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McCain Battles A Nemesis, The Teleprompter


LAS VEGAS —Senator John McCain was performing relatively smoothly as he unveiled his energy plan.

He managed to limit the mechanical hand chops and weirdly timed smiles that can often punctuate his speeches. He delivered his lines with an ease that suggested a momentary peace with his longtime nemesis, the teleprompter. (He relied on a belt-and-suspenders approach, with text scrolling down screens to his left and right, and on a big TV set in front of him.)

But when Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came to the intended sound bite of his speech — the part about reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil — he hit a slick.

“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lex-eegton Project,” Mr. McCain said, drawing a quick breath and correcting himself. “The Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect,” he said slowly. “The Lexington Project,” he repeated. “Remember that name.”

In a town meeting in Cincinnati the next day, Mr. McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town, where, he noted, “Americans asserted their independence once before.” He called it “the Lexiggdon Project” and twice tried to fix his error before flipping the name (“Project Lexington”) in subsequent references.

Mr. McCain’s battle of Lexington is part of a struggle he is engaged in every day. A politician who has thrived in the give-and-take settings of campaign buses, late-night TV couches and town meetings, he now is trying to meet the more formal speaking demands of a general election campaign.

By his own admission, Mr. McCain is not a great orator. He is ill-suited to lecterns, which often dwarf his small stature, and he tends to sound as if he is reading his lines, not speaking them. His shortcomings have been accentuated in a two-man race, particularly because the other man — Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee — can often dazzle on stage.

Mr. McCain and his advisers know that Mr. Obama’s ability to excite huge crowds will make for an inevitable podium mismatch for the older, softer-spoken Republican. “We’re going up against a guy who is off the charts,” said Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s longtime Senate chief of staff and campaign adviser.

To better compete, Mr. McCain is undergoing a subtle but marked transition as a political performer, said aides and people who have watched him. As part of a staff shakeup that was announced Tuesday, he brought in a new adviser — Greg Jenkins, a former White House official and Fox News producer — who will oversee the producing and staging of Mr. McCain’s events. Mr. Jenkins is considered an expert at political stagecraft, oversaw many of President Bush’s appearances and served as executive director of the 2004 inaugural committee.

Mr. McCain is working closely with aides like Brett O’Donnell, a former debate consultant for Mr. Bush, to improve his speech and performance. He is working to limit his verbal tangents and nonverbal tics. He is speaking less out of the sides of his mouth, which can produce a wiseguy twang reminiscent of the Penguin from the Batman stories, and he is relying less on his favorite semantic crutch — the phrase “my friends” — which he used repeatedly in his campaign appearances. He also appears to be trying to exercise restraint, advisers and campaign observers say, when speaking off the cuff, wisecracking in town meetings and criticizing his opponent. In recent weeks, for example, Mr. McCain seems to have reined in the sarcasm he has directed at Mr. Obama. (In May, for example, he said of his opponent, “With his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, he’s been very successful.”)

Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, said, “There’s a danger of sarcasm becoming nastiness, and McCain seems to be conscious of that line.”

Some McCain loyalists say he needs to be left alone and not burdened by his staff’s calculations about how he should be acting or what he should saying.

“I think the depressingly self-absorbed McCain campaign machine needs to get out of the way,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime friend and media adviser who has no role in the current operation but who still talks to Mr. McCain every few days. “They need to just let McCain be McCain.”

The more careful McCain, said by some to be overly scripted, has received some withering critiques. “His rhetorical style can best be described as ‘tired mayonnaise,’ ” the comedian Stephen Colbert declared on “The Colbert Report” before inviting viewers to enter the “Make McCain Exciting Challenge.”

Peter Spaulding, the chairman of Mr. McCain’s campaign in New Hampshire, said he recently saw a McCain speech on television that was “just atrocious.”

Dan Schnur, Mr. McCain’s communications chief during his 2000 presidential campaign, said, “Besides his convention speech, the only time I would even put him behind a podium at all between now and the end of the campaign is when he’s announcing a policy position.”

Mr. McCain’s advisers, who bristle at the idea that they are trying to transform the candidate, say that his lack of smoothness merely reinforces his reputation for authenticity.

“Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish,” said Mark McKinnon, a former consultant to Mr. McCain’s campaign. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter.”

