see inside for link and article from Bill Gates...lm (long message)
Posted By: Oil solution would be CORN.... on 2005-12-28
In Reply to:
Bill Gates bets $84M on corn power
Investment in ethanol manufacturer by Microsoft founder shakes up industry.
December 13, 2005: 6:41 PM EST
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - When the richest man in the world invests $84 million in a company, you can be sure Wall Street notices.
That's why Neil Koehler, president and chief executive of Pacific Ethanol Inc. (Research), was looking as if he had won the Powerball jackpot on Tuesday.
"It gave us instant credibility and the equity financing to be very credible and real with our (business) plan," he said of the investment by Bill Gates, the Microsoft Corp. (Research) founder, whose personal fortune of $46.5 billion topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest again this year.
"It really differentiated us from the pack," Koehler said. Gates' investment firm, Cascade Investment, agreed last month to buy 5.25 million preferred shares in Pacific Ethanol, a producer of the corn-based fuel hailed by environmentalists as an answer to the earth's dwindling supply of petroleum.
The financing, in which the preferred shares will be converted into common stock, is expected to close in January and will net the Fresno, California-based company $84 million.
The Gates ripple effect
In an interview at Reuters' Times Square offices, Koehler said Gates' investment was a sign that ethanol can be a viable alternative to oil at a time of see-sawing gasoline prices and concerns about global warming and climate change.
"It's all coalescing and, obviously, a smart investor like Bill Gates sees that," said Koehler, who was in New York to attract institutional investors.
Gates' money will help Pacific Ethanol proceed with its plan to initially build five plants on the West Coast to process Midwestern corn into ethanol, he said.
"It's not only had a huge impact on our operations, but it's had a huge ripple effect on the whole industry. It has really caused a stir in the ethanol industry that Bill Gates has stepped up and said: 'I believe in ethanol.'"
The company went public in March and the $84 million will help finance the plant construction.
"This was very much our strategy and they very much synched up and helped us make it more real," he said. "They had decided they wanted to get into ethanol and had looked at many companies before they found us."
Despite the investment, Koehler has not met Gates, who is also known as a philanthropist.
"He's pretty hands-off," he said.
But just the name is enough to attract attention from Wall Street and oil companies, said Koehler.
"With Bill Gates and that whole left-wing, progressive position that he has and the philanthropic thing, it reinforces ethanol's green stamp," he added.
Ethanol versus oil
With crude oil at $50+ per barrel, Koehler sees the market for ethanol-burning vehicles growing. Already, U.S. gasoline contains about 10 percent ethanol and Ford (Research) and General Motors (Research) are developing cars to run on 80 percent ethanol.
With 150 billion gallons of gasoline sold in the United States each year, that represents some 15 billion gallons of ethanol.
"We could do what Brazil's done and have 30, 40 percent of our transportation fuel renewable," he said.
Brazil, which makes ethanol from sugar cane, and the United States are the two largest ethanol-producing countries, he added.
"It's a common fact, we are running out of oil and there is only one commercially-viable liquid fuel alternative," Koehler said.
But historically low gas prices and powerful big oil companies combined to stunt the ethanol industry for years.
"Because of the politics of the oil industry, ethanol has always been viewed as raining on their parade, interfering with their business model," said Koehler.
However, the situation has changed and oil companies now look more favorably on ethanol than other transportation power sources, such as electricity, fuel cells or hydrogen.
In addition, President Bush's energy bill included renewable fuel standards and starting on Jan. 1, it requires a virtual doubling of ethanol fuel use from the current 4 billion gallons to 7-1/2 billion gallons by 2012.
"With $50 oil and up, ethanol is very attractive from a price standpoint," said Koehler.
Ethanol receives a 51 cent per gallon incentive from the U.S. government and today it is selling wholesale for roughly $2 a gallon.
"The actual cost to a refiner is roughly $1.50 and wholesale gasoline is roughly $1.70 or $1.80 today," said Koehler.
And in another sign of the future, he said that, starting next year, the Indy Racing League is converting all Indy racing cars to run on the high-octane alternative.
"Ethanol is racing fuel," he added. |
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??? Why Bill Gates. He is not making you
x
and Bill Gates dropped out of college when he
became a millionaire! and the Google owners are young too! Just people with "visions." Wish I had some visions, LOL.
(There's actually a link and a message inside my note above) ... :-) ... nm
nm
I simply chose the wrong link. See inside for the correct link.
