ZD Racing car parts for 1/16^th and 1/8^th scale

CERMARK has expanded into the RC electric car business, and is proud to make available ZD Racing parts to you and your local retail hobby shops.  Check out our website or drop by your favorite dealer.  Have any question, drop us an email or call us at 800.70.hobby.

Peace,
Steven Chao,
CERMARK

Peace,
Steven Chao,
CERMARK

Senate joins House in passing FAA bill, exemption for aeromodeling

M U N C I E – The U.S. Senate late Monday joined the House in passing the first full FAA Reauthorization Bill in more than four years. In passing the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 both the House and Senate included a provision aimed at protecting model aviation from burdensome regulations. The President is expected to sign the bill into law.

“We are very appreciative of those in Congress who recognize that model aviation hobbyists have been highly successful at governing themselves and being safety conscious over generations,” said Bob  Brown, president of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, representing 143,000 aeromodelers. “We are intensely committed to a safe National Airspace System (NAS), and have proven so. This bill is testimony to a common sense approach to model aviation.”

The AMA’s ongoing attempt to protect aeromodeling from what it believes to be unnecessary and overreaching federal regulations was championed by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) who sponsored the amendment. The Academy would like to express its sincere appreciation to the members of Congress and their staffs, with special thanks to John Mica (R-FL), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Tom Petri (R-WI).

“I can’t stress enough the impact that AMA members have had on getting this amendment passed,” said Brown. “Last year, our members sent 90,000 letters of concern to their Congressional representatives, and the collective voice of aeromodeling was heard loud and clear.”

Rapid technological advancements and the integration of small unmanned aircraft systems, or sUAS, has been a challenge for the FAA, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of the NAS. The AMA has consistently contended that aeromodeling conducted by its members, following the AMA Safety Code, is different from commercial sUAS operations. That distinction lies, in part, with hobbyists operating within a defined area, away from people and property, and not for commercial purposes, among other self-imposed rules.

“This legislation is a very positive step,” said Rich Hanson, AMA’s Government Regulatory Affairs representative. “However, there are still steps to come. We look forward to a cooperative effort with the FAA in ensuring that model aircraft may continue to operate safely within the NAS.”

AMA expects that the FAA will issue its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for public comment sometime later this spring. The Academy continues to believe that a regulatory approach to model aviation is unnecessary and unwarranted.

The Academy of Model Aeronautics is the nation’s collective voice for aeromodeling, founded in 1936, with 143,000 members in 2,400 clubs in every state, Puerto Rico and Guam. The AMA successfully sanctions more than 2,000 events and competitions each year, and boasts the world’s largest collection of model aviation artifacts and documents in the National Model Aviation Museum situated on the 1,100-acre International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana.

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Click for PDF version.

Date: February 7, 2012 (AMA press release)
Contact: Chris Brooks, APR of AMA
765-287-1256, ext. 276
chrisb@modelaircraft.org

Directions:
Gate to the club - N33 26.708 W111 34.845
Center of the pits - N33 26.563 W111 35.308

We look forward seen many of you there.  Please let us know what you may want us to bring.... sales@cermark.com

Peace,
Steven Chao
CERMARK

Stop the Internet Blacklist Bills

We here at CERMARK fully support striking down both forms of legislation that aim to restrict both our freedom of speech and the concept of net-neutrality.

Peace,
Steven Chao,
CERMARK

The Internet blacklist legislation—known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers innovation on the Web. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms!  Petition at EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Big media and its allies in Congress are billing the Internet blacklist legislation as a new way to battle online infringement. But innovation and free speech advocates know that this initiative will do little to stop infringement online. What it will do is compromise Internet security, inhibit online expression, and slow growth in the technology sector.

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's underlying infrastructure. The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to block users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the Internet grows increasingly balkanized.

It gets worse: the blacklist bills' provisions would give corporations and other private parties new powers to censor foreign websites with court orders that would cut off payment processors and advertisers. Broad immunity provisions (combined with a threat of litigation) would encourage service providers to overblock innocent users or even block websites voluntarily. This gives content companies every incentive to create unofficial blacklists of websites, which service providers would be under pressure to block without regard to the First Amendment.

Service providers would be forced to monitor and police their users' activities as well, threatening the DMCA safe harbors that have been vital to online innovation over the last decade. SOPA gives the government new powers to go after sites that provide information about tools that might be used to bypass the blacklists — even though these are often the same tools used by democratic activists around the world to bypass Internet censorship mechanisms implemented by authoritarian governments like Iran and China.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) have led the charge in explaining how the blacklist bills threaten the very infrastructure of the open Internet, joined by a growing, bipartisan, group of Congress members. The White House also recently stated it will not support a bill that threatens free speech, innovation, and Internet security. But every Senator and Representative should be opposing the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA and we need to hold the White House to its word. Contact your members of Congress today to speak out!

During this time of gratitude, I have been reflecting on many things we give thanks. Primary among them are you (our customers), our talented group of employees and past employees.  Counting you among our customers is something for which we are especially grateful making our company great. 

You, our customers: With you, we value your patronage and appreciate your confidence in us.

Our present and past staff: You help us provide heart warming services to our customers. Without your commitment, creativity, and high standards, we would not be the thriving company we are. I am very grateful for your efforts.  

I wish you all a Thanksgiving filled with abundance and bright moments.

Warm wishes,  Steven Chao,  CERMARK