Colled Rolled Network: "Cold Rolled Network
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Specializing in Murrey Math

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Not your regular Joe.
Home of the richest people on planet earth"

"Free Wi-Fi Access

Forbes.com - Find free wifi hotspots and free wireless news at:
Forbes.com is pleased to provide you with this listing of over 11,000 wireless locations across the world, including coffee shops, hotels, restaurants, and airports. This directory is a collaborative effort by thousands of people who love free wireless internet. These businesses are appealing to consumers by providing free wireless internet. Such locations are commonly referred to as 'free wi-fi hotspots.'

Are we missing a location? Submit a free wi-fi hotspot."

Mises Economics Blog: In Defence of Ebenezer Scrooge: "Scrooge speaks: To hell with writers. They’re all the same. They carry a simple formula in their empty minds; mix one small fact with a headful of dreams and Eureka! A best seller. Give a writer a drop of truth and he’ll make a Thames; thereby providing him a monthly royalty check, good roast beef and pudding. Not to mention a long, beaver fur coat with a deep pocket for a fat wallet. And his pals say, “Hey, Charley Dickens, what a beyuuuutiful coat. Hear your book’s outselling 5-penny mulled cider!”
Nobody says, “Was it true what you wrote about old man Scrooge? Did he really treat Cratchit, the clerk, like a gutter dog?”


One fact, that Dickens fella had only one thing right. Yessir, I do hate Christmas. Always have. Still do. But now I hide it under a hardy ho, ho, ho and an armload full of presents. I hated Christmas because it was only a single day. I hated it like Londoners detest May because they get three glorious days of blazing blue skies and sunshine: then 362 days of fog as gray as a shroud. I hated Christmas like a sick child hates the rare day he feels good enough to "

Mises Economics Blog: Austrian Economics and Libertarian Political Theory

RGE - Financial Blogs Aggregated: "Financial Blogs Aggregated "

RGE - Political Blogs Aggregated: "Political Blogs Aggregated "

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

What Ho Doth Yon Future Hold?

link

With the Dow hitting a new high the week of December 11, it seems to be a good time to revisit Bob Prechter's discussion of stock manias in his business best-seller, Conquer the Crash

See the commentary begining on the Trading Page, link on the right.

ping

Free Services to Inspire Your Cellphone - New York Times: "FREE ‘PINGS’ Pinger is a new way to reach someone: a method that combines the immediacy of a text message with the personality of voice mail. (You can sign up at Pinger.com.) You call one of Pinger’s access numbers, say the name of the person you’re calling, and then speak a message.

Suppose you’ve just pinged your sister. She receives a text message to let her know. With one keystroke, she can hear your message — and with another, send a voice reply. There’s no waiting to roll over to voice mail, no listening to instructions, no outbound greetings.

Because Pinger is much faster and more direct than voice mail, it’s great for sending quick voice notes when you’re driving or walking between meetings. It’s also ideal when you can’t risk being stuck in a 20-minute conversation with no polite way out."

FREE DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE

Free Services to Inspire Your Cellphone - New York Times: "FREE DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE By this time, it’s quite clear that nobody with a “$50 a month” calling plan actually pays only $50 a month. The cellphone companies will do anything to puff up your bill — like charging you $1.50 or $2 every time you dial 411 to find a phone number.

Try 800-FREE-411 (800-373-3411) instead. A computer or human being looks up a number for you at no charge, once you’ve listened to a 20-second ad. It’s a classic time-for-money swap.

Or, for an ad-free option, there is a little-known Google service. Send a text message to 46645 (that’s “Google”; leave off the last E for efficiency). In the body of the message, type what you’re looking for, like “Roger McBride 10025” or “chiropractor dallas tx.” Seconds later, you get a return message from Google, complete with the name, address, and phone number."

Official Google Blog: Adieu to Google Answers: "Adieu to Google Answers
11/28/2006 10:22:00 PM
Posted by Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher, Software Engineers

Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time -- and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product. Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here. The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months. For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests,"

Free long distance from Google

You can thank me later.

Maps Help: "What is the click to call feature on Google Maps?

