these workers will still have a health insurance option, if it happens in great numbers it will affect the cost of premiums in the exchanges. In other words, the exchanges will take on the risk and cost of insuring older and sicker workers without the balance of the young-healthy population to share the cost. Finally, given that state and local employers frequently use benefits to make up for lower salaries, the tax will likely affect your garbage man and your child’s teacher. This may result in increased salary, but will definitely result in decreased benefits, higher premiums, and more cost sharing. Due to the misalignment of inflation and the cost of healthcare—healthcare costs rise faster than inflation—a subtle whittling of plans each year to avoid the Cadillac tax will eventually lead to an underinsured work force. We are already hearing stories about people taking on higher deductible plans where the deductible exceeds their ability to pay. In other words, the Affordable Care Act will result in unaffordable plans and an underinsured workforce. The tax will stimulate private-sector innovation On the bright side, the Cadillac tax could have a positive impact on the pricing of healthcare if employers take into account the long-term effects of their immediate maneuvers to avoid the tax. Rather than scheming to avoid the tax at all costs, employers can accept some portion of increased tax while instituting cost-sharing mechanisms that use consumer shopping and market forces to drive down overall healthcare prices. For example, employers can employ strategies like referenced-based pricing and consolidation of services with specific providers to allow for lower contracted costs. Creative solutions like these will actually decrease the cost of care, not just move money around on the balance sheet. We need to attack the cost of healthcare at its source: level of use and initial pricing of services. Simply adding another tax that will indeed raise money but will not change cost is just biding time. Employers have an opportunity here to be pioneers. While the Cadillac tax may change some with revised legislation, it is an idea that has stuck and it addresses a problem that needs solving. This is an opportunity for innovation and change in the private market that can truly impact healthcare behavior and habits. Bill Frist (R.) represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007. He served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007. * * * INVESTORS’ NOTE: The biggest sponsors of employer-sponsored health plans include UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH), Aetna (NYSE:AET), Humana (NYSE:HUM), Cigna (NYSE:CI), and WellPoint (NYSE:WLP). Read the original article at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/02/26/obamacares-cadillac-tax-could-help-reduce-the-cost-of-health-care/?partner=yahootix

Teen Invents Flashlight That Could Change The World By Andrew Lampard Ann Makosinski was just another teenager with another science project when she joined her local science fair in Victoria, Canada, last year. Her invention, a flashlight that is powered solely from hand heat, took second place at the competition. Ann, 16, and her parents, both of whom are HAM radio operators and like to fiddle with electronics, were satisfied with that result. “It’s a very simple project,” said Arthur Makosinski, Ann’s father. “It has four electrical components. Let’s move on and do something different.” But had Ann left her project in Victoria, situated just 25 miles north of Washington State, the world may have missed out on a light source that doesn’t use batteries, solar power or wind energy. Think about that for a moment: a flashlight that shines for as long as you hold onto it. No more scrambling for and chucking away AA batteries. It could have an immediate impact on more than 1.2 billion people -- one-fifth of the world’s population -- who, according to the World Bank, lack regular access to electricity. Stunningly, no one on record has thought to use thermoelectric technology to power a flashlight. But for Ann, peltier tiles, which produce an electrical current when opposite sides are heated and cooled at the same time, were a convenient solution to a friend’s study problem. Two years ago, Ann, who is half-Filipino, was corresponding with a friend of hers in the Philippines who didn’t have electricity. According to Ann, her friend couldn’t complete her homework and was failing in school. “That was the inspiration for my project.” said Ann, “I just wanted to help my friend in the Philippines and my flashlight was a possible solution.” Ann got to work. She remembered hearing human beings described as walking 100-volt light bulbs: “I thought, why not body heat? We have so much heat radiating out of us and it’s being wasted.” After a few prototypes, she unveiled her “hollow flashlight,” so named because it has a hollow aluminum tube at its core that cools the sides of the peltier tiles attached to the flashlight’s cylinder. The other side is warmed by heat from a hand gripping the flashlight. Ann spent several months designing the flashlight and figuring out its voltage conversion. Much has been written online about powering a flashlight with peltier tiles, but those devices used heat from candles and blow torches. Ann’s patent-pending prototype relies on hand warmth only and required that she make her own transformer, among other difference-making factors. Art Makosinski remembers his surprise when Ann figured out how to light the flashlight’s bulbs at 20 millivolts: “I didn’t believe it, I had to inspect the circuit. I said what did you do here, do you have a hidden battery on the other side?” At the behest of Kate Paine, her ninth grade marine biology teacher at St. Michaels University School, Ann submitted her flashlight into the 2013 Google Science Fair last spring. She promptly forget all about it. Thousands of kids apply from around the world. She said she didn’t think she had a chance. A few months later, in September 2013, Ann was named a finalist in her age group. She travelled to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to present alongside equally impressive projects, like a cure for the common cold and a robotic exoskeleton. “I didn’t expect to win anything,” she said. At the science fair’s gala night, Ann and Art mingled among top Google engineers, eminent scientists and some of the most innovative kids on the planet. Hers was the last name they expected to be called out the winner for her age group. When it was, Art almost dropped his camera. Ann floated to the stage as if welded to a conveyer belt; her face was frozen in shock. Her prize was a trophy made out of Legos, a visit to the Lego Group headquarters in Denmark, and a $25,000 scholarship. “I still have some of the same confetti that rained down,” said Ann. “Just an amazing experience and probably something I won’t experience ever again.” When Ann returned to Victoria, she received a standing ovation at her high school’s Monday morning assembly. In the months since, she has given three TEDx talks and appeared on the “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” "I think it’s a lesson that children can innovate," said Art Makosinski. "With the right incentive and environment, they can be quite innovative." Many people have asked where she wants to attend university, expecting to her to name the likes of Stanford or MIT. Ann said she’s not thinking that far ahead; she needs to get through the eleventh grade first. And then there’s the business of securing her flashlight’s patent and tweaking the prototype for market. At roughly 24 lumens, Ann’s flashlight’s brightness falls shy of commercial flashlights, which output dozens if not hundreds of lumens. Of her efforts to increase her flashlight’s voltage efficiency, she said, “I want to make sure my flashlight is available to those who really need it.” Read original article with video here: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/teen-invents-flashlight-could-change-world-182121097.html?vp=1

