William S. Lind publishes some interesting thinking on the next model of US Defense Forces:
Two readers, Marion and Herbert, asked whether the Swiss militia model might be relevant. The answer is clearly yes. Switzerland’s defense has been based on a militia for a very long time, and it has enabled Switzerland to preserve its neutrality, maintain its liberties and decentralized political system (real power lies at the cantonal, not the federal level of government) and keep its defense expenditures down. The Swiss militia is an ideal basis for defending Switzerland from 4GW. In fact, Switzerland already has an arrangement other countries will need to move to in a 4GW world: the regular armed services support the militia, instead of the other way around.
Wall Street Journal:
The IRS's standard in evaluating tax shelters is whether the transaction serves a "legitimate economic purpose," or is crafted entirely to avoid taxes. Senators Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Norm Coleman (R., Minn.) have proposed legislation that would enshrine that doctrine in law.Speaking on the Senate floor last month, Mr. Levin described the distinction: "Abusive tax shelters are very different from legitimate tax shelters, such as deducting the interest paid on home mortgage or Congressionally approved tax deductions for building affordable housing. Abusive tax shelters are complicated transactions promoted to provide large tax benefits unintended by the tax code" (our emphasis). In other words, it's OK to avoid taxes in any of the myriad ways Congress approves of. It's abusive if Congress didn't intend it -- assuming anyone can ever figure out what Congress really intends.
Take the scheme known as SC2, one of those KPMG has come under fire for marketing. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, SC2 involved donating nonvoting shares in a Subchapter S corporation to a nonprofit entity; KPMG's nonprofit of choice was the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System. The pension system would accept the shares, making them 90% owners of an S Corporation that would then retain the Corporation's profits for several years. At that point, the pension fund would sell the shares back to the original owners. The pension plan pockets the proceeds while the S Corporation owners have converted the firm's profits from regular income into long-term capital gains, taxed at a lower rate.
Does SC2 serve an "economic interest"? Well, the participant in the scheme does pay the pension system for the shares when he buys them back, benefiting the firemen and policemen's pension fund. The fund adds money to its coffers, and the taxpayer lowers his tax bill. Whether that's abuse is for a judge or jury to decide, but Mr. Levin's test -- that Congress didn't intend S corporations to be used that way -- doesn't seem adequate here.
KPMG avoided the fate of Arthur Andersen yesterday when it announced a deal with federal prosecutors over the marketing and sale of "abusive" tax shelters. But the price of survival was high. The accounting firm will pay $456 million in fines and restitution and has agreed to let a federal monitor look over its shoulder. At the same time, no fewer than eight former KPMG executives and an outside lawyer were indicted on conspiracy charges for designing and selling the shelters.That KPMG avoided indictment as a firm shows that the Justice Department has learned something from its 2002 indictment of Arthur Andersen over its involvement with Enron. That conviction was thrown out earlier this year by the Supreme Court, but its vindication came too late for its 28,000 mostly innocent employees. Not to mention for the broader U.S. economy, which was reduced to only four major accounting firms just when Sarbanes-Oxley was gaining momentum.
KPMG will survive this "deferred prosecution" by admitting wrongdoing. But it's easy to forget amid the righteous indignation over tax shelters with names like FLIP, BLIP, OPIS and SC2 that the legality of these tax-avoidance techniques has never really been tested. The IRS banned each of them in the late 1990s or early 2000s, but no court has ruled on their propriety.
KPMG maintained for years that the shelters were legitimate, and yesterday's plea is as much the product of a legal strategy designed to avoid the corporate death sentence of an indictment as a calculation about the firm's chance of prevailing at trial. Arthur Andersen's fate amply demonstrated that such a victory could easily prove Pyrrhic.
The IRS's standard in evaluating tax shelters is whether the transaction serves a "legitimate economic purpose," or is crafted entirely to avoid taxes. Senators Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Norm Coleman (R., Minn.) have proposed legislation that would enshrine that doctrine in law.
Speaking on the Senate floor last month, Mr. Levin described the distinction: "Abusive tax shelters are very different from legitimate tax shelters, such as deducting the interest paid on home mortgage or Congressionally approved tax deductions for building affordable housing. Abusive tax shelters are complicated transactions promoted to provide large tax benefits unintended by the tax code" (our emphasis). In other words, it's OK to avoid taxes in any of the myriad ways Congress approves of. It's abusive if Congress didn't intend it -- assuming anyone can ever figure out what Congress really intends.
Take the scheme known as SC2, one of those KPMG has come under fire for marketing. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, SC2 involved donating nonvoting shares in a Subchapter S corporation to a nonprofit entity; KPMG's nonprofit of choice was the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System. The pension system would accept the shares, making them 90% owners of an S Corporation that would then retain the Corporation's profits for several years. At that point, the pension fund would sell the shares back to the original owners. The pension plan pockets the proceeds while the S Corporation owners have converted the firm's profits from regular income into long-term capital gains, taxed at a lower rate.
Does SC2 serve an "economic interest"? Well, the participant in the scheme does pay the pension system for the shares when he buys them back, benefiting the firemen and policemen's pension fund. The fund adds money to its coffers, and the taxpayer lowers his tax bill. Whether that's abuse is for a judge or jury to decide, but Mr. Levin's test -- that Congress didn't intend S corporations to be used that way -- doesn't seem adequate here.
Some of the other schemes involved deliberately taking a capital loss on bonds structured to lose value over time, although presumably without putting capital at (much) real risk. But buying bonds at a premium with the intention of writing off their depreciation on one's taxes is a time-honored investment tactic, so the legal question of where to draw the line is hardly clear-cut.
KPMG admitted to wrongdoing in marketing the shelters, but the individual trials to come would do a public service if they clarified when tax avoidance becomes tax evasion. The accused individuals who spoke up yesterday claimed to be innocent and said they'd fight the charges in court.
In the meantime, the finger-waggers in Congress might acknowledge their role in creating the 6,000-page, 2.8-million-word, tax code Frankenstein that facilitates the tax-avoidance industry. President Bush's tax-reform commission is due to report at the end of September. Here's hoping that a simple system with a low rate that encourages voluntary compliance will lead its list of recommendations.
The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an industry consortium that is trying to build more secure computers. They have a lot of members, although the board of directors consists of Microsoft, Sony, AMD, Intel, IBM, SUN, HP, and two smaller companies who are voted on in a rotating basis.
