Istanbul residents rally around their beloved stray dogs

As part of Istanbul's modernization push, the government wants to kick its dogs off the streets and into parks. Some city residents are howling.?

By Alexander Christie-Miller,?Correspondent / October 31, 2012

Few aspects of Istanbul's government-driven gentrification efforts have caused as much angst as a scheme to do away with the city's legions of stray dogs and cats.?

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In recent weeks, several thousand people have marched through Istanbul and other Turkish cities in protest of a draft law that envisions the rounding up and relocation of stray animals to specially-created "natural habitat parks."

The law pits efforts to revamp the booming city?against a mindset that remains strong?within older districts, where?street animals are seen as?legitimate denizens of the city.

"These are the neighborhood's dogs," says Hamit Yilmaz Ozcan, as he sits with Chico, an elderly Alsatian, and Hercule, his younger, rust-colored companion, two strays that reside near his clothing shop in the neighborhood of Cukurcuma.

"They protect us and everyone loves them."

The government has expressed bafflement at the hostility, insisting its aim is to protect strays from the danger and hunger they face on the streets.

Authorities say the dogs and cats will be fed and cared for at the new "habitat parks" situated on city outskirts, where they will be visited by school children and available for adoption.

"The proposed law aims to make animals live," the Ministry of Forestry and Water, which drafted the bill, said in a statement last month.?"The aim is to prevent bad treatment of animals, clarify institutional responsibilities, and to strengthen the mechanisms of animal ownership.?

Currently Turkey's strays are rounded up by municipal authorities, who generally vaccinate and spay or neuter them before releasing them back onto the streets with ear tags.

Animal rights activists are suspicious of government motives.

?The intention is to massacre these animals in a place where people will not see it,? says Emel Yildiz, a film actress and one of Turkey?s most prominent animal rights activists.

A support network for strays

Street animals have been a part of Turkish culture for generations, and many Istanbul residents believe they have as much right to inhabit the streets as humans.

In the central Beyoglu district, a shopping and nightlife hub popular with tourists, stray dogs and cats are a fixture of the crowded, narrow streets.?They are fed and often groomed by local businesses and residents. Some even become local celebrities.

One such character is Nazli, an obese Rottweiler mongrel who spends her days waddling between caf?s, butchers, and fishmongers off Istiklal, the city?s busiest shopping street.

?Everyone loves her,? says Kubilay Bircan a caf? worker on Hazzo Pulo Passage, where Nazli often sleeps at night.??The shopkeepers feed her with different things: fish and meat mainly. We all take care of her,? he says.

Four years ago, local tradesmen, concerned about the length of her toe nails, wrestled Nazli to the ground so a veterinarian could clip them, recalls Rita Cindoyan, a shopkeeper in the passage.??You couldn?t just take [Nazli] to a new place because she has been here all her life and she is looked after,? she says.

At Coskun butcher?s shop in the nearby Fish Bazaar, where Nazli is better known as Zehra, manager Ibrahim Ersoy is blunt about the proposed law.

?We would not let it happen,? he said. ?In our language we have a saying that the one who doesn?t love animals can?t love people.??

Modernization?

Opponents of the latest scheme see echoes of the "Great Dog Massacre of 1910," an event embedded in the city?s folklore.?Ottoman authorities rounded up most of Istanbul?s 60,000 stray dogs and dumped them on the deserted island of Sivriada, a tooth of rock that lies in the nearby Marmara Sea. The dogs slowly starved to death.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Sjt2yaAy-S8/Istanbul-residents-rally-around-their-beloved-stray-dogs

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Liverpool Offer Written Apology To Football Blogger Harangued By ...

By Chris Wright

Liverpool?s managing director Ian Ayre has offered a full written apology to a football blogger by the name of Sean Cummins, who was on the smelly end of what Ayre called the ?inappropriate? conduct of the club?s communications director, Jen Chang.

Cummins, the man behind the Twitter account of spoof journalist Duncan Jenkins, came to the attention of Chang after making a few educated guesses, which he dressed up as ?inside information? (it was all based on little more than second-hand tittle-tattle he?d picked up on internet message boards and the like) about Liverpool?s summer transfer targets that came to fruition.

Convinced he had a mole working for him inside the club, Chang then set about identifying the man behind the Duncan Jenkins account in order to rat out the fictional journalist?s fictional source, who he later claimed had cost Liverpool money (an extra ?300,000) in their supposedly covert pursuit of Fabio Borini, then of Roma.

After identifying him, Chang became so obsessed and concerned about Jenkins? Tweets that he scheduled a meeting with Cummins at a restaurant in Manchester back in August where he requested that the 35-year-old professional copy writer come clean to his 40,000+ followers and tell them that Jenkins was a spoof character and that he wasn?t actually privy to any??inside information?.

Chang and Cummins arrive for lunch at Evuna restaurant in Manchester

Cummins/Jenkins then posted a blog?about the meeting and the series of heavy-handed threats (including having his season ticket torn up, a lifetime ban from Anfield, smear stories being placed in the press designed to turn Liverpool fans against him and the ruining of Cummins? father?s online business) Chang made in order to pressure him into revealing himself as a fraud ? a fact which most members of the football blogging community were already well aware of.

You can read the truly shocking blog account in full, plus all the email exchanges between Cummins and Chang, here.

Asked at the time whether Cummins? account of the meeting was accurate, Chang replied that it was ?total nonsense?, though through CCTV footage, phone and email records, every element of Cummins? story that was possible to verify has been verified ? leading Ian Ayre to make the following apology to the man himself:

?Based on everything I have heard and seen, including information provided by the parties involved in the matter, I acknowledge some of the elements you highlight were not appropriate.

?I would therefore like to apologise to you on behalf of Liverpool FC, for any upset and distress this caused you.

?Clearly it is not appropriate for me to comment on how the club is managing this internally, and I trust you understand this.?

Cummins then told the brilliant?Sporting Intelligence?(@sportingintel), who put in a lot of hard yards following this story, that he finally felt vindicated: ?All I wanted was an apology, and I got one in writing today.?

Posted in FAIL, Liverpool, Media, Transfers & Rumours | No Comments ?

Source: http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/transfer_talk/145385/liverpool-offer-written-apology-to-football-blogger-harangued-by-club-communications-bod-jen-chang.html

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Will Ferguson wins Canadian literature award

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Hurricane Sandy: Does a full moon cause high tides? How?

