Picture yourself standing in front of the egg case at your favorite supermarket. The shelves are stacked six feet high with cartons, and above it all is a big sign: "Eggs $100."
How do you react? It depends on the assumptions you make.
Most of us would figure that the price is $100 for a dozen eggs, since that is the usual quantity in which eggs are sold. The Federal Reserve's current policy of hyper-easy money notwithstanding, $100 is a grossly inflated price for a dozen eggs - or even a gross (a dozen dozen) of eggs. We'd probably walk away shaking our heads.
But if the price is $100 for all the eggs in the egg case, it's a good deal. You might have to own a chain of roadside diners to take advantage of it, but if you needed that many eggs, you would be thrilled to buy them for just $100.
President Obama wants to sell us some eggs...er, jobs. The price tag for his American Jobs Act is $447 billion. That ought to make one heck of an omelet. So the first question we ought to ask is exactly how many eggs (dang it! jobs!) the president is selling.
The trouble is, he won't say.
Not once in his not-quite-prime-time speech to Congress last week did the president attach a number to his proposal. He did tell the lawmakers, eight times by my count, to "pass this jobs bill." He actually used the word "jobs" 77 times. (1) Maybe this was a sort of code. The president may have expected us to infer that his plan would create one job, or 10 jobs, or 100 jobs, for each time he used the word "jobs." But I missed the memo where he told us what ratio we were supposed to use.
So if we want to decide whether we like the price of the president's plan, we have to rely on other people to estimate what he is offering. That's tough, since people have a fairly wide range of opinions about how many jobs the president's proposals will actually generate.
Like many business owners and managers, I seriously doubt the American Jobs Act will produce many American jobs. Obama wants to extend and expand the payroll tax cut that took effect for employees this year. I am currently deciding whether to hire a couple of people over the next 12 months, and I can assure you that a one-year cut in Social Security taxes that I will pay for them is not a factor in the decision. This payroll tax cut is the centerpiece of the president's program. But if I hire someone in 2012, only to let them go in 2013, the resulting rise in the unemployment tax rates that I will pay for all 25 of my employees will offset the payroll tax savings I got for that one employee for a year. I can only sensibly hire somebody if I expect to need that person for an extended period.
The president and those who like his plan don't seem to care much about the views of people who actually do the hiring. They find the analysis of economists more persuasive.
The New York Times, helpfully if anonymously, reported on Saturday that economists expect the president's plan to produce between 500,000 and 2 million jobs. The paper did not say how long the economists expect those jobs to last, but since Obama's bill is mostly about short-term stimulus (a word he used zero times last week), I'll just assume that each job will last for one year.
Now I can get my mathematical arms around the problem. If we pay $447 billion and produce 1 million jobs, we will be paying $447,000 per job per year. Those would have to be awfully good jobs. Too good to be true.
At the optimistic end of the scale, 2 million jobs would bring the unit cost down to just below $250,000 a year. If people actually earned anywhere near the amount the president wants to spend to keep them employed, this would be a handsome sum. So handsome, in fact, that each beneficiary would qualify for a tax increase in 2013, since the president has reasserted his position that the folks he calls "millionaires and billionaires," even those that earn a lot less than $1 million, should pay for all the good stuff he wants to do before voters go to the polls in 2012.
On the other hand, at just 500,000 jobs, the cost would be $894,000 per job. At that price level, the president might as well make everyone in the country a millionaire or billionaire, so he will have more people to tax to cover the cost of making everyone rich.
But we're left to guess. The White House isn't saying how many jobs the American Jobs Act would create, probably because this is the only sure-fire way to avoid being blamed for the failure of people like me, who insist on weighing what we spend against what we get, to create any jobs.
The way I see it, the president hung a sign telling us his eggs cost $447 billion. Then he threw a big drop cloth over the egg case.
Source: 1) CBS News, "Text of President Obama's Jobs Speech"
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We all know people who dwell on the unhappy events in their lives and in the world in general. What a drag they are on those around them. One factor sets them apart as habitually sad, while others are generally happy. Want to know the 'how to be happier' secret?
The simple, unrefined, yet profound answer to the 'how to be happier' problem is this: Refuse to even contemplate the possibility of being unhappy. Some explanation is in order. Worriers, for example, expect bad things are going to happen - or at least that good things probably are not going to happen. They anticipate the worst and during all that worry-time, while anticipating the worst, they can't possibly be happy. The mere process of worrying forces one to be less than happy and that typically translates into something between sad and distraught.
In contrast to worriers, are the planners. When planners see less than happy situations transpire or figure they are about to transpire they say: "OK, that's how it is now. What steps can I take to fix it?" That immediately moves them out the helpless, frozen, worrier class into the confident, take-charge, planner class.
He worrier spends his life replaying over and over again, all the bad stuff (and even possible bad stuff that hasn't even happened). Each replay adds unhappiness to his life; it paints an ever more vivid picture of a bleak, helpless, existence, which reinforces his unhappiness. By moving immediately to planning solutions you turn on your inner positive power and optimism. (Habitual worriers are always pessimists.)
In essence, worriers focus on how to be (and stay) unhappy. Planners focus on how to be happier through finding solutions. I stumbled upon a magnificent trick many years ago. I was disturbed by the fact that when I greeted others with the typical greetings - "How are you?", "How ya doin'?", "Things going well are they?" - a significant number of folks gave me replays such as, "Not so good," "Terrible", "Had better times," etc. I figured by asking those seemingly harmless questions (by which I really meant, "Hey there, I recognize your existence and hope life is good,"), I was allowing them an opportunity to verbalize and thereby reinforce the unhappiness in their lives. I needed a 'how to be happier' approach, instead.
So, I developed a series of more life affirming greetings: "What a wonderful day, don't you think?", Can you believe this fabulous weather?", "Hey! You're looking great!" Each requires an affirmative answer before they can really think about the greeting. If they greet me first with a question like, "How are you?", I answer, "I am fantastic and fully expect to get better as the day goes on." The alternative is to listen to the downers other people spew back at us. Just don't provide opportunities for other people to suggest negative, self-defeating, statements. Those not only reinforce their unhappiness but tend to burst our joyful bubble as well.
When we approach others as if we are having or contemplate having a happy, successful, uplifting day, our own subconscious mind hears what we are saying and sets us up to believe it. It thereby becomes a reasonable self-fulfilling prophecy. When we say we feel great, we actually begin to feel great. When we say things are bad, we allow unhappiness to get its grip on our life. How does this come about?
Your Deep Mind (subconscious) tries its best to help us feel and behave in the manners it believes we want to feel and behave. It determines those things by listening to our words and watching our behaviors. Choose to make your relationship with your Deep Mind a powerfully helpful one. Show it how to be happier and in return it will support you as you seek your answer to how to be happier.
So, here they are - five hints about how to be happier.
How To Be Happier: Hint #1- Never contemplate the possibility of being unhappy.
How To Be Happier: Hint #2- Never replay unhappy situations (or their possibility) It marks you as a helpless worrier.
How To Be Happier: Hint #3- Become a planner and focus on solutions.
How To Be Happier: Hint #4- Tell others and yourself positive, happy, things.
How To Be Happier: Hint #5- Don't give others the opportunity to suggest unhappy possibilities to you.
There are mind training programs that teach exactly how to go about all of this. You may ant to Google them for more information.
Tom Gnagey is an educator, psychologist, social philosopher, and writer. He has practiced clinical psychology for 30 years. For information about his successful, proven, self-help and personal growth program, Deep Mind Mastery, go to http://www.tomsbooknook.com/ or more specifically http://www.TomsBookNook.com/DMM.html
A lot of people remember President Obama's moving story about how his mother spent her last days battling both her cancer and her health insurance provider. Obama, however, apparently did not remember the story quite as well.
A recent book by Janny Scott, "A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother," reveals that his mother was, in fact, fighting with her disability insurance company, not her health insurance provider. The discovery was based on correspondence between Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, and the insurance company, Cigna.
Obama publicly mentioned his mother's insurance problems at least twice, once during his second presidential debate with Sen. John McCain and once at a town hall meeting in August 2009, when the debate over health care reform was in full swing. On both occasions, he said the issue was whether treatments would be covered, implying that the problem was related to health insurance, not disability benefits.
For Obama, the anecdote provided a personal tie-in for one of his key arguments about health insurance: that limitations on coverage for pre-existing conditions cause people to go without coverage when they need it most. At the town hall meeting, he said, "I will never forget my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final months, having to worry about whether her insurance would refuse to pay for her treatment." (1) Obama claimed that his mother's cancer was not actually pre-existing, which makes her story a particularly compelling one.
Under the Affordable Care Act, denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions was banned for children under 19 starting last September, and will become illegal for adults beginning in 2014. Disability insurance, which protects against lost income rather than actual medical expenses, was never part of the debate, and was not affected by the Affordable Care Act.
