Thursday, January 23, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Happy 2014....
The Gifted (USA): @42ity and @JKellogg ....Mr American Thinker Uh?
US, Canadian boat owners left in limbo after armed raid on marinas by Mexico tax officials
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY – When heavily armed marines and government tax agents stormed eight marinas on Mexico's Pacific and Caribbean coasts, boaters thought they were witnessing a major drug takedown.
The mostly American and Canadian retirees found out that the target was actually them — couples spending their golden years sailing warm-weather ports in modest 40-foot boats.
After inspecting more than 1,600 vessels in late November, the Mexican government's Treasury Department announced it had initiated seizure orders against 338 boats it accused of lacking a $70 permit. The office says it has four months to decide whether to release the boards or sell them at auction.
Many owners say they actually have the permit but were never asked to present it. Others say minor numerical errors in paperwork were used as grounds for seizure.
Some say they were away at the time and have never been officially notified at all, learning of the seizure only from local marina operators.
It is all part of a new effort by President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration to increase government revenues in a country with one of the worst tax-collection rates among the world's large economies. The push has drawn howls of protest from Mexicans upset about new sales taxes and levies on home sales. But few of the new measures were as unexpected or toughly enforced as what foreign pleasure boat owners call a heavy-handed crackdown over a minor permit, and they say it threatens a tourism sector Mexico has long sought to promote.
"They brought all these marines, with machine guns and stuff, and they kind of descended on the marina and everybody's going, 'Wow, there's a big narco thing going down here,'" said Richard Spindler, whose catamaran Profligate was impounded near Puerto Vallarta. "These are just retired people, 50-, 60-year-old retired people, mellow people. It was way over the top."
The document in question, known as a Temporary Import Permit, can be obtained from a Mexican government website and proves holders own their boats and promise not to leave them in Mexico or sell them here.
Many boat owners say they simply weren't around when authorities came by and slapped liens on the boats barring them from leaving Mexico. They say officials have not told them how they could remedy the situation.
One boater said marina operators warned that anyone who tried to leave would be hunted down. The owner, who expressed fear that speaking out by name could bring reprisals, said officials had given no written notice of seizure on their boat, and they had learned of it second hand from marina workers.
The Treasury Department and its tax agency refused to specify the size, value or nationality of boats impounded and did not respond to numerous requests for details or reaction to the boat owners' complaints.
Because authorities put no notices or chains on targeted boats, some foreigners in affected marinas are uncertain if their boats are on the impound list and fear their vessels might be seized if they tried to sail away even if they had paid the $70 tax.
"This is killing nautical tourism in a worse way than drug trafficking, because it's the government itself that is taking the yachts," said Enrique Fernandez, a member of Mexico's Association of Marinas.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mark C. Johnson, said in an email that U.S. officials are holding discussions on the issue with the Mexican government. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development said it knows of three Canadians whose boats were seized.
Spindler, who has been sailing to Mexico for 36 years and publishes the sailing magazine Latitude 38, estimated that about 45 of the 53 boats at the marina where his boat was seized are owned by Americans or Canadians.
"Mexico wants and greatly supports nautical tourism," he said, but warned that the heavy-handed approach could put the sailing sector at risk.
"I'm getting all these letters from people now going: 'Well, that's it. I was going to go to Mexico, I was a little scared before, but now I'm not going to do it for sure,'" he said.
Paradoxically, Mexico may be punishing some of its biggest boosters — visitors who return each year and keep marinas and boatyards in work.
"This is the killer, these people are the greatest ambassadors for Mexico you have ever heard," Spindler said. "It's given Mexico a really black eye."
___
Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson reported this story in Mexico City and Amy Taxin reported from Los Angeles.
@42ity and @JKellogg ....Mr American Thinker Uh?
17 year old fingered as author of malware used in Target attack
@42ity and @JKellogg ......Please Leave my Accounts...Alone.
@42ity and @JKellogg ......Please Leave my Accounts...Alone.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Hey (Tone)...Look at Milan...
My Big Cousin.....Ain't he Handsome...
Dr. Milan Dopirak Video Profile | Internal Medicine in Canton, OH
WWW.VITALS.COM
Learn all about Dr. Milan R. Dopirak by watching this video. Dr. Dopirak is a Internal Medicine in Canton, OH with 37 years of experience in Internal Medicine.
Milan R Dopirak, MD - Internist in Canton, OH - Vitals.com
Dr. Milan Dopirak, MD, rated 4/4 by patients. 1 review, board certified in Internal Medicine, Phone number & pra...See More
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Awesome...
Record Treasure Hauled From Shipwreck
JUL 18, 2012 11:13 AM ET // BY THE DNEWS EDITORS
Deep-sea explorers have pulled up 48 tons of silver treasure from three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic in what may be the deepest, largest precious metal recovery in history.
The haul was retrieved from the S.S. Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship that sank in February 1941.
