A halo that had been above Joe Paternos head on a street mural in State College has been removed...

SbB LIVE FROM LA (Jul 14, 2012 @ 5:18pm ET)

5:15 PM: Sage Stallone, 36-year-old son of "Rocky" star Sylvester Stallone, was reportedly dead for at least three days before his body was found in his L.A. apartment Friday.

5:00 PM: The Chicago Tribune reports Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips has decided to stay with the Wildcats after being offered the same job with Stanford.

4:45 PM: With his hands full of food & drink, a fan at Friday's Blue Jays-Indians game in Toronto catches a foul ball between his legs.

4:30 PM: Kansas Jayhawks coach Charlie Weis says his former Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn "could have been a starting quarterback for me in the NFL." Quinn is currently a backup with the Kansas City Chiefs.

4:15 PM: The Minnesota Vikings brought in Sean Bishop, a former strip club owner & convicted felon, to talk to rookies: "I tell them I am a scumbag club owner who will use and abuse you. I just don't want to see any of them ruin their lives. They need to be protected from themselves."

4:00 PM: Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King says Deron Williams & Joe Johnson are a better backcourt than the Lakers' Kobe Bryant & Steve Nash.

3:45 PM: Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster has now thrown 33 straight scoreless innings after tossing six Saturday against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

3:30 PM: Philadelphia Eagles QB Michael Vick says he's "praying to God" that he can play a full 16-game schedule this season, which he hasn't been able to do since 2006.

3:15 PM: NFL.com's Albert Breer reports that receiver Josh Gordon, picked up by the Cleveland Browns in this year's supplemental draft, had failed three drug tests during his college career at Baylor & Utah.

3:00 PM: A 24-year-old surfer was "bitten in half" & killed by a shark off the coast of Western Australia Friday, the fifth such fatal attack in the last 10 months. The shark also attacked a jet ski rider who had tried to retrieve the surfer.

2:45 PM: Former New York Mets pitcher John Franco is holding an estate sale at his Staten Island mansion this weekend as he & his wife prepare to move to downtown Manhattan.

2:30 PM: New Lakers player Steve Nash is given a can of beer from a group of guys in another vehicle while driving down an L.A. freeway, to which Nash comments: "The fans have been pretty good so far."

2:15 PM: A British mountain guide who had written a book on how to avoid avalanches was among nine people killed in an avalanche near Mont Blanc in the French Alps Thursday.

2:00 PM: UCLA freshman offensive lineman Lacy Westbrook underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm Thursday night after collapsing during a run earlier in the week.

1:45 PM: The Tampa Bay Times reports L.A. County prosecutors will not file DUI charges against Buccaneers cornerback Eric Wright.

Source: http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/sbblive?eid=39599

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Small Business Marketing Tips from an Alaska Village ? Alaskarama

We can learn a lot about small business marketing from the Alaska village of Talkeetna, which is about a two and a half hour drive up from Anchorage. With an area of less than 50 square miles and a population that fluctuates from 700 ? 1,000, depending on the season, they seem to keep town hopping all year long. Some say this is the town that the TV series Northern Exposure was modeled after.? If it wasn?t, it sure could have been.

Not sure if the town?s small businesses discuss their marketing together, but what happens seems to benefit all the businesses in town.

Attracting visitors with creative events is what they do best. The summer is easy.? The railroad brings in tourist from cruise ships that stay in a lodge in town, and another lodge that is about an hour north. Tourists descend from the train and load onto buses that transport them to their lodging. But many stay in town for lunch, or grabbing a plane ride around Mt. McKinley, or floating on the rivers. Like I said, summer is easy. But even then the town comes up with other reasons to keep those visitors in town a little bit longer.? On Friday evenings there is music in the park, and on weekends local artists gather under tents to sell their wares.

While the summer months may be easy, the winter months, which are October through April, are a bit more of a challenge.? Marketing gets a bit more creative and non-traditional.

When you think of winter in Alaska, you might think of snow and the Aurora. But this village thinks on another level ? people. Bring people together to share good times that are not the same old thing.

In December they host the Wilderness Woman Competition, which draws in people from all over the world. Bed and Breakfasts fill up, bars fill up, and restaurants fill up. You meet people around the bonfire burning in the middle of town. Since this is held? in the dark days of winter, the bars fill up early. That night, the Talkeetna Bachelor Ball draws in even more visitors which bid on local talent. A weekend you do not want to miss. And the revenue from this weekend surely helps the local businesses through the month of December.

Other creative marketing events are scattered around the calendar.? This weekend is St. Patrick?s Day, and we were hoping to head to Talkeetna for the weekend, but found out the Oosik Classic is going on ? a ski event that draws in hundreds of skiers. No room at the inn for us. They did not stop there.? Since this is St. Patrick?s Day weekend, there is beer tasting at the local Roadhouse, and I am sure plenty of green beer at the other bars and restaurants in town.

