How would you like to participate in a Groupon-like bonanza yourself? Revenue in one of the largest such companies last year was $800 million. But did you benefit financially from selling the concept? No -- they did!

We are a national company looking for professional sales people with B2B experience in any form of advertising, insurance, and also teaching, coaching. We will show you how to make money promoting online coupons using search technology with a new product launching in the next month.

Imagine receiving a commission check without accepting any money from your client! Sound impossible? We are happy to explain just how this can and will happen hundreds of times a day across the U.S.-- and you can be a part of it.

Call for an appointment today (425-747-0201) or respond to this listing. The clock is ticking on this one! And you want to be included from day one! We will be meeting with those interested next week.

• Location: USA & Canada
• Compensation: Straight commission
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Big Fish Games has an amazing Mother’s Day promotion on! Buy ANY of their iPhone and iPad games for only $0.99. The regular price for their iPad games is $9.99 and the iPhone games are $4.99. You are saving a load! Shop Big Fish Games iPhone and iPad Games I just bought Big Fish’s Azada for the [...]

Big Fish Games: All iPhone & iPad Games only $0.99 is a post from: BargainMoose Canada

Sears Canada is hosting one of it’s Super Sales with up to 50% off. The sale lasts 3 days only: May 6th – 8th, 2011. Shop Sears Super Sale This sale can be quite daunting as they have over 1000 items included in it. However, if you know approximately what you are looking for the deals are [...]

Sears Canada: 3 Day Only Sale is a post from: BargainMoose Canada

It's Friday, folks... Take out your frustrations while following the action in two Game 4's tonight:

San Jose Sharks vs Detroit Red Wings (6:00 p.m. Central on Versus)
I believe that if the Sharks complete the sweep, this would represent the first time that the Predators will have outlasted the Red Wings in the playoffs, correct?

Philadelphia Flyers vs Boston Bruins (7:00 p.m. Central on Versus)
Can the Bruins close out the Flyers in 4? They'll get the chance to do it on home ice tonight.

Bonus Hockey Reading

Canucks and Predators - Game Four Scoring Chances - The Copper & Blue
It's always interesting to get an outsider's perspective on this series, and Game 4 pretty ugly indeed.

Red Light District: Nashville’s hard work not enough
Entry #2 for Understatement of the Year.

Why one scientist is looking at former NHLers brains - The Globe and Mail
No, he's not a zombie. At least, I hope not.

Top-10 Undersized Players in the NHL | Hockey Independent
The Preds place two mighty mites on this list.

IIHF WC Day 8 Thread: Regional Rivals Take Over - Puck Worlds
This morning features a battle of Team USA vs. Canada.

Hockey training resources for skaters and goalies | Hockey Gear HQ
If you're a player or goalie looking to keep in shape over the summer, there are a couple guides worth looking into. Don't just listen to me, Don Cherry agrees...

Lastly, as passed along by Justin Bradford on Twitter, Bloomberg takes a look at the dynamic pricing scheme which is helping the Preds maximize their ticket revenue during these playoffs. Let's hope they get another chance to make this work on Monday!

 

 

RenRen, a Chinese social network, just had a very successful IPO that raised $743 million for the company on shares priced at $14 (the high end of what many analysts anticipated). Currently, the stock is trading at $16.76 per share, giving the company a valuation of $6.5 billion on revenue of $67.5 million in 2010 - up 64% from 2009 revenues.

There's certainly value in the network, but we have to go against the many media outlets who've promoted RenRen as "the Chinese Facebook." It's not.

Fortune notes some of RenRen's similarities to Facebook: a social network that started by targeting college students before expanding to everyone, members using their real identities to connect with people they know, a platform for app developers, popular social games, a Connect system with partner websites. There are definitely a lot of similarities, but it's the differences that account for why RenRen =/= Facebook.

1. Facebook is a big deal outside of the US, RenRen is only big in China

And according to their mission statement

"we aim to define social networking experience and to revolutionize the way that people in China connect, communicate, entertain and shop"

(emphasis, ours) they have no ambitions to change that. China is obviously a good market to be number one in, but so is the US. If Facebook had only focused on growth in the US, they wouldn't be anywhere near where they are today. Facebook is Facebook because they're the number one social network in the UK, in France, in Germany, in Canada and many more countries. Sure, there are plenty of countries where Facebook isn't the top social network - notably Brazil, South Korea and Japan.

But as lucrative as the Chinese market is - and it's certainly lucrative, being number one in one country just doesn't equal being number one in 20 (sizable) countries.

2. When it comes to active users, there's not a clear leader in China

RenRen claims 117 million registered users, but of that only 31 million are active. Percentage wise, that's slightly more than 1/4th of registered users. No social network is immune to abandoned accounts, but worldwide Facebook claims more than 500 million active users, with 50% logging in daily. At an advertising event in February of this year, Facebook's head of US Agency Relations broke out some country specific numbers. In the US (Facebook's home country), there are 149 million active American users, 70% of whom log on daily. {TechCrunch}

Since Facebook doesn't release registered user numbers (at over 500 million active users, it's kind of  unnecessary) there's no definitive figure to compare that with, but Google's ad planning tool estimates put the number of absolute unique US users to Facebook in March 2011 at 190 million. If we assume all of those users have a Facebook account, that would mean almost 80% of Facebook's US users are active, and 55% of their total registered user base - not just those who are active - visit the site every day.

RenRen's active user numbers aren't close. Add to that, even though analysts say competitors like 51.com are declining, they still maintain an equal or higher number of active Chinese internet users. {SAI/BusinessInsider} So RenRen isn't exactly losing the fight when it comes to Chinese social networks, but there's a way to go before they're declared the winner.

3. Facebook is an internet presence outside Facebook

For a while, some people saw Facebook as the new AOL: a walled garden service that would eventually crash as people began to decentralize and move to sites on the open web. Then Facebook released widgets that allowed for the easy addition of Facebook social features to almost any site on the open web. Almost overnight, it made Facebook a force beyond Facebook.

The 'Like' button is officially a year old as of April 21st, and 10,000 sites are using it. RenRen Connect, which launched in October 2009, has 600 partner sites.

It's not an apples to apples comparison, but probably one of the clearer examples of why our first two points matter.

4. User growth is beginning to plateau

RenRen is still growing, but percentage wise, user and revenue growth is slowing. {BusinessInsider} Facebook's overall percentage growth may not be as rapid as it was in the past few years, but that's because it's pretty hard to keep up 100% year over year growth in every market when you have 500 million active users.

5. There is no RenRen ecosystem

Part of the reason Facebook has been able to raise so much money at eye-popping valuations is the fact that it's an ecosystem that has the power to not only create revenue for itself, but cottage industries as well. Sure, Facebook owes some of its popularity to companies like Zynga, who create games and apps that keep people on the site; but Zynga also owes a good part of its multi-million dollar value to Facebook. Then there are companies like NorthSocial and BuddyMedia, who provide brands and companies with tools that help them manage their presence on the site.

Even Twitter, who still hasn't completely figured out how to capitalize on the value it's creating, has managed to create an ecosystem that other companies can be built on.

While Chinese game developers have had hits, RenRen just isn't in a position yet to create industries specifically around RenRen.

---

While it's highly unlikely that RenRen will ever equal the success of Facebook, it doesn't have to to be successful. As of April 2010, ComScore estimates that 38% of Chinese internet users visit social networking sites, compared to 81% of US internet users. That means there's still plenty of room for growth in users and revenue to satisfy investors. Add to that the fact that it's notoriously difficult for Western consumer tech companies to succeed in China without partnerships, and RenRen certainly has a chance at becoming a significant Chinese internet company. Just don't compare it to Facebook.

5 Reasons Why RenRen Will Never Be a Facebook Equivalent by YM Ousley originally appeared onSignature9

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Filed under: Movies

If one were to do a Google photo search for Salim Akil, pictures of his wife, Mara Brock Akil, are just as likely to come up in the results.

For some less enlightened men, such a close association to one's wife might be bothersome. Not for Akil though. For years, the married couple has collaborated as directors, producers and writers on several projects, most notably 'Girlfriends,' the CW sitcom his wife created in 2000 and its spin-off series, 'The Game,' that now airs on BET.

As a matter of fact, Akil, 46, is the first to credit his wife for his success, admitting that the biggest adjustment came when he had to tackle directing 'Jumping The Broom' - which opens in theaters today (May 6) - on his own. Akil shot the bulk of the film, which is about two families who meet at a wedding in Martha's Vineyard, on location in Nova Scotia, Canada. His wife stayed home in Los Angeles, where the two live with their young sons, age 7 and 2. "After working with my wife for so long, it really felt like I was out there alone when she wasn't around," Akil said. "I had a great cast, a great crew, and great producers, but the biggest challenge was to trust myself."



A quick scan of husband and wife's respective IMDB.com pages shows how intertwined their careers are, but it's clear the man of the house is unquestionably the quieter of the two. If his wife is behind the scenes, Akil is even further behind the scenes. But it's a role he kind of relishes, an extension of who he is as a person. "Mara is the more gregarious person, so you've heard a lot more about her, I'm sort of the quiet one," Akil says. "To watch her and her name blossom out there in the public makes me happy because I know she's happy."

As Akil is quick to note, "A happy wife is a happy life."

Akil is just comparably quieter than his wife. In the continuum of black male directors, he is often associated with or compared to Tyler Perry and Spike Lee, two of Hollywood's most outspoken figures. But Akil has always maintained a level of anonymity. He doesn't act in his own projects now and up until 'Jumping The Broom,' he's done very little press or promotion for his work. Even on the set of his own film, where directors often call shots through a megaphone, a reel of behind-the-scenes footage shows Akil walking up to cast members to give direction.

"I actually modeled my character in the film after Salim," says Laz Alonso who plays Jason Taylor, a charming but stoic groom-to-be who must help his family get along with the family of his future wife portrayed by Paula Patton. "One thing I noticed about Salim has under no circumstances, regardless of what adversities we faced, he never, ever lost his cool. He was the coolest guy on the planet."

That cool demeanor was shaped during a rather rough childhood growing up in the Bay Area, where he learned early on how navigate a cruel world. "I literally saw my friends slaughtered - those who weren't were in prison," says Akil, who also has a son, 26, and a daughter, 32, and three grandchildren. "My mom spent some time in prison and my step-dad overdosed, and my dad for the most part wasn't around."

As a writer and director, Akil is very aware of the rich source-material his biography offers. Unlike other filmmakers who have used their lives as screen fodder (Perry's 'Madea' films; Lee's 'Crooklyn'), Akil chooses to keep that part of his life private, largely because he can barely get the details out of his mouth, let alone onto the page. "Emotionally, it's just challenging for me," he reveals. "This is the most I've ever talked about it. It just really becomes uncomfortable [to think about]. I start longing, literally, for brighter days and sunnier days."

He has slightly better memories about the path he took to get to Hollywood. In 1999, a year after he wrapped 'Drylongso,' his first indie film in which he starred and also co-produced, Akil decided to move from his hometown of Richmond, Calif., to enroll at UCLA so he could access the school's film resources. When he wasn't studying on campus, he worked at an outpatient facility for the mentally ill. Though the job weighed on him heavily, Akil managed to keep writing scripts and maintain his filmmaking ambitions.

The person most encouraging of his talent then was a young Mara Brock. The two started dating when he first moved to Los Angeles after a chance meeting at a furniture store. Three months later, she proposed to him.(!) They were engaged for two years before marrying.

During their early years together, they both struggled professionally. But that time was a bit harder for Akil. While Brock got various jobs working in television, Akil said his day job hindered his creative impulses. Although she often told him to quit, Akil was stubborn. "I said, 'That's odd, a black woman asking a black man to quit his job'," he recalls. "I can't quit a job, that just doesn't make sense."

A week later, Akil was fired.

Left with no choice but to follow his passion, Akil started to talk with people about a script he wrote called 'Undertow,' a story about a bi-polar schizophrenic detective. 'Undertow' was eventually optioned by Showtime, but never made it to the big screen. Instead, Akil landed an interview to write for the network's popular 'Soul Food,' a series based on George Tillman's 1997 film. By the show's final season, Akil was an executive producer and had directed two episodes. Later, he went on to direct episodes of 'Girlfriends' and 'The Game.'

These days, Akil is more than adequately skilled in his craft. He's developed a sophisticated touch and is able to tell nuanced stories about the different shades of romance. From 'Soul Food' to 'The Game' to 'Jumping the Broom,' there is a similar thread in all that addresses matters of the heart, specifically relationships between men, women and family. "I had a lot of love from my mom, but the life I was living [as a child] was not normal," he explains. "So now, when I can get into marriage, it's interesting to me."