See link
this is from an article (see inside)
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/medical-transcription-service-us-states-700725.html
then go to transcriptionstar.com, and check out careers. Mostly it seems they are looking for editors, with 5 to 7 years experience, but all locations are in Chennai.
Follow up article inside on how the new law is going.
Bankruptcy Reform: Bad News
There's really bad news on the bankruptcy reform front. As expected, the controversial new law is making things worse for folks who, in eight out of ten cases, were forced into dire financial straits by circumstances beyond their control. Almost all of the 61,355 people who have been seen so far by credit counselors can't pay back any of their debts.
These are the key findings of a study just released by the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), called "Bankruptcy Reform's Impact: Where Are All the Deadbeats?" NACBA surveyed credit counseling firms that have been approved to provide required credit counseling services to people before they can file for bankruptcy.
While the credit counseling requirement was designed to steer people who could repay their debts into a debt management plan, the study concludes this "simply imposes new costs and time burdens on individuals who can ill afford either."
As NACBA executive director Brad Botes puts it: "Contrary to the claims of the proponents of bankruptcy law changes that they would zero in on the alleged legions of 'deadbeats' who supposedly were crippling the U.S. economy with 'billions of dollars in losses associated with profligate and abusive bankruptcy filings,' the federal bankruptcy law changes ... are doing no measurable good whatsoever. "
"Instead," Botes explains, "they have put new hurdles in the path of people who are already flat on their back due to financial crises over which they have no control, such as the loss of a job, catastrophic health care bills, and so on."
Bankruptcy filings are down, perhaps because many Americans may mistakenly believe that due to the new law, they no longer have the option. "Even though the process is now more cumbersome, time consuming and expensive than before," Bote recommends "consumers who need help should still seek out a bankruptcy attorney to explore their options and figure out how to navigate this trickier and more confusing process."
For more info about the bankruptcy study, listen to an online interview between credit expert Gerri Detweiler, a contributor to this blog and host of EverydayWealthRadio.com, and Maureen Thompson of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. (If this interview is no longer listed on the front page, simply type Maureen Thompson into the search field to access the interview. )
Posted by NancyCastleman on February 28, 2006 at 10:06 AM |
here is a link to the GMA article
nm
Here's the link to that article
Yes, here's the link to the article about determining your rates if self-employed
http://www.businessknowhow.com/officesupport/hourlyrates.htm
I always felt like I was "an accidental business owner" because when I got into MT work at age 25, I didn't realize how much of it was as an IC. I should have talked to an accountant from the start.
Diane
good article inside about AZ not changing...sm
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0402DST0402.html
Arizona's standard issue: We don't change clocks
State is last continental U.S. holdout on idea of saving daylight
John Faherty The Arizona Republic Apr. 2, 2006 12:00 AM
The rest of the country wakes up this morning asking one simple question: What time is it?
But not here. In Arizona we know exactly time it is. It's standard time, and it never changes.
The fact that we sit in blissful time innocence while the rest of the country tries to figure out how to adjust the clock on their car radio and wonders if TiVo will make the necessary adjustments is not an important thing, but it does say a lot about who we are.
We are independent. We have a contrarian's streak, and if something doesn't make sense, we don't want to do it. And now we are alone in the continental U.S. This morning some counties in Indiana switched to daylight-saving time, leaving just Arizona and Hawaii. Of course, people who have been here long enough know Arizona has been on daylight-saving time before. The whole country went on DST during both World Wars to save energy. After 1945 however, states and communities across the country were allowed to stay on DST or opt out. Arizona went off right away. The nation became a time puzzle as states and communities were able to pick if, and even when, they would switch their clocks. It was a mess best illustrated by the fact that the Twin Cities - Minneapolis and St. Paul - sometimes were an hour apart. Finally, in 1967 the Uniform Time Act was instituted, putting the entire country on daylight-saving time. Everybody had to do it for one year, and then states could opt out if they wanted to. Farmers nationwide complained vehemently but nearly every state just stayed with the status quo. But not Arizona. It didn't make sense to people here. We had enough sunshine and didn't need to "save" any. Besides, the sun stayed out so late here during the summer that if we set our clocks ahead by an hour it would be almost 10 p.m. by the time the sun set in June and July. The owners of drive-in theaters complained vehemently. This was nearly 40 years ago and drive-ins actually had some juice. So in March 1968, the state went standard and stayed there. Which means people here will be getting phone calls for the next couple of weeks asking, "What time is it there?" But we don't care. We never saw a need to change our clocks and switch our watches, so we won't do it. Before we get too smug though, we need to remember there was a time when our independence put us in an awkward time frame. For a while people living in the Territory of Arizona actually switched to something called "Phoenix Time." There was a long-running debate about whether Arizona was more closely affiliated with California and the West, or Colorado and the Santa Fe Railroad in New Mexico. A now-laughable compromise was reached. "Phoenix Time" split the difference, putting us half an hour after Pacific Time and half an hour before Mountain Time. It was dropped in 1910, and now we just set our clocks and let the world move around us.