Forecasters warn that storm surges from Hurricane Sandy could be particularly powerful, because the storm coincides with a full moon. How does that work, exactly?

By Mike Wall,?OurAmazingPlanet Senior Writer / October 29, 2012

NOAA's GOES East satellite snapped this image of Hurricane Sandy at 10:45 a.m. EDT (1445 UTC) on Oct. 24, 2012, as it was headed for landfall on Jamaica.

NOAA

Enlarge

Heaven and Earth may be aligning to turn Hurricane Sandy into a real monster, just in time for Halloween.

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Forecasters expect?Sandy to make landfall?along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States on Monday or Tuesday (Oct. 29 or 30). It may merge with a separate tempest hitting the region at about that time, creating an immensely powerful "Frankenstorm" whose effects could be magnified by the full moon.

When the?moon waxes to its full phase?Monday afternoon, high tides along the Eastern Seaboard will rise about 20 percent higher than normal, even without the help of Sandy's storm surge, said Joe Rao, a meteorologist for News 12 in Westchester, N.Y. (Storm surges occur when a hurricane's winds push the water surface above normal levels.)

"Add a big storm, and the full moon will only serve to exacerbate the situation by helping to accentuate?the higher-than-normal water levels, possibly leading to moderate or major coastal flooding and beach erosion," Rao told OurAmazingPlanet via email.

A gravitational lag usually causes the highest tides to come a day or two after every full moon, he added.

"So?the?worst coastal flooding wrought by Sandy might actually come on Tuesday, all depending on exactly where and when the storm makes landfall," said Rao, who is also the Night Sky Columnist for OurAmazingPlanet sister site SPACE.com. [How to Prepare for Hurricane Sandy]

At?full moon, the Earth, sun and moon are arranged in a line, with Earth in the middle. Tidal ranges are especially high at this time because the gravitational tugs of the sun and moon on our planet reinforce each other. The same effect is felt at new moon, when the three bodies all line up, with the moon between Earth and the sun.

Indeed, tides at the new and full moons are called "spring tides." The term has nothing to do with the season; it comes from the German verb "springen," which means "to spring up," Rao said.

Full and new moons have magnified storm impacts in the past, such as during the devastating "Ash Wednesday" tempest that rocked the U.S. East Coast in March 1962. The moon was full when this storm hit, but it was also at perigee ? the point in its orbit when it comes closest to Earth ? making things even worse.

A close lunar approach is one thing folks in Sandy's path don't have to worry about ? small comfort, perhaps, but it's something.

"If there is any saving grace in this upcoming situation regarding Sandy, it is that Monday's full moon comes less than three days before it arrives at apogee (farthest from the Earth)," Rao said.

Mike Wall is a senior writer for SPACE.com, follow him on Twitter?@michaeldwall. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter?@OAPlanet. We're also on?Facebook?and?Google+.

Copyright 2012?OurAmazingPlanet, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/8jdhCPV3D6o/Hurricane-Sandy-Does-a-full-moon-cause-high-tides-How

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Nexus 4 coming to O2 UK next month

British mobile network O2 is the first UK carrier to confirm that it'll be offering the LG Nexus 4 when it arrives next month. O2 doesn't offer any specific release date on its "coming soon" page, but with the Nexus 4 arriving on the Play Store on Nov. 13, we expect an O2 launch around the same time.

O2 also isn't confirming reports that it'll have a one-month exclusivity period in the UK, however the silence from other British operators suggests this may well be the case.

Also absent is any hint of pricing -- again, the Nexus 4 is to be offered SIM-free from £239 via Google Play, so if O2 wants to lure customers into a two-year contract, it'll likely have to offer the phone for free.

We'll be bringing you even more Nexus 4 coverage in the days ahead, so keep it locked to Android Central.

Source: O2 UK

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/a395DHmhdUs/story01.htm

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Video: Tomorrow in :30

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Oil and Gas industry leaders sign up to join the Energy Ministers of Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania and Mozambique at the Official East Africa Oil and Gas Summit co-hosted by the Ministry of Energy Kenya 13-14 November, Nairobi

?

EAOGS October (MS word)

Momentum is building towards the East Africa Oil and Gas Summit as market drivers TULLOW, NOC KENYA, PETROBRAS, HALLIBURTON, EXXON, ANADARKO, WEATHERFORD, FUGRO, TOTAL SA, AFREN, CHASE, BERTLING, ECO BANK, CCC, IMARA ENERGY, SIMBA, NILEPET, OPHIR and YOKAGAWA all signed up as delegates this week to attend the Ministers? Official East Africa Oil and Gas Summit (EAOGS) joining more than 100 companies who have already booked for the official annual event for the Oil & Gas industry in East Africa taking place in Nairobi 13-14 November at the Intercon Nairobi.

As the Ministers? initiative for the East Africa region EAOGS led by Hon Prof SospeterMuhongo, Minister of Energy & Minerals, Tanzania; Hon. Stephen DhieuDau, Minister for Petroleum, Energy and Mining, South Sudan; Hon. Irene Muloni, Minister of Energy & Minerals, Uganda; Hon. Abdul RazakNoormahomed, Vice-Minister, Ministry for Mineral Resources Mozambique and Hon. KiraituMurungi, Minister for Energy, Kenya, EAOGS is the most senior annual event in the East Africa oil and gas calendar for 2012. With a planned opening by Prime Minister RailaOdinga, and President MwaiKibaki and attendance by all the major Energy Ministers and senior oil and gas industry representatives from across East Africa, EAOGS is the major annual international hub for the oil and gas industry across East Africa.

?

The Ministers from Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya will be speaking in the Ministerial Address on the key opportunities and challenges in the East African oil and gas industry and will all be leading delegations from their respective countries to the summit.

?

Sponsors for the summit include NOC Kenya, Simba Energy, Bertling Logistics, Newport Africa and Hybrid Solutions, and more speaker, sponsor and the final programme announcements will be made this week as the momentum builds in the final 3 week count down to the summit.

?