The stories represented in his films are a symbol of his happiness: "It is me smiling."

His wife, children and the people around motivate him to continue making good work. The couple is preparing to shoot the fifth season of 'The Game,' and planning a remake of 'Sparkle', the classic 1976 film about the ups and downs of a R&B girl group in Harlem.

"We have a finished script that we have turned in the studio," Akil says. No actors have been attached to the project yet. The only names definitely attached are he and his wife. Whether only one of their names is in the final credits or both, Akil has no problem saying they did it together. "I don't question who's running things in our household," he says. "That's the perception people who are powerless need to have. I don't need to have that perception."

 

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Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer, publisher and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition®, Drawn™, Fairway Solitaire™, and My Tribe™.

We’re seeking you: A creative, Senior DBA who will play a key role on the database team responsible for supporting our current MySQL infrastructure and design. This will include database design and architecture for existing and new initiatives, database monitoring, tuning, and capacity planning for production systems. This is a great opportunity to pull from your architecting and design experience to help us build cutting-edge and scalable solutions for social media applications.

Responsibilities include but are not limited:

• Working directly with developers on related database initiatives, and validating the scaling model and application performance
• Reviewing schema design and data definitions for production systems
• Evaluating and recommending database hardware and software
• Monitoring and performance tuning of production database systems
• Ensuring all maintenance, system integrity, capacity, scalability and space requirements for Big Fish Games database environments are met

Skills and experience you should be bringing to the table:

• 4+ years experience with databases in a production environment
• Previous experience high transaction and 50+ database server environments
• Knowledge of various database replication and clustering methods
• Solid understanding of major components in relational database architecture
• Experience in database backup, restore and disaster recovery procedures
• Experience with analyzing and tuning databases for performance and efficiency
• Skills in at least one of the following: Shell Scripting, Perl, Python or PHP
• Expert troubleshooting skills and abilities
• Ability to effectively interface and communicate with engineering teams
• Business savvy; an understanding of how our actions affect the business

Related experience and knowledge it would be nice to have:

• Experience with multiple database platforms
• Knowledge of and/or previous experience with Linux or UNIX
• Basic understanding of Java/JVM
• Bachelors degree in technology, engineering, or one with a mathematical focus

Come be the next Big Fish in the Pond!

To apply for this position, please visit our careers page at www.bigfishgames.com/careers and complete your online profile to upload your resume.

• Location: Seattle, WA
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer, publisher and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition®, Drawn™, Fairway Solitaire™, and My Tribe™.

We are looking for a talented Senior Linux Administrator who is interested in working with a fast, growing group of smart and dedicated people, helping make us the #1 casual gaming destination.

Responsibilities:

• Maintain and manage operational Linux environment with 300+ servers
• Work with developer to architect and enhance applications
• Monitor system performance and plan for future capacity and scaling
• Carry a pager and participate in an on-call rotation

Skills and abilities you should bring to the table:

• Deep understanding of Linux internals, including kernel and tcp stack tuning
• 5+ years of UNIX/Linux systems administration in a 500+ server environment supporting highly available, customer-facing services
• Extensive experience with the following applications: MySQL, Apache, Postfix, and Memcache
• Experience scaling web applications in a highly available environment
• Basic understanding of Java/JVM
• In depth understanding of TCP/IP networking fundamentals, including basic network engineering and routing knowledge
• NAS/iSCSI experience a plus (Network Appliance preferred)
• Excellent communication and project execution skills

Nice to have experience:

• Ubuntu/Debian experience
• Perl, Python, and PHP a plus
• Experience working with virtualization and cloud services

Come be the Big Fish in the Pond!

To apply for this position, please visit our careers page at www.bigfishgames.com/careers and complete your online profile to upload your resume.

• Location: Seattle, WA
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer, publisher and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition®, Drawn™, Fairway Solitaire™, and My Tribe™. For more information about Big Fish Games, visit www.bigfishgames.com.

Are you looking for a position where you can utilize your German language skills and play an integral part in the growth of our German international portal? If so, you may be “the One” we’re searching for to help support the continuing growth of the company. As the German Site Manager, you are responsible for merchandising, aggregating content, and guaranteeing on-time delivery and a high linguistic quality to our German customer base. You excel at handling multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment – all with the goal of furthering the company's international growth and success. Additionally, you share a deep interest in languages and Big Fish Games products; you love to take on new challenges and are eager to join an agile, fun, and culturally diverse team that's on the forefront of casual games.

Responsibilities:

• Coordinate, manage, merchandise, and aggregate all content on our German Portal
• Serve as first-level contact for internal/external partners and customers for German Portal
• Research the German game market for new, upcoming trends and exciting site content
• Develop, and maintain a detailed site plan and release schedule while keeping a great degree of flexibility
• Coordinate site’s needs and improvements across multiple groups company-wide
• Manage agile team of highly skilled professionals

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business or related field required
• Must be fluent in English and German (Native Tongue strongly preferred)
• Deep understanding of European markets, cultures and traditions with the ability to localize a product
• Exceptional problem-solving skills including demonstrated ability to think outside of the box
• Tenacity, attention to detail, excellent organizational, multi-tasking skills, and strong written and verbal communication skills are key
• Must possess an entrepreneurial spirit and a sense of ownership
• Ability to be a team player while working in a culturally diverse environment, while shining as an individual and maintaining a sense of humor
• Proficient with MS Office Suite, and high comfort level utilizing the internet as a research and/or shopping tool
• Must be passionate about video games, and have a conceptual understanding of the online gaming industry

Come be the Big Fish in the Pond!

To apply for this position, pleae visit our careers page at www.bigfishgames.com/careers and complete your online profile to upload your resume.

• Location: Seattle, WA
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is a multi-platform developer, publisher and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition®, Drawn™, Fairway Solitaire™, My Tribe™ and Faunasphere™. For more information about Big Fish Games, visit www.bigfishgames.com.

Are you looking for a position where you can utilize your Spanish language skills and play an integral part in the growth of our Spanish international portal? If so, you may be “the One” we’re searching for to help support the continuing growth of the company. As the Spanish Site Manager, you are responsible for aggregating and merchandising content and guaranteeing on-time delivery and high linguistic quality to our Spanish customer base. You excel at handling multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment – all with the goal of furthering the company's international success. Additionally, you share a deep interest in languages and Big Fish Games products; you love to take on new challenges and are eager to join an agile, fun, and culturally diverse team that's on the forefront of casual games.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Manage the seamless flow of content onto our Spanish portal – in close partnership with internal teams in Seattle and Cork, Ireland
• Merchandise available content to maximize customer acquisition and revenue potential
• Maintain awareness of the competitive landscape and collaborate with internal stakeholders to influence plans for site improvements, promotions and partnership opportunities
• Ensure linguistic integrity of website and games – creating and translating promotional material and website features
• Maintain detailed game release schedule for the Spanish site – this requires incredible flexibility and an ability to manage multiple, competing priorities
• Manage team of agile, highly skilled linguistic professionals

Required experience and knowledge:

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Must be fluent in English and Spanish (native tongue strongly preferred)
• An awareness of Spanish market, cultures and traditions
• Exceptional problem-solving skills including demonstrated ability to think on your feet
• Tenacity, attention to detail, excellent organizational, multi-tasking skills, and strong written and verbal communication skills are key
• Must possess a sense of ownership
• Ability to be a team player while working in a culturally diverse environment, while shining as an individual and maintaining a sense of humor
• Proficient with MS Office Suite, and high comfort level utilizing the internet as a research and/or shopping tool
• Must be passionate about video games, and have a conceptual understanding of the online gaming industry

Come be the Big Fish in the Pond!

To apply for this position, please visit our careers page at www.bigfishgames.com/careers and complete your online profile to upload your resume.

• Location: Seattle, WA
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

After initial elation, disillusion has set in at Fox News: O'Reilly is angry that Obama, not waterboarding, is getting all the credit

The euphoria surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden is quickly fading as Fox news hosts realise that it may not be the game-changer they wished for.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly, a longtime advocate of harsh interrogation methods, is growing increasingly frustrated with the Obama administration's reluctance to acknowledge what he has decided was the vital role that "coerced interrogation" played in locating Osama bin Laden (view clip). Even worse, he believes this reluctance stems from the left's inability to separate ideology from truth, so he vows to "stick to the facts" to make his case for the need to use techniques like waterboarding and other so-called enhanced interrogation measures.

Last night, on the [O'Reilly] Factor, we told you the truth that coerced interrogation – most likely, waterboarding – gave the CIA the first clue that led to Osama bin Laden's death. That is the truth. Yet, many on the left in America will not acknowledge it.

He was alluding to an argument he had the previous evening with left-leaning commentator Alan Colmes, who pointed out that even former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the courier source was not waterboarded or subjected to harsh treatment. The exact text of Rumsfeld's statement, according to Newsmax.tv, was as follows:

"The United States department of defence did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantánamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

But O'Reilly insisted that he was unprepared to accept any secondhand account of what the former defence secretary may or may not have said, and would question Rumsfeld himself before deciding what to believe. Before talking to Rumsfeld, O'Reilly pointed out that even CIA chief Leon Panetta has said that some valuable information may have been derived using harsh interrogation methods, but Panetta also upset the beleaguered host by adding that the question remains open as to whether or not those approaches were necessary. O'Reilly cut Panetta some slack, however, as he understands that he has to pander to his boss.

Because Mr Panetta works for President Obama, he has to say that. He has to hedge a bit. We don't know exactly how much information we might have got, could have, maybe, had we not dunked the guys in the water, the three guys. OK, I understand the game. I understand Mr Panetta's position, but again the truth is that enhanced interrogation does lead to life-saving information, despite what has been said!

To prove this "truth" that O'Reilly is already sure of, he interviewed Donald Rumsfeld and asked him to explain what he meant when he said that harsh treatment and waterboarding did not lead to beneficial information. Rumsfeld did his best to clarify his position by saying that his remarks had been taken out of context and that all he meant was that no one had been waterboarded at Guantánamo Bay, and that the three people who had been waterboarded (elsewhere presumably) were waterboarded by the CIA and not the military.

Although this response doesn't seem to shed much light on his prior statement, or offer unequivocal proof that waterboarding and so on works, it seemed to suffice for O'Reilly. Rumsfeld took a little detour, then, to make the much-debated point that waterboarding was not torture anyway, but O'Reilly, who was apparently satisfied that the truth had now been established, soon ended the segment.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity is growing increasingly disenchanted with the Obama administration for their reluctance to release Bin Laden's death pictures and their seeming inability to get their story straight (view clip). He discusses these issues with political commentator and former marine, Colonel Oliver North.

Look, I don't know how much, I don't care … we got Bin Laden – that, to me, is important. But they did say he was hiding behind a woman. They did say he was reaching for weapons. They did say they were being fired upon. All these things now have shifted and changed and I'm having a hard time understanding.

The colonel understood Hannity's frustration but explained that there are a "lot of filters" between the people who carry out these operations and the people who end up talking about them And as someone who has actually participated in these sorts of missions, North was able to sympathise with those involved. The Navy Seals were naturally more focused on getting their man and getting out alive than making an accurate transcription of the events as they unfolded in order to satisfy the relentless demands of the 24-hour news cycle. He also made the point that in these high-pressure situations, different people see things differently, which might account for some of the subsequent confusion over details. Hannity didn't seem inclined to disagree with a Marine over this and turned to the photo dilemma instead.

We're looking at these photos that Reuters had tonight. Yes, they're gruesome. We warned children not to watch them. A lot of blood, it's gory. I know he was shot in the head, but the rationale is what bothers me the most, Colonel, and the rationale seems to be that by releasing this photo, we will incite people that already hate us – and we put a bullet in the guy's brain. I think they already hate us!

Once again, North surprised Hannity by taking the administration's part in the argument. He explained that while the administration has a penchant for political correctness, they were wise to try to avoid inflaming al-Qaida extremists by flaunting gruesome pictures of their slain leader. Also, he didn't think it wise to release anything to the public that could possibly some day be used as evidence against one of the Navy Seals in an international criminal court. Hannity took his point, but still insisted that the world needed to see those photos and that the administration had gone overboard with their hyper-sensitivity. 

When you look at the burial on a warship, where they say he's not a Muslim but he gets, you know, Islamic custom – buried within 24 hours – dumped at sea after his body is washed; he's put in a shroud; 45-minute funeral, translated into Arabic … seems overboard to me.

