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I need great free or low cost advertising ideas for a very small seasonal business.? I have a letters from Santa business where parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc go on my website and can order a letter to the kid(s) in their life that is personalized to each child from Santa Claus and postmarked from the North Pole. I have the back end of my business completely in order; however I need some free or inexpensive ways to advertise this business. I will be utilizing press releases as I am teaming up with a charity and donating $1 from each of my letters to that charity. This will give me a little more newsworthiness with the press releases. My main target is women. Ad rates in women’s magazines are outrageous. Even my local newspapers and community publications seem to want an arm and leg for even for the smaller ads. I don't have to focus locally as my service is available nationally in the U.S. I need ideas for online and offline marketing that will not break the bank! I really want to saturate with advertising the five weeks after thanksgiving. HELP!

Anybody have and FREE Marketing Ideas? I recently started my own "at home" small business. The first month was a little costly of course, getting started with everything... I need to do some marketing, but can't really afford Paid Advertising for a couple more months. Anybody know some great sites out there that offer free advertising? My business is in the Wellness Industry if that helps with ideas! THANKS! Sorry, typo in the title! *any, not and! :)

What are some good free marketing ideas? I have a small business and the paper is too much $$ plus I don't see the results I want. I use craigslist as well. I own a self serve dog wash. I also have signs around dog walking spots and animal hospitals,,, the obvious stuff! Thanks

i need help marketing my small business.? I have a very small start up home based business. I am looking for ways to market it online. I DO NOT WANT ANY SCAM IDEAS! I just want honest people who have their own business and are marketing it online. I am also looking for a free or just about free way to have a website that would be the name of my company (.com) any help out there. Legit answers only please

Marketing and Advertising a Small Business, ideas please? I manage a Scuba Diving shop. Our main source of traffic right now stems from word of mouth. Now there is no problem with that, but I believe there is so much more potential to grow our customer base through other outlets. Now the problem is where to start. I need something that is cheap, preferably free, as the owner is somewhat reluctant to invest the money if he is not going to see an instant return. The only ideas I can think of so far is posting flyers, but I don't know how effective that will be. Oh, we do have a website, and I use google analytics to track page views and what not. We currently average 12-15 hits a day which seems pretty low. I need advice from someone with experience if possible, or just plain old good ideas from creative people. Some sort of strategy would be very helpful as well. Thank you greatly for any input!

I need some small business advice, I am starting a small business? I have a website and sell quality products. However I am not driving too many customers to my site. I have a lot of ideas to get customers. The problem is that I don't have the money to get this ideas rolling. I have bad credit and can not get a small business loan. How can I get the money to get my marketing ideas and plans off the drawing board? Does anyone know of free or cheap on-line marketing opportunities? Thanks in advance.

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How would you fix this economy? Here are my ideas. What are yours? 1) Small scale lending must be nationalized. The "free market" has little interest in lending to individuals and small businesses. The "free market" will always avoid the risk of small loans. It isn't something that will get better with affluence or wealth. Thus, all of the historic government programs designed to facilitate lending to small borrowers must be nationalized or firmly regulated like a monopoly. The historic separation of risk and reward, the co-signing or guaranteeing of loans that has been done by Freddy mac, fanny May, FHA and others, needs to be scrapped for a government department dedicated to small capitalization lending, or heavily regulate it. Most mortgages and small business loans will fall into this category, say anything under a million dollars. Here is an easy way to think of it: We all understand that utilities have monopoly power and must be regulated. Think of residential lending in the same way. The free market will not willingly fulfill this function. The current system of private funding and government guarantee is a separation of function that simply does not work. Do you find this idea somewhat socialist? Then is the regulation of your utility company also socialist? 2) the aspects of derivative trading legalized by the "Financial reform act of 2001" needs to be repealed, permanently, or revised to have the same underwriting and capitalization requirements as the insurance industry. If an insurance business insures beyond their means, then they are consequently held criminally liable. Derivative trades must be held to the same standard. Is this too harsh? Too conservative? Then why do we hold the insurance industry to this standard, and not the investment houses? 3) Outsourcing needs to be taxed to attempt to slow or stop the capital that the the United States bleeds to India, Mexico and China. The amount those countries have grown from our outsourcing, the economic power they've used to bid up the global price of oil, is an accurate measure of the economic power the United States has lost, to outsourcing. Those revenues should be used to help fund higher education (state university systems). Let's build an affluent populous. Are you thinking Smoot Halley? India really likes it that you think that way. 4) the federal government must make provisions to develop energy sources other than foreign oil, primarily wind and nuclear energy. The raping of our coast lines and oceans for oil should be legislated permanently illegal. Notice how the call for drilling has stopped? The destruction of our oceans and coast lines shouldn't be subject to the daily price of oil. 5) disclosure of the terms of adjustable rate mortgages must be required to be in a large font size, in plain English, like effective interest rates are required to be displayed currently on all conventional mortgages. The length and nature of the "teaser" period of ARMs must be legislated to be clear and comprehensive to someone with a sixth grade education.

marketing ideas for childproofing business in Illinois? my friend is trying to start up a childproofing business, offers retail sale of products with the option of installation. he has tried sales genie to get names of people around with small children and has done direct mailings, however, this accounts for only a small return. most of the stores around will not let any business cards or fliers to be placed within. tried leaving some trifold pamphlets in couple OB/GYN offices, but seems the staff really doesn't keep them out for long. he has surfed the internet and posted on all the free sites he can think of that would be associated with this type of service and has even set up a web page. however, most people do not even know this type of business exists, so...aside from standing on a street corner and attacking anyone coming by with a stroller does anyone have any other ideas? thanks.

free ways to advertise your business? Hi, I have a small business (and I am looking for free ways to advertise my business. Are there any websites available to get my product out there? any other ideas besides website to market it? what i do: I do Personalized Picture Videos, i put your favorite pictures together with backgrounds, words of encouragement, poems and quotes and create a one of a kind DVD creation. It is great to show at Birthdays, graduations, memorials, weddings, etc.... www.shockevents.net

Do you see advantages of Social Media for yourself in your career, business, educ.,? Do you know how to use Social Media to further your own interests? Do you think Social Media should be a distinct and separate category on its own? Categories where Social Media Questions are asked: Safety, Consumer Electronics, Family, Society-Other, Cellphones, Law and Ethics, Advertising, Education, Society & Culture, Careers & Employment, Economics, Investing, Search Engine Optimization, Facebook, Social Science, Technology Sample of Questions asked about Social Media: Why do people text? Is texting safe with hands free device when driving? How would you show your knowledge of social media in a job interview? Any business name ideas for a social media marketing company? What are the different forms of social media that exist today? How useful are social media platforms for marketing? How does social media help in measuring the return of investment of a company? How does social media marketing work? How can I incorporate social media into my small business marketing effort? Do you look for new social media sites when the others get boring? How is Social Media related to science and technology? Additional Details The question asks would you understand advantages of using Social Media if the subject was categorized under one major category instead of 15 separate categories? Would you be interested in learning more about advancing your career or business?

