Seghesio Family Vineyards Launches Dinner Series at Historic Vineyard Sites

PRLog (Press Release) - May 15, 2012 -
Seghesio Family Vineyards offers guests the opportunity to dine and savor its wines at their source — among the vines of the historic properties where they’re grown — as part of its new Chef’s Summer Dinner Series. These dinners, hosted by members of the Seghesio family, continue the winery’s long tradition of sharing wine and food among friends. Guests will be shuttled from the winery to these treasured sites to enjoy special wines from the Seghesio library and seasonal menus prepared by Executive Chef Peter Janiak, formerly of San Francisco’s Boulevard and Presidio Social Club.

Chef’s Summer Dinner Series

Passalacqua Ranch/San Lorenzo, Alexander Valley – Saturday, June 9th
Hosted by Winegrower Pete Seghesio and Uncle Fred Passalacqua
The inaugural dinner series will kick off at the oldest site of the Seghesio farms. Guests will enjoy Chef Peter’s menu with Seghesio’s first vintage of Muscat Canelli and a flight of Old Vine Zinfandels while surrounded by beautiful century-old, head-pruned vines.

Westphall Ranch, Rockpile AVA – Saturday, July 14th
Hosted by Winegrower Pete Seghesio
The second dinner will take place in one of California’s newest and most exciting appellations, Rockpile, situated on a narrow ridgetop with breathtaking views of Lake Sonoma. The winery’s limited-production Arneis and a flight of Rockpile Zinfandels will complement Chef Peter’s menu.
Rattlesnake Hill at Home Ranch, Alexander Valley – Saturday, August 11th
Hosted by Winemaker Ted Seghesio
The series finale will be at Home Ranch, the birthplace of Seghesio Family Vineyards and the home of America’s oldest Sangiovese vines. Chef Peter’s menu, served atop Rattlesnake Hill overlooking Alexander Valley, will be paired with Seghesio’s first release of Vermentino, along with the Home Ranch Zinfandel, Aglianico and a flight of
Venom Sangiovese.

The Chef’s Summer Dinner Series will be limited to 50 guests per event. Tickets are $200 per person and $175 for Centennial Club members (two per membership). A limited number of tickets will be available to Visa Signature cardholders at $175 per ticket. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.seghesio.com/NewsandEvents/Events/ChefsDinnerSeries or call (707) 433-3579, ext. 109.

Other culinary offerings:
Seghesio Family Vineyards offers several other wine and food experiences throughout the year, including its popular weekend Family Tables and annual Zinfandel & BBQ Festival:

New season of Family Tables
Now in their seventh year, Seghesio’s Family Tables are considered by many a “must do” in Sonoma wine country. These private tastings allow guests to enjoy wine the way it was intended, around a table with food and friends. Each Family Tables experience begins with a tour of the historic winery before moving to private tasting rooms overlooking the century-old cellar. A seasonal menu of recipes from the Seghesio family and Executive Chef Peter Janiak is paired with a special selection of library wines.

Family Tables are offered Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. from Presidents Weekend in February through Thanksgiving. The cost is $50 per person and $35 for Centennial Club members (two per membership). For more information or reservations, please visit www.seghesio.com/wineandfoodpairing or call (707) 433-3579.

Ninth Annual Zin & BBQ Festival – Saturday, July 28th  
Pete Seghesio and the Blaze Pit Crew will put their famous ribs up against the barbecue of two of the best in the business — reigning Memphis in May champion Chris Lilly and Dr. BBQ. Guests will choose the champion in this annual showdown, showcasing some of America’s best barbecue and a stellar lineup of Seghesio Zinfandels. Seghesio’s barbecue tradition began 10 years ago, when Pete Seghesio met Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson’s at Memphis in May, the world’s largest barbecue competition. Inspired by what he saw, Pete headed out to Kansas City to bring back Blaze, a custom-built Jedmaster smoker. Upon his return to the winery, Pete invited Chris and Dr. BBQ to come teach him the tricks of the trade, and thus the Zin & BBQ Festival was born.