These politically correct gestures seemed overboard to North also, and finally the two men found some common ground.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck had exhausted his celebratory mood over the death of Bin Laden by Wednesday, probably after overdoing it earlier in the week with marching bands and cookie parties (view clip and transcript). He didn't want to hear any more about death photos or about what he termed President Obama's "victory lap" of Ground Zero. Not for the first time, Beck felt himself to be the lone voice of reason, who recognised that there are far more important things to be talking about, such as America having lost her way in the world and, by now, most of her friends.

He went through a list of countries like Germany, France, Saudi Arabia and Israel that he feels were once our friends, but have now fallen into the undecided camp, at best. Japan would probably still be our friend, but since the nuclear thing, there's really nothing left of them. Brazil looks at us like a client. Canada can probably still be counted on, particularly now that they have elected a conservative government, but they're not exactly known for their "fighting prowess". Even England, with whom we have enjoyed such a "special relationship" in the past, may be reconsidering us.

England: things have been a little strained, you know, since we sent the bust of Winston Churchill back and gave the queen an iPod of his best speeches, but they're basically toast. They're still our ally, but, I mean, anybody who watched the royal wedding of – I don't know, Kate and Leopold – they were, they were walking down and somebody on TV said that could be the next king, and I thought, "yes, if there is another king."

Worst of all, the only person who can make the public aware of our impending doom is being slowly driven off the airwaves.

Advisor.ca

CANADA STOCKS-TSX rallies as jobs data lifts sentiment Reuters By Solarina Ho TORONTO, May 6 (Reuters) - Toronto's main stock index rebounded from a week-long retreat on Friday as strong employment numbers in both Canada and the United States lifted sentiment, easing some of the worries that sent commodity prices ... TSX May Struggle For Direction At Open Friday - Canadian CommentaryRTT News TSX falls for fourth day as oil plungesStarPhoenix CANADA STOCKS-TSX rallies on commodities recovery, jobs dataReuters Africa istockAnalyst.com (press release) all 122 news articles »

 

The Couple: Joya and Emre

The Wedding: 3.26.11 - Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

What three adjectives that best describe your wedding? Unique, fun and heartfelt.

The feelings expressed on our wedding day, not only between Emre and myself but also from our friends and family, were all so incredibly warm and sincere. We really tried to personalize each aspect of our day and to think out of the box when it came to entertaining our guests. We wanted to create a vibrant but inviting atmosphere for everyone and in return we felt surrounded by a lifetime of love and friendship that we will cherish always!

What inspired your personal wedding style, and how did you incorporate your style and personalities into your big day? We are big architecture and design aficionados, and have a particular fondness for the Art Nouveau and Craftsman movements. I also have a love for vintage styles, especially when it comes to clothing, music and dance. When we first got engaged, we knew that Terranea was the place for us as it not only had a gorgeous location on the ocean but it conveyed a true old - and grand - California feel.

I started incorporating our style by designing our Save-the-Date postcard, in which I chose my favorite Arts and Crafts font and used a scan from a real 1920s postcard back. Emre and I both work at NBC, and I wanted to incorporate a peacock into our invitation suite, but also wanted to use the same font and style of our save-the-date postcards. I found the exact design I was looking for on Etsy, and hired Mali Chi from Hello & Co. on the spot. I worked closely with Mali on all the stationery designs, to stay faithful to our motifs and color palette. As both of our families live far away (mine in Canada, and Emre’s from the East Coast and Turkey), and we ourselves have lived in various cities around the world, we decided to continue the postcard theme with our escort cards. We bought almost 50 different vintage postcards on eBay and named all of our reception tables after cities we lived in, or that held a special meaning for us (such as Vancouver, where we got engaged during the 2010 Winter Olympics). We wrote personal stories for each of the cities and addressed them to each guest, and made sure each table had an assortment of different postcards so they could compare and share. We set them out in old wooden card catalogs set amongst a vignette of vintage decor that included an Art Deco velvet green fainting couch, old lamps and used books.

We also added smaller rustic touches to the day, like weathered signs and antique frames, our initials handcarved in wood and a custom ringbearer book stack. This love of vintage style was also reflected in our music choices: we had a swing quintet play 1920s and 30s music for our cocktail hour and part of our reception, I surprised Emre by singing a special song, “You’re A Heavenly Thing,”  just for him, and then a DJ capped off the night with modern fare.

Tell us all about your wedding music video! Initially we wanted to do a concept video that we planned to show at our reception but our ideas required a lot of resources and time, neither of which we had in the final months leading up to our wedding. So we brainstormed with our videographer David Robin and the idea of a music video shot on our wedding day came up.

The bar for participation would be low since we just needed people to lip-synch a few lyrics and/or dance to to the song. We knew our friends and family would love the idea, and it would a great gift to give back to them as a unique memory of our day. We had very specific criteria for choosing the music: 1. Big song with lots of energy, and a fun and easy chorus, 2. Singing parts for girls and guys, 3. Relevant lyrics fitting with a wedding, and not R-rated, and, 4. Timeless song that won't be dated when we watch this 10 years from now. The Time (Dirty Bit) by The Black Eyed Peas met all these conditions, in addition to being a newly released song and one we didn’t tire of listening to again and again.

We divided up the lyrics amongst our bridal party, family and friends so they were manageable, we hired a choreographer to teach us some simple moves that our bridal party could perform at our reception, and we informed all our guests beforehand about the plan to film on the day. We shot all day leading up to the wedding, immediately after the ceremony (in fact, we recreated our recessional so we could lip-synch to the song!), and all throughout the reception. We assigned all the spoken word “dirty bits” to those individuals who would be the unlikeliest of stars: JP Reynolds (our officiant), John Reynolds (our hot jazz guitarist and friend), Emre’s father Ziya, and finally my father Gordon (who filmed his part at a urinal!).

We couldn’t have been more thrilled with the outcome thanks to David Robin and his team, and the 100% support we got from our wedding coordinator Amber Gustafson and the staff at Terranea Resort.

Looking back, what are the moments, decisions or memories that you love the most about your wedding? Finding our wedding coordinator (Amber Gustafson of Amber Events) was the first best decision we could have made! We are both extremely busy with our careers, and having someone to guide us -- especially someone whose taste so beautifully mirrored our own -- made the entire year of planning a joy and devoid of stress (well, 95% of it hehe).

Choosing to have our wedding at Terranea really set the tone for day, in terms of look and feel. We had great memories of staying there before our engagement, and always thought it would be our perfect venue.

Taking the time to choose a photographer who gets us, and whose style compliments our own. We began working with Callaway Gable Photography last summer on our engagement session and that really put us at ease come our wedding day. They are so detail-oriented and were so much in-tune with our vision for the day. Looking at our photos now we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect portrayal of who we are and what the day meant for us, our family, and our friends.

Doing a “first look” before our ceremony took so much stress out of the day for us, and really let us relax that much more and spend time with our guests.

Deciding to shoot the music video was one of the best decisions we could have made. We knew how ambitious the project was (and how much our coordinator would have to go the extra mile to accommodate it) but we were determined to make it work, and have fun doing it - and we did! Once our friends and family saw the completed video, it truly became the most talked-about highlight of our day!

 

What was your wedding color palette? Apple Green and Pumpkin Orange. Green is my favorite color (and the color of my eyes) and orange is Emre’s favorite color. They also worked perfectly with our design ideas and the spring season!

A behind the scenes view from event planner Amber Gustafson of Amber Events: "After planning all of the details of their wedding day together for almost a year, Joya and Emre told me about this music video idea just a few weeks before their wedding. While they storyboarded who would lip-sync which portions of the song, I worked with the videographers and photographers to lay-out a timeline that would not only allow everyone to get what they needed for the wedding day itself, but also this music video. We were producing a wedding and a music video all in the same day. No pressure, right?!

Joya and Emre had sent an email out to their guests ahead of time giving them the heads up, and also wrote a note in the program asking them to get up and sing to the camera after the ceremony. They did their recessional three times, actually: the first one was their official "we're married!" walk down the aisle, and the second two were directed by David Robin, the videographer.

Potential inclement weather on the wedding day put yet another stress factor on the 7 cameramen, 4 photographers, and 4 wedding coordinators orchestrating this, but with team work we all made it happen. We think it was worth it!"

 

The Wedding Team:

Photographer: Callaway Gable Photography
Event Planner: Amber Events 
Film Maker: David Robin Films
Ceremony and Reception Venue: Terranea Resort
Officiant: JP Reynolds 
Invitation Designer: Invitation Suite, Menus, Program - Hello & Co., Save-the-Date Postcard - Bride
Catering: Terranea Resort
Florist: Holly Flora 
Cake: Vanilla Bake Shop 
Wedding dress: R-Mine 
Bridal accessories: Shoes - Nina, Organza Hairpiece - Jennifer Behr 
Bridesmaid’s apparel: J.Crew
Groom and groomsmen apparel and accessories: Suits - Jos. A. Bank, Lego Cufflinks - Retro Classy Cufflinks on Etsy 
Hair and make-up: Bridal make-up - Jeannie Jones, Bridal Hair, Bridesmaid Hair and Make-up - Design Visage
DJ: DJ Nahchey 
Live music: Ceremony - Pat Maki Players, Reception - John Reynolds & Friends
Dance instruction: Christina Haggerty
Favors: Party Booths 
Rings: Tiffany, Pinnacle Gems
Rustic Wedding Sign: GoJumpInTheLake on Etsy 
Vintage Wood Letters: sERINasCustomShop on Etsy 
Ringbearer Book Stack: thedaintywoods on Etsy 
Wedding Card Holder Birdbox: CleggFarmCreations on Etsy

Thank you so mcuh for sharing your day and your hilarious music video with us Joya and Emre! And kudos to the whole wedding team who worked hard to bring this day to life!

To find more inspiration for your our personal wedding style, don't miss our all new and gorgeous wedding image gallery! To plan your own Southern California or Seattle area wedding, browse our Plan Your Wedding Hotlists! And to find a dream wedding photographer for your wedding anywhere in the world, be sure to check out Junebug's World's Best Wedding Photographers Hotlist!

You do have May 13 marked down in your calendar as the day when "Bridesmaids" hits theaters, don't you? I saw the movie last night at a screening—one of the perks of my job, gotta say—and while I can't give too much away (look for our review on Monday!), I will say you will CRACK THE HELL UP. Anyway, I think everyone can agree seeing a movie about bridesmaids is infinitely better than actually being one, but if you're stuck with the latter, we've got the giveaway for you! One lucky reader will score a "Bridesmaids Survival Kit"—stocked with lip balm, mints, comb/mirror, nail files and a shot glass engagement ring—and a $100 Visa cash card, and no, don't worry, you don't actually have to be a bridesmaid in an upcoming wedding to be eligible.

WIN THIS! Tell us in the comments what your ideal Ladies' Night Out entails—the most creative and thought-provoking answers will walk away with the "Bridesmaids Survival Kit" and $100 Visa Cash Card. Enter by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, May 12, 2011. We'll pick our favorite response and announce the winner Friday, May 13. You must live in the U.S. or Canada to win. (Read the official rules here.) Good luck!

I rarely go into the weeds when some clown who clearly doesn't watch this team feels obliged to pretend he does, but I'm not letting Roy MacGregor walk away unscathed. 

First off, the picture should tell you everything about the guy. No where in that profile do I see "hockey", "NHL" or "sports" as an accolade; I do see one his articles that fawns over Luongo in the first round which is a bit strange considering his latest contribution to the halls of journalistic excellence.

Let's set the record straight.

Given that there is a country song for every occasion, perhaps the Vancouver Canucks should consider a little Garth Brooks before each game – and take to heart that chorus that tells them to "Stand straight, walk proud, have a little faith. …"

What a delightful little colloquialism. By that same token there is a thrash polka christian song for every occasion. But since the opponent is Nashville and they're nothing more than a city full of country music slaves, let's open with that.

The Canucks spent so much of this week denying that there is any issue over confidence when it came to holding leads that, unfortunately, the talk only served to confirm that there must be.

Permit me to rephrase: "We kept asking you guys about your confidence since that's the shitty narrative we created, so because I saw a third period lead evaporate, that is proof positive you're all a bunch of fragile spider monkeys with sticks. [STICKS FINGERS IN EARS, SINGS LOUDLY TO SELF, WRITES ANOTHER CHILDREN'S BOOK]

They get a lead; they can’t hold it.

In eleven playoff games they've "held the lead" and won in regulation five times. That's 45%, so let's crucify them for needing OT twice? Chicago needed the OT three times last year and, as we know, they sure sucked. But don't let any of this stop your asinine theme.

They might win the game, but every time they play they lose a little more faith in their position as not only the best team in the National Hockey League, but the most effective third-period team the regular season produced.