'Consumer Reports' says to avoid these new cars Read the article here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/02/25/consumer-reports-worst-new-cars/5797579/

When a one raises its profile it is not surprising that more people notice. However, I wouldn't say that male escorting has gone mainstream, far from it. Don't expect these events to become flooded with mainstream straights -- the mainstream of the mainstream. Any mainstream press that follows it is looking for shock value for its readers, hoping to boost circulation. That also is why auto accident photos appear prominently in the press.

How Slavery Led To Modern Capitalism Bloomberg View | by Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman May 1829: A Sale Bill poster used to advertise a public auction of slaves in the West Indies. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Bloomberg View: When the New York City banker James Brown tallied his wealth in 1842, he had to look far below Wall Street to trace its origins. His investments in the American South exceeded $1.5 million, a quarter of which was directly bound up in the ownership of slave plantations. Brown was among the world's most powerful dealers in raw cotton, and his family’s firm, Brown Brothers & Co., served as one of the most important sources of capital and foreign exchange to the U.S. economy. Still, no small amount of his time was devoted to managing slaves from the study of his Leonard Street brownstone in Lower Manhattan. Brown was hardly unusual among the capitalists of the North. Nicholas Biddle's United States Bank of Philadelphia funded banks in Mississippi to promote the expansion of plantation lands. Biddle recognized that slave-grown cotton was the only thing made in the U.S. that had the capacity to bring gold and silver into the vaults of the nation's banks. Likewise, the architects of New England's industrial revolution watched the price of cotton with rapt attention, for their textile mills would have been silent without the labor of slaves on distant plantations. The story we tell about slavery is almost always regional, rather than national. We remember it as a cruel institution of the southern states that would later secede from the Union. Slavery, in this telling, appears limited in scope, an unfortunate detour on the nation's march to modernity, and certainly not the engine of American economic prosperity. Yet to understand slavery's centrality to the rise of American capitalism, just consider the history of an antebellum Alabama dry-goods outfit called Lehman Brothers or a Rhode Island textile manufacturer that would become the antecedent firm of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Reparations lawsuits (since dismissed) generated evidence of slave insurance policies by Aetna and put Brown University and other elite educational institutions on notice that the slave-trade enterprises of their early benefactors were potential legal liabilities. Recent state and municipal disclosure ordinances have forced firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wachovia Corp. to confront unsettling ancestors on their corporate family trees. Such revelations are hardly surprising in light of slavery’s role in spurring the nation’s economic development. America's "take-off" in the 19th century wasn't in spite of slavery; it was largely thanks to it. And recent research in economic history goes further: It highlights the role that commodified human beings played in the emergence of modern capitalism itself. The U.S. won its independence from Britain just as it was becoming possible to imagine a liberal alternative to the mercantilist policies of the colonial era. Those best situated to take advantage of these new opportunities -- those who would soon be called "capitalists" -- rarely started from scratch, but instead drew on wealth generated earlier in the robust Atlantic economy of slaves, sugar and tobacco. Fathers who made their fortunes outfitting ships for distant voyages begat sons who built factories, chartered banks, incorporated canal and railroad enterprises, invested in government securities, and speculated in new financial instruments. This recognizably modern capitalist economy was no less reliant on slavery than the mercantilist economy of the preceding century. Rather, it offered a wider range of opportunities to profit from the remote labor of slaves, especially as cotton emerged as the indispensable commodity of the age of industry. In the North, where slavery had been abolished and cotton failed to grow, the enterprising might transform slave-grown cotton into clothing; market other manufactured goods, such as hoes and hats, to plantation owners; or invest in securities