Meanwhile, as Florida and Georgia prepared to endure the storm over the coming days, some farmers in the region hoped a soaking would boost crops hurt by a lingering drought.

In Jacksonville, business was brisk at grocery stores and gas stations as people prepared for Fay’s arrival. Velton Jones, manager at a discount department store, said early Wednesday he was selling basics such as water, flashlights, emergency supplies and cigarettes.

“The storm’s coming, people want to have their cigarettes,” Jones said. “I expect it’s going to be chaotic in here today.”

Rodney Van Buren was among the customers, buying disposable diapers, ice and other things.

“We’re not scared, just being cautious,” he said. “We don’t want to wait until the last minute.”

The storm first hit the Florida Keys, veered out to sea and then traversed east across the state on a path that would have taken it over the ocean before it curved toward the Florida-Georgia border. Forecasters expected the storm to get a dose of energy Wednesday when it moved over the Atlantic Ocean, where it could linger and possibly reach hurricane strength.

But the storm’s center remained just inland early Wednesday and forecasters said it may not go over the ocean until the afternoon. The chances of Fay becoming a hurricane were shrinking, the National Hurricane Center said.

But a hurricane watch remained in effect for parts of north Florida and Georgia. A tropical storm warning was extended, covering an area from north of Jupiter Inlet to Altamaha Sound in Georgia. A warning means such conditions are expected within 24 hours, while a watch means such conditions are possible within 36 hours.

“This storm is going to be with us for a while. That’s obvious now. It looks like it could be a boomerang storm,” Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday, urging residents to be vigilant for what could be the storm’s third hit to the state.

The storm was on Florida’s east coast at 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, about 15 miles south of Cape Canaveral. Its maximum sustained winds remained near 50 mph. The storm was moving toward the north near 5 mph.

And while forecasters warned rainfall from the storm could just as easily be catastrophic as benign, farmers in drought-plagued areas were cautiously optimistic.

“It’s very seldom we’re hoping for a hurricane, but we are,” said Randy Branch, a farmer in southeast Georgia where lingering drought has left about a third of his cotton and peanut crops bare this summer.

“We need some rain pretty bad.”

National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Letro said it’s possible southern Georgia could receive 10 to 20 inches of rain — enough to cause severe flooding — if it makes a second landfall.

“I know people hate drought, but when you’re talking about a tropical cyclone relieving drought conditions, be careful what you wish for,” said Letro, the chief meteorologist in Jackson

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Many think God's intervention can revive the dying
Aug 18, 2008 … Many think God's intervention can revive the dying. By LINDSEY TANNER , AP Medical Writer, Medicine & Health / Other …

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying (AP) :: trever …
Aug 18, 2008 … Many think God's intervention can revive the dying (AP) AP - When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans. …

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying
Aug 18, 2008 … AP HEALTH HEADLINES · Many think God's intervention can revive the dying · Vitamin D's wild days: Who to test, what to take? …

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying - AP - NOLA.com

AP Breaking News & Headlines. Find the latest national, world and local New Orleans and Louisiana news from the Associated Press.

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying NewsChief.com …
Many think God's intervention can revive the dying. By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer. Published: Monday, August 18, 2008 at 4:12 p.m. …

Associated Press at Cincinnati.Com
Many think God's intervention can revive the dying. By LINDSEY TANNER … CHICAGO (AP) — When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many …

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Bank sees huge “shadow inventory” of foreclosed houses

An update to my earlier post about inventory issues, which briefly discussed the concept of “shadow inventory.” In that post, I wrote of “a theory floating around various blogs that listed inventory is deceptive because banks and lenders are quietly sitting on large and growing piles of foreclosed houses — so-called shadow inventory.”

It’s a bit more than a theory floating around a few blogs, as Sacramento Real Estate Statistics reports in this excellent post, which quotes extensively from a Deutsche Bank report on the subject of shadow inventory. Highlights of the Deutsche Bank report:

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“MLS listings are missing large amounts of distressed inventory

… Based on our analysis, MLS based listing inventory is significantly understating the extent of foreclosure inventory in many markets.”

The Deutsche Bank report is the source of a shocking number you may have seen in the comment section. Based on the bank’s research and estimates, the inventory of foreclosed homes in Greater Los Angeles stands at 88,843 units; that is far higher than the entire MLS-listed inventory for the metro area, 62,379. The bank’s estimates are based on various sources that include pre-foreclosure filings as tabulated by RealtyTrac. My analysis is that it is likely the 88,843 estimate is higher than the actual number of foreclosed houses in Los Angeles, but it still a staggeringly high estimate.

–Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com

Hat tip: Patrick.net

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Morkel sets sights on historic South African double

Albie Morkel has set his sights on achieving a superb double for South Africa as they try to claim a Test and one-day series dual triumph over England.

