ge « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Errand Girl Sent by Grocery Clerks

lens1 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:44:47 +0000

In what was the biggest thing to have happened to Tri-Cities Washington, since your U.S. gubmint ren

Interactive Pie Chart Shows the Price Tag of Sickness

Amber Angelle — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:34:39 +0000

This chart created by GE shows how much we – and our insurance companies – pay on diseases like asthma, hypertension and arthritis. As you would expect, the cost gets worse as you get older. Check it out here: The cost of getting sick.

Hunted And Haunted In The City

Deepan Joshi — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:40:46 +0000

A year has gone by and we have come to the time that keeps many of us awake even now; the time when Mumbai, India’s cosmopolitan city, was turned into a jungle and the residents of the city were hunted out on streets, restaurants and five-star hotels.

It was naked terror that came via the sea and then walked in without the need for any disguise. The man who became the face of the attacks looked ecstatic in a particular picture and later it became known that the crew was on certain drugs that kept them numb, focused and inhuman. With a global audience glued to the TV screens the terrorists achieved what they had come for.

I’ve seen footage of the Scotland Yard in London and that of the New York Police Department (NYPD) on BBC and CNN and I’ve seen what the CCTV at CST showed when the two terrorists were there; if you’ve seen that you understand the point. The action of the local forces in the first few hours was that of total incompetence and it was this period that made all the difference in what could have been a few lives lost and the threat eliminated in a matter of hours to the fact that the trained terrorists got their hideouts with civilian lives as hostages around them and the situation continuing for what seemed like endless 62 hours of agony. It has now been over 365 days of anger, helplessness and embarrassment.

Hardly anything went right that day or the one prior to that and every machinery responsible to ensure the safety of the citizens and that of the country itself from a terror attack failed. The intelligence community defended itself by saying that the intelligence was provided and the enforcing agencies came out saying that it was not actionable. Three of Bombay’s senior police officers, who could have provided leadership, died around Cama Hospital within the first few hours of the attack when they came in the line of fire of two terrorists who were hiding and had a position of advantage.

William Bratton, the recently retired well-known chief of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who has headed NYPD before once said ‘all terrorism is local because ultimately, when it happens, it’s local. It’s on your shores. The police are the first line of deterrence rather than the last. It’s the police who know the neighbourhoods and there has to be some level of effective local intelligence.’ Bratton is a legend and there are enough stories on the Internet that show how crime rates have dropped significantly wherever he has provided leadership.

IBN Live carried a story last year after speaking to US security expert Alex Alexiev who put the blame squarely on India’s poor grasp of terror dynamics and lack of coordination between various agencies. Thankfully the US security expert just used the word poor grasp and did not actually say something downright demeaning because we should have been better prepared living near what is called by the world as the ‘epicentre of terrorism.’ And we’ve had a history of terror acts pointing towards the ISI with the one prior to Mumbai being that on the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

The TV journalists did not know that the live footage was being used by the terrorist handlers but what about people from operations and from intelligence who are trained and were also listening to the intercepts? They should have barricaded the place and briefed the media and better still used it to their advantage. If intelligence and operations people knew that the handlers were passing information of our channels to their men inside the three places, then how much intelligence did they need to figure out that media would have been a perfect vehicle to foil their operations; and I am quite certain the journalists present would have been extremely happy to help. Instead people not authorised to speak were briefing the media about things not needed and we ended up showing the NSG getting into Nariman House and the handler shouting kill everybody, their forces are coming.

Our machinery is not working despite dozens of terror incidents because corruption and incompetence run riot in our systems and that is what needs to be rooted out. I read that the external intelligence agency R&AW has been destroyed by years of abuse by senior officials in a column and that the morale is at an all time low.

The media is not immune from incompetence and bureaucracy. Just sample this incident: A good exclusive story landed in my lap and I called two senior people in a newspaper and one of them said great story and asked me to go ahead and the other wrote in an e-mail copied to me and sent to the concerned section that for such strong stories we should be flexible. The section head was incompetence personified and kept coming back with idiotic questions and, finally, I had no choice but to answer them; now if the person had any shame and the bare minimum professional ethics I would have received some reply. Instead the newspaper pulled its shutters down.

Neither the two senior people who were copied nor the incompetent section reporter have got back to me for about six months now. And before my answer I was getting a mail about the gaps everyday. And I don’t think these three people would even be aware that what they did was wrong because power is not answerable to anyone; in fact I apologised to some of them thinking that perhaps there is something living inside them and they would realise. No accountability, no competence and complete shamelessness; and then these people would go out and ask for accountability from other institutions. What a charade of lies and hypocrisy.

I saw an interview of GE’s Jack Welch where he spoke about four kinds of employees and what the company should do with them. 1. High on skills and high on values: you value them and try to keep them. 2. Low on skills and low on values: you fire them. 3. Low on skills but high on values: you give them opportunities to learn. 4. High on skills and low on values: this is the dangerous category and companies often persist a bit longer with them to their own detriment.

Our culture needs to realise that competence matters at all levels and that we need to value it in every field and then perhaps the right people will find their rightful place and the intelligence agencies will function; may be even the right politicians and the police officers would come to the fore and you’ll also have journalists who can edit or write a copy.

Otherwise five years will pass and we would still be sitting ducks.

The Greatest Scam In The History of Earth

Desiree Paquette — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:08:42 +0000

I recall the op-ed piece at IBD earlier this month which read:

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a “climate emergency.” As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the “trigger” placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out, the Kerry-Boxer bill requires the declaration of a “climate emergency” if the concentration of carbon dioxide and other declared greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exceeds 450 parts per million (ppm). It was at about 286 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and now sits at around 368 ppm.

That figure was picked out of a hat because the warm-mongers believe that’s the level at which the polar ice caps will disappear, boats can be moored on the Statue of Liberty’s torch and dead polar bears will wash up on the beaches of Malibu.

The Senate version includes a section that gives the president authority, under this declared “climate emergency,” to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions … to address shortfalls” in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.

What the “appropriate actions” might be are not defined and presumably left up to the discretion of the White House. Could the burning of coal be suspended or recreational driving be banned? Sen. David Vitter, R-La., asked the EPA for a definition and received no response.

Competitive Enterprise Institute scholar Chris Horner says “this agenda transparently is not about GHG concentrations, or the climate. It’s about what the provision would bring: almost limitless power over private economic activity and individual liberty for the activist president and, for the reluctant leader, litigious greens and courts” packed by liberal Democrat appointees.