Personal anecdotes are a staple of political rhetoric. As the presidential campaign gears up, we can expect to learn a lot more about the candidates' lives, their families, and people they've met in restaurants and at campaign stops. This information will all be delivered in the form of pithy sound bites with easily extractable political morals. We have no assurance, however, that all of these convenient tales will be true.
Obama is not the only politician to tailor elements of his personal life to serve political purposes. Last year, Connecticut, it came to light that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had invented an entire tour of military service in Vietnam. In a speech in 2008, he said, "We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam." (2) In reality, however, while others served in Vietnam, Blumenthal was busy obtaining five military deferments and finally securing a spot in the Marine Forces Reserve, which allowed him to avoid active duty.
On the surface, it might seem that statistics offer a way to tether politicians to the truth. Numbers, however, have a funny way of simply morphing into more stories. In April, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., delivered the startling news that more than 90 percent of Planned Parenthood funding goes to pay for abortions. When informed that the actual figure is closer to 3 percent, Kyl's office responded that the claim "was not intended to be a factual statement" but was instead meant simply to "to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a[n] organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions."
Like Obama and Blumenthal, Kyl started with the point he wanted to make and then customized his facts to "illustrate" that point. Rather than using individual case studies or quantitative research findings to form their opinions and to subsequently build the case for those opinions, these three gentlemen, like many others in politics (and elsewhere), chose their positions first and found their facts to suit.
Accurate anecdotes and statistics are certainly better than false ones, but they can still be distorted when they are presented, without context, in service of an already established position.
Even if Obama's mother had, in fact, fought with her health insurance provider, the story would not tell us how frequently people are wrongly denied coverage for conditions that were not actually pre-existing. It also would not address insurers' protests that allowing people to seek coverage only after they need it will sharply raise premiums for everyone. True or false, the anecdote arouses listeners' emotions without getting mired in substance or nuance.
Similarly, rather than prompting people to think about the implications of Planned Parenthood's budget, Kyl's 90 percent statistic simply seeks to evoke outrage. Even if the figure were true, more information would be required to draw any well-founded conclusions about its meaning. We would need to know what fraction of Planned Parenthood's funding comes from federal support and whether the high spending on abortion-related care was the result of a high number of abortions performed or of high costs per abortion.
Anecdotes and statistics are useful, of course. They allow us to quickly illustrate concepts and to make points. I have a quarter-century of experience as a financial planner, and I often use that experience, in the form of anecdotes, to help clients understand otherwise abstract financial lessons. I try to use my stories as complements to hard facts, however, not as substitutes for them.
Politics is about persuasion, and if anecdotes and cheap statistics offer the quickest path to voters' minds and hearts, that's the route that candidates will take. It is up to the rest of us, not just to fact-check stories and numbers, but to think about what the rhetoric leaves out.
Sources: 1) The Huffington Post, "Ann Dunham, Obama's Mother, Had Health Insurance During Battle With Cancer, Book Claims" 2) The New York Times, "Politicians And Their Fake War Stories"
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One of the biggest challenges we face in life is making goals only to fall far short of them. Many people dream of being rich, powerful and successful or of being happy in their relationships. Others may dream of hitting the game-winning homerun, or of being the homecoming queen.
Whatever the goals may be, so many of us never reach our dreams and aspirations - instead they remain just that, dreams. But the reason so many of us never reach those goals isn't because they're unreasonable, it's because we're sabotaging ourselves.
The true key to success is to make smart goals and alter our mindset.
Never Say Never
If you are truly serious about being successful and achieving your goals, then there are two words you need to eliminate from your vocabulary: never and impossible. All too often we give up on our goals because we allow negative thoughts to poison our minds and convince ourselves that what we are trying to achieve is impossible and that it will never happen.
With this kind of mindset, our dreams and goals are doomed right from the start. That's why it is essential to conquer your self-doubt and self-limiting assumptions. But how do we accomplish this? It's actually easier than you think.
Here are three key tips to keep in mind, which will help you to alter your mindset and achieve all of the goals and dreams that you never before thought possible:
Tip #1 - Focus Your Energy on What You Do Want
Too many people make the mistake of focusing all of their time and effort on what they do NOT want, rather than on what they do want. This is the kind of mindset that leaves people unhappy and broke. If you want to be successful, happy and wealthy, then you need to clearly define what it is that you do want.
Tip #2 - Focus on What You Can Believe
Many self-help gurus are of the opinion that you have to think big, really, really big when it comes to dreams. Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is responsible for the failure of countless individuals who turned to these gurus for help. The key to success is not in thinking big, but on committing to achieving something that you actually believe you can achieve. In other words, if you set your sights too high, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Rather than focusing on one huge, overwhelming and unobtainable goal, focus on the middle ground. That middle ground is somewhere between what you ultimately want to achieve and where you are now.
For example, let's say that you want to become a millionaire.
For many of us, this is a very difficult dream to achieve and one that can seem very daunting to say the least. Rather than focusing on becoming a millionaire, focus on a smaller goal, such as increasing your current income by an extra thousand dollars per month.
By focusing all of your energy on this smaller, more reasonable goal, you will build up your self-esteem and confidence when you achieve it. And once you do, set a new, higher goal. By setting smaller, achievable goals you will avoid becoming overwhelmed and you will be far more likely to achieve your ultimate goal, which in this case is to become a millionaire.
Tip #3 - Focus on Doing the Right Thing Long Enough and Consistently
If you focus on doing the right thing for long enough, and do it consistently, you will achieve your goals. Sounds simple right? It is but it still helps to break things down. Let's take a closer look at what each of these ideas mean:
Doing the Right Thing - If you constantly feel like you're making a sacrifice, and that every day that you work towards your goal feels like a struggle or a burden, then guess what, you are not doing the right thing. If you were doing the right thing, then you would feel empowered, energized and happy because you were on the right track and making progress towards your goal. Keep this in mind and constantly analyze your feelings to make sure you're moving in the right direction and making smart goals that truly represent what you want.Doing it Long Enough - Forget about time limits. Anytime you set time limits on your goals then you are just setting yourself up for failure, because time limits generate fear and the fear of failure is toxic. Instead, commit to the belief that you will continue doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes to achieve your goals. Even though you don't know when you will achieve your goals, you do know that you will, and that will make it happen much faster than if you set a time limit.Doing it Consistently - Consistency is the key to success. You should be pursuing your goals on a regular basis. The more consistent you are, the quicker you will achieve your goals.
Remember, you are in control of your future, but you have to make smart goals. By taking these ideas and beliefs to heart, you will begin to see that all of the impossible dreams you had before are now becoming more and more possible.
Download your free ebook 15 Secrets to Super Health that could put you on the fast-track to Super Health.
I was turning forty. it didn't seem so much different to being thirty nine, except i was no longer able to say I was in my thirties (somewhere between 28 and 38) and now I was in my forties, (somewhere between 78 and 100).
So, bought a Porsche, tried to have sexual relations (thanks Bill for the new language) with people half my age and went into hysteria about my appearance. I didn't evolve well. And nature made me pay for it.
I had plenty of support on this resistance to evolving. I lived in NYC and there were sexy gyms, beauty salons, men's wear shops, and a plethora of relatively poor, stunningly attractive young women who had come to NYC to become an overnight success, weren't and needed a sugar daddy. At the time I thought it was love, but alas again, nature tapped me on the shoulder, Evolve.. and I resisted with all my ego could muster (a lot)
To help with my resistance to nature's call to evolve, I blocked my ears, mind, heart and eyes to the signs the wiser alternatives, and between yoga classes, gym work outs with mirrors, bedroom gymnastics and Viagra, I added time for facial treatments at such delicious venues as Aveda and others with names like "You Are Amazing and Young if you come inside" - (the real names elude me and fading memory is part of aging process).
Evolve nature turned up the dial, I put on a few kilos around my belly in spite of twenty hours a week in yoga and gym classes, and eating like a baby rabbit.
To help fight nature's message, and armed with my Amex card, dressed in designer jeans and with my $200 gay salon hair cut, I visited Heavenly Heavens "De Wrinkle Shop" to turn back the clock (at least on my face) and be rubbed, scrubbed, pampered and have an untold number of zits and blackheads removed from my nose and chin.
To my horror, I had a small mountain of hairs plucked from my nose. I knew people with less hair on their head than I had harvesting in my nose. And hairs in my ears? Goodness me, was there another Amazon in there?
I also had my eyebrows shaved with a road sweeper and clogged pours dealt with using a jack hammer. But this was nothing to worry about really, because the whole time I was there, I was being looked at admiringly (how did they do that without puking) by a stunning, delicious, sexy, young woman, with qualifications that sounded like a NASA scientist but were really one day seminars at the local night school clinic.