Chris Lilly has won 11 World Barbecue Championships and is recognized as one of the top pitmasters in his field. Dr. BBQ has won numerous barbecue awards and published six cookbooks, and he frequently appears as an expert judge at major barbecue events across the nation.

Seghesio’s Zinfandel & BBQ Festival will be held Saturday, July 28th from noon to 4 p.m. at the winery in Healdsburg, CA. Tickets are $75 per person and $60 for Centennial Club members (two per membership). For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.seghesio.com/NewsandEvents or call (707) 433-3579, ext. 109.

About Seghesio Family Vineyards
Founded in 1895, when Edoardo Seghesio planted his first Zinfandel vineyard in Sonoma County, Seghesio Family Vineyards produces critically acclaimed wines that honor the history of Sonoma and the Seghesio family. Collected over a century, Seghesio’s 300 acres in preeminent growing regions — the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River valleys — represent some of the oldest vineyards and proprietary clones. True to Edoardo’s vision, Seghesio produces Zinfandel and Italian varietals. The winery offers daily tastings and weekend wine pairings with Seghesio family recipes. For more information, visit www.seghesio.com.

For media inquiries, images and interviews please contact Skye Morgan of Charles Communications Associates at 415-701-9463 or press@charlescomm.com.

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Eminent Photo Launches Free Photo Gallery

PRLog (Press Release) - Mar 22, 2012 -
Eminent Photo is a site offering photography prints mainly within landscape, wildlife, and other nature-related categories. The site also hosts a photo blog that offers tips and tricks for beginners and aspiring photographers. On 22 March 2012, Eminent Photo launches its free photo gallery, which also focuses on nature and wildlife images.

You can view the free gallery at this URL: http://www.eminentphoto.com/free-images/

"This is not one of those royalty-free photo sites where you have to end up paying money," says Alan Frost, the owner of the site. "These photographs are completely free and ready to download."

The images are available in a standard 1200x1800 resolution, with file sizes of about 1 MB. Current categories include mammals, birds, insects, landscapes, flora and so on. The gallery will initially feature a few hundred free photos, but this number will increase rapidly over the coming months. For the immediate future, the free photo gallery will only contain nature-related images, but will likely be extended to include other kinds of photos at a later date.

The only restriction that Eminent Photo places upon the use of the photographs downloaded from the free gallery, is that they may not be redistributed.

"Nothing is required from the user, not even registration," says Alan Frost. "However, crediting or linking back to our images would be very much appreciated as it would allow us to improve our free gallery more quickly."

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Travellers Autobarn Launches Family Friendly Hi5 Campervan In Australia

PRLog (Press Release) - Mar 18, 2012 - With an increasing demand for larger vehicles, Travellers Autobarn has been looking for a solution to accommodate large groups or families who would like to travel together in a single campervan.  The Hi5 Camper not only allows groups of up to 4 or 5 people to drive in one vehicle, it is also the ideal vehicle for families with children. It will be the first campervan in the fleet that will legally allow customers to take their infants on board from the age of 6 months onwards.

Peter Burke, owner of Travellers Autobarn, stated "The Hi5 Camper was the logical step for us. The demand for campervans from large groups and families has been very high over the last few years and it seems to be one of the few classes where supply doesn't meet the demand."

The Hi5 Campers will be the first Travellers Autobarn campervans with automatic transmission, which will be a bonus for those clients unfamiliar with manual gears. The Hi5 Camper is also much larger compared to the 3 berth campervan models, with an internal height of over two meters, allowing taller clientele to stand up comfortably.

The new campervans will also be affordable for families and groups on a budget. For 90% of the year they will be just 20% more than the 3 berth models; and with 4 or 5 travellers, this translates to significant savings in terms of the overall cost of campervan hire.

Travellers Autobarn plan an initial launch of 25 Hi5 Campers, with plans to launch a further 20 over the next twelve months.