You may be the only one around still thinking the regular season means something in May. The Canucks personnel, our plucky coach and every other team still playing are on record saying the exact opposite. I don't see them hauling the Presidents' Trophy around with them do you? In fact if the regular season was 100% applicable to now, why are the Capitals golfing? (Helpful hint Roy: The Caps play in red and are usually found in Washington D.C.).

They had a .927 winning percentage in games in which they led in the third period. They scored 100 third-period goals – tops in the NHL.

But that was then and this is now. And this is the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Ah ha, look at you correcting yourself one paragraph later. That, sir, deserves a snackpack of applesauce.

Twice this week against the Nashville Predators the Canucks let third-period leads slip away – both tying goals absolute groaners – and had to settle matters in overtime, losing once and winning once.

It happened again Thursday night when, up 2-1 heading into the third, yet another groaner – even if somewhat less egregious than the previous two – found its way between Roberto Luongo’s pads to tie a game in the final frame.

Saturday's goal was a gift from God, a shot from behind the net which found the right bounces. On Tuesday the game tying goal was a result of Ward causing havoc in front and the puck bouncing off Alberts' skate. Fransen's shot last night was a laser no one in the arena realized went in, the refs included. So of the three equalizers in the past week, one was a "groaner" and two were legit hockey plays that any goalie would have had trouble with. Follow up question: would Edler's goal last night qualify as "groaner" for Rinne? What goal doesn't qualify as a groaner?

The victory was gratifying, as Vancouver has been by far the better team, but the late goal simply raised, once again, that old bugaboo concerning Luongo – can he win the games that truly matter?

He's won two game sevens in his career, backstopped the only sweep this team has had in its history and is playing just as well - if not better - than that Vezina-nominated chap at the other end of the ice, sitting one win away from a conference final. If the Cup is the only thing that matters, there are precious few goalies in that club to say they've won "the games that truly matter." It's a team sport Roy: your goalie can't win the whole damn thing anymore (see, for example, the NY Rangers). Perhaps a better question for another mind numbing piece of yours would be examining how the team failed in front of him during the last two years against Chicago and again in two games during the first round, but that's already been examined by authors and bloggers who watch this team. So if you want to whip out the mallet and beat the shit out of this horse, please do it away from the keyboard. Won't you please think of the children, your normal audience?

It is the albatross around his neck, the gorilla on his back, the animal inside his head. It is a cruel knock that he has never been allowed to shed – not even with a gold-medal victory in last year’s Olympics, when Sidney Crosby’s goal allowed the thousands of Luongo doubters to take their first breath since the puck dropped in overtime.

"A cruel knock" from the guy writing the drive-by hit piece? What's your encore: lighting a house on fire just to bemoan condemning the building?

Such is the reality of ridiculous expectations. Such is the hidden price of a 12-year contract that makes you, at $10- million (U.S.) a year, the game’s highest-paid player. Such is what happens when you are 32, considered one of the game’s premier goaltenders – a finalist for the Vézina Trophy during the regular season – and you have been unable to deliver a championship.

I can only assume you have the same compelling material ripping Ovechkin (the previous most expensive player in hockey) a new one, yes? Wait, you don't? That's right, I just had to explain to you where the Capitals play.

Perhaps it is because Luongo is so good, as well as so big, that his errors also seem larger than life. When a weak goal goes in, it looks … awful.

...opps, fell to the floor and was spasming under my desk. Now he's "so big"? Have you been hanging out with Pierre McGuire?

Luongo’s teammates are acutely aware that he is both extremely talented and at times inexplicably vulnerable. When Kesler was on the United States team that met Canada in the Olympic final, he spoke openly of knowing that Luongo "has a couple of areas that I think we can exploit – and I’m sure not going to keep any secrets."

Dusting off another classic? If you'd like to point to any quote where anyone claimed Luongo was impenetrable, feel free to share the insight. Otherwise every goalie has their weaknesses. Kesler would have been an idiot not to share those secrets and with teammates like Backes and Kane, believe me they didn't need insider tips to beat Luongo.

Luongo struggled in the Olympics against Slovakia – allowing a harmless backhander from an impossible angle to begin a comeback that almost succeeded – but did win the game that counted. It has not, however, counted for enough, as the questions remain and his teammates are forced, day after day, to say any problem lies with the team, not the goaltender.

That's quite the segue: against Slovakia on an Olympic team to the second round of the playoffs a year later. Completely identical situations. Also is it even remotely possible that when the teammates suggest problems lie with the team that they're - put the applesauce down for a second Roy, I don't want you spilling - telling the truth? I know it doesn't fit with your story, but I guess neither does being objective or thorough.

Of the late goals that slipped into the Vancouver net and sent games into overtime, Vigneault argued that "both were tipped in our net.

"Those are hockey plays, lucky breaks."

Or unlucky, if you happen to be the one wearing the largest pads on the team.

Gotcha. Luongo isn't allowed to let in another goal the rest of his life because, should he dare to look human, it confirms he is also unlucky which Roy has now plainly redefined as being Roberto Luongo.

It just seems, Daniel Sedin said before Thursday’s Game 4 against the Predators, "you’re up one goal, there’s one shot, one rebound, and they tie the game."

It doesn’t matter how they go in – off skates, off bodies, off rebounds – the goalie wears it.

And will wear it until he proves, once and for all, that he can win the Big One.

Besides exposing he doesn't watch Canucks games, Roy is also proving he doesn't watch the Preds either. I'm far from a Nashville expert, but most people who follow the sport know their resiliency is one of their assets. They grind you down and force mistakes. But in Roy's world it's more important to assess blame down to the individual while ignoring the basic team chemistry of playoff hockey. I'm sorry Nashville, all those goals you scored on Vancouver? It's not the result of hard work or opportunistic play, it's allllll because our goalie is "unlucky."

What's a shame is Roy could have taken the title of his piece - "Spurts of vulnerability" - and shown how every team is guilty of this, from Vancouver & Washington to Phoenix, Los Angeles or Pittsburgh. That no matter how you made the dance, hockey is a game of ebbs and flows; a dramatic comedy that surges high and plummets low, from one shift to the next, fueled by the madness of the line-juggling coaches, the skill of the players and, yes, good old luck. Instead he ran off with a tired narrative that was barely relevant a few years ago. Anyone who can read a stat sheet or simply watch a game could have told him that.

Perhaps Roy should stick to children's stories where his audience won't haul his ass to task when he careens off the road into the absurd.

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day.

Facebook Pays Users To Watch Ads

Facebook will be shelling out 10-cent virtual credits for watching certain advertisements, which can be redeemed on many of the social network's most popular programs, such as FarmVille and Causes. Even if Facebook payments are low, they might inadvertently trick users into believing they actually like the ads, with a psychological phenomenon known as "cognitive dissonance."

Video Games Honored At Smithsonian

Take that, Roger Ebert! Video games are now officially art, and will be showcased at the Smithsonian's "The Art of Video Games," March 16 through September 30, 2012--three months before the world ends. Blasts from the past, like The Secret of Monkey Island will live along side perennial greats SimCity and Super Mario Brothers.

Ultra-Thin, Bendable Phone

Researchers at Queen's University in Canada have developed a paper-like phone with bending gestures. Now PR and government folks won't have to buy cargo pants to have enough pockets for all their phones. [youtube Rl-qygUEE2c]

Mom, Put Down The Facebook

Thought getting kids to drop Facebook and go play outside was the problem? Maybe parents are really the ones with the problem, as this new playful PSA by Gerry Graf shows social-networking addicted moms ignoring their children. [youtube x4VgObInXHA]

Sources: All Things D, CnNet, BusinessInsider, Adweek

[Image: Flickr user d3stiny_sm4sher]

Before I write the recap of today's roundtable, I want to share with you a couple of thoughts that have been playing in my head, and I have given at least four talks on this topic over the last 30 days. One of them is: Ownership Matters. A second is: You WILL get rejected by VCs. That's okay. I have, in fact, recorded a video to address both issues with relevant case studies, and I would appreciate it if you would take 30 minutes to listen to it. It's important.

On to today's roundtable, we had five businesses, all of which, I believe, can be built to become sustainable companies.

Sponsor

EduMark

First up, Sumit Jha from New Delhi, India, presented EduMark, a real estate education program for the nascent Indian market that Sumit is already selling successfully, and wondering how to take to the next level of scale. We discussed the possibility of recruiting a couple of cofounders who can help him build out the core skill-set needed on his team right now. As for investment, one of the key elements missing for me is a concrete market sizing. Without that, I cannot gauge whether this business is fundable.

Business Intelligenze

Next, Rahul Sethi, also from New Delhi, India, pitched Business Intelligenze, a SaaS BI solution catering to the call center industry in India. Rahul pitched his value proposition as social CRM analytics, but through some brisk dialog, I was able to figure out that social CRM is less than 20% of his core value proposition. The positioning of the company needs work, although I do believe Rahul has half a dozen beta customers whose feedback and engagement would give him the ammunition with which to find and validate the real pain point around in-house legacy systems at call center companies.

10screens

Then Abinasha Karana from Bangalore, India, presented 10screens, a product for translating software use cases into robust specs. The pitch was very difficult to understand and needs a tremendous amount of work still, but, conceivably, the product could be a useful one for business analysts to define software specifications.

IndiaCollegeSearch

An incubatee with Indian Angel Network, Anirudh Motwani from New Delhi, India, discussed IndiaCollegeSearch, a vertical search engine to address the problem of finding detailed information about various colleges and institutions in India. Many of these are currently not able to sell all their seats, while many students are not able to find a college program to get into. Anirudh wants to bridge this gap. There are multiple other options within this basic space, including improving the quality of students for certain colleges. However, my advice to Anirudh was to focus on the first problem as a market penetration strategy. The pricing model and related market sizing exercise needs a lot of work still.

Tabillo

Last up was Sanjeev Arora from Oakville, Ontario, Canada discussing Tabillo, a collaboration and content management solution for SME customers across verticals like legal, engineering, etc. We discussed Sanjeev's go-to-market strategy, and based on the fact that there is a fair bit of meta-data management that is specific to each vertical, I felt that a vertical by vertical market penetration strategy would be the best way to go. The product is horizontal below the meta-data layer and has, conceivably, a larger opportunity. We also discussed pricing and delivery models and priorities around on-premise and dedicated installations versus SaaS.

You can select the business you like best of those discussed through a poll on the 1M/1M Facebook page.

Just before this week's roundtable, Dan Stewart, CEO of HappyGrasshopper, made my day by calling me to say how much he has been learning from the 1M/1M Premium program. "I was looking for what you teach back in January of 2007 and couldn't find it anywhere. We had just launched our first tech venture and would have saved countless thousands in trial and error education if 1M/1M was available," he said. Dan spent $12,000 a year on a subscription to Vistage, a CEO mentoring program, and says, "The value of your program is amazing. For perspective, I also joined a $1,000/month CEO-roundtable group, with professional speakers and full day, once-per-month meetings. At 1/12th the cost, 1M/1M provides far more value."

And Bill Gordon, who is working on pulling together the Stamford Innovation Center in Connecticut with Patty Meagher and Ed Petner, emailed me, saying: "We have spent a week going through your curriculum. What a great product - truly an excellent value for entrepreneurs. In fact, I think it is a great curriculum for certain angel investors too, especially those who are starting out, including angel groups that are just formed. We are anxious to start a collaboration with you that will allow us to have your curriculum as part of our menu of items we can offer to entrepreneurs here in the region." Needless to say, we're working on a deal as we speak.

Both Bill and Dan were present at the roundtable today, and I was delighted to see them explaining the value of 1M/1M to the audience in the public chat. Made my job infinitely easier, I must say. And audience members were suggesting local incubators that they want to bring in to the 1M/1M program, which was also great!

The recording of today's roundtable can be found here. Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here. You can register for upcoming roundtables here. And you can sign up for the 1M/1M premium program here.

Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Discuss

At the start of the election, I asked 20 questions - 50 of you took the time to answer them, and now we're able to crown a winner. But first, a look at the correct answers:

1. Will Elizabeth May win her seat? Yes.

2. Will the Conservatives sweep Alberta? No. Once again, Linda Duncan remains the orange thorn in their side.

3. Will Julian Fantino be re-elected? Yes.

4. Thomas Mulcair or Martin Cauchon in Outremont? Mulcair. Who would have thought the most highly anticipated race in Quebec before the election would turn into the least exciting race on election night?

5. Which polling company's publicly released final numbers will be closest to the actual results? Angus Reid.

6. Over/under on the highest level of support the Conservatives will hit in a national election poll - 42%. Puting aside the Compass siliness, Ipsos and Nanos both had the Tories at 43% once during the campaign.