How is the best way to promote a business online for free? i work for this company which has got really effective products. Being a small scale company, it cannot try paid online marketing methods.Any ideas ?

Marketing ideas to promote a business? Hello! :) I work at a dental office and we're trying to come up with ways to promote our practice. It's a small office with one dentist and one hygienist (that comes in only 2 times a week). We open on Saturdays (which is our most liked day). We're trying to attract new long-term patients. How can we do that? What can we do? It's illegal to provide free stuff (example, free gas card) for new patients here. So we have to be very creative. Thanks for you help! :)

Your Marketing strategies...need some good ideas on advertising my company.? I work for a small business, check cashing/Pay day loan service. Our town is ver small (population of approx 2,000 people) although we do have four stores in other cities (within 25 miles radius) my store seems to be the slowest. I need to advertise more, posting flyers is most obvious way to advertise but what are some others that aren't too expensive. My frind suggested we make mathes, or advertise in local companies and ask that they put our advertisements in their payroll. Heres an idea of what we do...we chard 1.5 % to cash check, and we give free money orders.....P)LEASE give some ideas. Thank you

I am thinking about setting up my own business and want to know what you think about it...? I am thinking about setting up a small marketing business from home. I hope to target other small businesses in the area such as cafes, sandwich shops, sweet shops and takeaways. I would be designing posters, flyer's and adverts for them in which I would distribute appropriately. I would put the advertisements in the free newspaper and also the monthly village magazine. I would also distribute flyer's in the street, through letter boxes and in the free paper. I may also have flyer's in other stores depending on what the business wants. What I am asking here is do you think that I have a good idea? Also what would be an appropriate price to charge say to design and distribute 500 leaflets? Any other comments will be greatly welcomed, thank you for your answers

Any ideas for me on how to make money online? hi, i need money, because i'm broke, totally :) i have some debts, and i have no idea, how to make money. i think about some small business online, but i don't know what can i do. i can create websites, graphics (Photoshop etc.), editing films, i worked in public relations. but these competence are not perfect. maybe blog + affiliate marketing? but only on free hosting, because i can't buy domain and server. any ideas ?

Which do you think would be a good company to start? Which company would be better to start? Home and office cleaning-self explanitory Home and office decorating- Bring samples, and ideas to customer. Also hire and coordinate the project so the costumer has no hassles Meaning we find and verify all companies and make sure they are insured and have references. Customer does not leave their home we physically bring samples to them or they can view online Market small businesses- We obtain small businesses to give free services and buy one get ones....and coupons at NO CHARGE to the business. In exchange we ask for a referal and sell the coupons with FREE stuff and incentives to consumers who would like to try the business out. (ie 1 free massage, 1 free facial, free manicure/peticure, buy one shampoo get conditioer free, etc) all on one card....we then sell these cards door to door for 30-40 dollars a piece....... Please choose 1, 2, or 3....which do you feel would be the most successfull

help with name for small cupcake business? Hi! I've got a question and I need a little help from the outsde world! I bake cupcakes for a hobby, you know with decorations and everything. I really really enjoy it, whenever there's a party, I'm the one bringing cupcakes. Just a few weeks ago there was a free market and I sold a lot of them, amongst them rainbow cupcakes. A woman came up to me and asked if she could order some. Of course I told her yes! I'm very excited about it. I would like to start selling my productions and get things going on the side. Just as an extention of the hobby. If I want that, I figured I should open a website with basic info, pictures and everything. Now... if I want to sell, I want to present everything under a name, so if I meet people it could be like: - You make cupcakes? * Yup! You interested? - Yeah, I've got this birthday party coming up.. blabla And then I'd be like * Well, here's my card (name website phonenumber), look around and let me know if you're still interested. And that's the hard part so far.. I have no idea under what kind of name I want to offer my services. So I'm asking you for help... What do you think would be a fun name for a small cupcake business? My name is Sammia. You could do something with my name, or just leave my name for what it is and give me something else thats awesome :D I'd appreciate the help! xx

Obama's small business policies ? Okay so let me understand Democrats ideas on helping small business: #1-He claims to have given small businesses Tax Cuts, can someone please point out where he cut small business Taxes & in what bill did he cut our Taxes ? I can't seem to find where my Taxes have been lowered anywhere. #2-He wants banks to free up credit to help us expand & hire. My question is why the heck would I want to BORROW more money ? And also why the heck would I want to hire when business is so slow ? Until there is confidence in the market & States cut there own business taxes & people start spending there money with confidence that it will pay off for them in the future business will continue to slow, so my other question is this....How can anyone have any trust in Obama when his policy ideas make NO SENSE ? He wants to help small businesses by putting us deeper in debt to banks & he wants us to hire more employees when the economy is still shrinking ? BTW for anyone with half a brain a small business that generates 250,000 dollars or less is a business with MAYBE 1 employee & a guy who works from his home. I could do 250,000 in sales in a month and maybe pull in for myself an 80,000 a year job. Reasons -- Profits are around 35% tops, plus I have insurance to cover the employees from injury, the building, the overhead, unemployment, state taxes, federal taxes, payroll taxes, trucks, maintance, sales staff, medical, auto insurance, road taxes to drive in certain cities, drivers, auto maintance, Gas, oil changes, ect ect ect. by the time its all said and done a company that does 5 mil in sales pays each partner around 85,000 a year. @Alma----Money is not finite, if it was how do these big companies keep turning over profits year after year ? How does anyone get paid if there is only so much money ? And what is the total out there ? 100 billion, 100 trillion, 800 trillion ? what is the absolute number ? Typical Liberal answer, big business bad, big government good, in your head u feel Government is going to make things fair, but those in DC are no different then u or me, they are looking out for themselves, the only difference is they don't make or create ANYTHING, they take the money from our pockets to pad there own & your thinking is to give them even more of our money to level the playing field. HOW MUCH MORE DO THEY NEED IN WASHINGTON ? WHEN IS IT ENOUGH ? They have been saying there going to level the playing field for 40 years now & people still live in poverty, and using an idiot socialist like Bernie Saunders and taking him at his word is sad at best.

