The New DOJ Rules

When Vic Kohring was convicted, the DOJ press release on Nov. 1, 2007, said

A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, has found former Alaska State Representative Victor H. Kohring guilty of conspiracy, bribery and attempted extortion, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

It didn't mention the counts he was acquitted on. I guess they wouldn't want anyone to know that they hadn't won on every count. The same was true for the Anderson and Kott press releases. At the time I wrote that I thought a government agency shouldn't be playing with the facts to make itself look better, that they should also mention the counts the defendants were NOT found guilty of.

So I'm still amazemed at the new Obama DOJ. Could you possibly imagine that the Bush Administration would have, on their own, dismissed the conviction of a very prominent Democratic Senator and then gone on to say due to their own errors they are asking two more Republican state politicians be released? OK, it's true that the errors were made under the previous administration, so they aren't exactly admitting their own mistakes. But in the highly competitive game the Bush Administration played, winning was everything, and they would never have given up prisoners of the opposing side voluntarily.

This really is a different type of America today. Not only do we see this in the big things like the Cairo speech yesterday, but also in the little day-to-day things like this announcement yesterday.

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 4, 2009
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

AG
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

Department Asks Alaska Corruption Cases Be Remanded to District Court, Former State Representatives Be Released

The Department of Justice today asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to remand the cases of former Alaska State Representatives Victor Kohring and Peter Kott, who were convicted on corruption charges in 2007, to the District Court. The Department also asked the Court of Appeals to release the two on personal recognizance, after the Department uncovered material that appears to be information that should have been, but was not, disclosed to the defense prior to trial.

Attorney General Eric Holder also instructed the Department’s Criminal Division to review the Department’s public corruption investigation in Alaska to ensure that all other discovery obligations have been met.

"After a careful review of these cases, I have determined that it appears that the Department did not provide information that should have been disclosed to the defense," Holder said. "Department of Justice prosecutors work hard every day and perform a great service for the American people. But the Department’s mission is to do justice, not just win cases, and when we make mistakes, it is our duty to admit and correct those mistakes. We are committed to doing that."

"The Criminal Division must ensure that defendants receive all appropriate discovery materials, and today’s action demonstrates that commitment to this responsibility," said Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. "We will continue regular discovery training for all Criminal Division prosecutors to make certain that they perform their duties in adherence to the highest ethical standards. Every day, hundreds of career prosecutors work to uphold this Division’s proud tradition of being vigilant, ethical and stellar in the execution of their work. This action is faithful to that tradition."

Kohring was convicted in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Nov. 1, 2007, of bribery and extortion-related charges. He was sentenced on May 9, 2008, to 42 months in prison and two years of supervised release. Kott was convicted on Sept. 25, 2007, of bribery and extortion-related charges and was sentenced on 72 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

In April, after the dismissal of charges against former Sen. Theodore F. Stevens, Attorney General Holder instituted comprehensive steps to enhance the Department’s compliance with rules that require the government to turn over evidence to the defense in criminal cases.

Since the launch of those reforms, the Department has been providing supplemental training to federal prosecutors on discovery obligations and has established a working group of senior prosecutors and Department officials from each component to review discovery practices and the need for additional improvements, resources and training.

###

09-550

Interesting April and May Google Searches

Here's another list of things people googled to get to this blog. Some worked, but a lot of these got here because I just happened to have some of the unusual words or phrases they were looking for, but not the answer they were looking for.

• how would i know if someone did voodoo on me? I know this person didn't get the answer to the question. I jokingly had speculated that perhaps someone had done voodoo on me in this post about the how we know what is real, in this case, in the FBI investigation of Alaskan politicians. And tonight I could probably write another chapter given that the attorney general has asked for the release of Kott and Kohring.

• ada ohio cemetery in guinness book of world records My post of famous people born in 1909 included a mention of Rollo May and the fact he was born on April 21, 1909, in Ada, Ohio. Probably not what they were searching for.
  
  
• keyboard problem mac h is 2 j is 4 problem - Not exactly sure what the problem is here. If you hit F6 on my macbook, it changes some of the keys and J=1, K=2, L=3, etc.. Perhaps the searcher had a different Mac where those letters were a little different. In any case, you have to turn off NumLock by hitting F6 again. But that wasn't the answer on my post about my keyboard locking. But maybe the person learned something else useful.
  