Indeed, Mr. McCain and his advisers seem to be trying to present him as a kind of anti-Obama whose weaknesses as a political performer underscore his accessibility to regular voters.

“John doesn’t ever want to be something that he is not,” Mr. Salter said, including trying to pass himself off as a larger-than-life figure on stage. “There’s nothing in there about him that wants to be rarefied.”

Mr. McCain and his surrogates appear to be taking a page from the primary campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, which made a point of praising Mr. Obama’s speaking skills both to erase any expectation that she could match them and to imply that Mr. Obama was more of a performer than a leader. Nicolle Wallace, Mr. McCain’s new senior adviser, said the campaign would focus on having the candidate interact face to face with voters, “not from a center stage in the middle of a stadium.”

In an interview on his campaign plane, Mr. McCain said “my strongest environment is clearly the impromptu.” He added, “I don’t mean that in a way that denigrates Senator’s Obama’s speechmaking skills.”

He shrugged when asked whether he is improving as a speaker. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s coming along.”

“I will continue to make mistakes,” he added.

He said he was trying to be “extra vigilant” about not giving unnecessary offense, knowing that the wisecracking humor that might charm cynical reporters might not do the same for earnest voters.

He sheepishly volunteered that he received complaints after a recent Newsweek profile of his wife, Cindy, said that he sometimes referred to her alma mater, the University of Southern California, as the University of Spoiled Children.

Mr. Salter bemoans the current environment, in which, he said, “the press creates the expectation that you better not stumble on a word, or tell a joke that Mr. Rogers wouldn’t tell, or you’re going to be in trouble.”

There are any number of Web videos of Mr. McCain to prove the point. They include the moment he playfully called a young man a “jerk” at a town-hall-style meeting in New Hampshire last year after he asked Mr. McCain if his age made him a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease in the White House (Mr. McCain typically uses jerk as a term of affection), or when he suggested to Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” that he brought him a special gift from Iraq — an improvised explosive device.

Small misstatements become instant YouTube fodder — as when Mr. McCain vowed to “veto every single beer” that included lawmakers’ pet spending projects (he meant “bill”) or when he said the government should have been able to deliver “bottled hot water” to dehydrated babies in New Orleans. (It is fortunate for Mr. McCain that there was no YouTube in the 1980s when he jokingly referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”)

Mr. McCain speaks often about his love of the “give and take,” the “more informal settings where I think I’m at my best.”

“It’s not an ego thing,” he said, “just where I think I’m most effective.”

When asked if it would be possible to run “the town meeting campaign” that he credited with providing him a decisive victory in New Hampshire, where he held 102 such events, Mr. McCain said, “Absolutely.”

The ease with which he presided over such a gathering in Cincinnati on June 26 was strikingly different from the difficulties he had with his speech in Las Vegas the day before. “I believe that town-hall meetings are the essence of the process,” Mr. McCain said to an audience at Xavier University, gripping his microphone with two hands. He talked about why it is important to engage with people across the political spectrum: “conservatives and liberals and libertarians and vegetarians,” he said.

A downside to such meetings is that they can become forums for people to ask about anything, including parochial concerns. One student, for example, asked Mr. McCain what he would do to ensure that commercial airlines continued to operate out of the Cincinnati airport.

Mr. McCain managed to steer his answer to energy, the theme of the week. “This is the reason for Project Lexington,” he responded.

Original Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1



Massacre In Flat 12

Massacre In Flat 12French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez were tied up, tortured and stabbed 243 times in an act of unbelievable savagery. What can explain the slaughter in SE14? David Randall investigates.

For all the relentless murdering in London in recent times, you could always tell yourself that things here had not reached the stage of Miami in 1980, when homicides were committed in such quantity and with such hour-by-hour regularity that local mortuaries had to hire a refrigeration truck from Burger King to handle the overspill. But then, a few days ago, came news of a crime that, for sheer exaggerated and revolting ferocity, rivalled anything perpetrated by the drug crazies and psychopaths of Miami-Dade County all those years ago.

Two French graduate students – model, modern Europeans in their studies, their lives and their looks – were tied up in a south-east London flat, probably tortured, and stabbed more than 200 times. The scene where they lay dead, and disfigured beyond recognition, was then set explosively on fire. If George Orwell in his famous essay thought the English murder was declining from the middle-class crime passionnel to Americanised senselessness in 1946, heaven knows what he would make of the killing of Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez in 2008.