Any Recommendations on a Cheap (or free) and Effective Way to Market a Resume Writing Service? Our family-owned business is looking for an effective way to highlight and emphasize our Executive Resume Writing Service for nothing or next-to-nothing. Since we are a small business, we don't have the budget to advertise on the radio or newspaper. In the past, we have used Craigslist and other online postings with mixed results. I would be open to hear ANYTHING! A creative way or place to put fliers? A joint venture with someone else? Any ideas are welcome in this VERY tough economy.

Why can't the US Government advertise for small businesses? If you want small businesses to grow from scratch, they need a whole lot of marketing and advertising. There is one area where the US Government may be able to do something more effectively than the average consumer, and THAT is connect people with people free of charge....INSTEAD of granting money directly. The Government has mediums that individuals don't have. They know people from lobby groups, they have tons of attorneys, they have the ability to contact people in high positions who may have their phones blocked. So if the Government instead of granting money to small businesses, instead helped with the advertising using the high position of the government to establish repoire.... this is invisible money right there. Most small businessmen have great ideas but may not be the best "advertisers". To advertise on Television you need tons of money. Why can't this be done? Wouldn't it be economical? It would taxpayer money AND it would be of BIGGER value to small business entreprenuers. EDIT: For businesses that are in their start-up phase, (0-2 years in existence).

Do you think anybody would accept this business proposition? I am trying to get some "credit"/respect from the lending and business industry. I am recently out of business school with an MBA. I am wondering if any small business owner ( market cap of 500k), would allow me to essentially act as a "developer", and come up with ideas to improve the revenue and decrease the costs of the business. I would be willing to work for free, actually; I would be willing to PAY MONEY to the business owner in order to get a job like this, working with a small business owner to improve the profit. I would be willing to pay money in order to ensure that if my ideas implemented are actually bad and cause a loss in profit, then they (the business owners) could keep the money to compensate for their loss in profits

Which company would be better to start? Home and office cleaning-self explanitory Home and office decorating- Bring samples, and ideas to customer. Also hire and coordinate the project so the costumer has no hassles Meaning we find and verify all companies and make sure they are insured and have references. Customer does not leave their home we physically bring samples to them or they can view online Market small businesses- We obtain small businesses to give free services and buy one get ones....and coupons at NO CHARGE to the business. In exchange we ask for a referal and sell the coupons with FREE stuff and incentives to consumers who would like to try the business out. (ie 1 free massage, 1 free facial, free manicure/peticure, buy one shampoo get conditioer free, etc) all on one card....we then sell these cards door to door for 30-40 dollars a piece....... Please choose 1, 2, or 3....which do you feel would be the most successfull

Help needed regarding starting up small business.? Hi, i am 15 and am a sophomore in high school.I have 2 years left, and to be honest i am very heavy troubles at home. My friend, also 15 and a sophomore, is having similar difficulties. We have been friends for a while, and we had one of those "childhood fantasies" that we would own a joint business some day. Now, that we are a bit more "mature" and have a lot of free time on our hands, and a unsteady future coming closer and closer, we've decided to start a project that can hopefully feed us as soon as possible. We have decided to attempt to start our own clothes store. While it might sound crazy, or like were just making stuff up, this is the exact reason why i'm asking for help, as neither of us have much experience. My friend is something of an graphic designer, often spending hours on very cool sketches, or just coming up with creative geometric projects. I have a talent in marketing, oratory skills, and have a level head. I enjoy working on long term projects that pay off, and can just lay down on my bed and think. I also have a keen sense of style, and enjoy putting certain "sets" of clothing together, but am often faced with the difficulty that i can't find a critical piece, like a hat or shirt, or the right shoes. So we decided it would be best to put our talents to use and attempt to plan ahead and perhaps open a store. The reason we decided on a clothes store was because not only will we have a marketing class next year, but it would also combine the strong sides of our interests and perhaps might feed us after we graduate, as we both made up our mind of moving out as quickly as possible. While we do have a couple tshirt sketches, i know that that is just the smallest bit. I have alot of questions, and i want to at least get a general idea of what would be needed and at least seem knowledgeable before i approach my counsler/marketing teacher with this. Below is a list of questions we have, and it would be great if you could provide an answer and/or a link to where i can find more information: 1)Would we have to be 18 to start up a business? Would it matter if it was a physical store or a online store? 2)We can not afford this project, and we will defiantly not have the financial backing of our parents. Would it be possible to receive a loan of some sort? 3)all of the sketches we have done are made by hand. is there a electronic tool we could use to compile into a template? 4)if we do launch this project, how many years should we expect to be paying off loans? 5)We live in Pleasanton, California. Is there anyway we can contact a professional, or someone with experience in the field, to perhaps shadow them for a day or two, or perhaps ask them questions? 6) While we expect to design our own clothes, we also want to sell the clothes of other brands. Would we need to ask their permission to sell their clothes? How would we go around asking them for permission? 7)How would we go around officiating our Business, buying or renting a building? Im sorry for such a long questionare, and i thank you for any tidbit of information you may give me, it means a lot. Thank you!

Can you identify the advantages of Social Media for yourself? Do you know how to use Social Media to further your own interests? Do you think Social Media should be a distinct and separate category on its own? Categories where Social Media Questions are asked: Safety, Consumer Electronics, Family, Society-Other, Cellphones, Law and Ethics, Advertising, Education, Society & Culture, Careers & Employment, Economics, Investing, Search Engine Optimization, Facebook, Social Science, Technology Sample of Questions asked about Social Media: Why do people text? Is texting safe with hands free device when driving? How would you show your knowledge of social media in a job interview? Any business name ideas for a social media marketing company? What are the different forms of social media that exist today? How useful are social media platforms for marketing? How does social media help in measuring the return of investment of a company? How does social media marketing work? How can I incorporate social media into my small business marketing effort? Do you look for new social media sites when the others get boring? How is Social Media related to science and technology? Additional Details The question asks would you understand advantages of using Social Media if the subject was categorized under one major category instead of 15 separate categories? Would you be interested in learning more about advancing your career or business?