?The EAOG Summit is the first in what will become a pivotal annual event of great investor and stakeholder interest. We invite both the regional and international oil and gas communities to join us in Nairobi, 12th to 14th November. I ask you to join me in wholeheartedly supporting this event? said Hon. KiraituMurungi. He explained how the country is keen to learn from the best practices around the world to guide the exploitation of oil in an effort to protect the country from the risks associated with oil. ?We are looking at countries like Abu Dhabi, Norway and Ghana which have managed their oil resources fairly well as examples. However, we want to make Kenya a case study of the best management of oil in the world,? he said. Case studies on using oil revenues for a diverse economy are covered on the summit programme in session 4 on the impact of increasing oil and gas revenues for the region.

The EAOGS programme includes sessions led by government and industry experts examining the challenges and opportunities in East Africa from a government and private company perspective; finance, infrastructure projects, pipelines, LNG terminals, legislation, security, local content, technology transfer and future projects.

Press contact
Rosie Topp, Global Event Partners Ltd
rtopp@gep-events.com
UK Direct line: 44 20 3488 1193
UK Mobile: +44 7581 130130

Organisers
EAOGS is organised by Global Event Partners Ltd and is part of Global Event Partners Ltd headquartered in London. Global Event Partners (K) Ltd benefits from major support and ownership from our esteemed Partner Dr.MukhisaKituyi, Chairman of Global Event Partners (K) Ltd. Dr MukhisaKituyi. As a group, Global Event Partners Ltd has more than 40 years? experience of delivering events of the highest quality and at the highest level for the oil & gas industry, specifically working in Africa for the past 12 years.

Corporate website?:www.gep-events.comEvent website www.eaogs.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Africabusinesscom/~3/oMpmER4eka4/

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Man shot, killed at Georgia megachurch

By NBC News staff

Updated at 11:48 a.m. ET: A man wearing a suit and tie on Wednesday entered a chapel at an Atlanta-area megachurch headed by televangelist Creflo Dollar and shot another man during a prayer service, police and local media reported.

The shooting happened Wednesday morning at the chapel at World Changers Church International's main campus in College Park, Ga., Fulton County police told NBC News.

The gunman walked into the chapel and shot a 48-year-old church staff member?during a Bible study prayer service, WXIA-TV?reported.

The victim was transported to South Fulton Hospital where he later died, ajc.com reported.?

The suspect, described as a man in his thirties wearing a suit and tie, fled the scene, WXIA reported.

World Changers Church has about 20 campuses throughout the country. The church founded by Dollar, who is its senior pastor, claims about 30,000 members and has an $18 million, 8,500-seat sanctuary about 15 miles from downtown Atlanta. Dollar was not injured, WXIA reported.

Dollar, who's known for his pinstriped suits and charismatic sermons, has written several books offering followers his advice on how to get out of debt and take lessons from the Bible in building wealth so they can better live as Christians.

Edgar Zuniga, NBC News Atlanta, contributed to this story.

More content from NBCNews.com:

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14669207-man-shot-dead-during-prayer-service-at-atlanta-area-megachurch-suspect-on-the-loose?lite

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Don't Upgrade to the iPad 4

Surprise! There's a new iPad out. Again. Already. But should you ditch the one you've got for the new guy? Our guess is probably not. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/-JikjMcd4gY/dont-upgrade-to-the-ipad-4

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How a fish broke a law of physics

Monday, October 22, 2012

Reflective surfaces polarize light, a phenomenon that fishermen or photographers overcome by using polarizing sunglasses or polarizing filters to cut our reflective glare. However, PhD student Tom Jordan from the Bristol Centre for Complexity Sciences and his supervisors Professor Julian Partridge and Dr Nicholas Roberts in Bristol's School of Biological Sciences found that these silvery fish have overcome this basic law of reflection ? an adaptation that may help them evade predators.

Previously, it was thought that the fish's skin ? which contains "multilayer" arrangements of reflective guanine crystals ? would fully polarize light when reflected. As the light becomes polarized, there should be a drop in reflectivity.

The Bristol researchers found that the skin of sardines and herring contain not one but two types of guanine crystal ? each with different optical properties. By mixing these two types, the fish's skin doesn't polarize the reflected light and maintains its high reflectivity.

Dr Roberts said: "We believe these species of fish have evolved this particular multilayer structure to help conceal them from predators, such as dolphin and tuna. These fish have found a way to maximize their reflectivity over all angles they are viewed from. This helps the fish best match the light environment of the open ocean, making them less likely to be seen."

As a result of this ability, the skin of silvery fish could hold the key to better optical devices. Tom Jordan said: "Many modern day optical devices such as LED lights and low loss optical fibres use these non-polarizing types of reflectors to improve efficiency. However, these man-made reflectors currently require the use of materials with specific optical properties that are not always ideal. The mechanism that has evolved in fish overcomes this current design limitation and provides a new way to manufacture these non-polarizing reflectors."

###

University of Bristol: http://www.bristol.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Bristol for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 79 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124661/How_a_fish_broke_a_law_of_physics

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Ally's Canadian auto finance unit sold to RBC for $4.1 billion

October 23, 2012 - 12:01 am ET UPDATED: 10/23/12 2:25 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) -- Royal Bank of Canada has agreed to buy the Canadian auto finance and deposit arm of Ally Financial Inc. in a $4.1 billion deal to expand its vehicle-lending business at a time when loan growth overall is slowing in the country.

Canada's largest bank said on Tuesday the deal would give a big boost to its existing domestic consumer and commercial auto financing business, and position it as a leader in the segment.

Ally, majority-owned by the U.S. Treasury, outlined plans in May to sell its international operations, aiming to speed up repayment of government bailouts during the financial crisis.

The company is the former auto lending arm of General Motors. Last week it agreed to sell its Mexican insurance business to ACE Ltd for $865 million.

Ally expects to receive total proceeds of about $4.1 billion from the sale of its Canadian business. RBC said its cash outlay on the deal would be between $3.1 billion and $3.8 billion, as it is contingent on the size of the dividend that Ally intends to extract from its Canadian business before closing.

While Canadian banks still churn out steady profits, they have been struggling lately to spur growth in the face of slowing loan growth and narrow interest margins.

Given this backdrop, analysts said the deal may be good for RBC, noting that auto lending - at least on the personal side - is one of the areas that has continued to experience relatively strong growth.

"We view the transaction positively as it increases scale and builds out Royal's very profitable domestic franchise," Barclays analyst John Aiken said in a note to clients.

The deal, which requires regulatory approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013. RBC competed with another Canadian bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank, in an auction for the assets, a source told Reuters on Monday.