Speaking of litigious greens, published by the Western Legacy Alliance:

In an open letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), dated November 2, 2009, members of the Congressional Western Caucus expressed great concern to Attorney General Holder regarding the ongoing and apparent abuse of the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) by certain organizations including environmental and special interest groups. The Caucus highlights the complete lack of oversight, accountability, and transparency in the overall process and allocation of funds under EAJA, which appears to have contributed to the egregious abuse.

“Environmental groups have been working to deny grazing rights to America’s ranchers for decades. They do so by claiming violations of environmental policy, suing federal environmental agencies and ultimately, tying up ranchers’ time and resources in costly, and often baseless, court battles,” said Jeff Faulkner, Western Legacy Alliance (WLA) member. “What makes this situation worse is the fact that these environmental groups such as Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity are shaking down federal government programs so they can access taxpayer dollars to fund their radical agendas.”

Two of the federal programs that are seemingly handing out millions, and possibly billions, to environmental groups are the EAJA and the Judgment Fund.

The EAJA was established approximately 30 years ago by Congress to ensure that individuals, small businesses and/or public interest groups with limited financial capacity could seek judicial redress from unreasonable government actions that threatened their rights, privileges or interests.

According the U.S. Department of the Treasury website, the Judgment Fund, which was created in the 1960’s, “…is available for most court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government. Congress has added a number of administrative claim awards (settlements by agencies at the administrative level, without a lawsuit). The Judgment Fund has no fiscal year limitations, and there is no need for Congress to appropriate funds to it annually or otherwise. Moreover, disbursements from it are not attributed to or accounted for by the agencies whose activities give rise to awards paid. Absent a specific statutory requirement, the agency responsible is not required to reimburse the Judgment Fund.”

Since 2003, the Judgment Fund has paid out $4.7 billion in judgments, including the reimbursement of attorney’s fees. It appears environmental groups have accessed millions of taxpayer dollars from this fund; however, the Web site reporting these payments does not indicate to whom the payments were made or for what purpose. Additional investigation reveals that the same environmental groups benefiting from EAJA payments are accessing the Judgment Fund to millions of dollars each year.

An article at Fox News about the open letter noted:

American taxpayers are being forced to fund thousands of lawsuits filed against the federal government by environmental organizations — with their lawyers clocking thousands of hours and charging fees of up to $650 an hour.

The U.S. government hands out millions of dollars each year to various environmental organizations to help protect fish, wildlife and other aspects of the environment. And every year, those same groups spend millions suing the government over everything from forest policy and carbon emissions to water quality and wolf habitats.

Who paid the attorneys fees? The American taxpayers did.

In the lucrative world of environmental law, the biggest defendant is the federal government, and taxpayers foot the bill. The nation’s ten largest environmental groups have sued the government more than 3,000 times in a nine-year period, according to legal fund the Western Legacy Alliance, an Idaho-based legal fund that defends ranchers and farmers.

Now, the growing number of cases is beginning to attract the attention of some lawmakers in Congress.

Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., has written to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation, pointing out that much of the money being paid comes out of the Equal Access to Justice Act fund, which Congress set up for the indigent and public interest groups to recover legal fees.

Right now, the government does not account for how much is paid out to whom or for what reason.

“These are taxpayer dollars that are being used by the federal government to compensate people who have sued the federal government. I believe that taxpayers have the right to know who those people are and how much they’ve been paid,” Lummis told Fox News.

They should not expect any help from the current Administration, however.

According to the Institute for Energy Research, half of the nearly 1500 page House Cap and Trade Bill is not about carbon emissions at all, but rather completely alter America’s economy. Dr. Robert Michaels, a Senior Fellow with IER, who examined the bill, found that the rest of the bill is packed with regulations that would completely alter the United States’ economy. He argues that even without cap-and-trade, Waxman-Markey is the most repressive package of new taxes, wealth transfers and obstacles to economic activity that a Congress has ever assembled. His findings are available in a 39 page pdf document.

To further make the point this is not about science, but rather control, President Obama announced this week, after Climate gate broke, he will indeed flip-flop on attending Copenhagen and will, at the conference, obligate America to unreasonable carbon emission standards, which cut emissions by 17%, by 2020.

According to wikipedia, there are currently five exchanges trading in carbon allowances: the Chicago Climate Exchange, European Climate Exchange, Nord Pool, PowerNext and the European Energy Exchange. Recently, NordPool listed a contract to trade offsets generated by a CDM carbon project called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs).

CCX owns the Chicago, Montreal and London Climate exchanges. CCX is 10% owned by Goldman Sachs (GS) and 10% owned by Generation Investment Management (GIM), an investment firm founded & chaired by Al Gore. This firm was co-founded by the former Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson.

Goldman Sachs was the number one private donor to the Obama campaign.

An article in UK’s Telegraph earlier this month said Al Gore is positioned to be the world’s first Carbon billionaire. And a blog entitled American Everyman talks about Al Gore’s partnership with former Goldman Sachs and Leeman Brothers execs, as well as other Venture Capitalists. He posts the first of these very educational videos as well:

On it’s Board of Directors, none other than Maurice Strong.

External Advisory board chair Chicago Mayor and Friend of Obama, Richard Dailey, and among it’s members are Ed BegleyJr., Joseph P. Kennedy II, and former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Michael Zammit Cutajar.

As well, General Electric, owners of NBC and affiliate cable channels, often criticized for it’s pro-Obama stance, will help facilitate the carbon transfers through it’s arm, known as Greenhouse Gas Services, as well as through the various “green initiatives” facilitated by the company.

Another of the big players is also involved:

Bloomberg noted: Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and donate $100 million to an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers. [He] announced the investment in Copenhagen on Oct. 10 at a meeting on climate change sponsored by Project Syndicate. The group is an international association made up of 430 newspapers from 150 countries.

…Soros’s announcement comes two months before 190 nations will gather in the Danish capital for a final round of negotiations on a new climate treaty that includes provisions to finance clean- energy projects in developing nations. Talks last week in Bangkok were marked by a dispute between richer and poorer nations over whether to renew or abandon the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing global agreement to reduce carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming.

Soros, 79, also will establish the Climate Policy Initiative, a San Francisco-based organization to which he will donate $10 million a year for 10 years.

