| Prepare to meet thy pothole (and deal with a grim fate)
This column normally aims to inform, not scare the heck out of you. But how else to describe the horrors that await your car when you smack a really bad pothole? "The potential damage are blown tires, bent rims, broken suspension components, or bent suspension components such as ball joints, tie rods, control arms, MacPherson struts, broken springs due to impact, blown shocks, or even a bent spindle," said Larry Rubenstein, mechanic and owner of Route 1 Auto Service in Peabody. All that from hitting a pothole? "Yes," he replied. "That's what happens." Today we probe no one's favorite subject, potholes. What, exactly, is happening underneath the floorboards when you hit one dead on? Is there anything you can do to limit the damage? And, the question I was dying to know, is the city, town, or state that owns the pockmarked roadway under any obligation to pay your repair bill? I say that nobody likes potholes, but that's not entirely true.
SPO Partners Withdraws From Australia Media Deal
The deal, if successful, would mark Lachlan Murdoch's return to the Australian media industry after he resigned his New York-based executive role at News Corp. in 2005. He remains on that company's board, although his move to acquire Consolidated Media is independent of News Corp., which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Consolidated Media said in a statement that SPO's decision to withdraw related to changes in investment conditions and not to the bidding groups' assessment of the company's prospects and businesses. SPO wasn't available for comment. A person familiar with the situation said SPO pulled out Wednesday for reasons including the recent strength of the Australian dollar against the U.S. dollar and the global credit crunch. SPO's move surprised Messrs.
Any Advice About Visas?
Requiring the interview forces the applicant to travel to the few cities where the interviews are conducted often adding hundreds and even thousands of dollars to the cost of an education in the US. That is on top of the none-refundable $231. a student visa applicant must pay, without any assurance they will even be granted the visa. William Fish, President at Washington International Education Council, at 9:35 am EST on February 8, 2008 .
As housing bubble deflates, rent stays high
Terry Jacobs remembers the 1970s, when she paid $75 a month for a three-bedroom apartment in south Bozeman for herself and two daughters. ERIK PETERSEN/CHRONICLE Terry Jacobs talks about the difficulties of paying rent in Bozeman from her apartment kitchen. Jacobs said the $7 an hour she makes at her job doesn't leave enough for all her bills. Over the past four decades, the 59-year-old IHOP hostess has watched the valley change and rent prices soar.Today, her $7 an hour pay doesn't come close to what she needs rent a place in the Gallatin Valley, where a one-bedroom apartment averages $575 a month."That's just too high," she said.Montana's soaring home prices have spilled over into the rental market, sending monthly rents higher all across the state, said Scott Rickard, an economist at Montana State University-Billings.
Chevron Defends Richmond Refinery Upgrade Project
Why would they go to cheaper, dirtier oil? (Because) price discounts can exceed $5 per barrel, which, for a refinery Chevron's size, could be about $400 million per year," Karras said. He added that those price discounts would not necessarily translate into cheaper prices at the pump. Communities for a Better Environment uncovered the refinery's alleged plan to switch to dirtier oil after looking at the final environmental impact report and finding that "it didn't make sense," Karras said. They then looked at documents submitted to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Regional Water Quality Control Board and found that the project was similar to one proposed in 2001 in which the refinery applied for a permit to upgrade its refining capacity to be able to refine dirtier oil, Karras alleged.
What if the 'Surge' Works?
But adding the hate-crime inquiry makes the race issue central to the trial, and makes it more likely to degenerate into a divisive festival of competitive racial victimization, no? ... 1:19 P.M. More on Sen. Hagel and the "surge" from an erstwhile antiwar fan of his: I am a little disappointed in the way he's opposed it. Not just the level of emotionalism ... [snip] ... but what really disappoints me is, what I've hear, his failure to kind of articulate really solid logic for being sure this is going to fail ... [E.A.] Don't look at me! I didn't say it. 2:50 A.M. .
'I would have loved to be PM'
It's a cold Thursday morning in Westminster. Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, the cop-turned-Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick and the Greens' Siân Berry are in the midst of a London mayoral hustings focused on the environment - a rather anti-climactic event in front of an invited audience of eco-oriented activists and political professionals, some sporting the obligatory suits and Joe 90 glasses, with tweeting BlackBerrys to match. The Livingstone camp sees Johnson as a practitioner of the politics of small things, aiming much of his pitch at the suburbs, and so it proves: in his opening speech, he begins by paying tribute to the wonders of recycling in Bexley. The mayor takes a little time to warm up, but eventually gets into character, casually accusing the British Airports Authority of "decades of complete lies".
|