Hip-Hop Rumors: The Game Ready For War Wth Jay-Z? More Great Illseed Rumors!

disclaimer: all content within this leg is correct rumor and habitually have no faithful info aspect of what the streets have whispered in our notice. conclude from on. today’s rumors! are we heading for the duration of beef with jay-z and devil-may-care? i could be wrong, but it seems like the quarry has been rather ease recently, but i am hearing a recent interview might changed that and abide him head to head with the biggest thing in rap. no, not lil wayne, junior bucks. i’m talking regarding jay-z. do you remember…(read more)

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A Georgian convoy of troops and artillery left South Ossetia through Ergneti, a village just inside Georgian-held territory south of Tskhinvali.

"They have been withdrawn, completely," Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told Reuters.

In Moscow, the Russian General Staff's Col-Gen Anatoly Nagovitsyn confirmed the withdrawal was underway.

He also told an official news briefing that Russian soldiers now controlled most of Tskhinvali.

Russia, the South Ossetian separatists' main backer, had poured troops into the enclave and launched air strikes inside Georgia in response to a Georgian push to take control of it.

Russian officials said the death toll in fighting that began on Thursday stood at 2,000. Georgia said on Friday that it had lost up to 300 people killed, mainly civilians.

The conflict in the heart of the Caucasus has raised alarm in the West, which is vying for influence with Russia over crucial oil and gas supply routes in the region.

Russia is rankled by Georgia's pro-Western policies and its drive for NATO membership.

Georgian spokesman Utiashvili said on Sunday that in the past few hours Russia had brought 6,000 troops into Georgia and a further 4,000 troops by sea.

Russia bombed a military airfield outside the Georgian capital early on Sunday and Tbilisi said the Russians were also massing troops in Abkhazia on the Black Sea, another rebel region that broke with Tbilisi in the early 1990s after a war.

Russian warships had arrived at Georgia's Black Sea coast, RIA news agency quoted a Russian navy source as saying.

Interfax agency said the naval force would stop weapons landing by sea. But RIA-Novosti news agency quoted a defense source as saying Russia had no plans to mount a blockade.

"A naval blockade means war with Georgia," the source told RIA. "We are not at war with Georgia."

Russia's Nagovitsyn also denied Russian forces had hit any civilian targets during air raids and said they had only struck military units.

"The Russian side has not hit any settlements…We have no right to attack civilian positions," he said.

The U.S. government on Sunday deplored Russia's actions in Georgia as "dangerous and disproportionate."

"We're alarmed by this situation," James Jeffrey, U.S. President George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser, said in Beijing where the president was attending the Olympics, speaking before the confirmation of the Georgian pull-out.

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SECOND FRONT

Georgia said that overnight, Russia had landed 4,000 troops by sea in Abkhazia.

Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh said he had sent 1,000 troops to the disputed Kodori gorge and mobilized reservists.

"We are ready to act independently," he told reporters. "We are ready to enforce order and go further if there is resistance from the Georgian side."

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was profoundly concerned over mounting tensions in Abkhazia.

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Celebrity Endorsements and Presidential Campaigns

Whether itâs the â?Rat Pack❠crooning for John F. Kennedy or Ludacris rapping for Obama, some entertainers like the stump as much as the stage. Call it an Entertainment Tonight/Electoral College fusion.

Your to-do list, one item at a time

So it was not a big surprise when savvy political strategist Paris Hilton â” with the help of her Hollywood friends â” cut a response to the McCain celebrity spot spot, ensuring the Republican nomineeâs original ad receives even more free air time.

The value of all that no-cost media exposure â” priceless.

Then there is the issue of fundraising. Call this one, â?rich liberals without borders.❠For example, if you happen to be vacationing in Switzerland in September and have a few extra francs, you could help Obama by hanging out with George Clooney, the LA Times reports:

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced that überstar George Clooney will host an exclusive — that means expensive — fundraiser for the Democratic candidate in, get this, Geneva, Switzerland, on Sept. 2.

Meet the Attack Lads - John Kerry Windsurfing
[Music] Female Announcer: John Kerry's hobby? Windsurfing huh issues dude. He claims to be the big kahuna on terror but votes to cut defense and …

This raises a related question. Do celebrity endorsements matter? The folks over at Marginal Revolution recently linked to this paper by two University of Maryland economics graduate students â” Craig Garthwaite and Tim Moore â” suggesting that, at least when it comes to Oprah and Obama, the answer is yes.

Title this pic of John Kerry windsurfing, July 17,2004
Title this pic of John Kerry windsurfing, July 17,2004. THAT is NOT a windsurfer ! Windsurfers have sails they are not pulled on lines. …

Garthwaite and Moore write:

windsurfing
Fatal error: Cannot re-assign $this in /home/pacific/public_html/gallery/classes/Album. php on line 604.

Prior to the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, Barack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, a celebrity with a proven track record of influencing her fansâ commercial decisions. In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! â” The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah’s Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah’s influence and Obama’s success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfreyâs endorsement was responsible for approximately additional 1,000,000 votes for Obama.