Excellent article. Here's a link to another one.
See link.
Good article/link
Thank you for this information. I had not heard of this. Thank you for taking the time to provide this info.
Here's a link to an article about the bruxism, etc.
http://www.uspharmacist.com/index.asp?show=article&page=8_1418.htm
Could you post a link to this article?
I would really be interesed in reading it myself. I have tried to search for it myself but cannot find it. Thanks.
in fact - read inside -news article
"There's a critical shortage of qualified labor," said Lea Sims, a spokeswoman for the American Association of Medical Transcription, in Modesto, Calif.
Medical transcriptionists in the United States are aging. The median age for workers in the profession is between 48 and 50 years of age and younger workers are not lining up to enter the profession, which requires extensive training and time to become proficient, Sims said.
Sims, who ran her own transcription services firm for eight years, said she always had more work than qualified people to do it.
That's why the industry has looked at offshore labor, although that strategy comes with its own host of challenges, such as ensuring the security of patient data and encountering communication barriers, health experts say."
AND THIS PART"
CBay's growth in its six years has earned it a spot on private company rankings by Forbes magazine and Deloitte & Touche LLP. The company recently doubled its office space in Annapolis, to 20,000 square feet.
Managers credit the company's growth to its ability to slash transcription costs for cash-strapped hospitals like the University of Michigan Health System and physician practices by relying on cheaper resources overseas. "
Another hospital that sees the need to outsource to India is Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC.
Link to Advance IC v. employee article (sm)
which discusses the 3-fold test that the IRS is using instead of the former 20-factor list.
I know of very few MTSOs which really treat ICs like ICs.
My best friend successfully challenged the company she worked for -- she got unemployment and a nice tax credit; the company owner got hit with huge penalties.
Be careful-------there's a new WORM out there. See link to USA article and
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2006-01-30-email-virus_x.htm?csp=N007
"...fast-spreading e-mail worm is raising alarms because its sole purpose is to obliterate the everyday working documents widely used by consumers, students and businesses.
The Kama Sutra worm — also referred to as Nyxem.E and Grew.A — is unnerving because, unlike other e-mail worms, it appears to be detached from any profit motive.
It is designed to destroy all Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint documents and Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop files on all hard drives connected to an infected PC...
appears in e-mail in-boxes with subject lines such as "hot movie," "A Great Video" or "Crazy illegal Sex!" enticing the recipient to click on an attachment. One variation makes reference to the ancient Sanskrit book on sexual positions.
By clicking on the attachment, the victim launches a program that disables anti-virus protection. The infected PC then begins to send copies of similarly tainted e-mail to every e-mail address on the victim's hard drive...
It implants a program to erase common work files on the third day of the month, hitting even external data-storage devices connected to the infected PC...
More than 500,000 PCs are believed to have been infected since it first appeared on Jan. 16. That's a modest infection rate, but victims face grim consequences. On Friday — Feb. 3 — any infected machines will lose all Microsoft documents and Adobe files.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The worm is designed to inject file-deletion instructions onto corporate servers. It does so via systems that share data with employees logging on to corporate systems from remote locations. "The worm can spread quite well once it finds its way beyond corporate firewalls,
Victims can tell they've been infected if they clicked on an e-mail attachment and had their keyboard and mouse freeze up, forcing them to reboot
Disinfection requires reinstalling an anti-virus program updated to protect against this worm, then scanning to make sure it has been purged.
"It's about proving the virus community can't be stopped by anti-virus companies," says John Pironti, banking security consultant at Unisys. "
Here's a link to an article with backup info
as to why medical records should be in some type of print format and not handwriting, if that is what they are still doing.
http://www.medlaw.com/healthlaw/Medical_Records/8_1/physicians-barred-from-cu.shtml
Best of luck out there!
Link to a good article on WalMart biz practices
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
Interesting article but very long.
BANGALORE -- After seeing patients at the Arizona Medical Clinic in Sun City West, dermatologist Anthony Santos describes their cases on a hand-held digital recorder.
