Thursday, November 20, 2008

Officials blamed for Brazil crash

Safety concerns
All 187 people on board the airbus A320 aircraft, and 12 people on the ground, died when it skidded off a wet runway, veered across a busy road and crashed into an air cargo building after landing at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport.
The accident highlighted concerns about the safety of the short runway at the domestic airport cheap lotro gold, especially in rainy conditions, says the BBC's Gary Duffy in Sao Paulo.
Former presidents of the Brazilian civil aviation authority (ANAC) are among the 10 people who could now face prosecution.
Officials from Infraero - the body that administers the country's main commercial airports - as well as those who cleared the runway for landing on the day of the crash could also be charged.
One of TAM's directors and a former manager are also named in the report.
A charge of jeopardising air transportation safety could potentially lead to a six-year jail term.
However, our correspondent says the legal process in Brazil is notoriously complicated cheap wow gold, and cases can take years before reaching a conclusion.

A passenger plane run by the Brazilian airline TAM crashed into a building after veering off a Sao Paulo runway in heavy rain in July 2007.
An investigation has blamed government agencies for failing on runway safety and TAM for a lack of pilot training.
Prosecutors will now have to decide whether formally to file charges.
The report follows a 16-month civil police investigation.
It also blamed the plane's manufacturer, Airbus, for the lack of a warning system relating to the aircraft's reverse thrusters.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Maradona shrugs off Butcher snub


New Argentina boss Diego Maradona will not lose any sleep if Terry Butcher refuses to shake his hand at Hampden.
Scotland assistant Butcher said he will never forgive Maradona for the infamous "Hand of God" goal which helped knock England out of the 1986 World Cup.
"I don't understand why Butcher has this attitude," said Maradona, who then queried England's 1966 World Cup win.
"England won a World Cup with a goal that never crossed the line,wow gold so it's not fair that people should judge me."

He was, of course, referring to Geoff Hurst's extra-time goal in the final against West Germany at Wembley that may not have crossed the goal-line after thundering off the underside of the crossbar.


Hurst's hat-trick goal to make it 4-2 was also controversial, since several spectators had run on to the pitch before he scored.
Maradona has received a warm welcome in Scotland as he prepares for his first game in charge of the national team.
However, former England captain Butcher was not in the mood to join in with the adulation for one of the game's greatest players.
"If people are fine with me cheap wow gold, I'll greet them," added Maradona.
"Let Butcher get on with his life and I'll get on with my life.
"I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. If Butcher doesn't shake my hand, I'll still be alive tomorrow."
Maradona scored his first international goal at Hampden in a 3-1 win in 1979 and the Argentine legend has fond memories of Glasgow.


His virtuoso performance won him many fans in Scotland, while his role in eliminating England from the World Cup in Mexico may have added to his list of admirers north of the border.
"I am very much aware of how popular I am and it's great to think I've made them very happy," said Maradona when asked about his relationship with Scottish supporters.
"If I get the chance to make them happy again, that would be marvellous.
"It's something that was very special to me buy wow gold. It was nice to start my international career and get my first goal here.
"What I want to do in terms of repaying them is hopefully put on a good spectacle.
"I feel great. I feel very good. I'm very happy to be back in Scotland after so long away.
"It's a very, very proud moment for me to be heading up the Argentina national side."

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Bloomberg Gets His Way on Willets Point



With housing, as with the swaying elected officials, the administration seemed to be reaching further than it had in the past. The city paid $250,000 to a group intended to lobby the community board and elected officials on the project, and Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, Economic Development Corporation president Seth Pinsky and, eventually, Mayor Bloomberg all lobbied elected officials personally on the subject.


The housing deal reached today is notable for its high ratio of below-market rate units. Thirty-five percent, or around 1,900, of the total 5,500 apartments will be required to be at rates considered affordable to those making 60 percent or below of the area median income, or $45,000 for a family of four. At the low end, about 250 of those apartments cheap wow gold would be available to those making 30 percent of the area median income, or $23,000 for a family of four, according to figures from the Council.


After months of negotiation, lobbying, threats, protests, counter-protests and a fair bit of grandstanding, the Bloomberg administration has reached a deal with key members of the City Council to approve a redevelopment of Willets Point, the industrial area by Citi Field in Queens.