What shocked was not that they were admirable young men – high-profile murders very often do involve the loss of a virtuous life – nor that the perpetrator's apparent gain (a couple of paltry electronic gadgets) was so pathetically small. What sent a jolt through even Britain's crime-hardened capital was the number of hacks with a knife rained down on the heads, necks and backs of the two young men as they lay bound beyond any retaliation on the floor of their rented flat: 243. It takes long enough just to count them. To inflict them, with the hand juddering each time at the resistance of the human body, and to keep on and on and on until 243 is reached is to enter a realm beyond even the psychopathic.

That total could suggest these killings were the work of more than one assailant. To try to answer this question – as well as many of the others raised by the nightmarish nature of the attack – we need to go back to Sterling Gardens, New Cross on Sunday evening, the last time its inhabitants knew normality. It was around 10pm, just after the final of Euro 2008 came to a climax, that the residents of this street of new-build flats and homes heard – and felt – a loud, tremulous series of noises. To one, it was "a very strong sound"; to neighbour Sarah MacIntyre, "I thought a bridge on the railway line had collapsed"; and to Henry Chuks, who lived above the murder flat, "two or three loud bangs ... it sounded like a big fridge had fallen down".

Whatever it was, it drew a good number of them into the crescent-like street, and they quickly saw the source of the bangs: flames coming through the shattered living-room window of flat 12, on the ground floor of Admiral Court, a modern, three-storey gabled block in this back-water street. Several neighbours ran over to see if there was anyone trapped inside. They banged on the door, but got no response. A few of them rushed to get water to throw through the windows. Soon afterwards, the fire service arrived. Inside they discovered the bodies of Bonomo and Ferez.

It took a little time to learn their identities, the extraordinary viciousness of their wounds (Bonomo was stabbed no fewer than 196 times, perhaps as many as 100 times after he was already dead; Gabriel Ferez 47 times and badly burned) and that, six days before, a laptop had been stolen from the flat. Bonomo, who rented the place (Ferez lived about 10 miles away in South Norwood), had emerged from the shower at about 6am on the morning of Monday 23 June to find an intruder hurriedly leaving with his computer – a black Packard Bell. The thief had forced open a living-room window. Police later arrived and the room was dusted for fingerprints.

The murder investigation, led by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Duthie, an experienced officer who, like his 40 colleagues on the case, had never seen the like of the injuries inflicted on the students, soon picked up other details. One resident saw two men hammering on the window of the flat just before the fire broke out. Another talked of seeing a white man running from the flat that evening. And, on Friday, police said that both the students' mobile phones had been taken on the Sunday, as well as a pair of Sony PSP handheld videogame consoles. The serial number of one of them: S01-06113169-C.

And, by the end of last week, a full portrait had emerged of the two victims, together with fragments of their last hours before the attack. Both were biochemistry students at Polytech' Clermont-Ferrand who had been selected for a three-month secondment to Imperial College, London, and for whom brilliant futures were predicted. Bonomo, from Velaux near Aix-en-Provence, had been student union president in France and was immensely personable and popular. His cousin, Claude Bonomo, said of him: "He was a fantastic, fun-loving, exuberant guy." His fiancée Mary Bertez, to whom he last spoke on the phone early on Sunday morning, said that Bonomo gave her "10 months of a happiness I had never experienced until then" and added that she would "never stop thinking about him". They had been due to marry later this year.

Gabriel Ferez, from Prouzel near Amiens, was widely travelled, a compulsive reader of history, worked during his holidays at an Amiens hospital, and also attended a Mexican university last year. His father Olivier said: "Gabriel is, was, the most intelligent, affectionate, wonderful son anyone could ever want. He had such a bright future and now that has gone." As the attack came, the pair were playing a computer game together. They were due to return home at the end of July.

Before any suspicious minds could pose the ritual question about Bonomo and Ferez's connections (about whether, for instance, they could have been involved in drug-dealing or something else that placed them in contact with vengeful gangs), DCI Duthie answered it. "We cannot find anything in these two young men's backgrounds," he said, "to suggest they were involved in any criminality, that they had done anything wrong, either in Britain or in France or elsewhere."