The basic idea is that you build a computer from the ground up securely, with a core hardware "root of trust" called a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Applications can run securely on the computer, can communicate with other applications and their owners securely, and can be sure that no untrusted applications have access to their data or code.
This sounds great, but it's a double-edged sword. The same system that prevents worms and viruses from running on your computer might also stop you from using any legitimate software that your hardware or operating system vendor simply doesn't like. The same system that protects spyware from accessing your data files might also stop you from copying audio and video files. The same system that ensures that all the patches you download are legitimate might also prevent you from, well, doing pretty much anything.
 |  |  |
Patrick Paternie on US culture and station wagons:
The term station wagon has evolved from a G-rated to an X-rated word and back again among U.S. automotive marketers. But love it or call it a five-door sedan, the station wagon is the iconic American automobile.Station wagons flourished along with the growth of two other definitive aspects of the modern American lifestyle, the suburbs and the interstate. The epitome of nuclear family-era transportation, a roomy, luxurious station wagon and a AAA TripTik was a recipe for family bonding and adventure before National Lampoon’s Vacation and the Griswolds turned it into a rolling-disaster movie script.
By the end of the 1950s station wagons accounted for nearly one of five new car sales. It was the aspirational vehicle of the period, as evidenced by the Country Squire’s status at the top of Ford’s lineup.
Quite a bit of news Monday on the ongoing US Government Tax Shelter Investigations:
As part of its agreement with the government, KPMG issued a strongly worded acknowledgment of wrongdoing, which can be used by prosecutors in their criminal case against the individual partners, as well as against the firm in the event it violates the terms of the deferred- prosecution agreement. Lawyers for the former partners criticized the firm's statement as meaningless."The government held a gun to KPMG's head and said, 'Say what we want or we will put you out of business," said Robert H. Hotz Jr., a lawyer at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who is representing Mr. Lanning. "KPMG's statements in court were the product of extreme duress and are not worth the paper they are printed on."
So far, no court has ruled that the shelter transactions themselves were improper - a fact that lawyers for the accused former KPMG partners were quick to emphasize.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on that committee, said in a statement that KPMG's agreement and the indictments "send a powerful message to the promoters, aiders and abettors of abusive tax shelters that they can no longer expect to be let off the hook.''I find Levin's statement somewhat ironic, given the recent evidently unintended huge SUV tax subsidies that provided a significant benefit to Michigan manufacturers at the cost of national fuel efficiency and lost tax income.
While hearing arguments in Andersen’s appeal, Justice Antonin Scalia at one point described the government's theory of the case as "weird," according to The New York Times.Real tax reform is long overdue. Will we see it from our politicians? Unlikely, when both Feingold and Kohl are supporting bills like this very large, multinational corporation tax giveaway.What’s more, the justices "were so clearly sympathetic" to the former Big Five accounting firm, that the only question remaining at the end of the session was how quickly the Court would overturn the conviction, the paper added.
Of course, even if the conviction is overturned, it would not be much help to the thousands of former employees who lost their jobs and the former partners who lost their equity.
Katrina IS a big deal today and will be for weeks to come, not just because New Orleans is below sea level and not just because she could cause massive loss of life and property, but because Katrina could also disrupt Gulf supplies of petroleum (the GOM supplies around 1.3mbpd, we use around 20mbpd in the US) from rigs, refineries, and pipelines, etc., for a while.Great Site, via John Robb.
James Cook left on a business trip to Florida, and his wife Paula went to Oklahoma to care for her sick mother. When the two returned to Frisco, Texas, several days later, their keys didn't work. The locks on the house had been changed.Via Bruce Schneier who points out that the National ID card (supported by our good Senators Feingold & Kohl) won't solve this problem:
They spent their first night back sleeping in a walk-in closet, with a steel pipe ready to cold-cock any intruders. The next day, they met the man who thought he owned their house, because he had put a US$12,000 down payment to someone named Carlos Ramirez. The Cooks went to the Denton County Courthouse and checked their title. Someone had forged Paula Cook's maiden name, Paula Smart, and transferred the deed to Carlos Ramirez. Paula's identity was not only stolen, but the thief also stole her house. Even the police said they've never seen a case like this one, but suspect the criminal was able to steal the identity and the house with just Mrs. Cook's Social Security number, driver's license number and a copy of her signature.
This is a perfect example of the sort of fraud issue that a national ID card won't solve. The problem is not that identity credentials are too easy to forge. The problem is that the criminal needed nothing more than "Mrs. Cook's Social Security number, driver's license number and a copy of her signature." And the solution isn't a harder-to-forge card; the solution is to make the procedure for transferring real-estate ownership more onerous. If the Denton County Courthouse had better transaction authentication procedures, the particulars of identity authentication -- a national ID, a state driver's license, biometrics, or whatever -- wouldn't matter.
If we are ever going to solve identity theft, we need to think about it properly. The problem isn't misused identity information; the problem is fraudulent transactions.
Ryan J. Foley writes from Madison, WI:
What makes UW-Madison's lab unique is its collaboration with industry and its focus on the physics and engineering behind the technology, said Sweeney, who has visited other RFID labs elsewhere.Critics worry, however, that UW-Madison is contributing to technology that could ultimately track humans.
One such fear involves the use of tags in clothing and shoes. If the chips aren't deactivated at the time of sale, unsuspecting consumers might essentially be carrying around information about their buying habits, allowing stores to target them with intrusive marketing pitches the next time they visit.
"When I see the move of RFID into universities, it concerns me," said Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specializes in RFID technology and shoppers. "It is sending a message that not only do we not have to worry about privacy but you can profit from it by a career perspective."
Saturday's opener looks like a tough match for the home team. Bowling Green's quarterback passed for over 4,000 yards last year with only 4 interceptions. Pete Thamel disects Bowling Green's "devastating" spread offense:
Now, the offenses Meyer and Brandon will run will be conceptually similar but vastly different. Brandon's quarterback, Omar Jacobs, had a more productive year than Smith last season, passing for 4,002 yards while throwing 41 touchdown passes and only 4 interceptions.Jacobs, a junior, landed at Bowling Green after a quarterback backed out on his commitment 10 days before signing day. Meyer called every quarterbacks coach he knew to see if there were any unsigned quarterbacks. He got a tip from a coach at Kansas State on a towering quarterback with an unorthodox throwing motion in South Florida - Jacobs.