tied to next year's crop prices in places such as Liverpool and Le Havre. This network linked Mississippi planters and Massachusetts manufacturers to the era's great financial firms: the Barings, Browns and Rothschilds. A major financial crisis in 1837 revealed the interdependence of cotton planters, manufacturers and investors, and their collective dependence on the labor of slaves. Leveraged cotton -- pledged but not yet picked -- led overseers to whip their slaves to pick more, and prodded auctioneers to liquidate slave families to cover the debts of the overextended. The plantation didn't just produce the commodities that fueled the broader economy, it also generated innovative business practices that would come to typify modern management. As some of the most heavily capitalized enterprises in antebellum America, plantations offered early examples of time-motion studies and regimentation through clocks and bells. Seeking ever-greater efficiencies in cotton picking, slaveholders reorganized their fields, regimented the workday, and implemented a system of vertical reporting that made overseers into managers answerable to those above for the labor of those below. The perverse reality of a capitalized labor force led to new accounting methods that incorporated (human) property depreciation in the bottom line as slaves aged, as well as new actuarial techniques to indemnify slaveholders from loss or damage to the men and women they owned. Property rights in human beings also created a lengthy set of judicial opinions that would influence the broader sanctity of private property in U.S. law. So important was slavery to the American economy that on the eve of the Civil War, many commentators predicted that the North would kill "its golden goose." That prediction didn't come to pass, and as a result, slavery's importance to American economic development has been obscured. But as scholars delve deeper into corporate archives and think more critically about coerced labor and capitalism -- perhaps informed by the current scale of human trafficking -- the importance of slavery to American economic history will become inescapable. (Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, historians at Harvard University and Brown University respectively, are co-editing "Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development," to be published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2013. The opinions expressed are their own.) To contact the writers of this post: Sven Beckert at beckert@fas.harvard.edu and Seth Rockman at Seth_Rockman@brown.edu. To contact the editor responsible for this post: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net. See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/24/slavery_n_4847105.html?utm_hp_ref=business

I suspect that losing one Super Bowl was enough. Most homophobes are probably even more fanatic about football. I know hoteliers, restauranteurs and tchotchke shop owners are. Brewer will veto.

Harold Ramis, Star of 'Ghostbusters,' Director of 'Caddyshack,' Dies at 69 Read about it here: http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-news/-ghostbusters--actor-harold-ramis-dies-at-69-173530161.html

He gives trailer trash a bad name and proves you don't have to live in one to be one.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

I think not.

Wireless System Could Offer a Private Fast Lane By NICK WINGFIELD FEB. 19, 2014 The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO — In a spacious loft across the street from the Bay Bridge, Steve Perlman did something last week that would ordinarily bring a cellular network to its knees. Around him was a collection of eight iPhones, a pair of television sets with superhigh-resolution 4K displays and an arsenal of other devices. Mr. Perlman played high-definition movies from Netflix on a half-dozen or so devices at once, wirelessly transmitting all the video to them. Instead of stumbling under the strain of so much data jamming the airwaves at once, the video played on all the screens with nary a stutter. The demonstration showed off a technology that Mr. Perlman, a serial entrepreneur and inventor who sold WebTV to Microsoft for more than $500 million in the late 1990s, contends will give mobile users far faster cellular network speeds, with fewer dropped phone calls and other annoyances, even in stadiums and other places where thousands of people use mobile phones at the same time. Read the rest of the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/technology/wireless-system-could-offer-a-private-fast-lane.html?_r=0http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/technology/wireless-system-could-offer-a-private-fast-lane.html?_r=0