Can you identify advantages of social media for yourself? Do you know how to use Social Media to further your own interests? Do you think Social Media should be a distinct and separate category on its own? Categories where Social Media Questions are asked: Safety, Consumer Electronics, Family, Society-Other, Cellphones, Law and Ethics, Advertising, Education, Society & Culture, Careers & Employment, Economics, Investing, Search Engine Optimization, Facebook, Social Science, Technology Sample of Questions asked about Social Media: Why do people text? Is texting safe with hands free device when driving? How would you show your knowledge of social media in a job interview? Any business name ideas for a social media marketing company? What are the different forms of social media that exist today? How useful are social media platforms for marketing? How does social media help in measuring the return of investment of a company? How does social media marketing work? How can I incorporate social media into my small business marketing effort? Do you look for new social media sites when the others get boring? How is Social Media related to science and technology? Additional Details The question asks would you understand advantages of using Social Media if the subject was categorized under one major category instead of 15 separate categories? Would you be interested in learning more about advancing your career or business?

I'm starting an internet based business. Can you help? I have a website and am offering a very in demand product to trade. Something like setting up deals between people. For example: I could charge a small fee for setting up time share trades. And that is not my idea - just an example. My potential market is unlimited. So my two part question is: 1. best way to market my business 2. least expensive or free way to market my business

how To start A PC repair business in A small town?Have you done it? I have just Got my A+ certificate. And I want to start a computer repair business to provide on site repair. I will use a room in my house to be My work shop, I have fixed a few desktops and laptops for free for my friends and they were happy. If You or any one has started a pc repair business please answer this question. I am scared that I may fail, but I have to give it a shot I have most of the tools already. please tell me about most of the problems that Might face me and how to overcome them I also would like any recommendations about good software for virus removal spyware removal registry cleaners . any ideas (and do not worry about marketing ) just the difficulties that I may face and the things that I need to be aware of thasnk you in advance

Can somebody please tell me how our current health care system represents a free market economy? I hear all these concerns from people concerned about changes to the health care system and i really wonder .....Why? This question is specific to telling me how our healthcare is free market. Please focus your answer on this issue. I already understand the pros and cons of some of the proposed changes. I want an answer on WHAT WE HAVE NOW. I say our current health care system is far from free market. At work, i have ONE option for healthcare as do most small businesses. This one healthcare option dictates the doctors I can go to. They also dictate how much they will pay for procedures. When i get services, I have no idea what it will cost BEFORE I get the service (unlike everything else you purchase in this world. I may know what the fair and reasonable costs that are covered are if I spend a significant amount of time researching each item, but, I still don't know how much out of pocket I will be paying. Each year the costs go up and still I don't have any free market ability to another plan. And, If I leave my job, I have to change health plans, maybe be forced to change doctors (or pay more for my same doctor just because I changed jobs). I also have to restart a new deductible if I change jobs. So, please explain to me our free market health care system.

Wal-Mart and the Free Market System? [Sorry guys, computer glitch with first attempt]? With the exception of groceries, many of which are shipped from Mexico, or are otherwise not local, depending on the location of the Wal-Mart store, about 97% of Wal-Mart's products are made in China. The majority of retailers in America, from Napa Auto Parts to Hot Topic, for example, also purchase products that are made outside of the United States, but since Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, if not the largest when moving to first or second largest in competition with Exxon Mobil [profits may be better one day, than the next, and Wal-Mart may win first place, moving Exxon down to number two, etc...], we shall use them as the example. I'm sure that any place, including Wal-Mart, carries American-made products, but such a product is extremely difficult to find, if existent in a Wal-Mart or other shop. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a vest and tank top I recently bought at the mall [while searching for trousers to wear for work] are made in the USA. Not only is China a nation ruled under communism, but child labor is practically a trademark of their own. And China is not the only country to support or endorse child labor, many other countries condone this, but since China is our #1 partner in merchandise, you have most likely found that nearly everything you own was made in that country. Before I get to my point, I am aware that I also own and purchase many of these products. I have searched for American-made, but gave up long ago, for the reasons above. I'm not out to criticize anyone for "supporting" child labor. Nor do I get upset at Wal-Mart customers...I don't shop there myself, after a spurt of news stories recently revealing further abuse inflicted upon humanity by this company, I could not stomach the idea of spending another cent there. Can't blame anyone for shopping there, though. They do have the best deals around, especially for those of us who financially struggle, as it is, and I've been tempted MANY times to venture back in to shop for things I need. SO... We in America are living in a democracy, with a free-market capitalist economy. Yet we have thousands of America upset with the current administration for whatever -ism they decide to slap onto it....socialism, fascism, communism, Marxism....it's becoming a huge list, even though it's been extremely difficult throughout history for any nation to officially and accurately earn more than one or two of those titles.... Why has Wal-Mart, then, remained so successful? The smiley face may be our poster boy for the free market, supply and demand, and other American economics, but underneath, they are in one form or another, bankrolling the economy of a communist nation, one of these countries that our Tea Party is concerned we are on the road to becoming? Isn't Wal-Mart anti-American? Especially when you measure the way they have treated their workers, and often their customers [several complaints of discrimination, as well as Wal-Mart employees from all over the country currently taking part in the largest class-action suit, against this company, in American history]. As far as treating the workers of other businesses goes, while Sam Walton also started out small way back in the previous century, Wal-Mart is notorious for killing the profits of small businesses until they are eventually run into the ground, and forced to close for good. While Wal-Marts around the country are gaining more and more success, allowing them to afford to hire new employees, far more pharmacies, grocers, or any other store that is similar to an individual section of a Wal-Mart store, are either facing budget cuts and forced to implement layoffs, or closed forever because Wal-Mart simply beat them into financial submission. How does Wal-Mart feel about labor unions, organizations that are built to fight for the rights and fair treatment of hard working Americans, or anyone in another country who is interested in them? Ask the employees of the one in Canada, where the entire store, at request and authority of the management and store owner, was completely SHUT DOWN, after it was discovered that a handful of the employees attempted to unionize. The store had only been open for a few weeks! Every single worker there was associated with that Wal-Mart location was put out of a job. A friend of a friend was selected for promotion to management at the Wal-Mart where he worked. They drove him to another building nearby, separate from the store, led him into a room - all the while in a very hush-hush, top secret manner - and there he was told to watch a training video. They also made it clear to him that he was not, under any circumstances, to share with others what he had seen in this video. What he did see, in that video, he described as such blatant propaganda, specifically against labor unions, that he was instantly rendered unable to stomach the idea of management, period. H Continued here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aujh70fSpAysip7V0w4E183ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100810085634AA5U2f0 It IS a question, folks, it just happened to be way too long for one post. I wanted to include as much as I knew about the issue, to make it the best I could. The link included leads to the end of the question.