Mullen was recruiting in Michigan and drove to Notre Dame, where Meyer used to be an assistant, to watch film of Jacobs. The next night, Meyer was in Jacobs's living room making a pitch for Bowling Green. Jacobs bit, and four years later is considered a Heisman Trophy contender.
We are lawyers in New York City. We practice law at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.
Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation we and our firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.
We find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.
We have set up this blog in order to collect evidence and input about these oppressive lawsuit.
The rural town of Sebeka, population 710, is not exactly Silicon Valley. It's hardly the place computer programmer Dave La Reau expected to find employment.All the more reason for Madison to get serious about true broadband service. We're behind the curve... Slashdot discussion.
La Reau, who had been job hunting for years, answered a help wanted ad from CrossUSA — one of a half dozen companies actively recruiting workers to small towns in at least eight states.
He traded his suburban home for a 7-acre farm at a fraction of the price. But La Reau is making half of what he earned in Chicago — before outsourcing put his small company out of business.
"I'm hooked up to the computer in Baltimore," La Reau said while working. "I've got the same screen they have."
The Road North from San Francisco to Mendocino Is Just Like Big Sur, Only BetterGo!
Tyler Cowen summarizes a number of bets on energy prices. Cowen is buying an economy car next time around. T. Boon Pickens recently said that we'd see $70/barrel before $50.
Sometimes, it pays to leave the Interstate for the Road Not Taken. Pennsylvania's Lancaster County is well worth a visit. Life does not have to move at 100Mbps... Satellite view.
A Minnesota man considered one of the world's most prolific e-mail spammers was indicted on more than a dozen federal charges related to the operation of his business, Xpress Pharmacy Direct.Slashdot discussion.
The indictment against Christopher William Smith, 25, was unsealed Wednesday after he was arrested at his home in Prior Lake. Dr. Philip Mach, 47, of Franklin Park, N.J., and Bruce Jordan Lieberman, 45, from Farmingdale, N.Y., were also charged in the indictment, federal prosecutors said.
We can hope for competition in the 2006 Senate race. Kohl has cast a number of anti-Wisconsin votes recently. Ideally, his opponent(s) will ask some questions. The usually reliable (for Herb Kohl) Capital Times recently criticized his support of the latest energy bill disaster. Joel McNally earlier asked why the Wisconsin Press gives Kohl a pass?
My own view is that after three terms, it is time for the good Senator to move on. He's clearly become part of the club, with all of the trappings and required votes.
My favorite Kohl vote? "Present" on a large corporation tax giveaway. Why can't the rest of us have a 5% tax rate?
www.herbkohl.com. WisPolitics announcement (PDF).
In Utah, if you live in a UTOPIA (muni FTTH) city, you can get 10 megabit symmetrical Internet service for $40 a month. Or you can get Comcast Internet service for $29.95. If you don't live in a UTOPIA city, Comcast Internet costs $45.95 a month. One thing is sure; Comcast can afford to lose money longer than UTOPIA.More here.
BioBelt Could Be Wisconsin’s Future
By converting its energy-rich organic wastes into heat and electricity, Wisconsin could become the capital of the Midwestern BioBelt. That is the assessment of bioenergy experts who are planning the Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling conference at the Madison Marriott West from September 12 through September 14.
“Blessing is not a term we usually apply to waste. However, in this case, Wisconsin is indeed blessed with the raw materials necessary to become a major producer of power from organics,” according to Larry Krom, one of the scheduled speakers and a bioenergy program manager for Focus on Energy, a conference sponsor.
To open the conference, Wisconsin Ag Secretary Rod Nilsestuen will present a green and growing agricultural vision for renewable energy in Midwest states.
The conference will detail emerging technologies that can produce electricity and fuels from manure, cheese whey, landfill gas, wood waste, and other organic materials.
“People at the conference will find the latest information to help them get projects up and running successfully,” said Don Wichert, Renewable Energy Program Director of Focus on Energy, the state’s program for technical and financial assistance for energy efficiency and renewables.
“The conference will highlight speakers who are actively building the industry,” he added, “as well as building projects in Wisconsin.”
The conference will cover production of electricity from methane on dairy farms, wood and crop waste conversion for heat and power, cofiring power plants with switch grass, ethanol and biodiesel production, and gas recovery from landfills.
Wednesday, September 14, features tours to a dairy with a German-designed anaerobic digester, a start-up ethanol plant, and a landfill biogas-to-electricity installation.
“Financing will be the key to unlocking the power in organic wastes. One conference session will delve into sources and the mechanics of financing bioenergy projects,” stated Michael Vickerman, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a statewide nonprofit that promotes sustainable energy strategies.
The US Department of Agriculture offers competitive grants, which will be discussed, and Focus on Energy offers a variety of incentives to help finance the installation of biomass and other renewable energy systems, including grants, Cash-Back Rewards, and zero interest loans.
Focus on Energy awards implementation grants of up to $80,000, or no more than 30 percent of the project cost, for biogas digesters and non-residential wood burning systems that produce both electricity and utilize thermal energy..
More information about Focus on Energy financial incentives and its Renewable Energy Program is available at 800.762.7077 or focusonenergy.com.
BioCycle magazine, the primary conference sponsor, publishes articles on using organic residuals to maximum advantage – from improving the health of soils and crops to producing renewable energy in the form of methane and alcohol fuels. The magazine maintains a Web site at www.jgpress.com/biocycle.htm.
A full conference program and online registration are available at the BioCycle Web site at http://www.jgpress.com/conferences1/conferences1.html. Conference programs are also available from Focus on Energy by calling its toll-free number, 800.762.7077.
-------------------------------
RENEW Wisconsin
RENEW Wisconsin is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives. RENEW is a member of the Wisconsin Renewable Energy Network, a subcontractor to Focus on Energy. Visit RENEW at www.renewwisconsin.org or e-mail Michael Vickerman at: mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org.
Focus on Energy Renewable Energy Program
Focus on Energy is a public-private partnership that provides energy efficiency and renewable energy information and services to the state's energy utility customers. Focus on Energy's Renewable Energy program seeks to raise awareness, provide training and financing, enhance marketing, promote technical assistance, and support the installation of renewable energy technologies across Wisconsin. Focus on Energy provides applications, with full program details, at 800.762.7077 or at focusonenergy.com.
