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According to DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan, these Democratic leaders, “will present the American people a handy 10-point blueprint for how the Republican-Tea Party would govern, based on actual positions taken and held by Republican-Tea Party members.” The blueprint includes repealing the health-care law, privatizing or phasing out Social Security, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, repealing financial reform and abolishing the Education and Energy Departments.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/07/28/republican%E2%80%93tea-party-con...

The income distribution of the United States is far more unequal than most people realize. In fact it is so lopsided, it is hard to represent on a single graph. For more see http://www.lcurve.org.

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

The four large trusses in the great are complete and the rustic look came out great.

There are two bedrooms a media room and an excerise room on the second floor.    I faux painted all the trim there, the crown, baseboard, window and door trim, also 7 doors.  The doors are an extra foot taller than your normal door.  Its painted like the ceiling in the great room.

trim 

doors

The human population growth of the last century has been truly phenomenal. It required only 40 years after 1950 for the population to double from 2.5 billion to 5 billion. This doubling time is less than the average human lifetime. The world population passed 6 billion just before the end of the 20th century. Present estimates are for the population to reach 8-12 billion before the end of the 21st century. During each lecture hour, more than 10,000 new people enter the world, a rate of ~3 per second!

Of the 6 billion people, about half live in poverty and at least one fifth are severely undernourished. The rest live out their lives in comparative comfort and health.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_p...

To all my well meaning friends that suggest we keep the Bush tax cuts. To those that think increased taxes are passed to consumers and to those who think that tax cuts to the rich will create jobs, I hope these links help you to understand. The reason our recovery is slow is because business is holding money or investing it overseas

Giving the largest share of a tax cut to rich people who are most likely to save a great deal of it is not a very intelligent thing to do when the economy is struggling to pull out of a recession. The result has been a sputtering and long overdue 'recovery' that has created far fewer jobs than almost any economic recovery in American economic history in spite of the added benefit of historically low interest rates.

by James Kroeger

http://nontrivialpursuits.org/economic_stimulus.htm and then read this:

http://nontrivialpursuits.org/collectivist_schemes.htm

Published: Monday, July 19, 2010, 4:02 PM
Kenneth Kesner, The Huntsville Times (AL.com)

RaytheonRaytheon announced today it will build a 70,000-square-foot facility on Redstone Arsenal for integration and production of its Standard Missile-3 and SM-6, creating about 300 new jobs.
HUNTSVILLE, AL -- Raytheon's announcement this morning that it will locate a 70,000-square-foot missile production facility on Redstone Arsenal makes this "a great day for Huntsville," said Mayor Tommy Battle, adding that the plant should also benefit other Tennessee Valley communities.

Ground is to be broken later this year for the plant, to be located at the site of the former Morton Thiokol facility on the south end of the Arsenal. It will eventually employ about 300 people and is to be built in two phases, each tied to production contracts for the company's Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6.

Share The Huntsville area is well known for what Battle called "laptop" work: software development, research, engineering and the like. The Raytheon plant will bring more highly-trained manufacturing positions.

"These 300 jobs are manufacturing/production type jobs," he said. "It helps us with a different skill set that we are always going after."

Huntsville is becoming a sort of "Center of Excellence" for missile production and refurbishment or "reset" of equipment brought in from the field and prepared for deployment elsewhere, Battle said. Local companies are already involved in this work, particularly with the major upgrade of Apache helicopters and other Army gear coming from Iraq and destined for elsewhere.

"There were a number of states that were under consideration by Raytheon for this facility," said Brian Hilson, president of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce. "We feel very fortunate to get it, and especially proud that it's coming here at a time when our economy is hurting and any community needs 300 jobs. But these are 300 outstanding jobs from both the manufacturing and design and engineering standpoints.

"In short, this is a world-class facility at what we think is a world-class community and we're very proud to get it."

Hiring is expected to begin sometime next year. Alabama Industrial Development Training will be providing recruitment screening and pre-employment training, Hilson said.

www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 5:30 AM
Michael Tomberlin -- The Birmingham News (AL.com)

Birmingham's office and industrial buildings finished the second quarter with more space being leased than vacated, a positive sign that an economic recovery could be hitting home in commercial real estate.
However, sublease space remained a drag on the metro area's industrial and office space in the second quarter, slowing the recovery in the two important real estate sectors.

Still, industry observers are taking note of the 20,580 square feet net gain in office occupancy and 24,970 square feet net gain in industrial occupancy for the quarter as a significant sign.

"For the first time, there was some positive absorption," said Bill Pradat, president at EGS. "While it wasn't a large amount of square footage, it was positive."

Despite filling some vacancies in both during the quarter those numbers hide the large amount of space that existing tenants are trying to lease to someone else, often at deep discounts.

Birmingham ended the quarter with an occupancy rate of 90.3 percent overall in the office market and 80.5 percent in the industrial market, however, neither number includes sublease space which is technically leased but is on the market by the tenants.

In the industrial market, for instance, another 60,000 square feet of sublease space during the quarter brought the total industrial sublease space in Birmingham to 675,032 and would drop the overall occupancy to 75.8 percent if it was included. When you add in the sublease space on the office side, the occupancy drops from 90.3 percent to just over 85 percent.

