City of Birmingham files lawsuit to stop closing of county hospital www.privateofficer.com

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Birmingham AL Aug 14 2012 The city of Birmingham has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to prevent Jefferson County from closing Cooper Green Mercy Hospital, according to court documents.

The suit comes after a Jefferson County Commission committee voted Aug. 7 to end inpatient care at the county's safety-net hospital in 30 days. The commission is set to discuss the issue at its regular meeting on Tuesday.

Birmingham's lawsuit claims ending inpatient health care services would irreparably harm indigent citizens of the city and put the county in violation of the Alabama Health Care Responsibility Act.

According to the suit, 60 percent of Cooper Green's patients are residents of the city of Birmingham.

Jefferson County Commission President David Carrington told the Birmingham News that the case couldn't proceed in state court because it is subject to the automatic stay provision resulting from the county's bankruptcy filing.

Jefferson County, which is in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings and also coping with the loss of revenue from its occupational tax, is weighing its options for the indigent care facility.

Commissioners in favor of ending inpatient care have said the 319-bed hospital is a drain on the county's finances, according to Fox 6. Opponents of the closure say the facility is necessary for the community.

Commissioners George Bowman and Sandra Little Brown opposed ending the services, while Commissioners Carrington, Jimmie Stephens and Joe Knight voted for the closure during the committee meeting earlier this week.

The Birmingham Business Alliance issued a statement on Friday urging the county to define a clear plan for indigent care before voting to end inpatient services at the hospital.

"We believe that a broad community consensus can be developed around a plan that would both improve the quality of indigent health care and lower costs to a level the county can afford, if the right process is employed," said BBA Chairman John D. Johns, CEO of Protective Life Corp.

Source:Birmingham Business Journal

Three people including Texas constable killed in mass shooting www.privateofficer.com

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College Station TX Aug 14 2012 Three people, including a police officer and the suspected gunman, are dead following a shooting near the Texas A&M campus in College Station on Monday, police and university officials say. Four others, including three police officers and a female civilian, were wounded.

According to the College Station Police Department, the gunman was shot and taken into custody. The gunman later died, a police spokesman told the Dallas Morning News' crime blog. A male civilian also died in the "gunfight," police said.

The shooting began when an officer attempted to serve an eviction notice, according to WFAA-TV. That officer, Brian Bachmann, a 41-year-old Brazos County constable, was fatally wounded in the shooting, which occurred shortly after noon about a block away from campus.

"It appears that the shooter [was] shooting from a house with automatic weapons," KBTX-TV said.

The other wounded officers are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the police spokesman said. The female civilian underwent surgery Monday; her condition was not released.

Texas A&M issued an alert on its website just before 12:30 p.m. local time on Monday warning of an active shooter near Kyle Field, the campus football stadium.

The shooting occurred near Highlands and Fidelity Streets in College Station, just south of George Bush Drive and east of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Monday's shooting comes a little more than a week after seven people, including the suspected gunman, were killed in a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and less than a month after a gunman opened fire at Aurora, Colo., movie theater during a midnight screening of "Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 and wounding 58.



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Scott Harrison: Why Charity Shouldn't Be About Guilt

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Several years ago, Scott Harrison had the sudden realization that his life up to that point had been a sham.

This is where Harrison began his story, as he took the stage at the Inc. 500|5000 Conference. Both his personal story and the story of what his non-profit organization charity:water does (bring clean water to the developing world) was one of the most moving talks of the conference so far and had many entrepreneurs in the audience tearful.

That feeling he described, he told the room, was the result of spending years working in the New York City club scene as a promoter.

"Budweiser paid me $2,000 a month to drink Bud," he said. "Bacardi, the same. I was paid to drink. I did drugs and gambled. I realized on that beach that I was the most emotionally, spiritually, and morally bankrupt person I knew."

What'd he do about it?

"While I was hungover during the day, I started reading the Bible. That was an interesting push and pull," he said, laughing.

It was through this spiritual awaking that Harrison decided to clean up his act. He signed up to volunteer with doctors going to Africa to provide free surgeries to underprivileged people with deformities . A year into this volunteering journey, he found the one underlying issue for so many of these deformities that he could do something about: dirty water. This was the birth of charity:water.

Harrison's visual presentation showed graphic, moving images of the devastation caused by dirty, disease-filled water. Children drinking muddy water from bottles. Mothers struggling to carry huge jugs of water. And even though the message was serious, Harrison had a knack for lightening his serious message with a joke here and there.

