Prom Dresses 2012, Homecoming Dresses, Formal Dress | Peaches

(Image Credit: Chris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images; Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) and AMY WALTER (@amyewalter)

NOTABLES:

AIR WARS: Millions of dollars are already pouring into swing states for anti-Obama television ads courtesy of well-financed groups on the right. The question is when does the Obama campaign start to put some big money behind their own message? BRINGING BACK BIN LADEN:  Would Mitt Romney have ordered the hit on Osama bin Laden? That’s the issue being raised in a new web video out this morning from the Obama campaign as they try to poke holes in what they see as one of Romney’s weak spots: foreign policy. NOTE IT! ABC’s Jonathan Karl on the dust-up over White House political travel, Rick Klein on the new “3a.m. phone call,” Amy Walter on super PAC fundraising and Jake Tapper on Osama bin Laden as a campaign tool.

 

THE NOTE:

This week marked the symbolic start of the general election as well a new reality for presidential fundraising.

Just read Julianna Goldman’s Bloomberg News story today about how only 12 of President Obama’s top 532 fundraisers have donated to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting his re-election bid.

“The leaders of Priorities have asked former President Bill Clinton to tap the pool of donors who helped fund his campaign and Hillary Clinton’s White House run,” Goldman writes. “Yet Priorities lacks on its donor list most of the core group of Chicagoans who backed Obama’s presidential ambitions four years ago.”

Priorities USA announced last week that it raised about $2.5 million during the month of March and had $5 million in the bank. Along with the political arm of the League of Conservation Voters, the groups this week launched a $1 million television ad campaign taking on Mitt Romney as a stooge of big oil companies.

But compare their efforts to two outside groups on the right — Americans for Prosperity and the American Future Fund.

Americans For Prosperity announced yesterday it is dumping $6.1 million in eight states on a new television ad that they say “highlights billions of stimulus dollars that were given to foreign companies operating in Mexico, Finland Windows 7 Key, and China,” by the Obama administration. It will air beginning today in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia.

The American Future Fund is also spending millions against President Obama. And this is just the opening salvo in what is shaping up to be the most expensive presidential campaign air war ever.

Most insiders agree that the next 30 to 60 days will be critical in defining the race for the fall. By the time October rolls around, perceptions of the candidates will have hardened.

The GOP outside groups know they have to protect and define while Mitt Romney recovers from his primary. But when does the Obama campaign start to put some money behind their message?

DUELING MESSAGES:

–Americans For Prosperity: “The Obama Administration continues to waste our tax dollars trying to pick winners and losers. This leads to overspending Office 2007 Key, no new job creation, and inevitably creates government cronyism,” AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement. “The President wasted some $530 million on Solyndra, but now we’re finding billions more given to ‘green energy’ companies overseas.”

–Priorities USA Action’s Bill Burton: “Yesterday, we released an ad stating that ‘Big Oil has pledged $200 million to help Mitt Romney.’ Today, $6 million of that pledge was spent on television advertisements across the country. Billionaire oil executives like the Koch Brothers benefit from high gas prices financially and use that extra cash to support Mitt Romney because he has pledged to protect their billions in special tax breaks. While middle class families pay at the pump, Mitt Romney and the big oil companies bankrolling his campaign benefit from high gas prices financially and politically.”

 

NOTE IT!

ABC’s JONATHAN KARL: On the dust-up over White House political travel:  A former Bush (43) Administration official tells me this is a “dumb issue” for Republicans. Why?  Bush showed a similar affinity for Air Force One travel to rallies in battleground states in 2004 — and many of those trips were also classified as “official” travel. And with Bush, it wasn’t just AF1.  One of the best visuals in 2004 was when he dramatically arrived at a big stadium event in Florida in Marine One, which landed right on the field in the middle of the rally.

ABC’s RICK KLEIN: The turnabout from “3 am” to using Bill Clinton as a national-security validator for President Obama took four years. But it only took one year for another turnabout. Twelve months after the president entered the poker-face hall of fame, laughing through the White House Correspondents Association Dinner even as SEAL Team Six moved in, the Obama campaign is embracing the killing of Osama bin Laden in campaign advertising.

ABC’s AMY WALTER: Talk to insiders about why Priorities is having a tough time raising money and they tell you this:  Obama hasn’t done enough care and feeding of multi-million donors; GOP donors are more transactional, Dem donors looking for personal connection.

ABC’s JAKE TAPPER on the new Obama campaign Osama bin Laden video out today: This is an intense spot. The suggestion is under a President Romney, Osama bin Laden would still be alive.

 

THIS WEEK ON “THIS WEEK.” This Sunday, a special edition of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” produced with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, tackles the critical topic, “America’s Economic Recovery: Is It Built to Last?” Held before a live studio audience at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., this special edition of “This Week” moderated by George Stephanopoulos will bring together panelists from business, government and journalism to discuss the state of the economy and the challenges of the current recovery. Panelists include: Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan; Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist; Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google; David Walker, former Comptroller General; George Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” and the Miller Center are teaming up to produce a series of programs on the key issues of the 2012 election. The Miller Center will create educational materials for each show topic, including white papers and blog posts written by leading scholars and lesson plans that middle-school and high-school teachers can use to educate students about election issues.