How can I get business through small scale advertising? I'm 18 years old and going to university in september to train to become a primary school teacher, I would really like a flexible job as I'd like to have free time available to visit my boyfriend and family etc. I've been babysitting for two years part time and I love it, and its convenient with my studying etc and quite good money. However, I've only been working with one family, how can I make sure I get more business when I move to a new area from september? Is there a way of directly targeting parents? I don't want to spend loads of money, and my Mum says that its not a good idea to advertise in newspapers etc because I'm not a qualified child-minder. Please help me by giving marketing tips and advice so I can get as much business as possible, any help is welcome, thank you.

Why do we need to take care of the destitute and needy? I seriously don't understand the idea of having programs such as medicare, medicaid, food stamps,housing subsidies or anything other transfer programs. It takes capital from people that drive the economy to people that don't contribute anything and take more out of it. If we don't provide for people including the elderly or disabled, the free market corrects for it in one of two ways. Either they are forced to develop greater human capital, get more jobs or die. The free market and capitalism solves all problems in the LONG RUN without government intervention or theft. For example, Investment, Commercial and Shadow Banks were providing no money down mortgages, secularized them, people defaulted and the entire global system blew up. Governments decided to bail out firms yet liquidity still froze. In the U.S. 90% of the people still had jobs, large and medium sized firms still had access to capital markets. Only small business and poorly managed firms suffered. If the government let the market clear them out the economy would be fine.

What online business should I start? I'm 15 and would like to start earning real adult cash (50k-100k a year). I don't want to do affiliate marketing or anything like that. I really would like to start my own online company. I want to provide a service to businesses or people. One idea is to start a social media marketing firm, where I create basic websites for small businesses who are not yet online (like using webs.com), and I could also create and manage facebook/twitter pages for companies and help advertise them using social media. Another idea is to start an online music distribution service company. A site called Tunecore lets you sell songs on iTunes and other music stores. I would provide a service to new bands/artists where I could use Tunecore to sell their music, while also advertising their band/music online by creating sites and/or social media marketing. The last idea I found was a free website script i came across that creates a website where bands can share their music and listeners can rate, listen, share, etc. The problem is, I would be competing with big names such as Myspace Music and Purevolume.com. Do you think any of these ideas could make me a lot of money (50k-100k a year)? Any other ideas for an online company that could be profitable? Thanks. I've been researching for two years, but still can't find that perfect thing to start. Maybe one of my new ideas above could be the one. What do you think?

Liberals, can you explain to me why you have such disdain for free markets? I honestly would like to know. It's confusing to me that you claim to hate corporations, yet the unintended consequences of Government regulations kill the small businesses. Well meaning regulations intended to help others only benefit the Wal-Marts of the world. Please explain why you believe free market capitalism is bad. Anybody that says greed, please explain why that is so bad. That is the idea of a trade. You need milk more than you need that $2. The corner store needs the $2 more than he needs the milk etc. I really want to understand your beliefs. I am fiscally conservative because I hate corporations and I value individual liberty. Why have so much faith in the Federal Government and bash employers who issue you paychecks? Why am I wrong? -edit- thanks for the civil discourse, but please stae facts and cite them. Please no Wall Street answers, as Free Market principles says nobody is too big to fail. Free market advocates are against all corporate bailouts. Regarding wealthiest 1%, they paid 28.3% of overall taxes in 2006. They do not own 40% of wealth in America. Sorce- Congressional Budget Office via US News and World Report http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/10/americas-richest-1-percent-paid-283-percent-of-overall-taxes-in-2006.html Thanks for keeping it civil.

i am starting a painting business what are some effective ways of advertising and stirring up activity? looking for insight on how to stir up activity.i am currently doing the normal small classified adds,door hangers,free local bulletin boards and super markets.besides telling everybody i know what are some other ideas that are different than the norm?we do mainly homes interior/exterior.I also want to market us as clean cut individuals that are solid good workers rather than the industry standard of paint covered slobs. any insight is greatly appreciated.

How to make my business a success? Hello, I have just started my own web design business and web site optimization. I believe we can be unique as i want to target new and small businesses with a pay as you go option. I wonder if anybody has had some success with there own business and could pass on some use full tips? I am particular interested in good free advertising and publicity and also interested in any ideas of how i can obtain information of potential clients for direct marketing. And of course if you want a website or me to make your website seen by loads more ill put you at the front of the que lol.

Micro Economics Seminar Topics ideas? Hey I have to do a seminar and right now i am still looking for a topic The microeconomics seminar requires students to provide a comprehensive account of a central issue/problem in economics. So the teacher gave us broad topics, but i need a specific topic within those broad topics 1.Advertising – 2.Agricultural Marketing Boards 3.Agriculture – Problems and Programs 4.Agriculture and Free Trade 5.Automobile Industry in Ontario 6.Banking Systems, a Comparison of Canadian and American 7.Banking Crisis, the International 8.Canadian Establishment: Black, Bronfmans, Eatons, Molson, Thomson, Rogers 9.Competition in the Canadian Economy 10.Chartered Banks, The Changing Role of 11.Collective Bargaining in Canada 12.Concentration in Canadian business (Oligopolies) 13.Economic Growth: Good or Bad? 14.Elderly, the Aging Population Problem 15.Energy in Canada, the Economics of 16.Entrepreneurship in Canada 17.Future Work 18.Government Ownership or Privatization? 19.HealthCare in Canada: Sustainable? 20.Immigration , 21.Inflation in Canada 22.Monopolies: A Case Study 23.Multinational Corporations, the Economics of 24.OPEC’s Impact on the Canadian Economy 25.Oligopolies: A Case Study 26.Olympics Impact on Economy 27.Poverty in Canada, The Economics of 28.Pollution in Canada, The Economics of 29.Regional Disparities in Canada 30.Rent Controls: A Case Study 31.Small Businesses in Canada 32.Social Services in Canada – Economic Crisis? 33.Strikes – Economic Consequences of 34.Stock Market, A Historical Evaluation of the 35.Stock Market, An Analysis of Investing in the 36.Tax Structure in Canada: Good or Bad for the Economy? 37.Technological Revolution – The Economics of Automation, Computerization, Robotics etc. 38.Terrorism’s Impact on the Canadian Economy 39.Trade – Canada’s International Trade 40.Unemployment in Canada Today 41.Unions in Canada – The Economic Role 42.Unions in Canada – Still Needed? 43.Wage and Price Controls, A Case Study 44.Walmart’s Impact on the Canadian Economy 45.Women in Canada, The Changing Economic Role of So i need some good specific topics with these topics thats what i need help on, and also can u also state the problems if possible Again , The microeconomics seminar requires students to provide a comprehensive account of a central issue/problem in economics. Thanks!

Which online business idea should I pick? Hello. I would like to start an online business/company over the summer. My goal is to eventually make six or more figures a year. I have two ideas which I think could be really profitable. The problem is, I was quoted 40-50 thousand to make each site (except for the other business ideas). I just dont have that kind of money to even build one site. I will list the ideas below, and could you please tell me which idea you think is more profitable. How should I go about building the site? Should I hire someone on craigslist, rent a coder, etc.? Or should I try to build it my self? What should I use? I dont know programming or coding or web design. 1. My first idea is a website where users can submit original songs and other users can listen, rate, comment, share, and chat with other users. Users could also create a page where they could post info, and find new band members. I like this idea since the only competition is www.purevolume.com. PureVolume is making $300 a day! If I make a better site, why can't i make that or more? I would sell ad space on the site. Accounts would be free, but if the site became big enough, I would create a pro membership that costs money in addition to the free account. If you think this idea could be profitable, how should I go about creating the site? I got quoted 40-50k to build by a web design firm. Should I use Kickapps which lets you create a social network site where user submit content (videos, MUSIC, videos etc.) for a small fee? Should I hire a developer on rent a coder? 2. My second idea is a website where users could post, list, sell, buy, auction, and trade websites. An ebay or amazon marketplace for websites. Users would post the site link with info and a snapshot and price, and other users would buy the site if they wanted to. I would take a small 4% commision from the sale. I would also sell ad space on the website. This website has some competition such as websitebroker.com, flippa.com, and sitepoint.com, but the potential is huge, and there is room for another player. If you think this site is profitable, how should I build it? Should I hire someone or build it myself. If build it myself, how should I build it? 3. My third idea is to sign up for resellerdynamics. You pay $1000 to them and they give you liscense to re sell there website building software on your own website and charge fees per month. they were reviewed in small business opportunity mag as a good opportunity and bbb says they are legit. 4. My last idea is to make a website with lots of articles, reviews, comparisons, etc. on cell phones. I would also sign up to be an affiliate with verizon, att, sprint, etc., and sell phones on my site. I know there are a lot of competition out there such as phonearena, phonedog, cnet, and mobiledia, but each site doest the same thing as the other site, and they all are making great money. By the way, is a website like this or a website in general considered a company? Could you be a CEO of the company that runs the website. Like if I call the site www.sprocketfish.com, could I make a company called Sprocketfish Inc. that runs the website and could I be CEO of Sprocketfish Inc.? I really want to make one of these websites with as low startup as possible. I know I would have to market like crazy and do site matinence, but please help me. My parents think i should do a business like normal teens where you mow the lawn, babysit, etc, but I really want to do online business and hopefully make a good living. I think my sites ideas have potential. Which idea should I do? Which idea is more profitable? Even if you think they are not profitable, which would you choose if you had to? How should I build it? Thanks! PS, I am becoming a dealer at Kaeser and Blair and selling promotinal products to get me some startup cash for my online companies (websites). Thanks!!

How can I gain funding to start my business? I've got a business idea to run a website and sell advertising space on it to make money. I need to gain funding in order to set it up. Theoretically, I could manage on £100 to pay for domain names and hosting space. (I don't want to go with free options because they look unprofessional, and the £100 is needed to cover the whole year) The more money I gain, the better it will be for the business to take off the ground. (If I got, say £1,000 I could pay for a complete website design, and a small marketing campaign.) I do not want to take out a loan. I've never liked the idea of throwing away money later for the sake of being able to have some now. Also going on the point that my business is not guaranteed to make money straight away. I am in receipt of benefits, so personal funding is not an option (unless I wish to starve myself). What methods can I use to gain this funding aside from asking family and friends? Without trying to sound rude, but more in order to "get a point across". I am going to simply ignore anyone who tells me "get off your butt and work, then save some money in order to start up". The reason I am starting this whole business is because I am fed up with the amount of times I have been turned down for work for the last year. I've come out of College with the equivalent of 3 A-Levels with A grades in IT, Software Development, and Computing, but not even local computer shops want to take me on as a salesperson because I "don't have enough experience". Even when I enquire at local supermarkets I receive a "Sorry, we don't have any vacancies, come back in a month." The reason I want to start this company is because I want to work, but haven't been able to so far.

What is the best way to raise $25,000 to open a business? I have years of experience. SBA, Small Venture Caps? Have you done this personally? I see such things as micro loans on TV, but know nothing about these This is a consulting type business, but selling a product. I have been in this line of work before and have an excellent reputation. However, I am now in another city with few contacts for a private placement, LLC type application I could probably do it on $15,000 but would feel there would no risk on my side (that it will succeed) with $25,000. I already have the market fully studied, and the competition is fairly weak. Again, I have done this same thing before. Any ideas from one who is in this business, has done what I am hoping to do...raise $ is appreciated. Do VC companies only deal with bigger fish? Do I need to use a figure of $50,000 to be taken seriously? Are there any regional considerations? I can do this business all over the phone...It's based on an internet presence and print ads to generate calls from a nationwide audience. I know little about grants, but heard if you are a potential employer, this makes you more favorable Point is, I can live anywhere and do this. I expect to employ only about 4-5 people and can generate gross revenue of $300,000. VERY favorable profit margin Feel free to add any questions I should be asking, if this is insufficient information. It's the most likely (best/easiest) source of the money I am seeking. I am willing to give up some owenership/equity position but will not do any 'partnerships' unless absolutely necessary. I need full control and decision making, only because I know precisely how to run such an enterprise. There's no experimentation needed; no MBA know it alls I just need money to get my first 20 customers. It's all on near auto pilot from that point forward

Why are so many people so hostile towards the idea of a free market when...? ...it hasn't been allowed to exist by the mafioso monopolistic government? The government has strangled the market with so much red tape nonsense that at some times it can barely function at all. What is so wrong with the free market? - "Slave wages!" Myth. Any company that didn't pay decent wages would soon find itself without employees - "Unsafe products!" Myth. Not only would a company face civil liability but they would soon be run out of business because no one would buy their products. - "Monopolies!" Myth. The government CREATES monopolies by allowing such stringent intellectual property laws and by creating so many legal hoops, licenses, certifications, inspections, blah blah blah that only the filthy rich can get into the market. If the government would just butt out then small time folks could get in the marketplace, innovate and bring new and better products to the scene. These are just a few of the myths touted by Statists. Never mind that a true laissez-faire free market system is more ethical and moral seeing as how this shouldn't be any of the government's business. Really, the Fed was only supposed to be concerned with inter-state commerce but they slowly grabbed power bit by bit until we have what exists today. Thoughts? Why won't you people let the free market be....free? @Tyler Those things happened even with the insane amounts of regulation! Government is like snake oil with you guys. If it doesn't work maybe you just didn't use enough, right?