  
• who was the first female fbi agent - Bingo! This person probably got what the desired info on my post of leftover notes on female FBI agents.
  
  
• do florence reece's artistic accomplishments contradict? - this is one of those bizarre google results where it identifies search words in several unrelated posts. Actually, in this case they are all from one post, but a looong post. The one on Famous People. Here's what they found at google - four of the six words in the search:
  What Do I know?: Famous People Born in 1909
  And I added one person to Brainy's list - Art Tatum. ... With her posthumous works - 16 volumes, edited by André A. Devaux and Florence de Lussy - Weil has earned a reputation as ... Her web presence is full of contradicting stories. ..... when young Rollo (given the name Reece at birth) was still a small child. ...
  
  
• do the governor of a state have the right to tell a store how much to charge on a certain product if he know that the prices are to high? I didn't answer that question anywhere; this person got the post on Governor Palin and product placement.
  
  
• 
• green driveway - I get a number of searches for green driveway and like this person, they get to a post with this picture.
  
  
• how to find ip address for anonymous posts at blogger.com - Well the post google sent them to - figuring out my anonymous blog commenter - doesn't answer the question. On other posts I do show some of the things that my sitemeter tells me about people coming to the site, including ip address.
  
  
• july date full moon anchorage This one was from Australia. I didn't give out
  that information. But they did get to see the April full moon at Half Moon Bay.
  
  
• find birthtown of poet,
• author of the temple,
• born in 1909
• poet born 1909 the temple
  "poet born 1909 the temple" got to the Famous People Born in 1909 post. But I got curious why so many people were suddenly searching for this and I found a puzzle in the Times. So I did some sleuthing of my own and posted what I found. And that got me nearly 1000 hits over the week of the puzzle.
  
  
• how many people were born on each date since 1909? I have a few people listed on different dates for 1909, but not all the people.
  
  
  
• 
• free cicada piercing sucking mouthparts pictures - I think this picture which I took is better than what they found at cicadas in the background, where there's a picture I found on line. But I'm not sure the "piercing sucking mouthparts" are all that clear in any of the pictures. But the post they got to had audio of cicadas in Thailand.
  
  
  
• if the world is what it is because we have created it how do we know whats real - This person got to a post titled "Blogging - What's Real? How Do We Know? Stevens, Kepner, Joy There's a little that addresses the question, but most is about the trials and investigation.
  
  
• fishing with cormorants japan opium connection? This one came from Singapore and I think what they got was just to the blog, not a particular post. I have no idea why it got here.
  
  
• i know this boy who talks to me only when he is high - another one that got to the blog, but not a particular post.
  
  
• blog in general leaking petrol tank emergency fix - Definitely got an answer to the question, my story about how some Ugandan truck drivers used a bar of soap to temporarily fill a hole in the petrol tank. This one came from Sydney, Australia.
  
  
• pictures/photos from global summit on climate change alaska pictures This one was from Chennai, India and they got to a post with pictures from the indigenous peoples global summit on climate change. But why doesn't Google send them to the label that would give them all of the posts on the summit instead of just one of the posts?
  
  
• what is the difference between a cyclone and a typo - I love typos like this. I'm pretty sure this searcher from Melbourne, Australia was looking for the difference between cyclones and typhoons. And they got that at this post.

Click here for all the other posts on interesting google searches.

Alaskan Made Dehydrated Beer?

[UPDATE:  September 9, 2013:   I'm fixing the old link on the image which doesn't work any more.  Here's an August 14, 2013 post on their site:

CARBONATOR
Availible now. Visit our online store to order yours today! You can also find a store near you through our store locator page.
SODA
Being sold now through our online store. You can also find a store near you through our store locator page.
BEER
We finally have our labeling approval from the Feds!  Packaging has been ordered, and beer is under production. Boo Ya! Check us out on Facebook to get a sneak peak of what the packets will look like."

Here's where the original post began a few years ago:]

At the Alaska Apple User Group meeting tonight at Loussac, there was a presentation by a website designer. Amongst the sites he's designed is one called Pat's Backcountry Beer.Click on the screenshot to go to the website.