 

THE BUZZ

with ABC’s Christopher Good (@c_good)

PUSHING THE BIN LADEN CALL. Campaigning on the successful mission to kill of Osama bin Laden, in a new video the Obama camp questions whether Mitt Romney would have ordered the raid.  Bill Clinton, starring in it, talks about the president’s call: “He had to decide, and that’s what you hire a president to do. You hire a president to make the calls when no one else can do it.”

SANTORUM-ROMNEY STAFF CROSSOVER. ABC’s Shushannah Walshe reports on the newest Mitt Romney staff move: “Former Rick Santorum campaign manager Mike Biundo has joined the Mitt Romney campaign. He will be serving as Romney’s deputy coalitions director, organizing conservative voters for the former rival’s campaign. ‘Mike Biundo ran an outstanding campaign for Senator Santorum, and we are excited that he has agreed to bring his considerable skills and abilities to our team. His decision to join Governor Romney’s campaign is another indication that Republicans are coalescing around Governor Romney’s pro-jobs, pro-growth message and quickly uniting to defeat President Obama,’ [Romney spokesman Ryan] Williams said in a statement.”

BIDEN TO ROMNEY: OBAMA CARRIES A ‘BIG STICK.’ Vice President Joe Biden took aim at the presumptive GOP nominee in a foreign-policy speech at NYU, ABC’s Devin Dwyer reports: “Vice President Joe Biden channeled Teddy Roosevelt today in an attempt to debunk Mitt Romney’s claim that the administration is not credible when discussing a ‘military option’ toward Iran. … ‘I promise you,’ Biden said, ‘the President has a big stick. I promise you.’ The comment drew laughter from the crowd of 500, mostly college students. ‘President Obama understands what Gov. Romney apparently doesn’t:  It is possible — it’s indeed necessary — for America to be strong and smart — and smart — at the same time,’ Biden said.”

HOW ‘GIRLS GONE WILD’ LANDED A SENATE INTERNSHIP. Sen. Mark Pryor has asked the FBI to investigate, but TPM’s Ryan J. Reilly has the back-story of how a Senate internship was “auctioned” to “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis: “‘It was confirmed with his office as far as I knew, it was never a hoax,’ Francis told TPM in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. As it turns out, the soft-porn mogul was right — the son of a lobbyist has admitted to creating the mix-up over the internship. In a letter apologizing for the ‘embarrassment’ he caused Pryor, Los Angeles businessman Chad Brownstein — son of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck partner Norman Brownstein — said he told someone organizing an auction benefiting the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that ‘pending approval of [Pryor's] office Windows XP Key, I thought it might be possible to auction off an unpaid month-long summer internship for a high school student with your office.’”

WHITE HOUSE DISOWNS EPA OFFICIAL’S ‘CRUCIFY’ REMARK. The White House backed away Thursday from a regional EPA administrator’s 2010 suggestion that officials should “crucify” environmental-law violators, ABC’s Jake Tapper reports: “White House press secretary Jay Carney today noted that Almendariz has ‘apologized and made clear that those comments are an inaccurate way to characterize the work EPA does.’ Carney went on to argue that the comments also do not reflect Obama administration policy, saying ‘since the president took office, oil and gas production has increased each year.’”

OBAMA, BIDEN GO AFTER MILITARY-FAMILY VOTES. The Washington Post points out a new strategy by the Obama campaign: “President Obama and the first lady will greet soldiers at Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Ga., on Friday … On Thursday, Vice President Biden delivered a speech in which he made clear that the president’s record winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … The message from Obama and Biden is clear: They will campaign on the president’s foreign policy record and actions to bolster services for veterans while aggressively criticizing Romney on the same subjects — and issuing pointed examples of the Republican’s lack of proposals to assist returning veterans and their families.”

 

IN THE NOTE’S INBOX:

–PCCC ENDORSES IN CA HOUSE PRIMARY. Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founders Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor email: “Today, we are proud to endorse Lori Saldaña for Congress in California’s 52nd district. She is a bold progressive fighter who will be a strong ally of Elizabeth Warren in Congress.” Saldaña is running in an open primary that includes Rep. Brian Bilbray (R), who currently represents the pre-redistricting 50th district.

–REVISITING WALL STREET REFORM.  “Dodd-Frank is a vastly transformative effort that did everything from regulate credit cards to create a new government agency (the deeply controversial Consumer Finance Protection Bureau).   In fact, even before new regulations were unveiled, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Dodd-Frank would slap $27 billion in new fees on American businesses,” writes GOP strategist Joe Brettell in an Op-Ed on Fox News.com. “Instead of forcing Americans to navigate a tidal wave of government regulation, the president and Senate Democrats should re-evaluate Dodd-Frank. They should try to work hand in hand with House Republicans and economic leaders to develop common sense reforms that provide businesses with the chance to create jobs, while providing the kind of oversight that creates opportunity, not more new regulations.” More from the Op-Ed:

–AD ATTACKS LACK OF BUDGET. From fiscal-accountability interest group Public Notice: “Public Notice is going to run a national TV ad on Sunday marking the 3rd anniversary of Congress’ failure to pass a budget.  This caps off a weeklong grassroots advocacy campaign launched this past Monday.”