Does this sound like a good career path to take? I want to utilize my ability to innovate and correct business inefficiencies to gain the most profit possible. here are the stages I want to take to become super-rich:) 1. start advertising myself as a free business consultant in many fields ( advertising, day to day operations, managing employees/ their pay, etc.etc.). I have an mba in business management, and am willing to present detailed plans for business improvement for small businesses for free (at least for the first 3-5 small businesses. 2. After I have proved that I am good with coming up with idea for various businesses (I really wont concentrate my efforts into a specific field of Small businesses, but I plan on concentrating my efforts on the elements which almost all businesses have in common (employees, pay, advertising, etc.)), then I will start to charge a commission, based off of the increase in profit which my services provide the business. 3. As I am able to garnish a better reputation as a consultant, over time, I will start helping companies with larger market caps (5mm+), will hire fellow consultants, form my own company and continue from there.

Is this a good business idea? Hi. I'm 15 and I want to start my own online company. I want to make real money ($100-$300 a day), not kid money. I don't want to start an affiliate marketing business, but I want to start an online service company of some sort. Reseller hosting is a very saturated industry so here are my other ideas. 1. A digital music distribution/marketing company. There is a site called Tunecore which lets people sell their songs on iTunes. But for my company, we would find new bands/artists and provide that service for them. We would also provide a wide variety of marketing services. We could build band websites and market them on Facebook and other social networking sites. I could probably charge $100 for the site, and $70-$150 per album placed on iTunes (they would keep 100% royalties, they only pay the one time fee). 2. I found a free web script that lets you create a website where bands/artists can create profiles, share their music, and listeners can rate, share, chat, follow, etc. It is sort of like purevolume.com, but aiming at a smaller niche of new bands and artists. We would make money from ads and affiliate products :). 3. I've been looking, and they dont have websites that review bands. It might take a long time to write reviews though. 4. A website where people can buy and sell websites/domains. Like flippa.com, but I'm positive the industry is not really saturated, and I could make some money. I would charge a fee if the transaction is successful. 5. Lots of phone review sites go a lot into depth about phones, that it sometimes can be confusing. I have gotten a lot of feedback from elders saying that people in the phone stores are useless. I was thinking of making a site that reviews cell phones, but just gets to the point (who the phone is for, best features, pros, cons, final recommendation). What other things could I do to make a lot of money ($100-$300 a day) online? Are any of my ideas good? Please don't say I should't post ideas on YahooAnswers, because i just want some feedback. I really want to know how to make a lot of money online.

They said we had to do this to get the economy going again right? That was the point of this governmental? They said we had to do this to get the economy going again right? That was the point of this governmental effort right? Fix the Housing/Lending market so small business can continue to grow and hire. Buy up bad mortgages so banks can lend again and free up some credit and lending to Business and individuals so they can go buy the car they want or invest in a home or business. They say give them an inch they will take a mile, is it fair to say that is what is happening here? Spend 400 Billion (previous admin), Spend 800 Billion on stuff that has nothing to do with the above, 800 Billon without getting credit flowing as was the intent of the “Bailout” which became a “Stimulus Package” which is now a “Recovery” Bill. Rhetoric. Then come back to us and say we need another 400 Billion. Through out it all Obama says No, earmarks, No pork, no lobbyist, Cut spending, spend responsibly; do not spend what you do not have. Fiscal irresponsibility summit, Cut the deficit, End Debt Then President Obama put a $4 trillion price tag on new budget a whopping $1.75 trillion more than the President expects the government to raise in revenue, creating the largest federal deficit in real dollars since the country was fighting World War II. among other things the Budget Bill that the house passed yesterday contains about 8,500 pet projects totaling nearly $8 billion. Democrats, have a chance to seriously upstage the GOP and show liberal genius, but instead are insisting on not opposing bad ideas. Instead embarrassing yourselves by blaming Bush, why? The spending Obama and the left is doing is their choice now, this spending is on Obama, and he has far surpassed Bush with his reckless spending. Bush’s Fault? For the people by the people, what about congress? Who has had the majority when the Bailout was drafted and passed? and who has it even still now?

Is this a profitable online business idea? I want to make six or more figures a year. I have thought about starting an ecommerce online business selling either wholesale office chairs or teen clothing. I am not sure if this idea could be profitable, but this idea is not my main concern. So the idea I really think has potential is a cool one. The online business idea is a website where visitors can become members for free. Members can submit original songs and other members can listen, rate, comment, share songs with other members, and chat with members. I would make money from ad revenue which could be a lot if I get some visitors. The other way I could make money is to charge a small fee for putting someones song(s) on a featured list on the site. They would have their song posted on the list for a set time, and I charge a small fee. I really like this idea, but it would cost a lot to create the site with a web design firm (since I have no HTML knowledge). I am wondering if I should create this site. Do you think it could be profitable? Do you think I could make six or more figures a year with this online business idea? If not, should I try.... ecommerce (what should I sell that is profitable though?) content sites (making money from ads and affiliate marketing?) Which online business idea do you think would be the most profitable? Do you think any of these online business ideas could make me six or more figures a year?

Can you guys please tell me where i can advertise to get more clients from other countries.? Hi I have just created a small business for myself. I am doing tunics, kurtis to be more precise women tops. For the time being i am doing it for local market, i want to expand the business and see if i can export some of my items. I want to know where i can put advert for this purpose. Please feel free to give me your ideas. Thanks