We're testing a new feature, click to call, on Google Maps. Click to call gives you a fast and easy way to speak directly with businesses found on our maps. The following are a few frequently asked questions about this feature:
How does it work?

When you click the 'call' link next to a business's phone number, you'll be invited to enter your phone number. Once you select 'Connect For Free,' Google Maps calls the number you provided. When you pick up, you will hear ringing on the other end as Maps connects you to the business. When they answer, you simply talk normally as if you had directly dialed their number on your phone.


Who will get my phone number?

Google uses the phone number you enter just once, to make the automatic connection between you and the business location. We won't use the number to make any other calls to you. In addition, your information will be deleted from our servers after a period reasonably necessary to operate the service. We take your privacy very seriously. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.


Whose caller ID do I see when connected?

The business's phone number appears on your caller ID when Google calls you. This allows you to save the business's number on your phone so you can quickly call the business again at a later time.


Am I charged to connect to the business?

No. Google pays for all calls, both local and long-distance. However, if you give us a mobile phone number, the normal airtime fees or other fees charged by your phone provider may apply.

Google takes fraud and spamming very seriously. We use technical methods to prevent future prank calls from the same user within a reas"

Lookup Contractors

Contractor's license requirements in all 50 states: "Click on a State to See License Requirements
or Find Out if A Contractor is Licensed in That State"

HOMELAND SECURITY

On a Wing and a Prayer

Grievance theater at Minneapolis International Airport.

BY DEBRA BURLINGAME

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Those are the words that started it all. Six bearded imams are said to have shouted them out while offering evening prayers as they and 141 other passengers waited at the gate for their flight out of Minneapolis International Airport. It was three days before Thanksgiving. Allahu Akbar: God is great.

Initial media reports of the incident did not include the disturbing details about what happened after they boarded US Airways flight 300, but the story quickly went national with provocative headlines: "Six Muslims Ejected from US Air Flight for Praying." Yes, they were praying--but let's be clear about this. The very last human sound on the cockpit voice recorder of United flight 93 before it screamed into the ground at 580 miles per hour is the sound of male voices shouting "Allahu Akbar" in a moment of religious ecstasy.

They, too, were praying. The passengers and crew of flight 93 lost their valiant fight to take back the plane just one hour and 20 minutes after it pushed back from the gate. Until the hijackers stormed the cockpit door, they were just a handful of Middle Eastern-looking men on their way to sunny California. So, yes, let's be exceedingly clear about the whole matter. Some 3,000 men, women and children are dead because the unassuming people on those airplanes did not look at them and see murderers. Or dangerous Arabs. Or fanatical Muslims. They saw a few guys in chinos.

In five years since the 9/11 attacks, U.S. commercial carriers have transported approximately 2.9 billion domestic and international passengers. It is a testament to the flying public, but, most of all, to the flight crews who put those planes into the air and who daily devote themselves to the safety and well-being of their passengers, that they have refused to succumb to ethnic hatred, religious intolerance or irrational fear on those millions of flights. But they have not forgotten the sight of a 200,000-pound aircraft slicing through heavy steel and concrete as easily as a knife through butter. They still remember the voices of men and women in the prime of their lives saying final goodbyes, people who just moments earlier set down their coffee and looked out the window to a beautiful new morning.

Today, when travelers and flight crews arrive at the airport, all the overheated rhetoric of the civil rights absolutists, all the empty claims of government career bureaucrats, all the disingenuous promises of the election-focused politicians just fall away. They have families. They have responsibilities. To them, this is not a game or a cause. This is real life.

Given that Islamic terrorists continue their obsession with turning airplanes into weapons of mass destruction, it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders--fresh from attending a conference of the North American Imams Federation, featuring discussions on "Imams and Politics" and "Imams and the Media"--chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater. The reality is, these passengers endured a frightening 3 1/2-hour ordeal, which included a front-to-back sweep of the aircraft with a bomb-sniffing dog, in order to advance the provocative agenda of these imams in, of all the inappropriate places after 9/11, U.S. airports.

