Joss Whedon took to the Comic-Con stage to introduce the follow-up to the 2012 blockbuster.
By Kevin P. Sullivan
"The Avengers"
Photo: Marvel
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1710960/marvel-panel-2013-san-diego-comic-con.jhtml
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JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israeli and Palestinian officials voiced skepticism Sunday that they can move toward a peace deal, as the sides inched toward what may be the first round of significant negotiations in five years.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced late last week that an agreement has been reached that establishes the basis for resuming peace talks. He cautioned that such an agreement still needs to be formalized, suggesting that gaps remain.
In his first on-camera comment Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to lower expectations by saying the talks will be tough and any agreement would have to be ratified by Israelis in a national referendum.
Netanyahu pledged to insist on Israel's security needs above all ? saying his main guiding principles will be to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel and avoid a future Palestinian state in the West Bank becoming an Iranian-backed "terror state."
A lifelong hawk, Netanyahu has been a reluctant latecomer to the idea of Palestinian statehood, and his critics say he uses the pretext of security to avoid engaging in good-faith negotiations.
"I am committed to two objectives that must guide the result ? if there will be a result. And if there will be a result, it will be put to a national referendum," he said at the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting. "It won't be easy. But we are entering the talks with integrity, honesty, and hope that this process is handled responsibly, seriously and to the point."
Hardliners have floated referendum proposals before, usually as an attempt to add an additional obstacle to any efforts to cede war-won territories as part of a future peace agreement.
Palestinian officials were silent Sunday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not spoken about the possible resumption of negotiations since Kerry's announcement Friday. In an attempt to restrict official Palestinian comment, Abbas' office said only two top aides, Nabil Abu Rdeneh and Yasser Abed Rabbo would be allowed to speak to reporters. Neither was available Sunday.
Abbas had previously refused to negotiate with Israel so long as settlement construction continued in part of his hoped-for state. Netanyahu countered by saying he would only enter talks without preconditions.
The two sides are now set to hold more talks in Washington in coming days or weeks on the framework of negotiations, meaning a resumption of talks is not yet assured.
Gaps remain on three issues Palestinians say need to be settled before talks can begin ? the baseline for border talks, the extent of a possible Israeli settlement slowdown and a timetable for releasing veteran Palestinian prisoners.
The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. Abbas seeks a commitment from Netanyahu that Israel's pre-1967 border will serve as a baseline for negotiations, but the Israeli leader has refused to do so. Previous rounds of negotiations were conducted on those lines.
Two Palestinian officials said Saturday that Abbas agreed to resume talks only after Kerry gave him a letter guaranteeing that the pre-1967 borders would serve as a baseline. The officials, privy to internal discussions, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
A Western official denied the 1967 borders would be the starting point for negotiators.
Israel has said it will release some Palestinian prisoners as a good will gesture, but there are few other official details to emerge about the framework of the talks.
The actual talks are to produce a deal on the borders between Israel and a future Palestine, a partition of Jerusalem, the fate of refugees and security arrangements.
While a majority of Israelis support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, polls suggest there is less support for a partition of Jerusalem.
The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as their future capital. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the territory has since been taken over by the Islamic militant Hamas group that does not accept Abbas' authority.
Israel and the Palestinians have engaged in several rounds of negotiations since Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized each other in 1993.
At least twice, in 2001 and in 2008, the two sides reportedly made significant progress. Since then, many on both sides have become skeptical about a possible deal.
Palestinians suspect Netanyahu is interested in the process of negotiations, as a diplomatic cover, but not in an actual deal. Israelis fear territory they hand over to a weak Abbas could quickly turn into a staging ground for attacks on them by Palestinian militants, as happened in Gaza.
"The chances for a permanent solution are not high," Interior Minister Gideon Saar told Israel Radio. "The Palestinians are not ready to make the historic decision to end the conflict between them and us."
The Palestinians, too, were hardly optimistic.
"We are skeptical about these talks because the Israelis are not going to stop building in the settlements and because they didn't accept the '67 borders," said Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of Abbas' Fatah Party. "What we got in return for going back to negotiations is an American pledge that the talks will be on the '67 borders, and historically the Americans always gave us such pledges but they never abided by these pledges."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israelis-palestinians-skeptical-peace-talks-131855792.html
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Let me tell you about my experience at Vivadent so far.
I?had?my upper braces fitted on the 22nd of june wich is just a month ago,
and to be sincere and truthfull not one week has gone by without a complication
occurring.
First occurrence:
On the day of fitting the braces the archwire was left cut
too long causing the wire to cut? and scraping into the?right?cheek, as i only started
to feel the pain pass the closing hour going back to have it cut?was not an option,
the following day was Sunday wich is not part of there opening days. Went their
on the next Monday to have?it?cut off, and found out i could have used wax which I had no
knowledge of, no one at the surgery made the effort to explain it might happen after
just having braces fitted nor supply me with the wax until the day I came for the archwire
cutting.
Had to endure over two days of discomfort which led to very little eating done or talking,
I can actually say my mouth had to be closed for that period of time for me not to be in
pain.?
