About Me 0126: January 2011

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Wotlk Making Money

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Monday, January 24, 2011

So we have come to the final two episodes of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” not only for this season but forever. Now is a time for reflection on all of the totally apolitical life lessons we’ve learned from the rugged wilderness, experienced guides, and wise elders of the 49th state. Plus all-new footage that was too boring to run before!

1. There are only two ways to appreciate wild animals: Slicing them open and anthropomorphizing them to make vaguely defined political points.

In the penultimate episode, we watch Piper squeal excitedly over frolicking sea lions as Palin remarks, “I have a beautiful sealskin purse.” It's the circle of life, kiddo. Later, in the recap episode, we get to relive all of the caribou-hunting, halibut-bludgeoning, and salmon-dismembering good times of the season -- including never-before-seen footage. Hooray! Watch as Palin mounts caribou antlers, tours a den of taxidermy horrors and learns about curing fish heads.

But animals aren’t just for killing in “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” because the live ones also make handy, albeit strained, political metaphors. We’ve all heard about Palin’s beloved mama grizzlies seven or eight thousand times -- even when they were technically mama brown bears -- but did you know that adult muskoxen will position themselves around a baby at the first sign of danger, creating a protective circle? Palin proudly tells us that she recently used that image in a political speech about “how we should be as a society,” although she does not specify who the baby and adults are in the scenario. She just tromps toward the herd and declares, “I’ll be the mama muskox!”

2 . Technology is what’s really wrong with America.

After her scuba-diving brother retrieves some gold from the bottom of the sea, Palin takes Piper to have it turned into jewelry for Grandma Heath. Watching a man pour the recently melted metal into a mold, Palin explains that she expected the operation to be more high-tech, but no, like seemingly every other job in Sarah Palin’s Alaska, it’s the far more exciting “hands-on, blue collar work.” Later, Todd Palin is similarly psyched about the clicker a Department of Fish and Game official uses to count salmon by hand. How awesomely low-tech is that?

Husband and wife seem to agree: Alaskans don’t need no stinkin’ computers! That is, apart from the ones that transmit Palin’s FOX News commentaries. Those are actually really useful.

3. Sometimes kids do listen to their parents.

While panning for gold on a beach near Nome (and making a weak effort to discourage Piper’s fantasies of selling it on EBay for “something thousand” dollars), Palin asks their guide, “Does it come down to who works hardest or who’s luckiest?” “Both,” he tells her, as I boggle at hearing Palin acknowledge that luck might play even the tiniest role in an individual’s accumulation of wealth.

The moment is predictably fleeting, though. When asked what was the greatest life lesson she learned during the course of her mother’s reality show, 16-year-old Willow replies: “You have to work hard to get your money. And then the more money you have, the more things you can buy. Like a new car. I don’t know.”

The proud mama muskox laughs. “No, that’s a good answer.”

-- Kate Harding

Photo: Sarah Palin. Credit: Gilles Mingasson / TLC

I have to say right up front that I’ve never really been into coupon sites, shopping sites, or any other website on the web that is set up primarily to sell something. I really only resort to shopping online during Christmas to avoid the crowds. I rarely really find any deals that I would consider “amazing” online. Sure, you can save a bit if you purchase a computer or even a car through the Internet, but usually those discounts are no different or more than you’re offered in-store.

With that said, my entire attitude toward online deals changed when someone recently pointed me toward Groupon. Groupon is a site that is really difficult to describe, because it’s different than most other sites devoted to selling you something. Groupon stands apart because it offers different things to different people, so I’ve decided to go over the 5 coolest ways that you can make use of Groupon.

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Sign In & Instantly Earn Cash

The entire point of Groupon is more of a “group” deal than just a discount site. It actually reminds me a little bit of eBay because each deal is only up for a limited time. Once the set minimum number of buyers purchase the deal, everyone receives the discount.

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Once you sign up with your email, you can start adding friends. While I really hate referring my friends to any sort of sales website, Groupon really is worth it. It takes me a lot to admit that, but after watching a few of the discounts show up – I was really surprised by how steep many of them are. Most of them are 40 to 70 percent off of things like local dining, spa treatments, store discounts and a lot more.

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For every friend you refer and that signs up, you get ten bucks in Groupon coupons. Now, if you think about that, that means every ten friends you convince to sign up with you, that’s a hundred dollars just to get started buying deals on Groupon.

Save Money At Local Businesses

The part that sets Groupon above the rest in my opinion is the fact that the deals are tailored to your geographic location. Of course, add in the excitement of a limited time offer (right down to the ticking clock) and the need to get at least the minimum number of buyers, and it can get kind of exciting.