The beauty ladies, princess' from the feel younger heavens, would swoon over me, dote on me and make me feel and look, way younger than my years, all in a few hours. I had, I thought, found a way around evolve.... but, I was wrong.
I walked out of those places so damn happy and looking so young I had to show my I.D at the bar to get a drink. Which of course was the problem because it was the drink in a sleazy smoky bar that turned my expensive new baby face back into something resembling the surface of the moon in three hours.
I'd get home half pissed from too many margaritas at the local still carrying my brown paper, designer carry bag with "Another Wood-duck" neatly emblazoned on it, and dive into that fancy bag full of bottles of Elixr that had cost me six times more than the facial. (enter the realization about how the beautiful young women were motivated not to puke as they desludged my face -commission on product sales)
I'd pour another scotch as a nightcap and get to work trying to reproduce at home what a stunningly beautiful, highly motivated woman had done to the backdrop sounds of rainforest waterfalls in the "heavenly clinic" - As you'll see, I failed.
First the exfoliant. A liquid I found more akin to the smell of a bad vodka in an Indonesian bar. I'd take out one of the 10 face wipes I'd paid more for than a pair of Armani undies and proceed to "gently cleanse and prepare" which in my language translated to soak the cloth in as much of that foul stuff and scrub the bejesus out of my face.
The intent was to awaken my skin for a refreshing next step. Instead, my face turned as red as butt after a whack from my ever worried father back when I was a kid" I guess that was at least one association I got to being young again.
What came off on this scouring process was incomprehensible - absolute Black....? Black? It looked like the make up I had to remover after playing one of the hay slinging, toting that bale chorus in Oaklahoma the musical.
Cripes, I'd say to myself, where'd this crud come from? It was only 3 -5 hours since I'd left the "forever young" facial shop.
Then the second shock, "I looked forty again"..
What came to pass was the realization that the youthful look on my face when leaving that salon that had cost me more than a 6 week holiday in the Bahamas, was more about the fact that I'd stopped worrying for an hour than any cream could offer.
Evolveyabastard - Experience is a crappy teacher.
I spent a fortune to realize I didn't need to spend a fortune.
Ponds cold cream costs $3.00 a bucket and good old dove soap at $1 is as effective on skin as any product, and that the real secret to staying young was the ability to stop worrying and stay happy.
A clean shirt and a good attitude could almost guarantee I'd never feel old again. So, I diecided to learn how to relax, stop worry and wash my shirts... here's my evolve realisations around staying forever young:
1. I'm as young as I feel and the worst thing I can feel is fat, lazy and immobile. So, I've absolutely got to, should, need to, want to, desire to, choose to and love to exercise to a burning sweat every day for a minimum of 20 minutes - and most important I change my activity if I'm not in love with it. Right now it's kayaking, but, if I stop loving it, I would take up pole dancing or whatever made me smile.
2. I must have some sort of spiritual practice (mine is natures universal laws) in order to see order in the chaos to calm my worries. I think a lot about a lot. I worry about global warming, starving children, violence, drugs, the disconnect with corporate executives and nature. If I don't have a process to put peace in my heart I am going to age at the rate of a formula 1 grand prix race car tyre... and probably look the same too. That's why I use and teach the laws of nature. Peace of mind.
3. I need a purpose in my life, something productive to do every day that stimulates my brain. Nobody beats me up more than me. I think we're all the same in this regard, we're all pretty hard on ourselves and that self diminishing stuff is really a short cut to the grave. And yet, I don't want to become good old Ego Chris like before and fight off nature to the point where she screams Evolve again... (ouch) so, instead of thinking "what's best for me" I think, "what's best for the purpose of my life" It's been the single greatest miracle in my life and has knocked about 30 years off my head and heart space... A purpose greater than me has got me out of me.
4. I love sex, frequently (used to be twice a day but now just once) in order to keep the fire in my belly burning. I know a lot of readers will claim this is trite and trivial but I've never felt older, more wrinkled, stuck or more dispirited than when I've gone through a long dry spell of sex withdrawal or, been in a relationship where the sexy part dried up. I've got mates who are married who haven't had sex since last Christmas - or their birthday... cripes they are older than King Tut, bored, boring and often workaholics. My advice to them when I couch execs who overwork? Go home have sex. (I mean great, tantric, loving, long delicious sex.. not wham bam good night sex)
5. And the final key, I have to be out in nature at least 3 hours a day. I think this is why the word is so commercial, consumer addicted and environmentally ignorant.. we are too much indoors. We've moved from 100% nature outdoors dependent to 100% indoors, synthetic dependent just in the past 100 years. No wonder we're in a mess, we just haven't evolved as humans as fast as our technology has. Nature is saying to the whole city life, EVOLVE but technology is accelerating and we're not. Being outdoors three hours a day, and making my home, work and family time an outdoors experience is the last, but most important step in my Forever Young strategy because this puts my life, love, heart, soul, mind and body in a loving state of youthful invigoration. And that for me is the secret to eternal youth.. Well at least preventing the age clock getting ahead of me.
I'm now 58, still paddle kayaks in the ocean, climb mountains in Nepal, love women, have plenty of energy and feel younger than I did at forty, so, it's working.
Chris Walker http://www.chriswalker.com.au/ offers a real life, everyday, raw and nature based awareness that helps people live from the inside out. It opens hearts from past challenges, frees vision, inspiration and life purpose and gives rise to true human potential in all the seven areas of life. Innerwealth is also a process, a process that helps people deal with everyday challenges, tap their intuitive nature and live, in a sense, guided from within. A leaders edge, a lovers heart. There are twenty books in the Innerwealth Series, including Sacred Love and Innerwealth, plus "the Laws of Nature for Better Relationships" weekly blogs and podcasts. Chris Walker also runs consultations, interventions and seminars on Innerwealth at work and at home. http://www.chriswalker.com.au/
If you think back to the last time you logged in, surfed around the web and glanced at the top trending topics, chances are you came across the Samsung Galaxy i7500. With all the fuss surrounding it, this android phone has landed on the list of many popular searches more than once. But what is it about this new model that has everybody buzzing? The recent trend for chic and sassy Android phones, for one, has immediately made this a sought after unit among smartphone users. Technology wise, Samsung Mobile has definitely stepped up its game. Its key strategy: coming out with a new line of Samsung cell phones that offer a suite of Mobile Google backed services.
The introduction of the Samsung Galaxy i7500 has, in fact, intensified competition in the Android phone market. Tech savvy users around the globe are rushing to try its Google backed infrastructure, which powers the relatively new and exciting features of the model. Plus, this Samsung mobile unit combines two functions, serving not only as a touch screen phone but also as a pocket PC.
Samsung has also upped the ante design wise, exerting great efforts to come up with a very handy and portable construction that will appeal to on the go users. The Samsung Galaxy i7500 is actually the slimmest of similar Samsung cell phones currently sold in the market.
While the unit is as light as a feather, Samsung did not hold back on screen size. Its display is large enough for convenient browsing and messaging. Pictures appear in vivid and vibrant colors. And, with reduced sun glare, you can even use it outdoors! No more problems viewing the screen under broad daylight.
Moreover, the i7500 phone is just about as user friendly as it gets. The interface is very easy to navigate. There is an on-screen keyboard. Additional settings provide tighter security controls over your user data, with live folders that get automatically filled with contents. In addition, the contact menu is kept very simple for maximum convenience and the large built-in memory allows for fast and trouble-free media transfers.
The model also has an autofocus camera which includes a selectable flash, both Bluetooth and Wi Fi connectivity, and a USB cable, among other devices.
Needless to say, the Samsung Galaxy i7500 would be a safe bet for your next smartphone purchase. It's currently available in Asian countries wherever great phones are sold.
Ken is a gadget enthusiast that loves being outdoors whenever the weather permits.
Last week the nation tuned into President's Obama's much hyped job creation speech to see if there would be any worthy ideas to try and break the constant high unemployment rate int he country. Would he be bold and innovative or would it be the same basic, tired political tactics that have been tried and have usually failed to live up to expectations?
The following discussion will compare what the President should have said and what he actually said. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that from a boldness, innovation, and courage perspective, the President came up well short of the goal line.
1) Infrastructure
As expected, the President did state that he wanted money and funding for infrastructure jobs to fix roads, bridges, dams, schools, etc. that were in need of repair, something many Americans expected and were supportive of. However, the President's proposal came up short in two areas.
First, infrastructure spending and work done via the economic stimulus bill was woefully inefficient. According to various Associated Press investigations, thousands and thousands of government contracts were granted without competitive bidding. Half of the bridges that were repaired under the stimulus program were not in need of repairs. Powerful individual politicians in Congress snatched their share of the stimulus money and directed it to their voters regardless of whether of not the spending was actually fixing a real problem.