The expedition, by Odyssey Marine Exploration, a company specializing in shipwreck exploration, recovered 1,203 bars of silver, totaling 1.4 million ounces. Viewers will have the chance to follow the pursuit of the lost treasure on an upcoming Discovery Channel special produced by JWM Productions.
PHOTOS: Recovering a Silver Treasure
The cache has been transported to a secure facility in the United Kingdom, which contracted the project under the Department of Transport. Under the contract, Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the net value of recovered goods, after expenses, according to a press release.
WATCH VIDEO: See how Odyssey finds and recovers sunken treasure.
The Gairsoppa was a merchant ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II. Since the U.K. government had insured the privately owned cargo under the War Risk Insurance program, it had paid out the owners for the lost silver and then became owners of the lost cargo.
The Odyssey expedition has so far managed to recover an estimated 43 percent of the total lost silver treasure. The company hopes to recover the balance of the silver within 90 days.
Recovering the loot, however, has been no easy task.
NEWS: 200-Year-Old Shipwreck Found Off Gulf Coast
"With the shipwreck lying approximately three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, this was a complex operation," Greg Stemm, Odyssey Chief Executive Officer said in the press release. "Our capacity to conduct precision cuts and successfully complete the surgical removal of bullion from secure areas on the ship demonstrates our capabilities to undertake complicated tasks in the very deep ocean."
Odyssey began its search for the sunken cargo ship in the summer of 2011 and confirmed its location by September 2011. The company says so far they have found no human remains, but in the event that they do they "will be treated with the utmost respect and the U.K. Department for Transport will be immediately notified."
The marine exploration company is also in the process of exploring another British sunken ship, theS.S. Mantola, which is believed to hold an estimated 600,000 ounces of additional U.K.-insured silver.
Friday, December 27, 2013
2014 Brings Importance To Man Kind...Happy B-Day Mom
U.S. Medical Research Accelerating Quest for HIV Cure
By Charlene Porter | Staff Writer | 20 December 2013
Washington — A new year will begin at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) with an intensified focus on finding a cure for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
President Obama announced in early December that the agency should redirect $100 million in funding to accelerate the search for a cure. HIV treatment has become very effective in controlling the virus in infected persons, but it never eradicates the virus completely, and it still has drawbacks.
The medications are very expensive, they can have serious side effects, and lifetime distribution to all persons around the world living with HIV/AIDS is an enormous challenge.
“It may not be feasible for tens of millions of people living with HIV infection to access and adhere to a lifetime of antiretroviral therapy,” said NIAID’s director, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
A cure has eluded medical science from the beginning of the pandemic, but more than 30 years of research have produced some promising avenues of investigation for a cure.
“The time is ripe to pursue HIV cure research with vigor,” Fauci said at a World AIDS Day White House briefing December 2.
Jack Whitescarver, director of the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), explained the future research will focus “specifically toward the goal of sustained or lifelong remission, in which patients control or even eliminate HIV without the need for lifelong antiretroviral therapy.”
The search for a cure is targeting several different lines of inquiry. Developing a greater understanding of how the virus replicates itself while living inside a person, and how it progresses at the cellular level, is one way researchers want to better understand HIV.
Locating what researchers call the “reservoirs” of virus in the body is another goal for the near term. Treatment with antiretroviral medications (ARVs) continues for a lifetime because the virus returns if the medicine is stopped. The patient may have seemed clear of the virus while on ARV, but science has determined that HIV finds some place in the tissues to hide from the medication.
“So we need to study the nature of this particular reservoir of virus,” Fauci said in a radio interview, “and try to remove it either by a new class of drugs, by activating it or stimulating it to express itself so we can get rid of it.”
Further understanding of HIV reservoirs may lead to new ways to treat and prevent HIV. New research will also be directed to broadening knowledge of how HIV might be inhibited and how the immune response is activated.
The new funding investments will involve thousands of physicians and scientists at universities and biomedical centers, nationally and internationally, Fauci said. Study will also be directed toward understanding the interaction of aging and HIV infection, and what happens when HIV-induced immune dysfunction coexists with conditions of aging such as cardiovascular disease and frailty.
Finding a cure for HIV is among the greatest biomedical challenges of the age, but Fauci cautioned anyone from believing that a cure is close at hand. Science is an incremental process that relies on the peer review process to build knowledge over time to ultimately develop answers, he said. The $100 million investment announced by the White House will help make progress toward a cure, but cannot guarantee it.
NIH’s director, Dr. Francis Collins, said that this new commitment to investment in AIDS research comes in the aftermath of a difficult period in the research community brought on by U.S. government budget difficulties. This investment marks a way forward.
“AIDS research is an example of an area where hard-won progress over many years has resulted in new and exciting possibilities in basic and clinical science in AIDS that must be pursued,” Collins said.
Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2013/12/20131220289335.html#ixzz2ohaqQQsV
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