Within the same week on the 29th of june upper left 2nd mollar?brace?broke completely??????????????????????? off thooth while eating (nothing of a hard structure).
Sunday 6th of?July
upper right lateral brace?completely detached from tooth?only being held by the archwire.
Tuesday 16th of July
upper right cupsid?brace?completely detached only being held by the archwire
just few days after having the upper right cupsid reffited got detached once again
on the Friday 19th of July.
Vivadent is currently leaving me?in a possition were I have a?completely detached brace only hagging
through the archwire and no other?option then waitting until the 27th of July to have it reffited as the Orthodantist is on holiday and would not be back until then.
At every single occasion Vivadent had made me feel it has been of my own doing for the reason of the braces coming off, and just as a reminder this is just one month exactly into treatment.
So far the work of Vivadent has been very Patchy, Poor?and Unprofessinal, for what I paid it is not the quality of service I expected I would not recommend Vivadent to anyone.
Source: http://www.qype.co.uk/review/3914638
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged the city of Miami and its former budget director with civil securities fraud for engaging in questionable budget transfers that misled bond investors.
The SEC?s enforcement action also charged the city with violating an existing cease-and-desist order entered in 2003 based on ?similar misconduct.?? The agency said it?s the first time the SEC has alleged further wrongdoing by a municipality already under an existing cease-and-desist order.
The charges, filed in federal court in Miami, allege that the city and former Budget Director Michael Boudreaux ?made materially false and misleading statements and omissions? about internal fund transfers leading up to three 2009 bond offerings totaling $153.5 million. They also are accused of including ?false and misleading? information in the city?s 2007 and 2008 financial statements distributed to bond investors.
The investigation, which began in 2009 after a Miami Herald report, revealed that Boudreaux transferred $37.5 million from the capital budget that pays for big-ticket construction items into the general fund to reduce gaping holes in the operating budget as the local economy soured. At the time, he justified the transfers by saying the projects were no longer necessary.
But the SEC found that the projects still needed those funds during that fiscal year, or that the money had already been spent. The transfers enabled Miami to meet its own requirements for general fund reserves. As a result, the city?s bond offerings were rated favorably by credit rating agencies, which view general fund balances as key indicators of financial health.
?Miami cannot continue play shell games with its finances,? Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC?s Miami regional office, said in a statement. ?Investors and the markets deserve complete transparency in assessing the city?s municipal bond offerings.?
The SEC?s complaint seeks to prohibit the city from violating securities laws and to impose financial penalties on Miami and Boudreaux. It also seeks a court order directing the city to comply with the agency?s 2003 cease-and-desist mandate.
?Today, we?re paying for the sins of the past,? Miami Mayor Tom?s Regalado said. ?Now the city is very careful in segregating accounts.?
Boudreaux?s attorney, Michael Pizzi, said his client is a ?scapegoat? for making a budget recommendation supported at the time by the city manager, mayor and commissioners.
?He was an employee who did his job and did absolutely nothing wrong,? Pizzi said. ?There?s not a scintilla of evidence of bad intent or fraud on his part.?
The charges are likely to play a part in Regalado?s reelection this fall. His main challenger, Commissioner Francis Suarez, said earlier Friday that the SEC?s action would not come as a surprise to commissioners who have repeatedly criticized the city?s budget procedures.
?It?s a practice that hasn?t really improved, in my opinion, throughout Regalado?s tenure,? Suarez said. ?One of the most unstable departments in the city has been the finance department.?
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/19/3509271/mayor-sec-to-charge-city-of-miami.html
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A few weeks ago, we received an email from a reader who had some questions about his health savings account. The email raised two interesting questions: Are these tax-favored insurance products becoming retirement accounts, and, to quote the email, ?does anybody regulate these clowns??
On the first count, the answer is pretty clearly yes. The personal finance subsection of the web is overflowing with advice on how to, and whether you should, use an HSA as a retirement account.
Why HSAs?
Theoretically, HSAs are meant to be a way for you to use before-tax money to pay for your healthcare costs when you have a high-deductible plan (meaning your deductible is at least $1,200 a year for an individual or $2,400 for a family before your insurance benefits kick in). But they have morphed into something more than that, thanks to their triple tax advantage:
Your account contributions are pre-tax or tax-deductible.
All earnings, interest, and, yes, investment returns are tax-free.
Investment returns? Indeed. It turns out that HSAs aren?t limited to cash. You certainly can put your money (restricted to $3,250 for an individual or $6,450 per family per year, plus an extra $1,000 a year if you are over 55) into an FDIC-insured savings account. State Farm offers such a product through State Farm Bank. But many companies offer a richly varied menu to suit any risk appetite: a company called Health Savings Administrators, for instance, gives you a list of of no fewer than 22 Vanguard funds to choose from, including funds devoted to small-cap stocks and ?strategic equity?.
Wells Fargo offers both types of accounts. When you open an HSA at Wells Fargo, you put your money in an FDIC-insured deposit account that pays a tiny bit of interest annually. Once you have $2,000 in that deposit account, you then have the option to start putting money in a separate, non-insured HSA investment account, with various mutual fund options.