Soros made his fortune, as you’ll recall, by trashing the pound culminating in Britain’s Black Wednesday in 1992. He is systematically attempting the same thing here and has recently launched another new initiative “The Institute for New Economic Thinking“.

The fact of the matter is, while Cap and Trade deals with the corporate side of carbon, it’s just a jumping off point. Anyone familiar with United Nations Agenda 21 can plainly see it will, in short time, lead to what amounts to a “Breath Tax”, placed on every living thing. This is being undertaken the same way politicians are building Health Care “Reform” for the sole purpose of getting to a single-payer system, also called for in Agenda 21. Neither addresses any substantive issue, they only give control to the government and the UN.

In another great Canada Free Press column by Tim Ball, renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor, he points out:

Extreme left journalist George Monbiot ignored all the facts I provided when he was pointing a finger at me. He’s ignoring them again, which forces him to assume the deniers are at fault. He wrote, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.”

The sphere is expanding for several reasons.

All evidence rejects the hypothesis that human CO2 is causing warming or climate change.
Facts are gradually getting to the public despite obstructionism by journalists like Monbiot.
Temperature projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are consistently wrong.
Record cold temperatures are occurring everywhere.
Motives of those pushing the need for reduction in CO2 are being exposed.
Economic costs of a completely unnecessary action are emerging.

A blogger named Granite Grok put up a couple really interesting graphs on their blog I found rather to the point, which clearly show 2009 to be one of the coldest years in recent history, and United States and European emissions are and have been fairly flat since all this started in 1970, compared to those on a global scale.

Proof global warming science is not just “not settled” it’s purely fiction.

On the heels of warnings of faulty and fraudulent ”global warming science” from Former Advisor to Margaret Thatcher Lord Monckton, President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus , and 31,000 scientists , comes “Climategate”.

The Examiner.com stated on November 20, 2009:

Britain’s Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, suffered a data breach in recent days when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents. The stolen data was then posted to a Russian server and has quickly made the rounds among climate skeptics. The documents within the archive, if proven to be authentic, would at best be embarrassing for many prominent climate researchers and at worst, damning.

The electronic break in itself has been verified by the director of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones. He told Britain’s Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

The paper goes on to discuss, at length the individual emails, and if you have not yet seen them, I urge to to follow the link.

In Australia, where the story first broke, the Herald Sun noted:

…So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory – a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below – emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down skeptics.

This is clearly not the work of some hacker, but of an insider who’s now blown the whistle.

Not surprising, then, that Steve McIntyre reports:

Earlier today, CRU cancelled all existing passwords. Actions speaking loudly.

Hackers have broken into the data base of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit - one of the world’s leading alarmist centers – and put the files they stole on the Internet, on the grounds that the science is too important to be kept under wraps.

The ethics of this are dubious. But the files suggest, on a very preliminary glance, some other very dubious practices, too, and a lot of collusion – sometimes called “peer review”. Or even conspiracy.

Canada Free Press Added The Missing Link to the Obama Administration :

Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”.

“The files contain so much material that it is going to take some time t o put it all in context,” says Ball. “However, enough is already known to underscore their explosive nature. It is already clear the entire claims and positions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on falsified manipulated material and is therefore completely compromised.

“The fallout will be extensive as material continues to emerge. Reputations of the scientists involved are already destroyed, however fringe players will continue to be identified and their reputations destroyed or sullied.”

While the mainstream media is bending into pretzels to keep the scandal under the rug, Climategate is already the biggest scientific scandal in history because of the global policy implications.

According to Fascistsoup.com, there’s more to those emails appears at first glance. I urge you to watch these two, fairly lengthy videos, together taking about 15 minutes of your time, but ending in priceless understanding. Education is a valuable thing.

Those pushing the leftist theology call all who find fault with the global warming agenda “Deniers”. I must ask now who the REAL “DENIERS” are? Remember Alinsky doctrine – if you can not dispute the facts, launch personal attacks. To them I must say,

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,

but names will never hurt me.

Deceit and lies will fuel your side,

but with facts we will subvert thee.”

Ed Note: Please read Green Hell by Steve Milloy, our first book of the month selection here at Soldier For Liberty. You will become enlightened on the truth of the “Green Agenda”.

Media Digest 11/26/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

247wallst — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:02:35 +0000

Reuters: Saab’s failure to be bought shows that Chinese companies are having trouble moving into Western markets through M&A.

Reuters: AIG (NYSE:AIG) and former CEO Greenberg settled legal issues between them.

Reuters: Dubai will put a six month standstill to debt payments.

Reuters: Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) may tighten lending standards.

Reuters: Improved consumer numbers help increase market optimism.

WSJ: Toyota (NYSE:TM) will fix pedals on four million cars.

WSJ: The building of many factories in China as part of its stimulus package could flood the world with goods due to manufacturing overcapacity.

WSJ: GM will keep all of its plants in Germany.

WSJ: The White House is considering creating a panel to address the deficit.

NYT: Many retailers are extending deals beyond Black Friday

FT: Hershey (NYSE:HSY) is closer to a bid for Cadbury (NYSE:CBY).

Bloomberg: GE (NYSE:GE) may be closer to selling control of NBCU to Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) as Immelt meets with the head of Vivendi to get it to sell its 20% share in the entertainment company.

Douglas A. McIntyre

F.3 theme - travel

lwongsps — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:09:52 +0000

Dear 3B girls,
Below are the links for the materials we used in class. Please note that the first link is the one we did not have a chance to listen to. You may listen to the news and learn the vocabularies listed.
Heathrow terminal 5 chaos
Heathrow terminal 5

Enjoy listening!
Cheers,
L. Wong

Notícias (25/11/2009)

Aidan — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:05:35 +0000

Aeroportos das cidades-sede terão R$ 5,5 bi até 2013

Três comissões da Câmara dos Deputados (Desenvolvimento Urbano, Desenvolvimento Viário e Desporto e Turismo) realizaram uma reunião ontem (terça, dia 24) com a Infraero e a Anac para definir os investimentos para a Copa do Mundo de 2014.

De acordo com o presidente da Comissão de Desporto e Turismo da Câmara, deputado Afonso Hamm, o cronograma apresentado pela Infraero prevê o investimento de R$ 5,5 bilhões em 15 aeroportos das 12 cidades-sede, até 2013.

