Dear Winston-Salem Creative Types,
If you're going to promote your projects using mannequins and other lifelike displays around the city you might want to let folks know what you're doing. That's especially true if you put a mannequin on a billboard. If you don't and concerned citizens call 911, which in turn leads to police and EMS responding, then you should be prepared to pay a nice little fine. It's the least you could do for all the "free" publicity.
Best regards,
Jon
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Lutz writes: 'Takeovers are like coups – they both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom…
'It is essential that ‘deny’ and ‘denial’ enter the conservative lexicon immediately,' he writes, 'because it is at the core of what scares Americans most about a government takeover of health care.'”
The Freakonomics blog has a post about the Obama administration's decision to dramatically increase fuel economy standards. I found this part the most interesting:
The new regulations mandate that by 2016 the fuel economy of new cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. increase to a combined city/highway m.p.g. of 35.5, up from about 27.9 under today’s CAFE standards.
Although hybrids and electric vehicles can help automakers meet these targets, enough efficiency can be reaped with internal combustion autos. This can come through improvements to things like tires, engines (e.g. smaller ones with turbocharging), air conditioning, transmissions, and vehicle weight. The administration estimates that this will cost $1,100 per vehicle but that the improvements will pay for themselves with $3,000 in fuel savings over the life of the car.
This caught my attention because my wife just returned from a trip to Richmond and was in awe that our eight year old Saturn got 38 miles to the gallon for the trip. I've been driving the Saturn back and forth to Greensboro pretty much every day and I'm averaging about 32 miles a gallon even with city driving. My Mom has a hybrid and she gets in the 40s per gallon, which is obviously better, but our car's been paid off for years and (knock on wood) hasn't needed any extensive work done on it.
Only negative to the Saturn: I'm 6'2" and when I get in and out of it I look like a circus clown, but that's a small price to pay for keeping my gas tab down.
Wachovia, which Wells purchased last fall as it teetered on the brink of collapse, was so desperate to increase revenue in the last few years of its existence that it underwrote loans with extremely shoddy standards and paid traders to take them off their books."
h/t to Ed Cone for the link
I don't think the Winston-Salem City Council can afford to be too tough with Billy Prim and the other investors in the downtown stadium project so it will be interesting to see what happens if Prim misses the Council's deadline on getting the financing done on the deal as this article in the Journal hints might happen. I really don't think there's much the Council can do other than a little screamin' and hollerin'.
Yesterday I wrote about the 21 year old Winston-Salem State University student Derwin Montgomery who won the Democratic primary and likely the council seat the East Ward of Winston-Salem since there's no Republican candidate. The Winston-Salem Journal has an article about how he did it. Please note that he didn't just do this on a whim and that some real strategy and planning went into his effort:
Montgomery, who had been running his campaign more or less alone, started delegating responsibility to fellow students. He had a "director of compliance" who helped WSSU students register to vote in Forsyth County. He had a "director of transportation" who organized vehicles to drive students to the board of elections so they could cast early ballots. He had two administrative assistants.
It paid off in a big way. A total of 440 people cast ballots for Montgomery in early voting, including 211 students at Winston-Salem State who were newly registered. That's more than the total number of people who voted in three of the other six primary races.
I came across thispress release about a web-based company in Clemmons called Ecorations that has a pretty interesting product concept.
Ecorations, LLC is a web-based company launched in May 2008 by Kathy de Jong and Debora Owens. The concept was inspired by de Jong’s Dutch mother-in-law, who once presented Kathy with a Christmas gift wrapped in a burlap tote—only to promptly ask for it back (promising that she’d “see it again next year”). Today, Ecorations hopes to spread this lovely, timeworn tradition to the rest of the world.
Founded with the mission to reduce waste and shift standards in gift giving, the company is committed to quality and innovation “where green meets smart and chic.” Its bags and wraps are made in the U.S. of high-quality fabric, making them durable throughout years of reuse. Additional gift bag designs, including an apparel box wrap, structured pouch and wine bottle bag, come in several sizes (to fit any gift) and 10 reversible fabrics combinations for a variety of occasions
"Congressman Grayson: They are performing a truly remarkable, surreptitious transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They are taking their ability to print money and shore up failed banks. They are simply stuffing money into the pockets of private interests."
Befuddled 