| X marks this iffy new gizmo
High-energy salespeople are hawking a device called Xpower at pumped-up meetings in Stockton banquet rooms, claiming it slashes home power bills. "Area directors" for Forum Technologies also are recruiting people into Forum's sales force, a multilevel marketing organization, or MLM, that the company's CEO says is not a pyramid scheme. The MLM half of the sales pitch, in other words, is not about buying an energy-saving gizmo but getting rich through multilevel marketing of Xpower and other Forum products. Concerned readers contacted me, saying scores of people eager for easy money are being recruited. I could not personally attend meetings, being held every few days at area restaurants, fearing that I'd be recognized. Instead, a trusted associate attended. My associate attended Sunday night's meeting at the West March Lane Carrows Family Restaurant.
Cruise bans travel agent card mills
The major current controversy in the travel trade press (the newspapers and newsletters published for travel professionals) is about the alleged "card mills" that charge $400 and up for an ID identifying the bearer as a travel agent. Some of these card-issuing companies also engage in what is called "MLM" -- multilevel marketing -- which pays a commission (and promises the sky) to a card purchaser who persuades other people to purchase an ID from them. The traditional travel agents are obviously frantic about such card mills, and have implored the major travel suppliers to publicly condemn them. They recently got their wish. The giant Royal Caribbean Cruises named several specific companies whose cards they would no longer honor for travel-agent discounts, and whose bookings they would not even accept.
Don't forget the middle classes
Struggling inner-city Catholic elementary schools may have new hope with the recent buzz about the business community's efforts to save them. But for many working-class and middle-class neighborhoods, each news story is just another bitter reminder of their shunned and failed attempts to save their neighborhood schools. It's wonderful that developer Michael O'Neill and board members of the Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS) are seeking new ways to relieve poorer parishes of the financial burden of educating their children. They have set a five-year, $50 million goal to prevent Catholic elementary schools in poor neighborhoods from closing. Financial aid from scholarships has typically not been strong enough to sustain struggling schools that must also rely on parish support and subsidies from the Philadelphia Archdiocese to survive.
Cooper testimony focuses on tax deductions
A federal agent working undercover told a Renaissance tax specialist she had 4-year-old twins in hopes he would suggest she should put the youngsters on a payroll at home in order to cut her taxes. But Thomas W. Steelman Sr. didn't suggest she put the two on the payroll of a home-based business, said Special Agent Susan Prine, of the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation division. Jurors repeatedly heard Michael Craig Cooper and other company officials on audiotapes and videotapes suggest the hire-your-children ploy as one of many ways to cut their taxes. .
JAFRA's New Cutting-Edge Skin Care Line with 'INTELLISHIELD(R ...
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Imagine the possibilities of literally having a second skin. Women could walk out of the house confident that their second skin would shield them from the effects of environmental assaults such as smoke or pollution. That second skin could also nourish the skin underneath, promoting a radiant youthful complexion. Jafra Cosmetics International, Inc. (JAFRA), one of the top 100 beauty companies worldwide, has made such a revolutionary notion a reality. In keeping with the spirit of National Healthy Aging Month(R), JAFRA has unveiled JAFRA DYNAMICS, an innovative skin care line that combines essences of nature -- botanicals, vitamins and exclusive Ayurvedic herbal blends -- with day time moisturizers that feature INTELLISHIELD(R), a technological breakthrough that behaves as a second skin, minimizing the damage caused by harmful environmental aggressors before they reach the skin.
FuelCell Lands State Loan
FuelCell Energy won final approval Wednesday for a $4 million state loan that will be used to expand its manufacturing operations and add 100 jobs in Torrington over the next three years.
The Danbury-based company wants to capitalize on strong global interest in alternative energy to increase production and become profitable.
The loan from the Connecticut Development Authority and state Department of Economic and Community Development is part of a $10 million plan by FuelCell to add equipment and extend its lease in Torrington
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A tough nut: Hard work rewarded in black walnuts
But we're getting ahead of the story. For his first foray, the former Bulldogs player did what countless other black walnut lovers have done: He threw the nuts on the driveway, got out the truck and started running over them. The hulls gradually slipped off. He still had to get through the thick shells. A broken pair of pliers and an $80 vise later, Fredenburg, his wife, Jennifer, and their 6-year-old son, Joseph Scherer, are slowly extracting the nut meat and selling it for $10 a cup on Craigslist.org. "It should be $100 a cup, as much work as it involves," Fredenburg says. "But it's fun." Black walnuts, beloved by an often rural fan base for their emphatic, slightly bitter flavor, make their way into stores in much the same way. An informal network harvests nuts from wild trees in the fall and takes them to more than 250 hulling stations scattered across the main growing region of 15 states in the Appalachians and the Midwest.
Obama stretches Iowa lead in new poll
I've been working very, very hard to connect with Iowa voters with a positive message of what we need to be doing in this country," he explained, vowing to "focus on what I would do as president and not focus on the problems of the other candidates. Romney's camp said the incident raised questions about Huckabee's sincerity. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe meanwhile said the Illinois senator was ideally placed to rocket from Iowa into New Hampshire's primary on January 8 and a clutch of follow-on state contests on February 5. "We don't think we could be better positioned to win the Democratic nomination," Plouffe told reporters. Campaign teams meanwhile cranked up huge voter turnout drives, using email, networking sites like Facebook, telephone calls and old fashioned door knocking to cajole voters, which analysts say will be crucial to Thursday result.
UK Times:Sibel Edmonds Speaks on BCCI and Proliferation
I've been waiting for years to hear this story... I was stunned that a "hip conservative" WOMR morning-comedy radio host/Cape Cod Times reporter pal was considering supporting Dubya in '04... called him up on-air and pointed out Kerry's work in exposing the BCCI pyramid scheme in '92. My buddy then blindsided me by demanding to know 'where I'd heard this' leaving me no time to get to the computer and Google a footnote... like what? Read out a long URL over the radio? I was amazed to hear that some of you hadn't even realized that the CCT endorsed Dubya. PLEASE pass this around before this too goes down the Memory Hole. This is why I'd prefer Obama over Hillary, because the Clintons are implicated as well in the dope-for-nukes badness(please don't provide distraction with kneejerk Clintonbashing comments- that is NOT the issue here)...
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