The French daily sports newspaper L'Equipe reported Tuesday that six urine samples taken from U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour de France have recently tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug EPO, or erithropoietin. Armstrong won the Tour de France in 1999, the first of a record seven straight titles. Melissa Block talks to Charles Pelkey of the magazine Velo News.audio
New York City is spending $212 million on surveillance technology: 1,000 video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors for the city's subways, bridges, and tunnels.Why? Why, given that cameras didn't stop the London train bombings? Why, when there is no evidence that cameras are effectice at reducing either terrorism and crime, and every reason to believe that they are ineffective?
Costco, the members-only discount retailer, is testing sales of individual health insurance policies. The pilot program launched last month in California. It targets mom-and-pop business owners, and those without a job or without job-provided health insurance.audio
I like Mike Ivey's take on Wisconsin's economic development efforts:
If holding conferences and talking about high-tech were the sole gauges of economic development success, Wisconsin would be booming these days like Dublin, Ireland.This type of distasteful cheerleading does no one any good. I've worked for entrepreneurs on the west coast and started a business here some years ago. I think our problem is an aversion to risk taking, which manifests itself in our schools and government. These entities typically discuss a "same service' approach year after year after year, which makes no sense.Unfortunately, every other state from Alabama to Oregon is trying to market itself as the next Silicon Valley or Research Triangle.
And Wisconsin is having a particularly hard time shifting gears from its traditional old economy of manufacturing and agriculture into a new economy world where brains count more than brawn.
One of the great mysteries of political life i the United States is why Americans are s devoted to their health-care system. Six times i the past century—during the First World War during the Depression, during the Truman an Johnson Administrations, in the Senate in th nineteen-seventies, and during the Clinton years—efforts have been made to introduce som kind of universal health insurance, and eac time the efforts have been rejected. Instead, th United States has opted for a makeshift syste of increasing complexity and dysfunction Americans spend $5,267 per capita on healt care every year, almost two and half times th industrialized world’s median of $2,193; th extra spending comes to hundreds of billions o dollars a year.Tyler Cowen offers a number of counterpoints, links really, to Gladwell's words.
Over the last 18 months, the airline analyzed every job represented by the mechanics' union at every airport and calculated the skills required to fix each of its planes. It then decided how many of those workers it actually needed and what kind of replacements it would require in the event of a strike.Northwest is the Dane County Regional Airport's (Still without WiFi!) largest airline. More.
Some differences between the airline's old and new approaches began to appear.
Before the strike, union rules specified that only members of the mechanics' union, known as AMFA, could deliver planes to airport gates. But on Saturday, the pilot of a Northwest 757 in Detroit, upon discovering his plane was not ready, hopped into a pickup truck and went to the hangar to fetch his plane, rather than keep crew and passengers waiting, airline officials said.
Meanwhile, members of the machinists' union, which usually handles tasks like baggage handling and customer service, took on the task of cleaning Northwest's cabins between flights at its hubs here and in Minneapolis, a job that was previously done by the mechanics' union.
Madison continues to fall behind in true 2 way broadband, as Jon Van illustrates:
The Mudd Group uses high-speed optical fiber lines supplied by the Cedar Falls Utility, a municipal operation that offered affordable high-speed data connections years before the local cable TV operator or phone company made such services available.Municipalities from Lafayette, La., to Philadelphia are moving to provide residents with broadband connections, while in others, such as Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles, voters rejected the idea. The initiatives, which proponents say boost local economic development opportunities, are spurring intense battles across the nation with cable and phone companies, which believe the competition is unfair.
The issue is whether it's appropriate for government entities to use taxpayer money to invest in infrastructure that is also a commercial technology because it's offered by cable and phone companies.
Efforts by states and cities to "create" jobs cost taxpayers $50 billion a year, author Greg LeRoy says. And given the nature of corporate America, there's no guarantee those jobs will stick around... or even materialize in the first place.Buy the book here.
The world British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson creates is so vivid it feels as if you're in the company of the characters he chronicles: bikers, schoolyard bullies, dreamers, lovers and losers.audioFor nearly four decades, Thompson has performed and recorded a wide variety of music, from traditional folk songs to rock-and roll.
His latest effort is Front Parlour Ballads, a mostly acoustic work recorded in a small studio in his garage.
Ron Rack just posted a gorgeous Quicktime VR scene of West Virginia's New River Gorge Bridge. Here's another rather extraordinary VR Scene: Denis Gliksman's Bretagne Rocky Coast. This VR scene includes a video layer (the ocean lapping the rocks).
 |  |  |  |
The report reveals that the IRS made 4.6 billion disclosures of tax return information to federal and state agencies. Here are the Top 5 recipients of taxpayer information:
In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?
You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.
Cleveland, Ohio; Corpus Christi, Texas; Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; Duesseldorf, Germany; Jerusalem, Israel; Taipei, Taiwan, are among the urban communities participating in Intel’s project. Other participants are Mangaratiba, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Gyor, Hungary; Principality of Monaco; Seoul, South Korea; Osaka, Japan; and Westminster in London.
Environmental leaders from Freiburg, Germany will give a presentation at the MATC Downtown Education Center from 7:30 to 9:30 am on Friday, August 26. Dr. Dieter Woerner, Director of Freiburg’s Environmental Department, will give a talk on sustainable environmental policy and Andreas Hildebrandt of Verkehrs-AG will discuss the regional transportation system. Freiburg has developed sustainable environmental policies including extensive use of solar energy, bike trails and mass transit, recycling and urban planning. In 1992, Freiburg was awarded the title “German Environmental Capital” in a nationwide competition.
More information about Freiburg and other German sustainable development efforts visit: http://madisonfreiburg.org/sustainablecity.htm, http://www.solarregion.freiburg.de, http://www.wi-ei.org/germanymission.pdf and http://www.greentierwi.info/green.html
This event is sponsored by the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Committee, Sustain Dane, UWEX/SHWEC, and MATC.
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell discussed his views on four internet freedoms:
The number of consumers bypassing the traditional phone network and opting for Internet voice service is soaring beyond expectations.I've used Packet8 for a couple of years - quite successfully.An analysis by the TeleGeography research group found 2.7 million subscribers nationwide in the second quarter, compared with just 440,000 a year earlier.