The Canadian banking industry is dominated by six domestic banks, and the federal government discourages mergers among them, making growth opportunities hard to come by. Given this scenario, any assets that come up for grabs in Canada typically attract a flurry of interest.

"We believe this deal will deliver long-term strategic value and provide significant opportunities given the strength of the combined business and the attractive dynamics of the industry," RBC Chief Executive Gord Nixon said in a conference call.

"In summary, of all the deals we looked at in Canada, this was the one we really wanted," he said.

Ally deal

"This deal is consistent with our goal of being a financial leader in financial services in all areas of our domestic market, and the acquisition positions RBC as a leader in the auto finance business in Canada," Nixon said.

Even so, shares of RBC along with other Canadian banks pulled back on Tuesday, after the Bank of Canada held its key rate at 1.0 percent and softened its bias on an interest rate increase somewhat by making the timetable for such a move less definite.

Ally's Canadian arm offers commercial loans to more than 580 auto dealerships across the country, while its consumer business offers retail financing to Canadian consumers through about 1,600 dealerships.

RBC expects the Ally Canada business to generate about $120 million in net income on a standalone basis within the first 12 months after closing. The deal is expected to modestly boost RBC's earnings per share in the first year after closing.

Ally CEO Michael Carpenter said in a statement the lender would evaluate options for its remaining operations in Europe and Latin America, and expects to identify its plans in November.

Ally's international operations in Europe, Canada, Latin America and Mexico have drawn interest from more than 30 bidders, including banks and GM, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Monday.

The lender's Canadian operations, based in Toronto, are its largest outside the United States, with $13.6 billion in assets at the end of the third quarter. Ally's international business assets totaled $31 billion, according to data in a recent company presentation.

Ally is aiming to turn around its operations by focusing on U.S. auto lending and banking.

Its Residential Capital mortgage unit filed for bankruptcy in May in a bid to protect the parent company from lingering liabilities tied to home loans it sold to investors during the housing boom.

An auction for ResCap's mortgage servicing and lending operations begins on Tuesday in New York. A consortium of Ocwen Financial Corp and Walter Investment Management Corp is vying with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc to buy the business, sources told Reuters last week.

Contact Automotive News

Source: http://www.autonews.com/article/20121023/FINANCE_AND_INSURANCE/310239823/ally-near-deal-to-sell-canadian-business-to-rbc

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Wanna Play a Game, Mama? | Teaching, Learning, and Living ...

?Wanna play a game, Mama??.? This is a question asked daily by my three-year-old.? He loves games, particularly board games.? I happen to love games too, so it is hard to resist his requests.

Some of my fondest memories from childhood revolve around playing board games with my family.? Clue, Parcheesi, The Game of LIFE, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and even a summer of insanely long games of Monopoly with my sister top the list.? I still love to play games and my husband and I love nothing better than an evening of game playing with friends.? Annual vacations with my college roommates always involve some game playing as well.? The games have changed over the years, but some things never change.? There is a sense of connection I feel when playing a game with someone.? There are shared memories and always conversation and laughter.? I play a lot of games with my three-year-old now and am often reminded of the numerous benefits of games.

1. Socialization.? Playing games requires communication.? My son and I laugh, take turns, use manners, and SHARE.
2. Language Development.? We talk while we play games.? Often there are opportunities to introduce new vocabulary and practice it during game play.? Tonight, for example, we counted the number of matches each of us had at the end of a Memory game.? We asked questions like ?Who has the MOST matches?? and ?Who has the FEWEST matches??.
3. Skill Development.? We count, use one-to-one correspondence, identify letters and numbers, match pictures, demonstrate concepts of more and less and adding and taking away, etc.
4. Patience and Persistence.? When we started playing games, my son was about two and a half and his attention span was short.? Now he easily waits for his turn and is determined to finish a game, no matter how many rolls of the dice it takes to do so.
5. Imagination / Fantasy Play.? My son loves selecting his playing piece in some of his games.? He becomes the character behind the piece and sometimes assigns roles to the playing pieces.? I can see his imagination developing more and more each time we play.

I am very impressed with the variety of games that are available for young children today. There are lots of rather pointless ones, but there are also some really good ones.? We started with picture dominoes and moved to matching games like Memory.? At two and a half, my son?s favorite song was ?The Wheels on the Bus? and I actually found a board game called ?The Wheels on the Bus?.? It is really a fun game!? It also has two levels of play to extend the life of the game as a child gets older.? We are on the more advanced level now and he still loves to play it.? We also get to sing the song and move a little musical bus around the board.? Another multi-level game we enjoy is a train version of Candy Land.? We also play a lot of Bingo!? One of our Bingo games has three levels, focusing one just one attribute on the board or two or three attributes.? We play on the middle level currently, but my son has started asking about adding in the third die, so I think we will try that soon.

We already have great memories involving the games we play together as a family, and I am looking forward to dusting off my childhood favorites as my son gets older!

This entry was posted in Education, Personal. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://meredithburton.com/2012/wanna-play-a-game-mama/

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Follow These Tips And Improve Your Internet Marketing! ? LEETTO

Whatever you do, do not miss out on marketing your business online. It has really become necessary to promote your business online. This is the time to go ahead and do it. The following tips can help you figure out how to market your business.

Before you can aspire to real success with online marketing, you must first have a really good website. Check frequently for broken links, outdated information and any other problems that could detract from the message and product you are presenting. If visitors have a hard time looking through your site, they will probably avoid purchasing anything from you.

A title often commands respect. If you?re a business owner, become CEO. If you are not the owner of a business, make sure you have a great title! Make sure you sign all announcements and emails with name and title included.

TIP! Make sure you know what tools your competitors are using to drive business. Every niche has competition no matter what it is.

Use Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites to your advantage. Since they provide a quick and simple way to send promotions or updated site information, social media sites are an effective way to stay in touch with potential customers. Try not to be too sales-pitch heavy when you are using Twitter as a means of communication. Try to keep your posts valuable and insightful, and only include marketing in a portion of them.

Having an area on your website for users to post reviews is a great website marketing tool. When clientele post their actual experiences with your services and products, they are both possibly giving you word of mouth advertising that leads to new sales, as well as boosting your online presence with new and fresh content.

If you are using email marketing, you need to rotate links that are included in your correspondence. The link blocks that stay the same in each email are generally ignored. Your email readers will be less likely to lose interest if you keep changing up the links in your emails.