"Allahu Akbar" was just the opening act. After boarding, they did not take their assigned seats but dispersed to seats in the first row of first class, in the midcabin exit rows and in the rear--the exact configuration of the 9/11 execution teams. The head of the group, seated closest to the cockpit, and two others asked for a seatbelt extension, kept on board for obese people. A heavy metal buckle at the end of a long strap, it can easily be used as a lethal weapon. The three men rolled them up and placed them on the floor under their seats. And lest this entire incident be written off as simple cultural ignorance, a frightened Arabic-speaking passenger pulled aside a crew member and translated the imams' suspicious conversations, which included angry denunciations of Americans, furious grumblings about U.S. foreign policy, Osama Bin Laden and "killing Saddam."

Predictably, these imams and their attorneys now suggest that another passenger who penned a frantic note of warning and slipped it to a flight attendant was somehow a hysterical Islamophobe. Let us remember that but for their performance at the gate this passenger might never have noticed these men or their behavior on board, much less have the slightest clue as to their religion or political passions. Of course, that was the point of the shouting. According to the police report, yet another alarmed passenger who frequently travels to the Middle East described a conversation with one of the imams. The 31-year-old Egyptian expressed fundamentalist Muslim views, and stated the he would go to whatever measures necessary to obey all the tenets set out in the Koran.

The activist Muslim American Society (MAS) issued a press release within hours of the incident, demanding an apology and announcing a "pray-in" at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Standing just a short distance from the Pentagon, where five years ago black plumes of smoke from the crash of American Airlines flight 77 could be seen for miles, the assembled demonstrators complained that African-American Muslims, accustomed to "driving while black," must now cope with the injustice of "flying while Muslim." This brazen two-step is racial politics at its worst; none of the imams are African-American. MAS, which teaches an "Activist Training" program with lessons on "how to talk to the media," must have been thrilled when one cable news outfit, suckered by the rhetoric, compared the imams' conduct to that of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat in the face of institutional racism. One wonders what the parents of the three 11-year-olds who died on flight 77--all African-American kids on a National Geographic field trip--would make of this stunning comparison.

Today, MAS Executive Director Mahdi Bray says his organization wants more than an apology. He wants to "hit [US Airways] where it hurts, the pocketbook," and, joined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), will seek compensation for the imams, civil and federal monetary sanctions, and new, sweeping legislation that will extract even bigger penalties for airlines that engage in "racial and religious profiling." An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is under way. Not incidentally, it is the "fatwa department" of MAS that pushed for segregated taxi lines that would permit Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis airport to reject passengers carrying alcohol.

Here's what the flying public needs to know about airplanes and civil rights: Once your foot traverses the entranceway of a commercial airliner, you are no longer in a democracy in which everyone gets a vote and minority rights are affirmatively protected in furtherance of fuzzy, ever-shifting social policy. Ultimately, the responsibility for your personal safety and security rests on the shoulders of one person, the pilot in command. His primary job is to safely transport you and your belongings from one place to another. Period.
This is the doctrine of "captain's authority." It has a longstanding history and a statutory mandate, further strengthened after 9/11, which recognizes that flight crews are our last line of defense between the kernel of a terrorist plot and its lethal execution. The day we tell the captain of a commercial airliner that he cannot remove a problem passenger unless he divines beyond question what is in that passenger's head and heart is the day our commercial aviation system begins to crumble. When a passenger's conduct is so disturbing and disruptive that reasonable, ordinary people fear for their lives, the captain must have the discretionary authority to respond without having to consider equal protection or First Amendment standards about which even trained lawyers with the clarity of hindsight might strongly disagree. The pilot in command can't get it wrong. At 35,000 feet, when multiple events are rapidly unfolding in real time, there is no room for error.

We have a new, inviolate aviation standard after 9/11, which requires that the captain cannot take that airplane up so long as there are any unresolved issues with respect to the security of his airplane. At altitude, the cockpit door is barred and crews are instructed not to open them no matter what is happening in the cabin behind them. This is an extremely challenging situation for the men and women who fly those planes, one that those who write federal aviation regulations and the people who agitate for more restrictions on a captain's authority will never have to face themselves.

