Earmarking State Taxes

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Earmarking State Taxes
Arturo Perez
Manufacturer: National Conference of State Legislatures
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

International | Taxes | Accounting | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
State & Local Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1555165249

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Earmarking State Taxes
Martha A. Fabricius , Ronald K. Snell , and M. Sabricius
Manufacturer: Natl Conference of State
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1555165486

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Earmarking revenues for public works projects: A report to the National Council on Public Works Improvement
Charles F Adams
Manufacturer: School of Public Administration, Ohio State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00071R4P6

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Earmarking State Taxes
Steven Gold , Brenda Erickson , and Michelle Kissell
Manufacturer: National Conference of State Legislatures
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1555165397

Book Description

Welcome to 21st century Atlanta. During your stay, depending on your tastes, you can cruise gay midtown (I hear that the Inquisition Health Club has introduced manacles and chains to the aerobics class) or check out the Reverend-Senator Stonewall's headquarters at Freedom Plaza (watch out for the Christian Militia guarding it, though) or attend a sky-clad Wiccan sabbat (by invitation only). Avoid the courthouse, where the Cherokee have turned out in full war-paint to renegotiate a nineteenth century land deal. Also stay away from all cemeteries, at least until the police find out why someone is disinterring and crucifying corpses. As you can tell, this is a lively novel, full of intricate plotting and engaging off-beat characters. Among the latter are a gay detective, a Wiccan family, an ambitious televangelist with an eye on the White House, an artist whose medium is flesh and blood, a Cherokee drag queen--and then there's poor Benji, who would just like to make it to his fifteenth birthday, assuming the MIBS don't get him first or his Baptist parents don't ground him for life because his new girlfriend is a witch. Picked as one of the eight best mysteries of 1999 by The Drood Review of Mysteries. Winner of Two Spectrum Awards ("Best Novel" and "People's Choice") Nominated for Two Lambda Awards ("Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Book" and "Best Men's Mystery".)

Customer Reviews:

great job of bringing multiple story lines to a single ending point.......2007-09-23

Had I known how many points of view this story has, I might have not read it, and that would have been a real loss on my part. Never seen such a good job of getting all the story lines coming to a single point at the end. As stated above, the story line falls in many possible genres. Excellent characterization, and a surprising ending. Suffice to say, I really liked it.

Truly excellent story and characters, excellent plot.......2007-08-31

If you have problems with gay or lesbian issues you will probably not like this book. No its not preachy but has gay and lesbians who are treated sympathetically

Having said that this is one of the better books I have read with several intertwined plots, good humor, parody and sarcasm.

The gumshoe is Drew a gay who is looking for Jen his Wicca partner (gone missing on a mysterious case). This is one or maybe two plot threads. Not to mention Drew searching for his Totem (nice bit of humor) when he finds that he is a seer.

CALERANT an eccentric artist who is crazy like a fox. He is either the hero or antihero of the piece and at least intelligent.

The senator who is the villain.

Weir a popular religious singer who doesn't really get along with the senator's beliefs.

Benji and his Baptist friends; Summer (the Wiccan girlfriend) and her mother Holly, and the Wicca coven.

Ice-in Summer (AKA Grandma) a shaman who paints the Cherokee lawyers and blesses them before they go into court. And who worries that the totems are watching TV and choosing their own forms and attributes from that.

These plots are well interwoven and thought out and the characters well done and compelling. The characters and humor are exceptional. The romance is nicely written particularly the kids.

Lots of interesting humor I like the fast food places the Rush-in and Chez-out. Some good futurest as TV is downloaded on demand and you can select the ratings for the cut that you want. E.g. max violence and sex, fem dom and sub men, etc.

But I can't figure out what genre this is: not standard or close to paranormal detective story (takes place in the future with more magic than now); definitely not science fiction; more social interaction, but still not a clear genre. Nonetheless a really exceptional read. I bought this some years ago and just found it when cleaning out some old books. I am very sorry that I didn't read it before now.

Decent, once it gets going........2006-09-12

I came to this book looking for something that wasn't a rehash of the same old material. When I read the description, my hope was that it'd be a novel reading experience, delving into some character types and plotlines that I seldom get to see employed. My fear was it'd end up being a bigoted, cliched journey into the world of "persecuted people are wonderful, and the rest of you suck!"