Offer information your customers can use if you want to build an online following. A simple page with details on your hours of business will not attract as many customers as a larger website would. Add reviews, articles and other content that will let prospective customers know that you are a business that knows your industry.

TIP! Make sure you use offer customers a guarantee, it is a surefire way to increase your success. People also know that companies sometimes don?t live up to their guarantees, so build up a reputation for honoring your promises.

Try to make people on your mailing list feel as though they are getting a thoughtful, personal email from you. Customers and whoever else you send email to would much prefer you address them directly instead of just sending an impersonal form letter. Are you sick of spam emails from companies? By sending personalized and targeted emails, you will set yourself apart.

Offering free courses or eBooks can be a great way to attract new customers and gain customer loyalty. Consider packaging this free course with a similar product so as to increase sales. You may wish to run an ad campaign detailing the course.

Including your signature in every outgoing email is crucial, even when it does not pertain to business. Spread your business card all over the cyber-world; you want as much exposure as possible. Your website will enjoy greater revenue and greater traffic thanks to this practice.

Add personal details to your campaign. Show who you are and what you represent to your customers. Share with the public your full name and a portrait of yourself. Create a statement to welcome visitors to your site. If it can be handwritten, that?s a nice touch.

TIP! A 500 error page that is user-friendly is an important tool to have. This happens when your code does not work properly.

Incorporating banners in a non-discrete fashion will help to improve your website. Use banners that are links to click on to get to more content. Many people avoid clicking banners, so this will tempt them to do so.

When trying to get people to advertise your site or have them link to it, make it simple for them to do so by including a link to us button. People who have a site that is related to your business in some way will often want to help out by using the add on their own site for their visitors to see.

This tactic is clearly important for your business. There are a lot of ways to go about this. There?s a vast amount of information out there about the benefits of this. By using this advice, you will soon get started with your online marketing campaign.

Read up on marketing studies that show what techniques are and are not effective in webpage design and marketing on the internet in general. The way people see your site can have a big impact on whether they decide to buy from you. Understanding this information can prove very crucial towards maximizing your overall profit.

TIP! Look into testing the emails that you send out to see what your customers think and how they respond. Look into A/B testing.

Tags: business online, online marketing, social media

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2012 at 2:15 am and is filed under engine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Source: http://leetto.com/follow-these-tips-and-improve-your-internet-marketing/

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Oscars Debbie to show supremacy in A2 400m Flat at Romford - Bettor

Oscars Debbie to show supremacy in A2 400m Flat at Romford

J. Reynolds? 2-year-old, Oscars Debbie, is a proven winner, and looks to be in an excellent position to offer more in the A2 400m Flat, being hosted by Romford on Monday, October 22, 2012.

Her recent stats do not carry any holes. She jumped up to this level following an outstanding win earlier this month. In an A3 meeting, the bitch impressed everyone by taking a classy neck-distance win over Scala Vixen.

After leaving the first trap, she managed to get early pace, which really helped her lead at the second bend. She found no problem afterwards. After a superb win, the fans were expecting her to achieve more good results, but unfortunately that did not happen.

The black bitch went through a lot mess the following time, and eventually ended up fifth on the chart. She baulked before getting crowded in the middle stages, and it was very difficult to recover from there.

The daughter of Honcho Classic showed some improvement last time. Despite getting bumped early on, she succeeded in keeping herself in the front. The Feb-10 bitch ran on to secure the second place, missing the gold only by one and a quarter lengths.

It was surely an improved act, and a lot more is expected this time. The draw is another major advantage. The bitch only needs to avoid mess in order to thrive.

Other hounds in the 400 metres flat race are: Hometown Day, Bellinter George, Courts Flyer, Moody Blonde and Soho Rage. The event, which is scheduled to start at 21:02 GMT, carries a winning prize of 116 pounds.

Soho Rage is in really bad form, and plenty of urgency is required to make a race of it. Moody Blonde could ultimately find things tough, really tough in fact.

Hometown Day is not enjoying the best of draws, but still he can do some damage. Oscars Debbie certainly needs to stay cautious. Bellinter George should be up for making a solid contribution, but not a winning one. On the other hand, it is not easy to back Courts Flyer, who seems to have nothing in her favour.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not reflect Bettor.com?s editorial policy.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Oscars-Debbie-to-show-supremacy-in-A2-400m-Flat-at-Romford-a196595

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Presidential race buffets fight for Senate control (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/257170866?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Random Words of Ownership | PWxyz

This past week, Michael Kelley, the Editor in Chief of Library Journal, called attention to statements from Random House that suggest that libraries own the books they acquire from distributors such as Overdrive or 3M. Evidently, as far as Random is concerned, distributors are not compelled to enforce license agreements with libraries for Random House titles. Michael quotes Skip Dye, head of library relations at Random, ?Random House?s often repeated, and always consistent position is this: when libraries buy their RH, Inc. ebooks from authorized library wholesalers, it is our position that they own them.? Skip goes on to say, ?This is our business model: we sell copies of our ebooks to an approved list of library wholesalers, and those wholesalers are supposed to resell them to libraries. In our view, this purchase constitutes ownership of the book by the library. It is not a license.?

These are startling words, and they suggest a wide series of consequences. If libraries truly own Random House titles, then the only legal restraints on their use beyond acknowledgement of the normal restrictions of copyright are the constraints that libraries have acquiesced to in their contracts with library e-book distributors. In line with the statement from RH, libraries should theoretically be able to sell e-books once they are done with them, donate them to other libraries, or engage in digital inter-library loan.

One caveat in Skip?s language is ?approved list of library wholesalers? ? if RH is selling only to wholesalers that it knows a priori will impose restrictions on e-book use and disposition, then it is being disingenuous. For example, if 3M contract language acknowledges that a library has a right to move its titles to another platform, does the license interfere with the ability of a library to donate or sell its ebook collection to another party? Could, in other words, the State of Kansas sell the Internet Archive a set of ebooks for the IA to make available through Open Library? Would Random object to that transfer? And, even more critically, just who is eligible to be an approved purchaser of books? Would Random House turn away the Internet Archive as a potential buyer of ebooks? As an Internet Archive director, I wrote to Skip Dye, offering to buy a bulk quantity of Random titles for Open Library?s lending service. I await word.