Click to view a larger version.
 |  |  |
The accounting firm KPMG is quietly putting the boxing gloves back on. Even as KPMG is in discussions with federal prosecutors to settle a criminal investigation over its sale of what the Internal Revenue Service says are bogus tax shelters, the firm has been taking on former clients who have sued it over those same shelters.
The world is an increasingly dangerouse place. Research has shown that people need to get inspected to feel secure, even if the actual inspection is a complete farce. Yet as a society we cannot hire half the population to perform bogus inspections on the other half in order to keep up with market demand for perceived securityClassic - read it all.
Legislative Fiscal Bureau (via WisPolitics): Madison's levy can increase (and therefore will) by 3.3% this year according to the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau. This cap is the result of Governor Doyle and the Legislature's Property Tax "Freeze".
He recently had the windows of his truck tinted a dark shade to secure perhaps a little anonymity on the roads in this football-mad city of 100,000. Any Packers player is recognizable here. Favre? Anywhere, anytime.
"When I stop at a light, I don't stop beside a car in the next lane," he says. "If there's two cars, I'll pull up between them. I notice where I'm going to park. I envision what's going to happen if I park there or here. People say, 'It's terrible you have to live like that.' But it's not. I love playing football. Some people live for being known, for sitting and being seen, but I always joke that I'm going to be like Don Meredith and suddenly be gone."
All Things Considered, August 15, 2005 · The Lundberg Survey says the average price of gasoline has gone up 20 cents over the past three weeks, to an average of $2.53. But different areas, or zones, are paying different costs. Michele Norris talks with Elizabeth Douglass of The Los Angeles Times.audio
Peter Robertson (PDF file):
Mark Belling, talk show host on WISN-AM (1130), called it "an enourmous crisis," while media insiders say it could be a blockbuster story. Yet nobody involved is talking about it because the legal stakes are so high
Here's a larger version of this Door County, WI sunset photo. Satellite view.
The general temptation when considering breakfast out in Door County is to visit one of many restaurants, including Sister Bay's Al Johnson's and the Sister Bay Cafe across the street. Just this once, resist and drive over to Ephraim where Good Eggs is literally whipping up egg wraps. These wraps, which can include bean salsa, mushrooms, peppers, cheese, onions, potatoes and chicken are simply delicious. This is rather high praise coming from someone who does not eat eggs. Check out these photos (click for larger versions) and stop.
 |  |  |  |
But in two visits we found a lot of things to like at Papa Phil's.I've been a few times and agree with Getto that the pasta sauce is quite good. Well worth a visit. Map.
I've always been a fan of pasta with white clam sauce ($12.95). And every version I've had of the dish has usually included clams, butter, garlic, white wine and oregano. Papa Phil's rendition had all of those things, with a few spoonfuls of cream added. It's a variation that's served in some parts of Italy and it worked very well. That cream gave the sauce a satiny rich backdrop against which the flavors of clam, spices and wine each made notable appearances.
Most of the pasta dishes at Papa Phil's allow patrons to pick their fresh-made pastas. I chose linguine for the clam sauce and didn't leave a single noodle fragment on my plate.
My B-in-L Bob, a very senior BP exec (now retired), is the one who initiates the "Oil is a bubble" discussion. All the inflation adjusted charts seem to only go back to include the 1970s --- and that's not far enough to show the true price trend of oil. Bob argues that Oil has been in a very long downtrend, and the 1970s price spike was an aberration. So too, the 2003-05 run up. A longer, inflation adjusted chart would reveal that the present spike is aberrational, and unlikely to be sustainable. I am somewhat incredulous of this claim.
His point however, is well taken. While he is expecting an eventual mean reversion, simply base dupon price, I have a similar expectation based upon market cycles. The next recession (there's always a next recession, just as there's always a next recovery) will see reduced demand for Oil, and that will allow prices to fall.
Businesses are preparing to launch a $2 million campaign to fight a series of state Supreme Court rulings they fear are making Wisconsin an easier place to sue doctors and manufacturers.
They want lawmakers to counter some of the rulings with legislation, and, they say, they want to educate voters on what they calls one justice's "votes in support of frivolous lawsuits."
Wisconsin implemented several laws in the mid-1990s in an attempt to limit jury awards for such non-economic damages as pain and suffering in malpractice and liability cases.
But last month, the state Supreme Court threw out the limits on medical malpractice awards. The next day, it cleared the way for a Milwaukee teen to sue several makers of a lead paint pigment his attorneys claim made him mentally retarded - even though they can't prove the manufactures had any ties to the paint that may have sickened him.
Is it safe to advertise in places on the Internet that are essentially run by consumers and cannot be controlled? How can they protect themselves and their good names when blog and chat-room users are liable to say and post anything? It’s not just pornography or off-color language that worries them. What if consumers got angry about something involving a marketer’s brand, and their remarks got linked to across the Internet? Maybe advertising in such open spaces is not worth the risk.emphasis added Dave Winer and Doc Searls offer useful comments.
Yet other teams have smart players with skill and vision. Tampa Bay has had several first-round draft choices over the years. Texas is loaded with young talent, as are Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and others. But those teams do not get off the ground, while Oakland soars.Oakland General Manager Billy Beane continues to make it happen. Milwaukee, while, perhaps slowly improving, just is not in the same league, despite a similar small payroll.
I lived in the western US for a number of years. During this time, I became quite familiar with water shortages and local efforts to address these problems. Living in San Francisco (late 1980's/early 1990's), I remember many restaurants stopped serving water with meals (unless one asked - 5+ times). I also recall the mandate that residents restrict their bathing frequency to 3X/week. Fast forward to 2005 and I find that Waukesha, just 55 miles east of Madison, faces significant water problems. Felicity Barringer digs in:
The draw-down of water from the deep aquifer was gradual at first, accelerating in the late 1980's and throughout the next 15 years. In recent measurements, the water level had dropped about 600 feet. And the deeper the water source, the more likely that it would be contaminated with too much radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element.A must read, for all water consumers: Cadillac Desert.
Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager issued a press release encouraging residents to help curtail identity theft by opting out of receiving unsolicited credit card offers by mail. You may call the Federal Trade Commission's Opt Out number 888-5OPTOUT (888-567-8688) or log on to their website www.optoutprescreen.com to stop mailings for 5 years or permanently.