 

WHO’S TWEETING?

@kakukowski: Brutal New RNC Ad: Obama 2012: #StillNotReady 

@YahooTicket: House set to vote on student loan rate, plus more to watch for this weekend in politics: 

@pbsgwen: When’s A Campaign…Not? Follow the money, folks. My Take:

@MarkLandler: Helene Cooper’s nephew, Logosou, met Pres Obama at the WH last Christmas. Remarkable, when you read this: 

@amyewalter: Puppy power. OK tweeps, who is the cutest ABC Pup? @winstontapper or @eliwalterwoof? @jaketapper

 

POLITICAL RADAR

–President Obama will deliver a speech at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the afternoon and attend a private fundraiser tonight. First Lady Michelle Obama holds campaign events in Naples, Florida.

–Mitt Romney campaigns in Ohio, holding a roundtable with graduating seniors at Otterbein University in Westerville and delivering a guest lecture at the university.

–Newt Gingrich makes stops in North Carolina.

–Ron Paul holds a town hall meeting in Houston, Texas.

 Check out The Note’s Futures Calendar: 

 

* Get The Note delivered to your inbox every day.

* For breaking political news and analysis check out The Note blog:  ABCNews.com/Politics: 

Google Drive launches today as a revamped version of Google Docs replica watches, with greatly improved storage and accompanying software. Google has had a serious case of amateur hour while trying to keep this product a secret, but now people can stop speculating and start seeing if this is something they want to use.

Google Drive will start being available to some users today, and it will roll out globally “over the next several weeks,” said a spokeswoman.

Walt Mossberg has a thorough review, and I also have an interview with Chrome and Apps SVP Sundar Pichai and Google Drive product manager Scott Johnston that I’ll publish soon. But for the sake of setting them out clearly, here are some of the basic Google Drive specs:

Each Google Drive includes 5 gigabytes of free storage. Docs created with Google don’t count against that limit.
Users can pay for up to 16 terabytes of storage — 25GB for $2.49 per month, 100GB for $4.99 replica watches, 1TB for $49.99, 16TB for $799.99 — with many levels in between. Drive will also be included for enterprise Google Apps users as part of their pricing structure.
Drive is available for Web, Mac, PC and Android phones and tablets. The team showed me a working version on an iPad, and said iOS would be available very soon.
Drive is the new Docs. For users who have Drive on their accounts, docs.google.com will start redirecting to drive.google.com. All of users’ Google Docs are automatically imported into their Drives.
In addition to creating regular Google Docs files, users can install apps through the Chrome Web Store. The 18 launch partners include HelloFax (faxes) replica watches, Balsamiq (mock-ups), Lucidchart (diagrams), DocuSign (signatures), SlideRocket (presentations) and MindMeister (mind maps).
There are lots of ways to sort and view files, including an activity stream of all the most recently modified documents that you have access to, and a grid view that shows thumbnails.
Users can also search across all their files, with image recognition and optical character recognition automatically applied to new pictures and scanned documents so they can be more easily searched even if they don’t have much metadata.
When users click to add a photo in Google+, they’ll now have the option of taking it directly from their personal Google Drives. Google Drive will also be available for attachments in Gmail, but not at launch.
There are chat conversations associated with every file, where users get notified whenever someone leaves a new comment.

1 of 6  Back  Next

I have recently been using a term for a certain type of fast and easy divorce — “surgical divorce”. This type of divorce is actually quite frequent among my divorcing clients.

What I call a “surgical divorce” is the kind of divorce where the spouses do not want to deal with each other. They just want to settle the terms of their divorce in the most efficient way possible and be done with it. Mediation and collaborative law are not suited for these people.

Sometimes one of the parties has moved on to another relationship and wants the current marriage to be over as fast as possible. Or maybe it was a marriage that has been lifeless for many years, and parties finally want to do the work to get the formal divorce.

A “surgical divorce” is helpful for these situations. It is a skillful legal operation that is efficient and quick. Like surgery, the “surgical divorce” cuts the legal ties of marriage like a scalpel cutting out a tumor. Here’s a description of the types of divorces where a “surgical divorce” is appropriate, and what the process is like:

“Surgical divorce” clients have minimal disputes with their soon-to-be former spouse. They may have worked out most (or even all) issues with their spouse. The aims of the typical “surgical divorce” client are to keep legal fees low, keep things simple, and to keep peace in the family. A “surgical divorce” is the most straightforward approach to accomplish a divorce.

The “surgical divorce” client may have negotiated the terms directly with his or her future ex. But my client may want a reality check as to the agreed-upon terms. Surprisingly, there are factors in a divorce that might be missed by the divorcing partners, even though it is the married couple that has most information about the marriage and the their finances.