From an entrepreneurial standpoint, he had an early guiding principle.

"I knew from the beginning that this couldn't be about guilt. You can't guilt people to give," he said. "It had to be about opportunity. I had to find a way to get real people, selfish people like me, to invest in this cause."

Harrison revealed to the crowd the three things he set out to do with this charity--all of which, he says, most charities lack.

1. Find a way to give 100 percent of the profits to the actual cause.

2. Proof: Make it completely transparent where the money goes.

3. Build a brand.

Today, having met those three objectives, the organization has funded 4,200 water projects with over $40 million in donations. He's convinced not only everyday people to donate money, but huge brands like Saks Fifth Avenue to help out in some way. For more information about how you can donate (which Harrison encouraged the crowd to do), check out their website.

Source: http://www.inc.com/staff-blog/scott-harrison-why-charity-shouldnt-be-about-guilt-.html

ECLIPSYS EASTMAN KODAK CO EARTHLINK DST SYSTEMS

Starting up Young? Don't Drop Out

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Want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? Here's one way you shouldn't follow in his footsteps, writes venture capitalist Brad Feld.

College is generally considered a time to expand your horizons, learn to live on your own, have a ton of fun, and even, perhaps, learn a little something. But are your undergraduate years also the best time to getting started on building a business?

The counter-arguments to this idea seem obvious. Students are generally short of money and have no lack of other demands on their time (though, let's be honest, plenty of college kids aren't exactly getting up at the crack of dawn to hit the books or spending every waking hour working). Classes aren't generally directly relevant to entrepreneurship. But at least one expert on starting businesses feels the case for beginning your start-up life in college outweighs the downsides.

Writing on his blog recently, venture capitalist Brad Feld claimed your years getting a degree are the perfect time to start experimenting with starting a business. Why? He quotes a line he heard from a mentor-in-residence at UM Tech Transfer:

"College is like a sandbox if you are an entrepreneur," he writes. "Falling down doesn't hurt much."

This thinking takes the initial objection to college kids starting businesses—that they don’t have many resources—and turns it on its head. Students might not be swimming in cash or connections, but the very fact that they aren’t established yet in full lives with mortgages, kids and car payments is actually a huge advantage, according to Feld, who reflected on the sandbox analogy in his post:

This made me think of a brilliant phrase from Alex White, the CEO of Next Big Sound, in his TechStars Demo Day pitch. I can't remember where in the presentation it was but Jason reminded me that one of Alex's great moments was when he said something like "We don't need to raise much money because we are cheap to keep alive."

Feld also notes that this very sense of not being weighed down with much in the way of responsibilities or expectations is great for creativity and the willingness to fail:

The level of enthusiasm and optimism among the people we met with was phenomenal. Their willingness and interest in learning and trying new stuff was apparent. And their understanding that plenty of things wouldn’t work, but they wouldn’t learn if they didn't try, was front and center.

College for many (although by no means all) of us is a privileged, low-expense time when parents help out with feeding and housing us and our lifestyle expectations are modest. Why not take advantage of the time and freedom that buys you to make some of the initial mistakes and learn some of the valuable lessons entailed in becoming an entrepreneur?

Feld obviously isn't the only member of the start-up community encouraging young people to get their hands dirty early. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel made a lot of waves earlier this year with his 20 Under 20 program, encouraging students to drop out of school to start businesses with $100,000 he'd invested in their ideas. But Feld is perhaps more unusual in not calling college a waste of time for entrepreneur hopefuls, but essentially a great practice ground for them to hone their skills while they combine study and business.

What do you think, is college a great time to start experimenting with entrepreneurship (check out our Coolest College Start-ups package for inspiration!), or should you just be studying instead?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inc/channel/start-up/~3/eLzfOtwjmC4/dont-drop-out-of-college-a-vc-advises.html

QIMONDA posted business economy

120' Glulam Poles

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Last week, we blogged about preparing to glue 120' utility poles. Here are some more photos showing our team gluing and finishing those poles.

To the left is a dramatic photo showing the boards set-up on carts behind our glue spreader, waiting for glue.
To the right is a photo of a pole in our finishing department. The finishing team cut the pole to a taper using a band saw and also drilled through it.

The photo below shows the view from the bottom of the pole down its length.