For anybody with high-deductible insurance, then, this is an attractive tax-free way to invest money in the stock market. It?s especially attractive to the young and healthy, since those people have a lower risk of having to tap their HSA to pay medical expenses before their money has had a chance to grow.
HSAs aren?t owned by your employer, or even connected to your insurance, so you can open one and keep it until you retire ? they are even listed in the code of federal regulations as retirement accounts. And so, while they were perhaps not originally intended to be a retirement account, that?s what they have morphed into.
Is having an HSA catching on?
As of January, there were 15.5 million people in the US with insurance plans that qualified them to open an HSA, up from 3.2 million in 2006. That said, it?s hard to find data on how many people actually have an HSA. There has certainly been a rapid rise in the number of employers who offer what the industry refers to as ?account-based health plans?.
High deductibles pass much of the cost of medical expenses to the individual, and also avoid the 40% excise tax that the Affordable Care Act will introduce to high-value insurance plans. As the latest Towers Watson report on ?Reshaping Health Care? puts it:
Account-based health plans (ABHPs) can be an important strategy for reining in costs in advance of the 2018 excise tax and facilitating the shift toward greater accountability from employees and more consumer-like behavior in their purchase of health care.
For people who need to make use of their health insurance often, ABHPs shift expense away from the employer and insurance company, and onto the individual. However, if you are healthy, ABHPs are great: their premiums are lower than other health plans, and if you don?t need to spend a lot on healthcare, your money has a chance to grow in your investment HSA account. Furthermore, HSA proponents argue, making consumers pay for more of their medical expenses will drive prices down as people put more effort into shopping for the lowest price for medical care.
Regulation
But back to our reader?s second question on HSAs: Who are the regulators? The answer depends on what kind of account you have, and who is providing it. If your HSA is in a bank, in cash, then it likely to be FDIC-insured (State Farm, for instance). If you have HSA money in mutual funds, however, those investments are not insured (except in the case of a total bank failure, in which case the SIPC is there for you, probably). Mutual funds are regulated by the SEC.
Non-banks can also be HSA providers, and if your money isn?t in a bank, it won?t be FDIC insured. Take SelectAccount, for example. It?s a subsidiary of the insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, which is technically regulated by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. The IRS continues to check that it meets the requirements to be an HSA provider, according to spokesperson Marlo Peterson. It does have deposit accounts ? and they are not FDIC insured. It also has investment HSA accounts, where the management of your investment and your mutual fund choices is outsourced to Charles Schwab. In turn, Schwab is regulated by the SEC. Got that?
The Bottom Line
Should you use an HSA as a retirement account? The simple answer is yes: if you already have a high-deductible health plan, then you should, if you have the money, put the maximum amount into an HSA every year.
The second question is what you should do when medical expenses come along. Should you pay them out-of-pocket, using after-tax money, or should you use the funds in your HSA? That?s more of a judgment call, and depends in large part on whether you will miss the money if you spend it out of your pocket, rather than out of the HSA. But given that substantial medical costs in retirement are almost certain for all of us, it makes sense to start saving up for them today in as tax-efficient a manner as possible.
And if you?re now thinking of your HSA as a place to save up for retirement medical costs, rather than for current medical costs, then it?s logical to invest that money in long-term investments, like mutual funds, rather than just keeping it in cash.
Just make sure that you have enough cash lying around to cover any unexpected medical costs you have for the time being. The last thing you want is to be forced to use your HSA to cover near-term medical costs, just when your investments have gone south.
Finally, is your money safe, in an HSA, and do you need to worry about the HSA provider going bust? That one?s harder, and really the only way we?ll find out is if and when it happens. But insofar as you?re keeping your HSA funds in cash, you should certainly make sure that cash is FDIC insured.
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I am on a roll with free monthly teleseminars! ?This month?s topic got an overwhelming response on Facebook when I ask if you would be interested. ?I had SO many likes that I knew I had to get this information out to you ASAP. ?On July 24th at 4pm PST (7pm EST), I am going to share with you how to get ahead in your career this year. I know we are over halfway through 2013 and that is why it is more important than ever for you to hear what I have to say to really make your career goals happen this year.
Click here to sign up for the teleseminar.
In this teleseminar, you will learn:
You don?t want to miss this kick in the butt teleseminar so you can start making big things happen. I know you are going to love it and I think everyone should attend because the information I am going to share can really make a difference in your life and happiness.
Click here to sign up for the teleseminar.
P.S. The teleseminar will be recorded so make sure you still sign up if you can?t make it because I will send you the recording to listen to on your own time.
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The short answer is, most likely no - you should not link them all together.
As I explained at Search Engine Land with my article titles Google's Matt Cutts: Linking 20 Domains Together Likely A "Cross Linking Scheme" - it may be considered by Google as a cross linking scheme - at least those are the words used by Matt Cutts.
Here is the video:
As you can see, the overall theme and feeling you get from Matt is that it is typically a bad idea.
So the next question I will hear is what about linking 18 sites, or 15 sites, or what about 10 or 5 sites together. I love those questions. Those asking those questions are linking the sites for one purpose, ranking.
So what about it? :)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for circle of chains
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