Alekona blog

New Online Bicycle Rental Start-Up Encourages Consumers to Take a "Greener" Approach to Traveling

s totally free for visitors just browsing the website.

It's no doubt that Rent2Bike.com is a green company. As cost of living continues to rise and consumers feel the gas price pinch people are search for more cost effective means of transportation. It is predicted that the number of cyclists worldwide will increase as much as 37% in the next decade! This is good news for the cycling industry.

The original idea for the business was inspired Founder, Clinton Skakun, noticed very few online directories dedicated wholly to bike rentals. "I noticed a countless number of bicycle rentals all around the world, and very few directories promoting them. This is where a light bulb went off," says Clinton Skakun, Founder of Rent2Bike.com and goes on to add, "bicycles are environmentally friendly, don't fill the air with chemicals and prove to come with a number of health benefits, it's a win-win!"

Rent2Bike.com targets primarily travelers. However Clinton says that they're constantly refining the persona they reach out to and are looking for opportunities to reach new audiences.

About the Rent2Bike:

Rent2Bike is an online service dedicated to both bike rentals and cyclists searching for bike rentals. Our mission is provide bike rental shops with targeted, quality leads, matching the right consumers with the right rental services. Rent2Bike.com was founded in 2011 by Clinton Skakun, a web developer and entrepreneur. For more information on the company or to contact us please visitor our Customer Support Center Toll-Free at 1 866 624 9991

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Clinton SkakunRent2Bike1 (403) 923-6657Email Information

First Person: The Effect of Japan's Disaster on My Stock Yields

economy was being seen in the markets as oil and natural gas prices changed almost immediately.

Most of us don't trade in the market on a singular basis but in a continuous basis. Anyone who owns a mutual fund, stock or retirement account is seeing something in the market that is highly unusual right now. The market has been trending sideways since March fourth. What this means is that instead of trending up or down, it is trending in an oscillating fashion where the mean of the oscillation is zero.

Please note what this truly means to investors. Typically, when trends disappear, it means large losses for professional traders. Professional traders trade with the market. Trading with the predominant trends means money. Buy when it goes up, and sell when it comes down. This simple method extends to all corners of trading and encompasses stocks, funds, bonds and currency. Sideways trending makes technical oscillating indicators go crazy. It turns all of our market experience upside down. It makes all of the mathematical tools worthless.

The initial event in the Japan allowed news traders to profit handsomely. I made 150 points easy that day. These points translated into $750 dollars. Had I invested more heavily, I could have easily produced thousands of dollars using news trading techniques. These losses from traders usually occur the second day when traders foolishly go against the trend for the recovery period.

Virtually anyone could have profited. Then things went drastically wrong. The recovery on the curve didn't happen. There wasn't confidence in the market that the Japanese could come back. Investors were still getting bad news and still are today. The Japanese demand for oil dropped immediately. Bidding and arguing started immediately on liquid natural gas (LNG) because the prevailing idea is that the Japanese will use more of it before returning to petroleum.

Seasoned traders often try to make money on the initial drop after a disaster and the recovery (trading against the trend) to maximize profit. The major problem is that trading against any powerful trend is unpredictable. There are no technical indicators that can help you with this. Trading on news of a disaster is 100 percent human psychology. The end result of the Japanese disaster is that the market is in a unique state of sideways trending on many major stocks. People and the market are confused right now. For most of us, we don't know what the nuclear reactors could do in Japan. Right now it sounds like there is going to be a meltdown.

My average earnings have shutdown since this major sideways trends. I have stopped trading until I can see good trendlines again. This disaster has had a very unfortunate affect on my business. Hopefully this situation will end soon.

Transocean rewards executives despite Gulf oil spill

Transocean Ltd. has given its executives pay raises, bonuses and stock options after the company's "best year" for safety, despite a deadly oil platform explosion and massive leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate," Transocean said in a filing Friday to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

"As measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our company's history, which is a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident-free environment, all the time, everywhere."

Nine of the 11 people killed in the April 20, 2010, explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon platform were Transocean employees. Seventeen other people were wounded.

After the explosion, more than 205 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling US shorelines, scaring off tourists and closing rich shrimp and fishing grounds.

Transocean, the world's largest offshore oil and gas drilling contractor, filed its annual report to the SEC and invited shareholders to its annual general meeting May 13 in Switzerland, where the company is based.

"Although in 2010 we made significant progress in achieving our strategic and operational objectives for the year, these developments were overshadowed by the April 20, 2010 fire and explosion," the company said.

The firm decided to reward its executives, according to a compensation policy "based on their ability to achieve annual operational objectives that further our long-term business objectives and to create sustainable long-term shareholder value in a cost-effective manner."

Top executives received a base salary increase averaging 3.8 percent, excluding the chief executive officer, "whose base salary reflected his promotion into the CEO role."

They received performance bonuses of 44.8 percent of the maximum stipulated in their contract.

In addition, they were given stock options "ranging from $1.2 million to $5.4 million designed to satisfy competitive market concerns and reward individual performance during fiscal 2010," the company's report stated.

Transocean claims that BP is solely responsible for the explosion and oil spill, but BP sees the responsibilities as shared.

Heartland Institute to Offer “Big Ideas” for Health Care Reform on Thursday, April 7 in Washington, DC

s leading experts on health care reform for a “Big Ideas” conference addressing one of the top public policy issues of our day.“Our Big Ideas conference will offer a positive, freedom-oriented agenda to empower individuals, improve lives, and ensure that health care is more accessible for all Americans,” said Eli Lehrer, vice president of DC operations for the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.The conference is free and open to the public and media, but advance reservations are required. Contact Deborah Bailin at dbailin@heartland.org or at 202/525-5726.

(Vocus/PRWEB) March 31, 2011

On Thursday, April 7,will bring to Capitol Hill several of the nation’s leading experts on health care reform for a “Big Ideas” conference addressing one of the top public policy issues of our day.

“Our Big Ideas conference will offer a positive, freedom-oriented agenda to empower individuals, improve lives, and ensure that health care is more accessible for all Americans,” said Eli Lehrer, vice president of DC operations for the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.

The conference is free and open to the public and media, but advance reservations are required. Contact Deborah Bailin at dbailin(at)heartland(dot)org or at 202/525-5726.

When: Thursday, April 7, 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Where: 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC

Who: Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman, House Energy and Commerce Committee (keynote speaker)

Other participants include:

Michael Cannon, Cato InstituteBlair Childs, Premier Healthcare AlliancePeter Ferrara, The Heartland InstituteChristie Herrera, American Legislative Exchange CouncilAndrew Langer, Institute for LibertyBartley Madden, The Heartland InstituteNina Owcharenko, The Heritage FoundationJim Pinkerton, New America FoundationKerri Tolozcko, Let Freedom RingGrace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute

The Heartland Institute is a 27-year-old national nonprofit organization based in Chicago. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site ator call 312/377-4000.

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Jim LakelyHeartland Institute312-377-4000Email Information

Mexico gunmen kill U.S. customs agent, wound another

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a U.S. customs agent and wounded another on Tuesday as they drove along Mexico's main north-south highway to Monterrey on official business.

U.S. authorities condemned the attack, which came just over two weeks after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Mexico's powerful drug cartels not to take their violent tactics across the border.

U.S. officials did not say why the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were going to Monterrey.

"Any act of violence against our ICE personnel ... is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said in a statement.

The shooting occurred in mid-afternoon south of the city of San Luis Potosi, which is roughly half way between Mexico City and Monterrey, the country's business capital where drug-related violence has soared in recent months.

Television footage showed a blue sports utility vehicle with several large bullet holes lying in the median of the highway, which was guarded by heavily armed Mexican federal police.

More than 15,000 deaths were blamed on drug violence in Mexico last year but, despite growing domestic criticism of President Felipe Calderon's army-led strategy, the government has vowed to press on with its campaign to crush the cartels.

The violence has alarmed Washington, which worries the fighting could spill over the border. It has also prompted some companies to reconsider plans to invest in Mexico.

The United States has provided funds and training to help Mexico in its fight with the cartels and intelligence from U.S. law enforcement sources is credited with helping Mexico kill and capture several cartel leaders in recent years.

FIRST ICE DEATHS

Attacks on Mexican police by drug gangs are common but U.S. government employees are rarely targeted despite Washington's strong support of Calderon.

The city of San Luis Potosi, the state capital and home to a federal police academy, has not experienced many drug-related killings, but gangs have been moving in to use it as a base for trafficking operations to the north.

Guadalajara, and other Mexican cities once far from the front lines of the drug war, have seen a recent spike in killings.

"What we would hope is that there would be an incredibly

strong response from the U.S. government ... Otherwise we could have a situation where its open season on U.S. federal agents at the border," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

The U.S. agents were the first shot in the line of duty in Mexico, according to ICE.

Undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and murdered while on assignment in Mexico in 1985.

More recently, two U.S. citizens and a Mexican linked to staff at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez were killed in March last year, prompting the State Department to tighten security at its diplomatic missions in northern Mexico.

(Additional reporting by Krista Hughes, Adriana Barrera and Armando Tovar in Mexico City; Robin Emmott in Monterrey; Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Christopher Wilson)