There are further interesting questions. If libraries own the books they purchase from an approved RH retailer, then do consumers own the e-books they buy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other online bookstores? Random House is partnering with Bookshout, a new service that permits readers to aggregate their e-books in a vendor-neutral bookshelf, regardless of which retailer the titles were acquired from originally. This would suggest that RH?s policy might well extend to consumers. If Bookshout is able to aggregate e-books from a range of retailers, then would it be possible for the Internet Archive to create a library bookshelf, in which individual consumers donate their used digital titles to the Open Library? If IA was able to verify that consumers own those titles, in a manner logically consistent with the approach that Bookshout is taking, would not IA be similarly supporting reader?s rights?

Random House could initiate large-scale e-book sales direct to consumers whenever it chose. Direct sales would force Amazon to acknowledge that its e-book provisions to consumers were truly sales, not licenses, and dramatically weaken Amazon?s market position to publishers? advantage, as well as consumers?. E-book retailers would have to compete on services to a far greater extent than they do now, providing robust collection management facilities, annotation and social reading support, integration with external e-book services, and making available a robust set of APIs for individual or group-based collection management.

There?s also a side to this question that targets Random House particularly. RH moved to agency pricing in 2011, and was not named in the Department of Justice action against five other publishers that allegedly colluded to set retail prices. The Justice Department has made it clear that agency pricing, per se, is not inherently illegal, and Random is therefore free to continue its pricing strategy without antitrust entanglement. But, if Amazon and other ebook retailers are acting as agents for Random ? contractually acknowledging Random?s price settings and collecting local sales taxes for the publisher ? and if the contract language between Random House and e-book retailers presumes sales and not licensing, then it would appear that consumers should be free from the constraints that Amazon may be unnecessarily ? perhaps even inappropriately ? imposing on consumers.

There?s one final argument as to why Random would want to move towards ownership language for e-books. In online music sales, recent court decisions such as Eminem (FBT Productions v. Aftermath Records) clearly indicate that digital revenue booked as sales actually constitutes licensing per the contract agreements with the artists. The distinction is consequential because licensing affords far higher royalties ? up to 50 percent ? than straight sales. Significant class actions are being resolved in favor of recording artists, and these rulings put studios in arrears with many of their artists for considerable sums. This may provide further incentive, particularly for authors with older contracts, for publishers to book transactions as sales. And if RH is controlling pricing through retail price management, the financial exposure of e-book sales being evaluated as licenses by courts could be even greater.

Both individual readers and libraries need to start demanding clarification in what publishers mean when they say that consumers ?own? e-books. There?s a striking disjunction between action and language. Words have meaning, and language has consequences. It?s time to hold corporations accountable, and re-assert ownership over our own bookshelves.

Source: http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2012/10/21/random-words-of-ownership/

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Congo rebels call for negotiations with Kinshasa

BUNGANA, eastern Congo (AP) ? Fighting may resume soon in eastern Congo if President Joseph Kabila's government does not negotiate with the M23 rebels, said the insurgents' president, Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga, Saturday.

"We see that the Congolese army troops are moving, they are preparing a final assault against us. If the government does not come to the negotiating table we will have to defend ourselves," said Runiga at a press conference in Bunagana, a town in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the border with Uganda that is controlled by the M23.

The fact that the M23 rebels control a town so securely that it can hold a public press conference with journalists travelling from the provincial capital of Goma, is an indication of the group's success. The M23 say they have also established an alternative government over the areas of eastern Congo that it controls.

Asked by the Associated Press if they thought of taking the initiative and attacking themselves, the M23 president said that they "could take Goma at any moment. ... If we want to wage war, we can. We have the strength."

Runiga has been spending the past weeks in Kampala, where he said he worked with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to try to open a dialog with the Kabila government in Kinshasa.

"Museveni invited us to negotiate with Kabila and asked us to stop fighting. That is why there has been a ceasefire for two months. But Kinshasa does not want to negotiate or to try to find a solution to the crisis quickly. They rather talk with Rwanda," said the M23 president.

A leaked United Nations experts report accuses Rwanda and Uganda of supporting the rebels. It reportedly charges that the Rwandan minister of defence, General James Kabarebe, is directing the M23 rebels.

Runiga said the report is wrong and deplored that neighboring countries are blamed for what are mainly internal Congolese problems. He said the M23 is the result of bad governance in Kinshasa.

"The U.N. report was created by Kinshasa intelligence services. It is a strategy to make people forget that the country is not well managed," he said.

According to Runiga the M23 is receiving new Congolese army defectors every day and does not need the military support of Rwanda and Uganda.

He announced that the military branch of the M23 group has been renamed the Congolese Revolutionary Army (Arm?e R?volutionaire

Congolaise) and its leader, Colonel Sultani Makenga, has been promoted to general to reflect the growing number of troops under his command.

Runiga strongly denied accusations by a recent Human Rights Watch report that the M23 rebels recruit children into their ranks.

"There are children without parents who come to us to join our ranks but we turn them back and pay for their school fees," he said.

The M23 is a rebellion that was created by Congolese army deserters in May. The members are mainly ethnic Tutsis. Its leaders demand that agreements made with the Congo government when they were integrated in the army in 2009 are respected.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congo-rebels-call-negotiations-kinshasa-150235039.html

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marjorie timidity: NAPA of Central Missouri - Billiards

Billiards has been around for a long time. ?So has competition. ?Billiard leagues combine these to make the sport competitive and fun. ?In the book PRECISION POOL by Gerry Kanov and Shari Stauch, they say "This is a sport, a game, a form of recreation enjoyed by millions of people. ?But it can be a difficult and frustrating ?sport for untold millions-and you- if you're not enjoying it. ?Accept the Challenges, embrace the difficulties, revel in the mastery of each new skill, no matter how trivial at first glance. There's not a professional player in all the pool circuit that will tell you they've mastered the art of cue sports. ?What they have mastered is the love of pool, and the thrill of discovery in a sport that will endlessly challenge them for as long as they weild a cue.We wish the same for each of you!"

I agree. ?If you are not having fun playing pool then you should find something else to do. ?You are always learning. ?You are always watching. ?You are always practicing. ?That is what NAPA is all about. ?You the player, becoming better, becoming more competitive, becoming part of a team, and becoming a leader, a teacher, a mentor. ?If you love something then it is easier to to tolerate frustration, enjoy competition, encourage friendship, and promote the game and the league.

