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July 2009

Sexy Lingerie

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 07:00 — admin

The concept of lingerie being visually appealing is relatively recent. Up through the first half of the 20th century women selected underwear for three major purposes: to alter their shape (first with corsets and later with girdles or bras), for reasons of hygiene, or for modesty. Women's underwear was often very large and bulky. As the 20th century progressed underwear became smaller and more form fitting. In the 1960s 'controversial' lingerie manufacturers such as Frederick's of Hollywood begin to glamorize lingerie and the idea of lingerie having a sexual appeal slowly developed.

Fashionable young men in early 16th century Germany showed a lot of fine linen in a studied negligee. This unidentified gentleman has a band of "smocking" round the collar of his shift. (Portrait by Ambrosius Holbein, 1518, at the Hermitage Museum)

Sexy Lingerie

Europe raises pressure on Israel to stop settlements (Reuters)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 05:39 — admin

JERUSALEM (Reuters) –
Germany, France and EU president Sweden on Tuesday joined Western nations pressing Israel to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a U.S.-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted international calls to freeze building in occupied territory, seemed to show a sign of flexibility as a newspaper reported a secret plan to remove two dozen unauthorized settler outposts.

Israel has long pledged to dismantle hilltop outposts that it never approved, but has continued building larger settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, land it captured in a 1967 war, and where Palestinians want to build a future state.

Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not resume peace talks with Israel, stalled since Israel elected Netanyahu, a right-wing settler champion in February, unless all settlement construction stopped.

In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state" if it did not stop the construction.

Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, further told the Rheinische Post daily that "Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem."

The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador, Daniel Shek, in Paris, to protest against a planned Israeli housing project for East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital and which Palestinians also seek to make their capital.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after its capture, in a move never recognized internationally.

THOUSANDS THREATENED WITH DISPLACEMENT

European Union president Sweden urged from Stockholm that Israel refrain from demolishing homes in East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement.

Jerusalem has emerged as a focal point of the settlement controversy since Israeli officials accused the U.S. State Department on Sunday of telling Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, Israel should suspend plans to build about 20 housing units in the city's eastern sector.

The United States has never confirmed it made this demand, but Netanyahu rejected it in televised remarks to his cabinet, a move analysts saw as capitalizing on broad popular support in the country for Israel's continued control of the disputed city.

Israel shut a hotel fair in East Jerusalem in the latest of several Palestinian cultural events it has disrupted in recent months saying an interim peace deal permits it to bar the Palestinian government from holding events in the city.

"They want us to leave Jerusalem, but we will not," Rafiq al-Husseini, an aide to Abbas, said.

Neither Netanyahu's office nor the Israeli army would comment on a report in the respected Haaretz daily that the military was preparing to "forcibly evacuate 23 illegal outposts in one day," in a plan drawn up with Netanyahu's knowledge.

The same Haaretz columnist disclosed plans to remove troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip before that pullout occurred in 2005.

Separately, a report by the Macro Center of the Israeli European Policy Network said settlements were receiving a larger share of government funding than municipalities inside Israel, and the settler population was also growing three times as fast.

"While Israeli municipalities as a whole receive 34.7 percent of their income from (the government) and obtain another 64.3 percent from their own income, settlement municipalities obtain 57 percent from the (government) and only 42.8 percent from their own income," the report said.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, and Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta in Jerusalem)

Obama may have to wait for health care passage (AP)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 05:12 — admin