What clues then – apart from the thefts or any forensic findings withheld by police for operational reasons – are there? Not many. No weapon has been found, but there are traces of what police call an "accelerant" (petrol, or something similar, to you and me) used to set the fire going. Forensic test results on these – and a container – are awaited. The use of an accelerant suggests some level of pre-meditation by the attacker(s), not a trait usually found in a crack crazy who slaughters two men for a couple of phones and game devices. What it is increasingly associated with is an attempt, often futile, to destroy DNA evidence.

Perhaps most significantly, there is no sign of a forced entry. This suggests a key was used, or that the door was opened by Bonomo. To get inside flat 12 means first ringing the block's outside bell-pushes, and so giving those inside a look at any caller before they open the entrance door with its well-polished brass handle and letter box. Hence, the perpetrators had a key (there is no evidence that one was recently lost or stolen), were known to Bonomo, were sufficiently plausible-looking to be let in, or were already inside.

There have been suggestions that the pair's killing was a case of mistaken identity, that they happened to bear a resemblance to someone with whom a gang had a feud. But the excess of the violence used hardly suggests a "hit".

Police say privately that their strongest line of inquiry is that this attack was a robbery. They arrested a 21-year-old man in a south-east London street at 3.40am yesterday, and he is now being questioned. The key could be Bonomo's still-missing laptop. Maybe its contents gave its thief – or someone to whom he sold it – the idea that the student had money worth returning for. Police say the pair's bank cards may have been taken, and speculate that they were tortured to obtain their PIN numbers. If so, it was by a thief (or thieves) who brought to the scene of the crime a psychotic frenzy that was not sated until their strength to raise the knife was utterly exhausted. They would have left flat 12 looking as if they had just finished a shift at an abattoir.

Last night, at Admiral Court, the flat's three windows were covered. One has been blacked out; another is boarded up, and a third is encased in blue tarpaulin. It could be the scene of a small house fire. But it's not. It was a massacre in there. The French press, doing no more – and probably a great deal less – than the English tabloids would if the victims were British and the location were Paris, have not minced their words. France-Soir said that London was turning into one of the most hazardous cities in Europe. Libération said there had been 17 (now 18) stabbings so far in London this year, and Le Parisien wrote: "These two gifted French students were massacred in a notoriously dangerous area of the British capital."

One French respondent to Le Figaro's website, writing under the name of "Gin", said: "I've lived in London for 10 years and there are many places known for robbery, violence and murder where I don't go. The embassies and consulates won't tell you that, so you have to find it out for yourself. These poor students were in a zone where you should never walk, let alone live."

Maybe they're right. Perhaps London is becoming a feral no-go area, where you're as likely to meet the sharp end of a knife as a smile. Not so much SE14 as Dade County-on-Thames.

Original Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/massacre-in-flat-12-860887.html

Valomilk


VALOMILK Stories

Over the last half century I have heard many wonderful stories about VALOMILKS from our fans (fanatics?). Here are some of their stories:

Just when I thought I had heard every way of eating a VALOMILK this came in from Susan and George of Lynchburg, Ohio. Susan wrote: "When my husband and I stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, Cracker Barrell, we saw VALOMILKS in the candy section! We took a walk back in time to our childhoods and recalled many memories centered around VALOMILKS: saving our allowances to buy this once a week treat, our old neighorhoods, our old playmates and even our old schools where we often bought VALOMILKS."

"I remember taking very small bites of VALOMILKS and letting each slowly melt in my mouth. In order to make the VALOMILKS last longer I would eat only lalf of the cup, although sometimes I would sneak into the second half of the cup just to savor one more bite. [VALOMLIKS came one cup per package then] I would then put the half-cup back into the wrapper which I had carefully opened and saved. After doing this I would set the half eaten cup in its wrapper on its edge between two non-intrusive supports to save the delicious filling and thus secure my treat for later in the day. It never was saved for long though, a couple hours would be an exaggeration. Then I would return to my VALOMILK and enjoy the second half, licking the wrapper before tossing it away."



Around 1958 my grandfather started a very popular promotion based on Hawaii and Alaska being admitted to the Union. The promotion ran until the mid 60s. We put cardboard disks the size of milk bottle caps on each VALOMILK. The disks had the names of all 50 state capitols. You would save up 30 disks, mail them in to our factory and receive 10 free VALOMILKS in a cardboard tube. I used to work on Saturdays counting those disks and putting address labels on the tubes. I was paid $1.00 for click to see a large picturethe day, which seemed like a lot of money then. I started collecting the disks from those sent in and from ones I found out in the factory. Even with this advantage, I never did collect all 50. People have sent me many disks in the last few years, and I have found some in boxes from our old factory, but I still only have 29 states. I have often wondered if we ever made all 50 states! From time to time VALOMILK State Capitol Disks even make it onto e-Bay.