Happily, I was spared the latter. Oh, there are evil Baptists, but there are good ones, too. "People are people," is the key phrase here. Alternative religion and lifestyle are given their fair due and a refreshingly healthy share of screentime in an interesting near-future where these things have become day-to-day and socially factionalized. I like the setting. I like the way the writer developed his characters. They're all neat people whom I enjoyed reading about.

What annoyed me was the story progression. The first, oh, 160 pages of the book were slow, plodding, and comprised entirely too much character introduction with minimal plot progression. I could deal with 50 or so pages of this, but it just. Kept. Going. After 100 pages, I seriously began to wonder if anything was ever going to be resolved. I stuck with it out of morbid curiosity. After 160 pages, my patience was rewarded as things sped up remarkably--a good thing, since there was less than half the book left by then--and took some very interesting twists. Halfway through, I'm inclined to murder the characters just because they're not *doing* anything. By the end, I was in a good enough mood to pick up the sequel--which, in an unusual turn, is better than the first book--in hopes that I'd get to see more of these characters I'd come to like actually doing something.

I think the writer was trying to experiment with alternative plot layouts, weaving the bulk of the story through snippets of character study. In some places, this works out. Largely, however, the characters simply meander through their day-to-day lives, doing things that are obviously irrelevant if vaguely interesting in that "human element" sort of way. In the larger picture, this becomes tolerable once I realize the author is setting things up in preparation not only for this one story, but with a long-term view to a continuing series.

So my final verdict: worth reading, but it's best to consider this whole volume as the introduction to a longer work. As for my opinion of the sequel: I liked it enough to hope he releases a third book soon.

far from perfect but who cares?.......2006-08-09

First of all, thumb down for Meisha Merlin both for letting this novel out of print and for severely bad cover glueing: the first problem I solved thanks to amazon second-hand service, the second by leading a wild chase of all the pages blown away by the wind.
It was worth the effort.

Mr Hartman's novel is finely written (some undue repetitions here and there: the police officers keep on "flashing" their badge in front of every soul), witty, original and thrilling: more than fair for a first book.

Set in a xxi (?) century Atlanta where many different ways of life have come to an uneasy truce more due to segregationisms than to real tolerance, this novel unfurls slowly at first. Well, there is the gory episode at the graveyard but it actually involves a corpse and is viewed in a detached sort of way, so that the reader may know that something is seriously wrong but he/she is nonetheless distracted by the many minor events involving the multitude of main and side characters.

Here, right at the beginning, the author strikes the main assets and the main flaws of the entire novel: he has this humourous way of highlighting the absurdities of everyday life, this poisonous insight of human inability to overcome shortcomings and this is food for constant merriment and not so merry thoughts. At the same time we realise that his many characters, who provide a constant and interesting shift of POV are only superficially outlined and lack real depth.
The good ones are endearing and funny, the evil ones are duly scary, but I had the impression of always facing the same person: sex, gender, age, ethnicity varied but the language (and the humour) used for each of them was just the same, a mistake which dramatically diminuishes the value of this book.

Further on we understand how closely the lives of all these characters are connected while the atmosphere gradually becomes darker, grimmer, more and more oppressing. It does not really matter that halfway through the book we already guess what happened and why: the point is that the apparently peaceful Atlanta we saw at the beginning has become an alltoo believable near-hell where tension is unbearable and which unconfortably resembles our own present day cities. Cities where quiet and tolerance are probably only a fassade to mask a real turmoil of ethnical, religious, social problems ready to explode.

At the end evil is satisfyingly (and wittily - Mr Hartman never abandons his fun-filled writing to preach) punished but the restored peace is now known to us for what it is: unstable and frail; there has been no real purging of evil because people have not reached a deeper understanding of what is needed to coexist in a civilised way: heartfelt tolerance.

This novel was probably meant to be the first of a series: let us hope Mr Hartman publish and even better second episode.

Religious people might want (or perhaps not) to avoid reading this book: the author makes a point of never offending any belief, but it is really easy to understand his position about any fundamentalisms: throughout the story every extreme attitude, including some aspects of gay way of life is wittily exposed (and the main character, the lovable gay PI is his main instrument to do that) but it is also clear that only religious fanaticism is shown to be able to lead to violence and death.