No entanto, uma das perguntas da reunião não foi respondida: o pico da Copa do Mundo vai ter vazão? A resposta desta dúvida pode sair hoje porque o presidente da República, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, está em reunião com representantes dos ministérios da Defesa, do Turismo e do Planejamento para discutir o assunto.

Ainda sem presidente, TAM corta funcionários

A companhia aérea TAM demitiu hoje cerca de 100 funcionários dos níveis de diretoria, gerência e administrativo. Trata-se apenas de pessoal dos escritórios – as equipes que trabalham nos aeroportos e nas aeronaves não sofreram cortes. Consultada, a TAM, admitiu que houve demissões, mas não confirmou o número. Ainda segundo a empresa, os cortes fazem parte de um “ajuste administrativo”.

O enxugamento acontece em meio a um cenário delicado para a TAM. Há pouco mais de um mês, a empresa procura por um presidente para substituir David Barioni, que deixou a companhia devido a discordâncias com o conselho de administração. Desde então, a consultoria de headhunting Spencer Stuart sondou diversos candidatos para a vaga em aberto. O executivo contatado mais recentemente foi Ricardo K, ex-presidente da Brasil Telecom – que ainda não deu sua resposta.

Infraero divulga cronograma preliminar do 3º terminal de Guarulhos

O Diário Oficial da União publicou o resultado da Habilitação da Concorrência Internacional para a contratação dos projetos para a construção do terceiro terminal de passageiros do Aeroporto de São Paulo/Guarulhos, com a aprovação da participação de sete consórcios. A licitação contempla serviços e estudos preliminares, projeto básico, projeto executivo e serviços complementares também para o edifício garagem, sistema viário de acesso, pátio de estacionamento de aeronaves, implantação da rede de queroduto e demais obras. O preço de referência desta etapa é de R$ 38 milhões. Esta nova licitação foi aberta depois que o projeto sofreu adequações, como a necessidade do aumento da área do novo terminal, que era de 160 mil m2 e vai para 232 mil m2. A previsão de elaboração dos estudos é de 23 meses a partir do contrato.

Airbus recebe compromissos de compra no valor de US$ 5,3 bilhões

A fabricante de aviões Airbus anunciou ter recebido compromissos de compra totalizando 33 aeronaves avaliadas em mais de US$ 5,3 bilhões, durante a feira de aviação de Dubai, ocorrida nos últimos dias. Esses compromissos incluem pedidos de 15 aviões no valor de mais de US$ 3,6 bilhões, além da assinatura de memorandos de entendimento para mais 18 aeronaves, totalizando cerca de U$ 1,7 bilhões. Os destaques do evento incluíram os pedidos da companhia aérea Air Austral para dois A380 no valor de US$ 655 milhões e da Ethiopian Airlines, para 12 jatos A350-900, avaliados em US$ 2,9 bilhões. Adicionalmente, a empresa Comlux assinou um pedido para a aquisição de um avião ACJ no valor de US$ 75 milhões.

FedEx desativa 10 A300 e 4 MD11

Airbus A300F da FedEx (Foto: Airliners.net / Clique para ampliar)

A companhia FedEx anunciou a desativação definitiva de sua frota de dez jatos Airbus A300-200F e de quatro MD-11F a partir do próximo dia 31 de maio. As aeronaves já estavam fora de uso e estocadas a espera da definição do seu destino. A crise econômica ditou essa redução da frota da companhia. Outros aviões podem ser também temporariamente retirados da frota.

Em maio, ExpressJet vai operar para a United Express

A partir do dia 1º de maio de 2010, a ExpressJet Airlines passará a operar 22 jatos Embraer ERJ-145, de 50 lugares, do sistema United Express. A operação será em substituição a outras empresas cujos contratos chegaram ao fim, sem alterar o plano de oferta preparado pela United para o próximo ano. A ExpressJet opera cerca de 1,1 mil voos por dia para 130 destinos nos Estados Unidos e no Canadá. Alguns desses serviços são operados em parceria com a United e a Continental Airlines. A empresa oferece ainda voos fretados e outros serviços para terceiros.

Trip faz ações promocionais para divulgar novos voos

A partir da próxima semana, a Trip realizará ações para promover os voos que ligam Belo Horizonte (MG) a Cabo Frio (RJ), Salvador (BA), Maceió (AL), Recife e Fernando de Noronha (PE). Além disso, durante os finais de semana, até 13 de dezembro, promotores uniformizados distribuirão brindes em diferentes pontos da capital mineira para ampliar a divulgação dos voos. “O objetivo da Trip com esta ação é aproximar os consumidores da marca e incentivá-los a aproveitar as melhores praias do Nordeste e Sudeste do País durante a estação”, disse o diretor de Marketing e Vendas da companhia, Evaristo Mascarenhas de Paula.

Aeroportos europeus manterão restrições a líquidos na bagagem até 2013

De acordo com o jornal londrino The Guardian, a Comissão Européia estabeleceu novas diretrizes que prevêem que as atuais restrições de líquidos em bagagem de mão de passageiros de avião permaneçam até 2013. Após a data, os aeroportos europeus poderão retirar as limitações assim que instalarem equipamentos de inspeção de líquidos.

Já em 2011 serão permitidos o transporte de líquidos para passageiros em voos de conexão vindos de países fora da Comunidade Européia. Para isso, os recipientes deverão estar em bolsas fechadas e com recibos que expliquem sua origem, como no caso de produtos comprados no free shop.

Segundo a Comissão Europeia, dentro de três anos todos os aeroportos europeus poderão dispor de equipamentos detectores de explosivos líquidos.

TAM Cargo de Manaus ganha posto fiscal

A Secretaria da Fazenda do Amazonas inaugura hoje (25/11) um posto fiscal na Tam Cargo, unidade de cargas da TAM Linhas Aéreas, em Manaus.

O posto, que já opera em fase experimental, levará benefícios para os clientes e dará mais agilidade ao despacho de cargas na Zona Franca. “A liberação de notas fiscais eletrônicas será ainda mais rápida”, diz o diretor da TAM Cargo, Carlos Amodeo.

O portfólio de produtos da unidade foi planejado para atender a diferentes necessidade. Os serviços vão desde encomendas urgentes até o transporte de volumes para a importação e exportação. Com isso, a TAM Cargo atende a diversos segmentos de clientes, como confecções, calçados, farmacêuticos, automotivos e eletroeletrônicos, entre outros.

