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Capt, Video reports on corp scams
http://www.thenewsshow.tv/?sssdmh=dm4.157801&episode=20051110&thisFrame=32&autoplay=true
CMSI last PR Symbol was to change?
Assume no "approval from the proper authorities".
You can write it off as worthless and subtract loss from any gains in others. Just put 12/31/2005 and "worthless" on your
Fed return.
Treat it as 'tuition' at Trust No One U
Corporate Mortgage Solutions, Inc. To Change Name and Symbol
Tuesday , July 26, 2005 09:02 ET
NEW YORK, Jul 26, 2005 (PRIMEZONE via COMTEX) --Corporate Mortgage Solutions, Inc. (Pink Sheets:CMSI) has applied to change its name to Big Apple Worldwide, Inc. according to Neal G. Jablon, President and CEO. The symbol and name change will take effect as soon as the company receives approval from the proper authorities.
Big Apple Worldwide, Inc. will continue to operate through its subsidiary, Big Apple Wallcovering, Inc., a supplier of commercial wallcovering and fabrics to the hospitality industry worldwide. In addition, Big Apple Worldwide will seek to grow through other acquisitions in an effort to increase sales and profitability for the whole corporation.
Recent jobs for Big Apple Wallcovering include wallcovering sales to banks, casinos and hotels around the world. The mission of the company is to build a diverse product line that will provide shareholders with both current income and capital appreciation. The company's specialty is new technology that allows architects and specifiers to view its products online and through CDs and with "NO MORE BOOKS", Big Apple Wallcovering is revolutionizing the industry. For more information visit http://www.bigapplewallcovering.com or call 1 866 THE APPL(E).
CMSI off Pinksheets.com for now
CMSI -- Corporate Mortgage Solutions, Inc.
Com
Primary Venue: Pink Sheets
Quote Status: Unsolicited
This security has only been quoted on the Pink Sheets on an unsolicited basis since it initiated trading in the public OTC markets. Pink Sheets has not received notice of the NASD clearing a market maker to publish their proprietary quotations in this security or the issuer registering to the SEC as a reporting issuer under the Securities Act. As such, adequate current information may not be publicly available for this issuer. Pink Sheets believes adequate current information should be publicly available when a security first enters public markets and that current financial information should continue to be provided on a quarterly basis. Pink Sheets has discontinued the display of quotes on pinksheets.com for this security until such information is made available by the issuer. Investors are encouraged to use care and due diligence in their investment decisions.
RCNI hammer, cable comment
Just keeping weather eye on cable media cos. Figure if is anything to the RSN, Comcast PR you never know what else might be out in the woods. All kinds of media deals lately.
btw that is a nice hammer at 50% retracement.
g/l
RCN improved a bit post-BK
Bloomberg TV had a banner stating less losses at RCN lately,
post their RK from build out expenses. See RCNI today.
symbol @$20 -$1 NSC
RCN Reports Third Quarter 2005 Results; EBITDA Increases to $23.3 Million; Core Residential Revenue Increases 2%, Commercial Increases 9% Year-Over-Year; New Customer Additions, RGUs, and Bundle Rate Rise
Pink Sheets Unsolicited quote change
Pink Sheets LLC
304 Hudson Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10013
212-896-4420
Liz Heese, Issuer Services
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Pink Sheets revises Policy for Publishing Unsolicited Quotes
New York, NY, November 9,2005 -- Pink Sheets has made a change to its policy regarding the publication of unsolicited quotes. Effective immediately, Pink Sheets will not permit the entry of an unsolicited quote under condition #6 of Question 16 on the Unsolicited Quote Entry Form, unless the broker requesting to publish the unsolicited quote has concurrently submitted a Form 211 to the NASD in the same issue. We will not require that the Form 211 be cleared by the NASD prior to publishing an unsolicited quote. However, the broker submitting the Form 211 must inform Pink Sheets if the Form 211 is withdrawn or rejected by the NASD and the reasons for this action. If a pattern emerges where a significant amount of Form 211s submitted to the NASD by an individual firm are withdrawn or rejected, Pink Sheets may refuse to permit any further unsolicited quote entry by that firm.
Pink Sheets will apply this new standard to all new requests to enter an unsolicited quote. The Unsolicited Quote Entry Form has been modified to require the submitting broker to verify that they have submitted a Form 211 to the NASD and will require the broker to attach a copy of the Form 211 (not including the supporting documentation).
Too often brokers are submitting Unsolicited Quote Entry Forms for issuers where the disclosure is incomplete, shoddy or inadequate. This places Pink Sheets in the position of reviewing and rejecting applications that should have been done properly or not submitted by the broker. It is not a position we want or are equipped to be in. We hope that by concurrently submitting their applications to the NASD, brokers will meet a higher standard.
Filing Form 211’s with the NASD will improve Pink Sheets trading because allowing market makers to display proprietary quotations creates more liquid, efficient and competitive secondary trading with decreased volatility. All of which are clearly beneficial to issuers and investors. There have been some concerns voiced by issuers that being quoted only on an unsolicited basis protects their stock from naked market maker short selling, however the new NASD rule proposal to collect and publish short positions in OTCBB and Pink Sheets securities (http://www.smartpdf.com/register/2005/Nov/03/66875A.pdf) should alleviate these concerns by allowing issuers and investors to easily identify any short selling activity in individual securities.
Please contact Liz Heese at info@pinksheets.com if you have any questions or comments regarding these policies.
Pink Sheets Unsolicited quote change
Pink Sheets LLC
304 Hudson Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10013
212-896-4420
Liz Heese, Issuer Services
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Pink Sheets revises Policy for Publishing Unsolicited Quotes
New York, NY, November 9,2005 -- Pink Sheets has made a change to its policy regarding the publication of unsolicited quotes. Effective immediately, Pink Sheets will not permit the entry of an unsolicited quote under condition #6 of Question 16 on the Unsolicited Quote Entry Form, unless the broker requesting to publish the unsolicited quote has concurrently submitted a Form 211 to the NASD in the same issue. We will not require that the Form 211 be cleared by the NASD prior to publishing an unsolicited quote. However, the broker submitting the Form 211 must inform Pink Sheets if the Form 211 is withdrawn or rejected by the NASD and the reasons for this action. If a pattern emerges where a significant amount of Form 211s submitted to the NASD by an individual firm are withdrawn or rejected, Pink Sheets may refuse to permit any further unsolicited quote entry by that firm.
Pink Sheets will apply this new standard to all new requests to enter an unsolicited quote. The Unsolicited Quote Entry Form has been modified to require the submitting broker to verify that they have submitted a Form 211 to the NASD and will require the broker to attach a copy of the Form 211 (not including the supporting documentation).
Too often brokers are submitting Unsolicited Quote Entry Forms for issuers where the disclosure is incomplete, shoddy or inadequate. This places Pink Sheets in the position of reviewing and rejecting applications that should have been done properly or not submitted by the broker. It is not a position we want or are equipped to be in. We hope that by concurrently submitting their applications to the NASD, brokers will meet a higher standard.
Filing Form 211’s with the NASD will improve Pink Sheets trading because allowing market makers to display proprietary quotations creates more liquid, efficient and competitive secondary trading with decreased volatility. All of which are clearly beneficial to issuers and investors. There have been some concerns voiced by issuers that being quoted only on an unsolicited basis protects their stock from naked market maker short selling, however the new NASD rule proposal to collect and publish short positions in OTCBB and Pink Sheets securities (http://www.smartpdf.com/register/2005/Nov/03/66875A.pdf) should alleviate these concerns by allowing issuers and investors to easily identify any short selling activity in individual securities.
Please contact Liz Heese at info@pinksheets.com if you have any questions or comments regarding these policies.
ADVC makes revs gains in sub
NEW YORK, Nov. 8, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Advanced Communications Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:ADVC), a New York-based holding company that specializes in the technology after-market service and supply chain known as reverse logistics, today announced that its electronic and computer repair subsidiary and principal operating business, Cyber-Test, has increased its repair and exchange services on Blackberry(tm), Treo(tm) and other high-tech multi-function personal digital assistants (PDAs).