Likewise, flight attendants are confined in the back of the plane with upwards of 200 people; they must be the eyes and ears, not just for the pilot but for us all. They are not combat specialists, however, and to compel them to ignore all but the most unambiguous cases of suspicious behavior is to further enable terrorists who act in ways meant to defy easy categorization. As the American Airlines flight attendants who literally jumped on "shoe bomber" Richard Reid demonstrated, cabin crews are sharply attuned to unusual or abnormal behavior and they must not be second-guessed, or hamstrung by misguided notions of political correctness.

Ultimately, the most despicable aspect about the imams' behavior is that when they pierced the normally quiet hum of a passenger waiting area with shouts of "Allahu Akbar"and deliberately engaged in terrorist-associated behavior that was sure to trigger suspicion, they exploited the fear that began with the Sept. 11 attacks. The imams, experienced travelers all, counted on the security system established after 9/11 to kick in, and now they plan not only to benefit financially from the proper operation of that system but to substantially weaken it--with help from the Saudi-endowed attorneys at CAIR.

US Airways is right to stand by its flight crew. It will be both dangerous and disgraceful if the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation and, ultimately, our federal courts allow aviation security measures put in place after 9/11 to be cynically manipulated in the name of civil rights.

Ms. Burlingame, a director of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

What is that?

Symptom Checker — Check your symptoms - MayoClinic.com:
"Symptom Checker
What's causing your foot pain? Why does your child's throat hurt? And what should you do about it? Use this guide to discover the most common causes of the most common symptoms. "

Important Business Lesson:

Johnny wanted to have sex with a girl in his office.....but she belonged to someone else.

One day Johnny got so frustrated that he went up to her and said "I'll give you $100 if you let me have sex with you!"

The girl said, "No way!."

Johnny said, " I'll be fast. I'll throw the money on the floor; you bend down, and I'll be finished by the time you pick it up."

She thought for a moment, knowing perfectly well she could really use the money for Christmas Gifts, but said that she would have to consult her boyfriend. She called her boyfriend and told him the story. The boyfriend said, "Ask him for $200. Then pick up the money very fast...as fast as you can...heck, he won't even be able to get his pants down."

She agreed and accepted Johnny's proposal. Half an hour went by and the boyfriend was waiting for his girlfriend to call. Finally after 45 minutes the boyfriend called and asked what happened?

She said, "The bastard used quarters!"

Management Lesson: Always consider a business proposal in its entirety before agreeing to it and getting screwed!

"Stress, depression and the holidays: 12 tips for coping

Stress, depression and the holidays: 12 tips for coping - MayoClinic.com:

For some people, the holidays bring unwelcome guests — stress and depression. And it's no wonder. In an effort to pull off a perfect Hallmark holiday, you might find yourself facing a dizzying array of demands — work, parties, shopping, baking, cleaning, caring for elderly parents or kids on school break, and scores of other chores. So much for peace and joy, right?

Actually, with some practical tips, you can minimize the stress and depression that often accompany the holidays. You may even end up enjoying the holidays more than you thought you would." . . .

People Who Need People

Are the luckiest people in the world. Persons ...
Knowledge-at-work: Social search - KM thinking
Social networking as a tool for enterprise expert/people finding? IBM is experimenting (DopgEar) and who knows who else.

Google and other free marvels

Free Services to Inspire Your Cellphone - New York Times

Free Week offered by Elliot Wave commodities analyst

FreeWeek: Futures Junctures Service - Elliott Wave International: "Elliott Wave International's Futures Junctures helps you tap into the hottest opportunities in commodities in two ways -- by alerting you to the most promising wave patterns we see, and by teaching you how to identify them for yourself.

And from Tuesday, December 5, at 5 p.m. EST to Tuesday, December 12, at 5 p.m. EST, you get complete access for FREE! No sign up necessary; no User ID, no password."

StockFetcher Commands

StockFetcher Command Definition: "an up to date list of Stockfetcher commands and associated metadata"