Travellers Autobarn has been a 'one stop shop' for backpacker and budget travellers in the Australian campervan rental market since 1993. Travellers Autobarn offers a range of campervans, cars and stationwagons for hire and sale, with their famous buyback guarantee, at six locations around Australia; Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin and Perth.

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Fed launches stimulus initiative

22 September 2011 Last updated at 06:23 GMT Shares on Wall Street fell sharply after the announcement US and Asian shares have fallen after the Federal Reserve launched a scheme - dubbed Operation Twist - to help stimulate the flagging US economy.

The Fed will sell about $400bn (£260bn) worth of bonds maturing within three years and buy longer-term debt.

This puts no new money into the economy, but aims to keep long-term interest rates low, thereby boosting mortgage lending and business loans.

But a gloomy Fed warning on the economy sent the Dow Jones index down 2.5%.

In late trading in Japan, the Nikkei index was also down more than 2%.

"Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labor market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated," the Fed said in a statement.

"There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets."

Continue reading the main story

Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are not happy to be the only game in town. Far from it. ”

End Quote Stephanie Flanders Economics editor, BBC News Scepticism Operation Twist involves the Fed buying long-term bonds, which pushes their price up, lowering the interest rate, or yield.

Analysts said the Operation Twist move was larger than had been expected, and comes after leading Republicans this week urged the Fed not to intervene in the economy more than it has done already.

The Fed has already pumped tens of billions of dollars into the US economy via two rounds of quantitative easing (QE), under which it creates money to buy assets to try and boost demand.

Some observers were expecting a third round of QE, and many expressed scepticism about how successful the new policy might be.

"Frankly, I don't see it having any meaningful impact on the economy," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist with the Economic Outlook Group.

Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics suggested the Fed was using the wrong policy instrument.

"The cost of borrowing simply isn't the problem," he said.

"Businesses don't have the confidence to invest and half of all mortgage borrowers don't have the home equity needed to refinance at lower rates."

First used in the 1960s, Operation Twist was named after the dance craze of the time.

The move by the Fed comes amid deepening gloom about the global economy, with the International Monetary Fund slashing growth estimates for the US, Europe and Japan earlier this week.

On Wednesday, the Bank of England said members of its Monetary Policy Committee had considered a new round of QE to pump money into the economy.

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U.S. envoy visits Syria town, U.N. launches inquiry (Reuters)

AMMAN, Aug 23 Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador made a surprise trip to a southern Syrian town on Tuesday, his second visit to an area rocked by protests against President Bashar al-Assad and a move likely to antagonize the authorities in Damascus.

As a U.N. humanitarian team toured the country, security forces raided the countryside near the city of Hama, killing at least five people in assaults to subdue pro-democracy demonstrations, local activists said.

Houses were stormed in several villages and towns in the al-Ghab Plain, farmland east of the Mediterranean coast that contains the Roman city of Apamea, they said.

"Shabbiha (pro-Assad militiamen) accompanied the military. We have one name of the five martyrs, Omar Mohammed Saeed al-Khateeb," said an activist in Hama, which has been under military siege since it was stormed at the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on August 1.

The United Nations says 2,200 people have been killed in Syria and the U.N.'s human rights council launched an investigation on Tuesday into the violence, including possible crimes against humanity, despite objections from Russia, China and Cuba.

The bloodshed was wrought by Assad's crackdown on a 5-month-old popular uprising that prompted the United States and European Union to widen sanctions against Syria last week and to call on the Syrian president to step aside.

At the United Nations, Western nations circulated a draft resolution calling for sanctions against Assad, influential members of his family and key associates but Russian opposition loomed.

The resolution -- drafted by Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United States and obtained by Reuters -- calls for freezing financial assets of Assad, along with 22 other Syrians. It also calls for a ban on weapons sales to Syria.

But Vitaly Churin, Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters it was not time for sanctions on Damascus.

Russia, which has veto power over U.N. resolutions, is a major arms supplier to Syria. China, South Africa, Brazil and India also have indicated they would have trouble supporting punitive measures against Damascus.

In Jassem, a town about 30 km (19 miles) east of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, residents said U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford toured an area where activists say Syrian forces killed at least 12 people in May in response to major unrest.

Ford angered Damascus seven weeks ago when he went to Hama in a gesture of solidarity with the city where huge anti-Assad protests occurred in June and July. At the start of August, Assad sent troops into Hama to crush demonstrations.

Damascus accused Ford of inciting unrest -- a charge Washington denied -- and banned Western diplomats from leaving Damascus and its outskirts.

"He came by car this morning, although Jassem is swarming with secret police," a resident told Reuters. "He got out and spent a good time walking round. He was careful not to be seen talking with people, apparently not to cause them harm."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed Ford spent about four hours in Jassem. She said he had informed Syrian authorities only after the trip was complete.

"In this case he informed the Syrian Foreign Ministry after the visit and he made clear to them that the reason that he didn't inform them before the visit was because they haven't been approving any visits by anybody, anywhere," she said.

Ford, the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since Washington withdrew its envoy in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, has been outspoken in criticizing authorities for firing at protesters.

Nuland said Ford spoke with a number of Jassem residents, including some associated with the opposition, and expressed support.

"His message back to them was that we stand with them and that we admire the fact that their action has been completely peaceful," she said, adding that Syria's official reaction to the trip had so far been "relatively muted."

International condemnation of Syria's harsh repression of street unrest escalated this month after Assad sent the army into several cities including Hama, Deir al-Zor and Latakia.

Arab states broke months of silence to call for an end to the violence and neighboring Turkey, which for years had close relations with Damascus, has also told Assad to rein in his security forces.

U.N. INQUIRY

The U.N. Human Rights Council launched an international commission of inquiry into Assad's crackdown, condemning what it called "continued grave and systematic human rights violations by Syrian authorities such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the killing and persecution of protesters and human rights defenders."

The 47-member forum easily adopted a resolution presented by the European Union, the United States and Arab countries including Saudi Arabia.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement: "Urgent and proper action is paramount to investigate these violations, identify those responsible and ensure that perpetrators of violations are held accountable."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the creation of the investigative commission and urged Assad to step aside.

Separately on Tuesday, the EU agreed to extend sanctions against Syria, adding 15 people and five institutions to the list of those already targeted by travel bans and asset freezes.

Syria's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, rejected the council resolution as unbalanced.

"This once again confirms that there is a determination to politically condemn Syria and pass over any proposal for opening and reform that exists in this country," he said in an appeal before the vote for members to reject the resolution.

The delegations of Russia, China and Cuba all took the floor to denounce what they called interference in Syria's internal affairs and said they would vote against the text. Ecuador also voted against the resolution.

The vote came after Syrian forces shot dead three people in the city of Homs on Monday, the same day that a U.N. humanitarian team visited the city, according to activists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces and loyalist gunmen known as "shabbiha" opened fire after hundreds of people took to the streets.

The official Syrian news agency SANA said gunmen had opened fire at police in front of the government building in Homs as the U.N. team was passing by, killing one policeman.

Assad's government has blamed armed groups for the violence and has said more than 500 soldiers and police have been killed since the unrest erupted in March.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Paul Simao and Bill Trott)

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China launches first aircraft carrier on maiden sea trial (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China launched its first aircraft carrier for a maiden run on Wednesday, a step likely to boost patriotic pride at home and jitters abroad about Beijing's naval ambitions.

The long-awaited debut of the vessel, a refitted former Soviet craft, marked a step forward in China's long-term plan to build a carrier force that can project power into the Asian region, where seas are spanned by busy shipping lanes and thorny territorial disputes.

"Its symbolic significance outweighs its practical significance," said Ni Lexiong, an expert on Chinese maritime policy at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

"We're already a maritime power, and so we need an appropriate force, whether that's aircraft carriers or battleships, just like the United States or the British empire did," he said in a telephone interview.

The carrier "left its shipyard in Dalian Port in northeast Liaoning province on Wednesday morning to start its first sea trial," said the official Xinhua news agency, describing the trip as a tentative test run for the unfinished ship.

The aircraft carrier, which is about 300 meters (984 feet) long, plowed through fog and sounded its horn three times as it left the dock, Xinhua said on its military news microblog.

Xinhua said that "building a strong navy that is commensurate with China's rising status is a necessary step and an inevitable choice for the country to safeguard its increasingly globalised national interests."

Chinese citizens said the carrier launch showed their country deserved more respect from the rest of the world, despite problems it faces at home.

A high-speed train crash last month left many Chinese people bemoaning what they called officials' reckless hunger for showcase technological breakthroughs.

"An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers," Pan Chunli, a 29-year-old IT technician in Beijing told Reuters.

"China has grown dramatically. The whole world should take a fresh look at China, viewing it as a rising power that it has the ability to defend its rights and territory."

Retired Chinese navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo told state-run television that his country intended to build an air carrier group, but the task would be long and difficult.

"As for forming a carrier group, I think that will take at least ten years," he told a Chinese television broadcast on the carrier launch.

PRESTIGE AND POWER

Last month, China was refitting the old, unfinished Soviet vessel bought from Ukraine's government, and sources told Reuters it was also building two of its own carriers.

"China has had a longstanding fascination with the national prestige attached to aircraft carriers, and this first sea trial may be seen as a crucial step toward the goal of achieving great naval power status," said Chengxin Pan, an expert on China at Deakin University in Australia

"But for many neighbors, it may symbolize something different and more unsettling. It is inevitable that neighboring countries will react with some alarm, especially given recent disputes in the South China Sea as well as the maritime incident between China and Japan last year," he said.

If Beijing is serious about having a viable carrier strike group, however, it will need three carriers, Ashley Townshend at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney told Reuters in an interview before the debut of the vessel.

China would also have to develop support ships and aircraft for any carrier group, Townshend said, noting it would take some 10 years to develop a viable carrier strike group.

In China's neighborhood, India and Thailand already have aircraft carriers, and Australia has ordered two multi-purpose carriers. The United States operates 11 carriers.

"The Philippines should not be concerned with this development. An aircraft carrier is an offensive tool but I don't think China has the intention to use it to bully its neighbors," the former chief of the Philippines' navy, retired Admiral Ferdinand Golez, told Reuters.

Before the launch, a Pentagon spokesman played down the likelihood of any immediate leaps from China's carrier program.

LONG-STANDING DISPUTES

But that is just one part of China's naval modernization drive, which has forged ahead while other powers tighten their military budgets to cope with debt woes.

China has been building new submarines, surface ships and anti-ship ballistic missiles as part of its naval modernization.

The country's growing reach at sea is triggering regional jitters that have fed into long-standing territorial disputes, and could speed up military expansion across Asia.

In the past year, China has had run-ins at sea with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The incidents -- boat crashes and charges of territorial incursions -- have been minor, but the diplomatic reaction often heated.

"Overall, the perception of a rapidly rising and potentially threatening China is likely to be reinforced and Beijing will face enormous challenges in dispelling such a perception," said Pan, the lecturer at Deakin University.

Last week, Japan warned that China's naval forces were likely to increase activities around its waters.

"This is showing that China is in the process of acquiring capability to control South China Sea as well as East China Sea," said Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor at Japan's Tokai University about the carrier trial.

China's defense budget has shot up nearly 70 percent over five years, while Japan, struggling with public debt, has cut military outlays by 3 percent over the same period, a Japanese government report said.

"A single, solitary aircraft carrier floating on the sea, without the accompanying forces, doesn't constitute a battle force," said Ni, the Shanghai professor.

"It would be a sitting duck if you tried to send it out."

(Additional reporting by Sabrina Mao and Sally Huang in Beijing; Manny Mogato in Manila; Jeremy Laurence in Seoul; Michael Perry in Sydney; and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by John Chalmers)

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Cosmo Launches iPad-Only Magazine for Men

Cosmopolitan, long the resident authority on heterosexual dating and mating for teenage and adult women alike, has launched its first magazine for men, CFG: Cosmo for Guys.

Men won’t find this guide to women by women on newsstands, however. Instead, CFG is launching solely on the iPad, available via the App Store [iTunes link] for $1.99 per issue, $3.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

Cosmo Editor-in-Chief Kate White believes there is a demand for the product. Approximately 7.4% of Cosmo‘s readership is male, according to data from MRI. And more than one-third of visitors to cosmo.com every month are men, White says.

Since White arrived at the magazine in 1998, she says she has received hundreds of letters and emails from men who confessed that they were stealing their girlfriends’ or their wives’ copies when they weren’t around.

“They said it was like having the other team’s playbook,” she recalls. “And a fair number of those emails said I ought to do something for guys.”

White says she mocked up a cover for a men’s Cosmo years ago, but couldn’t imagine men actually purchasing it. But when the iPad came along, she realized that it would allow men to read privately, in a way that was more interactive and engaging than what a website could offer.

Furthermore, the iPad has enabled Cosmo to test out, in a cost-efficient manner, what is still an arguably volatile market for magazines. With the exception of one “special projects” hire, White was able to leverage Cosmo‘s existing editorial and design resources to produce the magazine, which is scheduled to publish 12 issues over the next year.

The app itself is strong. In fact, with its moving flowcharts, resizable video and compactly designed features, it’s much more interactive and engaging than the bonus issue Cosmo released for the iPad this spring.

Working in conjunction with Hearst’s digital team, Cosmo‘s design department has departed from the magazine format a little, especially from a navigation standpoint. Instead of a traditionally crowded table of contents, for instance, the app’s home screen features five pairs of section titles and thumbnails to choose between. Users can hold down one of the thumbnails to display all of the stories in that section.

I was particularly impressed with the “Will She Like It?” and “Read Her Mind” features, which pull in live poll data from cosmo.com to help men understand what fashion trends women find appealing, and what movie they are going to want to see this weekend, among other things.

Whether the app itself succeeds, White intends to build out the CFG franchise. This fall, the team is launching both a CFG radio show on SiriusXM (channel 109) and a book bearing the CFG label.

As for the original Cosmo? White says it’s coming to the iPad soon. Meanwhile, it’s enjoying strong sales on Barnes & Noble’s Nook ereader alongside many other women’s magazines on the device.

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Apple Launches iCloud Beta [PICS]

Apple has unveiled the beta for iCloud, the company’s new suite of media streaming and cloud-based services.

The new beta, which is available to all users with an Apple ID (update: some of our readers are having trouble accessing iCloud with Lion), features web-based version of Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find my IPhone and iWork. They are accessible if you visit iCloud.com while using iOS 5 (available to Apple developers) or Mac OS X Lion. It does not include Apple’s cloud music services, including iTunes Match.

Apple also unveiled the pricing structure for iCloud. The first 5GB of storage on the service are free. An addition 10GB will cost $20, 20GB will cost $40 and 50GB will retail for $100. It’s a good deal more expensive than Amazon Cloud Drive, which gives 20GB of space for $20 and lets users store an unlimited amount of music for free.

We’re playing around with the iCloud beta now, and while we’ll have more to report, our initial conclusion is that the iCloud beta is a modified version of MobileMe. It includes similar interfaces, which isn’t a surprise. The addition of iWork support is a welcomed addition though, as is the simplistic and universal interface for all of Apple’s cloud services.

We’ve taken some screenshots of the beta and embedded them below. Check them out, and let us know what you think of the iCloud beta in the comments.

Mashable reporter Christina Warren contributed to this report.

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