NASA brought the shuttle Discovery back from low Earth orbit, now a private company plans to announce a more audacious venture, a tourist trip around the Moon.Space Adventures, a company based in Arlington, Va., has already sent two tourists into orbit. Today, it is to unveil an agreement with Russian space officials to send two passengers on a voyage lasting 10 to 21 days, depending partly on its itinerary and whether it includes the International Space Station.
A roundtrip ticket will cost $100 million.
Christopher C. Kraft, a former director of the Johnson Space Center, said his feelings about the enterprise were mixed. "I think it would be a fantastic journey," he said. "I could see why, if I had the price of the ticket and could use the money that way, that it would be tempting to go."But Mr. Kraft added that the flight would be cramped and probably extremely unpleasant. With three people in a small Soyuz craft for an extended trip, he said, "I imagine that you could endure that, but, man, it would be tough."
This column continues #128, on the results of Colonel Mike Wyly’s Modern War Symposium, and specifically the discussion of what a state armed service designed for Fourth Generation war might look like. Since our number one goal should be to prevent 4GW attacks on American soil, our working group at the Symposium concluded such a service should be a militia.The militia would be organized into three levels of types of companies. The first would be deployable world-wide, when our country had to respond to some event overseas. We anticipate that many of its members would be cops, as is true now of some Reserve and National Guard units, which means it would have a natural inclination toward de-escalating situations. This is what the FMFM 1-A, Fourth Generation War, suggests is the key to success in many 4GW situations.
The rollback man is gone, as are the do-gooder anecdotes and smiling associates in frumpy blue smocks. There is no tooting of the corporate-image horn and not a single word on price. But what is found in Wal-Mart’s first major.
Take the geometrical print ad, from GSD&M, Austin, popping up in August titles such as Real Simple, that looks as if it’s pulled from the home-furnishings aisle at Target. A series of back-to-school TV spots tout brands and merchandise first, make actual jokes (a rarity in Wal-Mart ads) and don’t include any in-store shots (long a Wal-Mart staple).
QUESTION for shareholders: If the company's directors give lots of options to the chief executive, should you be happy or nervous?
The traditional answer from academia was that big options grants were good. They aligned the interests of executives with shareholders, and they helped to offset the tendency of executives to avoid risky but potentially profitable investments.
But it turns out that the conclusions were based more on optimistic theories than data. Now, with option grants having become the largest portion of chief executive compensation - worth more than either salary or bonus for the average boss - analysis of data on corporate performance provides some disturbing results.
It appears that really big options grants make it more likely that companies will fudge their numbers and that companies with such grants are more likely to go broke.
Baseball star Rafael Palmiero Thursday wraps up his 10-day suspension for steroids. Athletes in other sports -- also charged with doping -- such as cyclist Tyler Hamilton and 10th-ranked tennis player Guillermo Canas are facing suspensions in increments of years, not daysaudio
Kevin Kelly looks at what Netscape's IPO has wrought:
Before the Netscape browser illuminated the Web, the Internet did not exist for most people. If it was acknowledged at all, it was mischaracterized as either corporate email (as exciting as a necktie) or a clubhouse for adolescent males (read: pimply nerds). It was hard to use. On the Internet, even dogs had to type. Who wanted to waste time on something so boring?The memories of an early enthusiast like myself can be unreliable, so I recently spent a few weeks reading stacks of old magazines and newspapers. Any promising new invention will have its naysayers, and the bigger the promises, the louder the nays. It's not hard to find smart people saying stupid things about the Internet on the morning of its birth. In late 1994, Time magazine explained why the Internet would never go mainstream: "It was not designed for doing commerce, and it does not gracefully accommodate new arrivals." Newsweek put the doubts more bluntly in a February 1995 headline: "THE INTERNET? BAH!" The article was written by astrophysicist and Net maven Cliff Stoll, who captured the prevailing skepticism of virtual communities and online shopping with one word: "baloney."
Their development was led by an American, Philip F. Murtaugh, a native of Ohio and a maverick executive who was willing to zig while the rest of G.M. was zagging. Mr. Murtaugh was able to create in China the kind of innovative environment that G.M. has struggled for decades to achieve in its American operations. But whether G.M. can duplicate elsewhere its achievements in China or even keep its pace here is unclear.Bradsher's tenure covering the auto industry was rather controversial. More on Bradsher.
In what may be a telling sign of the corporate culture at G.M., Mr. Murtaugh's success in China led not to promotion but to his departure from the company. G.M. declined to discuss personnel matters, but both it and Mr. Murtaugh said he resigned and was not dismissed.
A soft-spoken man in a company known for autocratic leaders, Mr. Murtaugh ran the China operations for more than nine years from his base in Shanghai, repeatedly making some of the best calls in the industry. Now he finds himself unemployed and living in a small community in rural Kentucky.
n 2003, Wisconsin state income taxes paid by filers with incomes in the $35,000-$75,000 range were higher than in many other states. For single filers with incomes in this range, Wisconsin’s income taxes were among the top 10 nationally. For married, joint filers, Wisconsin ranked from 11th to 15th, depending on income. These are several of the findings in a detailed new study of income taxes nationwide published by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX).
Susna Crawford parses the FCC's latest rulings on open internet access:
More faith-based policymaking. We'll need more than principles for the open internet to survive.David Isenberg follows with a discussion of "Fat Wasteband", a useful look at telco attempts to control the open internet.
President Bush's former health secretary Tommy Thompson is putting the final touches to a plan that could result in US citizens having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip inserted under their skin, The Business has learned.I'm glad Tommy is sticking it to himself first on this one. I can see some benefits to this approach, BUT there's a huge privacy downside.The RFID capsules would be linked to a computerised database being created by the US Department of Health to store and manage the nation's health records. It could be the precursor to a similar scheme in the UK.
The president's budget for 2006 continues to support the use of health information technology by increasing funding to $125m for pilot schemes.
Thompson, now a director of Applied Digital Solutions, the company that makes the chips, intends to publish the proposal in the next 50 days, by which time he plans to have had a VeriChip inserted in his arm. Thompson believes the capsules could help save thousands of lives every year.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) China Council and the Milwaukee Bucks today announced that the professional Chinese Basketball Association's Beijing Ducks will play a free exhibition game at the University of Wisconsin Field House during the team's 12-day trip to Wisconsin. The Ducks will take on Madison-area college stars and aspiring professionals - coached by University of Wisconsin men's basketball coach Bo Ryan - at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11.The exhibition game is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.