Millions of dollars from the stimulus plan were granted to companies that owed hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes. No where in the President's jobs speech do we get firm assurances that these atrocities have been recognized and will not happen again. He states that the money will be properly spent but we were promised that in the economic stimulus bill. The only way to insure that this potential pot of money is well spent is to give the decision on what projects are done to the states via a block grant of money, taking Congress out of the decision process altogether.
Second, the President does not show any detail on how to pay for this increment Federal spending. He says he will unveil a plan within a week or so. Thus, his performance on this topic is an incomplete. He gave no indication of specifics like reducing the Federal payroll back to 2008 levels, terminating unwanted and unneeded military projects such as the Osprey, terminating corporate welfare programs, ending agriculture subsidies, and directing high speed rail line funding to shorter term infrastructure needs.
Grade: Incomplete given the unnamed ways to fund this infrastructure spending that will be forth coming. However, worries about whether this will be another waste of money spent on things that do not need to be fixed, given the economic stimulus program, and the fact that the President has not taken Congress out of the decision making loop, continue to exist.
2) Obama Care
According to many credible opinion polls, the majority of Americans realize that Obama Care is an unfolding disaster. It will screw up existing health care insurance for tens of millions of Americans that already have coverage, it will significantly add to the deficit, it has created a large amount of tax and business uncertainty into the employment crisis in this country, and will not address the root causes of our escalating health care costs. Nowhere in his speech did he address this problem.
The President did make reference to the fact that we need to somehow reduce Medicare and Medicaid costs going forward in order to protect the long term solvency of both programs. He wisely wants to phase in any changes over time to ease the transition. However, he gave no indication of how he thinks we should do this, he gave no indication he has a plan to do this, and gave indication when this would be done.
Overall grade - D-. Obama Care is one of the biggest drags on the economy and unemployment today and he ignored it. The only reason he did not get an F here is that he may finally be realizing the need to reform Medicare and Medicaid, even if he does not have a plan on how to do that.
3) Tax Holiday For Overseas Profits
Some economists suggested that the President should announce that there should be a one time tax holiday for American companies that have stashed billions of dollars of their profits overseas because it is cheaper to leave those earning overseas than to bring them back to the country and get hit with a 35% tax hit. This tax holiday should be a one time deal that would be followed up immediately with a dedicated overhaul of the tax system.
The reasoning is that it would be better to have that corporate cash sloshing around in the United States than sitting off in some foreign banks even if it was not taxed. The short term problem is jobs, not taxing overseas profits. However, in order to not train companies to wait for the next tax holiday, this would be a one time deal followed immediately by comprehensive tax reform. The President did not address this opportunity to get dollars flowing back into the country and economy.
Overall grade - F
4) Regulation - many businesses have suggested that the President terminate all Federal regulations that do not impact the health and safety of our citizens or the environment and he agreed with this in his speech. He addressed this issue, claiming that his administration had identified over 500 regulatory reforms that will free up billions of dollars over the next few years.
However, he provided no specifics or big deals such as termination of the unneeded and cumbersome Sarbannes-Oxley legislation. The President's case would have been stronger if he had provided some concrete examples of what his administration has already done to ease the regulation overload.
He also did not address the overtly oppressive Federal government interference into individual business operations, specifically the overbearing and likely politically motivated harassment of Boeing and Gibson Guitars. This unnecessary type of government interference diverts companies' resources from business and job expansion.
Overall grade - B-. This could change if he does not follow through with the promises he made.
5) Energy
He made no reference at all to using the energy industry, and using oil and gas company resources, to expand our internal energy capacity and development. Since the country does not have an overall, longer term strategic energy plan and policy, fossil fuels will still be the major component of our energy mix for a long time.
Given that fact, it makes sense to not keep sending our wealth overseas to other energy providers when we could develop our own energy resources, again, using oil company money, not taxpayer money. Ending any Gulf drilling moratoriums, building the Canadian crude oil pipeline, opening up drilling in the Arctic, etc. would create good, long term, needed jobs in our domestic energy industry.
Coupling that with a major initiative to develop alternative energy sources and an overarching energy strategy would cover both our long term and short term energy needs while creating a ton of jobs. The President missed this opportunity completely.
Overall grade - F
6) Education
As a country, we need a number of short term and long term changes in the nation's approach to education and its impact on jobs. First, given that the Federal government has dozens of independent organizations that provide severely fragmented job training services, these dozens of job training entities should be consolidated into a single, more efficient and more effective Federal job training organization, placed in the Health and Human Services Department.
This single organization would be a one stop shopping for citizens looking for training support and be a conduit between job seekers and those hiring. It would be more efficient than having the dozens of organizations that we currently have.
Long term, need an initiative that would identify the root causes of our failing public schools and put together a comprehensive plan for fixing our education processes so that we stop under educating our kids relative to the rest of the world. A similar plan was laid out under the Reagan administration in 1983 but the American political class ignored those findings. As a result, our kids are not being educated as well as kids in dozens of other countries around the world.
Unfortunately, the President completely missed the needs in this category also. He made two references to education in his speech. First, he wants money to fix up 35,000 schools across the country. Second, he wants money to hire more teachers. However, if the country does not fix our failed public education processes, if we do not adopt curriculums to the current, fast paced world, if we do not improve teacher training and evaluation, etc., all the President's plans will do is have us continue to under educate our kids. Only now we will under educate them with more of the same kind of teachers in nicer buildings.
This is a typical solution from the political class. It is based on their inability to understand root causes of problems Having a nicer school building will not make for a better educated work force. Hiring the same types of teachers will not improve the learning process. We need fundamental changes to education to compete in the world economy.
None of the President's plans address this more serious problem. He just wants to hire some painters and electricians to make things look nice. The basic product, bad education results, will not change and will not positively affect job creation.
Overall grade - F
7) Taxes
Many assumed the President would ask for an extension of the tax changes made last fall, i.e. the extension of the Bush tax cuts be extended for two years in order to introduce some more certainty into the tax planning of individuals and companies. From his speech it looks like he wants to extend it for another year. Not bad, but two years would have been better and provided the economy with more certainty.
In addition, the President asked for more tax changes, especially for small business. These include providing tax credits for newly hired employees and forgoing the payroll tax for a year to give businesses more cash. However, while these are positive steps, they are open for abuse (e.g. what would stop a business from firing all of its employees on Friday, hiring them back on Monday and claiming the tax credits ) and will further deplete the dwindling Social Security funding.
Their effectiveness is also worthy of doubting. Many economists have looked at similar tax programs in the past and found that unless there is a clear path to an improving economy and improving sales, a business will not likely take on new employees and assume that risk if there are still all types of uncertainty in the mix (e.g. next year's elections, Obama Care, over regulation, etc.)
The other tax area the President touched on his is unhealthy fixation with taxing the rich. The numbers prove that while taxing the rich more might be a healthy political move for some voters, the financial impact on the economy, government tax levels, and the national debt is extremely small. The President made some embarrassingly incorrect statements regarding taxing the rich in his speech that are worth reviewing:
"Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary." Likely a true statement since Buffet probably draws a smaller salary than his secretary. However, the President never brings up that fact that Buffet does not pay himself millions of dollars every year in salary, getting his money via legally approved other ways that minimize his tax burden. To not mention this fact is deceptive at best, a lie at worst.
"I (Obama) believe that the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that (pay more in taxes) if it helps grow the economy." A number of problems with this tired, cliched statement. First, the President never cites a source or research that supports this statement. He states it as fact but no data supporting its truth is ever presented.
Second, if these people are so anxious to pay more in taxes, why don't they? The U.S. Treasury Department has had a program for many years that easily allows Americans to pay more than they owe in taxes to pay down the national debt. If these people were willing to pay more, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. The fact that this program gets very little money donated to it every year reinforces the doubt that the President's statement is right.
Third, if they do want to pay more in taxes, why didn't the President challenge them to contribute to the infrastructure program he is proposing? We could name bridges and streets and dams after them as as a side benefit.
Finally, the President implies that if only these people paid more in taxes, the economy would grow significantly. Certainly not a true statement if you examine the numbers. Another Obama statement bordering on deception.
The bottom line is we need a much simplified and much fairer tax code. A tax code where the rich pay their fair share and those Americans that use the income tax process as a money maker, i.e. 45% of Americans pay no Federal income taxes, also pay their fair share. However, beyond general statements about reforming the tax code, the President's provided no details, plans, or timetable on how to do that.
Which is a shame since such a plan would remove a large amount of uncertainty and wasted economic time complying with our complex tax code. This would have freed up money, time, resources, and energies to expand our economy and hire new workers.