The Willets Point plan, which calls for the development of 5,500 apartments in the place of a district filled with car repair shops, had been one of the few major developments marked by legitimate uncertainty over whether or not the Council would give its approval. The local councilman, Hiram Monserrate, had been strong in his opposition to the administration’s plan, vowing he would vote against it without major changes to the affordable housing numbers and a hike in the number of land deals with the existing property owners.


But earlier today, Mr. Monserrate, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Councilwoman Melinda Katz and affordable housing group ACORN all reached a final accord with the Bloomberg administration on a housing plan for the site that requires nearly 2,000 below-market rate units. With a deal also in the works between the city and the 62-acre site’s largest landowner, Tully Construction maplestory mesos, Mr. Monserrate and the others gave their thumbs up to the plan, which requires a vote by the full City Council tomorrow.


“We have gotten to a point where I believe the vast majority of my colleagues will stand with myself” on the issue, Ms. Quinn, who endorsed the plan, said at an afternoon news conference.


And thus the plan, in the end, has a similar narrative to the rezonings of Hudson Yards, Greenpoint/Williamsburg, 125th Street, the Con-Ed site on the East Side and even to the Atlantic Yards project. All faced resistance from the community but ultimately won the support of key elected officials after a deal on affordable housing and other concessions.


The resistance on Willets, mostly on the part of the ever-negotiating Mr. Monserrate, had long revolved around the subjects of the housing plan and the potential use of eminent domain to take the land from the existing landowners. Mr. Monserrate had previously said he was fully against the “wholesale use of eminent domain” and wanted the administration to make deals with a large number of the owners.


The administration has indeed made deals since Mr. Monserrate first threatened to vote down the plan, and should an agreement with Tully mature, the city buy wow gold claims it would control about half of the private property. However, the number of landowners with deals is only a fraction of the total at the site, as the city focused its efforts on a few large properties. As of this afternoon, the city had agreements with 13 owners, leaving another 61 without any deals.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Wrath profession recipes in pictures



Also remember that some of these may have changed since beta. One thing that hasn't changed is that sweet, sweet ride, the Engineered Motorbike.


Screenshots may not be the cleanest way to present this list, but at least you won't have to worry about transcription errors, right? Here are some of the many trainable recipes we were able to find in Northrend. Remember that the Grand Master trainers are in Dalaran which world of warcraft gold you need to be level 74 to do the quest to enter. If you're not that level yet, make fast friends with a L74 Mage who has been up there and trained the Portal spell.



Sunday, November 9, 2008

So you want to be an Alliance Warrior

Then again, those common everyday guards in Stormwind are warriors too, so your character needn't necessarily be very ambitious. You might even take some inspiration from the quests various guards will give you in Elwynn, Duskwood, and Redridge settings, and just decide to be a random soldier trying to get by in the world, practicing with your trusty sword on the target dummies, sweating under the weight of his armor, getting sent to all sorts of strange places on various assignments just like people do with soldiers in the real world. The more you can make use of military jargon, the better.

This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twelfth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

From the way that warriors are available to nearly every race in the game as a sort of default fighter person, you'd think that they would be the fallback choice for any number of different sort of characters you might imagine. Any sort of regular shmuck could be a warrior right? You just gotta pick up some sort of weapon and start swinging it around at an enemy, yes?

No. Even though the Warrior class is available to every race in the game, every race has its own tradition of what it means to be a warrior -- it's not just a farmer with a pitchfork running around and trying to kill things. Warriors go through extensive training, learn to wield a wide variety of weapons, and train themselves in staying upright and charging about even while wearing all kinds of heavy metal on their bodies.So today we'll look into some of the ways that the races of the Alliance understand what it means to be a warrior, and see which heroes your character might look up to, as well as the archetypes these heroes represent.Humans

Warriors in human history books tend to be leadership figures, such as Anduin Lothar, Danath Trollbane, and even the current king of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn (son of Llane Wrynn, also a warrior). If your warrior character follows this tradition, he or she is likely to try and be a leader lots of the time, leading other people into battle and generally acting very brave, even against terrible odds. You may call yourself by the title of "Knight" or "Champion," (especially if you have one of those titles left over from the old PvP system).