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This means that you’re not going to see discounts to just national brands or major store chains, these are impressive deals that local businesses are offering.

Save Money On Gifts

Once you sign up and start buying “Groupons”, you can organize those in your account under “My Groupons“. You can also purchase Groupon coupons as gifts and send them to your friends. The cool thing about this is that you can purchase some pretty impressive gifts but you don’t have to spend a fortune.

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Now, if you really want to offer your friends an awesome gift, then pass on the savings to them. At the bottom of the main Groupon page, you’ll see a link for “Give the Gift of Groupon.” Click on that link, fill out the details and the amount you’d like to give and send your friends a Groupon credit.

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Why are Groupon coupons better than cash? Because it goes further. Your friend will be able to stretch that $25 gift certificate into a purchase worth $50 to $100. And don’t be fooled by my choice of currency – Groupon is available in 35 countries across the world.

Use Groupon For Your Business

I think the magic that will make Groupon even more popular moving forward is the fact that it makes everyone happy. Obviously, customers that can save over fifty percent off the cost of anything are usually pretty happy, but the business model of Groupon is pretty impressive as well. Basically, businesses don’t pay until they get paid. When you sign up to advertise, Groupon simply takes a commission of the sale and gives you the rest.

Getting featured on Groupon is as easy as clicking the “Groupon for your Business” link at the bottom of the main page.

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Fill out the form and you’re good to go. If you don’t have anything to sell, but you wouldn’t mind making money by referring folks to Groupon, then you’ll be interested in their affiliate plan.

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You can even have the color format of the ad match the theme of your own site. This is what the ad will look like on your site.

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What makes it unique and useful to your website visitors is that the ads will automatically check for the location of your visitor, and then try to deliver deals from their local area.

Access Your Groupons On Your Mobile Device

Using Groupons becomes a lot more useful when you can use “paperless redemption” to cash in your purchased Groupon using your mobile device. All of the deals you purchased are stored on your phone where you can access them quickly without printing.

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While you’re on the go and looking for local deals, just search for nearby deals using the built-in GPS feature – it’s a cool, fast way to save money while you’re on the road.

Have you ever used Groupon? Which feature do you use the most and did you find any impressive deals through the service? Share your experience in the comments section below.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making Money

Chatroulette found itself with a surplus of naked men, so founder Andrey Ternovskiy figured out how to get rid of them while turning a profit.

TechCrunch crunched the numbers and found that 89% of Chatroulette users are male, and 1 in 8 chats on the site contain material that would be at least rated R (read: naked people). That might account for the site's sharp drop in traffic. 18 year old founder Andrey Ternovskiy turned naked men into money, telling Fast Company, "Everyday, about 50,000 new men are trying to get naked. What we're doing is selling the naked men to a couple of websites."

Here's how it works. Users on Chatroulette can now control the content they receive by flagging chat partners as displaying inappropriate content. Once a user receives a certain amount of flags, they're banned from the site for forty minutes. Instead of just kicking the offending user off the site, Chatroulette redirects them to an adult website; the adult site, in turn, pays Chatroulette for the referral.

When Chatroulette first came on the scene, Ternovskiy was besieged with offers to buy the innovative site, and turned them all down. The offers dropped off with the drop in traffic, but the content control system has already yielded positive results. The rerouting of naked men has also made Chatroulette about $100,000 a month.

Source: Fast Company, via Geek

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Gov.-elect Robert Bentley intends to be governor over all, but ...

elect Robert Bentley intends to be governor over all, but says only Christians are his 'brothers and sisters'. Published: Monday, January 17, 2011, 4:23 PM Updated: Monday, January 17, 2011, 6:14 PM. David White -- The Birmingham News ...

Arnold Schwarzenegger set to make Hollywood comeback as a nice ...

Look out, Hollywood. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a warning for.

Casting News: Anne Hathaway to Guest on 'Glee,' Marissa Jaret ...