Republican National Convention Blog: kerry windsurfing video
ARLINGTON, VA — Bush-Cheney '04 announced the release of the campaign's newest television advertisement, "Windsurfing." The ad depicts John Kerry going …

You can read the full paper here.

If McCain were not such a man of character, he might just quit now given this oncoming Tinsel Town fusillade.

Hat Tip: Marginal Revolution

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Comcast-DailyCandy: Interview: Sam Schwartz, EVP, CIM; Pete Sheinbaum, CEO, DC

some acquisitions barely need explanations. that’s not always the case when comcast (nsdq: cmcsa) interactive media opens the virtual checkbook; people are still asking me about plaxo and today’s word about dailycandy, while less eyebrow-raising, still needs some ’splaining. cim evp sam schwartz and dailycandy ceo pete sheinbaum did just that during an interview in good time after the news ruined. neither would talk numbers but sources close to the deal affirm it’s about $125 million. (they also declined to talk about information i had that the engage in is roughly 10 times legal tender flow cash flow of give $13 million and full revenue of $23-25 million.) schwartz described dailycandy as “a anticyclone-monetization property” and “another according with as we hear to grow into a major presence” online. comcast plans to keep the full dc gang. some highlights:

What are you going to do with DailyCandy? How does it fit in strategically?: Schwartz spoke of DC’s growth from a very small idea eight years ago to a company that serves 2.5 million subscribers. “Those subscriptions represent a very loyal, engaged high-value audience for their advertisers and we think we can take what they’ve created and the stage that they got to so far and apply that to some new ideas we have both horizontally and vertically Lots more in the full interview after the jump.

Big Stan (2007)
Directed by Rob Schneider. With Tsuyoshi Abe, T.J. Amato, Chris Astoyan. A weak con man panics when he learns he’s going to prison for fraud. He hires a mysterious martial arts …

Big Stan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Big Stan is a comedy film directed by and starring Rob Schneider and slated for wide release in the fall of 2008. On the radio show Loveline, Schneider stated that this film will be an "anti-man raping" film — referring to prison rape. … Plot · Cast · Trivia

own band known as "Big Stan and the Music Masters", a member of the Musician’s Union and a World War II disabled Army veteran and member

+\”james walsh\”

The team there is fantastic, combined with the team we already have that’s focused on Fandango and Fancast and our property Comcast.net, as well as our linear television channelsE, Style Channel and E Online. I think we’ve got a lot of interesting new businesses that we can grow, taking their unique editorial, their unique voice and their unique audience and bringing additional information to that audience with the kind of entertainment properties and content that we haveand also take their ability to create that editorial and bring it perhaps to other demographics with some of the other content that Comcast has. We’re really excited. It fits right in. It’s a high-monetization property and it’s another step as we try to grow into a major presence.”

Big Stan [2008] Movie Info and Reviews on CinemaMontreal.com
Big Stan [2008] Movie Info and Reviews on CinemaMontreal.com. Montreal movie guide. Movie information, trailers, reviews, upcoming movies, movie showtimes for all theatres in the …

Do you see any possibility of applying this on the MSO side to the locals?: Schwartz: “Obviously, Comcast is a very local company. We have a couple of thousand local sales people in the markets that we serve. We have relationships. …Even online, in terms of Comcast.net, it’s a very customized local experience. Fancast, which is our online property for navigating through your entertainment choices, by design we know where you live because we set it up to work well with your television lineup in your town. Same thing with Fandango, the bridge between the consumer and their local movie theaters. When you combine that with the local aspects of the way DailyCandy already operates, there’s a lot of potential for putting together some interesting approaches to local for consumers.”

Why Comcast and why is this the right time?: Sheinbaum: “We know that media consumption habits are starting to change or have been changing for a little while. We’ve been watching very carefully about how and where our young women readers are going to be consuming content. We’ve been putting together plans to explore other platforms, to grow our existing web business, grow our mobile businessboth of which we currently have but we’re going to start to invest inas well as trying to figure out how people might want to personalize our content or bring our content with them.” He said the relationship began with the two companies exploring ways to work together on different platformsmatching DC’s listings on restaurants with movie plans. “Why not marry the Fandango.com and DailyCandy content together on our platform or their platform or some sort of hybrid? Same thing with Comcast.net. They’re providing local content and that’s what we do. If they can help us introduce our content to their readers, what a terrific marriage that would be for us to provide a deeper and richer experience.” As a top 10 site, that would give DC a boost for its model.

Big Stan: Trailer - MovieWeb
Watch Big Stan Video Clip. Big Stan marks the directorial debut of "Saturday Night Live" alum Rob Schneider and features David Carradine and Jennifer Morrison. The comedy, written …

As for timing, no real answer. Sheinbaum said the company was growing under private equity ownership and called this serendipity. Schwartz said CIM had been following DailyCandy for a while and got serious during the last six months.

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