I will be giving tips each week to help every level of player from those just beginning to those who think they have mastered the game. ?I will invite each of you to also give me your comments, suggestions, and remarks to make the blog, and the league, better.?

I look forward in starting this series and continue it as long as there is interest.

Source: http://napa-missouri.blogspot.com/2012/10/billiards-has-been-around-for-long-time.html

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Source: http://marjorie-timidity.blogspot.com/2012/10/napa-of-central-missouri-billiards.html

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Poetry in motion: Gemini Observatory releases image of rare polar ring galaxy

Friday, October 19, 2012

When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead. When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed.

These words, which open Shelley's poem "When the Lamp is Shattered," employ visions of nature to symbolize life in decay and rebirth. It's as if he had somehow foreseen the creation of this new Gemini Legacy image, and penned a caption for it. What Gemini has captured is nothing short of poetry in motion: the colorful and dramatic tale of a life-and-death struggle between two galaxies interacting. All the action appears in a single frame, with the stunning polar-ring galaxy NGC 660 as the focus of attention.

Polar-ring galaxies are peculiar objects. Astronomers have found only a handful of them, so not much is known about their origins. Most have an early-type spiral system, called a lenticular galaxy, as the central showpiece. But NGC 660, which lies about 40 million light-years distant toward the direction of Pisces the Fishes, is the only polar-ring galaxy known with what is called a late-type lenticular galaxy as its host. All, however, display a ring of stars, dust, and gas that extends tens of thousands of light-years across space along an orbit nearly perpendicular to the main disk.

Models of how polar-ring galaxies for offer two general formation scenarios: 1) a piercing merger between two galaxies aligned roughly at right angles, or 2) when the host galaxy tidally strips material from a passing gas-rich spiral and strews it into a ring.

What you see in this new Gemini Legacy image, then, is not a single dynamic body but either the "bloody" aftermath of one galaxy piercing the heart of another or the remains of a furious tidal struggle between two galaxies that shattered one galaxy's "lamp," scattered its dust and gas, and formed a colorful, 40,000-light-year-long ring of visual glory.

Born of Violence

Brian Svoboda of the University of Arizona, who recently studied the chemical and temperature environment of NGC 660, believes that unique morphology arises from a previous interaction with a gas-rich galaxy. The geometry of NGC 660 ?? an enormous edge-on polar ring (some 40,000 light-years across) ?? contains more gas (and associated star formation) than its host, which strongly suggests a violent formation. "One of the main characteristics of NGC 660 is that the ring is not truly polar, but is inclined ~45 degrees from the plane of the disk," Svoboda points out. "The simulations for the piercing mergers cannot reproduce these low inclination polar rings; however, the tidal accretion scenario can."

NGC 660's polar ring resolves into hundreds of objects, a considerable part of which are blue and red supergiant stars. The youngest detected stars in the ring formed only about 7 million years ago, indicating a long, ongoing process.

"Gemini's incredible definition of the active star forming regions strewn through the polar ring in NGC 660, juxtaposed against the exquisite crossing dust lanes, is simply beautiful. It really is the most incredible picture I've seen of the galaxy," Svoboda exclaims. "None of the other images I've seen, including those from the Hubble Space Telescope, show the star forming regions with such clarity."

Weighing the Evidence

If NGC represents a merging of two galaxies, astronomer would expect to find a collapsed core and a burst of star formation, which they do see. But the monkey wrench is the uniquely high gas content of both NGC 660's disk component and its polar ring.

"A tidal accretion event will place gas in the polar ring without strongly interacting with the original gas rich host, Svoboda explains. "Tidal interaction is consistent with an influx of gas into the nuclear region creating the starburst that we observe now." Further evidence, he says, is NGC 660's lack of a double nucleus (i.e. two super-massive black holes), which one would expect from a merger.

Astronomers have not detected any "tails" extending from NGC 660, a key signature of many tidal interactions. Usually, when galaxy passes close to another, tidal forces eject stars, gas, and dust into a graceful tail of extragalactic debris and stretched them far into space. But both polar-ring models have produced systems without tidal tails while creating active star formation in the polar ring.

While it can't be proven with a great deal of confidence, in the case of NGC 660, Svoboda says, "I think that there is good evidence to suggest that the origin of the polar ring lies in the tidal accretion event scenario." Particularly he notes that the ring may be about 1 billion years old, so the stripped galaxy could have moved out of the field by the time of our observations now.

Life from Death?

Unseen to the eye, but bright at radio wavelengths, is a compact source (less than 32 light-years in extent) at the host's core. Believed to be a super cluster of stars in a dense cloud of dust and gas, this powerful radio emitter contains perhaps a few thousand hot, blue youthful stars.

Galaxies usually have a majority of old red stars at their cores, but one of the violent scenarios that created NGC 660 has triggered a furious burst of star formation at the galaxy's core. Either way, the gravitational interaction between the two galaxies created shock waves that plowed into giant clouds of gas, causing them to collapse into behemoth blue stars, many likely containing more than 100 times the mass of our Sun. These monstrous, short-lived, stars exploded shortly thereafter as supernovae, which generated more shock waves, creating a domino effect that has ever since perpetuated the creation of youthful stars at NGC 660's core. NGC 660, then, is not only a polar-ring galaxy but also a starburst galaxy. These systems are among the most dense and intense star-forming environments known.

Probing Dark Matter

The ring in a polar-ring galaxy rotates at a speed comparable to that of its host galaxy. By determining how fast a polar ring rotates at different distances from the center of the system, astronomers can search for evidence of elusive and mysterious dark matter in NGC 660's halo. Radio observations have shown that while the ring's velocity close to NGC 660's core is normal, the velocity in the ring's outer parts remains consistent; theoretically the rotational velocity should have dropped off significantly due to the region's gas-poor environment. This finding points to the existence of huge amounts of dark matter in NGC 660.

Astronomers believe dark matter influences the dynamics of all galaxies. Yet understanding dark matter remains one of the astronomy's greatest challenges. Further observations of the enigmatic environment of NGC 660 may shed more light on this ? well ? dark matter.

###

Gemini Observatory: http://www.gemini.edu

Thanks to Gemini Observatory for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124648/Poetry_in_motion__Gemini_Observatory_releases_image_of_rare_polar_ring_galaxy

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To Turn The Crowd Into Venture Capitalists, FundersClub Raises $6 ...