An example is rights to pensions that accrue during marriage and how to divide them in a divorce. Another example is the implication (or non-relevance) of whose name a particular asset is titled in. Part of my work as an attorney is to educate the client as to his or her rights, so that if any are waived, it is done knowingly and freely.

Divorce can also be viewed as a portal to a better life for the couple involved and for their children. A divorce is Tattoo Ink Supplies, well, a divorce, and there will be changes and dislocations in the family and financial structure. And some of them may be painful. However, a “surgical divorce” can benefit the children, fosters co-parenting, and helps amicable long-standing in-law relationships to continue.

Part of the benefit of divorce is that children don’t continue to view a dysfunctional relationship between their parents; this could give the children an unhealthy role model for adult relationships and marriage.

In a “surgical divorce,” sometimes only one spouse retains an attorney. Both spouses want to keep things under their control as much as possible. They don’t want to be caught in a crossfire between their respective lawyers. Keeping the tone of the divorce under your control is important in having a peaceful divorce. They don’t want to end something that started with love in a disrespectful, undignified way. They understand that if there was “fault” in their marriage, it is presumably owned by both of them.

The “surgical divorce” client generally wants me to professionally write up all the papers needed for a divorce, so that when he or she goes to court to get the court’s approval on the divorce terms (a necessary step in most states) the papers and divorce agreement will be approved.

Even in the most simple and compatible of divorces, the divorcing spouses can’t hire a single lawyer to represent them. That’s because the spouses are theoretical adversaries in a divorce action. Sometimes during the course of the divorce, the theoretical becomes the practical Kuro Sumi Tattoo Ink, and there is an issue or two in which the couple’s views as to the outcome diverge — sometimes rather strongly. Because of this potential for conflict, the lawyer Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit a lawyer from representing the two spouses in a divorce.

An attorney representing one party in a “surgical divorce” may go to the court hearing with his or her client. This is often a good thing do to, because sometimes a judge might bring up something unexpected that needs to be dealt with on the spot for the divorce to go through. If the other party in the surgical divorce is not represented by counsel (or if that party used a “reviewing” attorney), the other party can come to the hearing alone (termed pro se in legalese). Judges tend to be very concerned about protecting the rights of unrepresented parties, which should give that person some comfort.

It is an irony that it is easier to get married than to get divorced. When you think about it, a marriage starts with nothing (but love). At the end Tattoo Ink For Sale, there are children, adult responsibilities, and — if you’re lucky — assets, debts (if you’re not), and mutual obligations that you had no idea you signed up for when you got married.

The divorce process is intended to take care of all these complex issues in a fair and equitable way. Having a “surgical divorce” in the right circumstance can help you and your spouse build a sound divorce with workable provisions driven by your own needs and vision. It can be the last caring act of an ended marriage.

Two time-worn sayings come to mind in relation to merchants’ complaints that the National Park Service is unfairly reducing public access to popular destinations in its system. The sayings are: do not “kill the goose that lays the golden egg” nor “lose the forest for the trees”.

The destinations at issue are the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina and the Biscayne Bay National Park off the coast of Miami.

National Park Service officials are determined to avoid such sorry outcomes for Hatteras and Biscayne from commercial miscalculation. To achieve this goal, the Service is restricting certain human activities where lax enforcement has resulted in damage to especially fragile portions of the two parks’ ecosystems.

Conflicts have arisen because local business people tend to view Hatteras and Biscayne foremost as sources of income and only secondarily as national park units with all of the stringent environmental protections that the law demands.

Commercial interests’ self-serving priorities are those of a distinct minority. The overwhelming majority of the public, who have as much proprietary interest in the national parks as those residing adjacent to the sanctuaries Best Tattoo Ink, embrace the aforementioned priorities directly in reverse. It is also a values alignment that the law obligates the Park Service to follow. The Enabling Act establishing the National Park System requires that the Park Service’s first order of business is to provide for enjoyment of park natural resources “in such manner and in such means that they will be left unimpaired for future generations.” Recreation is important, but clearly not at the expense of unique natural resources set aside for posterity and all Americans.

With that principle in mind, the Park Service has designated roughly one-third of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s 67 mile stretch of beach permanently closed to off-road vehicles (not to pedestrian traffic mind you) in order to protect nesting endangered birds and sea turtles. It should also be noted that only 10 percent of those visiting Hatteras even drive off-road vehicles on the Atlantic coast beach.

As for the 70,000 acre Biscayne Bay Park, the Park Service has proposed to make 10,000 acres a marine reserve off-limits to fishing in order to give a badly degraded coral reef and the fish species spawned there an opportunity to recover from excessive human activity.

Local merchants have protested that these moves damage business by closing off areas popular with fishermen Tattoos Kits, even though a depressed economy and high gas prices might well explain any recent visitor decline.

If the businesspeople were to get their way Damascus Steel Tattoo Machines, the economic losses from the subsequent environmental degradation would eventually be greater than any suffered from access restrictions.