Many people have written us about the VALOMILK State Capitol Disks. One, whose name I will not mention in order to protect the guilty, told how she saved up her disks and just when she got to 30, they disappeared. To this day she blames her brother!

Eddie wrote us saying he credits his saving and trading VALOMILK click to see a large pictureDisks to his memorizing all fifty states and their capitols in his geography class in the seventh grade.

Daniel tells his scout troop how his passion was collecting the disks for free VALOMILKS in grade school ... until he discovered girls!

John wrote about amassing a collection of disks that would give him a lifetime supply of free VALOMILKS until his mom cleaned out his room one day. He said he would have rather she pitched his baseball cards!
PS- Bill D. from Rockford, IL claims he collected all 50 states.


A few years back I received a call from a frantic young man named Michael. His girlfriend, Christie, absolutely loved VALOMILKS. Not only were they her most favorite candy, but she also loved VALOMILKS as a gift above almost anything else because they are so hard to find, and thus they are special.

Well, Michael was going to propose marriage to Christie and he wanted it to be something special. He was going to take her to the finest restaurant in town and after dinner, present the engagement ring and his proposal to her. But Michael wanted to have a little fun too. He wanted to put the ring inside a box of VALOMILKS as an extra surprise and then have the box delivered under a domed dish by the headwaiter.

Problem! Michael could not find an entire box of VALOMILKS anywhere, and thus the reason for his frantic call. We immediately got a full box to him. Michael took one package out of the box, put the engagement ring in the jewelry box and placed it carefully in the VALOMILK box. He then took the VALOMILK box to the restaurant that afternoon and explained to the manager what he wanted them to do at the end of their dinner.

That night they both dressed up to go to the restaurant. Michael said they did not talk much during the dinner but Christie kept looking at him with waiting eyes. After dinner they ordered dessert and the headwaiter brought the domed dish to the table. Christie watched with expectant eyes as the headwaiter slowly lifted the dome and then she saw the box of VALOMILKS. She let out a scream of excitement that drew everyone’s attention as she opened the box. And there inside the jewelry box was the engagement ring. Before Michael could say one word, Christie quickly put it on her left ring finger just to make sure it fit. She then turned to him and said, “Oh Michael, my favorite candy!”

A week later, Michael wrote me to tell me the story. And yes, Christie did say yes to Michael’s proposal, but only after enjoying her VALOMILK desert.


Here is another romantic VALOMILK story. It comes from Don and I will tell it in his own words.

“Thank you for making my favorite candy again. When I was in junior high school, there was a small neighborhood grocery store across from the school. There was also a young girl in my class named Mary Jane and I had a crush on her. Often Mary Jane had to have a VALOMILK Cup before school, probably because she hadn’t taken time to eat breakfast. Never the less, Mary Jane always had a nickel in her purse (yes, VALOMILKS were once a nickel) and always asked me to run across the street before school and get her “chocolate transfusion.” I always complied and Mary Jane thought I was the nicest boy in her class.”

“Back then, VALOMILK had a punch board where when you purchased a VALOMILK you got to punch out a small cardboard button. Inside you could win one or more free VALOMILK Cups. Well, I soon found out that punching the button three down and three across would often reward me with three or four FREE VALOMILK Cups!”

“Mary Jane was the nicest and prettiest girl in my class. I really had a crush on her, and she thought I was the nicest boy to get the VALOMILKS Cups for her. This is how I came to love your candy. I never told Mary Jane about often winning free VALOMILK Cups; it was my secret, just like my affection for her. I did this for two years in junior high school. The following fall, when we moved up to high school, I raced to school early the first day to await Mary Jane’s request. She never showed up. I found out a few days later that her family moved out of town over the summer. I was crushed!” “Would you believe that fifty-five years later, I think of her every time I see a VALOMILK."

Original Source : http://www.valomilk.com/

Keyword Elite

Keyword Elite

Keyword Elite :

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How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Software Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World...Instantly Elevating Their Income and Boosting Their Qualified Traffic...All With Just A Few Clicks of A Mouse...