7. Will the Liberals ever lead in a national election poll? Not even close.

8. Which party will run the most vicious attack ad? After some reflection and some feedback, I have to give this one to the Conservatives. All parties played fast and loose with the facts, but the Tories took direct shots at Ignatieff's patriotism. Perhaps it's fair and, truth be told, their election ads were tamer than their pre-writ ads. But in the absence of another obvious candidate, they take this one.

9. Which party will run the "best" ad? As voted on by you, the NDP.

10. Will the words "abortion", "women's right to choose", or some variant, be used in a TV commercial this campaign? Nope.

11. Will any Harper Cabinet Ministers appear in an english-language commercial this campaign? What's a Cabinet Minister?

12. Will Harper's sweater vest make an appearance in a Conservative ad? The sweater vest has been replaced with the Canada jacket.

13. Conservative vote over/under in Crowfoot - 80% Believe it or not, but the overs have it.

14. Voter turn out over/under - 60% Just barely over.

15. How many seats will the Conservatives win in Newfoundland? 1

16. Number of independent candidates elected? 0

17. The Bloc. Will they win more or less seats than last election? Ha!

18. Will over half the Liberal seats won come from Ontario? No.

19. Number of times Stephen Harper uses the word "coalition" in the (first) English language debate? Only once, but I gave a point to anyone who said 5 or less.

20. Who will the instant-polls show as having won the first English language debate? Harper. Though in retrospect, Layton was likely the real winner.


The tie-break was the predicted seat count. The closest tie-break answer came from Alice Funke at Pundits Guide, who foresaw an NDP official opposition - but her entry was delivered time-stamped after the closing date.

So the winner of the best seat prediction actually turns out to be the winner of the contest over all - RidingByRiding. He also had one of the better seat projection models this campaign, so give the man's blog a look.

1. RidingbyRiding 15 out of 20
2. Wheatsheaf 15
3. DL 14
4. Mackenzie Bowell 14
5. Brent 14
6. Invisible Hand 12
7. Marc Bernard 12
8. A View from the Left 12
9. Saphorr 12
10. Dave Cournoyer 12
11. Scott in Montreal 12
12. David Climenhaga 11
13. Jay Michi 11
14. Aidan Hayes 11
15. Anon 6:59 pm 11
16. Judith Davies 10
17. Mr. Rectifier 10
18. Bruce Stewart 10
19. Nbpolitoco 10
20. Terry G 10
21. Robert Vollman 10
22. Ian 10
23. Derek Raymaker 10

Everyone else had under 10 correct, so I won't embarass you by posting the full standings. But by all means, you can request your score either in the comments section or over e-mail.

I also did an informal query on election day asking for your updated predictions. On that one, "Brian from Toronto", was the closest to the mark, predicting: CPC 155, NDP 105, Lib 24, BQ 18.

Continuing work on her new project “Reel Love,” LeAnn Rimes was spotted on the Toronto, Canada set yesterday (May 5).

The “How Do I Live” songstress sported an oversized button-up shirt as she filmed a scene where her character tricks her male friend into jumping into a lake.

As for the upcoming Mothers’ Day holiday, LeAnn said she’s pumped to celebrate even though she doesn’t have any kids of her own.

Rimes explained via Twitter, “My first bonus mom day will be spent with Eddie here in Canada! It’s not called stepmom’s day lol common sense would explain that!!”

We're happy to report that our favorite raw chef, Doug McNish, is happily serving up raw food in a new locale as Executive chef at Grail Springs, a health and wellness spa in Bacroft, Canada. But we're sad to report that his full-time work there is taking him away from contributing regular recipes on Blisstree. Until we find a way to hijack more of his time, Doug is bidding us farewell with one last recipe that's perfect for Mother's Day brunch, according to Doug, a "really nice complex raw recipe for my last dose." ... More »

Post from: BlissTree

Mother's Day (Raw) Brunch Recipe: Garlic, Spinach and Mushroom Tarts

The Nashville Predators fly out to Vancouver this morning seeking a win in Game 5 Saturday night, nothing more, nothing less. With Jerred Smithson out of the lineup it looks like J.P. Dumont will get another chance at post-season play, but if the Preds are going to start scoring they need to get production from their top guns. The trio of Kostitsyn-Fisher-Hornqvist, even though they were broken up, still have yet to record a point in this series.

For now, follow after the jump for your heaping helping of hockey reading...

Nashville Predators News

For recaps of last night head to Preds On The Glass, Section 303, Predlines, The View From 111, the Predatorial, Fang Finger Fever, Hockey Night in Nashville, Music City Mindset, The Tennessean, The Nashville City Paper, and from the winning side, Nucks Misconduct.

Vigneault fires back at Trotz following Vancouver’s Game 4 victory - Nashville Predators Examiner
Alain Vingeault really came off like an ass in last night's press conference (listen to the audio here). From what I understand, and to be clear I have yet to see a replay, Suter hauled Kesler to the ice after Kesler sticked Mike Fisher in the face. It's still a brutal loss of composure for Suter, but I'm guessing that's why he was yapping at the refs.

Canucks coach says Predators had no cause to complain about Game 4 penalties | Nashville City Paper
David Boclair covers the whole Vigneault-Suter-Kesler storyline well here.

Video: Vancouver Green Men meet Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban - Puck Daddy
OK, last night sucked, but this was pretty funny. 

Writer declares Nashville a great hockey town, mentions hockey in 4th paragraph - Houses of the Hockey
Oh, one of them Canadian-types dropped the smack on JR!

Preds On The Glass: POTG Friday Headlines, News, and Links
Buddy's got his morning links rolling, even after a late night at the arena.

Cox: Canucks on verge of closing out second round - thestar.com
Barry Trotz tried a few new angles last night, but they failed to produce different results.

Inside Hockey - CBC.ca
Hockey Night In Canada ran this feature story on Joel Ward - look for Amanda from Predlines lurking in the crowd during the opening minute...

Canadian university grad Joel Ward at head of the class for Predators - Times Colonist
There's no shortage of storylines to run with when it comes to Joel Ward.

Southern hospitality extended to Green Men - The Globe and Mail
Vancouver's superfans have been welcomed with open arms over the last few days.

Nashville Predators put Colin Wilson into Game 4 lineup - The Tennessean
The weird thing about Willy's ice time last night? He got only 3 shifts in the first period, then saw his workload more than double during the final two. Was that only because Smithson got hurt, or a reward for his effort?

New TV contract helps, but late starts hurt NHL - The Tennessean
Joe Biddle has a hard time staying up for games which start at 9:00. I suppose having the NHL contract all the teams in the Pacific Time Zone is one option there.

The Admirals Let Down, Fall 3-2 in Overtime to Houston in Game 4 | Admirals Roundtable
The score may have been close, but a 33-13 deficit in the shot totals belies a poor effort from the Ads.

Around the NHL

Down Goes Brown: Signs your second round is not going well
Yikes! After watching highlights of your recent games, the city of Winnipeg sent a letter to the NHL reading "On second thought, never mind."

Morning Skate: Game 4 - Do or Die - Winging It In Motown
The Red Wings will try to stave off a sweep tonight at Joe Louis Arena.

When It Comes To Blocking Shots, The San Jose Sharks Are Paying The Price - Fear The Fin
This one includes a comparison off all the remaining playoff teams and how they're doing at blocking shots.

How Lightning fan outwitted petty HOA over playoff sign - Puck Daddy
Killjoys abound.

IIHF WC Day 8 Thread: Regional Rivals Take Over - Puck Worlds
This morning features a battle of Team USA vs. Canada.

Today in the "A": The Mike Commodore Exit Interview - The Cannon
And you thought the Preds had a boat-anchor of a contract or two on the roster...

MacTavish emerges in search for Wild coach | StarTribune.com
Let's start a counter on how many teams MacT gets linked to this summer, shall we? We're at 2 already.

Dustin Penner - Fat, Slow, and Lazy - The Copper & Blue
Man, you'd think he was Bluto Blutarsky or something.

How full of it is Pierre McGuire? - Habs Eyes On The Prize
The TSN analyst has his assessment of the Montreal organization parsed.

A breakdown of the Capitals’ soon-to-be free agents - Capitals Insider
Anything worth shopping for here this summer?

The 2011 Free Agency Pool, Part 1 of 3: How Will Tallon Dive In? - Litter Box Cats
Count Joel Ward among the pending free agents that Florida might be interested in.

NHLPA.com - Ted Lindsay Award
This is the real MVP award, voted upon by the players each year. Your finalists? Corey Perry, Daniel Sedin, and Steven Stamkos.

‘As a fighter in hockey, you live in fear’ - National Post
Is it time for a clear-cut ban on fighting in hockey? A former brawler says so. Found via Kukla's Korner.

Here are today's leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter:

Move over National Puppetry Day, there’s a new obscure holiday in town! Next Saturday, May 14th, is International Migratory Bird Day. Actually, that’s not quite true: that’s just for the U.S. and Canada. In Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean each year it’s celebrated some time in October, although the good folks at [...]

  Today’s player of the day is John Chick.   John Chick went to Utah State, where he played there for 4 years. In his freshman year, he recorded 42 tackles, with 4 sacks. He was the first freshman to start the season opener since 1993. In his sophomore year, he made 37 tackles, and had one forced fumble; a very disappointing in many people’s mind. In his junior year he switched to linebacker, and he did pretty well. He amassed 40 tackles with 3 sacks, and earned the team’s Golden Helmet Award for top hitter. In his senior year, he switched to back to defensive end and made 12.5 sacks and 48 tackles. It was a good way to end his college career. He was projected to go undrafted. In the 2006 NFL Draft, John went undrafted. He would be signed by the Texans, but would not play long for the team. In 2007, he went to the CFL (go Canada) and played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He would play there in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, he won the Best (CFL) Defensive Player of the Year award. Not long after the season, the Colts decided to sign him to the practice squad. He would play the whole 2010 season on the practice squad. John is ever improving, and he seems ready to make the NFL roster. He has good size, but not very good speed. He is a pretty good run stopper, so maybe he’ll take over Dawson or Foster for that role!?! He has a lot of potential and I like what I see from him so far. Keep up the good work John!  

Three men, a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Jew, were condemned to be executed. Their captors told them that they had the right to have a final meal before the execution.

They asked the Frenchman what he wanted. Give me some good French wine and French bread, he requested. So they gave it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him.

Next it was the Italian s turn. Give me a big plate of pasta, said the Italian. So they brought it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him.

Now it was the Jew s turn. I want a big bowl of strawberries, said the Jew.

Strawberries!!! They aren t even in season!

So, I ll wait.


The Seven Dwarfs were marching through the forest one day they fell in a deep, dark ravine.

Snow White, who was following along, peered over the edge of the steep chasm and called out to the fallen dwarfs.

From the depths of the dark hole a voice returned, "The NY Jets are Super Bowl contenders."

Snow White thought to herself, "Thank God... at least Dopey's survived!"