Overall grade - D-
8) National Debt - many organizations, including the President's own debt reduction commission, have identified many ways to take trillions and trillions of wasted dollars out of our national debt. The President at least gave lip service to this need and claims to have an aggressive plan ready within the week. We shall see.
Grade - Incomplete
9) Unemployment Benefits
Many economists suggested that the President start finding a way to get out of the unemployment benefit business since every major study conducted in this area, including one done by the new head of his economic advisor team, says that providing long term unemployment benefits contributes to chronic long term unemployment The President stated in his speech that he wants to extend long term unemployment benefits, the exact opposite of what all economic studies say is wise.
Overall grade - F, based on the results of the studies cited above, the fact that as we keep extending benefits, unemployment gets stronger, and the fact that there are jobs out there. Just go to Craigslist, Snag A Job's website or other employment websites and search for all jobs in a zip code and see the hundreds or thousands of vacant jobs that come back.
Jobs are out there, they may not be great jobs, they may not be in someone's field but here has to be a creative way of melding unemployment benefits with the existing vacant job piles around the country so that everyone wins. In the President's speech, status quo wins and that is a failure.
10) Trade treaties.
The President was expected to press for the passage of trade treaties that have already been negotiated and he did.
Overall grade - A
Overall, across all components, this speech gets no better than a D minus in boldness, originality, in-depth understanding of our root causes to our problems, and needed specifics on how to move forward. His tax ideas are standard and very tactical, with histories of varying degrees of success. His call for tax reform was hollow. His ignoring of the devastating effects of Obama Care on hiring and uncertainty is unforgivable.
His strategy for paying for this increased spending is vague and yet to be unveiled or to be determined. His removal of unnecessary regulations was tepid at best. He missed big strategic opportunities to free up uncertainty in the private sector by ignoring the wastefulness of Sarbannes-Oxley, failing to address the opportunities in the domestic energy field, and fixing our short term and long term education process. He missed a big time opportunity to declare a one time tax holiday to get off shore corporate earnings back into our economy and linking that to overall tax reform.
If these are such great ideas, which they are not, why haven't we moved on them previously? Could it be that we have and the results has been a steady dose of 9% unemployment? There was not a creative, ingenious, or bold idea in the lot.
His speech reinforces the belief that the President is like most other politicians, they do not know how to think strategically. All of their thought processes and plans are usually very short term and tactical, rarely addressing the underlying problems. Cash For Clunkers. Cash For Caulkers. One time rebate for first time home buyers. A scattering of small business tax credits but no overall tax reform that encourages business growth. Fix up the schools and make them look pretty without long term education reform. All failed concepts, all short term, doomed tactics.
Besides not being strategic. the plans set out by the President do not remove the major road blocks of uncertainty in the economy and marketplace:
- Short term, gimmicky tax adjustments with unknown future implications and changes.
- A complex and unwieldy tax code.
- High national debt.
- High taxes at every level of government.
- Over regulation.
- Obama Care.
Until the political class fixes these problems, unemployment will still stay high and businesses will continue with their conservative "deer in the headlights" planning.
Walter "Bruno" Korschek is the author of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class," which is available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/ and online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Our daily dialog on freedom in America can be joined at http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/.
Most people don't realize this, but your thought pattern is something that really shapes your life. What you think corresponds directly with what you do, and what you do shapes who you are, how you feel and how much control you have.
You can achieve anything you want. You just have to want it, and that's why, your thoughts really are important.
Here's An Example For You
Let's say you wake up in the morning and you just decide that you're going to have a really bad day. Now, I really don't care what the reason for that decision is. I don't care if you wake up with a migraine, toothache or just a gut feeling.
It really doesn't matter what caused you to make that decision, what's important is that you have decided that your day is not going to be good.
Soon you realize that things really aren't turning out that great and you think to yourself: "Yes! I knew it was going to happen. This is just a bad day."
Well, if I am to be honest with you, I need to tell you that it happened just because you wanted it to happen. You attracted a bad day into your life, because...
You Are In Control
You really shape your own destiny. You are in control of your life and your thought pattern really is extremely important to anything that happens in your life, so...
Change Your Pattern!
Easier said than done, right? I mean, how are you supposed to change how you think? How are you supposed to change how you perceive the world and people around you?
Well...
Let me tell you something I like to tell people when I talk about how powerful their mind is. See, your mind can only accommodate one thought at a time, so there can only be one thought occupying your mind at any given moment.
Now, this can be either a positive, active thought, or a negative, passive one.
How you change your thought pattern is you go through your day, and whenever you have a thought that's not very good and you want to get it out of your mind, all you really have to do is replace that thought with...
Yes!
A positive, active one. A thought you actually want to have.
So, Here Are Your Choices
Whenever there's a problem you face in your life, you can either act or react. If you act, you control the situation, you shape your life. If you react, you look at what other people do and pretty much decide that you have no power whatsoever.
The truth is, however that you do have the power to achieve anything you want. You can be as powerful as you would like. Your life can be the happiest life ever. All you have to do is alter your thought pattern and you're good to go, so. All you have to do is act instead of reacting and decide to take control, so... get going with it!
Download your free ebook 15 Secrets to Super Health that could put you on the fast-track to Super Health.
Ladybirds 4 stage cycle and which species you are more likely to spot in the UK.
There are 46 species of ladybirds now resident in the UK.
Ladybirds feast on aphids, also known as plant lice - greenflices, blackflies and white flies.
Ladybirds go through a 4 stage life cycle, much like the life of a butterfly.
The egg stage - A female ladybird will lay between 10 and 15 eggs, often on the underside of a leaf, somewhere safe, away from predators and the harsh weather. Picked wisely as the larvae will need to find food near or on this leaf later down the line.
The larvae stage - The eggs hatch and the larvae will gradually start to come out and look for food, mainly consisting of tiny mites and aphids. After a few days they will begin to molt (shed their skin).
The pupa stage - The larvae will grow for a couple of weeks and then develope into what looks like a small maggot or shrimp. It will then appear to sleep for up to 3 days, but what is actually happening is metamorphosis into a ladybird.
Adult ladybird stage - When metamorphosis is complete the larvae will divide nearly into two, and the larvae will slowly start to look like a ladybird is supposed to.
There are 5 main ladybirds commonly seen in Britain, and funnily enough they are not all red!
The Orange Harlequin ladybirds were imported into the UK from eastern asia as a form of pest control, which was banned in 2004, but they are now widespread all over the UK.
The Seven spot ladybird is the most common of the native species, it is a large ladybird at 6-8mm, and yes it does have 7 spots. It is also a popular species with the farmers as its main form of food is aphids which suck the sap out of plants.
Black Harlequin Ladybirds once again arent british yet they take up a 25% of the ladybird population in the UK.
14 Spot Ladybird is one of the smallest ladybirds at just 4mm, they believed to be in steep decline but proved us wrong in the 2010 UK ladybird survey. Their is a wide variety in their markings so is mainly spotted due to its size.
Two spot ladybird are either red with two black spots or black with two red spots and then two blobs on their shoulders. these ladybirds are widespread but most at risk from harlequin ladybirds, due to their size.
I read a meditation recently where the author said, "Your odds for success are greatly enhanced if you speak the 'language' of those with whom you are dealing. So, if you want to manifest in the universe, you have to speak in the same language as Spirit. When the Creator said 'let there be Light,' there was Light!"
Then the author makes the observation that if we are made in the spiritual likeness (not a physical likeness) of a Creator, what we speak becomes manifest.
Is it possible for you to picture a creative force, purring in neutral, waiting for instructions in order to leap into gear? Imagine it. If there's not a force of some sort, where does life spring from? There is something, somewhere that creates. Whether we conceptualize it as a Being or a Force isn't, perhaps, as important as simply acknowledging that it exists.
And we are products of it. Therefore, we are like that which creates. A creator or creative force gives birth to beings which can create.
So, create!
But first let's ask what it is that every single person wants? What is the one thing that is universal, no matter what culture, what socialization, what beliefs, what conditions any human being lives in? What is the one absolutely universal desire that drives us and makes us do what we do - even if what is done is unwise, unkind or immoral?
That desire is happiness - to either find it or to maintain it. People are driven to make money not because money itself is a bed or food or happiness. But because money might be one small component - buying the bed or the food - on the path to happiness.
So choose happiness first. You have the power to choose among your emotions. Clearly, the choice to feel unhappy is counterproductive.
Isn't that what the movie The Secret suggested? If a person says, "I'm miserable," she not only remains miserable, but calls down upon herself yet more misery.
If we say, as Wayne Dyer wisely but simply suggests, "I choose to be HAPPY," we call to ourselves happiness.
