| Opposition won't let AWAs go without a fight
THE pros and cons of Australian Workplace Agreements are set to get another workout after the Senate launches an inquiry into the Rudd Government's legislation to scrap them. The Senate will vote on Thursday on an Opposition motion for a Senate committee inquiry. The Coalition can get its way in the upper house until June 30. The deputy leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Eric Abetz, yesterday gave notice of the motion, which says the inquiry should report by April 28. Although the Coalition can force the inquiry, it will not have a majority on the employment, workplace relations and education committee that will do it. There will be four Government members, three Opposition and one from the minor parties. In his speech written by the Government at yesterday's opening of the 42nd parliament, Governor-General Michael Jeffery said the Government's "first legislative act" would abolish the capacity to make AWAs.
Swipe and ride: CTA taking credit cards
Like so many fast food restaurants, grocery stores and New York City's transit system before it, the Chicago Transit Authority is now trotting out credit-card friendly vending machines allowing riders to use their plastic to buy a ride. On Monday, CTA officials announced they were installing 60 new express farecard vending machines allowing riders to use credit cards to buy and add value to CTA fare cards. .
Treasury’s five-year Rock loan
Some will see it as a taxpayer subsidy to a bank which got itself into a mess and was unable to raise money in a conventional way. However shareholders are likely to view it as a potentially crippling burden on the company which – if the Treasury wanted it back – could wipe out the value of Northern Rock's shares. Update 08:00 Northern Rock's shareholders have had a huge dose of bad news this morning. The company says that the preliminary bids for the business all value it at significantly less than the current market value. And the Treasury has said that neither bidders or the company should assume that the £24bn of loans made to it by the Bank of England will be kept in place after February. The Treasury has also warned that the support it has provided to the Rock represents state aid under EU rules and may therefore turn out to be illegal.
Odds And Ends
Of the hundreds of millions of gallons that flow there every day, some 10 million to 36 million escape from cracks in a 45-mile stretch. Not only is it a waste, the leaks create sinkholes and other problems at the surface. The city Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the water supply, has been aware of the leaks for decades, but repair work is complicated and takes careful and extensive planning, officials said. The city began sending divers down to the tunnel in mid-February to gather data that will be used to develop a plan for repairs. The dive work is the first part of an early stage that will determine the best way to fix the tunnel. The project costs about $240 million and will take five years. ''There's not a ticking clock on this, but it's important to fix because this is 50 percent of the water supply,'' said Emily Lloyd, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Sprint's 'Push to Talk' can now send e-mail, photos and contacts
Push-to-Email, or NextMail, lets the user select a contact, push the Direct Connect button, record a message, and send to the recipient's e-mail address, where the audio file is sent as a link. Direct Send, the "push-to-picture" feature, allows users to exchange photos while linked in a direct connection, much like IM file transfers. Like instant messages, the sent picture appears on both the sender and recipient's screen simultaneously. The same can be said of contact information, also included in the Direct Send function. Users can send any information from their contact list while engaged in direct connection for no extra charge. Sprint expects even more Push-to-X features to be rolled out this year, including push-to-text, push-to-locate, push-to-information, and more.
Lady Luck deserts Devizes
DEVIZES Town were the victims of bad luck as they lost 1-0 to Welton Rovers in the Toolstation league Premier Division at Nursteed Road last night. Welton scored the winner after 20 minutes but Devizes were unhappy after Ryan Trowbridge was elbowed in the lead-up. Adam Giles smacked a free kick against the bar and Daine O'Connor also hit the woodwork with a volley as Devizes sensed it was not to be their night. Devizes assistant boss Steve Hale said: "It was quite a tight game, I wouldn't say either side deserved to win it. "The players that have gone out there have worked hard and given everything. "But injuries and unavailability are really hurting us at the minute. With budget cuts it's really difficult to freshen the squad up." .
Editorial cartoons from Mike Luckovich.
There should then be a joint international push to get the Iraqis to make the kinds of political deals that will turn the ceasefires into lasting peace. Over the next year if the violence continues to decline, countries like India, Poland and South Africa could be persuaded to relieve American troops. With sustained and focused efforts, over time, American forces could draw down substantially. The mission could then become what it was always billed as, a genuinely international effort to assist the Iraqi people in founding a new nation.}}}} I can't believe people still take these strokers in the drive by media seriously. Talk about living in a bubble. Imagine this as-shole two years from now, "they only won in Iraq cause of what I told them to do." Jag off.
Rental Cars Won't Need Transponders to Travel Through Sunpass Lanes
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept. 27 -- Many rental car customers traveling on Florida's toll roads and bridges are now able to utilize 'SunPass Only' lanes to pay their tolls, even without a SunPass transponder, thanks to a pair of innovative programs announced by Turnpike officials this week. Rental car customers in Central Florida also can use the EPass lanes on toll roads operated by the Orlando- Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA), and will soon be able to use the LeeWay toll lanes in Lee County. Florida's Turnpike Enterprise has entered into contractual agreements with American Traffic Solutions and Rent A Toll, Ltd. to administer a program which utilizes license plate information to identify rental vehicles and electronically collect the toll. American Traffic Solutions is currently offering its PlatePass(R) cashless toll payment service to rental car customers using vehicles rented from Avis, Budget, and Hertz.
American Idol'': Separate but Unequal
American Idol has a clearly stated mission over the next three weeks: Winnow down its current crop of 24 semifinalists into a lean, gender-balanced pack of six men and six women. Because if there were, say, eight women and four men heading into the March 11 finals, all hell would break loose in the Idol nation. There'd be strongly worded e-mails, a perilous dip in the show's ratings, and perhaps even rallies where fans could destroy their cherished Daughtry and Carrie Underwood albums en masse. Or at least that must be the great fear of executive producer Nigel Lythgoe and his cohorts. How else to explain the silly insistence on parity of the sexes? After all, this is a TV talent search, not a college athletics department; Title IX doesn't apply. And it's not like the show's goal is to reinvent Robbie Carrico's former prefab band, Boyz n Girlz United.
Reiser Trial
Reiser is expected to be back on the stand on Wednesday and Thursday. A DNA expert for the defense might also testify Thursday, Tamor said. Outside court, defense attorney William Du Bois told KCBS Radio reporter Bob Melrose, "It seems like a good introduction, but we have a long way to go. We're just trying to focus on the days, weeks and years that are seriously at issue in the case." Du Bois' cell phone began chirping as the interview continued. The defense attorney agreed that much of today's discussion got "inextricably tied up in his technical explanation of his world" and that it was "hard to get through it without boring the listener." But now that we're through that stage, the talks will soon turn to the years after the Reisers got married -- and why Hans would never kill the mother of his two children as alleged, as the children were the "most important to him in the world." Hans also didn't have the opportunity to kill his wife, Du Bois said.
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