I'm not sure it's exactly dehydrated.

Unlike other concentrate processes, we do not just make the beer and then "remove" the water afterwards (which is extremely energy inefficient). Instead, our process (patent pending) allows us to start with almost no water, and carefully control the environment of the fermentation. The result... concentrated beer with all the same great taste you're used to in a premium micro brew. All you do is add water, carbonate

And they haven't quite worked everything out:

We are in the late stages of perfecting our first (of many) commercial production beer concentrate recipes. We are refining it to our (patent pending) brewing technology, for maximum concentration, and maximum delicious goodness. This one is going to blow you away! Others have cautioned us to start with a beer of neutral ground character, but in the spirit of the Alaskan frontier and backcountry adventurer... we're coming out big and bold with this monster. We're sure you'll love it so much that we're guessing a few of you will be setting your tents up in the backyard just to make an excuse to indulge!

04.11.09

Wow! We knew there would be interest in a beer for the backcountry, but the enthusiastic response to our vision has overwhelmed us. Spring has sprung, but, unfortunately, we are not yet ready to outfit your outdoor adventures with Pat's Backcountry Beer. We are aggressively moving our business forward, and our goal remains to get Pat's into your hands as soon as possible. We've recently upgraded our equipment, and we continue to move forward through the elaborate licensing and permitting process. Thank you for your interest and patience.

Pat

Has no one ever dehydrated beer before? Will it really be someone from Talkeetna who makes this work first? I started googling. There does seem to be an interest in something like this. Here are a few references to dehydrated beer I found.

Troop 655 claims a dehydrated non-alcoholic drink for camping:

Subject: At last! Dehydrated beer
Taken verbatim from today's San Jose Mercury-News: CONSUMER CORNER

Packaged Beer Lightens The Load PRODUCT: South Hills dehydrated beer.

DESCRIPTION: A beer-flavored, non-alcoholic, carbonated, dry beverage made with maltodextrine, natural and artificial beer and malt flavors, dried beer, and corn syrup solids. It's packaged in5-ounce (150g) packet that must be mixed with 8 fluid ounces (250ml) of cold water for drinking.

PRO: It has a refreshing taste, though a bit sweet, and is best when mixed with extremely cold water. Its taste is remarkably similar to beers produced by micro-breweries. It's a quick source of liquid carbohydrates, and it's easy and light to pack and mix.

CON: The instructions say to wait for the head to subside after mixing, but that takes better than 5 minutes... In very cold water the mix clumps up unless you add water slowly and stir constantly.

COMMENTS: Although it doesn't compare to a fine lager, it suffices quite nicely when your taste buds crave a cold one in the backcountry and you don't fancy carrying a six-pack. The manufacturer mentions one can add clear grain alcohol or vodka to achieve an alcoholic beer.

SUGGESTED RETAIL: $5.95 for 6 packets.

The World Intellectual Property Organization lists a description of a method for dehydrating alcoholic beverages. Here's the summary section.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a novel method for producing a dry reconstitutable alcoholic beverage wherein the alcoholic beverage is separated into a volatile fraction (the alcohol and other volatiles) and a non-volatile (water-soluble) fraction; the volatile fraction is reacted with a

hydrolyzed starch compound, such as a maltodextrin of specific molecular weight, to yield a volatile powder, and the non-volatile fraction is dried to yield a dry water-soluble powder. The dry powders can be pressed into tablets and/or packaged separately or in combination for later reconstitution.

The alcoholic beverage is reconstituted by mixing the volatile powder and the water-soluble powder with water and carbonating. The reconstituted beverage can be carbonated by addition of CO2 and water, by addition of soda water at about 0° to 15°C or by addition of citric acid, Na2Cθ3 and water. The final concentration of alcohol, the taste, and the extent of carbonation can be varied as desired by varying the relative ratio of volatile to non¬ volatile powders, the type and quantity of hydrolyzed starch compound and the method of carbonation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Any type of alcoholic beverage, or alcohol, may be dehydrated and reconstituted according to the present invention. Specific examples of alcoholic beverages are beer, wine, wine beverages and spirits. Ethanol can also be dehydrated according to the present process for use in a variety of applications. In one embodiment of the present process, drying and reconstituting beer, the beer is first degassed at room temperature to remove the carbon dioxide contained in the beverage. The product obtained from fermentation prior to carbonation may also be used directly. [Link here for the complete information]


Students at Purdue University have come up with freeze-dried beer spice.