So what can your small business do to keep things rolling all year long?? Let?s get creative.? The buying public needs a change. Something exciting to get their brain juices flowing. Make them say WOW! I need to go there and do that. Share some of your ideas here.

Tags: marketing plan

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2012 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Small Business Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.blog.alaskarama.com/small-business-marketing-tips-from-an-alaska-village/

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Visa, MasterCard to pay retailers $6 billion to settle fee-fixing lawsuit ...

NEW YORK ? Visa, MasterCard and major banks agreed to pay retailers at least $6 billion to settle a long-running lawsuit that alleged the card issuers conspired to fix the fees that stores pay to accept credit cards. As part of the settlement, announced late Friday, stores from Rite Aid to Kroger will be allowed to charge customers more if they pay using a credit card.

The pact, which is being called by lawyers involved in the case the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history, is seen as a major victory for merchants that have long complained about the billions of dollars in so-called ?swipe? or ?interchange? fees that they pay to banks for purchases made using plastic. But at a time when shoppers increasingly are using credit and debit cards, merchants will face a dilemma: Whether to charge shoppers extra for using plastic, and if so, how to do so without angering them.

Marilyn Landis, who was last year?s chairman of the National Small Business Association, said that the settlement is a victory for small businesses across the country because it could ultimately lead to banks lowering the fees they charge stores for customers? credit card purchases.

Landis, who owns Pittsburgh-based financial services firm Basic Business Concepts, said that would be a big relief. She?s now paying 3.75 percent each time a customer pays with a credit card. If bank card companies reduce the fees they charge her to 2.75 percent, she would save a dollar on every $100 in sales.

?That?s huge,? she said.

According to the National Retail Federation, the nation?s largest retail group, swipe fees costs for stores total about $30 billion per year. Mallory Duncan, senior vice president and general counsel for the group, said the settlement is a step in the right direction.

?What we need are changes in the rules that bring about transparency and competition that would be here for years to come,? he said.

The dispute between stores and banks dates back to 2005. That?s when large retailers, including Kroger Co., Safeway Inc. and Walgreen Co. began filing price-fixing lawsuits against Visa, MasterCard and other banks.

The retailers claimed the credit card issuers worked together to fix the fees that stores pay to accept credit and debit cards. The fees, which vary depending on the type of store and the type of card issues, average about 2 percent of the price of a purchase.

Visa and MasterCard make money on the fees that stores pay for each customer that uses credit or debit cards for their purchases. The fees are set by card processing networks but collected by, and split with, the banks that issue the cards.

The card companies long have defended the fees they charge stores. They say stores benefit from being able to accept credit and debit cards from customers, who often spend more when they?re using plastic instead of cash or checks.

Retailers fought to charge customers who use plastic for their purchases extra. They?ve argued that the ability to charge customers who use plastic more for their purchases would reduce their costs for accepting the cards.

But up until now, Visa and MasterCard have banned stores from charging customers who use credit cards more. Merchants, however, have been allowed to offer customers discounts if they pay with cash. Some gas stations do this, for example.

As part of the settlement, credit card companies have agreed to reduce swipe fees for eight months. The temporary reprieve on fees is valued at $1.2 billion. The settlement does not apply to debit cards, which have grown in popularity for small-value transactions.

?These new rules will give merchants the tools they need to put pressure on the credit card networks to lower interchange or swipe fees, which are the second-or third-highest cost of doing business for many retailers,? said Patrick J. Coughlin, senior trial counsel at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, and one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Joseph W. Saunders, chairman and chief executive of Visa Inc., said in a statement Friday that he?s comfortable with the agreement, which he believes will not affect the company?s earnings outlook.

?We believe settling this case is in the best interests of all parties,? he said.

Noah Hanft, MasterCard Inc.?s general counsel, said in a separate statement on Friday that the decision to settle ?was based on our belief that MasterCard and our stakeholders are best served by an amicable resolution.?

?Although we have strong defenses to all claims, a settlement avoids years of litigation and uncertainties that are inherent in such cases,? he said. ?We believe that today?s settlements should resolve all issues with the merchant community.?

Visa and MasterCard stock both jumped in after-hours trading. Visa climbed 2.8 percent, and MasterCard rose 3.7 percent.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/13/business/visa-mastercard-to-pay-retailers-6-billion-to-settle-fee-fixing-lawsuit/

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Due to the current obesity epidemic, metabolic disorders, such as ...