Anne Hathaway must've made a good impression on 'Glee' creator Ryan Murphy at the Golden Globes this weekend, because he's already confirmed she will.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

personal finance programs

On Monday, I linked to this op-ed from Tom Esvlin, Vermont's "stimulus czar," lamenting the way the money got spent. "Although I'd like to think Vermont did better than many states, much of the money ended up continuing bloated programs rather than providing a transition to a sustainable future," he wrote. That same day, Brookings' Gary Burtless e-mailed in a rebuttal that's worth quoting at length, as it's a very clear description of where the stimulus funds actually went, and why such a small percentage was directly devoted to building things. So here it is, with some edits for space:

The main problem with that silly op-ed is that it refers to only a small slice of the actual federal spending on stimulus authorized by the Feb. 2009 legislation. So far, the overwhelming share of that stimulus has been devoted to three items: Tax cuts for households; direct benefits to people adversely affected by the severe recession, mostly the unemployed or poor; and fiscal relief to state and local governments. Vermont did not need any "Czar" to receive or administer funds under these programs. The money for them quickly left the U.S. Treasury without any effort on the part of the Czar who penned this highly misleading op-ed piece. People in Vermont *directly* received benefits from the stimulus as: (1) lower federal tax withholding from their paychecks; (2) extended unemployment benefits; (3) premium subsidies so they could maintain their health insurance after they were laid off from a job in which they received health protection; (4) miscellaneous benefits (e.g., for college costs) under one provision or another; and (5) aid from the Treasury that permitted Vermont and its localities to finance their Medicaid and K-12 education programs without hiking taxes or lowering other public spending. The kinds of infrastructure spending for which the WSJ's "Czar" had some responsibility constituted a small percentage of the stimulus the Congress authorized for 2009 and 2010.

In FY 2009 and 2010, the EXPECTED spending on infrastructure and other items for which the Vermont “Czar” may have had partial responsibility accounted for just 11% of anticipated spending under the stimulus legislation. The other 89% had nothing to do with the programs criticized by Vermont’s supposed Czar. Thus, all of his complaints – even if justified – are essentially irrelevant to the programs mainly supported by the stimulus law … at least so far. Obviously, in the years 2011-2019, that kind of stimulus spending would have accounted for a vastly larger share of outlays. But (and perhaps Vermont’s Czar has not kept up with this because he does not read a daily paper) the Congress just passed and the President just signed ANOTHER stimulus program consisting of more than 90% personal and business tax cuts and less than 10% extensions in unemployment benefits. So far as I know, very little additional spending has been authorized for those hated infrastructure / technology investment projects. Below is the CBO’s year-by-year analysis of the spending authorized under the Feb. 2009 stimulus law:

My own private view is that the country would probably have been better off if *MORE* of the original stimulus had been devoted to infrastructure / technology investment (more of it would have been spent on goods and services produced in the U.S. rather than China, East Asia, and Europe). Setting aside that consideration for a minute, what infuriates me about the piece cited in your blog is that it reinforces the very widespread but totally erroneous impression that Congress and the Administration were unaware of the administrative hurdles to fast spending that the “Czar” points out in his op-ed. Those hurdles were understood from the very beginning, which is precisely the reason that infrastructure/technology investment projects constituted such a small percentage of the total package. It is perfectly legitimate to criticize the pace of spending on these projects, but it is utterly deranged to think that the slow rate of spending on the projects constitutes a serious indictment of the spending authorized under the Feb. 2009 stimulus program. Very little of the expected spending under the stimulus program (at least so far) was supposed to be devoted to those projects.

A Pennsylvania startup Viridity Energy drew a series B investment of $14 million from Braemar Energy Ventures and Intel Capital, the company reported today.

Founded in 2008, Viridity Energy offers “distributed demand management software, systems and services,” that can turn very energy-consuming businesses into producers and sellers of power back to the grid. Viridity’s technology can also help companies get paid to control and reduce their energy consumption.

The company’s customers to-date have been retailers, hospitals, universities and various military and government agencies. In Philadelphia, Viridity set up systems for the transit authority (SEPTA) that capture energy released by braking, electric subway trains, and store it in rail-side battery arrays, routing the power back through the third rail to reuse it for trains’ acceleration.

Yep, electricity can be recycled.

SEPTA reported that the project cut expenditures directly. It also allowed SEPTA to get credits and incentives from the regional power authority for decreasing energy use during peak hours, and in general. The company plans to bring similar systems to other cities and transit systems in the U.S. this year.

Viridity Energy’s chief executive and president Audrey Zibelman said on Tuesday:

“We’re moving from an [energy] industry dominated by large-scale generation where customers are passive to one where customers are active in what they consume, and what they produce. First, there were personal computers. Now we’re going to personal energy.”