Dear Noah,
We could have sworn you said the ark wasn't leaving till 5.
Sincerely,
Unicorns

Dear Twilight fans,
Please realize that because vampires are dead and have no blood pumping through them, they can never get an erection.
Enjoy fantasizing about that.
Sincerely,
Logic 
Dear Icebergs,
Sorry to hear about the global warming. Karma's a bitch.
Sincerely,
The Titanic

Dear America,
You produced Miley Cyrus. Bieber is your punishment.
Sincerely,
Canada
 

Dear Yahoo,
I've never heard anyone say, "I don't know, let's Yahoo! it..." just saying...
Sincerely,
Google

Dear 2010,
So I hear the best rapper is white and the president is black? WTF happened?!
Sincerely,
1985 
Dear Windshield Wipers,
Can't touch this.
Sincerely,
That Little Triangle

 Dear girls who have been dumped,
There are plenty of fish in the sea... Just kidding! They're all dead.
Sincerely,
BP 
Dear Saturn,
I liked it, so I put a ring on it.
Sincerely,
God 


Have a great week=end,  Thanks for stopping by,  Hugs,

CBC.ca

CANADA STOCKS-TSX set to open higher after strong jobs data Reuters May 6 (Reuters) - Toronto's main stock index looked set to open higher on Friday after stronger-than-expected Canadian and US jobs data helped boost investor sentiment. * Canadian equity futures <0#SXF:> pointed to a higher open. ... TSX moves higher on recovering commodities, positive North American jobs dataThe Canadian Press TSX fallS for fourth day as oil plungesMontreal Gazette TSX May Struggle For Direction At Open Friday - Canadian CommentaryRTT News StarPhoenix -Proactive Investors USA & Canada -Reuters Africa all 487 news articles »

THEATRE | Fronteras Americanas
Award-winning Argentinean-Canadian playwright and performer Guillermo Verdecchia brings his play about the identity issues of Latin American immigrants to the Distillery District tonight. Verdecchia has written eleven plays and published a collection of short stories but his 1993 play Fronteras Americanas, about the struggle of living between two cultures, is a world-renowned having been performed in several other countries. The play, which has won the Governor-General's Award for Drama, follows a Latin American immigrant as he journeys to integrate his identity with his geographical location. Witty, engaging and breaking stereotypes about Latin Americans, this performance is a chance to see the internationally popular play performed by Verdecchia himself. The show runs until May 27th with matinees performances available.
Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill Street) 7:30PM $50.86 adult/$31.65 student

CULTURE | Sherway Farmers' Market
The Sherway Farmers' Market opens today to kick off its 21st season. Open every Friday, from today until October 28th, local green farmers come together from across Ontario to sell their organic goods at reasonable prices. Located in the north parking lot of Sherway Gardens Shopping Centre, come out to support Ontario farmers by purchasing locally grown produce and food products, such as cheeses, eggs, honey products, baked goods and grill and deli meats.
Sherway Gardens Shopping Centre (25 The West Mall) 8AM Free

MUSIC | Protest the Hero at the Sound Academy
Canadian band Protest the Hero joins fellow progressive metal bands Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and Tessaract tonight at the Sound Academy as part of their Canadian tour. The five-piece band from Whitby, Ontario have been performing together since they were 13 and have become well-known outside of Canada since making the move from indie label Underground Operations to Vagrant Records in 2006. Promoting their 3rd studio album, Scurrilous, Protest the Hero will be screaming and thrashing their way through tonight's performance before heading west to London, Ontario to play smaller venues.
The Sound Academy (11 Polson Street) 7PM $20

DRINK | Tequila and More Spirits and Cocktails Show
Cinco de Mayo may have come and gone but the Tequila and More Spirits and Cocktails Show isn't giving up the celebrations yet. The event is full of Latin American flavour--there will be master class tequila tastings with world-renowned mixologists like Brian Van Flandern, who has created cocktails for Mario Batali, at an additional cost of $20. Cigar rolling demonstrations and live Latin American jazz performances by Jorge Lopez & Cascabel Band are also scheduled for the day. The Toronto Flair League Finals will take place live at 9PM as crowds watch the top flair bartenders and mixologists perform stunts and tricks with more than just bottles of tequila.
Metro Toronto Convention Centre South Building, Hall G (222 Bremner Boulevard) 4PM $28 online/$40 at the door

FUNDRAISER | Performers Unite for Japan
With 600,000 people still homeless and millions more without electricity and water, Canadian artists and local talents will be performing tonight at Peridot Resto Lounge in support of those affected by the recent devastation in Japan. Alongside aerial silk acrobats and fire jugglers will be Canadian performers, such as Sarah Simone McDougall, Melody MacDougall, Emrah Kento, Dakota Starr & Jessica Sheppard from Canadian Idol as well as rappers Zeyon, A.D and Sci Young. Raffle prizes, including an iPad 2, will be given away and there will be dancing until 2AM. All proceeds will be going to The Canadian Red Cross Japan Relief Fund.
Peridot Resto Lounge (81 Bloor Street East) 7:30PM $25

Also on our radar:

• Manhunt
• Canada's Children Trunk Show
• Run Girl Run 10K+

Have an event you'd like to plug? Submit your own listing to the blogTO Toronto events calendar or contact us directly.

For Toronto movie showtimes, view our Movie Listings section.

Photo by Half My Dad's Age in the blogTO Flickr pool

Some oil fields never die. In fact, some just get better with age.

Alberta's Duvernay shale may just be the best example yet.
 
It all has to do with the "shale revolution,” and how it's dramatically altering the energy landscape.
 
To be sure, large volumes of natural gas are being found in the least likely of places: Quebec, Michigan, even countries like Poland and Latvia.
 
That’s all well and good -- the world is finally cueing into the fact that cheap abundant natural gas will drive the global economy for decades to come.
 
Alberta has been a latecomer to the shale gas game, but that's about to change in a big way -- thanks to the emergence of the liquids-rich Duvernay play.
 
For weeks, speculation has been building that unknown buyers have been staking out a new shale play in Wild Rose Country, driving land prices at Crown mineral auctions to new heights.  In fact the Alberta government took in $2.6 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, which was an all-time high (but still far short of liquor, tobacco and video lottery).
 
Since last summer unknown bidders have paid as much as $35,000 a hectare for land (2.5 acres=1 hectare) in an area called Kaybob that normally sells for only a tenth as much. At an Alberta land sale in March unknown buyers put up the ridiculous sum of $107 million for a single parcel near Fox Creek, 260 km northwest of Edmonton, a sure sign that something is afoot in the hinterland.
 
This is Montney country, yes. But the sheer scale of the bids was enough to turn heads and set tongues wagging in the high skyscrapers of downtown Calgary. All that money for deeper rights down to the Devonian -- it could only be the Duvernay.
 
The Duvernay is noteworthy because it's the source rock for the original Leduc oil discovery in 1947. It's also a high-quality source rock for most of the crown jewel oil discoveries in Alberta over the decades, from the Swan Hills to the Keg River reefs.

It's the same rock that built an industry... a gift that keeps giving to this day.
 
The Duvernay is a spot-on, perfect example of a well-known play that could never be developed without the technologies we have today: the dynamic duo of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

On April 19, Trilogy Energy Corp. (TSX-TET), along with partners Celtic Exploration Ltd. (TSX-CLT) and Yoho Resources Inc. (TSX-YO) announced test results from their second Duvernay joint venture well.
 
The results were quite strong -- 7.5 million cubic feet per day of gas.  More important, the well yielded 75 barrels of liquid condensates and 56-degree API oil for every million cubic feet of gas, for some 1,250 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
 
If the crew at Canadian brokerage firm Peters & Co. was disappointed with the cost of the well -- $17.5 million including the fracs -- it was clearly impressed with the production numbers, especially the liquids content which amounts to more than 500 barrels a day alone (Do the match by multiplying by $100 a barrel). Peters thinks there are cost savings to be realized with full scale development, which is usually the case with these early stage plays.
 
In some ways, it could be the most important well drilled in Western Canada since the first Leduc discovery well in 1947. That's because the liquids, which are priced on an oil equivalent basis, are more than enough to make up for the relatively weak gas price.
 
Wellington West Capital Markets reports that the addition of those liquids effectively pushes the realized gas price up to $8 per mcf equivalent (mcfe), which is not bad at all, especially in the current market.
 
These are the kinds of numbers that draw attention of major players.

So it was hardly a surprise that Encana Corp. (TSX-ECA) came out the very next day and revealed itself as the mystery buyer of all those Duvernay rights, spending $300 million on land acquisition in the first quarter alone.
 
For a company like Encana -- North America's second-largest gas producer, the shift into liquids is a no-brainer after the haircut they took in the first quarter. As one of the most gas-levered companies on the planet, they have to do something.
 
And one look at the company's first quarter results tells the story: it barely broke even in the first three months of the year (thanks to effective hedging) compared to a $1.5 billion profit in the same period a year ago.

They're basically giving the gas away for free.
 
Encana CEO Randy Eresman practically said so much at the company's annual meeting in Calgary last week when he suggested the company could give away the gas and still make money on the liquids.
 
In that sense Duvernay is manna from heaven, and some serious good fortune for a trouble gas sector.
 
Plus, Alberta has a ready-made market for those liquids, which are used to dilute bitumen and heavy oil and make it flow through pipelines like the Keystone XL to the U.S. Those liquids have been in short supply in recent years, and there was even talk of importing them from offshore for use in the oil sands.

As I said, Encana shelled out $300 million on land acquisition, just in the first quarter.

It’s a big number considering there are only two published drill holes into the Duvernay – and neither one belongs to Encana.

The Duvernay is the hot new stealth play in western Canada.

Yes, it’s early stage, but Encana’s big purchase shows they believe it will be a highly profitable play – so profitable in fact, the big dog of Canadian gas could become a take-over target itself.  As I mentioned, the Duvernay is the “source rock” where much of the oil in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin was formed – and then migrated upwards into the pools and traps that have been the discovered since the first Leduc well in Alberta in 1947.

Ironically, Encana quoted Trilogy’s test numbers as a benchmark of success even though it hasn’t drilled a single horizontal well into the play. In fact, it only has one vertical penetration to date, which it described as “encouraging.” Assuming of course, a company like Encana has enough clout to create “the economies of scale” needed to drive down costs. Indeed, it has shown it has plenty of muscle, even in a weak gas price environment, to do just that.

On a conference call to discuss its disappointing first quarter results, company officials raved that the Duvernay has the potential to be a “top quartile” shale play in North America.

Confidence or cockiness? Given Encana’s reputation as a low cost producer that has become a victim of its own success by unlocking tens of trillions of cubic feet of reserves, we’re going to say both. Let’s face it, they ARE a big part of the reason there’s so much gas around these days.

But what happens next is an investor’s dream. This could be a HUGE new play, like the Horn River in remote northeast B.C., but on a larger scale.

Except Duvernay isn’t northeast B.C.  In the Duvernay area, we’re talking about good roads capable of carrying good crews and equipment to work each day. You can even get a good cup of coffee on the way there, and drive back home at night – no camps with extended absences from family. It’s a virtuous circle.

So here's the full tally:

• The Duvernay has an abundant and highly profitable natural gas liquids, to the point where Encana says it can give the regular dry gas away for free and still make money.

• There is lots of infrastructure in the area – pipelines, gas processing centres, and so forth.

• Several junior and intermediate producers already own dozens of sections each of Duvernay rights that haven’t been priced into their stocks yet (this is exactly what happened in the Cardium play in late 2009 and Alberta Bakken plays in mid-late 2010).

So which companies/stocks will likely benefit the most from the emerging Duvernay play?

Companies like Trilogy have been playing Kaybob and another area called Simonette for almost two decades. Almost by accident, it’s now the largest Duvernay land holder after Encana.

Trilogy is either going to become a big fish in a small pond or its going to get swallowed fast. Ditto for Celtic and Yoho, which might as well hang out the for sale sign and get it over with.

Other junior companies that could be ripe for the picking include Donnybrook Energy (DEI-TSXv) and Cequence Energy (CQE-TSX).  Both juniors own more than three dozen net sections near where Encana bought a large acreage position for the Duvernay – Donnybrook is on both sides of Encana’s new package – Simonette to the west and BigStone to the east.

Even Encana has been rumored to be a takeover target for a super major like Shell, and its shares must look pretty cheap right at $30 or so, especially if it’s sitting on another Marcellus or Eagleford. Unlike Exxon, Shell has been sitting on the shale gas sidelines and it could be looking to make a move. Taking out Encana would probably be a $40-billion bite and undoubtedly one of the biggest corporate deals in Canadian history (hypothetically speaking, of course).

But it’s not just producers that stand to gain from a big shale discovery in Alberta. Considering this first well cost nearly $18 million to drill and complete, it’s a trickle down economy with all the attendant drilling, completion and transportation stocks having nowhere to go but up.

Even if producers can get the all-in well cost down to $15 million or even $10 million, all your favorite drilling stocks, Precision Drilling Corp. (TSX-PD), Trinidad Drilling (TSX-TDG), and Ensign Energy Services (TSX-TSI), are going to reap the benefits of this next drilling boom.

Along with all your pressure pumpers and frack masters, the Calfracs (TSX-CFW) and Flints (TSX-FES) of the world, whose pumper trucks are the key to making unconventional gas a viable proposition.

And unlike Quebec or New York, even the politicos will get on board this train.

Given that the Alberta government had the scare of its life when its ill-conceived royalty changes just about scared every rig out of the province three years ago, it isn’t eager to make the same mistake twice. The bean counters in Edmonton are probably toasting their good luck about the Duvernay now, because this is the kind of tide that raises all boats, including theirs.

The Duvernay is the gift that keeps on giving.  Only now, it’s going to be giving directly to investor’s wallets.

By. Keith Schaefer

Keith Schaefer is the editor of the Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin. He has just released a free guide on the Fracking industry which shows investors how to profit from the technological developments in the industry and which companies present the best opportunities for investors. Click here for your free guide.

Orange Crushes Quebec After a very interesting this week in Canada, with an election that most definitely confused the political pundits and proved that in Quebec, anything can (and will) happen, we should all take a Valium relax and get ready for the coming summer. Whether the Jack Layton Daycare (aka the NDP) can mount [...]