WASHINGTON – After more than a week of tirelessly pressuring Congress to move his top domestic priority, President Barack Obama may have to settle for a fallback strategy on health care overhaul.
Instead of votes in the House and Senate by August, the best Democrats may be able to hope for this summer is action by the full House by the end of the month and some sort of agreement on a bipartisan plan in the Senate before lawmakers head home for vacation.
Not only are Republicans honing their opposition, but some Democrats in both chambers are voicing doubts about moving such complex and costly legislation too quickly.
"No one wants to tell the speaker (Nancy Pelosi) that she's moving too fast and they damn sure don't want to tell the president," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a key committee chairman, told a fellow lawmaker as the two walked into a closed-door meeting Tuesday. The remark was overheard by reporters.
Obama has scheduled a prime-time news conference Wednesday, expected to focus on health care. It's turning into a major test of his leadership. One Republican senator says if the party can stop Obama on health care, it will break him.
In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, the president insisted on action by lawmakers, even as he conceded some of the criticism was valid. Referring to objections from a group of conservative Democrats in the House, Obama said, "I think, rightly, a number of these so called Blue Dog Democrats — more conservative Democrats — were concerned that not enough had been done on reducing costs."
Obama said those issues can be addressed as the legislation keeps moving forward. Congress has already spent years studying and debating the problems in the health care system, he said.
Meanwhile, a conservative South Carolina Republican, Sen. Jim DeMint, refused Wednesday to back away from his earlier assertion that the health care overhaul will prove to be Obama's "Waterloo."
Interviewed on NBC's "Today" show, DeMint said the statement was "not personal." But he also said someone must "put the brakes on" Obama, accusing the president of engaging in "a spending spree."
DeMint said he agrees that health care changes are needed but that it would be a mistake to push through such complex legislation before the August congressional recess, as Obama has demanded.
House Democrats put their divisions on display over the details and timing of health care legislation Tuesday. The Democratic leadership juggled complaints from conservatives demanding additional cost savings, first-term lawmakers upset with proposed tax increases and objections from members of the rank-and-file opposed to allowing the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry.
Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed weeks ago that the House would vote by the end of July on legislation to meet two goals established by Obama. The president wants to extend health coverage to the tens of millions who now lack it, and at the same time restrain the growth in health care costs far into the future. The upfront costs, however, could reach $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
The president also has vowed that the legislation will not swell the deficit, although a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday that the pledge does not apply to an estimated $245 billion to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients over the next decade.
Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, said that was because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to avert a scheduled cut of 21 percent in doctor's fees.
At the White House, Obama and moderate and conservative Democrats verbally agreed on a council of experts to find savings in Medicare, coupled with a mechanism to force Congress to act on the recommendations. The cost curbs may help woo some of the conservatives.
In the Senate, a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee met behind closed doors, pursuing an elusive agreement. The negotiations, led by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., have taken on new urgency. But it's unclear whether they will produce a breakthrough — or peter out in frustration.
Obama has spoken in public nearly every day for more than a week on health care, some times more than once. At the same time Republicans have upped the political stakes.
On Monday, Michael Steele, the Republican Party chairman, likened Obama's proposals on health care to socialism, and said the chief executive wanted to conduct a "risky experiment" that will damage the nation's economy and force millions to lose the coverage they now have.

Last week, DeMint was quoted as telling fellow conservatives: "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

Given the struggle, the polls show slippage for Obama, although he remains popular. The president is battling the impression if not the reality that his proposal is stalled. In the CBS interview, Obama recognized that perception.

"There have been so many times, during my political career ... where people have said, 'Boy, this is make or break for Obama,'" he said. "When the stock market went down everybody was saying, 'This is a disaster.' And what I found is that as long as we are making good decisions, thinking always what's ... best for the American people, that, eventually, as long as we're persistent and we're listening to the American people, that things get done."

___

Associated Press writers David Espo, Erica Werner, Charles Babington and Ben Feller contributed to this report.

Myrtle Beach Hotels

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 04:27 — admin

Many hotels can be considered destinations in themselves, by dint of unusual features of the lodging and/or its immediate environment:

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel still in operation is the Hoshi Ryokan, in Awazu, Japan. It opened in 717, and features hot springs.

Myrtle Beach Hotels

Voice Cards

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 03:24 — admin

For the above reasons the classic chiptune 8-bit sound can be recognised from its synthesised square or pulse wave instruments, simple white noise percussion and heavy use of ultra-fast arpeggios to emulate chords of three or four notes on a single channel (due to hardware limitations, several notes must be placed on the same channel).