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Why Gay Marriage Was Defeated in California


Gays did win some victories yesterday. A new openly gay member of Congress, Jared Polis of Colorado, will go to the House in January. And thanks in part to the Cabinet, the group of [a {e}]lite gay political donors I wrote about recently, Democrats took the New York senate. The entire New York legislature is now in Democratic hands, and New York's governor, David Paterson, is one of the nation's most eloquent pro-marriage-equality representatives. He is also, by the way, African American. Perhaps he can help bridge the gap between gays and blacks that widened on Nov. 4.


Nov. 4 may have been a joyous day for liberals, but it wasn't a great day for lesbians and gays. Three big states - Arizona, California and Florida - voted to change their constitutions to define marriage as a heterosexuals-only institution. The losses cut deep on the gay side. Arizona had rejected just such a constitutional amendment only two years ago maplestory mesos. It had been the first and only state to have rebuffed a constitutional ban on marriage equality. In Florida, where the law requires constitutional amendments to win by 60%, a marriage amendment passed with disturbing ease, 62.1% to 37.9%.


And then there was California. Gay strategists working for marriage equality in this election cycle had focused most of their attention on that state. Losing there dims hopes that shimmered brightly wow gold just a few weeks ago - hopes that in an Obama America, straight people would be willing to let gay people have the basic right to equality in their personal relationships. It appears not.


The California vote was close but not razor-thin: as of 10 a.m. P.T., with 96.4% of precincts reporting, gays had lost 52.2% to 47.8%. Obama did not suffer the much-discussed "Bradley effect" this year, but it appears that gay people were afflicted world of warcraft gold by some version of it. As of late October, a Field Poll found that the pro-gay side was winning 49% to 44%, with 7% undecided. But gays could not quite make it to 49% on Election Day, meaning a few people may have been unwilling to tell pollsters that they intended to vote against equal marriage rights.


Gays are used to losing these constitutional amendment battles - as I said, Arizona was the only exception - but gay activists cannot claim they didn't have the money to wage the California fight. According to an analysis of the most recent reports from the California secretary of state, the pro-equality side raised an astonishing $43.6 million, compared with just $29.8 million for those who succeeded in keeping gays from marrying. The money the gay side raised is surprising for two reasons: first, the cash-Hoover known as the Obama campaign was sucking down millions of dollars a day from the nation's liberals. Many gays expected it to be difficult to raise money to fight Proposition 8 and its plan to outlaw same-sex marriage from Democrats eager to give to Obama and to the outside 527 groups supporting him. As recently as August, one of the nation's top gay political givers told me that he expected the gay side to raise no more than $25 million.


But a series of high-profile Hollywood donations, as well as a frantic, nationwide push for gays to get out their checkbooks, turned out to be quite successful runescape gold in the short term. East Coast gays had been lulled into inaction by the Oct. 10 Connecticut Supreme Court decision granting gay couples the right to marry - a decision that hadn't required gays to write a single check. But gay people in Los Angeles and San Francisco cajoled and shamed their Eastern friends into opening their wallets. Thousands of California gay couples got married in the past few weeks, and I didn't see a single invitation to a gay ceremony that didn't include a plea to donate to the pro-equality campaign in lieu of buying wedding gifts.


Still, even though gays were fighting to preserve a basic right, it was the anti-equality side in California that seemed to have cheap wow gold the most fervor. A symbolic low point for the gay side came on Oct. 13, when the Sacramento Bee ran a remarkable story about Rick and Pam Patterson, a Mormon couple of modest means - he drives a 10-year-old Honda Civic, she raises their five boys - who had withdrawn $50,000 from their savings account and given it to the pro-8 campaign. "It was a decision we made very prayerfully," Pam Patterson, 48, told the Bee's Jennifer Garza. "Was it an easy decision? No. But it was a clear decision, one that had so much potential to benefit our children and their children."


You could argue that marriage equality has little to do with children, but Patterson seemed to speak to Californians' inchoate phobias about gays and kids. On the Friday before the Bee story appeared, a group of San Francisco first-graders was taken to city hall to see their lesbian teacher marry her partner. Apparently the field trip was a parent's idea - not the teacher's - but the optics of the event were terrible for the gay side. It seemed like so much indoctrination.