May 20, 2002

Note to journalists: A publication-quality photograph of the students with the freeze-dried beer is available at ftp://ftp.purdue.edu/pub/uns/okos.beer.jpeg. Michelle Kelly and Luke Meyers graduated May 11 and are available via e-mail only.

PURDUE STUDENTS BREW UP IDEA FOR FREEZE-DRIED BEER SPICE

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ‹ For those who can't get enough of the flavor of beer, two Purdue University students have just the thing: beer spice.

The non-alcoholic, freeze-dried beer isn't intended to make instant beer as simply as instant tea, but rather as an ingredient in foods.

"It could be used for dips, sauces, in breads or batters, or sprinkled on popcorn or potato chips," says co-developer Michelle Kelly.

Kelly, of Westerfield, Ohio, and Luke Meyers, of Fort Wayne, Ind., both 2002 spring graduates, developed the product as their senior research project for the class Agricultural and Biological Engineering 556: "Food Plant Design and Economics."

The course is taught by Martin Okos, professor of agricultural and biological engineering, who says the class is meant to be the capstone experience for students in the food process engineering program.

"The senior project gives the students a chance to bring together all of the things they've learned in their classes here," Okos says. "I tell the students to act as if I were their manager and I asked them to come up with a new product. Then they take it all the way from the concept to actually developing the final product and the process to manufacture it."

Freeze-dried beer has been developed before for non-commercial uses, but this is thought to be the first freeze-dried beer developed as a spice. [link for the rest of the letter.]

Someone has bought the domain name dehydrated beer, though it doesn't look too serious. Maybe they hope someone else is and will want the domain name.

Welcome to DehydratedBeer.com - - The future home of Dehydrated Beer

(Dehydrated Beer is "master crafted" using only genuine dehydrated water)

Backpacking Light has a story about a dehydrated alcoholic drink:

dehydrated beer... almost on 06/06/2007 07:52:36 MDT Print View

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.

The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gram packets that cost €1-1.5 ($1.35-$2).

Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/06/powdered.booze.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest (I couldn't get the link to work)

efestivals seems to have a spoof on the idea:

Hi people,
We think we have perfected a way to dehydrate beer. We have pills that are equivalent to 4 cans of mediocre strength beer. If people are interested in this product please let us know. It would remove the chore of carrying a case of weighty cans into a festival site. Also ecologically sound as there is no waste produced, cans, bottles etc... All that is required is 1 litre of water to rehydrate the tablet in the stomach. The product is being marketed under the brand name " Larrup". Please let us know what you think.
Peace ... Mongabus

Let's see if Pat can pull this off.

Mosquito Season

6-4

In China, important dates are referred to by the number of the month and day. So the anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen confrontation is called Six-Four, or Liao-Si.
This picture is of my Hong Kong students coming out of the subway at Tiananmen in May 1990.

I arrived in Hong Kong in July 1989 for my Fulbright year. Hong Kong was still a British colony then with eight years before it would be turned over to China. Tiananmen raised fears about what would happen in 1997. Although Hong Kong was a British colony and residents had British Passports, people discovered the words "right to abode" had disappeared when their renewed passports arrived. They were no longer allowed to move to England. There was a huge market for magazines that discussed ways to get foreign passports.



In May 1990, I went with a group of my Hong Kong students on a study trip to Beijing as guests of the China Training Center for Senior Civil Servants. We were careful to arrange the trip so that we would be back in Hong Kong two weeks before the first anniversary of Tiananmen. Nevertheless, at least one of my students was not allowed by his parents to come on the trip, because they thought it too dangerous.




This was a typical street scene in Beijing in those days.



















I think this is at People's University.






This is after an official meeting to learn about Chinese Civil Service Reform.





Although 6-4 has been erased as much as possible from the minds of people in China, I do think it is important that we take a moment today to remember what happened.

$20.5 million because planners like to connect dots?

This item was in the Anchorage Daily News today. We've known this was going to happen a while and it's probably too late to do anything about it. But we should question the logic of moves like this.