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Random Thoughts: Election’s Over Back to Work is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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Saturday, June 18, 2011
10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

California Genealogical Society and Library
2201 Broadway, Suite LL2
Oakland, California 94612

Back again by popular demand!

Let Mary Beth Frederick teach you how to use your digital camera to take photographs of books, original documents, microfilm, and computer screens. Using her method will save you time, money, energy, and frustration. You'll also be kind to your back by never again toting a mountain of paper in your carry-on baggage!

New this year! Based on feedback from previous sessions, Mary Beth has added a post-lunch lecture on organizing digital files.

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.  Digital Photography: A Tool for Your Genealogical Research

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.  Lunch

Bring a brown bag or carry-in from neighborhood cafes. Mary Beth will have an informal "hands-on" photo session so bring your cameras!

1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Questions and Answers

1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.  Organizing Your Digital Files

This workshop is limited to twenty participants and is a free benefit of membership. Non-members fee is $20.00 (non-refundable) and can be applied towards membership on the day of the workshop.

Preregistration is required. Walk-ins will not be admitted. Registration confirmations will be sent to the first twenty participants to register. Additional names will be collected and placed on a waiting list in case of cancellations.

Register online.

Mary Beth Frederick has enjoyed careers in marketing research, systems analysis and design, project management and as an editor for both print catalogs and an online website.

For over six years she has been engaged full time in discovering her family tree and that of her husband, as well as working for select clients. She has researched the records of many U.S. states as well as those of French Canada and the Louisiana Territory; England, France and Germany; Wales and the Channel Islands, and South Africa. When the volume of paper collected during the first two years of research threatened to outgrow her office, she started taking digital photos of source documents.

Mary Beth attended the 2011 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy where she completed the Research of France and French Canada course. She holds memberships in various genealogical and lineage societies, including First Families of St. Louis and La Société des Filles du roi et soldats du Carignan. She earned a BA in English Literature with Classics from The Loyola University of Chicago.


Copyright © 2011 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library

Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada

Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run on April 28 in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

What hasn't been said about Ron Sexsmith? The musician's musician, this Canadian singer/songwriter (and damn fine guitarist) is a favorite of the greats. Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, Chris Martin, Feist and Sir Paul McCartney think he's one of the world's great melody makers and lyricists. Critics prop him up and industry types listen to his records, but every honest-to-God fan has been hard-won for the shy troubadour. Will Sexsmith ever be a household name, or will he always be an acquired taste?

This is what documentary 'Love Shines' tries to find out. Director Douglas Arrowsmith follows Sexsmith while he makes his most recent recording, 'Long Player Late Bloomer' in Los Angeles. At the helm -- a guy usually reserved for the Metallicas, Bon Jovis and Motley Crues of this world -- producer Bob Rock. The hope is that these two talents can force the industry to recognize the pop genius of the Sexsmith discography.

Continue Reading

My mother used to joke that giving birth to me put her into shock. I never got many details.  Just that she had lost a lot of blood and they had to call in a second doctor to stabilize the situation.  She strongly disliked the obstetrician who panicked while delivering me, characterizing him as cavalier and condescending.  After viewing the new documentary, No Woman, No Cry, I realized that my mother had survived an “obstetric hemorrhage.”

The director of No Woman, No Cry, Christy Turlington Burns, experienced a similar situation as my mother.  It pushed her to take a look at why 1,000 women around the globe die daily due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth, particularly as 90 percent of those deaths are preventable.

Most immediately recognizable as a top fashion model, Turlington Burns took on the mantle of activist back in the early 1990s with her efforts toward rebuilding war torn El Salvador, the homeland of her mother. She worked on the ground with the Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation.  In 1997, when her father died of lung cancer, she became pro-active in smoking prevention.  She connected with CARE, as their Advocate for Maternal Health. This experience motivated her to embark on getting a Masters in Public Health at Columbia University.

Turlington Burns was involved in the film’s production for two years.  She observed four different women and their pregnancies in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the United States.  The anecdotal threads are anchored by her gentle voice over.  She begins the story with home footage of her pregnancy.  Through the choice of her narratives, Turlington Burns lays out her points while exploring basic facts about maternal mortality. 

Reproductive health problems are the top cause of death for women ages 15-19 in the developing world, with approximately 70,000 young women dying because their bodies are not yet ready for childbearing.  Over 200 million women who want to plan their families don’t have access to modern birth control.  This option would reduce the amount of maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion by 82 percent.

At the Paley Center in New York City, I attended a screening of the documentary, followed by a panel discussion with Turlington Burns and experts Dr. Suellen Miller and Ann M. Starrs. Turlington Burns explained, “It’s a global tragedy, and I wanted to show that.”  She continued, “I constantly marvel at the power and strength of women.”

Maternal health is considered a benchmark of how a country’s health care measures up.  Turlington Burns cannily juxtaposes an American segment, to echo the issues that are at the root of problems in developing countries.  For those previously unaware of the American stats, they may be shocked to learn that the United States comes in 50th on the scale of how well a country provides its citizens with maternal health care.  It has dropped from a previous ranking of 41st, trailing Canada and a host of European countries. Race and economics are a primary factor:

•    African-American women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy related causes as white women.
•    The maternal mortality ratio for Native American and Native Alaskan women is four times higher than the 2010 national goal set 
      by the government.
•    Women living in low-income areas across the country are twice as likely to suffer a maternal death as women in affluent areas.

Superficially, it’s easy to believe that the obstacles facing women in other nations are dramatically different than those in America.  Yes, a van ride to a hospital in Tanzania costs $30, more than a family’s monthly wages.  However, Jennie Joseph, LM, CPM, midwife and Executive Director of The Birth Place, which operates in Florida near Orlando, pointed out in her onscreen interview, “There’s no real access for disenfranchised women.”  On the expenditures needed for pre-natal care she said, “This is an upside down system.  Health care is anything but free.”

Many economically disadvantaged American women are getting their care through hospital emergency rooms.  There, they are often victims of judgments emanating from a core lack of understanding about why they can’t get prenatal services.  With two American women dying each day from pregnancy related problems, you have to question access and equality.  A pervasive tone of condescension from some of the doctors permeates all four stories.  It may be culture specific, but it’s there.

The mother-to-be in Tanzania, who consistently invokes the “will of Allah” as an explanation for events, replies with resignation to the question posed to her about how she is faring. “It’s okay.  I haven’t died, so I’m alive,” she says wearily.  While learning about the woman in Bangladesh who has finally conceived her second child, and is relieved that her husband won’t leave her for a more fertile mate, we find out that there are 14 local words for a woman who can’t bear children. 

In Guatemala, a woman suffering from the aftermath of a failed abortion refuses to admit it — because the stigma is so great. Abortion is illegal in Guatemala, except to save a woman’s life. Procedures under unhygienic conditions lead to 65,000 unsafe abortions performed each year.  These factors are contextualized in the film by Dr. Linda Valencia, who directs Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s support for programs in Guatemala.

Since barriers in the United States — not unlike those in foreign countries, exist — Turlington Burns has created a multi-pronged approach to bring awareness to this national and global crisis.  She has founded and put into play Every Mother Counts, a platform to link a grassroots mobilizations campaign with the steps of “engagement, education, and advocacy.”  Using a social media strategy to get eyeballs and action on several levels, the documentary is being rolled out on Oprah Winfrey’s new network OWN on May 7, 2011, with repeats the following day. People are being encouraged to host screening parties.  Starbucks will be selling a CD entitled “Every Mother Counts,” with tracks by “mom artists” including Rosanne Cash, Ani DiFranco, Jennifer Lopez, and Toshi Reagon.  It will be available through the end of 2011.  Starbucks will donate $8.00 of the selling price to CARE, a partner with Every Mother Counts. 

When I spoke to Turlington Burns at the Paley Center, she told me that she was headed down to Washington, D.C. to be a speaker at the Capitol Hill briefing on the Maternal Health Accountability Act (H.R. 894) sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).  The goal of the bill is to help set up “maternal mortality review committees” in each state, and to help “eliminate disparities in maternal health outcomes.”

Amnesty International will also be testifying. I wrote an article last year about their March 2010 report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA. They have since released a 2011 update to their previous findings. Based on new evaluations by the Maternal Child Health Bureau, it shows that in America “low-income women face substantial barriers to obtaining medical care during pregnancy,” extending beyond finances to include transportation and a lack of professionals in their area.  Asking the public to get pro-active on maternal mortality through a Mother’s Day card action to legislators, Amnesty International is supplying cards free, which will then be distributed to members of Congress.

Throughout the world, maternal obligation is seen as tantamount.  In some locales, that may come at the expense of maternal death.  It is time to go beyond the lip service paid to mothers for a life-long role that is exalted, but so often poorly supported.  Turlington Burns’ clear-eyed documentary is a step toward bringing recognition and tangible action to the struggles of women worldwide.

Photo courtesy of Every Mother Counts

Full-time employment now back to October 2008 peak Globe and Mail Get the top business stories through the day on BlackBerry or iPhone by bookmarking our mobile-friendly webpage. Full-time employment in Canada is, for the first time, back at the levels of October 2008, where they peaked for the recession began ... and more »

Let's close out the week with....another family law blog from Canada! This one is called FamilyLLB's Blog, and it's brought to you by the firm Russell Alexander. As with the other blogs, you'll find posts on all measure of family law topics.

Dr. Sean Benesh is planting the Ion Community in Vancouver, BC. He leads urthTREK, an outdoor adventure non-proft focusing on lower income and the marginalized. Sean is an adjunct professor teaching in the area of theology of the city, community transformation, and cultural engagement in urban contexts. He also leads the Epoch Centre for Urban Renewal offering classes and lectures on church planting, community transformation, and ministry in urban contexts.

Sean's new book, Metrospiritual: The Geography of Church Planting, is now available and he's on the blog today answering some of my questions, as well as some of yours. Leave your questions or comments below and Sean will be interacting with us throughout the day.

What does Metrospiritual attempt to address?

I wrote the book to address what I believe are overlooked issues in church planting, in particular, the where's and the why's of site selection. How does a church planter decide where to plant a church? What then are the motivating factors in this decision-making process? This all came crashing in on me one day while I served as a church planting strategist in Tucson, Arizona. After a couple of years I noticed one day where most of our church plants were located and where most potential planters wanted to start churches and that was in the suburbs. I didn't have any preconceived ideas or theories at that point. It wasn't even on my radar. I simply then asked, "Why?" and that set the course for research for my dissertation which led to the book.

Why is site selection important in church planting?
Over the years I've become a big fan of University of Toronto professor, Richard Florida, and his research and writing on the Creative Class and their influence on cities globally. In his book Who's Your City? he makes the argument that where we live is one of the most important decisions we can make in life. I believe the same applies for church planting. I agree with Florida in that not only is it an important decision that shapes so much in our life, but it is also a decision we don't spend enough time researching. Why do church planters decide where to plant churches? What are the motivating factors? Sometimes we simply label the whole process as "calling" which too often means we undercut the process and value of understanding who God made us to be, what part of the city resonates with who we are, and how God may have wired us for a particular place and people to plant among.

What was the biggest "a-ha" moment in the research and writing of Metrospiritual?
One of the elements of the research was to see truly where are churches being planted across cities. I selected 7 focus cities in the U.S. and Canada to look at and used over 200 church plants that were started between the years 2000-2009. In my city where I used to be at (Tucson) I noticed that most planters favored the suburbs and I wanted to see if this was true in other cities. The reality is that about 70% of new church plants are indeed in suburban contexts. However, I also looked at the breakdown of populations in each city, and as a whole about 70% of a metro area's population also resides in the suburb. Conclusion? The location of where church planting is taking place is right on par with where the population of a city resides ranging from suburbs to within the city limits to the downtown core.

You take time to address various topics in the book like gentrification, the Creative Class, and community transformation. How does that fit into the overall trajectory of the book?
One of the tensions that did arise from the research was the blatant neglect of various parts of the city when it came to where churches were being planted. That was problematic. Whether suburban settings with soccer moms and minivans or in trendy urban districts with young urban hipsters, why did these places draw a bumper crop of church planters whereas more ethnically diverse or lower income urban neighbourhoods continue to be blank spots on the map for where church planters were not going? As a result I began spending time researching these kinds of neighborhoods and the shaping forces at hand. This brought to light various related topics like gentrification, the Creative Class who tend to be the early gentrifiers, as well as community transformation and the role church plants play in these neighborhoods.