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Mahesh Barat, Special to the Post-Gazette
Parimala Jaggesh is an architect turned home worker in Bangalore. Each day, she receives audio files from doctors in the United States and types transcripts of their case notes for the Pittsburgh-based firm of Acusis Inc.
Click photo for larger image.
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Before going home, he plugs the recorder into one of the hospital's computers. From there, his audio files are encrypted, compressed, shipped via the Internet through Pittsburgh and sent on to this bustling Indian city 9,100 miles away from Phoenix.
A few hours later, Santos' words end up in the laptop computer of Parimala Jaggesh, an at-home worker for Pittsburgh-based Acusis Inc., who will type a transcript of his dictation.
Santos and Jaggesh have never spoken to each other, so he has no idea that his voice is her favorite among the doctors whose dictation she transcribes.
When the Acusis staffers in Bangalore call Jaggesh to ask her to do extra transcribing, they only need mention they have a digital recording from the clear-voiced Santos.
"They know how to get work done from me," she says with a laugh. "They say it is Anthony Santos. Then I cannot say no."
Jaggesh is one of about 350 home transcriptionists Acusis employs in Bangalore and other Indian cities. The company, founded by native Pittsburgher David Iwinski Jr., has a lofty goal: to become the dominant player in the medical transcription business in the United States, using its cyber-partnership with educated, English-speaking workers in India.
Bangalore wakes up as night falls in the United States, so while American doctors sleep, Jaggesh and her colleagues transcribe their dictation.
Jaggesh, an architect turned home worker, hits the shortcut keys on her Compaq laptop to insert familiar phrases and consults online reference files when she is stumped by an unusual medical or pharmaceutical term.
Her finished work is downloaded to the Bangalore offices of Acusis. Editors there compare every line of her transcription to the original recording, make corrections if necessary, and grade her daily performance.
Santos' transcripts are sent back to the Arizona Medical Clinic within 12 to 24 hours after the doctor plugs his recorder into a PC. They can be returned even faster, under two hours, for an extra fee.
Faster, more accurate
Even though the work is taking place halfway around the world, the result is speedier and more accurate than that done by a smaller local service, which used to take five to seven days to return transcripts, said Terry Daly, the clinic's chief information officer.
Medical transcription has a huge potential market of perhaps $12 billion to $15 billion a year. The current transcription companies are fragmented, ranging from small mom-and-pop operations to the industry leader, New Jersey-based Medquist Inc., which employs 10,000 transcriptionists to serve 3,000 health-care providers.
Acusis, just 3 years old, considers itself mid-size. The privately-held firm employs about 650 people here and abroad, 460 of whom are in India. The company serves about 40 hospitals and clinics across the country, including Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Iwinski's hopes for becoming an industry leader rest on proprietary software written by 50 company programmers in India to manage the nearly instantaneous flow of words from hospitals in the United States to home transcriptionists in India and back again.
But it also relies on the cost advantages of Indian employees. The Acusis pay system for transcriptionists, based on volume and accuracy, ranges from 1 to 2 Indian rupees per line.
Jaggesh may do 1,000 lines a day. At the average pay rate, that would earn her roughly $27 a day, or $135 for a five-day week -- good wages in India, where the average annual income is about $500.
At the Acusis headquarters in Bangalore, each space has a name.
A training area is called Gurukul, meaning "abode of the teacher" in Sanskrit. A visitor's room is named Athithi, or guest. Quality control is dubbed, in English, the Potter's Wheel; software development, the Cutting Edge; and startups, the Test Tube.
"It's very challenging work," Naveen Janarbhan, a quality control specialist, said as he compared a transcriptionist's work to an original recording of a doctor reciting medical jargon at a fast clip, describing a patient who is a heavy smoker and has a family history of cancer.
A mechanical engineer by training, Janarbhan carefully went over the transcript, taking extra care when it came to the medications the physician had prescribed for the patient.
'Concentration is the key'
"We have to be careful. Our eyes should be here. Our ears should be here. Our mind should be here," Janarbhan said. "Concentration is the key."
He found a few mistakes in the transcription he was editing, all minor and none involving medication or diagnosis. Nevertheless, he called the home Transcriptionist to ask her to be more careful.
The system grades each transcriptionist and the results are available to everyone in the company. That peer pressure, according to Iwinski, is "a strong motivator" to do well.
The job isn't that easy. Sometimes, doctors are munching an apple or eating lunch while they talk, making them difficult to hear. A nurse interjects to ask about a patient's medication. Papers rumple in the background. The topics can be technical, the jargon heavy.
Occasionally, Jaggesh is distracted by music playing in the background of a doctor's recording, the noisy atmosphere of a hospital or extraneous chatting of passersby.