Sweden has ever since year 1980 been prominent in the chiptune scene, as well as the demo scene, video games and generally in the musical popular culture. Possibly, this is because of an early high degree of computerization and music that attracted a lot of attention. In 2001, Johan Kotlinski (Role Model) created the music program Little Sound DJ for Gameboy, which quickly gained a lot of attention in Europe and the United States.

Voice Cards

Eriksson accepts Notts County job (AFP)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 02:33 — admin

NOTTINGHAM, England (AFP) –
Former England and Manchester City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson has joined English Division Two club Notts County as director of football, the club confirmed on Wednesday.

The League Two (fourth division) club said the 61-year-old Swede would be joined by his long-term assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general adviser.

The world's oldest professional football club were recently taken over by a Middle Eastern consortium and had been in talks with Eriksson about taking up a senior position with the club.

"Sven will assume his role with immediate effect," the club said in a statement. "He will be joining with his long-term assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general advisor."

Eriksson will look after the club's youth academy as well as player development, transfer negotiations and building overseas links.

The Swede is looking forward to the challenge.

"I am particularly attracted to this role and the unique opportunity to help build a club over the longer term," he said.

"I will be responsible for all aspects of the football side of the club and in line with the aspirations of the new owners, wish to build the club at the heart of the community.

"We hope to leave a long and lasting legacy for Notts County and its fans."

The appointment of Eriksson comes as a surprise as the Swede has been one of the leading managers in football over the last two decades.

After achieving the league and cup double in Sweden, Portugal and Italy he left Lazio to become England's first foreign manager.

Quarter-final exits in the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004 followed, and he had already announced his departure before England's disappointing 2006 World Cup campaign, again ended in the last eight.

His single season as Manchester City manager, 2007-08, should be seen as a success but he parted company with the club, who were poised for a Middle Eastern takeover of their own, and was announced as the new head coach of Mexico in June last year.

That appointment turned out to be the least successful of his career and several disappointing results in their World Cup qualifying campaign led to his sacking.

County only narrowly avoided relegation from League Two last season, but Middle East investors Munto Finance Ltd have made it clear they have ambitious plans for the Nottingham club which was founded in 1862.

Ottawa wants Nortel to reconsider RIM wireless bid (AFP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 22:20 — admin

MONTREAL, July 21, 2009 (AFP) –
Canada's Minister of Industry Tony Clement has called for telecommunications equipment company Nortel to reconsider allowing Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the Blackberry, to bid for its wireless division.

Canada's RIM said Monday night that Nortel, which has been under judicial protection from creditors since January, was effectively being prevented from offering a bid to acquire Nortel's wireless division by overzealous conditions.

"RIM was told it could be qualified only if it promised not to submit offers for other Nortel assets for a period of one year," the company said in a statement.

"In seeking to impose this condition, Nortel and its advisors were fully aware of RIM's desire to purchase other Nortel assets as part of a solution to retain key portions of Nortel's business under Canadian ownership."

In a visit to the University of Calgary, Clement said he was hopeful that the dispute would be resolved to allow RIM to bid.

"Obviously, while we cannot determine who will be the successful bidder, if there is a Canadian bid in this process I think that is advantageous for that bid to be at least considered," he said.

"And so it would concern us if there are some procedural difficulties that a Canadian bid would be facing."

"What I'm hoping will happen is now that this thing has blown up a little bit in the media that Nortel... (will) actually convene a meeting and maybe resolve some of the procedural difficulties that seem to be at least perception-wise preventing this bid from taking place."

The sale of the company's wireless division is due take place in bankruptcy proceedings in a New York court on Monday morning.

Report: NY, NJ immigration raids violated rights (AP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 22:11 — admin

NEW YORK – Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.
Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.
The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.
Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.
On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.
Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.
The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.
While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.
A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.
"The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody," Markowitz said.
In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws.
"We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.
The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.
The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.
The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.
Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn't contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.
The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.
It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.