Undaunted, members of Congress from the two districts have dutifully rallied around a bill to overrule the Park Service and modify its decisions. Hopefully, the legislation will be blocked by environmentally sensitive federal lawmakers defending the Park Service formula that allows for the maximum recreational use without jeopardizing natural resource preservation.

The reality is that merchants operating next to national parks face a tradeoff. They benefit greatly from their proximity to a prime tourist attraction, but are most impacted economically by restrictions on park recreational use in the name of conservation. If they cannot successfully integrate such a tradeoff into their business plans, they should consider either another line of work or a different place to set up shop.

As the West Indians arrive in the UK to prepare for their Test series against England, legendary Caribbean cricket commentator Tony Cozier talks about his life in the great game.

It is difficult to pick a favourite memory in cricket because there are so many. It’s been a long time. I have been doing it since I was 15. The first Test match I covered was in Barbados; Australia against the West Indies. When I was at school my father was the editor of a small daily paper in St Lucia, the Voice of St Lucia. I asked him if I could cover it for the paper. I got permission from the headmaster to go and cover the match and that was it.

There have been so many memories, and so many ups and downs of West Indies cricket, and new, brilliant players coming in. Back then there was no 50 over cricket and no T20 cricket. It’s been a long time.

When I first came in to cricket writing, I was 14 and my father was in a position where he could help me. He was the editor of newspapers in the Caribbean; the voice St Lucia, Trinidad Guardian, Barbados Daily News, Barbados Advocate, so that was a help to me. He also wrote cricket, he covered the West Indies tour of England in 1950. In fact he was the only West Indian reporter covering that historic tour when the West Indies won for the first time in England. And he was well known in professional offices throughout the Caribbean so his son young Cozier coming up would always get a lot of support from the experienced and elderly journalists in the press box, so that was a great help. On the 1963 tour I had to pay my own way around England. I had a lot of school friends who went to university in England and I used to bunk in with them to cover that tour. Then I went to Australia 68-69 and the radio said they would pay for me Cheap Christian Audigier Clothing, then when I came out they said they wouldn’t so I had to do that all out of my own pocket. But it was an investment I suppose to what happened in the future.

I’ve missed a few tours, not many, but a few. I’ve always been freelance so where I work and where I go depends on getting people to employ me. First of all newspapers, then radio, and eventually television. I first did radio in the West Indies in 1965 when Australia toured. I was one of the team of commentators who did that tour. 1966 was the first time I did BBC Test Match Special, when the West Indies where there, and I always supplemented it with newspaper coverage. There were occasions as well where I did all three, newspaper reports, radio, and television but that was physically more difficult to do with the passing years. Television was more lucrative than either of the others so now I am just doing television on a daily basis. As far as radio is concerned I do that very occasionally, and newspapers I just write a weekly column for West Indies papers and I do some occasional magazine work.

I think that I will be phased out of television commentary. They are looking for younger commentators, and commentators who have played Test cricket. There are very few who do commentary now on TV internationally who have not played Test cricket. Harsha Bogle of India, myself in the West Indies, Mark Nicholas in England.

My Father was my biggest influence. I got, and I still have it in fact, for my 8th birthday, a Wisden inscribed ‘happy birthday Tony from Mum and Dad’. I have virtually all of them since then but that was the first one. That was what you did in Barbados, you played cricket during cricket season, you played football as well and then track and field came into it. But cricket was the main thing. I played cricket for the Lodge School in the first team. In those days the 3 main secondary schools in Barbados; Combermere School, Harrison College and the Lodge School, all played in a first grade competition so we would play on a regular basis against the top teams and immense players.

Alan McGilvray is certainly the one I learnt from as far as radio commentary is concerned. He was a great Australian commentator. I got a lot of tips from him, a lot of guidance on how to do commentary, how to deliver. People listen from all over the world, and not all of them use English as their first language, so don’t mumble and speak clearly and deliberately. A few techniques such as when the bowler was running in to bowl to the batsmen English
commentators you will hear say he’s on his way and he bowls. He said ‘don’t say that because as soon as you’ve said that you are a second or two behind and the batsman has the ball with him so when he’s on his way just transfer your attention to the batsman and say Jones is on his way and Smith is back, forward, drives, pulls, whatever and you won’t be behind the play.’

Brian Johnston was an influence as far as commentary was concerned in the Test Match Special box. He made you feel completely at ease and that’s one thing I find in any job that if you are not comfortable you won’t do it as well as you should. Certainly Brian Johnston in the TMS box made you feel completely at ease; made you feel very comfortable. I was aged 26 when I first went in the TMS box. I felt quite nervous and overwhelmed but he made you feel completely at ease and from the start I felt that I could say what I wanted.