It's impossible to hold a miserable thought and a happy thought at the same time. We can only hold one thought at a time. Our emotional "body" will simply pick one if we make no conscious choice. Be conscious, choose happiness.
There is more power in making the choice to be happy than in any other choice you can freely make.
Dr. Blythe Ayne has written several books that help guide people to better health and happier lives.
She received her Doctorate from the University of California at Irvine in Social Sciences. She lives on ten acres of forest in the state of Washington where she works to support the natural habitat.
1. Flying ants or ants that have wings are part of a species of ants that can fly rather than a separate species in their own right.
2. There are only particular ants that will have wings, and this will only be for departing a colony and starting a new one elsewhere.
3. They are often thought to be termites, but there are distinct differences between the two species.
4. Their colonies are established by queen ants who have got together and mated to reproduce.
5. After they have mated, they will lose their wings as they no longer have use for them and be totally grounded
6. When a queen lays its eggs, the ants that will emerge will become worker ants and will create a colony.
7. There will also be ants that will be born that will have other use but to mate and lay eggs.
8. These kinds of ants will develop wings which will be put to use in order to depart the colony and find mates.
9. After they have mated, the male ants will die quite quickly but females will last and become queen ants and will start the process over again.
10. When they leave their nests, ants with wings will gather with others and create a swarm congregating with other colonies of ants.
11. When they take off to swarm they will depart one after the other in an orderly fashion
12. When they swarm, it is so timed that the colonies will congregate and flying ants will find others to successfully mate with.
13. They will look to establish places to reproduce, often on high places in a behavior called hill-topping.
14. Some ants will have colonies in places such as under woodpiles, in dead trees or indeed in the ground where they will go unseen so as to not attract attention from deadly predators who will look to prey on them.
15. This swarm of flying ant will tend to attract many predators that will be after a good meal such as birds and dragon flies.
16. Depending on the size of the swarm, the activity of flying ants comes in bursts once it begins and can last a few hours or a few days.
17. The swarms of flying ants can vary from hundreds to as many as thousands, depending on how many colonies join to create the swarm of flying ants
Find out about more about flying ants, ant control and ant extermination at antexterminationmethods.com.
Some valuable lessons can be learned from how Central Banks, Big Business and Governments shift their problems to the people of the world that can little afford them. In the US, the banking system was doing all kinds of shady deals that literally placed the world financial system on the verge of collapse. They came to the US government for bailouts with promises that it would solve the problems and restore things, but what they failed to say was "restore things for whom."
The US government bailouts of over $1 Trillion were difficult for most people to comprehend the amount and the need for US citizens to become a lender to such corrupt organizations. However, after the first ever audit of the private corporation known as the US Central Bank, or more simply the Federal Reserve Bank we have now learned that $16 Trillion were used in secret bailouts. As U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
The net result is the private corporation, Federal Reserve Bank has exported its debt and bad behavior to the people of the world! Many people around the world lost their homes, life savings, good credit and other things including their self-respect, and the banks have lost nothing. In fact those banks have acquired assets for pennies on the dollar!
The British Petroleum (BP) Oil Disaster & The Obama Administration
After the private company, British Petroleum (BP) released 170 million gallons of crude and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico, creating an environmental catastrophe they worked with the Obama Administration to perform a CYA.
Obama appointed Kenneth Feinberg to head the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) fund. Obama approved him because of his prior work shielding private corporations and the federal government from lawsuits. Feinberg earlier in his career had protected chemical giants Dow and Monsanto from the litigation of Vietnam veterans sickened by the defoliant Agent Orange. Also A.H. Robins, the pharmaceutical corporation from women maimed by the Dalkon Shield contraceptive device in the 1970s. More recently the Bush administration from lawsuits over the 9/11 terrorist attacks that might have lifted the lid on government secrets.
Immediately after Obama and British Petroleum (BP) established the fund and named Feinberg as "pay czar." Feinberg launched a high-publicity media campaign advising victims that they would be "crazy" to sue. "Under this program, you will receive, if you're eligible, compensation without having to go to court for years, without the uncertainty of going to court, since I'll be much more generous than any court will be," Feinberg said in July 2010.
Feinberg reports that about 300,000 of 800,000 claimants have received some compensation. Of the "$20 billion" GCCF fund, so far he has paid out a mere $3.8 billion. Feinberg claims that he has already "processed" nearly 80 percent of all claims.According to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, the GCCF has paid only 3 percent of business claims and 9 percent of individual claims. According to several media accounts, claimants have received roughly 10 percent of what they requested. Those who accept money from the fund agree to waive in perpetuity the right to sue BP for further damages.
Additionally, Mr. Feinberg, representing the GCCF has reportedly forwarded several claims to the US Department of Justice for mail fraud investigation. One individual has been imprisoned for attempting to defraud BP. Not any Transocean or BP executive has faced criminal investigation, or received jail time. Of course, Mr. Feinberg as a government employee is immune to litigation for promises he made and or his actions.
Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline
Officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) state it will require years of massive clean-up efforts before work in the Kalamazoo River watershed is completed. The environmental damage from a pipeline spill by a Canadian pipeline company a year ago, was 3.2 million liters of thick tar sands crude spilled into a Michigan river. This heavy tar sands crude is heavier than water and contains more heavy metals, thus it is harder to clean up.
The Canadian "Prime Minister Stephen Harper" government and promoters Shell, Valero, ConocoPhillips, Canadian Natural Resources Limited and Cenovus Energy are lobbying the Obama administration to approve the tar sands oil pipeline known as Keystone XL.
The proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline would carry 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of tarry, unrefined oil every day from the Alberta tar sands 1500 miles through the US heartland to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Spills from pipelines are not rare.
"The tar sands are huge in terms of their impact on the environment but also on Canadian democracy. Oil is starting to run the country now," said independent Canadian researcher Michelle Mech. "Average emissions for oil sands production and upgrading (well-to- pump) are estimated to be 3.2 to 4.5 times as carbon intensive as conventional crude produced in North America," concluded Mech's report, "A Comprehensive Guide to the Alberta Oil Sands".
The promoters of Keystone XL claim that it will reduce US reliance on oil imports from unfriendly countries. This is the same argument put forth by politicians every time they do something their handlers demand but the public rejects.
Oil demand is falling in the US thus according to environmental activists in the US and Canada the Keystone XL pipeline may simply allow tar sands oil currently landlocked in Alberta, Canada to be exported to Europe.
Canada was criticized by other nations at a major U.N. climate meeting recently after being caught underreporting carbon emissions from its tar sands oil production facilities, one of the country's biggest and fastest growing sources of global warming gases. Obama and Harper say they are worried about climate change, but neither the US nor Canada has cut emissions.
It does not matter if you believe in "Global Warming" or you think "Global Warming" is a hoax. What matters is to extract this "dirty oil" as it is known, and process it will generate an estimated 150 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every year. That is more CO2 than the annual emissions of 85 percent of the world's countries. Norway, an oil-rich country emits a mere 50 million tons annually. Plus, let's not forget there are risks of pipeline spills in the US heartland.
The US State Department scheduled a second round of public hearings along the pipeline six- state route in September. Even if you are not a citizen of the US, you should voice your opinion on this because it will affect you, your children, your health and your financial future as governments collect "carbon taxes" from everyone.
Do you really need more taxation? Do we need to have 150 million tons of additional CO2 released into our air every year?Do we need another environmental disaster or have we had enough?
JD Durham is a World Class Technician, an Automotive Hall of Fame honoree with 45 years experience in the automotive service and repair industry and a staff writer at Straight Talk Automotive You are encouraged to discover how little a quality Scan Tool and automotive diagnostic software package costs, plus the new members only area is FREE to join and has great resources for members only.
The other day I saw the movie, Happy, from Academy Award nominated director, Roko Belic. This is a delightful film. Its mission is to search the globe to find an answer our very basic questions -
Is money what makes us HAPPY?Having kids and a family?Or is what we do for a living the secret to happiness?Are we living in a world that truly values and supports happiness and well-being?Could it be that we are alighting upon a quantum leap in consciousness?Is a happiness revolution underfoot?
Well, there are some statistics that show, based on a recent New York Times article, that even though America is a very wealthy country, we are definitely not at the top of the "happiest people in the world" list (we're not even close)!
With over twenty-five years of experience in the mental health field, I have learned that the Western scientific approach to mental health and well-being focuses more on our sadness and depression, and how to treat it, than it does on finding strengths and happiness.
There is some great news, though-all that focus on sadness and what isn't working, is changing. Many of us are beginning to "Wake Up and Smell The Lotus Blossoms!" There is a new field of psychology called "positive psychology" and its greatest proponents are many of the leading psychiatrists and neuro-scientists around the world.