If you need more proof that FundersClub wants to radically change startup funding by letting non-VCs invest, it just closed a $6 million seed round, the largest ever from a Y Combinator company. There are still questions about its legality, but investors include A-listers YC, First Round, Chris Dixon, and Aaron Levie. Their support shows Silicon Valley is ready to disrupt itself by inviting the crowd to the cap table.

Democratizing Capital

For those unfamiliar, FundersClub is a website that picks promising startups and lets people invest in them over the web in return for real equity.?Anyone who?s an ?accredited investor? (earns over $200,000 a year or has a net worth over $1 million) can browse startups with open rounds ranging from a few hundred thousand to a few million dollars. They learn about the businesses, pick ones they believe in, and plop down as little a $1,000. The average investment so far is $2500. All the legal paperwork and money transfer happens right there online.

If one of the startups gets acquired or IPOs, the investors can cash out their stake and FundersClub collects a percentage. That makes this a whole different ball game than the crowdfunding in exchange for rewards like on Kickstarter, and it doesn?t require the JOBS Act.

Since FundersClub only makes money if the startups it hosts succeed, it has a strong incentive to pick the best companies. FundersClub essentially serves as curation layer that attracts investors, in some ways similar to what Y Combinator does. Similar to a venture fund, FundersClub also offers the startups on its platform advice and connections to potential employees, so it does have some value-add beyond routing money.

So far it?s been a hit. FundersClub has seen 3,400 investors register. About 340 have actually invested, ponying up a total of around several million to close rounds for five startups including several YC companies. FundersClub raised a pre-seed round of $529,000 for itself on its own platform, and one company raised its target of $100,000 in 48 hours. FundersClub currently?has one round open for a 500 Startups company seeking investment, and has a few more readied.

It could get even easier to funnel money to startups get?if the legal ban on general solicitation is lifted and companies can actively advertise that they?re raising on FundersClub. And traffic and investment could explode if the JOBS Act passes, allowing anyone to fund startups through FundersClub, not just accredited investors.

But Is It Legal?

There?s one major problem for FundersClub. ?I?ve talked to experts in the crowdfunding space who believe there?s a chance it may be violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 if it handles money for investors without being a licensed, registered broker dealer. That?s a felony that could trigger huge fines or even get FundersClub?s founders jail time. There are laws against attempting to circumvent SEC regulations, meaning it?s not okay for FundersClub to just find a loophole.

Essentially each of its little venture funds is a single-purpose vehicle for delivering money to a specific company. The SEC has never held up that these are legal. It even saw through and prevented Goldman Sachs when it tried to raise money specifically to invest in Facebook.

FundersClub firmly believes it?s legal because it never handles the money directly, instead raising money for a venture fund that funnels into a startup. The money is kept in separate custodial accounts for each FundersClub fund. It isn?t disclosing details on exactly how the financial back-end works right now, but apparently there?s a reason it hasn?t been shut down.

In a worst-case scenario where the SEC does come down on FundersClub, all its existing crowd investors could get a put right to sell their shares back to the startups or FundersClub. It costs a lot of money, and requires months of training and background checks, but FundersClub may need to consider becoming a registered broker dealer. It could definitely slow down the company and force it to deal with additional regulation, but otherwise it may be exposing itself, its investors, and the startups it hosts to risk.

These legal issues may be why several competitors like New York?s Crowdfunder have not actually started accepting crowd investment yet. Some are waiting and praying for the JOBS Act to pass. The well-known AngelList never touches the money itself to avoid legal trouble.?For now, FundersClub could be gaining a big head start and become the name brand for equity crowdfunding in exchange for expending?significant?effort to navigate the legal risks.

I do hear it has expert legal counsel in the space and contacts at the SEC that believe it?s in the right, so in the end things could turn out fine. For now, though, we?ll have to wait and see how things play out.

Funding FundersClub

So is FundersClub a smart enough idea to be worth investing in despite the risk it could get shut down? Some very smart firms think so. In on the round are?First Round Capital, Y Combinator, Draper Associates, Felicis Ventures, Spark Capital, Digital Garage, Intel Capital, the YC-affiliated funds (Andreessen Horowitz, Start Fund, SV Angel, and General Catalyst Partners), Investmon S?rl; NetPrice; Global Venture Alliance (GVA) and Plug and Play Tech Center.

Smart angels are taking the bet too. The individuals in on FundersClub?s seed round are?Founder Collective Partner?Chris Dixon, Box CEO and Co-Founder Aaron Levie, Pejman Nozad, Facebook VP of biz dev and monetization?Dan Rose, Milo Founder Jack Abraham, and former Yahoo CTO Farzad Nazem.

The $6 million will aid FundersClub to foot the significant legal costs of pioneering in the heavily regulated financial space. It will be able to hire more employees to do due diligence on which startups it should host and convince these entrepreneurs to list on FundersClub. The cash should accelerate development of the site as well, which is currently quite basic.

The seed money could also help FundersClub secure relationships that could bring in huge new sources of investment for the companies it hosts: banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms. We hear investors in these are eager to add startups as a risky asset class to their portfolios. But these institutions don?t have Silicon Valley deal flow. FundersClub could do the research and have feet on the ground in the valley getting access to funding rounds. Since these institutions work with billions of dollars, they could fund fleets of FundersClub startups.

There?s also another audacious item on FundersClub?s roadmap. It wants to offer a new form of structured liquidity to late stage startups. FundersClub would buy up packages of shares from long-time employees and investors that want to cash out before the company gets bought or IPOs. FundersClub could then sell rights to those shares to its crowd investors. Big startups would pay FundersClub for the service of providing a liquidity release valve that assists with retention and delays an IPO. Crowd investors would still be taxed FundersClub?s fee when they cash out upon exit.

Not A Replacement For VC

The mentorship and network that comes with taking on prestigious venture capitalists and angels invaluable. That?s why investment from the crowd will never replace the old model. But sites like FundersClub could let startups take money with fewer strings like board seats or decision pressure attached.

Having an army of investors in addition to a boardroom full of them also has its benefits. These people are incentivized evangelists, product testers, and bridges to customers or talent.

The weight of the crowd with the wisdom of veteran VCs could be a winning combination for startups. That means FundersClub could be a winner for its new investors if its founders can avoid SEC trouble. Now that it has the money though, FundersClub needs to make absolutely sure its legal so it can go on to bring innovation to the world of startup investment.

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/19/fundersclub-seed-round/

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