Funny book, horribly edited.......2005-12-10

I enjoyed this book very much. It's full of over-the-top social satire. I'm not normally much of a mystery reader, but this isn't really mainstream mystery novel anyway. I liked it enough that I later bought (and enjoyed) the sequel.

Having said that, I should mention that I have *never* read a book as poorly edited as this one. Nearly every page contained typos, grammatical errors, and the like. These tended to distract from the story itself, which is too bad.

Amazon.com

The chignoned, post-menopausal author of Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady has given us a feast--an anthology of her fiction and non-fiction written over the past 20 years. King has us dancing with joy as she turns her keen eye and uncivil tongue on sisterhood, the sexes and sex (she's against it these days), politics, and most particularly the South that hatched her. Ms. King is simply what many strive to be and few achieve--a true American original. She's unafraid, unabashed and unleashed from worrying about what anyone else might think.

Customer Reviews:

book review.......2007-09-27

The Florence King Reader includes samples from books and articles written by Florence King. It is well written, funny and thouroughly enjoyable. it is also one of few books which have forwards/introductions that are not only worth reading, but are actually entertaining.
If you like intelligent take no prisoners writing and humor, you'll love this book.

Masterful .......2004-09-19

I love Florence King. Paradoxically, she loves us too. She's the type of misanthrope who must hate humanity precisely because she loves it too much. I couldn't put this book down the first time I read it, and I keep coming to it again and again. It's even inspired me to proselytize: I've sent several copies to family and friends. King's writing and wit are razor sharp ("If Mencken were alive, he would be her" - George Will). Her powers of observation, of seeing behind the surface of things, approach Platonic proportions. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I guarantee that you'll love this book.

Delightful collection of King.......2004-07-03

This book is incredibly good value. Not only does it contain extracts from all Miss King's hilarious books, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, Reflections ina Jaundiced eye etc, but it contains the WHOLE of her wonderful novel 'When Sisterhood was in Flower' which sends up the wilder shores of Feminism so hilariously. Also there are lots of previously uncollected articles and book reviews, most of which I hadn't read before. There's even a chapter from her bodice-ripper "The Barbarian Princess" the writing of which is so amusingly described in 'Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye'. Lack of space means you won't find all your favourite passages here (for my money, the chapter 'The Sperm and I' in He:an Irreverent look at the American Male' is one of the funniest things she's ever written), but there is enough to keep any King fan happy for days. If you haven't before encountered Miss King's waspish wit and disdain for practically everyone and everything, this is a good place to start.

Amazing. She's my new heroine, that Florence..........2002-12-11

I've never read words so bitter or true. Her misanthropy is a fearlessness in the face of all the stupidity and injustice the world offers. And she happens to be hilarious.

Burnt out with idiocy? Join the club, which extends from King's American shores round the globe...

books research.......2002-03-19

1.I AM LOOKING FOR AN CLUESIVE BOOK.
2.I NEED A NON FICTION BOOK.
3.A BOOK FOR SCENERY&PICTURES.
4.BOOK FOR WELL KNOWN PUBLICATION.
5.A BOOK WOULD TELL ABOUT THE NEAR FUTURE.

Average customer rating:

The Florence King Reader.
Florence King
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTHVBS

Average customer rating:

The Florence King Reader
Florence King
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTGE4I

Book Description

Using original research, this book explores the recurring debates in Britain and America about children and how they use and respond to the media, focusing on a key example: the controversy surrounding children and cinema in the 1930s. It explores the attempts to control children's viewing, the theories that supported these approaches and the extent to which they were successful. The author develops her challenging proposition that children are agents in their cinema viewing, not victims; showing how these angels with dirty faces colonized the cinema. She reveals their distinct cinema culture and the ways in which they subverted or circumvented official censorship including the Hays Code and the British Board of Film Censors, to regulate their own viewing of a variety of films, including Frankenstein, King Kong and The Cat and the Canary.

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SUPERB BOOK ON THE FIRST HAMMER DRACULA !!!