In fact, I am one of those "happy" people who is doing her best to spread the word that we can change the belief sets and mind states we hold about happiness! And what I want to share with you is that you can even change your beliefs about what makes you happy.
And you can be happier!
Here is another NLP (neurolinguistic programming) process for you. This one is for Belief Change:
While sitting in a comfortable chair in your living room, ask yourself what you want to believe and that, if you believed it, would serve you well (i.e, "I want to believe that I can be happier"). In other words, this is a belief that is not really true for you right now. Next, ask yourself what it is that you no longer want to believe? What do you currently believe that doesnot serve you? What is keeping you from having what you want? Sit with that for a few moments and let it sink in. Now, get up from your comfortable chair and move to another spot in your living room - either a different chair or a couch, etc. - you are going to do some "process image work"...Allow an image or symbol to come to mind which captures that belief (of what it is that you no longer want to believe). Describe the image to yourself. What was the positive intention of believing that? How has it served you? How has that belief/image not served you? Sit with that for a bit. Now, get up out of that chair or spot and stand up, turn around a couple of times and...shake that energy off! After you've shaken off that energy, step across the room, or move into another room and find another, different chair or sofa or side of the bed. Sit down and ask yourself, "What is something that I used to believe and no longer believe?" This could be, such as, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny...just "remember a time when" you used to believe something and don't anymore. Sit with this time/belief/image until you feel very strongly and remember very clearly what it was like for you back then when you had that belief. Breathe deeply into that time. Stay with it a little longer. Now, get up from that spot and walk towards that last place you were in just before you took this one...don't go all the way, just go about half way there...stand up straight and spread your feet as far apart as you can. Imagine that you have one foot in each of those spots. Imagine that your wise mind (best friend/partner/coach) is standing behind you, holding on to your shoulders, gently rocking you back and forth from side to side, from one place to the other, onto each of your feet. As you gently rock back and forth on your feet, slightly picking up your feet off the floor, repeat to your wise mind, "This is what I have believed, this is what I used to believe." As you consider that old belief, ask yourself, "What is the image or symbol that captures how that is now for me?" As you are considering that, continue rocking on and off each of your feet, moving from side to side, rocking on and off each of your feet positions, repeating, "this is what you no longer want to believe and what you used to believe and no longer believe....used to believe, have believed...no longer want to...but used to...). Continue rocking back and forth for a minute or so, then change positions-put your left foot where your right foot was and repeat step 8 again...continue rocking back and forth until what you no longer want to believe feels similar to what you used to believe and no longer believe. Step out of those positions and shake that off. Shake out your hands and feet, jump up and down a bit. Now, it's time to work on settling into what you want to believe....move to a different chair or spot in your home. Ask yourself what it is that you desire... just settle into the chair, into your new position of belief. Tell yourself - "What is it that I am willing to believe for myself now?"....Say to yourself (saying it out loud is better if you can) "I really can be happier about____." Check yourself as you say those words...your belief needs to be a strong desire, not just a wish. Good, just remember that and set it aside for a moment. Now, ask yourself- what is something you believe in right now? Do you believe the world is round? Do you believe you have big feet, red hair? Do you believe you have children? Do you believe you are a woman, or a man? Just ask yourself to check what your beliefs are. Okay, take on your new belief now from #11...this is your strong desire belief. Remember what you are willing to believe now! Sit with it for a few minutes. Now, move out of that chair and stand in front of the chair where you've been sitting. Look at yourself in the chair. Imagine you are acting as if you already had that belief that you are willing to believe. Say it and own it fully and then sit back down in that chair and take it on fully. Own it 100%. Ask yourself what is the image or symbol that comes to mind that captures what you are willing to believe now? Take a moment to let that image or symbol become very clear in your mind's eye. What's that like for you? How does owning this strong desire belief serve you now? Just reflect for a few moments on that. Thank yourself for taking on your new belief. Now, turn around, away from the chair and move out and across the room to a brand new place in your home where you haven't been yet for this exercise...this is going to represent your future. As you walk across the room, take your image and your new belief with you, seeing yourself moving into the future. Imagine yourself, as you slowly walk into your future, as you are completing this exercise and go about your business...see yourself next week...a month from now...six months...years from now. Ask yourself what has changed for you now? What are you doing? How is your life different? What steps do you want to begin on your business or life projects now? Time to celebrate-job well done!!!
May You Thoroughly Enjoy Your Day!
Pam
Pam Britton, "The Mindset Expander For Smart Entrepreneurs", lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She is an entrepreneur, certified clinical hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner. Pam has combined her passion for service with her own entrepreneur mindset and offers online mindset coaching and training. She has recently published a new e-Book, "Seven Keys To The Entrepreneurial Mindset." Get your free copy at: http://www.pambritton.com/
This is what good citizens and political junkies are supposed to do:
We watch the Presidential race unfold like it's the NFL play-offs.
So there I sat in front of my TV dutifully watching the first Republican Presidential debate from the impressive Reagan library in Simi, California. There were the prospective candidates, all lined up under the wingspan of a life-sized Air Force One that loomed over the entire audience of enthusiastic Republican supporters.
Looking at the field, it's hard to believe that anyone but Mitt Romney could possibly be elected President. Last month's frontrunner Michelle Bachmann is a strange woman, a former IRS lawyer who raised five of her own kids and 23 foster children, all while dutifully obeying her husband who professionally counsels homosexuals to "pray away the gay."
Michelle is the Gaffe Queen, getting all mixed up about Elvis Presley, the Battle of Concord and lots of other things that don't matter but that she keeps talking about and getting wrong. Oh and she also says she can make gas cost $2 a gallon - just like that! Too nutty to be President.
Bachmann became the frontrunner right after the former frontrunner Donald Trump dropped out after admitting that President Obama "probably" is a native-born American. That and the TV sweeps rating period was over, and he didn't need the publicity anymore.
The new frontrunner is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who just positively hates Social Security and Medicare and says they are "failures" that should be "given back to the states." Rick just loves to execute criminals (the GOP audience loves it, too!) and thinks that U.S. Senators should be chosen by politicians from each state and not directly elected by the voters. Hmmmmm.
Perry the Republican nominee? Obama can't be this lucky.
One thing that all of the Republican candidates seem to agree on is that taxes should be RAISED on the working poor. I hear it over and over again. Every candidate says it's wrong that 47% of Americans don't pay any federal income taxes. Everyone should have "skin in the game" when it comes to paying income taxes, the GOP hopefuls all say.
But who are these people? They're the working poor. The people who cut our lawns. Serve our lunch and pump our gas. Butter the bagels and sweep the floors. Watch over our kids and care for old folks in nursing homes. This is the backbone of America.
How can it possibly be in the best interests of the nation to make these people pay MORE taxes? They're already paying a greater share of their income in federal payroll and state sales taxes than your average millionaire. Why would anyone want to raise their taxes? I just don't get it.
Since the Republican debate was held at the Reagan Library, I just wish that someone pointed out that it was Ronald Reagan who created the Earned Income Tax Credit that reduced income taxes for lower income workers. It's too bad that all of the GOP candidates who claim to be just like Reagan have such a different point of view when it comes to helping - or hurting - the working poor.
There's no question that tax policy will be a pivotal issue in the 2012 elections.
One party wants to raise taxes on the working poor. The other wants to raise taxes on the richest 2% of America. Let's see how this debate unfolds.
Vision Media Marketing Inc. ( http://vmmi.net/ ) was incorporated in 1985 by Jean Swibinski and Paul Swibinski, who continue to direct the company. A full-service public relations and media communications firm with a long history of successfully delivering clients' messages, it specializes in public policy issues and crisis communications. To visit Vision Media's blog, VMMI Policy Perspectives, go to http://vmmi.net/blog.
The success of iPhone made Apple introduce four advanced versions and the reason behind its success was that the device supported the development of simple apps which made it even more amazing. With the iPhone becoming successful, the demand for iPhone Apps is also increasing. It was during July 2008 when the number of apps per month were 500 and today there are more than 350,000 apps available in the apps store and the store has noticed a remarkable number of downloads from the iPhone users. The biggest benefit that iPhone users received was that the device supported third party apps and this revolutionized the way these devices used to function.
The main reason behind popularity of this device is that it comes with different features and among all the most important one is its ability to customize. iPhone applications give a pleasant surfing experience and besides this the device can also be used as a handy media player, for sending and receiving voice messages and calls, camera, for accessing internet and other social media sites. Various applications such as gaming, business, utilities, social, travel booking, programming and other productive apps can be developed. For game lovers there's a good news as iPhone provides a lot of games including 3d game applications. Its features can be easily customized and this is what arises the need for iPhone app development.