That news came around the same time the pro-amendment forces were running a devastating ad showing a self-satisfied San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom shouting wild-eyed at a rally that same-sex marriage was inevitable "whether you like it or not." The announcer then said darkly wow eu gold, "It's no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory." Many fence sitters were turned off by Newsom's arrogance; blogger Andrew Sullivan attributed mid-October polls against the gay side to the "Newsom effect."


Gays came back in some polls, but they couldn't pull out a win. Part of the reason is that Obama inspired unprecedented numbers of African Americans to vote. Polls show that black voters are more likely to attend church than whites and less likely to be comfortable with equality for gay people. According to CNN, African Americans voted against marriage equality by a wide margin, 69% to 31%. High turnout of African Americans in Florida probably help explain that state's lopsided vote to ban same-sex weddings.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Rangers prospect dies during game

The 17th overall selection in the 2007 draft, Cherepanov had been playing with Avangard Omsk of Russia’s Continental Hockey League. He had seven goals and five assists in 12 games for Avangard this season.“He was a great kid,” Cherepanov’s agent, Jay Grossman, told TSN. “He had a great smile and was an outstanding player with a great future on and off the ice. It’s both shocking and devastating news for all of us.”

“The NHLPA is saddened to learn of the passing of Alexei Cherepanov wow gold,” NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly said in a statement. “Alexei was a tremendous young man and a highly-skilled hockey player whose promising career had no limits. His unexpected passing at such a young age is a great loss for the entire hockey community.”

New York Rangers prospect Alexei Cherepanov died during a game in his native Russia on Monday night. He was 19.
The New York Post reported that Cherepanov suffered a heart attack and collapsed on the bench during Avangard runescape gold Omsk’s game against Vityav Chekhov.
Former Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr had just finished a shift with Cherepanov and was talking to the him when the Russian suddenly collapsed.

TSN of Canada reported that medical officials attempted to get Cherepanov’s heart beating again. According to the web site, the ambulance that is normally at all games had already departed and wow gold cheap had to be called back to the arena. The report stated that it took between “15 and 20 minutes” to transport Cherepanov from the arena to the hospital.

“They tried to get his heart started again but they couldn’t,” Omsk head coach Wayne Fleming told the web site.
New York general manager Glen Sather addressed the tragedy in a statement released by the team.
“We are extremely saddened world of warcraft money by the tragic passing of Alexei,” Sather said. “On behalf of the New York Rangers organization, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to his family. Alexei was an intelligent, energetic young man with tremendous talent and an extremely bright future.”

The Rangers observed a moment of silence in his honor prior to Monday’s 4-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils.
New York coach Tom Renney considered addressing the team about Cherepanov before the game, but elected not to and just told his players maple story mesos to continue to work hard.
“The moment of silence was there obviously,” Renney said. “On the bench we just made some references that the honorable thing to do was tonight would be just to work hard.”

Friday, October 10, 2008

The Most Valuable Celebrity Faces

"Here is a teenager who's quickly becoming a multi-millionaire, if not a billionaire," says Lee. "It's pretty hard to relate to that."

In Pictures: Top-Earning Cover Stars "The idea of spending $3.99 on a magazine when you don't know what your economic future is is very, very difficult wow eu gold," says Star magazine Editor-in-Chief Candace Trunzo. "It makes it that much more important for us to present a cover that is so appealing that they can't help but buy it."

For the newsstand-dependent celebrity weeklies, compelling covers are absolutely crucial, making editors' choices of cover stars more important than ever. How these magazines fare in the face of economic hardship remains to be seen, since none of them, with the exception of People, were around in their current forms during the last big downturn in the early 1990s.

So expect to see a lot more of Jolie. We analyzed the newsstand sales for the six biggest celebrity weeklies -- People, Star maplestory mesos, US Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style and OK! -- over a year-long period ending June 30, eliminating non-celebrity and "collage" covers as well as special issues with exceptionally large rate .

We then counted how many more -- or fewer -- issues the celebrity's cover sold as compared to the magazine's average newsstand sales per issue. We also factored in the number of full covers a celebrity individually graced as well as his or her appeal, a measure provided by Los Angeles-based market research firm E-Poll Market Research. Stars were left off the list in rare cases when "likability" data wasn't available.