BAe Systems vai renegociar jatos

Um cliente não declarado do Oriente Médio repassou à companhia BAe Systems a responsabilidade de negociar um avião comercial Boeing B.767-300ER, equipado com turbinas GE CF6-80C2B7F e configurado para 196 passageiros. O contrato autoriza a BAe Systems a vender o aparelho para o transporte de passageiros ou para cliente desejoso de modifica-lo como cargueiro.

EuroLot negocia em Dubai

A companhia polonesa EuroLOT fechou com a firma StandardAero, uma companhia do grupo Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, os serviços de revisão e manutenção de motores Pratt & Whitney PW124B/127 . O contrato tem a duração de cinco anos e será executado nas oficinas da StandardAero em Tilburg,na Holanda, e de Winnipeg, no Canadá.

Edição especial do Baron

A fábrica Hawker Beechcraft está oferecendo aos seus clientes uma versão especial de aniversário do seu clássico bimotor executivo “Baron”, com pintura especial, interior de acabamento esmerado e hélices de alto desempenho Hartzell “Scimitar”. Nada menos que 6700 exemplares do “Baron” foram já produzidos e entregues desde o lançamento da versão 55, em 1960. A promoção atual comemora 50 anos de produção da aeronave.

Mais treinadores vendidos

A norte-americana Hawker Beechcraft fechou contrato de venda 24 aviões militares de treinamento T-6 para a Real Força Aérea do Marrocos, encomenda com a qual o total desses aparelhos vendidos em 2009 atingiu o total de 59. Este ano, antes do Marrocos, os Governos de Israel e do Iraque já haviam feito encomendas para o mesmo tipo de aeronave. Desde o ano 2000 a Hawker Beechcraft já entregou mais de 550 aeronaves tipo T-6.

Jetstar acelera recebimentos de aeronaves

Airbus A320 a Jetstar Airways (Foto: Jetphotos.net / Clique para ampliar)

Na contra-mão da maioria de suas co-irmãs comerciais do mundo, a empresa aérea Jetstar, da Austrália, definiu com a Airbus Industrie o recebimento de 11 aviões tipo A320 entre os meses de outubro de 2009 e março de 2010, e de outros 10 mais no ano fiscal que começa em abril de 2010. Cinco das aeronaves desse pacote que termina em março serão utilizadas pela subsidiária Jetstar Asia, de Singapura, e outras duas serão entregues a outra subsidiária, Valuair.

Foto 3 Dimensi dari General Electric Research

uniqueopini — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:36:34 +0000

Dari video singkat diatas (hanya 7 detik) bisa kita lihat bahwa telah berhasil diciptakan lembar fot

Today's Best Market Rumors (11/25/2009) (GE)(AAPL)

247wallst — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:07:11 +0000

Updated throughout the day

Calpers has launched an investigation of its own oversight practices (LA Times)

Hedge fund assets may rebound to pre-crisis levels (Reuters)

GE’s (NYSE:GE) stock price is about to take a run up (The Street)

Facebook and Twitter are preparing IPOs (The Deal)

GM will close Saab (various)

The Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone will be sold at the UK’s largest retailer (TechCrunch)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Why is the Alphabet-Media Ignoring "ClimateGate?"

Scotty Starnes — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:19:07 +0000

None, zero, zip, nada. Not a single member of the alphabet-media crew are reporting a single story about ”ClimateGate.” Maybe some of you haven’t heard of “CllimateGate” because nobody, except Fox News, is reporting it. ClimateGate is the results of a hacker, or whistle-blower, releasing hundreds of e-mails showing global warming scientist hiding, lying and deleting information that proves global warming/climate change is a myth. Liberal global-warming truthers are all enraged that their “cause” has been busted.

The reason MSNBC isn’t reporting “ClimateGate” is because their parent company, General Electric, will greatly benefit from Obama’s green economy wishes. If cap-and-trade is passed into law, GE will reap billions of dollars in contracts. It really does pay to be pals of Obama. Ask GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt who is also an economic adviser to Obama. See a pattern?

A few Republicans in the House and Senate have taken notice of “ClimateGate” and are calling for investigations. I guess Obama and the liberals didn’t hear about it, since they hate Fox News, and Obama wants to move forward with a climate deal.

Transcript From Inhofe Radio Interview Monday, November 23, 2009

Senator Inhofe: This is a huge issue and of course we have the Gitmo issue and we have the, of course, cap-and-trade is now taking a new turn. Jed, if I could…

Jed Babbin: Yeah.

Senator Inhofe: Would you let me make one sentence?

Jed Babbin: Please.

Senator Inhofe: This is out of a speech that I made, Melanie, back on the floor of the Senate, and it was repeated, John Gizzi picked it up and put it in Human Events. This was 4 years ago, in talking about the science, cooking the science. I said I would discuss the “systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by which an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective science assessment in the world on the subject of climate change, the United Nations IPCC.” Now that was four years ago; so we knew they were cooking the science back then, and you’ve been talking about the, you know, what’s happened recently with the bloggers coming up with what they did, what they…

Jed Babbin: Let me interrupt you there Senator, because I think that’s a really important point. Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven’t followed that story, what Senator Inhofe’s talking about, in Britain, a blogger got into some of the official government records about climate change and how the measurements were being taken to show…

Melanie Morgan: And the politics behind it.

Jed Babbin: And the – well but they were basically saying, “Oh yea, hey, let’s make it look like Jim so-and-so did that, and let’s help him cook the books, and let’s change the data…”

Melanie Morgan: And “let’s beat up those who don’t agree with us.”

Jed Babbin: Yea, but it’s all a huge fraud! I mean, Senator, am I exaggerating?

Senator Inhofe: No you’re not. If you remember, mine was the hoax statement, and that was, what, five years ago I guess.

Jed Babbin: Well, we ought to give you a big pat on the back for being …

Melanie Morgan: Yea, you deserve an an ‘atta boy, and now you are finally being vindicated.

Senator Inhofe: Well, on this thing, it is pretty serious. And since, you know, Barabara Boxer is the Chairman and I’m the Ranking Member on Environment and Public Works, if nothing happens in the next seven days when we go back into session a week from today that would change this situation, I will call for an investigation. ‘Cause this thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with.

Melanie Morgan: So what will you be calling for an investigation of?

Senator Inhofe: On the IPCC and on the United Nations on the way that they cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not.