"As the demand for advanced technology repair and exchange continues to grow, Cyber-Test's experience and comprehensive understanding of the programs related to all brands and models of these popular devices allows us to expand on our service offerings and take a big bite of the market," said Lisa Welton, president and CEO of Cyber-Test.
"In addition, cellular phone repair depots typically do not have the technical expertise like we do to cross into the PDA technology and usually do not offer repair service on these 'phone-combo' units," said Welton. "This gives Cyber-Test a major advantage and an opportunity to gain a lot more customers and grow our business."
"During October, revenues generated from Cyber-Test repairs on high-tech devices increased from $52,300 to $120,000, or 129 percent, compared with the same period last year," said Wayne Danson, president and CEO of Advanced Communications. "For the same comparative period, the number of high-tech repairs increased from 403 units to 979, or 143 percent and we expect to at least double that by the end of fiscal 2006."
Cyber-Test considers itself well-positioned in the current demand surge since it has been repairing all brands and models of PDAs and other sophisticated technology products since 2004.
About Advanced Communications Technologies, Inc.
Advanced Communications Technologies is a New York-based public holding company specializing in the technology after-market service and supply chain, known as reverse logistics. Its wholly-owned subsidiary and principal operating unit, Encompass Group Affiliates, Inc. acquires and operates businesses that provide computer and electronics repair and end-of-lifecycle services.
Encompass owns Cyber-Test, Inc., a Florida-based electronic equipment repair company that provides board-level repair of technical products to third-party warranty companies, OEMs, national retailers and national office equipment dealers. Service options include advance exchange, depot repair, call center support, parts and warranty management for office equipment, fax machines, printers, scanners, laptop computers, monitors and multi-function units, including high-end consumer electronics such as PDAs and digital cameras.
For more information, visit http://www.advancedcomtech.net.
A profile for investors on Advanced Communications may be found at http://www.hawkassociates.com/advancedcommunications/profile.htm.
An online investor relations kit containing Advanced Communications' press releases, SEC filings, current Level II price quotes, interactive Java stock charts and other useful information for investors can be found at http://www.hawkassociates.com and http://www.americanmicrocaps.com.
LBro ya beat me to the good news! EOM
Vietnam won? bird poo in lakes
(Bit too yucky for my taste!)
HANOI (Reuters) - The practice of using chicken excrement to feed fish in southern Vietnam is threatening millions of people with bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City and should be stopped, state media said on Monday.
The Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper quoted Dong Nai province residents as saying farmers there threw at least 100 tonnes of chicken excrement a day into Tri An lake, whose waters flow into Dong Nai river and run through the country's biggest city.
"Dropping chicken excrement into Tri An lake during the period when bird flu is evolving into a pandemic is extremely dangerous," Le Hoang Sang, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institute, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Chicken excrement is one of the main carriers of the H5N1 virus, which can survive in a cool and wet environment for a month and slightly less if in water, he said.
In January, a 9-year-old boy died from bird flu in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh after he caught it while swimming in water in which the bodies of infected poultry had been thrown.
"Throwing chicken excrement into the lake must be stopped immediately," Sang said, adding that tests of the fish food would start this week.
About seven million people in Ho Chi Minh City use water purified from the Dong Nai river, Nguyen Van Phu, director of the Saigon Water Supply Co, told the state-run Lao Dong newspaper.
"We ordered a stop to fish feeding that way when this rainy season began but it's difficult if farmers move the excrement in at night," said Vu Thi Tho, People Committee's chairwoman of La Nga commune, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
But the Lao Dong newspaper said poultry waste was still being taken to the area by truck.
Since bird flu arrived in December 2003, 91 people have caught it in Vietnam and 41 have died, fanning experts' fears that the virus could mutate into a form passed easily between people and unleash a global pandemic.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
PAX WTF? eom
Freaken POS PAX jumping eom
PAX is RUNNING! eom
Dec, maybe, Jan, hmmm Feb, ahh Hope, nope eom
CMKM restricted shares qualify?
Wonder whether the last dividend shares, issued as Restricted.
will be considered eligible.
Prob not worth cost of getting hard copies from OLB. They usually charge plus S&H. Guess keep them there and auction 'rights' to them on eBay!
Even my few Nevada shares are still Restricted. LOL
smell the flies on this pile eom
interstate telecommuter tax stands
Telecommuters May Face New Taxes on Their Income
By Tom Herman and Rachel Emma Silverman
From The Wall Street Journal Online
A move by the Supreme Court means that many telecommuters could ultimately face higher income-tax bills.
The nation's highest court yesterday declined to hear an appeal by a Tennessee man who telecommuted to New York and was charged by that state for taxes on all his income. Because the Supreme Court won't review his appeal, New York's decision stands.
Many telecommuters could face higher state income-tax bills if other states are emboldened by New York's success and enact similar rules that tax out-of-state telecommuters. Some members of Congress already have introduced legislation to protect telecommuters from such taxes.
Some 9.9 million people work at home full- or part-time for employers other than themselves, according to the Telework Advisory Group at WorldatWork, an association for human-resources professionals. As telecommuting has become increasingly popular in recent years -- and as higher gas prices make commuting even more expensive -- millions of people are working in one state for employers in other states. Tax issues may arise over which state or states can tax a worker's income.
New York, a high-tax state that's home to many large corporations, has pursued out-of-state telecommuters aggressively. "By its silence, the Supreme Court permits other states to do the same," says Nicole Belson Goluboff, an attorney who has written extensively on telecommuting law. "Any state might find this attractive and go ahead and start taxing nonresidents."
A handful of other states, including Pennsylvania and Nebraska, already have rules similar to New York's.
The case at issue involved Thomas Huckaby, a computer specialist who lives in Nashville. Earlier this year, New York's highest court, in a 4-3 decision, said Mr. Huckaby owed New York taxes on all of his income from a New York employer -- even though Mr. Huckaby had spent only about 25% of his time in New York and the other 75% in Tennessee.
The Huckaby case involved a New York State tax-department rule affecting people who live in another state, work for a New York employer and occasionally come to New York on business. That rule says income from work performed out of state is taxable by New York unless it's done for the employer's "necessity." Mr. Huckaby acknowledged his employer didn't require him to work in Tennessee, says Peter L. Faber, a New York lawyer who represented him. Mr. Faber argued New York's "convenience" test violated state law and the U.S. Constitution by taxing income earned out of state.
The New York rule could have wide-ranging implications. It may affect not only people like Mr. Huckaby, but also others who live in neighboring states, work in New York and choose to do some of their work at home. "We need federal legislation" to protect both types of workers, Ms. Goluboff says.
Consider the case of Edward A. Zelinsky, a law-school professor who lives in New Haven, Conn., and teaches at a law school in New York City. He says New York taxed him on all his law-school wages even though he spent 60% of his time at home doing research, writing, and grading exams and papers. Prof. Zelinsky lost his case in New York's highest court, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision in 2004.
New York adopted its rule many years ago. Officials were concerned about commuters who lived in a neighboring state, such as Connecticut, and brought work home on weekends, worked on Saturday and Sunday, and then claimed to owe New York tax on only five-sevenths of their income, instead of 100%.
Telecommuters might get a reprieve if Congress passes proposed legislation called the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act. The bill, which seeks to prevent states from collecting taxes from employees for work performed outside that state, was sponsored by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays, both from Connecticut. Under the bill, workers would have to be physically present and working in a state for that state to be allowed to collect income tax from employees.
Sen. Dodd said yesterday that the court's move "underscores the need" to take legislative action.
The Supreme Court announcement is not a decision on the case's merits. The lower-court ruling stands and could, of course, lead other states to enact such rules. But it doesn't mean that the court has decided the issue or that such laws will be upheld if appealed in the future.
Email your comments to cjeditor@dowjones.com.
-- November 03, 2005
interstate telecommuter tax stands
Telecommuters May Face New Taxes on Their Income
By Tom Herman and Rachel Emma Silverman
From The Wall Street Journal Online
A move by the Supreme Court means that many telecommuters could ultimately face higher income-tax bills.
The nation's highest court yesterday declined to hear an appeal by a Tennessee man who telecommuted to New York and was charged by that state for taxes on all his income. Because the Supreme Court won't review his appeal, New York's decision stands.
Many telecommuters could face higher state income-tax bills if other states are emboldened by New York's success and enact similar rules that tax out-of-state telecommuters. Some members of Congress already have introduced legislation to protect telecommuters from such taxes.
Some 9.9 million people work at home full- or part-time for employers other than themselves, according to the Telework Advisory Group at WorldatWork, an association for human-resources professionals. As telecommuting has become increasingly popular in recent years -- and as higher gas prices make commuting even more expensive -- millions of people are working in one state for employers in other states. Tax issues may arise over which state or states can tax a worker's income.
New York, a high-tax state that's home to many large corporations, has pursued out-of-state telecommuters aggressively. "By its silence, the Supreme Court permits other states to do the same," says Nicole Belson Goluboff, an attorney who has written extensively on telecommuting law. "Any state might find this attractive and go ahead and start taxing nonresidents."
A handful of other states, including Pennsylvania and Nebraska, already have rules similar to New York's.
The case at issue involved Thomas Huckaby, a computer specialist who lives in Nashville. Earlier this year, New York's highest court, in a 4-3 decision, said Mr. Huckaby owed New York taxes on all of his income from a New York employer -- even though Mr. Huckaby had spent only about 25% of his time in New York and the other 75% in Tennessee.
The Huckaby case involved a New York State tax-department rule affecting people who live in another state, work for a New York employer and occasionally come to New York on business. That rule says income from work performed out of state is taxable by New York unless it's done for the employer's "necessity." Mr. Huckaby acknowledged his employer didn't require him to work in Tennessee, says Peter L. Faber, a New York lawyer who represented him. Mr. Faber argued New York's "convenience" test violated state law and the U.S. Constitution by taxing income earned out of state.
The New York rule could have wide-ranging implications. It may affect not only people like Mr. Huckaby, but also others who live in neighboring states, work in New York and choose to do some of their work at home. "We need federal legislation" to protect both types of workers, Ms. Goluboff says.
Consider the case of Edward A. Zelinsky, a law-school professor who lives in New Haven, Conn., and teaches at a law school in New York City. He says New York taxed him on all his law-school wages even though he spent 60% of his time at home doing research, writing, and grading exams and papers. Prof. Zelinsky lost his case in New York's highest court, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision in 2004.
New York adopted its rule many years ago. Officials were concerned about commuters who lived in a neighboring state, such as Connecticut, and brought work home on weekends, worked on Saturday and Sunday, and then claimed to owe New York tax on only five-sevenths of their income, instead of 100%.
Telecommuters might get a reprieve if Congress passes proposed legislation called the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act. The bill, which seeks to prevent states from collecting taxes from employees for work performed outside that state, was sponsored by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays, both from Connecticut. Under the bill, workers would have to be physically present and working in a state for that state to be allowed to collect income tax from employees.
Sen. Dodd said yesterday that the court's move "underscores the need" to take legislative action.
The Supreme Court announcement is not a decision on the case's merits. The lower-court ruling stands and could, of course, lead other states to enact such rules. But it doesn't mean that the court has decided the issue or that such laws will be upheld if appealed in the future.
Email your comments to cjeditor@dowjones.com.
-- November 03, 2005
impact of removing home deduction
November 3, 2005
Goodbye, My Sweet Deduction
By EDUARDO PORTER and DAVID LEONHARDT NY Times
There are no cows more sacred in the tax code than the deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes. Together, they add up to at least a $75 billion annual subsidy for housing and homeowners. President Bush, in establishing his advisory panel on tax reform, specifically asked the group to preserve support for home ownership.
So it was quite a shock that the panel, which released its final report on Tuesday, concluded that it had no choice but to significantly trim the home mortgage deduction and eliminate state and local tax deductions if it wanted to find a way to simplify the income tax.
By combining that move with a variety of other measures, the panel was also able to bury the alternative minimum tax, a complex tax originally intended to prevent the wealthy from escaping taxes that is now starting to hit millions of otherwise ordinary upper-middle-class families who have a typical range of itemized deductions and personal exemptions.
The panel had a powerful rationale behind its proposal: many economists say the real estate subsidy is one of the tax code's most unfair features, overwhelmingly benefiting the affluent and pulling investment from the rest of the economy into the housing sector.
But for millions of homeowners, what no doubt matters most about the plan is how it affects their bottom line. And for many of them, especially those living in houses in expensive markets in California and the Northeast, the answer is clear: If it becomes law, the value of their homes will almost certainly fall.
The pain that would be caused by putting an end to deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes explains a lot of the motivation behind the attacks that greeted the panel's proposals.
"I think the short-run prospects of Congress adopting these are very low," said Joel B. Slemrod, the director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. "They take away a lot of the deductions and credits that people have gotten used to, and we know that losers cry louder than winners sing."
The plan by the presidential panel would reduce the mortgage deduction on homes in two ways.
First, it would limit the amount of the mortgage eligible to be deducted, cutting it from the current cap of a little more $1 million to as low as $227,000 in cheaper housing markets like Springfield, Ohio, to as high as $412,000 in places like New York and many of its suburbs.
Second, families would receive a credit equal to 15 percent of the interest paid on a mortgage below the cap, rather than a deduction that can be worth as much as 35 percent for taxpayers at the high end of the income scale.
Just about everybody involved in the housing and real estate market has raised objections to this proposal. In a statement released Monday, the National Association of Realtors estimated that home prices across the nation would fall by 15 percent, with "a devastating effect on the nation's housing economy." The Mortgage Bankers Association called the proposals "a tax increase for a lot of working Americans."
Even supporters of the changes acknowledge that house prices would fall. "Almost any economic analysis will conclude that there will be some downward effect on prices, especially at the top of the market," said James Poterba, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is on the president's panel. "The question is how large it will be."
The elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes, including property taxes, also has the potential to bring down house values, especially in high-tax states like New York, California and New Jersey, where homes are selling at record-high prices.
One way to estimate the total impact is to calculate how the change would affect a household's monthly housing payments. If home buyers try to keep their monthly house payment steady, an analysis by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington, suggests, prices could fall by more than 20 percent in higher-priced markets like New York City. Even in cheaper markets, homes that are priced above the average could take a substantial hit.
A family living in Lansing, Mich., for example, with $90,000 in taxable income, would have a marginal income tax rate of 25 percent. In Lansing, the average home price is around $250,000.
If that family were to buy a $500,000 home today with 20 percent down and a 6 percent fixed-rate mortgage - a fairly typical arrangement - the I.R.S. would effectively refund about $7,125 in the first year, according to Mr. Baker's analysis. Adding a 0.9 percent property tax, the total monthly payment, net of federal taxes, would be about $2,160.
Under the new system, however, the family would receive a return of $2,250 from the I.R.S. - 15 percent of the interest at the mortgage limit of $250,000 - effectively pushing their net payment up by $400 each month. If the maximum monthly cost they could afford was $2,160, they would have to settle for a house worth about $70,000 less.
The more expensive the home, the larger the effect. According to a similar analysis by Mr. Baker, a family in the top tax bracket who today could afford a $1 million home in Manhattan would have to trim their budget by more than $200,000 to keep monthly payments the same.
To soften the blow, the panel proposed to phase the change in over five years. But as home buyers across the country were forced to cut back on the value of homes they could afford to buy, they would inevitably drag home prices down.
"If you look at it that way, you have to be prepared for prices to plunge," said Mr. Baker, who has long been expecting housing prices to drop for other reasons.
Mr. Poterba argues that it is unlikely home prices would fall as much as others fear. For one, the changes would also slow investment in housing, reducing the supply of homes along with the demand. Methods of financing homes would also change in response to the tax laws.
Notwithstanding homeowners' pain, reducing the tax code's subsidy to housing is a sound idea, many economists say. "It's an appropriate change to the tax code," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a research firm. "While it may have made sense a quarter of a century ago, now I don't see a compelling advantage to providing these tax advantages to housing."
To begin with, the mortgage deduction diverts capital from other industries by subsidizing investment in housing relative to other economic activities. Moreover, while the tax deductions were conceived to help people who otherwise could not afford to buy a home, the principal effect today is to encourage upper-income taxpayers to buy ever bigger and more expensive houses.
For all the talk of bolstering home ownership, said Edward L. Glaeser, an economics professor at Harvard, the mortgage tax deduction has done very little to help people into homes. He said the subsidy to taxpayers implicit in the deduction had varied widely over the last 40 years, going up and down with the fluctuation of inflation and interest rates. Yet home ownership over the period has drifted in a band of 63 to 69 percent. And home ownership levels in other affluent countries without such subsidies are generally no lower than in the United States.
Instead, what the subsidy has done is encourage people to build and buy bigger and more expensive houses. "The deduction increases the amount spent on housing," Mr. Glaeser said, "but it has almost no effect on the home ownership rate."
Today, most of the mortgage tax advantages accrue to the rich rather than struggling first-time homeowners. More than 55 percent of the mortgage tax subsidy last year, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, accrued to just 12 percent of taxpayers with incomes above $100,000.
Low-income homeowners often do not claim the deduction, opting instead to take the $10,000 standard deduction available to families. Turning the deduction into a tax credit would equalize its value and make it available to more people on the lower end of the market.
"At the high end it reduces demand and will probably push prices down," Mr. Slemrod said. "For low-end housing, it could go the other way around."
NYT on Judge Alito's rulings
November 3, 2005 NY Times
Cases
Alito's Dissents Show Deference to Lower Courts
By ADAM LIPTAK and JONATHAN D. GLATER
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissents slightly more often than the typical appeals court judge, and his dissenting opinions are almost always more conservative than the majority's.
In the several hundred cases he heard over 15 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Alito dissented more than 60 times, often taking issue with decisions that sided with criminal defendants, prisoners and immigrants.
He frequently voted in favor of the government and corporations in these dissents. He generally deferred to what he called the good faith judgments of other participants in the justice system, including police officers, prosecutors, prison wardens, trial judges and juries. He appeared particularly reluctant to order new trials over what he called harmless errors in the presentation of evidence or in jury instructions.
Judge Alito was appointed by the first President Bush. Academic studies of dissenting opinions generally predict that judges appointed by Republican presidents will dissent more often in cases in which both of the other judges on three-judge panels were appointed by Democratic presidents.
But Judge Alito does not follow that pattern: he dissented in 4 cases in which both of the other judges were appointed by Democrats and in 26 in which they were both appointed by Republicans.
His court, which hears cases from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands, is by some measures the second-most liberal in the country, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.
Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, reviewed 41 of Judge Alito's dissents and said he had been able to code about half of them in ideological terms.
"Somewhere between 100 percent and 85 percent are to the right of the majority, depending how you count," Professor Sunstein wrote in an e-mail message.
The Supreme Court rejected the position set out by Judge Alito in a dissent in an abortion case. But in at least three other cases, it adopted the position advanced in his dissent.
Frank B. Cross, a law professor at the University of Texas who has compiled a database tracking how the Supreme Court reviews appellate decisions, said: "This is the highest of anyone in the database. It shows that when his court took an important and controversial case and got it wrong, from the perspective of the Supreme Court, he identified that and dissented. Indeed, his dissent may have been part of what got the Supreme Court's attention."
One theme that runs through Judge Alito's dissents is deference to the views of the people and the agencies closest to the facts and thus, in his view, best situated to make decisions.
He voted to dismiss a case, already rejected by a lower court, brought by Inez Baker and three of her children, who said they had been mistreated by the police when they happened to visit an apartment during a drug raid.
"There was," Judge Alito wrote, "a good likelihood that visitors to the apartment were drug buyers. While it was certainly possible that there would also be some innocent visitors to the apartment (such as the Bakers), I think that there was probable cause to search anyone found on the premises."
Judge Alito almost always showed reluctance to interfere with a case after a jury had decided it. In a 1991 appeal in a murder case from the Virgin Islands in which the defendant had claimed self-defense, the trial judge failed to tell the jury that the prosecution had to prove that the killing was not in self- defense. The majority reversed on that ground.
Judge Alito acknowledged that it was possible that the instructions given confused the jury. But, he wrote, "the mere possibility of prejudice to the defendant is not enough to show plain error."
In a 1997 case, the majority ordered a new trial for a man whose lawyer had advised him to plead guilty to possession of a firearm. Judge Alito disagreed, writing that the lawyer's advice "is properly viewed under our precedents as a tactical decision that, while perhaps debatable, remains safely within the expansive realm of constitutional reasonableness."
When a 1995 panel majority showed special consideration to a Pakistani man seeking to avoid deportation because he was caring for his sick brother, Judge Alito objected. He said that the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, or B.I.A., deserved respect and that the board had ruled that humanitarian considerations were outweighed by the man's conviction 10 years earlier for conspiring to import a pound of heroin.
"The majority has usurped the B.I.A.'s place and weighed the relevant factors for itself - apparently in accordance with its own views of drug and immigration policy," Judge Alito wrote. "I cannot endorse this approach."
Federal courts hear relatively few personal injury cases, but Judge Alito dissented in four of them. In two, he voted against the injured plaintiff.
For example, after a truck driver lost a products liability trial against the manufacturer of his vehicle, the appeals court majority ordered a new trial, in part on the ground that the trial judge had improperly allowed the jury to hear that the driver was not wearing a seat belt. Judge Alito agreed that was a mistake but said the error was harmless.
But in other injury cases, Judge Alito would have let verdicts stand. In one, a group of doctors sought to have a jury's verdict against them overturned in a lawsuit by the parents of a girl who died as a result of a liver disease.
The doctors argued, Judge Alito wrote, "that they should escape all or part of the liability for their malpractice because the young woman and her parents were foolish to have followed their bad advice. The majority holds that the trial judge should have charged the jury on this defense. In my view, however, there is no evidence that the girl and her parents were negligent. Their only mistake was to trust the defendants' advice, which, although negligent, was not so implausible on its face that lay people should have known better than to have followed it."
Some judges, particularly when they are not writing for the majority, adopt a more freewheeling style in cases with quirky facts. Judge Alito, however, keeps a poker face.
In a false advertising case concerning whether Extra Strength Maalox Plus was right in saying that it is the "strongest antacid" - a claim begging for a little judicial levity, perhaps - Judge Alito sided, in studied, dry terms, with Mylanta II.
The characterization, Judge Alito wrote, "is not literally false with respect to liquid E.S.M.P. because liquid E.S.M.P. is superior to liquid Mylanta II at neutralizing acid in the laboratory. But as the district court found, E.S.M.P. is not 'strongest' at providing relief for humans."
The Alito dissents that have attracted the most attention are his 1991 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, voting to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before having abortions, and his 1996 opinion in United States v. Rybar, voting to strike down a federal law regulating machine guns on commerce clause grounds.
The Rybar case did not reach the Supreme Court, but Casey did. In 1992, the court rejected Judge Alito's views. But that case was the exception; in three other cases in which Judge Alito dissented, the court adopted his views.
His majority decisions have attracted less attention, Professor Cross said. "That's a sign that he's writing modest opinions," he said. "The Supreme Court is likely to take on an opinion that is broad."
V.W.A.P. influences broker fees
NOT ALL CLIENTS GET A FAIR PRICE
By JOHN CRUDELE
THE Securities and Ex change Commission could soon face this regulatory brain teaser: If brokerage firms treat one client preferentially, does that mean all other clients are being cheated?
This isn't just theoretical — no, the securities cops don't have time for mere mental exercises. This has to do with the Fidelity Investments situation now being investigated by the SEC in Boston.
At the heart of the latest twist is this big issue: Does it violate the securities industry's "best execution" rule if one customer has so much clout that it gets "better-than-best execution."
That rule says Wall Street firms have to do their darnedest to get customers the best price on trades. It implies that they can't do worse than their best in making trades. And, one securities expert says, it implicitly means that all customers must be treated equally.
But securities experts say it doesn't seem to address whether brokerage firms are allowed to afford certain clients superior execution.
Sources have recently told the SEC that some of Fidelity's traders were so pushy — probably because it affected their compensation — that they forced brokerage firms to take huge losses just so Fidelity could either get a competitive or superior price on trades.
Although the SEC refuses to comment, one source told investigators (and me) that the key to the trading is something called the Volume Weighted Average Price, or VWAP.
This is a common term used in the securities industry but known to few outside the business.
VWAP is used to gauge the effectiveness of a company's traders.
Fidelity's traders, for instance, could have their compensation packages and bonuses tied to how well they fared against other traders, as measured by their VWAP performance.
One source told the SEC this week that traders at his firm would regularly put into an error account the difference between the price at which they actually conducted a trade for Fidelity and the VWAP — or average — price.
This source also told the SEC that he overheard higher-ups at his firm discuss whether this was an allowable practice, but they continued to give Fidelity the VWAP price because the mutual fund's "volume of business was worth it."
The losses that brokerage firms would incur to give Fidelity the VWAP price were more than made up, this source says, by the additional commission business that Fidelity would throw its way.
At least four Wall Street firms are mentioned as helping Fidelity meet VWAP.
But it's unclear whether this was an industry-wide phenomenon and whether other big customers got the same treatment.
It isn't likely that Fidelity knew what some of those renegade traders were doing.
And someone high up at one of the brokerage firms named by sources to the SEC said that if such a practice was going on, his firm was unaware of it.
I said in a column last week that the SEC is finding discrepancies in brokerage firms' error accounts, which are only supposed to be used when there is a mistaken trade.
I also previously said that Fidelity was known for throwing its weight around — for instance, if it didn't like how it made out in a trade, it would complain of poor execution and make the brokerage firm that handled the trade assume responsibility for the loss.
Others have written about how brokerage firms gave gifts and picked up expenses for some Fidelity traders in order to keep them happy and the business flowing.
Notices about the investigation have gone out to brokerage firms. More recently, sources tell me that traders are being questioned by the SEC.
So how far along is the SEC? One person who blew the whistle to investigators says, "I don't think they (SEC investigators) fully understood what was done and what the implications are." But that was a few days ago. Maybe the investigators do now.
jcrudele@nypost.com
'soft dollars' kickbacks at brokers
Ban 'soft dollars'
SEC's proposed rules don't address inherent conflicts
By Thomas Kostigen, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:03 AM ET Nov. 3, 2005
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is finally attacking a legal form of kickback that has plagued the financial industry for years, allowing money managers to use their customers' trades to pay for computers, software, research reports and other items that in years past included limousine rentals and magazine subscriptions.
The kickback is called a "soft dollar" and it's given as a credit to managers who trade through certain brokerages. These credits can then be used to purchase things. Think of it as a frequent-flyer program where you, the average investor, are picking up the bill while someone else, your money management firm, is getting to use all those "free points."
Two weeks ago the SEC sent out an Interpretative Release revising what it believes are acceptable soft-dollar purchases. People have until Nov. 25 to comment.
Here's one comment: The rules don't go far enough and there should be an outright ban on soft dollars. Because soft dollars pose an inherent conflict of interest.
Here's why: Money managers have an obligation to get the best price per share for customers when they trade stocks. This means they cannot trade through a brokerage house that jacks up commissions or fails to obtain the best "market price" for an order.
The problem is, commission structures are murky and "best execution," or that best-price-per-share mandate, is arguable. The market timing, conditions and size of trade orders all impact what amount to the manager's obligation, as a fiduciary, to get best execution.
So, while a manager may have the opportunity to get the exact same order filled at the exact same price between two rival brokerages, it would behoove him or her to trade through the one offering a better soft dollar deal.
That means no matter how you spin it, a conflict is embedded in the decision-making process.
Sure, soft-dollar defenders can claim that they are required to disclose their commission arrangements, and that banning soft dollars tips the scales in favor of bigger managers who can afford better research. Moreover they can argue, as the SEC itself does, that an outright soft-dollar ban impinges independent, third-party research.
But that's a complicated and, at its base, poor, defense. It would be much easier to create a more-transparent trading environment whereby managers outright pay for "research" with hard cash.
The SEC is proposing that soft-dollar arrangements be limited to "advice", "analyses" and "reports." It further states "physical items, such as computer hardware" will no longer be acceptable soft-dollar purchases. However, "brokerage and research services" that "effect" a trade will still be up for soft-dollar grabs.
This new guidance ignores the overarching raison d'etre of soft dollars -- to curry favor.
After all, the whole point of frequent-flyer or affinity programs is to build brand loyalty. Sometimes people are willing to pay a little more or take a less convenient flight in order to rack up more award points. Fine when it's your money. Money managers can't claim this right. If anything, their customers, that'd be you, should receive the credit benefits. Give it back to your money manager as a holiday gift if you want, but the decision should be yours.
Instead, the SEC is meekly revising the practice of soft-dollar rewards -- after almost 20 years, during which time we've seen the most abusive Wall Street scandals in history.
Some of these scandals have included soft-dollar use. If that's not enough, take the SEC's own 1998 study of hundreds of money managers and their soft-dollar practices: 28% of advisers and 35% of broker-dealers provided and received nonresearch products and services in soft-dollar arrangements including employees' salaries, hotel and rental car costs, personal travel and entertainment, it found.
Now, I wouldn't mind getting some of my trips paid for with my brokerage award points. But I do mind that my money manager has the potential to take a vacation on my trading dollar.
That kind of temptation should not be present when a money manager makes a trading decision. Making a hard rule to ban soft dollars would wipe away the estimated $1 billion a year practice that tantalizes Wall Street, but that insiders know shouldn't really exist.
Copyright © 2005 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.
Etrade adds Global Markets Portal
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Launches Global Markets Web Portal
Wednesday November 2, 8:30 am ET
Provides Retail Customers With Access to Foreign Market
NEW YORK, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corporation (NYSE: ET - News) today announced the launch of a web portal designed to provide customers with access to quotes, research and content from international exchanges. The Global Markets portal marks the first phase in E*TRADE FINANCIAL's plans to enable U.S. Retail customers to trade on 42 international exchanges while holding multiple currencies in a single E*TRADE account. The portal will educate active traders and serious investors on the diversified investment opportunities available in foreign markets. It can be accessed by E*TRADE FINANCIAL customers at https://us.etrade.com/e/t/gmc/globaloverview .
"Retail investors are seeking diversification, which is one of the primary drivers for foreign markets trading," said R. Jarrett Lilien, President and Chief Operating Officer, E*TRADE FINANCIAL. "As U.S. investors become increasingly sophisticated, there is a tremendous opportunity to provide them with a platform to invest in foreign markets. With trading desks that provide access to 42 international markets, as well as nine international Retail businesses and affiliates, E*TRADE is uniquely positioned to provide Retail customers with access to foreign markets."
The Global Markets portal features educational tools explaining the advantages of diversifying internationally (https://us.etrade.com/e/t/estation/help?id=1301090000 ) while providing access to the following content:
-- International delayed quotes from the Tokyo, London, Hong Kong,
Germany, Canada and Paris exchanges
-- International news, including headlines and company news
-- International charts, including mini-charts for indices
-- Lists of existing trade-able products, including relevant data points:
-- Most Actives
-- 43 International ETFs
-- 700+ International Open End Funds
-- ADRs/Ordinaries
-- Major world indices
-- Foreign currency exchange rates table
Dependant upon a series of factors, including feedback from target customers, future site iterations could include ForEx trading and the ability to hold multiple currencies in one E*TRADE account.
SGI to go BB from NYSE .48 -.18
5:31pm 11/01/05
Silicon Graphics to cease NYSE trading as of Nov. 7 (SGI) By Katherine Hunt
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) said after the closing bell on Tuesday that its common shares, traded under the ticker symbol "SGI", will no longer be listed on the New York Stock Exchange as of Nov. 7. The company said it expects to be traded as a bulletin board stock.
Forbes.com on Alito nomination
Law And Order Guy
Daniel Fisher, 10.31.05, 2:40 PM ET
Business leaders should hail President George W. Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court--if they like to honor their contracts and pay their bills on time.
In his 15 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Alito repeatedly has upheld the rights of companies to enforce the terms of their contracts, including clauses requiring binding arbitration and specifying where the parties can sue. He's also favored corporate defendants when there is a question about how to apply federal regulations and has been tough on plaintiffs accusing companies of committing securities fraud.
"All and all, business wins," if Alito is confirmed, said Ted Frank, resident fellow at the Washington D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute and director of the AEI Liability Project. "Alito is a solid conservative who understands the importance of the law of contracts, of the free market system."
The stock market may have signaled its agreement on Monday; the Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 49 points at midday.
Liberal groups, like People for the American Way, immediately assailed Bush's pick, saying Alito threatened employment rights and Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
"It is sad that the president felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America," said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Alito, a native of Trenton, N.J., who attended Princeton and Yale Law School, served as a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey and in the Justice Department, before he was tapped by former President George H. W. Bush for the Third Circuit in 1990.
Andrew Frey of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw in New York, who worked with Alito in the office of the Solicitor General in Washington D.C. in the early 1980s, said he's "a smart guy, a quiet guy," who betrayed no sense of his political beliefs. Frey has argued more than 60 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including BMW v. Gore, in which the justices overturned an Alabama court's award of $2 million in damages to a doctor who was angered by an undisclosed $300 paint repair on his new car.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, considered the two most conservative members of the court, dissented in that decision and have shown little willingness to protect businesses from punitive damages.
"The business community, in my opinion, should not be in favor of movement conservatives," Frey said. "I don't know, but I don't think he's probably in the same camp as Scalia and Thomas."
Larry Ribstein, a professor of business law at the University of Illinois, posted a list of Alito's business-related decisions on his blog this weekend when an online futures market began indicating Alito might be a front-runner for O'Connor's seat. Among his decisions are rulings upholding an insurance company's waiver of a particular defense, sending litigation involving Cigna (nyse: CI - news - people ) back to England and one denying an award to a whistleblower who merely disclosed public information about SmithKline Beecham, now part of GlaxoSmithKline (nyse: GSK - news - people ).
"It's not just enforcing contracts, although he does have a definite tendency in that direction," said Ribstein. "Some of the clauses he's chosen to enforce are particularly valuable for business."
Alito also joined the dissent in a controversial antitrust decision against 3M. The maker of Scotch-brand tape was sued by a competitor who accused 3M (nyse: MMM - news - people ) of using price rebates to break into the market for private-label tape. The majority of the Third Circuit judges upheld the $68 million verdict, but Alito signed off on a dissent noting the plaintiff never showed that 3M had priced below cost or how 3M's rebates might have harmed consumers.
The majority's decision led to copycat litigation, said Frank of AEP, but "worse, it's created uncertainty for business."
"If you give volume discounts, the losing competitor can sue you for anticompetitive behavior," Frank said.
If Alito ascends to O'Connor's seat, businesses might get more of their cases before the justices. The Supreme Court has been hearing about 80 cases per year--well below its historical average, Frank said. A more energetic Roberts court might hear more cases overall--and more business cases in particular. Securities, antitrust and employment suits all provide great opportunities for the court to clarify rules of conduct and reduce uncertainty, he said--if the justices avoid the temptation to bend the rules when they might seem unfair.
"If the rule is a 23-part balancing test, there's just going to be more litigation over all of these different aspects of the case," Frank said.
Capt: a tip off caught Estonians!?
Estonian bank, 2 men charged
By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Federal regulators called timeout Tuesday on an Estonian investment bank and two twentysomething traders, accusing them of hacking into the computer system of a business news service and peeking at the headlines of company press releases before they were sent out to the public.
Armed with that information, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges the men bought or sold shares in those companies depending on the nature of the announcements. All told, the two men and the Estonian investment bank pocketed at least $7.8 million in illegal profit since the beginning of this year, the SEC charges.
A look at one of the trades at issue
Just one of the trades that investment bank Lohmus Haavel & Viisemann and two of its employees allegedly made based on illegally obtained information.
July 20, 3:29:36 p.m.-3:58:55 p.m. ET Lohmus buys 1,500 eBay call options for $173 each
July 20, 4:15 p.m. EBay releases better-than-expected second-quarter earnings
July 21 Lohmus sells 1,500 eBay call options for $518 each
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission complaint
In an emergency action Tuesday, a federal judge here issued a temporary restraining order against Estonian investment bank Lohmus Haavel & Viisemann and two employees: Oliver Peek, 24; and Kristjan Lepik, 28. Both men reside in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. Neither they nor the bank could be reached for comment Tuesday.
According to the SEC's complaint, in June of 2004 Lohmus signed up to be a client of Business Wire, a major provider of corporate news. Once they had access to the Business Wire client website, the Estonians allegedly unleashed "spider" software that snooped around, looking for opportunities to access sensitive corporate information.
Business Wire's Lorry Lokey says the Estonians never cracked the secure area where press releases are stored prior to dissemination. But the intruders did gain access to one window on the site that enabled them to see a cryptic list of corporate announcements. Over several months, after seeing the list of announcements and tracking what releases were then issued, the Estonians must have figured out what the releases were, Lokey says.
This July, after deciphering the nature of earnings announcements that were to be issued by eBay and Yahoo, the SEC alleges, the Estonians and their employer traded heavily in those stocks before and after the announcements.
Based on a tip, investigators in the SEC's Philadelphia office first learned of the group's unusual trading after the June 23, 2005, announcement of a merger between drug companies Salix and InKine.
On the day of the merger announcement, the trading volume in InKine was about 650,000 shares. The previous six months daily trading had averaged about 250,000. About 46% of the volume came from the Estonians and their investment bank. The SEC says the group realized a $300,000 profit by selling their shares immediately after the merger was announced.
It's one thing for the SEC to stop an alleged fraud that took place overseas. It's another to get the money back from foreign banks.
Richard Sauer, a former SEC attorney now at Vinson & Elkins, says the recovery of ill-gotten gains from overseas depends on what treaties exist between the U.S. and Estonia. "If the SEC can properly serve the defendants, wherever they may be, it can get a judgment in a U.S. court," he says. "The big question is, how do you enforce it?"
--------
SEC SMACKS HACKERS
By RODDY BOYD NY Post
The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued an Estonian investment bank whose traders scammed almost $8 million by hacking into market-moving press releases before they became public.
According to the SEC, two traders at the Tallinn, Estonia-based Lohmus Haavel & Viisemann used a program that accessed information from press releases at Business Wire's Web site prior to their distribution. The SEC charged the bank with securities fraud.
The traders were able to earn $7.8 million in profits with this "material non-public information" on 200 U.S. firms.
A computer "Spider," to hunt keywords in the pending press releases, tipped off the two principal architects of the scam, Oliver Peek and Kristjan Lepik.
970 Phone # lists a Pizza Joint!?
Maybe the pizza place will be replaced by PRRM-RCN station
Reverse Telephone Listings
Cugino's Pizzeria & Italian Restaurtant
41 8
Steamboat Springs, CO 80487
970-879-5805
http://www.anywho.com/qry/wp_rl
Cugino's Pizzeria & Italian
41 8th St, Steamboat Spgs, CO (0.12 miles away)
970-879-5805
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=search&searchtype=search&country=US&addtoh...
Google Maps led to surfwax.com story link
There is an address there but tough to find any further info.
It's a guess what's up. Hopefully no one is way too
deep into this one. Acts like DCUT did. Noticed DCUT.pk ended up at some mailbox outlet in FL.
Scroll down into the bowels of SS CO. South Park??
Appears to be a winter scene overall with lot of Yuppie
aspirations to be next Boulder?
http://news.surfwax.com/uscities/files/Steamboat_Springs_Colorado.html
Practice Report August 4 Aug 6, 2005
They include Joel Adams, DB, 5-11, 185, Steamboat Springs (former scholarship skier); Matt Garratt, FB, 5-11, 209, Danville, Calif. Tom Grubin, C, 6-0, 290, Woodlands, Texas; , WR, 6-0, 205, La Mirada, Calif; Colter Reisbeck, OL, 6-3, 275, Arvada, Colo. (BuffCountry.com)
Frisco Man Arrested After High-Speed Pursuit Jul 26, 2005
Steamboat Springs police finally stopped Patterson on a county road about an hour after the pursuit first began. Six agencies were involved in the chase. (CBS 4, CO)
Aurora volleyball players take national title Jul 23, 2005
Indeed it would be hard for any team to match the size of Front Range with 6-foot-4 Licht on the outside and the 6-3 Mills who will join Grandview in the fall after transferring from Steamboat Springs at middle blocker. Licht suffered a sprained knee and slight MCL tear after one of the teams qualifiers. (Aurora Sentinel, CO)
Prime Rate Investors, Inc. Announces Location of Steamboat, Colorado TV Station Jul 23, 2005
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. --(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 22, 2005--Prime Rate Investors, Inc. (OTC.PK: PRRM) announced it has leased office and studio space located at 825 Oak Street in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where the company is establishing an RSN affiliate broadcast TV station. (Yahoo! Wire -- Entertainment News)
Dad sought in girl's stabbing Jul 23, 2005
Tuggle reported that he worked as a painter for a Steamboat Springs contractor when he registered as a sex offender in the county. Chris Tuggle, 33, said his brother had been living with him and his family in Hayden, outside of Steamboat Springs, for the past year. (Rocky Mountain News)
ASA at Camtronics Medical Systems
SpeechSwitch Deploying Speech Enabled Auto Attendant at Camtronics Medical Systems
via COMTEX
November 1, 2005 6:11 PM
MATAWAN, N.J., (BUSINESS WIRE) --
SpeechSwitch, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: SSWC), a leader in speech-recognition technology announced today that Camtronics Medical Systems has installed a Speech Enabled Auto Attendant. SpeechSwitch, Inc. ("SpeechSwitch") previously was a wholly owned subsidiary of iVoice, Inc. (OTCBB: IVOC) prior to the spin-off from iVoice that was completed in August 2005 as a special stock dividend distribution to iVoice shareholders.
Camtronics, Inc. implemented a complete solution that includes the iVoice Speech-Enabled Auto Attendant installed in conjunction with the Avaya, Definity phone system. By installing the iVoice Speech-Enabled Auto Attendant, their customers can call in and speak the name of the person or department they are looking for and be transferred immediately. Introducing speech technology has led to a significant increase in business efficiency, and it has enhanced their ability to deliver top service to its customers.
SpeechSwitch partner, Source, Inc, sold the Auto Attendant. SpeechSwitch's Speech-Enabled Auto Attendant system places people at ease and allows customers to use their most natural form of communication, their own voice, to navigate to the person they want to speak with. Customers can avoid cumbersome touch-tone menus and spell-by-name directories to reach individuals.
The iVoice Speech Enabled Auto Attendant is a complete cost-effective solution that works with existing phone systems and voice mail packages. Every department and employee is accessible from one local or long-distance phone number. The SEAA capabilities ensure that all calls reach their intended destinations at all times.
About Camtronics:
Since 1986, Camtronics Medical Systems has been a leader in Cardiovascular Information Systems. Our VERICIS(R) for cardiac Cath creates a complete digital record of images and reports for the Cath lab patient. Integrating with your Hospital Since 1986, Camtronics Medical Systems has been a leader in Cardiovascular Information System (HIS), VERICIS helps you optimize workflow, improve productivity, overcome staffing shortages, increase referrals, and control costs. Consisting of applications for Cardiac Cath Echocardiography, Nuclear Cardiography, and Vascular Ultrasound VERICIS is a comprehensive cardiology solution for any department. This scalable and expandable solution allows capacity and functionality to be added as required with new data sources and users - both on and off site - integrated seamlessly into the network architecture.
Camtronics Medical Systems prides itself in its customer delight. This is reflected in its best in class customer support as well as its project management and implementation teams. For additional information, please call 1-800-634-5151, or visit www.camtronics.com
About SpeechSwitch, Inc:
SpeechSwitch, Inc (OTCBB: SSWC) www.speechswitch.com previously was a wholly owned subsidiary of iVoice, Inc. (OTCBB: IVOC) prior to the spin-off from iVoice that was completed in August 2005 as a special stock dividend distribution to iVoice shareholders. SpeechSwitch, Inc. was incorporated in New Jersey on November 10, 2004 as a wholly owned subsidiary of iVoice, Inc. It is engaged in the design, manufacture, and marketing of specialized telecommunication equipment. Our products use standard open-architecture PC platforms and Microsoft Windows 2000 operating systems, thereby facilitating the rapid adoption of new PC-based technologies while reducing overall product costs. We concentrate our product development efforts on software rather than hardware because we believe that the most efficient way to create product value is to emphasize software solutions that meet customers' needs. We have recently adapted our applications to integrate with different manufacturer telephone switches through the use of Telephony Application Program Interface or "TAPI". The use of TAPI, allows SpeechSwitch to integrate our applications into different telephone manufacturers Private Branch Exchange systems or "PBX's", eliminating the need for costly additional external hardware. We have traditionally used standard PC-related hardware components in our products, in part, to limit our need to manufacture components. Our manufacturing operations consist only of the installation of our proprietary software and, if required, a voiceboard, into a fully assembled PC system which we obtain from several different vendors. The Company obtains system components such as PCs, circuit boards, application cards, faxboards, and voiceboards from various suppliers. Our flagship product is our Speech-enabled Auto Attendant product. The Auto Attendant engages callers in a natural language dialog and is ready to transfer a caller to an extension for the party the caller is trying to reach at any time. Callers can interrupt the Auto Attendant at any time by barging in on the prompts and simply saying the name of the person or department they wish to speak to.
This news release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, regarding among other things our plans, strategies and prospects -- both business and financial. Although we believe that our plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or realize these plans, intentions or expectations. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Many of the forward-looking statements contained in this news release may be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "should," "planned," "will," "may," "intend," "estimated" and "potential," among others. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make in this news release include market conditions and those set forth in reports or documents that we file from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to SpeechSwitch, Inc. or a person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary language.
SOURCE: SpeechSwitch, Inc.
SpeechSwitch, Inc. Dolores Serafin, 732-441-7700 doloress@ivoice.com or Bruce Knef, 732-441-7700 "Just Say My Name" Fax: 732-441-9895
Copyright Business Wire 2005
PRRM is Poo VRA is bird flu eom
Iran covers "alluring mannequins"
City tackles titillating mannequins
Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:16 PM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Police in northeastern Iran are launching a new morality drive by confiscating alluring mannequins from boutiques and clothes stalls in the bazaar, authorities in the city of Bojnourd said Monday.
A spokesman for the city's judiciary, who asked not be named, explained the drive would tackle problems of "public chastity." He said 65 mannequins have been impounded so far.
He explained the crack-down on tailors' dummies was part of a larger offensive against anti-social behavior such as vandalism and biker gangs.
Bojnourd owes its traditional religious climate to the nearby shrine city of Mashhad, a focal point of pilgrimage for the world's Shi'ite Muslims.
Tricks, NO Treats eom
LOL Off to Trick AND Treat eom
more schools ban Halloween Boo on dat
(Christian Science Monitor) This article was written by Patrik Jonsson .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
School principals from Newton, Mass., to Denver find themselves increasingly haunted at Halloween by this refrain: Get out, ye ghoulies!
Bowing to concerns of a wide range of groups — from Christians who consider Halloween to have pagan or satanic overtones to church-state separatists who object to the holiday's religious roots — some elementary schools are canceling their customary costume parades and Halloween celebrations.
In their place are "Fall-o-ween" events, which take note of harvest and seasonal change but that eliminate all things spooky — or controversial.
"There's been a steady growth of the number of people and the kinds of perspectives objecting to Halloween, and it's become a real issue for schools," says Charles Haynes at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va. "There's a lot of strangeness around this issue."
The downplaying of Halloween at school runs counter to the nationwide trend. The holiday is now a $3.3 billion business, as those who mark the season of goose bumps set the mood with decorations, costumes, candy, and party goods.
Though Halloween entered the schools "through a secular door," as Haynes puts it, its sometimes-dark imagery — and the gory movies and masks that go along with it — mean that some Christian and Muslim families keep their kids at home that day. Increasingly, those families, which can make up a full 30 percent of a school's student body, are calling in their objections — and schools are listening.
The challenge to Halloween in schools "really gets to the heart of minority rights and minority feelings in a pluralistic culture," says Jo Paoletti, an American Studies professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Halloween's roots may date back 2,000 years, to Celtic traditions, though the autumn observance was appropriated in the 600s by the Roman Catholic Church as All Saints Day. Halloween came to America with the Irish, whose traditional harvest rituals involved dressing up and chasing restless "spirits" away as winter's dark nights crawled into villages.
As schools adjust their Halloween observances, they are drawing commendation as well as criticism. While some say it's about time, others say banning wizards and Princess Fiona from lunchrooms strips kids of a community-sanctioned way to tap into the creative, even spiritual, aspect of the unseen.
In Centennial, Colo., Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School, intoning Lemony Snicket's Count Olaf, ordered: "No costumes. No parade. No Halloween." Costumes that do make it to school will be "neutralized." In Hammond, Ind., the district will be costume-free Monday. In Newton, Mass., principal David Castelline, who last year dressed up as Red Sox hitter Johnny Damon, acceded to demands from religious parents to banish Halloween.
Peggy Beasley-Rodgers, principal of Raleigh's Washington Elementary School ("Home of the Wizards"), says pumpkins get decorated and teachers dress up, but costumes are allowed only as part of a "curriculum-driven" literary parade. Teachers avoid using the word Halloween, says Beasley-Rodgers, who Friday wore a shirt with the word "boo!" "Children think Halloween is the best holiday of the year," she says, "but one of the concessions that we make is we don't really do anything specifically for Halloween."
At Roosevelt Elementary in Binghamton, N.Y., principal Dave Chilson caught flak for canceling the Halloween parade, the only school in the district to do so. It was more a matter of scheduling than parental resistance, he says. The school will have a Fall-o-ween festival.
"[The costume parade] was not fun for everyone," says Chilson. "We forget sometimes there are kids who feel pressure by dressing up, and that it's not the best holiday for every kid in the world. You can be a hobo only so many times."
In Denver, Palmer Elementary School principal Mike Crawford says dress-up day for Halloween was simply taking too much time from school work. The compromise? The school sponsors a Halloween festival on Friday night. "We get a very full house, but those who want to opt out can," he says.
Some see danger — even "cowardice" — in schools' willingness to back down over Halloween. Buckling to wishes of a minority, says Eric Dietrich, a Binghamton University philosophy professor, is not necessarily what should happen in a democracy. "Halloween is a flare-up of huge social problems we're facing," he says. "If you show me a United States with no holiday where you can be creatively weird, I will show you a United States with no hope."
Though some conservative commentators said Castelline's decision in Newton to cancel Halloween is another example of political correctness gone wrong, some observers say such drastic action might prompt people to reason together.
"The one advantage of throwing up your hands and [canceling Halloween] is like Solomon offering to divide the baby: Maybe for the next holiday, a group of parents and teachers will sit down and say, 'We do need to have community celebrations, we all need to be a little silly ... but how can we do it without hurting anybody?'" says Paoletti.
Dan going as "The Ghost" eom
BLYCE bad wiring on Bentley
Are wheels coming off too?
News for 'BLYCE' - (Bentley Commerce Corp. Announces Board and Officer Changes)
SARASOTA, FL, Oct 28, 2005 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Bruce Kamm has resigned from the Bentley Commerce Board of Directors (OTC BB: BLYCE) www.bentleycommerce.com, over disagreements with management. Anna Taylor, who was serving as Interim CEO and Interim CFO, has resigned from the Board and as an Officer, and is continuing in her prior role as a consultant and Director of
Operations. Robert Schumacher, continues as Bentley Commerce President and Board Member.
"We continue to focus on repositioning the Company and taking appropriate actions to protect the Company and the interests of our shareholders," said Mr. Schumacher. "Please note, that because of power failures caused by Hurricane Wilma throughout Southern Florida, we have been unable to communicate
effectively with our corporate counsel who assists us with all filings on all legal matters."
About Bentley Commerce Corporation:
Bentley Commerce Corporation is an ecommerce business-to-business services provider that has established a collaborative online barter marketplace. The Company offers alternative payment methods including trade, as well as management services and systems to small and mid-size companies.
RVMN FULLY MOONS baggers again 20B A/S
RVMN - (PRE 14C) Increase auth to 20,000,000,000 shares. 10/25/05
http://www.pinksheets.com/quote/print_filings.jsp?url=%2Fredirect.asp%3Ffilename%3D0001108890%252D05....
Unreal...
RVMN S8 12,000,000 9/16/2005
RVMN - (SB-2) 3,697,766,666 shares 9/09/05
RVMN - (S-8) 12,500,000 shares 8/11/2005
RVMN - (PRE 14C) Increase auth. to 5,000,000,000 shares 8/31/05
RVMN moons itself, delays Meeting
News for 'RVMN' - (Raven Moon Postpones November 18th. Annual Meeting)
ORLANDO, FL, Oct 27, 2005 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Raven Moon Entertainment,
Inc. (OTC BB: RVMN) announced today that the annual meeting of shareholders
originally scheduled for November 18, 2005, has been postponed.
The postponement results from a combination of scheduling and travel
considerations for the company's executive team and legal counsel, as well as
extensive travel in November for Gina D's Reading Across America Program(TM)
live appearances. The company expects to reschedule the annual meeting in the
spring of 2006.
About Raven Moon Entertainment, Inc.
Raven Moon Entertainment, Inc. is involved with the production of family
entertainment programs for television, VHS tapes, DVDs, music CDs and related
toys. Raven Moon has produced 24 episodes of GINA D'S KIDS CLUB®, which
started airing in September 2004 and is currently carried on more than 227
television stations nationwide for its second season. For more information about
Raven Moon Entertainment and GINA D'S KIDS CLUB®, visit www.ravenmoon.net or
www.ginadskidsclub.com.
RVMN Moon me once Moon me twice
News for 'RVMN' - (Raven Moon Postpones November 18th. Annual Meeting)
ORLANDO, FL, Oct 27, 2005 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Raven Moon Entertainment,
Inc. (OTC BB: RVMN) announced today that the annual meeting of shareholders
originally scheduled for November 18, 2005, has been postponed.
The postponement results from a combination of scheduling and travel
considerations for the company's executive team and legal counsel, as well as
extensive travel in November for Gina D's Reading Across America Program(TM)
live appearances. The company expects to reschedule the annual meeting in the
spring of 2006.
About Raven Moon Entertainment, Inc.
Raven Moon Entertainment, Inc. is involved with the production of family
entertainment programs for television, VHS tapes, DVDs, music CDs and related
toys. Raven Moon has produced 24 episodes of GINA D'S KIDS CLUB®, which
started airing in September 2004 and is currently carried on more than 227
television stations nationwide for its second season. For more information about
Raven Moon Entertainment and GINA D'S KIDS CLUB®, visit www.ravenmoon.net or
www.ginadskidsclub.com.
Nat gas build Up but go MOGI eom