Rounding out the top three is Heath Ledger, whose life was cut tragically short earlier this year. In his case, it was his mysterious and all-too-early death that made him front-cover news -- something he hadn't been prior to his passing. Traditionally, male covers sell far fewer copies than female ones with the typically female reader base (both Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey failed to make the top 10, though another tragic cover subject cheap wow gold, Owen Wilson, did). But the idea of a talent like Ledger dying so young left readers grasping for clues -- and buying magazines in search of them.

Sound frivolous? It may seem so, but it's also big business, with the six weeklies accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue for the magazine industry. Taken together, newsstand sales account for 53% of the 9.4 million copies sold weekly by the sextet. Of them world of warcraft money, only People counts on subscriptions for more than half its weekly sales. For two of the titles -- Life & Style Weekly and In Touch -- newsstand accounts for more than 95% of sales, making them particularly vulnerable to bad cover choices.

Still, Spears no longer ranks last in our rankings -- a dubious title she earned last year. Instead, Hollywood's top-earning tween Miley Cyrus loses this time around, scoring poorly in all three categories. While there's no doubt she's powerful and popular runescape gold, it seems the "Hannah Montana" star's appeal isn't broad enough for the celebrity weekly set.


cool too.


cool

Mercury is just too cool

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Touchscreen BlackBerry Storm finally unveiled



So, what do you think? Likes and dislikes? Any guesses on the price? (I've heard $199 with a two-year contract, but that's not official.) Sound off below.


After months of rumors, the Storm—the first-ever touchscreen BlackBerry—is finally official wow gold, and it's set for Verizon Wireless (exclusively, for now) later this fall. Read on for the details.


Verizon hasn't coughed up a hard-and-fast release date for the Storm—nor any pricing details, for that matter—but this much we do know: It'll pack in dual-mode CDMA and GSM radios for full-on world calling, 3G access (both EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA), GPS (along with turn-by-turn directions), Bluetooth (including the A2DP profile for stereo Bluetooth headsets), and a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and autofocus.


Measuring 4.4 by 2.4 by 0.55 inches and weighing in at about 5.5 ounces, the Storm (which is also set to arrive in Europe through Vodafone) looks to be roughly the same size as an iPhone or the upcoming T-Mobile G1 runescape gold, so it should be reasonably pocketable.


The centerpiece, of course, will be the Storm's 480 by 360-pixel, 3.25-inch glass display, which will support multitouch (good for two-finger gestures, a la the iPhone). Even better, though, is a feature that RIM calls "ClickThrough": a design that lets you "distinctly feel the screen being pressed and released with a gentle click" for a "highly intuitive experience." Sounds promising, but whether the Storm's display actually delivers the tactile experience that's missing on the iPhone and the G1 remains to be seen (or felt, I guess); I look forward to trying it out in person. Update: Click here for initial ClickThrough impressions from the Web; so far, so good.


In addition to the multitouch display, the Storm will also come with an ambient light sensor, along with an accelerometer that'll automatically turn the screen when you hold the phone sideways. Speaking of which: When it comes to entering text world of warcraft gold, holding the Storm in a landscape view will give you a full QWERTY touch keypad, while in portrait mode you'll get a SureType keypad (or the same layout as on a BlackBerry Pearl).


Naturally, messaging will doubtless be one of the Storm's strong suits. Expect full-on BlackBerry e-mail support, complete with push e-mail and access to POP and IMAP e-mail servers. Also on board: SMS, picture and instant messaging.


The Storm will also come with full-on Office document editing—including support for Word, Excel maplestory mesos, and PowerPoint documents—courtesy of DataViz Documents to Go. Of course, plenty of other BlackBerry applications are already available, and there's word that a branded BlackBerry store is on tap, similar to Apple's App Store and the Android Market.


Besides its 3.2MP camera, the Storm is set to arrive with full HTML Web browser (double-tap to zoom, tap and slide to scroll), a video and music player, with Verizon promising smooth, full-screen video playback. There's also a 3.5mm jack for your earphones, 1GB of internal storage, and a microSD expansion slot for another 16GB of flash memory.All in all guild wars gold, sounds like a formidable package, although something's missing if you look carefully: Wi-Fi. Ugh.

Madrid...

I don't remember what this one is as interesting as it may seem, Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid