Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal’s “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age” (1964) unfurls as a single, sometimes maddening sentence that ends after 117 pages without a period. Hrabal wasn’t the first to attempt the Very Long Sentence. The Polish novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski went even longer in “The Gates of Paradise” (1960), weaving several voices into a lurid and majestic 158-page run-on. (The novel actually consists of two sentences, the final one a mere five words long.) The most famous mega-sentence in literature comes at the end of the book, not the beginning. Molly Bloom’s monologue from “Ulysses” (1922) —36 pages in the thinly margined, micro-fonted 1986 single-volume corrected text (and actually two long sentences, thanks to an often-overlooked period 17 pages in) — sets an impossibly high standard for the art of the run-on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/books/review/Park-t.html?_r=1

The Looming Cable Monopoly, by Susan P. Crawford, 12/16/2010, vol. 29 Yale Law & Policy Review On March 9, 2010, the city of Alexandria, Virginia received a letter from Verizon. The letter, signed by Verizon’s Virginia president, Robert Woltz, said that Verizon would not be installing FiOS services in Alexandria. The mayor of Alexandria, William Euille, was disheartened: The city council had already awarded Verizon a contract to install fiber service and had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars negotiating a cable franchise agreement with the company. Verizon, for its part, declared that it was suspending FiOS franchise expansion around the country. Just one week later, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rolled out its National Broadband Plan. The Plan, which was based on the assumption that “broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life,” and was said by the FCC to be “lay[ing] out a bold roadmap to America’s future,” made a host of detailed recommendations. These recommendations focused largely on making more spectrum available for wireless broadband use, and reforming the nation’s Universal Service Fund. The Plan did not discuss net neutrality or competition policy. http://yalelawandpolicy.org/29/the-looming-cable-monopoly

The abundance of four common species of bumblebee in the US has dropped by 96% in just the past few decades, according to the most comprehensive national census of the insects. Scientists said the alarming decline, which could have devastating implications for the pollination of both wild and farmed plants, was likely to be a result of disease and low genetic diversity in bee populations. Bumblebees are important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops around the world including tomatoes and berries thanks to their large body size, long tongues, and high-frequency buzzing, which helps release pollen from flowers. Bees in general pollinate some 90% of the world's commercial plants, including most fruits, vegetables and nuts. Coffee, soya beans and cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to increase yields. It is the start of a food chain that also sustains wild birds and animals. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/03/bumblebees-study-us-decline

Most pronouns involve a complete change of the word to create a possessive form. One example of this is the possessive form of “You”, which is changed to “Your”. Likewise beginning for the basic pronoun “it” the possessive form is created by adding only an “s” to make “its”. Contractions are the combining of multiple words into one using an apostrophe (‘). This is what occurs in the word “it’s”. Two separate words are combined. The words “it” and “is” are combined with an apostrophe to create the shortened word, or contraction, “it’s”. http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-its-and-its/ Before you send something with "it's" ask yourself if it means "it is"--if not, remove the apostrophe.

Centralized, streamlined means of searching multiple National Archives resources at once The Online Public Access prototype is our first step to providing a single search to our records from several of our current systems, including the Archival Research Catalog (ARC), Access to Archival Databases (AAD), Archives.gov, and the Electronic Records Archive (ERA). As part of the National Archives' flagship initiative in our Open Government Plan, our new search is intended to make the permanent records of the federal government easier to find online. We would like to hear your comments about Online Public Access. Contact us at search@nara.gov. http://www.archives.gov/research/search/

The pattern of contraction for verbs and the negative adverb not is very regular in most instances. You first right the contraction, then the n of not, then an apostrophe, followed by the t of not. This is true for all of the following examples: isn’t, aren’t, wasn’t, weren’t, hasn’t, haven’t, hadn’t, can’t, couldn’t, don’t, doesn’t, didn’t, mayn’t, mightn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, mustn’t, oughtn’t, daren’t, and needn’t. There are only two of the most frequently used verb + negative adverb examples that don’t work like this: shan’t and won’t. http://www.educationbug.org/a/won-t-and-will-not.html

An example of a contraction is "jack-o'-lantern"--the apostrophe takes the place of the missing "f" in "of." See charts of contractions: be, will would, have and had; words negating a verb; double contractions and "odd ones" such as o'clock. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/grammar/contractions/

NAPS, or North American Precis Syndicate, distributes feature releases for more than 750 companies, including Nokia, IBM, GM, and SINGER; nonprofit associations, such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Boys Town USA; and government agencies such as the Department of Transportation, and the Centers for Disease Control. Our publication, Featurettes/News To Use, is filled with consumer news items that can be easily incorporated into special sections or features and lifestyles pages. The CDC and the AMA, for example, contribute timely health stories on food, safety for children, or cutting edge medical technology and techniques; experts write about home maintenance and decor; home economists at General Foods send recipes; and financial gurus at such companies as Primerica (a member of citigroup) offer advice on investing and money management. The material is timely, ACCURATE, and double-and-triple-checked by our editors. More than 7,000 dailies, weeklies, shoppers, monthlies, and dotcoms now use Featurettes as a convenient and easily accessible way to fill up holes in the copy, or to pick-and-choose solid background text and art. http://www.napsnet.com/index.html

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) (or Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act) was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the sale to civilians of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons." There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" in the U.S. prior to the law's enactment. The 10-year ban was passed by Congress on Sept. 13, 1994, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired Sept. 13, 2004, as part of the law's sunset provision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

Gun laws in the United States vary from state to state and are independent of, though sometimes broader or more limited in scope than, existing federal firearms laws. Some U.S. states have also created assault weapon bans that are independent of, though often similar to, the expired federal assault weapons ban. The state level bans vary significantly in their form, content, and level of restriction. See laws by each state at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_(Firearm)_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)

In the wake of the deadly shooting rampage that targeted Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., plan to introduce legislation to limit high-capacity magazine clips that allow shooters to fire a large number of rounds without reloading. McCarthy is one of the most outspoken advocates for gun control in Congress, having run for office after her husband was killed and her son seriously injured in a 1993 Long Island shooting. The man who killed her husband -- like the gunman in the attack on Giffords -- used a high-capacity clip. There had been a moratorium on these clips under the federal assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004. “We're looking at how we’re going to tweak this to make sure we can try and get this banned again,” she told National Journal, “so what happened in Arizona ... the amount of bullets he was able to get off in seconds, can’t happen again.” Lautenberg said he is working with McCarthy's office and will introduce legislation to prohibit the manufacture and sale of high-capacity clips in the Senate when it returns in two weeks. The suspect in the Arizona shootings, Jared Loughner, reportedly used a high-capacity, 33-round magazine clip in his Glock 19 pistol, allowing him to fire up to 33 bullets without manually reloading. "Given that bystanders apprehended him as he attempted to change clips, if Loughner did not have access to the high-capacity magazine that he used, it may have prevented some of the other deaths and injuries that occurred," Lautenberg said in a statement. "The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly. These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market," Lautenberg added. http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/mccarthy-lautenberg-planning-to-introduce-gun-control-legislation-20110110

Wholesale Market Data
Released: December 30, 2010 Next Release: January 13, 2011 Wholesale electric power price and volume information is now available. Daily volumes, high and low prices, and weighted average prices are posted for six major electricity trading hubs around the country from 2001 forward.
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/wholesale/wholesale.html

December Petroleum Supply Monthly with data for October 2010
Released: December 30, 2010 next release: January 28, 2011 Supply and disposition of crude oil and petroleum products on a national and regional level. The data series describe production, imports and exports, movements and inventories. http://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/psm.html