The good news:

But the quarter did bring some good news with several significant leases, including:

>> TSF Sportswear LLC leased 66,000 square feet in Oxmoor South Industrial Park.

>> Triton Stone leased 50,000 square feet in the Continental Gin building.

>> Magma Granite Corp. leased 21,400 square feet at 1301 First Ave. South.

>> Dynamic Tower Services leased 6,975 square feet in Cahaba Valley Business Park.

>> SNL Distribution Services leased 5,000 square feet in the Birmingham Food Terminal.

>> Synovus Mortgage leased 31,874 square feet in Lakeshore Park Plaza.

>> Capital Strategies Group leased 9,729 square feet in the Shades Cahaba office building.

>> HP Hotels Management leased 5,032 square feet in Chase Corporate Center.

>> Fuston, Petway & French leased 4,080 square feet in the Luckie Building.

The quarter also saw some property sales, include Nextran's $1.16 million purchase of a 31,000-square-foot building at 3101 Messer-Airport Highway, Infinity Property & Casualty Corp.'s $16.1 million purchase of the 111,600-square-foot former Vesta Insurance building and NuTech Medical's $3.7 million purchase of the 28,000-square-foot McCrory Building Co. building.

In the office market, second quarter occupancy rates ran as high as 94.1 percent in the Midtown area that includes Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills to a low of 79.4 percent in the Hoover/Riverchase area. Birmingham office rental rates for top tier space averaged $21.18 per square foot per year, with Midtown fetching the highest average of $22.12 per square foot per year and Hoover Riverchase the lowest at $18.90 per square foot per year.

On the industrial side, the eastern part of the market that includes the Pinson, Roebuck, Trussville, Leeds and Moody areas had the highest occupancy rate of 86.6 percent while the southwestern part of the market with areas such as Hueytown, Bessemer and McCalla had the lowest with 64.3 percent.

Pradat said while brokers always hope for a large headquarters or some other sizable user to come in and take large chunks of the empty space, the reality is that in the current economy, small and incremental deals will likely be the norm in the near future.

"No wow! deal has popped up in recent memory," he said.

Pradat said that this point in 2010 is a marked improvement over where things were a year ago. "There is certainly improved activity," Pradat said. "It's better than this time last year."

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or e-mail Tomberlin at mtomberlin@bhamnews.com.

© 2010 al.com. All rights reserved.

www.CommercialPropertyDirectory.com

When you hear about the new health reform law these days, too much talk is focused on the political.

What I've found is that most Americans just want to know how this new law helps their families stay healthy -- and how it reduces their costs.

The first thing I tell people who ask about the Affordable Care Act is that, for moms like me, it makes our lives easier. It gives families control over their own care. And it gives us the comfort of knowing that our insurance will be there when we need it most -- especially if we get sick. Then I tell them that it gets better, but there's a lot to know. To help, this administration has set up HealthCare.gov, where folks can see customized information about how care will improve for their families.

So much of what makes this law great is its emphasis on preventive care -- right now, too many people aren't getting the check-ups or the screenings they need to stay healthy. Twelve percent of kids haven't seen a doctor in the past year. And 59 million adults -- and 11 million children -- depend on an insurance plan that does not cover basic immunizations.

Health reform is changing that. Under this new law, all new private plans will provide basic preventive services -- things like childhood immunizations and checkups, mammograms, colonoscopies, cervical screenings, and treatment for high blood pressure -- absolutely free of charge. No copay. No deductible. No co-insurance needed.

And, on HealthCare.gov, you can not only learn what preventive steps will help keep your family healthy, but also what insurance coverage options are available based on your needs.

A focus on prevention will help us to combat diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure -- chronic illnesses that right now lead to seven of ten deaths in the United States and 75 percent of our national health care costs.

And it will help us tackle an issue that is dear to my heart -- childhood obesity. As some of you know one of my top priorities as First Lady is the Let's Move! campaign, where we have made it our goal to put a stop to the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation, so children who are born today grow up at a healthy weight.

Each of us needs to take responsibility for our own health and the health of our families, and the new health reform law can help. That's why I'm writing today -- to make sure you and Americans across the country know how their health plans are getting better day by day under reform.

Please visit HealthCare.gov and find out more about your care:

www.healthcare.gov

Thank you,

Michelle Obama

Back off and look at the corruption on both sides, including Obama. The BS you see on Fox is designed to keep you stupid and divert you from the real problems. If you want to learn something watch Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC at 4 Monday - Friday. Please stop buying into the whole Republican Liberal Media myth. Much of the public believes a useful but unsupportable myth about the so-called liberal media.

http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/LiberalMedia.htm

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447

I read, WSJ, NYT and Washington Post. I watch Fox, MSNBC and All the Sunday Shows and CBS. I compare, read, and I think FOX is the most slanted network on TV and Radio. In short I believe Fox is watched mostly by the uneducated, the bigoted the uninformed and those who do not want the facts to get in the way of what they believe.

I have just heard that the Obama Administration has given BP the green light to test the cap on the the oil leak. Lets hope and pray that it works and that this can finally come to an end. The draw back is that it will take years before the Gulf Shores get back to the way they were. I say thank you to whoever in the Obama Administration that gave BP the green light to go ahead. Let's hope it works!