Her company plans to work as a “technology agnostic, market enabler,” she said. Its focus near term is to develop more, “micro-grids” in the northeastern U.S., California and Texas — all regions with aggressive goals to switch from hydrocarbon to renewable energy sources, or to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Its new-found capital will go towards hiring technical and sales talent to get new projects going, Zibelman said. Her company will also continue to build partnerships with other smart-grid and distributed energy players, such as the manufacturers of control systems, or banks and energy programs that finance solar, storage and power generation assets.

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Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

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Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Verizon and Apple Q&A (video) - CNET News

At the iPhone 4 Verizon unveiling, Dan Mead, President of Verizon Wireless, and Tim Cook, COO of Apple, answer questions from the press.

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Visualize This: Where the public gets its news

Monday, January 10, 2011

Free Making Money

As we get ready for John Boehner to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, I find myself thinking back to the last time a Republican speaker took control of the House from a Democrat -- and reflecting on how far down the wrong road we have traveled since then.

It was January 1995, and Newt Gingrich, now considered a right-wing bomb thrower, was taking the gavel from Tom Foley. After taking the oath of office, he delivered a speech that praised FDR as "the greatest president of the 20th century" and presented concern for the least among us as a shared national objective. "The balanced budget is the right thing to do," he said. "But it does not in my mind have the moral urgency of coming to grips with what is happening to the poorest Americans."

For the incoming Republican speaker, reducing poverty and lifting the poor into the middle class was a moral imperative beyond the left vs. right battlefield -- not just the purview of lefties, socialists, and community organizers:

I say to those Republicans who believe in total privatization, you cannot believe in the Good Samaritan and explain that as long as business is making money we can walk by a fellow American who is hurt and not do something.... If you cannot afford to leave the public housing project, you are not free. If you do not know how to find a job and do not know how to create a job, you are not free. If you cannot find a place that will educate you, you are not free. If you are afraid to walk to the store because you could get killed, you are not free.

So now, with poverty higher than it was 16 years ago, with greater income inequality, and with the middle class struggling to hold on, what will Speaker Boehner make his number one priority? According to the Washington Post, it's "cutting spending," followed by repealing the healthcare law, and "helping get our economy moving" (no specifics on how he plans to do that).

Yet we saw on 60 Minutes that he's very aware of how fragile the American Dream has become, telling Lesley Stahl, "I can't go to a school anymore. I used to go to a lot of schools. And you see all these little kids running around. Can't talk about it." And he choked up when he did try to talk about "making sure these kids have a shot at the American Dream, like I did. It's important."

Interestingly, in his first speech as speaker, Gingrich also talked about being moved by the woes of school kids.

"I have seldom been more shaken," he said, "than I was after the election when I had breakfast with two members of the Black Caucus. One of them said to me, 'Can you imagine what it is like to visit a first-grade class and realize that every fourth or fifth young boy in that class may be dead or in jail within 15 years? And they are your constituents and you are helpless to change it?' For some reason, I do not know why, maybe because I visit a lot of schools, that got through. I mean, that personalized it. That made it real, not just statistics, but real people."

But the trajectory of our political discourse over the last decade and a half has meant that taking on poverty has gone from a moral imperative and shared national objective to an afterthought -- or no thought at all.

The question is, is there anything that can be done to help Boehner make the connection between the policies he supports and the effect those policies have on the kids who bring him to tears?

Newt Gingrich failed to follow through on the moral imperative he identified in his first speech as speaker, trading in his moral vision and replacing it 15 months later with an announcement that the Republican agenda could be reduced to six words: "Earn more, keep more, do more."

Will Boehner's take be "Earn more, keep more, cut more"? Or is there a chance he will surprise us? Maybe it's because it's close enough to Christmas that I still believe in miracles, but wouldn't it be great if the John Boehner who takes the gavel on Wednesday is the one who weeps at the thought of kids denied a shot at the American Dream?

If Pettitte does decide to retire, it's been rumored that the Yankees might make an aggressive pursuit for Soriano to create a lock-down bullpen, one that the Yankees haven't had since the days of Rivera and John Wetteland in 1996.

If the Yankees were to get Soriano, they would have to surrender a first-round draft pick to the Rays, but the Yankees also can be compensated with a draft pick due to Javier Vazquez signing with the Marlins.

As of right now, the Yankees don't have an imminent heir to Rivera's closer job if he retires anytime soon, and they don't have a main setup man after Kerry Wood turned down more money to return to the Cubs this winter.

The Yankees could consider Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson for the setup role, but both have had their struggles in the past, so Soriano would be an instant upgrade to the bullpen and a much better option to follow in Rivera's footsteps.