But she takes most of it in stride.
"It's fun. It's very challenging," said Jaggesh, who likes working in her three-story apartment, which she shares with two sons, two dogs and husband Navarasa Nayaka Jaggesh, a well-known comedy actor in Indian films whose screen name is simply Jaggesh.
Parimala Jaggesh works around her family's schedule, taking her laptop with her as she moves from floor to floor, and occasionally typing in a serene rooftop garden overlooking the city. At other times, she works in a top-floor room that contains a figurine of the elephant god Ganesh, thought to bring good fortune.
She keeps track of her daily reports, and if her accuracy dips below 96 percent, she studies the file so she doesn't repeat the same mistake. Sometimes she has a bad day, and she gets called by the office.
"We do appreciate the feedback. You get a call that you have dropped down in accuracy on one file. Then it's a challenge," she said. "I take it that if my editors find the fault, I should have been able to do it."
She enjoys the small personal things that sometimes show through in a doctor's dictation -- a laugh made over a mistake or a spouse in the background trying to hurry things along.
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Please see message. I have three daughters with long, long hair.
I also have long hair down to my waist and my three girls have hair that long too. My daughter brought them home from school last year. I was devestated and grossed out!!!! I have never had to deal with lice. Anyway, we did the treatments and two of my girls broke out in a severe rash with the OTC stuff. Their little heads were so sore!! I thought I was being meticulous with eggs, only to find them hatching again down the road. A nurse at the pediatricians office suggested I try oil to suffocate them since my girls were allergic to the lice solution. I bought a huge bottle of veggie oil and dumped it on all three heads, plus my own. I then wrapped the heads in platic wrap and then a towel. I left this on for 30 minutes. It takes a while to wash out the oil, but we never, ever had the lice or eggs again!!! If you try this, make sure you put on an old shirt and put a towel around your shoulders. Obviously we were desperate, but we all have such long hair and very thick hair so I was willing to try anything. And I figured there was no chemicals involved so that was pretty safe. And it sure did help my littles ones since their scalps were pretty raw from the solution. Hope this helps and Good luck!
think link inside is what you are looking for--sm
http://www.productivitytalk.com/forums/index.php
See inside for link
http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd/
See link inside
This page has a link to a downloadable Word document with 100s of ideas. Good luck!!
link inside
http://www.stresslesscountry.com/anti-stress-bags/index.html
see link inside
http://www.productivitytalk.com/forums/index.php
see link inside......sm
http://www.dvi.com/index.html Stands for Digital Voice Inc.
See link inside.
.
see link inside
http://www.mtdaily.com/wwwboard/messages10/842.html
this is an old posting on MT daily, but some of the ?s may still be relevant for you. good luck!
Link inside
see below
link inside
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Search/ftp_s14.html
link inside
This has the meaning of each number.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology
link inside--sorry!
http://www.hillshirefarm.com/mealideas/recipes.aspx?id=459
Link Inside......
http://www.mtstars.com/FlashCount/
See link inside.
http://www.mtstars.com/docs/email_address_safe.html
See link inside
http://fitaly.com/board/msword/posts/14.html
See link inside......
xx
Link inside
Hear is the Link you are looking for --
http://www.dictationwarehouse.com/dictaphoneha30detail.asp
See inside for link....
http://fitaly.com/board/msword/posts/14.html
See inside for link
Here's a link with a cool macro that'll work. You can also do a search on the same site for more info.
link inside
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326538
See link inside
/
Here is a link inside that I use...sm
http://www.mt911.com/site/search/search_form.asp?sid=12
See link inside.
Hope you can find an answer here.
Link inside.
http://www.textware.com/
see link inside
for IRS publication, go to page 19 and it gives example employee working from home and how and where to do the calculations, etc.
see link inside
As IC you pay the whole 15.3%, as employee you pay 7.65 and employer contributes the other 7.65%. You deduct half of self-employment on taxes.
See link inside
This isn't finished yet, but it is a free online version of MT style, created by experienced MTs. When it's done, you won't need any version of the BOS.
http://style.mtreference.com/tiki-index.php
see link inside
http://www.mtstars.com/docs/statement.html
Might look at the link inside...sm
http://www.transcriptiongear.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=IDIG0
Link inside.
http://www.pcshorthand.com/thirdparty.html
Is this what you're looking for?
see link inside
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080714/hl_afp/lifestyleuslaborhealthtechnology_080714021842
not sure if this is available to the public-probably quite expensive
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