Jed Babbin: Should somebody stop further spending on this until we get this investigation, Senator?

Senator Inhofe: Well, I don’t know how you do that, though, ‘cause we’re not the ones that are calling the shots. The interesting part of this is it’s happening right before Copenhagen. And, so, the timing couldn’t be better. Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their time was good.

Melanie Morgan: Well, Senator, thank you very much for coming back and handling a little bit, a tiny little bit of heat from the kitchen.

Senator Inhofe: Okay.

Jed Babbin: Thanks very much Senator.

Senator Inhofe: Thanks, you bet.

Jed Babbin: Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma on the Environment Committee over there, and one of the real fighters.

Melanie Morgan: He certainly is…

All this is being reported and yet Obama goes out and speaks about a climate bill.

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday the world has moved “one step closer” to a “strong operational agreement” on climate change at next month’s Copenhagen summit after his talks with Indian and Chinese leaders.

Hey Obama! Wake up and put your golf clubs down. The global warming/climate change hoax has been discovered. The gig is up and it’s time to stop beating the “Earth is dying due to man” routine.

The reason to why the other members of the alphabet-media are not reporting “ClimateGate” is simple. All of them are run by liberals and they never report real news. Plus, it goes against one of Obama’s pet project. Spreading the wealth.

It’s time for Obama, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Henry Waxman and every other liberal “global warming truther” to confess. Admit that global warming/climate change is a myth, hoax and total fraud.

GE's Smart Grid

theycallmep — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:27:53 +0000

General Electric has a great website dedicated to alternative energies, and specifically smart grid technologies. Check it out right here: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/. It’s very exciting that such a big energy producer and company is focusing on alternative energy. Although it still may not be very profitable yet, we need large corporations to invest heavily in new technologies. This provides money and personel for researching of new technologies. Alternative energy research is also good for corporations in terms of PR.

The best part of GE’s site is the the visual elements. Cool animations and graphics are used to show what the new GE smart grid is capable of, and how it will affect energy usage overall. The several infographics used are not only visually apealling, but easy to understand too. By going through the website, you really start to see and understand the advantages of GE’s smart grid.

GE’s plan to implement a smart grid is one of the largest smart grid plans in the world. It appears as if GE sees a future in which the whole U.S. is on the same grid in order to maximize efficiency amongst the whole country. I’m sure they’re working close with President Obama’s energy team as he just signed off on a billion dollar plan to implement smart grids across the country.

Welcoming two new additions to our household

mynewdigs — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:05:57 +0000

I have a confession to make – I’ve been keeping a secret from you all. I didn’t say anything earlier because I didn’t want to jinx anything. But it’s safe to tell you now…

Today, Will and I became the proud owners of a brand new washer and dryer!

Our brand new washer and dryer!

This is, perhaps, the most exciting part of owning my own home for me. You see, our apartment was on the 11th floor and our laundry room was way down in the basement. Any trip required a great deal of effort, and planning, because it closed at 10 pm on the nose. Not to mention the expense, and all for a sub-par washing experience.

Well, no more. These two GE beauties are going to make my life much easier from here on out.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some laundry to do.

EUA determinam troca de software em jatos da Embraer

Aidan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:35:44 +0000

Embraer 175 da NWA Airlink (Foto: Airliners.net / Clique para ampliar)

A Administração da Aviação Federal (FAA, na sigla em inglês), o órgão que regulamenta a aviação nos Estados Unidos, determinou a substituição de um software de controle eletrônico de motor considerado suspeito em mais de 250 jatos regionais da companhia brasileira Embraer. Anunciada ontem, a decisão expande uma diretriz de segurança de julho de 2008 que se seguiu a incidentes ocorridos em voos. Na época, motores da General Electric em seis aviões Embraer 170 perderam propulsão ou passaram a não responder aos comandos dos pilotos.

O problema apareceu quando a GE tentava corrigir uma falha anterior no software, que afetava válvulas de controle do fluxo de combustível para os motores. Os incidentes levaram a inspeções e a diversos estudos de segurança, feitos pela GE, pela Embraer e por órgãos reguladores em todo o mundo.

Há oito meses, a GE disse que os problemas no motor do Embraer 170 não tinham voltado a aparecer desde o verão (no hemisfério norte) de 2008. A GE e a empresa brasileira voluntariamente instruíram as companhias aéreas a instalarem um conserto permanente. Até o segundo semestre deste ano, a GE disse que mais de 80% dos aviões que foram alvo dos mandados federais e dos boletins de segurança da fabricante haviam sido consertados.

No entanto, desde então a FAA já registrou outros 20 incidentes semelhantes de perda do controle do motor que afetaram jatos da Embraer, de acordo com o documento de segurança atualizado da agência. O software de controle de motor revisado deve ser instalado dentro de 600 horas de tempo de voo após a regra mais recente entrar em vigor, no fim de dezembro. As informações são da Dow Jones.

Fonte: Agência Estado

Options & Future Only Highlight Positive GE Research Call (GE)

247wallst — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:27:04 +0000

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) has seen at least some decent trading action today, despite the softness in the market. The stock was reaffirmed as “Overweight” at JPMorgan, but the research call sounded much more positive than the same $17.00 price target. The firm believes hot spots in the financial sector of its operations have been reduced mostly down to commercial real estate now. The firm now sees this being a tailwind for earnings ahead. According to OptionsHawk.com, there has been some substantial options trading activity around this as well.

Joe Kunkle of OptionsHawk noted , “Just saw a buyer of 131,500 January 2011 $22.50 calls for the 76 cent offer. On the day 210,000 calls have traded, 1.5X average already, and just 22,000 puts, 0.25X average, showing the shift to bullish sentiment. Other large purchases have been in January 2010 $17.50 and $21 calls. Shares of GE are hitting highs on the day and near a bit of a breakout from recent resistance at $16.25, potentially looking to fill an October gap to $16.60. This trade is looking for a whole lot more, though, possibly an inverse head and shoulders breakout at $17.50 that would imply a move to $28 by 2011. The conglomerate may looks to sell parts to focus on it’s core business and trades 2.78X cash value, just 13X free cash flow. The GE capital Portfolio is also seeing significant improvements and may be a big addition to it’s bottom line. Implied volatility remains unchanged at 31%, near 52 week lows.”