The White Sox are said to be interested in Soriano after letting Bobby Jenks go, and the Angels have expressed interest after losing out on Adrian Beltre and Carl Crawford this winter as well. But the Angels also signed Scott Downs to a three-year deal, plus already have Fernando Rodney as their current closer.

Although Soriano is a solid closer and could easily get a closing job this winter, he has said he would be a setup man for only one team, meaning the Yankees.

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

This might actually be a smart move - the audience is exactly what "wtfinator" described. The news team there is often called out for leaning left in the comments on any stories posted on aol.com. Plays to their core. ...

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 sample photos. While we were attending CES in Las Vegas, we were offered a full, production-standard version of the latest enthusiast compact from Olympus.

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

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Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

AOL Hires Fox News Vet To Double AOL.com Traffic By End Of Winter

Just posted: Olympus XZ-1 samples gallery: Digital Photography Review

Friday, January 7, 2011

personal finance books

By the end of 2010, Harlequin Enterprises will have sold a grand total of more than 6 billion books in the company's 60-year history. But on Dec. 28, Harlequin will try to sell its first personal finance book.

The Frugalista Files, written by former Miami Herald personal finance blogger Natalie McNeal, is a diary of the year that one 34-year old spent trying to pay off her credit card debt -- "without giving up the fabulous life."

McNeal's book is written in a diary format, with all the personal details and emoticons entailed in that approach: "I admit it. My name is Natalie. I am a spending slut." It's certainly not a book that targets my college-age demographic, but many readers will find her story inspiring. If Natalie can do it, so can you.

"My book is for anyone who is a promiscuous spender and is looking for real-life tips on how to be financially chaste," McNeal tells DailyFinance. "It's highly personal personal finance."

Katherine Orr, Harlequin's vice president of public relations, sees the move into financial advice as a logical step for the world's largest publisher of romance novels.

"For 60 years, we've provided escape from problems, and now we can help solve the problems," she says. She calls McNeal's book "very prescriptive. It's clear and simple, and it's helping young singles navigate in a tough world."

Harlequin first began publishing nonfiction in October 2008 with a book from syndicated radio host Delilah. Subsequent titles have included fitness guru Tosca Reno's best seller Your Best Body Now: Look and Feel Fabulous at Any Age the Eat-Clean Way, along with titles like The Happy Baker: A Girl's Guide to Emotional Baking; Life Beyond Your Eating Disorder; The Dog Who Healed a Family; and Queen of Your Own Life.

The market for pink-covered personal finance books for women hasn't been especially strong. None of financial adviser Suze Orman's mega-bestselling money books have boasted a pink cover, and none of the slew of recently released girl-talk guides for women have sold well. Titles like Shoo, Jimmy Choo!; Bitches on a Budget: Sage Advice for Surviving Tough Times in Style; andA Purse of Your Own: An Easy Guide to Financial Security have all failed to register much of an impact in terms of sales.

Kimberly Palmer, the personal finance editor with US News & World Report and the author of Generation Earn, says many financial guides for women are marketed as "simplified [and] dumbed-down."

"Women don't like to be talked to as if we're bad with money, because we're not," she says. "Too many books for women assume that we overspend on shoes and cosmos when we're really just looking for the same kind of smart, solid financial advice that men want."

But if there's one publisher in America that knows what women are looking for when they buy a book, it's Harlequin. Perhaps it'll be able to reach a segment of the population badly in need of financial advice -- one that other publishers have so far been largely unable to connect with.

Posting for a friend:

Last week I was cleaning out my desk when I noticed a wad of 20s sticking out from one of the books on the shelf above my desk ($200 total). At first I got super-excited, thinking I'd stashed some cash and forgotten it. But then I realized that the cash was actually sticking out of a card in the book. I remembered that the book (which I hadn't gotten around to reading) was a gift from a family member, L, for my birthday in the winter of '07-08.

I looked at the card and saw that L had written an inscription asking me to donate the cash to the Obama campaign in my name. Uh-oh. Obviously I did not do this. In fact, I have absolutely no memory of receiving this money or L's request. Normally I'm not a forgetful person, but that winter was an insane period in my life. Still, I feel absolutely and completely horrible about this. I completely abused L's trust.

So now I need to figure out what to do with this money. Just keeping it is not an option. I could give it back to L with a profuse apology. This makes the most sense but I'm worried that she'll be angry that I never did this and hurt that I paid so little attention to her present - not only did I not read the book, but I never even opened it!

I could donate the money to a charity I know she would support, like Planned Parenthood. I could wait until 2012 and donate it to Obama's reelection effort.

What would you do in my case?
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