"These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country," Markowitz said.

Garden Tables

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 21:56 — admin

Garden Tables

A bench is a piece of furniture, which mostly offers several persons seating. As a rule, benches are made of wood, but one can also find stone benches and benches made of synthetic materials. Many benches have arm rests. In public areas, benches are often donated by persons or associations, which may then be indicated on it, e.g. by a small copper plaque.

Often benches are simply called after the place they are used, regardless whether this implies a specific design Garden benches are very similar to public park benches set outdoors, but the former offer usually only two or three -, the latter mostly up to five persons sitting places. Picnic tables, or catering buffet tables have long benches as well as a table. These tables may have table legs which are collapsible, in order to expedite transport and storage. Church pews inside places of worship are equipped with an additional kneeling bench.

Yanks' Mitre gets first win since 2007 (AP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 21:05 — admin

NEW YORK – Sergio Mitre earned his first win in two years, Robinson Cano hit a two-run homer and the surging New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 6-4 on Tuesday night for their fifth straight victory.
Alex Rodriguez also had a key two-run single for an efficient New York squad, which made the most of just six hits. The Yankees are a major league-best 43-22 since Rodriguez came off the disabled list May 8 following hip surgery.
The Yankees (56-37) improved to a season-best 19 games over .500 and took a one-game lead in the AL East over Boston, which lost to Texas.
Mitre, who was called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before the game, allowed four runs, three earned, and eight hits over 5 2-3 innings in his first major league start since Sept. 15, 2007. It was his first win since July 29, 2007, for Florida at San Francisco.
The 28-year-old right-hander is serving as the Yankees' fifth starter with Chien-Ming Wang sidelined by a strained right shoulder.
Brian Roberts had three hits for Baltimore, which has lost nine straight in the Bronx and fell to 1-13 in road games against the AL East this season. Roberts is batting .433 (13 for 30) in his last seven games.
After winning each of the last three games 2-1 for the first time in franchise history, the Yankees raced out to a 6-2 lead in the fourth. Rodriguez picked up two RBIs with a two-out single off Rich Hill in the third and Cano went deep after Nick Swisher led off the fourth with a walk.
Hill (3-3) departed after Cano's 14th homer, running his winless stretch to six starts. He allowed five runs and three hits with four walks.
Johnny Damon added an RBI single off Brian Bass to finish the scoring in New York's three-run fourth.
Mitre (1-0) missed the 2008 season and had elbow-ligament replacement surgery on July 15 last year. He agreed to a minor league contract with the Yankees during the offseason, then was suspended for the first 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance under the major league drug program.
Mitre was 1-0 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts for Class A Tampa and 3-1 with a 2.40 ERA in seven starts with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before he was called up.
Melvin Mora's two-run single cut New York's lead to 6-4 in the sixth but Mitre responded by throwing a called third strike past Nolan Reimold for the second out. Alfredo Aceves then came in and got Matt Wieters to fly out to end the inning.
Aceves also worked a perfect seventh, Phil Coke pitched the eighth and Mariano Rivera got three outs for his 27th save in 28 opportunities.
NOTES: RHP Brett Tomko was designated for assignment to make room for Mitre. Tomko hadn't pitched since July 11. ... The Orioles activated RHP Cla Meredith and optioned RHP Kam Mickolio to Triple-A Norfolk. Meredith was acquired from the Padres on Sunday for INF Oscar Salazar. ... Orioles RHPs Dennis Sarfate (circulatory problems in right arm) and Chris Ray (right biceps tendinitis) will start rehab assignments on Friday. Sarfate is scheduled to make four appearances for Norfolk, pitching one inning each time. Ray is expected to do the same at Double-A Bowie. "After they pitch on the 31st, we'll have to see where they're at," manager Dave Trembley said. ... Yankees SS Derek Jeter appeared to be favoring his left leg after he was thrown out trying to score on Mark Teixeira's flyball to right in the fourth. He stayed in the game, but was bending his leg in the field in the fifth.



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