Shares are up 1% at $16.18 today, and this would mark the highest close since the end of October as long as it closes above $16.09. The 2009 to 2010 transition for GE and its revenues and earnings is also going to be a wild card. Thomson Reuters is calling for $0.99 EPS in 20098 and $0.92 EPS in 2010, but on revenues of $154.99 billion in 2009 and $151.36 billion in 2010.

Taking that into consideration and considering that the NBC Universal deal is in the air and considering that GE was trying to unload its appliances unit a year and a half ago, all those estimates and the financial condition could be vastly different if the capital markets and if deal making continues to improve.

Jon C. Ogg
November 24, 2009

Today's Best Market Rumors (11/24/2009) (FRE)(PALM)

247wallst — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:06:25 +0000

Updated throughout the day.

Playboy (NYSE:PLA) may outsource many of its publishing operations. (WSJ)

Cadbury (NYSE:CBY) may counter the Kraft (NYSE:KFT) big by making an offer for Kraft’s confectionery business. (NYPost)

Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) board member Rajiv Dutta may join Elevation partners, Palm’s largest shareholder. (Bloomberg)

Freddie Mac’s (NYSE:FRE) losses may grow because of the bankruptcy of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (NYTimes)

British Air may buy Qantas (FT)

GE (NYSE:GE) Capital’s losses may fall. (Reuters)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Ketchum accompagne GE, partenaire de l'illumination des Champs-Élysées

Aurélie Caron — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:35:26 +0000

Des illuminations aux reflets rose fuschia
GE illumine les Champs-Élysées pour la septième année consécutive, fournissant des lampes aux iodures métalliques céramiques qui permettent une économie d’énergie de 70% et un rendu des couleurs exceptionnel. Hier soir, lundi 23 novembre, les illuminations ont été inaugurées par Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bertrand Delanoë et Clara Gaymard notamment.

What's that in your honey?

Jeremy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:23:45 +0000

GREENPEACE has found commercial beehives contaminated with genetically engineered (GE) canola pollen

CSR Minute: GE Partners with China; Boston College Corporate Citizenship Advice

3BL Media — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:29:01 +0000

Corporate Social Responsible News: GE Partners with China; BOS College Center for Corporate Citizenship on Web Advice

Photo : Nouveauté GE

netedit — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:20:46 +0000

Le touche-à-tout Anglais, General Electric se lançe dans le monde des appareils photo numériques des

The Changing Nature of Innovation: Part I -- New Forms of Experimentation

israelgat — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:45:05 +0000

Colleague Christian Sarkar drew my attention to two recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles that shed light on the way(s) innovation is being approached nowadays. To the best of my knowledge, none of the two articles has been written by an author who is associated with the Agile movement. Both, if you ask me, would have resonated big time with the authors of the Agile Manifesto.

The February 2009 HBR article How to Design Smart Business Experiments focuses on data-driven decisions as distinct from decisions taken based on “intuition”:

Every day, managers in your organization take steps to implement new ideas without having any real evidence to back them up. They fiddle with offerings, try out distribution approaches, and alter how work gets done, usually acting on little more than gut feel or seeming common sense—”I’ll bet this” or “I think that.” Even more disturbing, some wrap their decisions in the language of science, creating an illusion of evidence. Their so-called experiments aren’t worthy of the name, because they lack investigative rigor. It’s likely that the resulting guesses will be wrong and, worst of all, that very little will have been learned in the process.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Thanks to new, broadly available software and given some straightforward investments to build capabilities, managers can now base consequential decisions on scientifically valid experiments. Of course, the scientific method is not new, nor is its application in business. The R&D centers of firms ranging from biscuit bakers to drug makers have always relied on it, as have direct-mail marketers tracking response rates to different permutations of their pitches. To apply it outside such settings, however, has until recently been a major undertaking. Any foray into the randomized testing of management ideas—that is, the random assignment of subjects to test and control groups—meant employing or engaging a PhD in statistics or perhaps a “design of experiments” expert (sometimes seen in advanced TQM programs). Now, a quantitatively trained MBA can oversee the process, assisted by software that will help determine what kind of samples are necessary, which sites to use for testing and controls, and whether any changes resulting from experiments are statistically significant.

On the heels of this essay on how one could attain and utilize experimentally validated data, the October 2009 HBR article How GE is Disrupting Itself discusses what is already happening in the form of Reverse Innovation:

The model that GE and other industrial manufacturers have followed for decades – developing high-end products at home and adapting them for other markets around the world – won’t suffice as growth slows in rich nations.
To tap opportunities in emerging markets and pioneer value segments in wealthy countries, companies must learn reverse innovation: developing products in countries like China and India and then distributing them globally.
While multinationals need both approaches, there are deep conflicts between the two. But those conflicts can be overcome.
If GE doesn’t master reverse innovation, the emerging giants could destroy the company.

It does not really matter whether you are a “shoe string and prayer” start-up spending $500 on A/B testing through Web 2.0 technology or a Fortune 500 company investing $1B in the development and introduction of a new car in rural India in order to “pioneer value segments in wealthy countries.” Either way, your experimentation is affordable in the context of the end-result you have in mind.

Fast forward to Agile methods. The chunking of work to two-week segments makes experimentation affordable – you cancel an unsuccessful iteration as needed and move on to work on the next one. Furthermore, you can make the go/no-go decision with respect to an iteration based on statistically significant “real time” user response. This closed-loop operational nimbleness and affordability , in conjunction with a mindset that considers a “failure” of an iteration as a valuable lesson to learn from, facilitates experimentation. Innovation simply follows.

WINward not WINDward

mjwinward — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:25:46 +0000

As most of you know I work for General Electric (GE) as a Regional Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Leader. I work in the GE Energy part of the business where I supervise all Wind Projects and Services Sites in the West & Northwest of the states. I’m currently being trained to cover the Aero product line in my region, basically they are gas turbines used for power generation.

Recently, I traveled down to Denver to meet with one of our customers. I flew in the night before the meeting since it was early the next morning and an all day event. When I get to the hotel and get my stuff to my room, the customer and their contractor reps are at the hotel bar waiting for me to head out for dinner. I dropped off my luggage and meet up with them at the bar.

Now I have had correspondence via email and conference calls since April with these guys and I couldn’t believe for the next 5 minutes discussion was going to be. I introduced myself to the 6 guys at the bar and they go right to “Hey how cool is that your last name is WINDward, and

you work in the Wind Industry” then the others decide to make a joke of it before I could set them straight and say it would be cool if my last name was “Tagline” (rope used to stabilize loads the cranes lift) or “Nacelle” (the generator that sits on top of the wind tower and rotor connects to).