I did write about this last year at the end of a post on B Street (It should be Avenue).

Here's what the Municipality Planning Documents say:

(Double click to see this larger and clearer and complete.)

Increased connectivity. Reduced congestion on 42nd. The existing couple of blocks of E. 40th is a sleepy street with comfortable, but not fancy houses, in a hidden, quiet neighborhood. With the explosion of the Providence Hospital complex, their neighborhood has been impacted with streets punched through from Tudor to Providence at Piper and at Dale Streets.

But let's look at what this is about.

The green on the map is the existing E. 40th Avenue. It starts, as a street at Piper (on the left) and goes to Dale (on the right) with a little extra that dead ends at UAA property and then jogs north along Providence Hospital to Providence Dr. The UAA dorms are in the way of extending E. 4oth to the east and there are houses in the way if someone wanted to later extend E. 40th west of Lake Otis. This is simply providing a street on the south border of Providence and API grounds.

To call this an "extension" is a bit of a misnomer. As you can see the new road (the red line) is more than double the existing street.
Here's a view from Laurel Street (B on the map above) (another of the new roads going from Tudor to Providence Drive.) We're looking westward toward Lake Otis where the new road will be punched through between the Kidney Dialysis Center and another building. It will be tight to get a two lane road through there with sidewalk and/or biketrail.

Then turning around and looking east, the road will go over (they do have money in there for retaining walls, so maybe they'll just cut through the hill, but then what happens to the buildings on the right of the fence?) this hill and down on the other side along the back of API until it hits the existing couple of blocks of E. 40th.

Is this really worth $20 million? E. 42 Avenue is just a bit further south and already goes through. It's a pretty rough road - two poorly maintained lanes, no sidewalks - but it's mostly apartments, condos, duplexes, and trailer parks. Relatively high density. So it needs a better street with sidewalks. But part of the justification here is to reduce congestion on that E. 42. It is used by some as short cut to avoid Lake Otis and Tudor, but I've never had more than two or three cars in front of me at a stop sign on E. 42. This street is NOT congested by any stretch of the imagination. Why should a street where people moved to knowing there was some traffic be relieved so that a much quieter street with lower density become a bigger through street?

The only reason I can think of: This is what Providence wanted. A $20.5 million dollar street punched through along its southern boundary. E. 42 is due for improvements, including sidewalks, AFTER E. 40th is done.

I would note that we passed this paper signed nailed to a tree on the hill as we walked to dinner.

There has to be some irony when the Mental Health Trust Authority is kicking the homeless off their land and sending them to Brother Francis Shelter. One has to imagine that a number of the homeless have some, at least minor, mental health issues. Is this to get them out of the way of the construction companies due to build the road this summer?

So, why should I write about this if it's a done deal? First, I just want to document a little of what things look like before the changes. Second, there is still time to prevent the order freaks who need every point to be connected to the nearest other point with a straight line from dividing the University land with a road from Tudor to Northern Lights.

They are already busily constructing Martin Luther King Road (just south of Tudor, already wiping out parts of a new beautiful bike trail there). It could easily take people from Elmore to Boniface which goes to Northern Lights already. There's no need for a new road.

If the most densely populated city in the US - New York City, with 23,702 people per square mile (1990 data) - can tolerate a green belt in its very heart going 5o city blocks with only about four cross streets with very restricted hours - then surely Anchorage, with only 133 people per square mile (number 200 and the last city on the list) can tolerate having to go around the university green belt area as well. In the future, when our population has increased, this piece of in-town wilderness, will be cherished in the same way New Yorkers cherish Central Park.

There are already people organizing to make sure this sanctuary is not violated. Personally, the only road option I would not oppose is a tunnel that would leave the land above intact.

Shot Yesterday - flowers, bugs, blue, fado

This is the stem with the aphid that I posted the other day. While doing that post, I came across this about ants and aphid.

Some species of ants are attracted to and feed on the honeydew. Ants will protect the aphids from natural enemies and will actually carry them to new plants when the food source is depleted. Some ants even go so far as to build small shelters for the aphids or to keeping root-feeding aphids inside their own nests. A few species of aphids have become so dependent on their ants that they won't even excrete honeydew unless stimulated by an ant! However, if aphid numbers get too high the ants will feed a few aphids to their larvae. And the ants are better at protecting their aphid herds from some natural enemies (such as ladybugs) than others (such as lacewings or hover fly larvae). No only do they fight off or kill the predators, but they also remove the eggs of some

Perhaps I wiped out this guy's herd and he was looking for strays.