"The Beijing Ducks' visit to Wisconsin marks the first time a professional Chinese basketball team has come to the United States, and we are excited and honored that they will be using the University of Wisconsin's facilities during their trip," UW assistant coach Greg Gard said. "This should be a fun game for both the players and the spectators. We hope many people will come out and take advantage of this great opportunity to see top-level basketball at no cost."
The turmoil continues at Lands' End with the firing of president and CEO Mindy Meads after just 18 months at the helm of the clothing retailer.Meads had been promoted to Lands' End CEO in February 2004.
Replacing Meads as interim president is David McCreight, executive vice president of merchandising for Lands' End.
A revolutionary vaccine developed by British scientists could give lifetime protection against all types of flu.British biotech Firm Acambis is trialling the vaccine. If successful, just one jab would offer permanent protection against all strains of flu.
Great example of a traditional company that continues to improve. I remember using Schneider years ago, on the west coast and being astonished at their unique GPS shipment tracking system. This was in the late 1980's.... Michael Hammer takes a look:
That's the bad news. The good news is that Schneider's leaders did not give up, but restarted the effort in a different way. This time around the company was astoundingly successful. The time to respond to a customer's RFP, which had been in the range of 30–45 days, plummeted to 1–2 days. These results started to appear within nine months of the project getting underway and were fully realized in less than two years. By getting back to customers so much faster than its competitors, Schneider was able to shape the terms of competition. The result was a rise of some 70 percent in the percentage of bids that Schneider won, which translated into sales increases of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Ironically, many of the ideas that had been developed in the original project resurfaced in the new system for responding to RFPs.So what changed between the first and second efforts that made the difference between failure and success? There were six key factors:
But don't worry - Congress is on the case. It dropped everything last week to pass a bill to protect gun makers from shooting victims' lawsuits. The fact that the U.S. has fallen to 16th in the world in broadband connectivity aroused no interest. Look, I don't even like cellphones, but this is not about gadgets. The world is moving to an Internet-based platform for commerce, education, innovation and entertainment. Wealth and productivity will go to those countries or companies that get more of their innovators, educators, students, workers and suppliers connected to this platform via computers, phones and P.D.A.'s.I've seen no serious movement on true 2 way broadband in Wisconsin. We're stuck with slow service, unfortunately.A new generation of politicians is waking up to this issue. For instance, Andrew Rasiej is running in New York City's Democratic primary for public advocate on a platform calling for wireless (Wi-Fi) and cellphone Internet access from every home, business and school in the city. If, God forbid, a London-like attack happens in a New York subway, don't trying calling 911. Your phone won't work down there. No wireless infrastructure. This ain't Tokyo, pal.
Carrie Johnson writes a well done article on a variety of 1990's tax shelter schemes that reduced or eliminated capital gains taxes. The interesting thing, in all of this, is the transparency these activites give to the mess that is our tax system. Johnson takes a look at many points of view, not just the IRS's:
Many of the KPMG partners denied they had engaged in a conspiracy to break the law, arguing instead that they had exploited long-standing loopholes in the arcane tax code. Lawyers and tax experts analyze shelters to determine whether they will pass IRS review on a "more likely than not" basis -- a standard that amounts to a slightly more than 50 percent chance.There are ongoing questions about whether the shelters themselves were lawful. A civil case filed in San Francisco by an investment firm that devised one of the structures is challenging the IRS interpretation that the tax shelter lacks economic justification.
Separately, individual taxpayers who used some of the structures have been able to settle their claims with the IRS through an amnesty program.
Moreover, many of the shelters were vetted by lawyers and other tax advisers, giving former KPMG officials another possible defense if they can show they relied on those professional experts and thus lacked the intent to break the law.
Former KPMG Partners May Be Charged
By Carrie Johnson
Federal prosecutors have notified as many as 20 former partners at the accounting firm KPMG LLP, including some who were members of its senior management team, that they could face criminal charges for their role in selling tax shelters in the 1990s, according to people familiar with the case.
Government lawyers have not yet decided whether to bring criminal charges against the firm, but they are asking for tough concessions from KPMG as the price of any potential settlement. At the same time they also are focusing on individual executives involved in the tax shelters, according to sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate stage of the investigation.
Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in New York had recommended that KPMG face criminal charges, but senior Justice Department officials in Washington expressed concerns about the prospect of another accounting firm collapse after the 2002 demise of Arthur Andersen LLP and the Supreme Court's reversal in May of Andersen's criminal conviction, according to the sources. Instead, both prosecutors and the firm continue to negotiate.
The KPMG probe, which dates back several years, could be the next major case in a string of business fraud prosecutions that surfaced after the collapses of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. KPMG was one of several firms that sold questionable tax shelters to wealthy clients, creating lucrative sources of revenue.
After reports of possible criminal charges against KPMG appeared in June, the firm issued a statement apologizing for "unlawful" activity by former partners and pledged to cooperate with investigators. The firm turned over batches of documents, pressured dozens of tax executives to resign, and imposed caps on their attorney fees.
Analysts say those moves could help persuade regulators to forgo an indictment and instead impose lesser sanctions, such as requiring the firm to pay millions of dollars in financial penalties and admitting facts that could implicate former employees. Negotiations between prosecutors and the firm continue and a resolution could be weeks away. The talks are taking place as several key Justice Department figures are in transition, including the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and the head of Justice's criminal division. The assistant attorney general for tax issues has recused herself from the case, sources said.
The final agreement could be similar to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s pact with the Justice Department over its dealings with Enron, in which the firm agreed to increased monitoring and other business changes.
That gives little solace to the former partners, several of whom testified at a 2003 Senate hearing -- which cited internal KPMG correspondence about whether the shelters would pass muster with the Internal Revenue Service. Some of the officials speculated in memos released at the Senate hearing that the firm should roll the dice and approve the deals, since it was likely to make more in fees than any penalties the government would impose.
KPMG sold the shelters to 350 people and reaped about $124 million in fees between 1997 and 2001, the report said.
"The only possible way to have made these people behave -- they were so far below professional standards -- is in fact that some people have to go to jail," said Calvin H. Johnson, a tax law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has written about the KPMG case.
Unlike in the Andersen investigation, in which only one mid-level audit partner pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, prosecutors are scrutinizing senior people at KPMG, one of the four big remaining audit firms in the nation.
