Pulse~LINK CWave UWB Chipset Outperforms All Wireless Networking Technologies

(UWB) communications, announced recently that its recently released CWave UWB chipset has been validated in independent testing to have the world’s highest data rate available for wireless networking.

A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed Cwave’s 1.35 Gbps over-the-air signaling rate delivering 890 Mbps application layer throughput. CWave performance was 15 to 20 times greater than all other wireless UWB products measured in the test, the best of which peaked at around 50 Mbps at close range. A full report on the independent UWB test results was published in this week’s EE Times and Wireless Net DesignLine.

‘Pulse~LINK’s CWave technology has delivered on the promise of UWB -- HD video distribution,’ stated Fanny Mlinarsky, President of octoScope, in her report. ‘With over 500 Mbps of wireless and coaxial throughput and a powerful QoS enabled MAC capable of controlled and predictable performance over multiple media in the house, CWave appears to be the clear technical leader in home networking and is well positioned to emerge as the 21st century architecture for full-home multimedia connectivity.’

Results of wireless range were also impressive in the octoScope testing, which reported: ‘The CWave throughput held at around 500 Mbps at up to 8 feet of wireless range. CWave sustained throughput of 115 Mbps up to 40 feet, at which point we ran out of space in the test facility.’ The CWave chipset also measured sustained TCP/IP throughputs of 500Mbps across 450 feet of coaxial cable.

‘We can truly say that we currently have the fastest commercially available wireless networking chipset on the planet,’ states John Santhoff, Pulse~LINK Founder and CTO. ‘The peak measured application layer throughput of 890Mbps represents an unprecedented breakthrough in wireless communications, not just UWB.’

Quality of Service (QoS) and High Data Rate performance are necessary for whole-home high definition video distribution. Devices enabled with the CWave UWB chipset allow consumers to access high-bandwidth HD content from entertainment source devices in one room and display it on any HDTV in the house, utilizing the home’s existing coax cabling. Pulse~LINK’s CWave UWB wireless solution reduces the ‘rat’s nest’ of connector wires behind entertainment systems, enabling clean installation of wall-mounted flat-panel displays anywhere in the room. The HDMI extender enables longer-range, secure wireless connectivity between the HDTV display and multiple entertainment source devices such as set-top boxes, video game consoles, DVRs, Blu-ray DVD and HD DVD players.

Pulse~LINK’s CWave 802.15.3b MAC was designed from the ground up to support the QoS demands of isochronous streaming of audio, HD video and High Data Rate digital networking across all available PHY transports media within the home. ‘Architecturally, CWave appears to offer a significant advantage over the status quo of video transport products requiring disparate MACs to support different media,’ stated Mlinarsky. Pulse~LINK’s CWave technology was the only UWB device capable of multi-stream HD video transport in the tests and the only device supporting coaxial cabling in addition to wireless.

‘There are a lot of marketing claims floating around in the pursuit of High Definition multimedia networking, and it is sometimes hard to know what to believe. We welcomed the opportunity to participate in this independent testing as a means of validating the credibility of our technology,’ states Bruce Watkins, Pulse~LINK President/COO and co-founding partner. ‘And, just as the entire UWB industry is at a starting point and continuing to improve, our performance will definitely improve. We see a relatively straightforward roadmap to doubling performance at such time as market requirements dictate. This is just the beginning for a superior technology that delivers today and can continue to scale with the demands of tomorrow.’

CWave high-volume commercial chipsets are available now and the company is introducing reference design kits for its CWave UWB Wireless HDMI, HDMI-Over-Coax, Ethernet-Over-Coax and 1394-Over-Coax solutions. The RDKs are low cost, small form factor, production ready reference designs, enabling OEM customers quick market entry. All four ‘flavors’ of the CWave HD home networking technology will be showcased at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 7-10, in the Pulse~LINK booth (South Hall 2- #25559) and various partner locations throughout the show floor.

The UWB performance test was coordinated by industry expert Fanny Mlinarsky, a highly-regarded consultant with more than 24 years of senior R&D expertise in wireless technologies. Mlinarsky is president of octoScope, a Boston area consultancy. She is also the founder of Azimuth Systems, a test equipment company specializing in wireless technologies. In August, she published a three-part analysis of IEEE 802.11n systems: Testing Draft IEEE 802.11n systems: Not all "n" is created equal.

http://www.testandmeasurement.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=1487a699-7bc2-4ede-a8a4-8df9a6511acd&atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a

Sara Jane Moore, would-be assassin of President Ford, released from prison in Dublin

Sara Jane Moore, would-be assassin of President Ford, released from prison in Dublin

Sara Jane Moore, the 1970s radical and FBI informant who attempted to assassinate President Ford outside a San Francisco hotel in 1975, was released from a federal prison facility in Dublin today after serving nearly 32 years in custody.

Moore, who is 77, was released sometime during the morning from the Federal Correctional Institution and it was not immediately known where she went, according to Mike Truman, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons.

On Sept. 22, 1975, Moore fired a shot at Ford from a .38-caliber handgun outside the St. Francis Hotel but her aim was deflected by Oliver Sipple, a bystander who instantly grabbed her arm. Sipple, an ex-Marine Vietnam veteran, was widely credited with saving Ford's life. He died in 1989. Moore was serving a life sentence at the Dublin prison.

Ford died Dec. 26, 2006 at age 93 after being in failing health for months.

Moore's assassination attempt came less than three weeks after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme also tried to kill Ford when he made an appearance in Sacramento. Fromme, now 59, is serving a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/31/BA2UU7G0H.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

Global study to help demystify El Niño

An international research team will study the climate system of the southeastern Pacific ocean from next month (January).

The programme, VOCALS, aims to better understand El Niño - the complex climate phenomenon that impacts Latin America and other continents in the Southern Hemisphere - and whether it will be affected by climate change.

The periodic reversal of currents in the Pacific Ocean, known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is characterised by variations in the surface temperature of waters in the eastern Pacific, causing floods and droughts in western Latin America.

The research team for the 3-5 year, US$16 million programme includes 150 scientists from nine countries. The major groups are from universities of Chile, Ecuador, France, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Roberto Mechoso, professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of California Los Angeles, and chair of the programme, says that obtaining new information is crucial to solve errors in current climate models.

"Is El Niño going to be stronger or weaker if the climate warms up? Our confidence in model predictions of that impact will increase if the models produce a more realistic portrayal of the current climate," says Mechoso.

Groups from the Latin American region contribute their unique knowledge of the local meteorology and oceanography, says Mechoso.

"Other groups provide the expertise and instrumentation to set the problem in a more global domain; all groups win in the exchange of scientific knowledge," he told SciDev.Net.

Rene Garreaud, professor in the department of geophysics at the University of Chile and VOCALS team member, told SciDev.Net that ENSO's effects on annual modifications of temperature and precipitations vary significantly in different areas of Latin America.

The research programme will also try to understand the dynamics of cloud formation and the effects of aerosols, and use that information to improve climate prediction models.

Meanwhile, T. V. Padma writes from New Delhi (India), Scientists have solved the riddle of why some El Niño events cause the Indian monsoon to fail while others do not, which may lead to more accurate forecasts of drought.

The extremes of weather associated with El Niño are caused by the periodic warming of the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Severe droughts in India have always occurred in El Niño years, yet every El Niño does not cause monsoon failure and drought - a mystery that researchers have been struggling to crack.

Accurate monsoon prediction is crucial to India's economy: nearly one-fifth of the country's gross domestic product comes from agriculture. Even moderate crop failures have severe economic and societal impacts.

Research published online by Science today (7 September) shows that it depends on whether the surface of the equatorial Pacific Ocean is warmest in the east, along Latin America, or closer to the centre.

Martin Hoerling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, United States, and his colleagues say India is more prone to drought when the warm Pacific temperatures typical of El Niño extend westwards into the central Pacific Ocean.