A writer that I admire now would be Ian Woolridge Buy BCBG Dresses, who used to be a daily mail cricket correspondent, then he eventually became a general sports columnist. We got to know each other very well. He would come to the West Indies and I was considering starting a cricket annual, a West Indies cricket annual. He influenced me and he said go for it, and I did, and it ran from 1970 to 1991 when we lost sponsorship and it was very difficult to maintain it. Then after that I went into a cricket quarterly which went from 91 to 2001 so that also helped as far as I was concerned keep me in touch with what was happening in West Indies cricket; keeping me up to date. I followed everything from every territory at every level, first class, club, and so on, so I knew players coming through and it was really was an advantage to have that background when you were doing writing and doing commentary on radio and television.

I grew up with quite a few cricketers. Richard ‘Prof’ Edwards, who played for Barbados and the West Indies. I did a lot of radio work with him, he was a radio analyst as well. A lot of the others I travelled with when I was the West Indian journalist on tour. Wes Hall, Gary Sobers, we were very close as well. When we toured together we would go out together a lot. Clive Lloyd, all of them. I got very close with a lot of them. I think they felt that they could trust me and they knew that what I would write would be sincere and I wouldn’t be looking for any sensation.

I feel more at ease doing radio commentary than any other. Writing I find far more difficult. When I read people like Michael Atherton, and previously Peter Roebuck, sometimes I feel quite inadequate. It’s certainly more of a chore than doing radio commentary. I really enjoy radio commentary. I don’t know what it is but I suppose when you get a microphone in your hand it seems to trigger something, and description comes to you quite easily. And I’ve been in it for so long. Television commentary is a little bit different, I also enjoy that but I find radio commentary is the thing I feel more at ease and more confident with.

I’ve often been criticised for things that I’ve said or written. Especially for the West Indies. For example, towards the end of his career, I suggested that Gordon Greenidge should be in his last innings. There was a fella called Brian Lara who was coming through, perhaps space should be made for him. I got very heavily criticised, in fact a couple of people in the press box made their feelings known. So naturally you get that quite often; that’s part of the job and you can’t hold back. You’ve got to be true to yourself. More especially in recent times with the board and the Players Association against each other: you get criticised by the Players Association quite vehemently and quite often.

I have never been asked to be involved in the leadership of West Indies cricket. I’ve worked in sports administration; I was the president of the Barbados Office Presidents Association for something like 7 years. But then because I was travelling so much I just couldn’t continue with that. But if I carried on with that I couldn’t be a West Indies cricket journalist. I’ve been close with West Indies administrators, chatted with them, and put forward a few suggestions. My columns have tended to be more and more critical of the administration and also the Players Association. I’ve been critical of everyone in West Indies cricket because they need to be criticised; they don’t seem to understand the damage that they have been doing to West Indies cricket.

I think players behaviour has probably changed a lot in the time I have been in cricket. I would imagine it’s because of the money now in the game. Players feel one mistake by an umpire could change their career for instance, could almost wreck their career, and they get very sensitive. I suppose that’s understandable. They play a lot of cricket now, they play all over the world, but they do very well out of it. The majority of the players are extremely well paid. You look at T20 and IPL and so on, they can make a very good profession out of it. And they do. Television is very intense, the coverage, cameras all over the place, the papers, mainly the tabloids, which are always close to the players, and everybody has a mobile phone so they can take a photograph. When England were here in the west indies last year you had players who were going out at night to the nightclubs and the fans were there to take their photograph and sending it back to the tabloids to use them.

Gary Sobers is the best player I have seen in my life. He is so far above the rest that I don’t think you can compare him. There have been so many that you want to watch, going back to the first of the three W’s (Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes, Frank Worrall) who were around when I was at school, who were outstanding West Indian cricketers. We used to listen on the radio when we were at school and hear them playing in England and Australia and really setting the benchmark for West Indies cricket from that time. After that you had some outstanding West Indians. But it’s not just West Indians, Australians as well, some English, too many really to pick out, all but Sobers. Sobers is absolutely number one, as far as batsmen you would like to watch. People like Roy Canning who’s a beautiful player to watch, Brian Lara, Viv Richards, master blaster, hits the ball like thunder, fantastic and exciting to watch. Shane Warne was mesmerising to watch in a different way to fast bowlers. They all bring pleasure to you. Once you see a great sportsman in any sport he is going to excite you. I’ve been lucky to have gone through so many generations of cricketers who excited me and I am sure there are others who are going to come along who do the same thing before I pass off!

There has never been an issue with me being white and reporting on West Indies cricket. I never feel that way. l may do so in other areas but as far as I am concerned I’m just West Indian. My family has been here for six generations, so I’m original West Indian and West Indian to the core. I was born in Barbados, my father lived and worked in Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad, and St Kitts as well. So I always felt completely West Indian and I was always received by the players that way.

It was natural for my son Craig to get involved in cricket. In the same way my father influenced me I suppose I might have influenced him. You know he would’ve gone the same route, he didn’t go to the same school or college but he played cricket there. He was much, much better at Hockey, he played for Barbados. In fact I played hockey for Barbados but mainly because I got the selectors to choose me in goal. My wife also played and she was pretty good, but Craig was the best of the three of us by far and he was an outstanding player for Barbados. He’s taken to cricket and he really enjoys it. He too is treated with respect and people believe that he does a good job.

