| Soldier's words from Iraq can inspire us all
At the end of each of those briefings, the chaplain introduced "The Hero of the Day," a fallen soldier. That part always held Bart Newman's attention. Day after day, month after month, the men's stories haunted Newman. He was a husband and father just like many of them. They hadn't gotten out alive. Maybe he wouldn't either. He thought about his 18-month-old daughter, Kate, and what he would say to her about life if he didn't come home to say it. Bart Newman had a lot to say about God; about choosing a husband and about what she might do with her life. He told his baby girl to make Jesus the center of her life because there was nothing more important than figuring out where she'd spend eternity when she died. He told her about his relationship with her mother, Jules, as he calls her; that he believed we could have marriages of passion, devotion and love if we'd only see our relationship with our spouse the way God does and not the way the world does; and instead of asking what she would do with her life, ask herself "how will eternity be different because of me?" The God that Bart Newman hoped Kate would one day believe in was the same one at the center of his prayers.
Getting There: Car limits remain in place on Third
The increased car traffic causes a lot of bus delays and blocked intersections. "How come the law's not being enforced as much?" Answer: Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt said there indeed are restrictions on vehicles other than buses on Third Avenue during rush hour. Metro paid for extra traffic officers for Third Avenue when the restrictions went into place and the bus tunnel closed for light rail construction in 2005, Witt said. But when the bus tunnel reopened in September, allowing many buses back underground, Metro stopped paying for extra officers. However, the city kept the restrictions in place to allow buses to move more smoothly on streets. Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond said the money for extra officers had come from a fund specifically for the tunnel closure.
Teachers' pay to be pegged closer to performance
Instead, the 29,000 officers in the education service can expect up to a five per cent increment depending on their performance and potential. Bonuses based on merit will also vary according to whether teachers are graded 'good', 'very good' or 'outstanding'. 'Good' performers will receive a bonus of up to two months' extra pay, while those who are 'very good' will get up to 3.25 months. 'Outstanding' performers can take home up to 4.25 months' more. Typically, 85 per cent of teachers and school heads can expect to be graded good or very good, while five to 10 per cent will be deemed outstanding. Everyone, however, will gain from the bigger annual deposits that MOE will put into a gratuity programme for teachers, the Connect Plan. The ministry deposits a sum every year for each teacher, who can withdraw a part of the money every three to five years.
TODAY'S MARKETS
The Oscars have passed, but stock investors are still basking in feel-good stories. The latest came from tech bellwether International Business Machines, which Tuesday unveiled a stock-buyback plan worth up to $15 billion and raised its earnings-per-share forecast accordingly. The news helped to propel the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 114.70 points, or 0.9%, to 12684.92, putting the blue-chip measure in positive territory for the month of February, up 0.3%. On the year, it has shed 4.4%. Dow component IBM jumped 3.9%, leading a broad tech rally that lifted fellow tech blue chips like Microsoft and Intel, which advanced by 1.9% and 3.8%, respectively. Hewlett-Packard, also a Dow stock, gained 2.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.8%, or 17.51 points, to 2344.99, down 12% on the year.
Wall Street falls ahead of Fed rate move; Merrill Lynch CEO retires ...
Merrill Lynch shares fell $1.73, or 2.6 percent, to $65.69 after O'Neal's announced departure. Some corporate earnings reports disappointed investors. Procter & Gamble was the biggest loser among the 30 Dow components after cautioning that higher commodity costs will squeeze second-quarter margins. Despite a 14 percent rise in fiscal first quarter profit, P&G fell $2.85, or 4 percent, to $68.98. And although Qwest reported a third-quarter profit jump, its shares tumbled 73 cents, or 8.9 percent, to $7.45 as overall revenue dipped, and after the telecommunications company provided few details about its outlook. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 244.9 million shares. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 2.41, or 0.29 percent, to 819.31.
Speed camera IS working
Seemingly however, every time someone gets knocked down it always seems to be attributed to the driver. Whatever happened to the green cross code bloke and the other public information films that used to be on the telly when I was younger. With roads busier than ever, wouldn't you have thought they would be even more necessary. As for our country roads, they could be made considerably safer at night if the county fixed the one invention that helped the driver see better the road ahead, the 'cat's eyes. Simple fact is that hardly any of them now work because they are mostly broken and you can't always use main beam can you. If the county wants to improve the A449 and other country roads then the investment in fixing the cat's eyes would have been more beneficial than a so called safety camera.
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