The Rotor is being lifted to be attached to the Nacelle (generator) and the Tag Lines (rope) are being used to stablize the load as it is lifted

I was blown away I was having this conversation once again especially since my emails I send to them clearly states Mark Winward but I guess they were holding on to the chance I had misspelled my last name. Anyway so after minutes of talking about how it was destiny and how they should change their last name because how cool my name was I had to break it to them and let them know that even though close to being sheer coincidence that my last name was not what they wanted it to be. After the disappointment they continued a couple more minutes about what last names would be cool to have that are Wind Related. Though the inital meeting with these gentlemen was partially awkward they ended up being really nice guys and the meeting went well and they didn’t hold my disappointing last name against me.

A couple days before I flew down to Denver I made a last-minute trip to Hawaii to check on the two sites I have out there. Yes I didn’t take Allison like some of you keep teasing me about, and trust me I would have taken her but out of the kindness of my heart I made the decision that it wouldn’t be the best idea. Let me explain that last statement. Not only will I be working most of the time so she would be stuck enjoying the beaches by her lonesome, but also have no transportation due to me taking the vehicle to the Wind Sites. That doesn’t sound to bad or actually sounds even better that I’m not around right? Well, as I land in Maui, this keeps sounding better as I write this, right? Well when I get to my hotel, merely 50 yards from the waves, it turns for the worse.

When I was asked to go audit Hawaii, unfortunately with the economy the way it is, I have a budget for the year and being November my budget is almost dried up. I had to make my budget work if I were going to audit my sites in Hawaii.

I made the executive decision that I would not stay at the $200+/night (Corporate Rate) Hilton or Marriott resorts that were really nice and close by but I would try out a local hotel or should I say motel for $88/night (Corporate Rate). Yes, I did some research because an $88/night hotel in the state s won’t get you to nice place but something clean. Well, $88 doesn’t get you that in Hawaii even though some reviews seemed positive. I would have rather stayed at Motel 6 than this place.

The Maui Lu resort is nothing like a resort that I was accustomed to. The grounds are nice with all the palm trees and just a walk across the street and you are on the beach. But the positives stop there. They don’t have internet in the rooms, so if you would like, you will have to pay to use the lobby computer per minute…or if you have a laptop, as myself, you would have to sit in the outside lobby. If you don’t know Hawaii, it can get hot and humid…so not having A/C to do hours of emails wasn’t about to happen.

Shot taken in Kihei at 6 a.m. of the moon and if you look closely the Wind Turbines are on the ridge of the mountain

The 3 nights I stayed at the Maui Lu Resort I never saw one person use the pool, which seemed clean or should I go further, I only saw 3 people the whole time I was at this place. I definitely wanted to cancel my room after the first night and change hotels. But these places in Hawaii are smart and take half of the total bill and charge you weeks in advance before you arrive so canceling isn’t an option like at a Hilton family hotel.

Beach in Wailea on the island of Maui

The rooms…I believe they were built in the 60’s…one building closest to the beach had been marked off as “Do Not Enter” due to the building had been falling apart and abandoned for who knows how many years. It looked as if it could have collapsed at anytime–but they kept the grass green with daily watering. The room I stayed in should have been condemned also. The place was disgusting…carpets were stained, the shower curtains had stains, and the sink had a permanent yellow stain from the dripping faucet that would not stop. There were holes in the baseboard in the bathroom and instead of fixing the hole they put a tile baseboard to cover them. The towels seemed clean but all edges were frayed, not sure how long it has been since they purchased new linens for the guests. It may not sound that bad, but if you saw this place, you wouldn’t let your family endure the stay and I’m glad I made that decision. Even though some of my reasoning of not bringing her along may have been financially based and for that, I’m sorry Allison.

Public beach in Wailea looking at the Wind Turbines

On top of tower #3 of the Kaheawa Wind Site looking at the Southeastern Part of Maui

There were some good parts of the trip…the weather was really nice on the beach. I was able to visit them after work. Also, I was able to climb one of the Wind Turbines in Maui and I sat up there for a good 10 minutes or so and took in the spectacular views and, though windy up there, it was relaxing and peaceful in a way. Then I made the decision that my next trip to Hawaii I would bring Allison to experience this with me.

Pakini Nui Wind Site just a few miles from South Point (Southern Most Point in the U.S.A)

I headed to the Big Island for a couple days and the hotel, though a local place was actually really nice compared to the Maui Lu. There are a couple nice beaches in between all of the volcanic rock in Kona that I didn’t experience last time I was here. Plus, I would really like to go visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on the Big Island.

Steam from the lava flowing into the Pacific Ocean

All in all I completed all the audits I set out to do and glad Allison didn’t get to experience the Maui Lu, but I am excited for our next visit. Even though it will cost some money, because Hawaii is not cheap; the weather and beauty Hawaii has to offer will be well worth it.

Edifice Builders - Dream homes

venkatedifice — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:15:53 +0000

Everybody dreams of home and people work very much hard to build their dream home. Edifice Builders have given shape to dreams of those people who have dreamt of having the home and are working hard for that. Different people can afford different types of home. Some can afford buying expensive home while some cannot buy expensive homes.

At edifice our knowledgeable and experienced team works closely with a trusted group of partners to provide our customers world class homes keeping in mind the strictest met when considering any land or property investment.

What we have completed stands apart.

BFW Clubhouse
Signature Luxury condos
RR Bungalow

Our Hot Properties are,

Almond Tree
The Grand Edifice

The company is headed by Nikhil Thard. There is a strong team to back up the company who directly report to the MD. There is no hierarchy and the atmosphere is very open and proactive. People are encouraged to take responsibilities and correct problems. As a company we strongly believe in the fact that you can make mistakes as long as you don’t repeat them.

Edifice Builders globally-renowned service and support network ensures that everyone who enquires about our projects gets their questions answered, at any time, from anywhere.

Feel free to call us and get any information you want…

Apartments, Villas, Flats in Bangalore - Edifice Builders

venkatedifice — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:08:56 +0000

Edifice Builders – Contact now for Flats, Villas, Apartments, Grand Edifice, Almond Tree, constructions, row houses, flats for rent, flats in bangalore