I was asked many times if they could put my name on the press box in Bridgetown and I said no. I didn’t want it. I found it was almost an embarrassment to have something named after you when I was alive. Wait til I go along and then do it! But they came back and they came back and I said the only way I’ll do it is if the Cozier that you have on the media centre is not only myself but my father as well. They said ok but we consider it to be you. I said well you put the Cozier there and I will know it’s for both father and son. I’m proud of it up there. I feel humbled by it, I’d rather it not be there and he deserves it as much as I do.

I don’t know how much longer I will carry on. I’ve dropped newspaper writing on a daily basis so I’m only doing television now. To be honest in the last year or two it’s become more physically tiring. You’ve got to realise that when you reach four score and ten you’re not going to get any stronger, you’re not going to get any more physically alert and there will come a time when you give it up. But then I look at people like Richie Benaud, who has been going for longer than I have and he’s still going. Brian Johnston died while he was in the job; he was 80 years of age so you know you never can tell.

Regrets? I have a few but too few to mention, in the words of Sinatra. I suppose one of the regrets would be not having the talent to be able to play. Perhaps I would have switched the job for playing for West Indies. I think it’ s every young boy’s dream. I just played ordinary club cricket. I suppose if I switched from what I do now I would’ve liked to have had the talent to play for the West Indies.

It’s difficult to say how I would like to be remembered. Just how I honestly and truthfully chronicled West Indies cricket to the best of my ability.

Owners of 2010 and 2011 model year Cadillac SRX utility vehicles, lend me your ears: Your luxury crossover may be facing a recall. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some 8 Tattoo Supplies,789 affected units could have an improperly fitted transmission shift cable.

According to the government agency’s notice, the faulty installation could result in the cable popping out of the transmission bracket. If that happens, NHTSA says the transmission may not shift at all, rendering the vehicle immobile. The gearbox could also appear to be in Park when it isn’t Tattoo Supplies, resulting in a potential rollaway.

Cadillac will begin notifying owners of vehicles covered in the recall next month, and dealers will be tasked with inspecting the cable and making sure it’s properly routed and secured. For more details, check out the official notice after the jump.

The 2000 presidential-election vote recount

It’s become a truism of elections that both camps will “lawyer up” before the big day. Briefcase-to-briefcase, wingtip-to-wingtip, the legal emissaries of both Barack Obama and John McCain seem to be taking their cues from the 2000 election, which—according to some accounts—was either decided in a Florida skirmish known as the “Brooks Brothers Riot” that ended the manual recount in Miami-Dade County Buy Bandage dresses, or—according to more mainstream accounts—in the august halls of the U.S. Supreme Court along crassly partisan lines. Ready or not, here they come.

This time around, each camp has again amassed small battalions of lawyers—and the private jets necessary—to parachute into local disputes at contested polling places. Forget what the opinion polls say going into Nov. 4. To paraphrase Boss Tweed, when it comes right down to it, it’s not the votes that count, but the vote counters. And it’s the armies of lawyers who will be on guard to ensure the votes get counted.

Advertisement

A report issued last week by the Pew Center on the States, titled “What if We Had an Election and Everybody Came,” warns of impending Election Day mayhem: “Like the infamous Nor’easter that sank the Andrea Gail Buy DKNY Clothing, another perfect storm may be brewing, only this one has the potential to combine a record turnout with an insufficient number of poll workers and a voting system still in flux.” Thanks to the 2002 Help America Vote Act (which currently appears to be doing nothing of the sort) Ohio Republicans were emboldened to bring a novel dispute over the eligibility of newly registered voters that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. That leaves 49 states, 11 days, and thousands of quick-thinking attorneys to enjoin Cheap Karen Millen Dresses, protest, and litigate every other possible election claim ranging from dead men casting ballots to touch-screen voting machines with minds of their own.

To that end, Obama and McCain have signed up thousands of lawyers, although neither campaign wants to discuss exact numbers or litigation strategy. Both campaigns have also deftly reached out to citizen-lawyers in this election Buy Herve Leger gown, even seeking lawyer volunteers on their Web sites—some of whom report being called back almost before they have entered their information.

What will these attorneys be looking for on Nov. 4, and what do they plan to do if they find it? With an estimated 9 million new voters registered, lawyers on each side will be ghost-busting their election nightmare of choice: Democrats claim Republicans seek to suppress the vote—particularly student and minority votes—through polling-place intimidation, threatening robo calls, and illegal voter-roll purges. Republicans respond—indeed John McCain expressly announced at the final debate—that Democrats are “destroying the fabric of democracy” by signing up Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Daisy, who will all then vote in coordinated efforts to steal the election. (There is virtually no empirical evidence for this type of polling-place vote fraud, but as the Supreme Court recently indicated, when it comes to quadrennial elections, paranoid public hysteria should always be met with greater or equal levels of paranoid judicial hysteria.)