Among those at KPMG who are facing government scrutiny are such high-ranking officials as its former deputy chairman, the onetime head of the firm's tax services unit and the former leader of the District-based national tax practice.
The shelters, called names such as OPIS, FLIPS and BLIPS, generally helped wealthy clients to create large paper losses, offsetting big gains that otherwise would have produced steep tax bills. Senate investigators estimated the shelters reduced federal tax revenue by $1.4 billion.
Many of the KPMG partners denied they had engaged in a conspiracy to break the law, arguing instead that they had exploited long-standing loopholes in the arcane tax code. Lawyers and tax experts analyze shelters to determine whether they will pass IRS review on a "more likely than not" basis -- a standard that amounts to a slightly more than 50 percent chance.
There are ongoing questions about whether the shelters themselves were lawful. A civil case filed in San Francisco by an investment firm that devised one of the structures is challenging the IRS interpretation that the tax shelter lacks economic justification.
Separately, individual taxpayers who used some of the structures have been able to settle their claims with the IRS through an amnesty program.
Moreover, many of the shelters were vetted by lawyers and other tax advisers, giving former KPMG officials another possible defense if they can show they relied on those professional experts and thus lacked the intent to break the law.
The KPMG investigation is intensifying at the same time federal authorities are vowing to take enforcement of tax cases more seriously. In recent years, the IRS has struggled with such efforts as the agency has experienced repeated staffing cuts. But Commissioner Mark W. Everson has made enforcement a renewed priority, referring 3,000 cases to the Justice Department last year for possible criminal prosecution.
"Our system of tax administration depends upon the integrity of practitioners," Everson said in a March speech at the National Press Club.
KPMG first drew the ire of regulators by refusing to turn over documents related to the shelters. It also took a hard-nosed approach to dealing with the IRS, while rivals at Ernst & Young LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP settled and paid multimillion-dollar fines over their tax marketing efforts. Ernst has said that it, too, faces a criminal investigation into its tax shelter dealings.
5-year-old Peter Drucker is one of the world's most respected thinkers. For six decades, he's helped shape many of today's great corporations and made the study of management theory a respected discipline. As a journalist, teacher, consultant, and author of more than 35 books, Drucker's expertise reaches far beyond the confines of the Fortune 500.audio
According to the DHS:The technology will be tested at a simulated port this spring. By July 31, 2005, the testing will begin at the ports of Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona; Alexandria Bay in New York; and, Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in Washington. The testing or "proof of concept" phase is expected to continue through the spring of 2006.
I know nothing about the details of this program or about the security of the cards. Even so, the long-term implications of this kind of thing are very chilling.
Legislators from both political parties have authored a bill that would require that electronic voting machines in Wisconsin produce a paper ballot that could be reviewed by the voter and that would be kept in case a recount is needed.Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, Rep. Steve Freese, R-Dodgeville, and Sen. Jeff Plale, D-South Milwaukee, are circulating the bill among fellow legislators in the hope of obtaining co-sponsors.
Personnel salaries and related expenses make up about 89% of the police department's operating budget. The remaining 11% of the operating budget consists of minor objects and capital assets. Apparently, Chief Wray was either unable or unwilling to find any significant cuts within this other 11% of the budget.
Another interesting item in the 2005 budget is $1.6 million worth of overtime pay. When asked about the possibility of cutting overtime, one alderperson explained that this expense is hard to change because it is part of the negotiated union contracts. Chief Wray shares this sentiment
Atkins Nutritionals, the New York company founded in 1989 by the late Dr. Robert Atkins to cash in on his low-carb diet, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. The company cited weakening demand for its products. Ironically, the Atkins diet–affectionately known by some as the “cheeseburger-hold-the-bun” diet–had been blamed in recent years for earnings shortfalls in companies ranging from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (nyse: KKD - news - people ) to Kraft Foods (nyse: KFT - news - people ) to Interstate Bakeries (the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies).
But Noone’s outlook couldn’t be more global. He spends a typical weekend watching Chinese-language movies and listening to Chinese-language tapes. At least once a week he makes sure to eat with chopsticks. “You’ve got to show people you’re interested in their culture,” he says.
Noone is interested, all right. The 54-year-old entrepreneur is founder and CEO of Capacitor Industries, which imports low-cost electronic components from China and sells them to motor makers and other manufacturers in the U.S. and, increasingly, abroad. His stock-in-trade is capacitors: tiny devices that store charges, maintain electrical currents, keep motors running, and protect computers and communications equipment from surges. Every motor manufacturer needs a steady supply of them, which has helped send Noone’s annual sales to $5 million.
What's more, by connecting his laptop to certain modern hotel TV systems, Laurie says he can spy on other guests. He can't look into their rooms (yet), but depending on the system he can see what they are watching on their TV, look at their guest folios, change the minibar bill and follow along as they browse the Internet on the hotel television set.
To tease his fellow guests, he can also check them out of their room and set early wake-up calls via the TV.
So despite the team's problems, the fans were full of optimism on Friday, driving down Lombardi Avenue, or passing Holmgren Way, or watching practice on the Ray Nitschke Field, or in front of the Don Hutson Center. All seemed well in Green Bay because the Packers were back in town.
Jeff Sabatini (finally) takes a look at the real mileage performance of Toyota's latest hybrid: The $50K RX400h:
Certainly, it is the Prius's above-average fuel economy that Toyota has to thank for its image as a green car company. Environmental advocates do not proclaim the righteousness of all things Toyota based on the 958,888 light trucks and S.U.V.'s that it sold in the United States last year, fully 47 percent of its total sales. By comparison, only 53,991 Priuses were sold in 2004, though the company has stated that it plans to double that number this year.It is understandable that Toyota would like to transfer the Prius's hybrid chic and green patina to other products. To this end, a hybrid version of the Toyota Highlander S.U.V. was also introduced this year, and the automaker has announced plans to add both a hybrid version of its Camry, the nation's best-selling sedan, and a hybrid Lexus GS sport sedan next year. Whether these vehicles will be gas misers like the Prius or thirstier performance-oriented hybrids like the RX 400h remains to be seen.
My first seat time in the Lexus hybrid came over a weekend in which I drove the 200 miles from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Mich. I spent a lot of time on the freeway, but I also traveled some back roads and slogged through a couple of stop-and-go city stints. By the time I returned to Chicago, I had put 531 miles on the odometer and calculated my fuel economy at 20.9 m.p.g.