This raises the question for me about how many different flies we have in Alaska and which one this is. But googling flies and Alaska results in webpages of fishing flies.
















Turtle Pond has a page on Alaska Dragonflies which identifies this as a bluet and answers:

What's the difference between dragonflies and damselflies?

Dragonflies and damselflies are very similar insects that belong to the same scientific Order-- Odonata. Dragonflies tend to be larger, with thicker bodies. They sit with their wings spread out to the side. The delicate little damselflies usually fold their wings behind their backs when they rest. Spreadwings are the exception. They are damselflies that usually hold their wings out, like dragonflies.

Both dragonflies and damselflies start out life as aquatic insects, emerging from the water as winged adults. Both spend most of their adult life flying, preying on small insects. They are beneficial at every stage of life, never harmful to humans. They are all fascinating and beautiful critters.

Here's the lamium's yellow flower.












AKPetmom thought the early greens I posted earlier were the mountain bluet. But before posting this, I found a picture of a mountain bluet online, and this clearly isn't it. So, this is once again in the mystery flower category.




I couldn't help this newly blue garage when I went on my run yesterday.








And last night we saw the movie 'Fado' at Bear Tooth. An unusual movie that consisted of one song after another, mostly done in a studio, sung by different singers, accompanied by musicians playing guitars and other mandolin like instruments I wouldn't dare try to name. The picture's blur reflects the slow shutter speed, not the film itself. Here's a YouTube of the preview of the movie.

J's Bike Accident Update 2 - Post Surgery

J went in for surgery Friday after new x-rays showed the collar bone wasn't healing well. He's posted a long report with pictures and the police report. If you're interested, you can go there for more details. [On a Mac, the link works much better on Safari than Firefox.] His body's been beat up, he's got broken bones, but he's alive, he's even walking and functioning, and the prognosis is that he will be basically ok when it's all over. I know a lot of people who haven't been that lucky.

And there are all the things roiling through me that I can't put into words.

[update: here's the helmet post accident]

Keeping it Short - Lesson #286

Dante Shepherd offers "daily lessons in science, literature, love, and life" at Surviving the World. Here's #286.



What is interesting is that he keeps them all short - they have to fit on his blackboard.

How much is $54.84 * 16?

Do the math before you read further.

Linda at Celtic Diva wrote last week that she was being charged $65,706 for her request for public records. She posted the following response she got to her request:

To provide complete responses to the email portions of your request, we will need to electronically search the email accounts of the 71 current and former employees who have worked in the Governor's Executive Offices since December 2006. For that electronic search, we will need the assistance of the State Security Office in the Department of Administration, Division of Enterprise Technology Services (ETS). ETS estimates that each email account retrieval, search, and record production will require 16 hours to complete. The ETS hourly rate is $54.84, so ETS estimates its costs per email account will be $925.44. Based on that estimate, ETS's estimated costs for obtaining records from 71 employee email accounts total $65,706.

I have a search function on my email. I can get the list of emails I've received and sent to someone up in a couple of minutes. Why should it take computer experts so much longer?

I asked someone I know and trust on technology issues. Here's my source's response to the question whether it should really take that long to do such a search:

no. it's stonewalling. it's not impossible that it took 16 hours the
first time, if they spent 15.5 hours screwing around, but for all
future times, it ought to take 5 minutes.

Aside from that, am I missing something? Let's see:

$54.84 * 16 hours = $925.44

How did they get that? When I do it by hand I get $877.44. When I do it again on a calculator I get the same. If they can't even multiply correctly, how can they be expected estimate the time correctly, or even do the programming they need to find the emails?

But $877.44 is still outrageous and $62,297.24 ($877.44*71 searches) is still way too pricey.

I also looked up ETS on the web. They have a link to a page of consulting rates. There's no position listed at $54.84.






















Maybe Sarah Palin is beginning to understand why Randy Ruedrich was so irritated with her when she made ethics complaints against him. Do you think she's apologized to him?