Pre-emptive lawsuits have already been filed and resolved, which is, in some sense, far preferable to litigating recounts in December. Lawyers for the Democrats have evinced a readiness to litigate vote suppression early and often, just last week prevailing over Ohio Republicans’ efforts to force the state to name 200,000 new voters whose registrations don’t match government databases. Obama lawyers also filed suit in Michigan to stop Republicans allegedly planning to use mortgage foreclosure lists to challenge voters. That suit settled with an agreement not to do so. On the other side, lawsuits filed by the state Republican Party in Montana (challenging the registrations of mostly college students and Native Americans) and Wisconsin (also seeking to match new voters to state databases) have met with little success. And in addition to these pre-emptive legal teams, both campaigns will also have a second string of elite lawyers on standby in the event that the election goes into constitutional overtime.

But what about the thousands of lawyers who will be pressed into service on Election Day itself? Thankfully, they don’t all work for the two campaigns. Jonah Goldman, director of the nonpartisan National Campaign for Fair Elections Discount Marc Jacobs Dresses, says they will deploy 10,000 legal volunteers on Election Day; some will be tasked with manning hotlines and others will be on the ground at the polls. Elite New York law firms will oversee call centers, including one Spanish-language hot line, all intended to provide “nonpartisan straight advice,” to voters encountering problems, says Goldman. Professor Richard L. Hasen Herve leger strapless sale, who teaches election law at Loyola Law School, confirms that most of the thousands of lawyers working on Election Day will not necessarily be racing to a courthouse to file dramatic pleadings, but hanging around the polling places, making sure new voters are not being harassed, using faulty machines, or forced to use provisional ballots (if Democrats) or that election officials are properly checking everybody’s IDs (if Republican). If nothing else, all these teams of vigilant lawyers will be watching one another, which in a tense and angry election year may not be such a bad thing.

Election litigation is a boom industry, even in a crumbling economy. Hasen recently published a study indicating that the number of lawsuits filed over elections rose from an average of 94 in the four years before the 2000 election to an average of 230 in the six years after. Paradoxically, the best way to inoculate America against the growing pandemic of “vote fraud” allegations from the political right, and the anxiety over widespread voter intimidation and suppression from the left, may be by throwing more lawyers at it. That’s why the single most important role for the armies of attorneys working the 2008 election may ultimately just be to be there: to avert the biggest conflicts and bear witness to the small ones. Send in enough lawyers, and you may just ensure that a watched polling place never boils.

A 2006 Harris poll found that only 18 percent of Americans trust attorneys completely. That’s a sad and unfair reflection on the contempt we feel for the profession in this day and age. One can’t help but wonder what it says about public confidence in our voting systems, then, that despite our almost complete lack of faith in them, we will rely almost exclusively on lawyers to protect the integrity of this election.

A version of this piece appears in Newsweek.

Porsche AG has announced the SportDesign add-on body kit for its popular Boxster Christian Audigier Clothing sale, making the company the latest
automaker to try to capture a bigger share of the burgeoning aftermarket for auto upgrades and accessories.

The factory SportDesign option package includes a front spoiler White Herve leger sale, a redesigned automatically extending rear spoiler Herve Leger sale,
and a modified rear fascia with integrated diffuser. More after the jump…

Cheap Herve Leger gown
Getting word of another special edition from the UK isn’t surprising Buy Missoni Dresses, as we’ve grown almost numb from the carnival of Mazda Buy Herve Leger gown, BMW and Citroën models that have been given a few extra gubbins for a few extra quid. But when the Union pairs a Toyota Aygo with Tabasco – as in, the legendary Louisiana hot sauce – consider our eyebrows raised. Except Discount Hale Bob Dresses, that doesn’t exactly appear to be what this is – it’s the Toyota Aygo Tobasco. As in the alternate spelling for the pepper that makes up the hot sauce, not the condiment itself.

The Aygo+ Tobasco edition gets a choice of three colors: Orange Spice, Black or Dark Gray, and all come with orange side mirrors and door handles. Inside Buy Chanel Dresses, orange is splashed all over, on the speedometer and tach Herve Leger sale, vents and door speakers. Orange upholstery is also on offer.

We don’t know how much you have to love the pepper to check this box, but it’s there if you’re feeling saucy. It joins a suite of other upgrades for the tiny Aygo+ such as new seat trims and a new stereo. Hit the jump for the press release with the details.

Glashutte Replica Watches

Where have all the Corrados gone? They debuted in 1990 here in the US and instantly earned a place on many a teenage boy’s “must have someday” list. Volkswagen’s profit was in the toilet in the early 1990s Fake Anonimo Watches, and the Corrado was heavier and more expensive than its’ beloved Scirocco forebear Parmigiani Fleurier Replica Watches, and thus not as successful. Volkswagen’s legendary reliability (or lack thereof) didn’t help the cause Fake Movado Watches, either. They’re definitely a handsome design Replica Seiko Watches for sale, and their relative scarcity means you won’t pass yourself multiple times a day. Flickr member xxlost_causexx’s silver Corrado is a great example of how clean and striking the design is.

More after the jump