I know, it's sometimes hard to do and maybe a little bit weird to actually be asked to do something like this but, I'm really serious about this and you'll understand why shortly.

You see, I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of man-hours in programming, research and development and testing this software so rest assured you can look but you won't find anything that comes even slightly close, by a hundred miles.

That's why I can say it's...

The Undisputed, Most Powerful Software Of It's Kind!

See, normally if you were on any other website, you would probably be getting a whole bunch of reasons why you should buy now, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, I like my customers to know and understand the sheer magnitude of what they're truly in for with this comprehensive "little" software of mine.

Original Source : Keyword Elite

SAAB Fly To The Finish


SAAB Fly to the Finish Sweepstakes (the “Promotion”) is open only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia who are at least eighteen (18) years old (or the age of majority in his/her state, whichever is older) at the time of entry. Employees of VERSUS, L.P., ePrize, LLC, General Motors Corporation and their parent and affiliate companies, suppliers as well as the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) and household members of each such employee are not eligible. Subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Void where prohibited. Participation constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to these Official Rules and Administrator’s decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to the Promotion. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein. The Promotion consists of a sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) and an instant win game (the “Instant Win Game”).

Timing :
The Promotion begins on June 28, 2008 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time (”ET”) and ends on July 27, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. ET (the “Promotion Period”).

How to Enter :
Sweepstakes/Instant Win Game: During the Promotion Period watch the VERSUS channel for code word(s) that will appear during daily telecasts of the Tour de France, which will act as a password for entry into the Promotion. There will be a new code word each day. Once you have a code word, go to http://versus.com/flytothefinish, follow the links and instructions, fill out the online entry form completely, including the code word and submit the form. You will automatically be entered with one (1) entry into the Sweepstakes and advance to the Instant Win Game page and receive one (1) Instant Win Game play for that code word. The Instant Win Game results will be displayed instantly. Entrants will be notified immediately by email if they are potential winners of the Instant Win Game and will be provided directions for validation. All potential winners are subject to verification before any prize will be awarded. One (1) additional code word will be available each day at http://www.bicycling.com and other additional code words will be available by various methods during the Promotion Period, including but not limited to: advertisements on the VERSUS channel, http://www.versus.com/tdfwidget, http://www.versuswap.com, at participating SAAB dealerships and in the August 2008 issue of Bicycling Magazine. Administrator is responsible for the functionality of the Instant Win Game.

Alternate Method of Entry: To obtain daily code words if you do not have VERSUS, email Flytothefinish1@comcastnets.com with “VERSUS TDF Daily Code” in the subject line and a code word will immediately be sent to you via email. There is a 24-hour window for each daily code word, and a code word cannot be given more than 24-hours after which it aired on VERSUS. To obtain the code word if you do not receive the August 2008 issue of Bicycling Magazine, email Flytothefinish2@comcastnets.com with “Bicycling Magazine TDF Code” in the subject line and the code word will immediately be sent to you via email.
Limit :
Limit: Each participant may enter/play one (1) time per code word (s).

Prize (s):

  1. ONE (1) GRAND PRIZE: Grand Prize Package: A Saab 2008 9-3 2.0T SportCombi with bike rack and a Cervélo SLC-SL Bicycle. Sponsors will determine all features of automobile including but not limited to color of exterior and interior, and all other features or upgrades will be allowed only if permitted by delivery dealer and paid for by winner. Winner must be a licensed driver in good standing and will be required to provide proof of insurance at time of delivery. Winner is responsible for title, license, registration, dealer preparation costs, auto insurance and other fees associated with prize. Winner must take delivery of prize from the automobile dealership designated by Sponsors. Approximate Retail Value (”ARV”): $38,555. TWO (2) FIRST PRIZES: Cervélo SLC-SL Bicycle. ARV: $6,900. Limit: One (1) Sweepstakes prize per person.
  2. Instant Win Game prizes: i) TWENTY-THREE (23) PHASE ONE PRIZES (one per day from June 28-July 12, July 16-July 19 and July 24-July 27, 2008): Yellow Jersey. Jersey may be signed. Sponsors will determine the size of the jersey and the person that will sign it (if applicable) in their sole discretion. ARV: $50. ii) FIVE (5) PHASE TWO PRIZE (one per day on July 13, 14, 20, 22, & 23, 2008): Polka Dot Jersey. Jersey may be signed. Sponsors will determine the size of the jersey and the person that will sign it (if applicable) in their sole discretion. ARV: $140. iii) TWO (2) PHASE THREE PRIZES (one per day on July 15th and July 21st, 2008): Polka Dot Jersey and Cervélo SLC-SL Bicycle. Jersey may be signed. Sponsors will determine the size of the jersey and the person that will sign it (if applicable) in its sole discretion. Sponsors will determine all features of the bicycle, including but limited to color and year of the bicycle in its sole discretion. ARV: $7,040. Limit: One (1) Instant Win Game prize per person.