Why should church planters or church planting leaders read this?
Like I mentioned earlier, I strongly believe that the decision of place or site selection is crucial in the church planting process. We often times spend considerable amount of time working through a church plant's vision, strategy, focus group, etc, but what about deciding where as well? There are so many sociological and cultural assumptions and values that shape this decision that we're simply unaware of as to why we're drawn to certain places and avoid others. Sometimes it may not be as spiritual of an answer as we'd like to make it. I am simply advocating that we take time on the front end to prayerfully consider ... consider what forces are at hand shaping our cities today and even how God has wired us. Somewhere in there then is a good fit for site selection in church planting.

So, what is metrospirituality?
The research and trajectory of the book brought to the surface questions and issues of how we view the city, with which lens, and so on. While we are planting mostly in suburban contexts if we are to plant more in urban area there needs to be a new set of lenses (assumptions) in which to view the city. This then opens to the door to exploring what it means to live out faith as followers of Jesus in urban contexts, thus the notion of being metrospiritual. The idea was to end the book with a little theological exploration of what it means to follow Jesus in the city. It is a global urban framework for following God that makes a conscious decision to forego the rural lens and rural bias of Scripture that has been prevalent in the church for the past several hundred years.

Sean will be hanging out on the blog today, interacting with your comments and questions about church planting.

CBC.ca

TSX falls for fourth day as oil plunges StarPhoenix he Toronto Stock Exchange was down hursday for a fourth straight day after he price of oil plunged below $100 for he first time since March in the wake of roubling economic data. ... TSX fallS for fourth day as oil plungesMontreal Gazette TSX Suffers Triple-digit Loss As Gold, Oil Nosedive - Canadian CommentaryRTT News CANADA STOCKS-TSX drops 1 percent at open on resourcesReuters Proactive Investors USA & Canada -Marketwire (press release) all 417 news articles »

The Sony gaming fiasco strikes me as a combination of generic corporate hubris combined with the maddening Japanese bureaucratic tendency toward ostrich behavior and stonewalling when trouble appears. Perhaps Sony's arrogant, feckless response to a massive invasion of privacy will only serve gamers to remain in more secure clouds, away from Sony. In this case, don't blame the cloud, blame the idiots who “manage” it. So it does seem as if Cloud Computing will continue its current arc of progress when it comes to the gamers of the world. With this view, I recently had another chance to interview Les Thomas, Producer for the Cloud videogame "Sybil Danning's Ruger" (with an upcoming tie-in television movie shooting in Canada next year). He noted right off the bat that “no one takes the Cloud for granted anymore. It has been integrated into nearly every facet of computing. And Cloud Computing has roundly been touted as the replacement of traditional videogame hardware.” Me: Surely you jest. There are millions of fans of all the particular platforms, whether Xbox, Playstation, and the Wii. Les: While this is an overstatement in its denial of the psychology of the gamer and brand dedication, it is, by all analysis, an approaching reality. In fact, the most elite of videogame analysts, Michael Patcher, recently predicted that all gaming will be delivered via cloud by 2030.” Me: So Cloud will just take over some day... Les: Not precisely. I recently spoke with Michel Guillemot at CES 2011. He said Cloud gaming is the future of gaming, but that “it could not stand alone. It must be ancillary to a larger system.” Me: I see... Les: He was on hand to promote the exclusive deal between his Gameloft company’s Cloud gaming service in concert with Panasonic’s upcoming Viera Tablet and SmartTVs. Such devices are the means to an end in Cloud gaming for industry elites looking for the commercial payoff. Me: How does that work? Les: “Cloud consoles” like OnLive and Gaikai offer tremendous savings with on-par gaming experiences, often with the same games available on traditional consoles. These thin clients are my choice for the most viable business model because they play to the psychology of the gamer--console-, control-, and franchise-driven) and the need for experiences similar to their contemporaries. (Within this context), the most effective business models will be based on scaling--or tailoring--to the location of the server. Continent-specific servers and technical support could be an effective way for start-ups to integrate into the current staff of the Cloud gaming field. And because the market is emerging, with exponential growth for decades to come; new service companies should begin their wares now, so that servers are not only consolidated in usual tech sectors. Imagine a server in Africa providing the gaming needs of the continent, for example. Me: Not all continents are equal in their capacity to deliver through the cloud, though. Les: Sure. So in countries with less sophisticated means of connecting to the cloud, such as a DSL connection of 1.5 mbps for use with a standard-definition television, the processor and the Internet connection would be scaled according to their set up, so as to provide the highest quality game experience based on their hardware. Thin clients or “Cloud consoles” that exist could be modified for cost, or the delivery could be drastically scaled back in cost, so that as better connections become available, new hardware per se would not be needed. Me: What's the final picture going to look like then? Les: Whether consolidating and virtualizing servers or full-on Cloud services will win out, in the short term transition as the market tips the scales is unclear. Efficiency is met by either means. So a lot will depend on where the revenue is sought, whether it's local or outsourced. But consolidation, especially in the short term, offers the obvious benefit of improved hardware, software and bandwidth availability with less effort. This is important in the browser and stand-alone online gaming field. Still, I believe Cloud will rule the day. “Cloud consoles” are highly technical, efficient machines, and this overshadows the benefits of consolidation, because that is essentially what they do best. These models can co-exist in the next two, and perhaps last two, lifecycles of traditional consoles. They will promote play for the hardened PC player and videogame enthusiast from poorer nations and those who look gleefully to the cloud, realizing that if you have the right “Cloud console,” you’re doing what the other guys are. You're playing current-generation games at a drastically reduced price.

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Throughout May, Best Buy Canada and Techvibes are running a promotion we like to call Free Phone Fridays. Each Friday, for one day only, we're giving away a free (and contract-free) phone! This week we're offering a BlackBerry Torch - two of them, in fact. Valued at over $500 apiece, these [...]

A Mexican teen is now legally back in the care of two Toronto aunts following a custody hearing Thursday and a dramatic return to Canada the day before. But now, according to a court order, she can’t be named.

Globe and Mail (blog)

TSX fallS for fourth day as oil plunges Montreal Gazette The Toronto Stock Exchange was down Thursday for a fourth straight day after the price of oil plunged below $100 for the first time since March in the wake of troubling economic data. ... Most actively traded companies on the TSX, TSX Venture Exchange marketsThe Canadian Press TSX Suffers Triple-digit Loss As Gold, Oil Nosedive - Canadian CommentaryRTT News CANADA STOCKS-TSX drops 1 percent at open on resourcesReuters Proactive Investors USA & Canada -Vancouver Sun -Marketwire (press release) all 433 news articles »

These shoes are Brand New. Designed by Mexican artist Nahual, Less than 1,000 pairs were released for the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos only in Mexico and Canada. THESE WERE Sold out years ago AND were never released in the U.S. These shoes were released in 2006 and were only available in...

For the month of May, use the coupon code below to save $5 off your next order at Chapters! This code is valid for online orders only. If you are doing some Mother’s Day shopping via Chapters online this is a great way to save a little more money. Click here to shop at Chapters Discount: [...]

Chapters Canada: $5 Off Your Order Coupon Code is a post from: BargainMoose Canada

The owner of a broken pipeline that has gushed 4.5 million litres of crude oil in northern Alberta is taking heat from the province's Conservative premier and the leader of the federal Green party.

Premier Ed Stelmach says Plains Midstream Canada will not be allowed to reopen its aging Rainbow pipeline until the spilled oil is properly cleaned up, repairs are made and people in the nearby aboriginal community of Little Buffalo are assured the pipeline is safe.

"From what I can gather they could be doing a better job," Stelmach said of the company's efforts Thursday.

"We are going to hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they are there and they will have to pay all of the costs related to the cleanup of the spill."

As Stelmach faced questions in Edmonton about the largest Alberta pipeline spill in 36 years, Elizabeth May was in Ottawa calling for an immediate investigation and serious consequences for the company if it is found to have been negligent.

The pipeline breach was first reported late Friday afternoon when reporters were told it involved a few hundred barrels of oil. It wasn't until Tuesday that Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board reported the full extent of the spill — 28,000 barrels.

"There has been a violation of the federal Fisheries Act, not to mention the negligence of failing to notify the public for five days," May said. "We need to ensure a full investigation and serious sanctions."

The Green party leader and MP-elect also said the spill raises concerns about the safety of energy pipelines that criss-cross Canada and raises questions about industry plans to build more through ecologically sensitive parts of the country.

In Calgary, Mike Hallahan, vice-president of Plains Midstream, tried to reassure the public that the spill doesn't pose a health threat to people who live in the region, including members of the Lubicon Cree.

A school in the First Nations community of Little Buffalo has been closed since Friday. People in the area have reported getting headaches, feeling nauseous and smelling a strong petroleum odour.

Hallahan read a prepared statement, but declined to answer any questions about the spill.

"Although there is an odour at the release site, the monitors at the site have detected no hydrocarbon levels above Alberta ambient air quality guidelines, and no negative health effects have been reported by workers on site to date," he said.

"These monitors have been in place since Monday and have detected no hydrocarbon levels whatsoever. We will continue monitoring air quality at the release site and in surrounding areas."

Lubicon Cree Chief Steve Nosky, who has flown over the spill, said a strong odour of crude oil was hanging in the air over the community of 350. He said it was not clear when the school would reopen.

"Certainly we can measure all the (toxic hydrogen sulphide gas) and the air quality, but if you have the strong smell of crude over a long period of time, that can make you sick," he said.

People are worried about what will happen if rainfall causes a beaver dam that has contained much of the spill to overflow, he added.

"It's potentially a disaster if it releases into the reserve," said Nosky, who noted the dam is three kilometres from Lubicon Lake.

Hallahan said work crews have dug up and inspected the section of the failed pipeline and have determined the leak was isolated. He said repairs are complete and the corporation is waiting for Alberta regulators to allow the pipeline back into service.

Davis Sheremata of Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board says regulators have not completed their inspection and assessment of the pipeline.

He said the failed section has been cut away and removed to an Edmonton lab for testing. He says investigators still aren't sure what went wrong, why it happened or if the problem is systemic throughout the system. It could be days or longer before regulators are satisfied.

"The company is welcome to their opinion, but it is the regulator here who is going to decide what the problem is, how much of the pipeline it impacts, what has to be done to repair that, and when it has been done satisfactorily," Sheremata said.

"If it is a systemic problem, we are facing a continued shut-in until we are assured that it can be put back into operation safely and any necessary repairs or upgrades have been made.

"Until we are absolutely 100 per cent certain that the pipeline can be put back into operation safely, we will not allow it to be put back online."

Plains Midstream Canada is a subsidiary of Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline, with pipelines and crude oil storage facilities throughout Alberta.

The leak was in the 44-year-old Rainbow pipeline which runs from Zama, Alta., to Edmonton. It can handle up to 220,000 barrels of crude a day. Average daily volumes run at 187,000 barrels a day.

— With files from Bill Graveland

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version spelled Hallahan's name incorrectly.

Hello folks, I purchased the 2 red abyssinian bananas from an online retailer in Quebec, and they arrived here in Ottawa, Ontario Canada today. I have transplanted them into bigger pots, and the plan once it warms up, is to put one in a huge planter along the driveway and the other in the ground in the backyard. Last day of frost in zone 5 here is May 15th ish. My questions as follows: 1. What should I feed them to get them bigger? 2. what is the watering scheme for them 3. digging up for winter process Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c279/ikennedy/IMG_3033.jpg Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c279/ikennedy/IMG_3034.jpg Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c279/ikennedy/IMG_3035.jpg cheers

Judgment Day billboards have been erected acrcoss Canada by California-based Family Radio.

UBC named Canada's first Fair Trade Campus CTV.ca There's something different about the way the University of British Columbia wakes up and smells the coffee in the morning – the steaming caffeine poured into warm mugs across campus is fair trade. UBC just became the first Fair Trade Campus in Canada. ... UBC named Canada's first 'fair trade' campusVancouver Sun Stamp Out Hunger while drinking Fair Trade coffeeMother Nature Network (blog) 100000 Expected To Participate in World Fair Trade Day Events Across North AmericaPR Newswire (press release) all 15 news articles »

Attention Moosers: Print off the little coupon below and take it into your local Mac’s, Circle-K or Couche-Tard to get a 414ml bottle of Coca Cola for only 5 cents on May 7th, 2011! For one day only get the Coca Cola for it’s original price! Get your printable coupon here This is to celebrate 125 years [...]

Mac’s: Coke for only 5 Cents Printable Coupon is a post from: BargainMoose Canada

Help Celebrate Earth Day with a free coffee or tea When You Bring In A Reusable Cup to any Starbucks Canada location April 22 2011 you will receive a free coffee or tea. We know Earth Day isn’t until next month but we wanted to give advanced notice! If you did not know, here is

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Canadian faculty presented in celebration of the partnerships between the U.S. and Canada.