The team analysed 23 strong El Niño years and their links to 13 droughts and 10 drought-free years in India, using satellite observations of sea surface temperatures and historical data of rainfall over central India.

Having found that drought was associated with warm water in the central Pacific, they used computer models to mimic the patterns, which confirmed their findings.

The researchers suggest that the "two flavours of El Niño" might affect the Indian monsoon differently through the tropical Walker circulation - an east-west wind over the Pacific.

The scientists say their research does not rule out the possibility that other factors, such as Indian ocean temperatures, also play a role.

And changes in ocean temperatures brought about by human-induced climate change could also affect the intensity of the Indian monsoon, they add.

The ability to predict monsoon rainfall over Asia, and the impact of global warming on this rainfall, is poor.

There has been no improvement in five-day forecasting in India in many years; the India Meteorological Department still uses a method devised in the early twentieth century.

Modern forecasts should be based on measurements of sea surface temperature, soil moisture and snow cover, but there are currently no adequate climate models to do this accurately.

For the sake of farmers and water managers, the research community must develop models that can predict fluctuations in rainfall over different regions of India within seasons, not just between seasons, and also in a changing climate, writes Jagadish Shukla in this Science article.

Such models will influence climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies for all countries affected by the Asian summer monsoon.

Another report says, Andean glaciers are "ultra-sensitive" indicators of climate change, capable of recording variations that occur even within a decade, says a team of Ecuadorian and French researchers.

Bernard Francou, of the French Institute of Research for Development, and colleagues spent eight years documenting the relationship between the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) - a periodic warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean and associated changes in air pressure - and the erosion of glaciers in Ecuador.

Their results, published this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicate that there is a tight and quantifiable link between ENSO events and the accelerated melting of the Andean glaciers.

Neil Glasser, of the University of Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, says the findings themselves are unsurprising and confirm a previous 'hunch' held by glaciologists.

More importantly, he says, the researchers' "huge effort" in maintaining an eight-year monitoring programme in a difficult environment suggests that past El Niño events could be precisely read in Andean ice cores.

Since understanding past climate change is essential to predicting future events, this could be an invaluable tool. Currently, data on past El Niño events has come from meteorological measurements and records of sea-surface temperatures. But data recorded this way covers only the past few decades.

The sort of data that could be extracted from ice cores, however, would provide information on events that happened from a century ago up to the present day.

Francou agrees with Glasser on this point, but cautions that this will require more research, as 'reading' the indicators in high-altitude ice cores can be very complex.

In the short term, says Glasser, the melting of the glaciers could be seen as good news for the communities living on the slopes beneath them who rely of melting ice for water supplies. In the long term, however, it means that their water supply will gradually dry up as the glaciers are melting faster than the ice is reforming.

Commenting on the value of Francou's team's measurements, Glasser said they would help predict the future rate of run-off from the glaciers. This could in turn help communities plan their water usage.

http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2007/12/28/news0825.htm

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http://viralurl.com/nordic/amp

Would Ron Paul Be Endorsed by the Founding Fathers? Lawyer Says Yes

LawyerUCLA.com currently serves as a directory for over 6,000 lawyers across the United States. And when it comes to the 2008 presidential election, the website has decided not to keep quiet -- making a firm case for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul, self proclaimed champion of the Constitution, is a 10-term congressman from Texas.

According to the statistics provided on their website, 61 percent of the mentions of the Constitution at the 2008 presidential debates were made by Ron Paul himself, despite being a candidate that has not been given a fair amount of time to speak.

Assuming 10 total candidates, 39 percent of the references to the Constitution would be divided among the nine other candidates. If the total number of references were to be split evenly across the rest of the candidates, each candidate would roughly only contribute to 4.3 percent of the Constitutional mentions. So this means that Ron Paul is 14 times more likely to utter the words of the Constitution than the average candidate.

Excluded from the statistics provided on LawyerUCLA.com were references to desired constitutional amendments such as those proposed to ban abortion and gay marriage. Also excluded were references made to state constitutions that have frequently been uttered by the two former governors running for president: Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

A list of quotes by Ron Paul at these debates were also provided in their article entitled "Empirical Proof That The Founding Fathers Would Endorse Ron Paul".

The most highly publicized quote by Ron Paul occurred when Ron Paul challenged Mitt Romney's statement regarding needing to consult lawyers. "This idea of going and talking to attorneys totally baffles me. Why don't we just open up the Constitution and read it? You're not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war," said Ron Paul in a debate October 9 in Michigan.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/12/prweb563025.htm

An Invitation to Parati

On Brazil's southeastern coast, town extends warm welcome

PARATI, Brazil -- The mountains on Brazil's coast 150 miles west of Rio de Janeiro are spectacular -- rough and jagged and plunging down to the Atlantic. The Serra da Bocaina National Park, a remnant of the semitropical Atlantic rain forest, nurtures strange flora and fauna -- spikey red bromelia flowers, lime-green birds, and a banana tree with an alien, phallic-looking appendage. The Gold Road, or Caminho do Ouro, runs through here, and it holds a key to the region's astonishing and brutal history.

Late one September morning, a guide took my fiancee, Janice, me and another couple hiking a few kilometers along the massive paving stones of the 12-foot-wide road. It was a sun-baked, sweaty climb, even with a stop to guzzle cool water from a channel in the rocks and take a dip beneath a waterfall on the mountaintop.

From there, we could see all the way down the valley to the resort town of Parati, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that offers graceful architecture, beautiful beaches, the warm South Atlantic, ecotourism and loads of history, plus a sophisticated dining, arts and night-life scene. The name is pronounced Par-a-CHEE, by the way, and often the older spelling, Paraty, is used.

Our guide, Elisson Alves de Jesus, a 35-year-old Parati native who works for the nationally known puppet theater in town that also conducts the Gold Trail tours, explained the circumstances of Parati's peculiar history.

At the end of the 17th century, gold was discovered inland in the state of Minas Gerais. The only route across the mountains was an old Guiana Indian track, where the Gold Trail was built. Pack trains of 300 mules, 300 African slaves and five or 10 Portuguese masters would make the trip, which took 90 days each way between Diamantina, to the northwest, and Parati. The slaves, our guide told us, walked barefoot, and each was assessed at the same cash value as a mule.

Once it reached the coast, the gold was shipped to Portugal and eventually to England, where it helped finance the Industrial Revolution. The tiny settlement of Parati became a prosperous port, but its glory days lasted only 50 or 60 years, until a new road over the mountains from Minas to Rio cut 15 days off the trip each way.

Today, Parati is a much more civilized city of 30,000 that makes its living from tourism. If you're heading to Brazil, you could do worse than to spend some time in Rio, which is not to be missed, and then get away to a little pousada (inn or bed-and-breakfast) in Parati for four or five days. But go during the low season, not during the December, January and February rush. Our September visit to Parati was blissfully quiet until the weekend, which happened to coincide with the holiday marking Brazil's independence.

A big wedding

On this trip we flew directly into Sao Paulo, about 200 miles southwest of Parati, to meet our friend Chris, who had invited us to participate in her wedding. We arrived at customs at 8:25 in the morning. I knew that U.S. Customs had begun fingerprinting Brazilians (among other foreigners), and that some Brazilian municipalities were playing tit-for-tat, so I had some idea of what to expect.

The woman who took our passports noted Janice's United Kingdom citizenship and told her, "You're OK." Then she said to me, with an ironic but not unfriendly smile, "You, over there."

I took my place in a long line by a sign that said, in English, "Only Americans." A lone employee in a little booth was processing what must have been 70 or 80 Americans just off the plane from Houston. I waited almost an hour and a half for her to get an imprint of my right index finger and take my picture. She was almost apologetic -- a gentle, older woman, who said in Portuguese, "Oh my God, these days everybody is ..." I didn't catch it exactly, but it was some kind of commiseration.

Then Chris drove us three hours north to Limeira, a city of about 260,000 where the wedding would take place. That night we met 15 members of the bride's and groom's families for dinner at a Brazilian-style pizzaria -- a fancier institution than the American version, with waiters in white pouring the beer and guarana (pop made from an Amazonian berry), and the diners using knives and forks. Some of the flavors were exotic, like chicken with catupiry, a gooey, slightly sweet cheese, and ham with hearts of palm. As is the custom, I drizzled a little olive oil on every slice.

The next evening, the wedding began (in Brazilian fashion) at 8 in a gilded Baroque Catholic church built in 1856 on one of the squares in the old city center. The ceremony, conducted by the same priest who had married the bride's mother and father 30 years earlier, was elaborate. Costumed trumpeters blew fanfares, and a thousand rose petals wafted down from a balcony onto the heads of the newlyweds as they left the church for the party at a nearby hotel. We ate, drank and danced till four or five in the morning, fueled by a band that played everything from samba to forra, the accordion-based dance music from northeastern Brazil, to versions of Anglo tunes including "I Feel Good," "Yesterday" and "Disco Inferno."

Sunday we rested up and sent the bride and groom off to their honeymoon in Buenos Aires. On Monday, the bride's parents, Fernando and Sonia, insisted on driving Janice and me to Parati.

The road to Parati

It's a memorable drive, starting north of Sao Paulo and proceeding east on Highway SP 125 into hilly dairy-farm country. Cows graze among big ant hills in impossibly steep pastures topped by a palm tree or two; red clay paths snake up to modest houses with terra cotta roofs topped by satellite dishes; the air smells faintly of diesel. We stopped at a roadside stand nestled in bougainvillea for cafezinhos (espressos) and pao de queijo, addictive little balls of dough and cheese, served warm, with crispy skins and a gloriously chewy center.

As we went higher, into the protected area of the Serra do Mar state park, the grazing land gave way to forest, and the road wound in and out of fog banks. Then we crossed the highest peak and caught our first glimpse of lush green rainforest and sparkling sea. Unlike, say, an ocean view in Southern California, this one lacked a wall of real estate hugging every spare inch of cliff.

At the beach town of Ubatuba, we turned north onto Brasil 101, which runs along the Costa Verde (Green Coast) up to Rio and beyond. About 20 miles on, our host turned onto a dirt road into the hills, where we stopped and looked down over hawks gliding lazily in the sun to a semicircle of secluded beach called Praia da Almada. A woman at a roadside stand hacked open a coconut and poured out the milk for us, and then we drove down to the beach itself.

It was almost pristine, with just a few cottages and sunbathers and a sailboat or two. We ate at an outdoor restaurant called Jangada. The owner greeted his American guests and chatted loquaciously with Fernando in Portuguese (a few of his sentences ended with the word "Bush," and he didn't sound happy). We dined on a delicious moqueca do peixe (fish stew) in a big black stone pot. I had my first caipirinha of the trip -- I had forgotten what a punch these cocktails of lime, sugar and pinga (sugarcane liquor) pack.

Fernando made his favorite toast, which translates as, "This is the life I asked God to give me!" Then we got in the car and drove another hour or so to Parati.

The 'street urchin's feet'

Fernando and Sonia dropped us off at the Parque Hotel Pereque, just one in a procession of pousadas along the little Pereque-Acu River, which runs into the bay. Our room was basic and clean, and it gave onto a large, lush garden of palms, ferns, and vivid flowers. Friendly cats crept onto the front porch to sit by the hammock, and the swimming pool was only a few steps from our door.

The next morning we had breakfast on the patio: watermelon, honeydew, papaya and pineapple; cold cuts; breads and sweet rolls; queijo minas, a white, mild, firm-textured cheese; strawberry, peach and fig jelly; orange juice and strong coffee.

Then we walked 10 minutes to a little bridge and across into the centro historico, the old part of town. We discovered Parati Rule No. 1 -- women should not wear heels, because the pes-de-moleque or "street urchin's feet," as the irregular cobblestone streets are called, don't permit them. For that matter, you wouldn't expect bicycles, but the locals go everywhere on all manner of ancient, rusting, thin-tired models, often with one person on the seat and another on the handlebars.

Portuguese colonial-style buildings line the streets, boasting red-tiled roofs, wrought-iron balconies and arched windows and door trimmed in blue, red, green, orange and ochre. A side street called Rua do Fogo, where bougainvillea spills over courtyard walls, is particularly pretty.

Thankfully, real people were everywhere: Kids walked home from school in uniform or played soccer in the yard next to one of the city's four historic churches. Junk men on carts drawn by horses with blinders made their way to the dump. Cars are banned from the city center, but they circled around it blaring recorded samba commercials for candidates for the October elections, including the numbers to punch on the voting machine: "For work, for Parati, 5-5-6!"

We were visiting during a religious festival staged by the Church of Our Lady of Remedies, the city's patron saint. Our first night in town, we watched a chanting procession, led by a man setting off fireworks and followed by a brass band, enter the church to sing hymns and wave flags.

Still, Parati is a tourist town. Stores line the streets, offering everything from kitschy T-shirts and kitchen magnets to strikingly beautiful, original and expensive art. The dollar was three to one versus the Brazilian real when we were there, which made buying even more tempting.

The town offers plenty of good restaurants, as well as a few that are indifferent and overpriced. I would recommend Cafe Margarida -- an elegant Italian place that serves delicious seafood, thin-crusted pizzas and chocolate-and-coffee confections.

We also liked Refugio, near the pier, another elegant restaurant where we snacked on little dumplings of dough and codfish. Dipped in malagueta pepper sauce and lime, with bread and olive oil and Bohemia beer, they're heavenly.

Much lower-priced, and where the locals as well as the tourists eat, is Sabor da Terra (Taste of the Land), a buffet por kilo restaurant, so-called because your food is paid for according to its weight.

One caveat: Any time you hear a guitarist in a restaurant singing songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim and other stars of bossa nova and the post-bossa music called MPB, you will pay for it when the bill comes. The music charge usually runs from 10 to 12 reais.

The Academy of Dining

We had our best meal in Parati not in a restaurant, but at the Academy of Cooking and Other Pleasures, in the home of a well-known Brazilian chef, Yara C. Roberts. A native of Minas Gerais, Roberts trained in France and spent time in Boston, where she was on TV. In her white jacket embroidered with her name and the blue, green and yellow Brazilian flag, Roberts and her two assistants cooked dinner for me and Janice, two Brazilian guests and Roberts' American husband, a pony-tailed businessman who looks a little like Michael Douglas.

The menu consisted of dishes from Bahia, the Brazilian state known for spicy food and African-influenced culture. Figurines of saints with dual identities from the Condomble religion such as Mary/Iamanja decorated a side table. In the big, gleaming kitchen in their sleekly furnished house in the old town, we participated in making an appetizer of acaraje, a dough of pureed black eyed peas, onion and malagueta wrapped around shrimp and fried.

The chef speaks four languages, and, as she worked, she spun stories, both in English and Portuguese, of how the cuisines of Bahia, Minas and the Amazon emerged from the collision of African, European and Amerindian cultures.

We tucked into a main course of xim-xim de galinha, chicken with coconut milk and just a little of the spicy, orange dende or palm oil common to Bahian cuisine. For dessert, Roberts served quindim, a coconut custard.

Candles sputtered in pineapple holders; the wine flowed, and so did the conversation. I found myself relaxed enough to understand most of the Portuguese, and to be understood when I spoke it. Roberts' events combine dinner, cooking class, history lesson and good company in one evening, and they are not to be missed.

A schooner tour

We didn't sunbathe much in Parati, although beaches abound. The best beach in the Parati area is said to be Trindade, about 22 miles south and a quick ride on one of the frequent public buses. Closer to town, we found Jabaquara, about a 20-minute walk from the old town. The beach was empty when we strolled there at sunset, although some local guys were playing soccer nearby. I went for a dip, and the water was blessedly warm.

We also took a passeio de escuna, a schooner tour, in the Bay of Parati. Our boat stopped to explore a few of the bay's beaches and 65 islands, some of them not much bigger than an airmail stamp, where cactus and bromelia grew out of the rocks. Gaivotas, black gulls that look uncomfortably like small pterodactyls, coasted overhead. We snorkeled, and I saw schools of bright yellow-and-black-striped fish.

Our schooner was half-full with 40 or 50 Brazilians, from young girls in bikinis smooching with their boyfriends to oldsters holding hands. A good lunch was served, caipirinhas were consumed, and the sun even came out a few times in the course of the afternoon. Dedeca Zen, a talented guitarist/singer, played Jobim's "Garota de Ipanema" ("Girl From Ipanema") and other well-known bossas and MPB. The only downside was the videographer, who poked her camera in the guests' faces and then tried to peddle her tape.

Independence Day weekend

We had arrived in Parati on a Monday, and, on Friday, it began to fill up for the long holiday weekend, which would culminate on Tuesday, Sept. 7, Brazil's Fourth of July. By Saturday, the town was mobbed and had undergone a change from a gracious, one-of-a-kind resort town to one that was more generic and on-the-make. Guys on every street corner passed out fliers for this or that bar or art gallery; Amerindian mothers with their babies sat on the cobblestones selling baskets to swarms of tourists from the city.

We responded by straying a little from the beaten path. The town felt safe; we explored day and night and never had a problem. Making a left at the bridge across the Pereque instead of a right into the town center, we climbed a hill to the old fort, which offered great views. Walking back to our pousada along the river late at night, we came upon sleeping horses tied up in vacant lots, and we heard the splashes of diving birds.

On Saturday, we rented bikes and pedaled up the Parati-Cunha road, which we had taken before on our way to the Camino do Ouro. A bike path winds alongside for several miles; it ends, and the road rises steeply. After a while, we rested over beers and pao de queijo in the tiny town of Ponte Branco.

A little farther up, we locked our bikes and walked across a wobbly wood and wire bridge over a swift, rocky stream. That brought us to Villa Verde, a large park with trees, boulders and carefully trellised gardens with a restaurant and catering.

Then we biked some more, turning onto a long dirt road that wound a couple of miles into the rainforest.

I confess we stopped to ask a young man wearing a Mario Lemieux T-shirt if we could take his picture. "Nos somos de Pittsburgh!" ("We're from Pittsburgh!") I said. He agreed, although I'm sure he was thinking, "Crazy tourists."

We came to the gates of the Fazenda Muricana, a former plantation that's now a museum, restaurant and liquor distillery with beautiful grounds; we watched young people in helmets and fancy gear as they climbed rope ladders, zoomed down zip lines and rappelled.

Dusk was falling as we returned to the Cunha road and began heading back toward Parati. I hadn't realized quite how far up we had gotten -- our bikes flew effortlessly down the road. I felt a sudden urge to take my hands off the handlebars, which I obeyed.

I must have ridden like that for a full minute, with rainforest whizzing by in the gloom, the occasional rushing stream and red-dirt road, little houses here and there with laundry in the yard, smoke from cooking fires, and duos on bicycles built for one passing the other way.

To be 5,000 miles from home, in a foreign land that looks and feels foreign -- to be free of routine, and, for a minute, free of gravity -- is a feeling I won't forget.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04333/417131.stm

Sweetness & Blight: Holiday CDs span extremes from sultry magic to goopy garbage

Music of the holiday season has a hard balance to strike. A certain amount of classicism is to be expected at this time of year, but that’s no excuse to pile on the gloopy garbage and think that the supposedly overweening sentimentality of the season will leave everyone crying in their eggnog anyway. Baloney. There’s a lot of joy in the holiday season, but there are a lot of other emotions. And that’s not even counting the religious aspects. The best seasonal music reflects that; the worst ignores it to lay on the glop in a display of passive aggression that, well, helps produce a lot of those other emotions.

And as usual, this year’s forced march through the holiday discs unearths examples of both extremes.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

The Isley Brothers Featuring Ronald Isley

(Def Soul Classics)

Executive-produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, yet it begins with spring-in-your-step, lo-fi versions of “Winter Wonderland” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” both backed by a piano trio and a few understated strings.

Things get back into familiar Jam/Lewis territory with the originals “I’m in Love” and “What Can I Buy You?” (with the excellent autobiographical complaint “I never felt this broke being a millionaire”), with bumping drum machines and subterranean synthesizers. The majority of the record is swinging and small-band-based; the acoustic guitar-led “The Christmas Song,” featuring Doc Powell, is another highlight.

But the real selling point is the sugar-and-sandpaper classic-soul voice of Ronald Isley, still in fine form nearly 50 years removed from “Shout.” A winner.

It’s Christmas,

of Course

Darlene Love

(Shout! Factory)

Where to begin with this one?

Love, the former singer of The Crystals (“He’s a Rebel”) who has sung her classic “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)” on David Letterman’s show for 17 years in a row, comes out with a collection of relatively new holiday rock classics, and she takes each one over. From the fun mid-tempo rock of Tom Petty’s “Christmas All Over Again” (“Long-distance relatives/ Haven’t seen ’em in a long, long time/ I kinda miss ’em/ I just don’t wanna kiss ’em”) to a sharp, cutting “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” (originally by James Brown) to Billy Squier’s underrated “Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You,” Love takes control.

There’s an R&B, horn-led twist to versions of XTC’s “Thanks for Christmas” (improving on the twee original) and John and Yoko’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” and The Pretenders’ hitherto-untouchable “2000 Miles” is reborn as a Vince Guaraldi-styles piano-jazz ballad.

So where to begin with this one? The simplest way: It’s the best of the season. There, that wasn’t so hard.

Miss Patti’s Christmas

Patti Labelle

(Def Soul Classics)

Another winner from Def Soul, this time with Patti Labelle proving she’s got plenty left in the tank on a raft of classics and new tunes. The album, also executive-produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, is a bit more expensively produced than the Isleys’ record, with drum machines and pillowy strings, and a bit more explicitly religious, but it’s still got the lush feel of quiet-storm soul. Her soaring “Holidays Mean More to Me” is a highlight, and the opening original “Christmas Jam” sounds like a new-school classic.

Hell’s Bells of Christmas: The Holiday Tribute to AC/DC

The Green Days of Christmas: The Holiday Tribute to Green Day … and Christmas for All: The Holiday Tribute to Metallica

(Christmas Rock Records)

Despite the back-cover bravado (“We’ve taken rock’s biggest and baddest songs and shaped them into Christmas instrumentals that would make Irving Berlin blush”), these three discs add up to pretty tame stuff. AC/DC, Green Day and Metallica songs get more of a lounge treatment (with main melodies stated by flutes, vibes and muted trumpets) with the holiday touch provided by nonstop sleigh bells on every song.

They’re not anything you’re going to listen to more than once. They’re not anything you’re likely to listen to all the way through even once. They’re more of a joke than anything else, something to sneak onto a mix CD, or to slip on during the gift-wrapping party and have a giggle because Grandpa’s bopping his head slightly and he doesn’t know that it’s to “Call of Kthulu.” And after that, where are you? Um, listening to lounge versions of Metallica songs. Yeah, joke’s on Grandpa …

Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Christmas Rock Classics

(Baby Rock Records)

Remember what I said before about the meager thrills to be had by knowing you’re getting Grandpa to bop his head to Metallica? Well, this stuff is even meaner (in both senses of the word) than that.

This Rockabye Baby! stuff has been crossing my desk with appalling regularity lately. These collections, particularly this holiday record, is cheaply done, dumbed-down instrumental versions of rock songs (here, holiday offerings originally by Pearl Jam, The Ramones, No Doubt and more) that seem to exist for no other reason than for anxious not-as-young-as-they-think parents to reassure themselves that they’re not like those other, uncool parents: “Hee hee! I’m playing insipid lullabyes for my baby after changing diapers and cleaning up poo all day, but MY lullabyes are actually Metallica tunes!” Cool! So freaking what?

The record at hand is particularly pointless. They’re Christmas songs! If you really want to raise your kid’s musical game, why not play the originals?

Bleah.

A Toby Keith Classic Christmas

Toby Keith

(Show Dog Nashville)

There’s not much to say about this two-disc set – if you’re a Keith fan you’re probably going to get it anyway, and if you’re not there are no revelations here.

The first disc is secular stuff such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Silver Bells” and “White Christmas,” and the second is more frankly religious material. The latter contains the highlight of the set, a rollicking, swampy gospel take on “Go Tell It On the Mountain,” but drags down with ballads. Fairly frequent dobro solos and the occasional mournful fiddle (particularly nice in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”) are the only country touches.

Keith has one of the stronger voices in pop-country music, but he’s mostly misplaced here, lacking the vocal power to go all “O Holy Night” on us (he doesn’t do it here), but the arrangements are too ponderous for him to go with a plain-spoken Bing Crosby style. Mostly unaffecting.

A Christmas Fiesta

Jon Secada

(Big3 Records)

Secada’s offering is not Latino Christmas music, but Christmas standards done in a variety of Latino and Caribbean styles. Some (“This Christmas”) are more Latin than others (“Silver Bells”), but a pounding salsa-influenced “Winter Wonderland” is a highlight, with suitably chattering horns and percussion. “Jingle Bell Rock” starts off as a charging rock en espanol tune, but goes limp quickly. You’ll like the Afro-Caribbean groove, complete with steel pans, on “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” though.

Christmastime in Larryland

Larry the Cable Guy

(Warner Bros.)

More of the same from the proudly redneck comedian, this time in the frame of an old-time radio show. Give Santa an interminable Q&A about masturbation and reindeer poop, add some mostly lame attacks on the usual liberal strawmen — the ACLU-types who are “more afraid of Jesus than al-Qaida” and “all the political-correct [sic] stuff and the environmental tree huggers who’ve got us under their thumb,” throw in a bit about a Muslim comedian who gets booed off the stage for his joke about beheading Santa and you’ve got yourself a Christmas! Apparently!

Sure, Larry takes a few cracks at his own demographic, like in “Dysfunctional Family Christmas,” but even there it’s more mean than funny. His “Eulogy” for the guy who invented the laugh track is interesting in a meta sense, but that’s an early moment that gets wasted.

Ho: A Dan Band Christmas

The Dan Band

(Reincarnate Music)

Now, if you’re gonna take a juvenile swipe at Christmas, this is how you do it. The Dan Band puts together a genre-hopping compendium of filthy takes on the holiday ethic, and does it with virtuosity, respect for what they’re stealing from and, in the end, a little bit of heart.

They start off with the would-be arena anthem “I Wanna Rock You Hard This Christmas” and continue to the neo-soul of “Ho Ho Ho,” in which Santa gives a streetwalker the night off. The rugged radio rock of Mrs. Claus is an earnest tribute to the woman who “probably made all the damn toys anyway” (“We call him Santa and Kris/ But I don’t even know your first name”). “Christmas in California” is a deft mix of the Beach Boys on the verses and Green Day on the choruses, all with the complaints of a California transplant bemoaning the lack of the traditional cold-weather Christmas trappings.

When I got this disc, I shuddered. The only thing worse than a bunch of poorly recorded, uninspired frat-boy poop humor is a bunch of poorly recorded, uninspired frat-boy poop humor about Christmas. But The Dan Band delivers. The disc lags near the end, despite a rather skillful mix of Justin Timberlake and Meat Loaf (!) in “Not One Christmas Eve,” but it never lapses into what it threatens to be. Some of the lyrics are really (really really) not ready for the family party, but it’s got humor and heart.

A Twismas Story

Conway Twitty with Twitty Bird and Their Little Friends

No. I am not making this up. Country legend Twitty warbles through Christmas songs and hokey skits with Twitty Bird (his 11-year-old granddaughter).

Twitty does his best, in as fine voice as ever, going through classics and holiday-inspired originals like a good sport; this “musical storybook” apparently was his idea, which makes sense if you know what I mean.

This is the first time this has been available since 1994, and the first time on CD. I’m sure this is breakthrough news. If you have to pay for this, don’t even think about it. If you can listen for free, it’s essential. It’s available online through conwaytwitty.com.

Christmas Wish

Olivia Newton-John

(Compass Productions)

This is mostly a subdued, piano-driven affair, with very few tracks containing even drums, never mind electric instruments. The singer is still in fine voice, and while her choices in classics aren’t too adventurous, there are plenty of originals (written and co-written by Amy Sky) around the holiday theme that explore other than the usual stuff, such as “Every Time It Snows,” a duet with Jon Secada about the irony of heartbreak during such a traditionally happy season.

“A Mother’s Christmas Wish” isn’t too inspired, but at least offers a fresh perspective. The world-peace anthem “Underneath the Same Sky” begins to go off the rails — clinical semi-rock that telegraphs its emotional punches, and the closing “A Gift of Love,” a duet with (and written by) Barry Manilow, is schmaltzy, but “Christmas On My Radio,” a paean to holiday music, is sweet if sticky.

It’s all wrapped up in the usual shiny “Christmas-music” ballad production, but there’s plenty of fresh material for those who are ready to gag if they hear another rendition of “Frosty the Snowman.”

Christmas

Kimberley Locke

(Curb Records)

True to its generic title, the former American Idol non-winner goes through a dozen Christmas classics here without leaving a trace.

Remember how Perry Como or Donny and Marie or someone like that always had a Christmas special on TV? And they’d always invite some semi-known “rock” singer on to show that a) Perry or Donny or Marie or whoever was “down” with the “kids” and that b) the singer in question could handle “legitimate” music?

This is the audio version of that. You expect Dorothy Hamill to skate through the middle of this thing at any second.

Reggae versions of “Up On the Housetop” and “A Holy Jolly Christmas” provide some moments of — well, they provide some moments. Nothing else here does.

Homeless for the Holidaze

An Ensemble of Lonesome Fellas

(Sound Vision North West)

This disc was put together by a bunch of players from Seattle-area bands for various Seattle-area charities, and it’s a compendium of different styles ranging from “Pipa de La Paz,” a paso doble version of The Shadows’ “Peace Pipe,” and a rocking version of James Brown’s “Santa’s Big Fat Sack” (originally “Fat Bag”). There’s a down and dirty, horn-laden version of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” Ventures-esque versions of “Silver Bells” and “The Christmas Song,” but the whacked-out excellence hits a peak with “Jesus Super Freak,” a roots-rock gospel with reworked lyrics from Rick James’ “Super Freak.” You better believe it. Get it at HomelessfortheHolidaze.com.

Christmas

Edward Gerhard

(Virtue Records)

You can smell the wood smoke coming off this disc, as Gerhard takes his acoustic and slide guitars through spare, wintry chord-melody versions of predominantly religious material. Nothing too far off the beaten track; “Carol of the Bells” and a tricky take on “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” are highlights. I guess you could call it background music in that it’s not hit-you-in-the-face music that you can’t have a conversation over; heck, some of this stuff was used as background music in Ken Burns’ documentary on Mark Twain. But it’s virtuosic without lickety-split fireworks; it’s meditative without being boring; it’s fulfilling without being pompous.

Check Gerhard out yourself: He’s at the Inn on Castle Hill, on Ocean Drive, in Newport, Thursday night. A dinner-concert package is $195 per couple; go to www.castlehillinn.com to book and to listen to samples.

Peter White Christmas

Peter White with Rick Braun and Mindi Abair

(ARTizen Music Group)

Slickly produced, squeaky-clean smooth jazz takes on Christmas classics (Joni Mitchell’s “River” is an inspired choice) and a couple of originals, “taken out” in an almost-jazz style, but not so far out as to be mind-blowing or to serve as anything more than high-class background music.

Abair’s a fine saxophonist, and her vocal rendition of “River” is nice, though her (and the band’s) attempt to smolder on “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” is about as sultry as your mom. Quoting the motifs of other songs in your solos gets real old real fast, and unfortunately Braun never met a quote he didn’t like, cramming three into the first song. Rhode Islander Jeffrey Osborne makes a vocal cameo during “Silent Night,” but blink and you’ll miss it — it’s mostly instrumental.

Let It Snow Baby … Let It Reindeer

Relient K

(Capitol Records)

The Christian pop-punk group mixes attitude-laden rips through the chestnuts (“The 12 Days of Christmas” includes an original bridge about how few of these gifts you’d actually want) with earnest, piano-driven ballads such as “I Celebrate the Day” (“Here is where you’re finding me/ In the exact same place as New Year’s Eve/ And from a lack of my persistency/ We’re less than half as close as I want to be. … The first time that you opened your eyes/ Did you know that you would be my savior?”). “I Hate Christmas Parties” is a holiday-heartbreak anthem, the high-octane “Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town” documents the fat man’s worst year ever, and “Boxing Day” is about keeping the spirit alive (“But just for one day we all came together/We showed the whole world that we know how to love”).

A lot of these songs are taken from their Christmas album from last year, Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand, so if you’ve got that, caveat emptor. But if you like the idea of pop-punk and the hooks of pop-punk but had your fill of Billie Joe Armstrong imitations in 1998, these guys mix speedy drumming and slamming guitars with singing that doesn’t pretend it’s got too much ’tude to be in tune.

And while some of their religious material is a little over-emotive, it’s not overproduced, and the number of originals shows that a refreshing amount of actual thought went into this. And hey — Christian rock that actually rocks? Cool!

Christmas in Tuscany

The Eden Symphony Orchestra

Comfort and Joy

Stewart Dudley

Enchanted Christmas

The Clearwater Ensemble

The Tuscany disc, with instrumentation including mandolin and accordion and an Italian repertoire, is the most organic and interesting of this trio of records from Rhode Island’s North Star, as the Dudley is piano-noodly heavy, Clearwater is synth-string-laden and the Eden sounds like the incidental music from a made-for-TV Christmas Carol.

They all qualify under “mood music,” meant more to be lived with than listened to. Sort of the musical equivalent of the scented candles prominently advertised on the sleeves. Monster Ballads Xmas

Various Artists

(Razor and Tie Records)

This is a collection of Christmas songs old and new from the spandex-and-hairspray set, and you might be surprised at how stupid it isn’t. Skid Row’s “Jingle Bells” is Chuck Berry-esque, and L.A. Guns’ “Run Rudolph Run” is, perhaps obviously, even more so. “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by Winger and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Jani Lane of Warrant are overwrought power ballads, but if you’re buying a record called Monster Ballads Xmas and you don’t want that, well, I got nothin’.

The lunk-headedness doesn’t really take hold until Firehouse’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”: “Rockin’ around the Christmas tree, have a happy holiday/ Bang your head right with the beat in the heavy metal way!”And Nelson’s attempt at “Jingle Bell Rock” is embarrassing, though Faster Pussycat’s “Silent Night” is bizarre enough to be, well, perhaps not scary but interesting. I mean, it could have been as fake-scary as, oh I don’t know, the song that comes after it, a minor-key “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by Dokken. And Stryper sells a double-kick-drum version of “Winter Wonderland” earnestly enough that you buy it (and it’s live!).

Putting all these metal songs back-to-back poses a unique problem — far too many begin with plinky piano passages that the groups must have thought were a real hoot to interrupt and tear through with their awesome metalness, but after a while you’re like all “Get on with the song already!”

The KT Tunstall Holiday Collection

KT Tunstall

(EMI)

A daring outing from the young singer-songwriter, tackling some pretty untouchable stuff such as “2000 Miles,” “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and “Fairytale of New York.” The first two only suffer in comparison with the originals by The Pretenders (and because Tunstall copies it so precisely) and Darlene Love, and the latter – well, only Shane MacGowan is Shane MacGowan. Still, knowing that someone in her chart position could have put out something as bland as, say, Kimberley Locke’s holiday record and sold gobs, hats off for the ambition.

The disc is rounded out with a playfully seductive “Mele Kalikimaka,” a weirded-out “Sleigh Ride” that includes bizarre vibish percussion and a rather straightforward but echoey, haunting “Lonely This Christmas.”

I wasn’t much of a Tunstall fan before this, but this is an eye-opener — a real rarity among Christmas records.

Rejoice Tonight

The St. Luke’s Church Contemporary Choir

This self-released disc by the choir and band of the Barrington church takes religious holiday material such as “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “What Child Is This?” and blends them with acoustic rock arrangements by the indefatigable David Lauria. Instrumental guitar versions of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” and “Silent Night” are sweet and memorable, and the choir and band blend beautifully.

Cecile Clement Grobe

Christmasland

(Big Noise)

The Massachusetts classical pianist has come out with a winning collection of Christmas favorites with a few similarly memorable originals, all done in a plain, straight solo setting. “Joy to the World” is lush and wintry-bright; “Angels We Have Heard On High” is ornate, speedy and precise; “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” is full of speedy flourishes, and the originals, especially “Christmas Eve” and “Evergreen,” are right in the pocket, accessible without being predictable, with enough off-kilter harmonies not to have to hide behind the Christmas-music excuse. A winner.

Yo Yo Yo Kids

(Razor and Tie)

“Safe,” “parent-friendly” hip-hop versions of Christmas classics. The beats aren’t awful, but all the rhyming is wrapped with gauze and done like — well, like they’re talking to a little kid. What age group is this supposed to be for? As soon as they’re able to speak real words, they’ll feel like this is talking down to them.

The Coolest Kidz Bop Christmas Ever!

The Kidz Bop Kids

(Razor and Tie)

You know, I get what the Kidz Bop series is about. I don’t like it, but I get it: It puts gobs of hits on one disc so you don’t need to buy 15 CDs, and they get a bunch of kids to sing it so they can a) not have to pass the rights fees on to you and b) change any lyrics that parents might find iffy.

Neither of those strengths are on display on this disc. First, there are plenty of collections of this stuff (heck, just look at this compendium – and this is just this year’s crop!) floating around, and second, as with the Rockabye Baby! disc, it’s Christmas music – it doesn’t need to be made safe. And there’s nothing about the eclectic but generic renditions here that set them apart. It’s not awful, but almost completely unnecessary.

Noel

Josh Groban

(Reprise Records)

Not many surprises here from the pop-classical singing sensation. It’s a collection of Christmas ballads in pop, religious and traditional styles, sung mostly in English with quick drops into Latin (“Panis Angelicus”) and French (“Petit Papa Noel”). There are guest appearances from Faith Hill, Brian McKnight and the London Symphony Orchestra; producer David Foster supplies the new “Thankful” and surprises include messages home from the troops in Iraq during “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” But Groban is still and always front and center.

His voice is as powerful as ever — heck, he’s still just hitting his prime, and it’s always encouraging when an alone-at-the-piano number (“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”) is one of the highlights. But there isn’t a lot of new territory being broken.

I knew what this would sound like before I played it and so do you.

Sure, it’s Christmas music, so I guess that’s part of the deal.

But as we’ve seen, you can do a lot more with this stuff than you might think possible.

http://www.projo.com/music/content/artsun-xmasalbums_12-09-07_S38156A_v40.e1f772.html

Kanye and Amy lead Grammys field

Kanye and Amy lead Grammys field

Kanye West and Amy Winehouse

West and Winehouse have both had a dramatic few months

US rapper Kanye West leads the pack at the 50th Grammy Awards after receiving eight nominations.

But British singer Amy Winehouse is not far behind, having been shortlisted in six categories including record, album and song of the year.

Five acts - rock band the Foo Fighters, rapper Jay-Z, producer Timbaland, R&B singer T-Pain and Justin Timberlake - received five nominations each.

The prestigious awards will be held in Los Angeles on 10 February.

Record of the year candidates include Beyonce's Irreplaceable, Rihanna's ubiquitous Umbrella and Winehouse's defiant hit Rehab.

Rehab is also up for song of the year - a songwriting award - alongside Corinne Bailey Rae's Like a Star.

West's Graduation album will vie with Winehouse's Back to Black record and the Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace for the album of the year prize.

Winehouse's other nominations include citations in the best newcomer and best pop vocal album categories.

Winehouse and West's nominations come after a dramatic few months for both artistes.

Last month the former called off all gigs and other public appearances for the remainder of 2007 after a series of shambolic concerts.

West, meanwhile, has had to deal with the death of his mother after complications following surgery.

Other categories announced include best rock, R&B, rap, classical and country albums.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7131416.stm

Shooting reported at Omaha mall

The AP is reporting at least one person has been shot at the Westroads Mall in Omaha. CNN is citing local reports stating that as many as five people have been shot; MSNBC is reporting that one witness claims to have heard at least 12 gunshots.

Update at 3:43 p.m. ET: The AP reports it's unknown whether the shooter or shooters are still in the mall. Omaha television station KETV is reporting an elderly man was shot inside the Von Maur store. Here's the station's live coverage.

Television coverage has shown two people being carried out of the mall on stretchers.

Update at 3:47 p.m. ET: More from the AP: Keith Fidler, a Von Maur employee, said he heard a burst of five to six shots followed by 15 to 20 shots. Fidler said he huddled in the corner of the men's clothing department with about a dozen other employees until police yelled to get out of the store. Fidler said he did not see the shooting but saw a person lying still by an elevator as he was leaving the store.

Update at 3:55 p.m. ET: Local television continues to show footage of shoppers leaving the mall, arms in the air. KETV's website now is showing a photo, which is says was submitted by a viewer at the scene, of a man in handcuffs.

President Bush was in Omaha earlier today for a fundraiser, but left the city before the shooting, which reportedly occurred about 2 p.m. CST.

Update at 4 p.m. ET: Omaha television station KMTV, citing police radio reports, is reporting two people are dead and up to five people wounded.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/shooting-report.html

4 Things To Watch Out For From A Home Internet Based Business Opportunity

There are so many opportunities on the internet offering to set people up in their own home based internet business that it can be difficult to separate the real, legitimate opportunities from the ones that only want your money. Knowing what to look for hidden within the offers can mean the difference between finding a legitimate business to operate and ending up helping someone else make money while losing your own.

With most fraudulent offers for in internet business there are four red flags that need to be thoroughly investigated before signing up to work for the website. Understand that not all of the companies that make these claims are out to take your money, but these are four things that many less than honest companies have in common:

1. Large upfront investment

2. The chance to make big money with little work

3. Do not clearly state what you will be selling

4. Lack of available contact information

While it is not uncommon for business to want a fee to become a representative for their business, you have to consider the amount demanded from you before you can start selling their product or service. You should also have a clear picture of what you will get in return for your investment. It is common for the term training to be listed, but many times the training consists of links to other sites where you are expected to learn about the company’s business model.

The training may also focus on how to recruit others into the business, offering to pay a “bounty” for bringing in new people. A company that focuses on bringing in more people instead of selling the product may be on the border of being illegal.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a business knows it takes work. One of the most common pitches is the promise of a big payday without having to work more than an hour or two a day…or even a week. There is no such thing as a free lunch and those who try to convince you otherwise and not being totally honest. That disclaimer about income may not a representative of the potential earnings, should beg the question about why even bother to list it.

If you have been reading an online based business opportunity for several minutes and have no idea about the product or service you are being asked to sell, it could be an indication of a scam. Many keep it a secret until you have spent your money and find out there is no way you can sell this to others with a clear conscious. Know what the product is, and how much it will cost, before considering the offer any further.

Look for contact information. If the only means of contacting the company is through an email address, it could be they don’t plan to be around long enough to answer any questions or complaints. Money back guarantees are also only about as good as the contact information. Email addresses and post office boxes are not good contacts.

http://2-b.us/?i=89903/

Loudon county public schools

Broadband Extends Reach in Loudoun

But Many Still Lack Faster Web Option

As many as 9,000 Loudoun County residents and businesses -- most in the rural west -- do not have the option of subscribing to broadband Internet service, a county technology official said last week. But the number of people who must depend on dial-up or less reliable satellite service continues to shrink.

"We're making some good progress," said Scott W. Bashore, Loudoun's manager of strategic IT projects. "Two and a half years ago, the whole county had about 69 percent broadband availability. Now we're at about 86 percent."

Last week, three-year-old Loudoun Wireless announced that it had expanded its broadband service to a rural swath of northwestern Loudoun between Hillsboro and Lovettsville. The small Lovettsville company is one of several that serves western Loudoun with wireless technology.

The expansion prompted Mary Snyder, who lives 3 1/2 miles outside Lovettsville, to quickly ditch her AOL dial-up service in favor of Loudoun Wireless's broadband. "It's already making a big difference for my two teenagers, who need to use the Internet for their homework," she said.

More wireless service could be in the offing. The county Planning Commission recently approved proposals by two companies to build five telecommunications towers in western Loudoun and by another company to attach an antenna to a water tower, projects that could expand broadband and cellphone service. The proposals await approval by the Board of Supervisors.

High-speed Internet service remains a decidedly east vs. west story in Loudoun. Broadband behemoths Verizon and Comcast provide most of the service in the more developed east, but relatively little in the rural west, where there aren't enough customers to justify laying an extensive fiber-optic network.

Although Verizon and Comcast have brought broadband to some new communities in western Loudoun, most of the area is served by small local companies such as Loudoun Wireless, Roadstar Internet and Lucketts.net. These companies generally offer slower, more expensive broadband service that requires installation of a radio receiver on the side of the house or business.

Satellite Internet service also is an option for western Loudoun residents, but it is often less reliable than broadband, said Bashore, whose position was created in 2005 to improve the county's broadband access.

He said that even with the expansion announced last week, only about one in six houses and businesses has access to broadband in the northwestern corner of the county. Loudoun Wireless was able to offer high-speed service to more people by attaching an antenna to a 250-foot tower 3.8 miles northwest of Lovettsville that is owned by another company.

Loudoun Wireless's service costs $59 to $99 a month, depending on the speed of the connection. The minimum price is about four times as expensive as the lowest-priced plan offered by Verizon, at $14.99.

But rural residents such as Snyder say they have no choice, unless they want to stick with their excruciatingly slow dial-up service.

"For 10 years I had pitiful dial-up with AOL, which was sooooo slow," said Snyder, sales operations manager at Current Analysis, a Sterling market-research firm. "One of my biggest frustrations was going to the back-to-school nights and sitting there listening to the teachers tell the parents, 'Sometimes your children will have required homework that they will have to go on the Internet to do.' I had to raise my hand and say, 'Are you aware that there are some people in Loudoun County that don't have broadband access?' "

Snyder said she often had to take her teenage boys to the Lovettsville public library to find a high-speed Internet connection.

"The main reason I got broadband was for my kids to be successful in school," she said. "Loudoun County public schools almost require children to have [high-speed] Internet. Their schoolbooks are online. So instead of having to drag their 400-pound backpacks home, they can go to the publishers' Web sites. But with dial-up, my sons had to do the homework out of their books, or we'd have to drag them to the library in town."