Due to the current obesity epidemic, metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes have become a major public health concern in the U.S. A paper published July 13 in an advance online issue of Science reveals that biologists from California's San Diego University have discovered a chemical, called KL001, which provides a unique and novel target for the development of drugs that treat metabolic disorders, like type 2 diabetes. The discovery came as a surprise, given that the chemical isolated by the biologists is not directly involved in regulating glucose production in the liver...

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Source: http://www.kiefit.com/Health_Fitness/biological-clock-chemical-offers-diabetes-treatment-hope/

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Understanding how to properly valuate your ... - News and Society

How much home insurance coverage does one really need? There are so many home insurance companies in the market today and they usually offer different types of coverage but because of the wealth of options, it is now so difficult how much is too much and how much is too little when it comes to insurance. If you are looking for a policy for your home, it is important to know which factor you should be basing your decision on, should it be based on your home?s market value? Should it be based on rebuilding costs or are there other factors that one should take into consideration?

Homeowners insurance should never be complicated, in fact, experts say that it should be fairly straightforward. This means that how much insurance you get should be based on rebuilding costs as well as replacing all its contents in an event that you lose everything. You should also add in protection for yourself and the people who are inside your home including those who visit. Some people who get injured in your property may sue you for everything you?ve got. Now this can be a rather unfortunate situation and you would want to be protected from this.

Of course this brings one back to the question ? how much is enough? Getting a ballpark figure is a good thing but one should always put an allowance to the whole figure to ensure that everything is covered in case you get sued r you lose everything inside your home including the very structure that you call home.

One thing that you should learn about is the different types of policies available for homeowners i.e. the HOs. Each HO refers to a certain kind of policy, HO-1 for example is known as the basic homeowner?s policy and based on the word basic, it is indeed very basic because it only covers 11 mishaps which include windstorms, riots, theft, explosions, vandalism, smoke, eruptions of volcanic nature, fire, and lightning making HO-1 very limited. HO-2 on the other hand also known as the broad homeowners policy covers against 17 named perils while HO-3 is a special policy that covers most perils. This home insurance policy is definitely the one that makes most sense for most homeowners. If you are looking for a home insurance however, it is best to take a look at all options.

Source: http://www.libyamusical.com/understanding-how-to-properly-valuate-your-home-when-insuring-it.html

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#4: Yuasa YUAM32X5B YTX5L-BS Battery

Buy new: $ 44.79 $ 28.99
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Universal Enduro Dual Sport Bike MX Motorcycle Motocross Black Rubber Gel Handle Bar Handlebar Grips 7/8? For ATV Motorcycle Harley Davidson Suzuki Honda Kawasaki Yamaha

• Package includes one couple of Handlebar grips with Heavy duty billet aluminum ends
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Easy Mount Motorcycle Motorbike ATV 7/8? Handlebar Handle Bar End Caps Plugs Black for Yamaha YZF 600 R6 R1 V Star XVS Virago

• Brand new Motorcycle ATV dirt bike Handle open bar end weights
• Size: L 2 1/4? x Diameter 1 1/8? (5.7cm x 2.8cm)
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This listing is for Brand new Motorcycle ATV dirt bike Handle open bar end weights.

Specifications:

??Package includes: One couple of Billet Aluminum bar end plugs
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Features:

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shark SHKCYCLERADIOKIT250 250 watts! Motorcycle / yacht snowmobile 2 speakers + amplifier + radio pkg

• Working Voltage 10-16V DC
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1 year warranty. THE HOTTEST MOTORCYCLE SYSTEM WITH FM RADIO ONLINE NOW GOT A LOT HOTTER. THIS NEW SYSTEM IS A WHOPPING 250 WATTS. THIS IS UNHEARD OF FOR MOTORCYCLE SYSTEMS UNDER 1000$ . You can connect this system to any mp3 player, IPOD, cd player, etc. Available in black or chrome. The amp is 250 watts. This listing is for a brand new & factory sealed Shark Motorcycle or Yacht audio system. Available in Black OR CHROME. This Can connect to any Ipod, MP3 player or any cd receiver. Built in internal FM antenna! The radio is built into the amp. These speakers are 100% waterproof. You can dump it in a pot of water and it will still work. Try that with your current speakers. THESE ARE GREAT FOR ALL VESPAS! GET PUMPING LOUD MUSIC ON YOUR BIKE.

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Price: $ 101.99

Source: http://evernano.com/4-yuasa-yuam32x5b-ytx5l-bs-battery/

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ArthurA_P: Sen. Portman: Obama ?doubling down? on his failed jobs policies - He should check the facts GOP PARTY OF NO Obstruction http://t.co/CFDNQwYS

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Source: http://twitter.com/ArthurA_P/statuses/224140323096510464

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