Thanks, to the iPhone app development companies that add life to this products and makes sure that users can reap maximum benefit from it.Though some companies find iPhone app development as an expensive affair but it is for sure that in long term they can make a fortune out of it. Once the development is done you can sell the app and earn from it. The most exciting part is that iPhone app development just minimum hardware, one of it being intel-based Apple Mac machine.
Today, there are a number of free apps for iPhone and the ones that are charged aren't that expensive. This is the reason why iPhone users are attracted towards downloading apps. Today, app development has become a booming field and just like software development even app development is being outsourced to a few countries. But if there's someone who doesn't have time and resources for approaching iPhone app development companies then App store is always an option from where one can get the latest version of apps.
To conclude it can be said that iPhone is one of the best pieces of technology and is now being used by most of the people. With the increase in demand of this device, the demand for applications is equally increasing and so looking for relevant iPhone App Development companies becomes a difficult job.
Elan Technologies is an Offshore Software Development Company and an "ISO 9001:2008 certified" company. We provides iPhone App Development services and is adept in mobile web development including android application development and iPad Application Development.
Second Timothy 3:1-5 says, "but know this, that in the last days perilous time will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitor's headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power." We can see from that passage of scripture that these things are happening now. We are living in the last days and immorality is on the up rise.
I believe there are four things that have caused immorality to be rising daily.
Lack of prayer is one reason why immorality is on the rampage. We do not pray as we should, we live in a world where everything is a rush. When we awaken in the morning, we are already late. So much lies ahead of us for the day and prayer is not head of the list so it is not done and as a result of not praying, we are drawn into the snares of the devil because we have not been spiritually filled for the day to ward off his devices.
Another thing that has caused immorality to be on the up rise is the lack of faith. We do not have enough faith in God so we try to work things out for ourselves. In the process, we devour each other trying to reach the top. The depth that men would go to preserve himself is without limits.
Compromising is another thing that we have done that has caused an increase in immorality. Instead of standing up for the things that we know is right, we will compromise because we do not want to be persecuted. We will try to see the right in the wrong but in actuality, there is no right in wrong but we will still try to justify our actions or another's action. Compromising against what the word of God has said is not an option, unfortunately, we have tried to compromise it and it has landed us literally into a world of trouble.
Cares of the world is another reason why immorality is on the up rise. We have valued stuffed more than God. It has become our treasures but it is also someone else's treasure and that is why stealing is on the rampage. We are afraid to leave home because we are fearful that someone will break into our home and steal our goods.
We are more concerned about what other people think of us than what God thinks about us and when we care more about what the world thinks than what God thinks, we are drawn into the world. We are swallowed up by it and all those things mentioned in Second Timothy 3:1-5.
These are the last days that we are living in and it is time to return to God and His way of doing things. If we would do that, we will start to see immorality decrease and that would make a more peaceful life for us.
I am a License Practical Nurse. I have been in this field for over 25 years. I enjoy helping and encouraging others. My main hobbies are reading and writing. I am a Wife, Mother and Grandmother. I am also President of the Parent Teachers Organization. President of the Parent Supporter Task Force and a member of the Parent Leadership Institute.
My website is: http://www.lizzieschristianbookstoreandmore.com/. I sell a variety of Christian Products such as E-books, Poems, and Teachings. Free weekly Devotions. Inspirational products like Crosses, Bible covers, Plaques, Figurines and more.
Every time Mitt Romney speaks with contempt about community organizers, it sounds the same as someone running their fingernails across a black board to the thousands of community organizers throughout the nation. That must be because Mitt Romney doesn't understand what they do. He doesn't understand that he benefited from many, many people in Utah who were his forerunners in the Olympic movement. Romney must not realize that he, himself, was a community organizer.
Some people in Utah started organizing for the Olympics in 1929. There were many who worked to raise interest in the state, and money for this effort. The organizing to bring the Winter Olympics to Utah was ongoing until 1995. Then a bunch of community organizers on the committee stood and cheered. Through their coordinated efforts, often at their own expense, the 2002 Olympics were awarded to Utah. This was achieved because they had the community support and a plan in place for the Olympic venue. Mitt Romney came in on the end of this effort. He took advantage of all this work, and now he is denouncing community organizing as less than a real job. Shame on him!
Community organizers are usually activist with a special interest they are trying to accomplish as a community goal. Often this is on their own, using their own money and resources to develop. When it becomes large enough, they then do fund raisers, apply for grants to the local, state, and federal government. At this point the organizer has to have many skills. They have to keep books, be the secretary, fill out forms, console volunteers, do the work of eight or ten employees in a normal business. It is a 25 hour 8 day a week job, scrounged into a 24 hour 7 day week. This is not an easy job, but it is very real.
Community organizers have cleaned up streams, rivers, lakes, and are working on the ocean. They make sure that we have clean air to breathe, start recycling centers, recreation programs, see that we have parks, stump for Global warming, aka Al Gore. Other community organizers have developed programs to care for our disabled and elderly. The list goes on and on. These people have added greatly to what our country is. It is disconcerting to many of us organizers that so often this job is degraded by those who are sometimes jealous, and sometimes just don't understand. Let's identify some of the great community organizers of the past.
For instance, who was the community organizer who sat in the Potomac River with a bunch of his rag tag volunteers until he could defeat the British? It was President George Washington. Who wrote letters, newspaper articles, contacted and organized everyone he could to attend a convention in Philadelphia? Of course, this was Ben Franklin. What about the contemporary organizer who gave his life for the cause? The great Martin Luther King. What about all the women who have contributed and still contribute thousands of hours, money and effort caring for social causes in the USA.
Mitt Romney became a community organizer when he took over the position as CEO. Most organizers who run a program are known as Executive Directors. He became a CEO because the Olympic committee was already an established program and CEO is more understood as a job description than Executive Director. Yet, he organized never the less. The 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City was a community effort. There were 26,000 volunteers. Mitt Romney broke the record for private money raised and donated to the Olympics through his efforts. He oversaw 700 employees, making this one of the largest community organizations in the nation. He contributed one million to the cause, and donated his salary and severance payments of $1.4 million to charity. No one wants to take away from his accomplishments as a community organizer. Yet, it is distressing that he views President Obama's efforts with disdain. President Obama was in a very different and possibly more difficult situation. Obama was working with the one of the most difficult positions that black people face. They were out of work with inadequate training for any other job. Motivating people in this situation is notoriously a very difficult job, with little to no recognition because achievement is so subjective.
Romney benefited from those who had already done the most difficult work. He stepped into the top position with the money and cause already established. He took a position where accomplishments are easily spotted because they are more objective. He didn't do the grunt work, which is exceedingly more difficult to measure, as President Obama was doing. Therefore to scorn President Obama's efforts is being less than the gentlemen and man he is trying to portray.
Racial Tension, Racism, U.K. Riots, Entitlements; What is wrong with western civilization? The answers are simple and they are here for you to read.
It isn't the fault of one race or another. It is the fault of the governments and media who have been telling them every day for more than 50 years that they're all supposed to live together in harmony. Different races and cultures traditionally had their own countries so they could live their lives freely without worrying about accommodating or offending every other race and culture in the world. One government or one set of rules cannot be made to effectively represent the wants and needs of all races and cultures at the same time. There are several glaring examples in history to corroborate this such as the failure of the League of Nations, the U.N., and internal social/economic policies of the U.S., Europe, etc.
Political correctness is completely detached from natural laws, common sense, and human nature. Anyone, who dares to raise an opposing point of view, if only to point out that their methods haven't worked at all, is immediately branded a racist. "Racist", now being the dirtiest word in the English language, is (almost) justification for the even the most brazen to flee from that accusation. The definition of racist is one who believes that the various races of this planet are different from each other (I believe we call that "diversity") and a belief that your "team" (or race) is the best. That is all consistent with human nature, not hate. Hate however is a common manifestation of multiple races being integrated by force of law while being told it is natural and serendipitous. The aspects of human nature which motivate us to segregate ourselves racially and culturally are mechanisms to promote the survival and longevity of the group. If that type of "instinctive" behavior did not exist among humans, I would venture to say that we would have all merged into one mixed race millennia ago.
Let's acknowledge something else weighing on race relations in historically white countries; the whites want and deserve their own countries as much as any other race and the white's countries, cultures, and ways of life are the only ones that are vanishing. People need to wake up and reject once and for all the failed policies based on liberal utopian fantasies. Their philosophies are flawed and this should at long last be obvious to all after more than a half century of consistent and complete failure of liberal social and economic policies.
Liberal policies have failed so miserably in part because some of the central tenets of liberal philosophy are fallacies. For instance their policies are built on the assumption that the only characteristic differences separating all of the various races and cultures on Earth are purely cosmetic in nature (i.e. like makeup). To assert that values, priorities, attitudes, and attributes do not vary from race to race is ludicrous. The differences among races and cultures are part of what makes the world go around.
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