Broadband service could get a boost in western Loudoun if the Board of Supervisors approves applications by Community Wireless Structures to build two towers in Leesburg, one in Waterford and one in Lovettsville. Sprint Nextel also has proposed to build a tower in Leesburg. And Verizon wants to attach an antenna to the water tower in Round Hill.

Although approved by the Planning Commission on Nov. 20, the projects have been opposed by many homeowners, who say they don't want telecommunications structures in their neighborhoods.

"All of these towers would be able to support additional broadband infrastructure," Bashore said. "Part of the current debate is over whether they are needed and, if so, which ones are needed. It's good to have this debate."

The public will have at least one more opportunity to weigh in. The Board of Supervisors has scheduled a Dec. 11 public hearing on the Verizon plan and a Jan. 8 hearing on the other proposals, a county official said. The January hearing will be the first hosted by the newly elected Democratic majority.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/01/AR2007120100109.html

The Death of NetworkMarketing

Hi Again...

nordic here...

I just got an email about Ellie Drake's and Mike Filsaime's Free Report called - "The Death of NetworkMarketing"

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...Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong.

The bottom line is, this report really opened my eyes that Network Marketing may be dying.

When I read this, I immediately thought of sharing it on my blog

The times are changing for us and it would be a shame for you or anyone to not read this report and fail like many will.

I read it, and I wanted to share it with you ASAP.

I recommend you take a break from whatever it is you are doing if you can and get access to this report now.

Consider your future success by going here now...

http://www.the-death-of-networkmarketing.com/?see-why=12824

Thanks,

nordic

PS - Mike and Ellie say it will only be available for a few days or so, so do not delay...

Waldseemuller Map

I am America. (And So?)

From Rudy Giuliani’s making “12 Commitments to America” to John Edwards’s taking a “Road Trip for One America,” our latest crop of campaigners for the presidency seem to take for granted that the word “America” has a special resonance, that it defines something meaningful. But what, exactly, is it? America doesn’t take its name from an ethnicity nor from a clear demographic, whereas the French, say, owe “France” to their Frankish forebears. Despite the frequency of its use, “America” is actually somewhat difficult to define, particularly if we acknowledge that many people living on our planet who are neither residents nor citizens of these United States see themselves as Americans.

The elusive nature of the world’s most famous brand, not to say the curious road to its definition, will be illuminated next week as never before when the Library of Congress unveils an addition to its permanent collection nicknamed “America’s baptismal document.” The document in question, a four-and-a-half-foot-by-eight-foot map, will be receiving national-treasure treatment more appropriate to a Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster. After all, in its 200-year history, the library has never waited longer, nor paid more, to acquire any single object: 100 years and $10 million were spent obtaining this last surviving print of a map of the world made in 1507 by an obscure German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller — a map that happens to feature the first use of a certain seven letter word with an understandable appeal to our de facto national library: “America.” To house this treasure, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has built an encasement. At 2,000 pounds, its pressurized, argon-gas-filled environment is the largest case of its kind — big brother to the only other such cases NIST has made, those that protect the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Waldseemüller map, of course, is no charter of freedom, but as both it and the “America” it coined turn 500 this year, the map’s prominent inclusion in the story we tell about ourselves offers a glimpse at a kind of lexicographic liberty — how a word acquires meaning, often despite itself. For the story of the naming of America is one we think we know: Amerigo Vespucci, that famously self-promoting explorer, outfoxed not Columbus the discoverer but Columbus the marketer and managed to wheedle his name onto a whole hemisphere of continents he didn’t deserve. “Strange,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “that broad America must wear the name of a thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who . . . managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptize half the earth with his own dishonest name.” The only problem with this story — one in which America’s name harbors a prophetic seed of self-promotion that later flowers into a full-fledged huckster’s paradise — is its inaccuracy. The real story is more telling still, and begins with Waldseemüller.

Created collaboratively in 1507 in the French town of St. Dié by Waldseemüller and his humanist colleagues, their ambitious series of woodblock prints represented the most comprehensive collation to date of the Western world’s geographical knowledge, crediting Columbus and Vespucci by name for features discovered during their explorations of a few years earlier. A handbook published with the map offered Waldseemüller’s reasoning behind placing — in the southern quadrant of his map’s western hemisphere; on a lumpy banana of land meant to be the continent to our south — the name “America”:

[A] fourth [continent] of the world . . . has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci. Because . . .

Europe and Asia were named after women, I can see no reason why anyone would have good reason to object to calling this fourth part Amerige, the land of Amerigo, or America, after the man of great ability who discovered it.

The “good reason” to object to calling it “the land of Amerigo” would have been that among Vespucci’s “great abilities,” discovery wasn’t one. Waldseemüller seems to have been misled by a document known as the Soderini Letter, a narrative account said to have been by Vespucci but believed by modern scholars to have been forged by unscrupulous publishers. The letter reports that our shores are populated by giants, cannibals and sexually insatiable females — and implies that Vespucci reached this mundus novus pornographicus before that fellow Columbus. Though Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of this year’s excellent “Amerigo,” makes very clear that Vespucci was not above self-promotion, he also argues persuasively that Vespucci had nothing to do with the Soderini Letter, nor therefore the elevation of his name to hemispheric heights. Waldseemüller seems to have later wised to his own credulity, removing “America” and replacing it with “Terra Incognita” on his subsequent maps. Still, he couldn’t erase the path his first map cut through the world: “America” had spread across maps and globes and minds, irreversibly.

Whereas Waldseemüller’s map seemed to have disappeared irretrievably. Despite what was said to be an initial printing of 1,000 copies, none were known to have survived into the 19th century, until an Austrian Jesuit priest named Josef Fischer, who taught high-school geography and history at a boarding school, finally found one. In a footnote to his forgotten opus, “Discoveries of the Norsemen in America,” Fischer recalls his scholarly sleuthing in a German castle: “I had spent two days in carefully examining the contents of Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg’s library. The following day I came across a Codex, elephant folio, dated 1515.” In it, Fischer found a rare engraving by Albrecht Dürer that was “carefully entered in the catalog of the unique Wolfegg collection of engravings.” What was not noted in any catalog were the folio’s further contents: several large maps that sat unnoticed for some 300 years — one of which featured an unlikely detail. “I turned over some more sheets,” Fischer explained, “and on Sheet 9, I found ‘America’ printed in large type.”

Fischer knew what that “America” meant, but what — beyond Emerson’s erroneous sense of America embodying a hidden fraudulence — does “America” mean? Vespucci’s given name is said to derive from the Old German Almaric, which literally means “work ruler” — a derivation that one nomenclatural historian called “a curiously appropriate title for the new world of labor and progress.” Curious indeed, given that those who first heard it would have thought retirement: Waldseemüller’s map claimed America was filled not merely with giants and loose natives but also with piles of gold. In any case, the word quickly took on the talismanic power that foreign names often do. “America” has stimulated generations of imaginations, filling them with hope for something better or hatred of something worse. The “America” of Allen Ginsberg (“I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing”) surely differs from that of Walt Whitman (“Center of equal daughters, equal sons”), Whitman’s America no less gilded than Waldseemüller’s, no less glittering a lure to immigrants fleeing lives that weren’t working out or, at least, ones they wished to see — by themselves — redefined.

And it is, in fact, a similar chance for redefinition that the Library of Congress is now providing visitors. Yes, the case, which dwarfs those of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, is somewhat grandiose, perhaps suggesting a characteristically American presumption. And yet, if we can see past the 600-pound piece of glass and the argon gas within and stare at a space on the map barely an inch long occupied by seven significant letters, you cannot help seeing an “America” that, very briefly, has been shorn of all meaning. It is — and most usefully — once again a newly minted word, one that might still mean anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02wwln-lede-t.html?ref=magazine