Total ARV of all prizes :
$68,285

Original Source : http://www.sweepstakesmag.com/cars-parts-vehicles/saab-fly-to-the-finish-sweepstakes/

Bunny Lake Is Missing


American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) has just arrived in England from the US, planning to settle in London along with her journalist brother Steven (Keir Dullea) and her four-year-old daughter Bunny. But when Ann arrives at Bunny's new school to collect the child at the end of her first day, Bunny is not there and the school has no record of her.

Police Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) faces an array of possible suspects in Bunny's disappearance. Ann's Bohemian landlord, the ageing writer and broadcaster Horatio Wilson (Noel Coward), who lets himself into Ann's home whenever he pleases, proves to be a whip-loving masochist. Old Ada Ford (Martita Hunt), who lives upstairs from the school, collects recordings of children's nightmares. And is the closeness of Ann's relationship with her brother entirely healthy?

As the investigation proceeds, though, another possibility suggests itself. No one outside the family recalls ever having seen Bunny, while Ann and Steven claim that all of the girl's belongings disappeared in a mysterious burglary. When Stephen lets slip that Ann, as a young girl, had an imaginary friend also called Bunny, Supt. Newhouse begins to question whether Bunny Lake ever really existed.

Desperate at not being believed, Ann suddenly recalls that, before Bunny's disappearance, the girl's doll had been taken in for repair. She immediately sets off across nighttime London to try to recover the doll, convinced that with this evidence in hand the police will have to believe her. But when she gets to the "doll hospital", Ann discovers more than she has bargained for.

In the film's surprise denouement, Ann encounters Steven at the doll hospital. Her brother destroys the doll and it soon becomes apparent that he has something to hide. Ultimately, Ann finds Bunny in the now visibly disturbed Steven's (or "Stevie", the only name he answers to in that state of mind) car and faces a night distracting him from murdering both her and her daughter before the police finally arrive to take him away.

Original Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Lake_Is_Missing

A remake of Otto Preminger's 1965 psychological thriller about a woman whose four-year-old daughter disappears without a trace.

Original Source : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489944/

viewzi.com

Interesting search experiments at Viewzi

We first covered Viewzi, the creative service that offers unique front-ends to search engines, back in April. Monday night, the service is ending its private beta and opening up to everyone. Try it at Viewzi.com. It's a fun site if you like looking at search in new ways.

It looks like there are a few new search visualizers on the site now, including a graphically intensive 3D "photo cloud" viewer (PicLens is better) and a useful "shopping view" that lets you compare prices on Amazon, WalMart, Target, and eBay.


Original Source : http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9964229-2.html

Terrence Kiel Dies In Car Crash

Former Charger Kiel dies in car crash

San Diego, CA (Sports Network) - Former Chargers safety Terrence Kiel reportedly died late Friday in a car crash. He was 27 years old.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported the crash on Saturday. According to police, a witness saw Kiel driving the wrong way down a road before his 2004 Chevy sedan rolled near an intersection in Scripps Ranch, a part of San Diego.

According to the Union-Tribune, Kiel was ejected from his car, and was barely breathing when emergency personnel reached him. The Lufkin, Texas, native was pronounced dead at 11:28 p.m.

A second-round pick from Texas A&M in the 2003 NFL draft, Kiel has been out of the league since the Chargers released him after a guilty plea to a felony drug charge in February 2007, according to the Union-Tribune. Kiel compiled 278 tackles, four interceptions, and two forced fumbles in four seasons with the Chargers, from 2003-2006.


Original Source : http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=nfl/news/newstest.aspx?id=4162447