Dracula: A British Film Guide
Peter Hutchings
Manufacturer: I. B. Tauris
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1860647480

Book Description

Peter Hutchings' many faceted account of Hammer's 1958 gothic horror classic explores the ways in which the history of the Dracula story, as well as the Hammer company's own fortunes affected the nature of the film, and looks closely at the film itself and the distinctive performance styles of its stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Customer Reviews:

SUPERB BOOK ON THE FIRST HAMMER DRACULA !!!.......2004-07-17

This is a great book! Anyone interested in Dracula/ Hammer horror/ Christopher Lee must read this fascinating critique of the first Hammer horror Dracula film (titled simply "DRACULA" in the UK, "HORROR OF DRACULA" in the US). The serious, in-depth analysis of the film was so fascinating I read the book through in one sitting. Granted, it is a slim, 100 page volume, but it is a thoroughly interesting and very compelling read. Finally, serious film historians are taking a second look at these fine old Hammer films, and seeing that they are much better than critics originally thought. It is a volume no true Hammer fan can do without! I kid you not!!! -George Bauch.

Book Description

Journalist Michael Joseph Gross takes us deep into the world of celebrities and the people who love them.

Why are we so obsessed with fame? Even if we don't read People, we all crane our necks to see the stars. As a teenager, Michael Joseph Gross amassed a collection of about four thousand autographs by writing letters to celebrities and world leaders. The collecting fever broke when he grew up, but his fascination with fandom remained.

In Starstruck, Gross travels from Hollywood to Dollywood, from Neverland to Middle Earth; he crashes a Kid Rock concert with a sixty-six-year-old fan, sprints after Mick Jagger with a professional autograph collector, gets the inside scoop from Mary Hart on covering Hollywood for Entertainment Tonight, visits the world's largest comic book convention with the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and discovers what fans look like from the perspective of celebrities-who, paradoxically, often seem to be among the most starstruck of us all. Sympathetic, funny, and endlessly curious about stars and fans alike, Gross gives us a winning portrait of how our dreams of fame shape our everyday lives.

Customer Reviews:

Honest, funny and brave.......2006-01-06

Gross doesn't just write about pop culture and the sometimes bizarre interactions between fans and stars, but he also has the guts to talk openly about his own experiences as a fan in an intelligent, honest and self-deprecating way.

I was especially struck by his account of how Gross planned to tell Dolly Parton a sad story about his mother and one of Parton's songs, and how it took him some time to recognize that his initial angry reaction to the cancellation of the interview was because of the loss of the chance to achieve some brief, false intimacy with a star via this story. I just wish all fans and writers could be that self-aware.

A thoughtful and entertaining mix of sociology, gossip, and memoir.......2005-09-06

Expecting to read an earnest, sober treatise on the nature of celebrity and individuality, I was surprised by the depth of my emotional reaction to Starstruck. Gross introduces elements of his own life into the narrative almost from the beginning of the book -- at first tangentially, then deftly weaving his story with those of the fans and stars whom he interviews. The climactic "scene" works on so many levels, I found myself wishing for a movie studio to option the book. Even as pure gossip Starstruck is a juicy read: I'll never look at Katie Couric quite the same way again. While I would have appreciated more on the history and sociology of our culture's fascination with celebrities, the book serves as a powerful, resonant, and personal meditation on what it means to be a fan.

A fascinating, personal probe of what makes fandom.......2005-09-04

What happens when a fan becomes obsessed with obtaining autographs of famous personalities? As a teen, author Michael Gross collected thousands of autographs by writing fan letters to politicians, actresses, and more. As an adult, he probes the world of celebrity admiration with a more researched eye in Starstruck: When A Fan Gets Close To Fame, examining everything from concerts and tabloid reporting to chasing stars for autographs. And Gross should know: he's one of the crowd. A fascinating, personal probe of what makes fandom.

Challenging, Important and FUN.......2005-04-19

Michael Gross' book Starstruck is an extraordinary compendium of not only his own experiences as a fan, but serves as a unique and important analysis of the world of celebrity. At a time when we are saturated with entertainment culture, Gross manages to lift back the veil on this unique late 20th century phenomenon to explore both the personal and the political consequences of our collective obsession with fame. From poignant and hilarious stories of his own crazy desire to be near the famous - his boyhood letters to Ronald Reagan are priceless - to his adult understanding of those who have dedicated their lives to famous people - Dolly Parton fans in particular - Gross's authorial voice is both critical and sympathetic at the same time. This book is original, engaging, and utterly compelling. A great read for those of us who flip through grocery market tabloids and those of us interested in a more serious look at cultural politics. Five stars!

