U.S. and Switzerland Reach Settlement Over Secret Bank Accounts
News release: "The out-of-court settlement sought in the US civil proceedings against UBS has been reached. The details of the arrangement were worked out between Switzerland and the USA over the last few days. The judge was informed during a telephone conference on Wednesday. The settlement now has to be signed by both states."

I recommend the movie Julie & Julia. Before seeing it, I bought Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/books/review/28riding.html
I have The French Chef Cookbook and make the marinated flank steak recipe that I first saw her demonstrate on television. When Julia visited restaurants, she electrified the diners, and she would pay her respects to the kitchen staff while there.

Julia was the oldest of three siblings, each so tall that their mother boasted that she had "given birth to 18 feet of children." A self-confessed ham, she became a darling of audiences and comedians almost from the moment she made her debut on WGBH in Boston in 1963 at the age of 50. On "Saturday Night Live," Dan Aykroyd played her boozily bleeding to death while shrieking, "Save the liver." Jean Stapleton even portrayed her in a musical with sung recipes called "Bon Appétit!" in 1989.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/dining/13CND-CHILD.html

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday scored a victory in its enforcement of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it a misdemeanor criminal act to kill a protected bird species regardless of whether the killing was intentional. A plea agreement filed Wednesday in federal court in Denver between ExxonMobil and the Justice Department could ruffle a few feathers in the corporate world, as “the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company” agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and community service payments for killing 85 birds, including waterfowl, hawks and owls, at its facilities in five states including Colorado and Texas, over the past five years, according to this DOJ press release. Here's the plea agreement.
The birds died after exposure to hydrocarbons in uncovered natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities. The company said it will implement an environmental compliance plan over the next three years to prevent bird deaths and has already spent $2.5 million to that effect. Among the solutions it will use are “bird balls” that cover open wastewater ponds at oil and gas facilities
Bank of America Corp. today said it is dropping a rule that forces customers into arbitration if they have a dispute about their credit-card or certain other consumer-related accounts. The WSJ's Robin Sidel says in her story the move, which comes amid a shakeout in the use of mandatory arbitration by big U.S. banks, means consumers will now be permitted to file lawsuits against Bank of America to resolve such disputes. Last month, two major organizations that preside over mandatory arbitrations said that they were pulling back from the business of using the process for collection matters.
WSJ Law Blog August 13, 2009

Short words
ort (ort) noun
A scrap of food left after a meal.
of Germanic origin, ultimately from the Indo-European roots ud- (out) and ed- (to eat)
fug (fug) noun
stale, humid, and stuffy atmosphere, as in a crowded, poorly ventilated room
of uncertain origin, perhaps from fogo (stench)
bap (bap) noun
a soft, round bread roll
of unknown origin
cwm (koom) noun
a steep bowl-shaped mountain basin, carved by glaciers, also known as cirque.
From Welsh cwm (valley) The letter w works as a vowel in the Welsh language and it has given another such word (without a standard vowel aeiou, or y) to English: crwth (krooth) meaning crowd. A.Word.A.Day

Wonders/oddities/trivia from Oddball Ohio:
Down by the Old Mill Stream written about Blanchard River
Manufactures all Airstream trailer and motor homes on the market today
Mile-thick glacier scraped across limestone and left 400-foot long 10 to 15 foot-deep gouges on Kelleys Island
By law, you cannot own a map in Lima that does not have Lima on it
Allen County Museum displays the jail cell and sheriff’s office from a John Dillinger breakout, and a Noah’s Ark mechanical theater with a performance of the flood from the book of Genesis
A 5,200-pound granite orb that revolves, but no one understands how
Port Clinton drops a 20-foot long fiberglass fish on New Year’s Eve
Tony Packo’s displays over 1000 replicas of buns, autographed by famous people, including five from U.S. presidents
National Inventors Hall of Fame is located in Akron
Only Main Street in America with two dead ends in Alliance
Chocolate Hall of Fame is located in North Canton
Toy and Hobby Museum in Orrville has over 10,000 pencils and more than 4,500 toy trucks
House in Cleveland used for exterior shots in the film A Christmas Story
Waldo restaurant serves a half-ton of bologna each week in their fried bologna sandwiches

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