Book Description

Are you ready for the next Sudoku challenge? The Everything 15-Minute Sudoku Book takes these incredibly addictive number puzzles to the next level! Look inside to the get the skinny on rules, strategy, and helpful advice that is sure to make you a master solver-then set your stopwatch and start puzzling! But don't worry if you can't solve each puzzle in fifteen minutes or less; by the time you finish this book, you'll be the speedy, speedier, speediest Sudoku solver around!
Puzzle expert Charles Timmerman offers you:

200+ puzzles for swift solving fun

Rules and key strategies explained

Tips and tricks to improve your solving time
How fast can you Sudoku? Beat the clock with The Everything 15-Minute Sudoku Book!

Book Description

Welcome to the latest volume of ShaderX! This all-new collection is packed with insightful new techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, and practical tools and tricks that will help you in all areas of shader programming. All of the articles evolved from the work and experiences of industry pros, and all of the sections were edited by shader programming experts. With the rapid advances in DirectX, OpenGL, and graphics cards, vertex and pixel shaders are becoming more widely used in high-end graphics and game development. The challenges of mastering these techniques can be daunting for new programmers, but with this comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques, they'll get up to speed quickly. And for the more experienced programmers, they'll find insights and tricks that will improve their efficiency and prevent redundancy. If you are involved in shader programming, this is a must-have reference for your collection.

Customer Reviews:

Good series.......2007-05-13

Its hard for me to treat the books of this series separately (ShaderX 3, ShaderX 4, ShaderX 5). They are all very good books of GPU-Gems level or higher. In comparison with GPU Gems, they are more academic, i. e. they are rather short and more applicable to wide range of applications then GPU Gems ones (while GPU Gems series is more scientific, state of the art, considering one particular research) and the accompanying CD is much more better (lots of working examples, most with source code).
Sections (Image-Space, Shadows) are also very helpful to figure out what is useful for you.
This series is not for beginners anyway, so please, go Cg Tutorial or DX SDK Tutorial and don't put 2 or 3 marks for these books because you can't cope with them.

a good book for game developers.......2006-11-13

I've bought many other rendering books like GPU Gems series, and I think this book is more practical for game developers compared with the other books. It explains many useful algorithms in good details and covers many aspects that a serious game developer should consider. As a game engine programmer, I think this book is a very good reference for me.

Up To Date View of the State of the Art.......2005-01-20

This book is a collection of forty-seven articles around the common theme of shading images in real time. Many of these effects have been common in the movie world for many years, but in that application the shading can be done on very expensive machines and the time it takes to produce an image is not important because the resulting image is to be shown on screen rather than immediately on a display. Now, with the increasing power in the PC's in widespread use, these techniques are being brought down to the standard desktop.

In this book a wide selection of authors discuss the start of the art in shading. They are, for the most part, active professionally in the graphics display business. A number of them work for ATI, the video card manufacturer, a number work for gaming companies, or for companies producing software used in gaming.

This approach provides for a fast time to print, rather than one author taking a year to write the book. In this industry a year is a lifetime, well, at least a generation in the software.

A comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques .......2005-01-04

Shader X3: Advanced Rendering With DirectX And Open GL compiled, organized, and deftly edited by Wolfgang Engle (Senior Special FX Engineer at Wings Simulations) is packed from cover to cover with 630-pages of insightful new techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, as well as practical tools and tricks that will help in all areas of shader programming. All of the articles comprising Shader X3 evolved from the the working experiences of industry professionals, and all of the sections were expertly edited by shader programming experts. This comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques will enable even the most novice programmer to get up to speed quickly, and the more experienced programmers will find a wealth of insights and techniques to improve efficiency and avoid redundancies. Shader X3 is an essential, "user friendly", and highly recommended instructional reference for shader programmers.

Shaderx3; Advanced Rendering With Directx and Opengl. (CD-rom Included).

Average customer rating:

Shaderx3; Advanced Rendering With Directx and Opengl. (CD-rom Included).
Wolfgang Engel
Manufacturer: Charles River Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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