Some Economics HW I need help with..? 10. Which is the federal government's official measure of how much output our economy produces? 11. What is a business cycle? 12. Compare and contrast a recession and a depression; describe some of the key characteristics of each of these two economic phases. Now, go to Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia and find the article entitled Economics. NOTE: It would be very wise to add the Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia URL to your bookmarks or favorites. We use this site quite often in this course, and it is only given in this lesson! 13. Write AT LEAST one-paragraph summarizing the influence of Adam Smith on modern economic thought. (Note: You can also see the Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia article specifically about him, or get some information on the Internet, if you prefer.) 14. What is mercantilism? 15. What was the goal of this philosophy? 16. What was the main idea of physiocracy? Now, read Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia's article about Karl Marx. 17. Write AT LEAST one paragraph summarizing Karl Marx's influence on modern economic thought. (Note: As with Adam Smith, you can also see the Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia article specifically about Marx, or get some information on the Internet, if you prefer.) Now, go down to the section entitled Economic Systems (In the article entitled Economics). 18. Give an example of what the US government has done in the past to intervene in an otherwise relatively free market economy. 19. Why do you think the government intervenes in such instances? 20. What are some of the disadvantages of a capitalist economy? 21. Briefly compare and contrast the economic systems used in Sweden and in the former Yugoslavia. 22. What was Adam Smith's most famous and important work? 23. Some schools of thought believed that bullion was crucial to a country's economic sustinence; others believed that land was the most important commodity. What did Smith believe was the most important element to an economy? 24. What is the "invisible hand"? 25. Adam Smith wrote, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." Do you agree? Why or why not? In many ways, Adam Smith's economic ideas underpin Western ideas of enterpreneurialism. Being an entrepreneur means organizing a business or series of business ventures that are undertaken with considerable possibility for profit and with considerable risk for loss. The risk factor, balanced with the possibility for significant profit-taking, makes entrepreneurial business ventures attractive to some, while frightening to others. Excessive government regulation regarding employee benefits or environmental restraints and responsibilities, no matter how beneficial to society as a whole, can "kill" some ventures before they get off the ground. Benevolent governmental tax policies regarding small businesses, as well as incentive programs to help businesses get established, are key factors in the numbers of successful entrepreneurial ventures. The key to success when starting a business is knowledge. Know your business from all angles, including expenses, record keeping, advertising, and risk. 26. NEW QUESTION AS OF 11-17-08: How did Adam Smith feel about government intervention in capitalism? 27. NEW QUESTION AS OF 11-17-08: Under what circumstances did Adam Smith feel government intervention was warranted? 28. What are two advantages of improving the "dexterity" (ease of movement) of workers? 29. What are the advantages of moving the tasks between workers rather than the workers from task to task — that is, creating an assembly line? 30. What are the advantages of the invention and use of machines? 31. Name four ways Henry Ford produced cars more efficiently by using an assembly line. 32. List three reasons why Ford raised his worker's wages to $5.00 a day.

are monopolies bad for capitalism? I hear a lot of people recently talking more and more about free market, but they tend not to answer questions regarding monopolies. But in free markets, I think monopolies are a very important topic. I'm curious how the Tea Party feels about the gigantic business entities in the US. Let's not focus on small business or even medium sized businesses right now. Let's talk mega-corporations. Well, aren't monopolies essentially the same thing as having socialism? By definition, they destroy competition. True or false? How do tea party supporters think monopolies should be dealt with? While I know the Tea Party is for smaller government, could the government intervene to split them up into smaller companies to promote more competition-- would this actually be a good idea? i don't know. I think we can definitely all agree though that the role of government should be to secure property rights and enforce good laws. Government certainly can have a role in helping to produce competition. Laws should be created to prevent very large mega corporations from arising. Can we all agree on that?

Why do both "major" parties only care about the issues on which they advocate more government? The Democrats have almost always (with the exception of George McGovern and a few other possible exceptions) cared only about their economic platform of central planning by government bureaucrats. Whenever the Democrats are in power, they're always willing to vote to continue to fund wars (and start new wars) even though they pretend to be the party of peace. Whenever the Democrats are in power, they always tend to pass new restrictions on personal liberty, such as reinstating draft registration during the Carter administration and reducing the already small amount of freedom that younger Americans have during the Clinton administration. However, Republicans have normally limited their attacks on the Democrat policies to the areas where they pretend to be for less government instead of their extremist economic policies (although, with John McCain practically a lock to lose this election, the Republicans have done a great job in the last week or so going after Obama's crazy economic ideas). The Republican Party, in sharp contrast to the Democrats, only cares about its program of perpetual war and reducing personal freedom. Although they pretend to believe in limited government and the free market, there is no principle of economic freedom that they are unwilling to sell out, a prime example being when the Republicans passed Medicare Part D a few years ago, which moved this country closer to socialized medicine. 2 more examples of the Republicans selling out the free market are Sarbanes-Oxley (the infamous law that has caused businesses to leave the country to move to places like China that require less bureaucratic paperwork to operate a business) and the infamous bailout (although, to their credit, the Republican politicians were more likely to oppose this than their Democrat counterparts). However, the Democrats somehow think that the Republicans are "limited government ideologues" who irresponsibly "deregulated" the economy. How can both of these parties get the other one so utterly wrong? What exactly are Americans who still believe in the principles of liberty that made this country great supposed to do when both parties show nothing but contempt for those principles?

Is this a good political idea? I'm inventing a new idea for politics called “christian neo-socialism”. Here's the beef of it: -all small businesses are PARTIALLY owned and supported by the government -all major enterprises/businesses will pay a tax to the gov. to support the smaller businesses -Christian values (turning the other cheek, supporting the needy, etc.) will be enforced -Healthcare is free to all citizens -no one can be TOO rich or TOO poor -despite this, free market will be encouraged Would this work? Is it good? any tips?

How does government regulation hurt competition and create monopolies? My friend posted this on his website: "Big Businesses and monopolies, such as in Health Care and in Finance, are only in power and have such power because it's impossible for any smaller businesses to compete. He then said that Liberals have taken the idea of regulation, intended to bust cartels trusts and monopolies, and have used it to justify massive regulations and requirements in the name of hurting Capitalism. He then said that Big Businesses that can cope with such regulations get to run their industry and thus take advantage of their monopolies (or semi-monopoly) by having prices and quality of service or product anything they would like it to be. He then said that Big Business and Monopolies thrive off tons of regulation to kill of competition, and are only allowed to get so big and powerful because of Government's economic-engineering, and tinkering with the free market. " Um........does that make any sense? please explain!!

David Frum, President Bush's speechwriter, says that conservatives are to blame for Obamacare passing? Has anyone read this article? I haven't heard Glenn Beck mention any of this so I am skeptical but what do you think? http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo Excerpts: "At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994. This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none. Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994. Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law. We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours."

I'm 16 and planning on starting my own business. Advice needed? Hey everyone. I'm currently 16 and when i am older i want to run my own business. So recently i decided i might as well start now! Only a small thing though. Just to try and make some more money to put towards university or something i may need. I have Taken Media, ICT, Maths and Business studies. And i have the attitude needed to keep a business open. Although, because i am only young and still in school 4 days a week i was planning on starting small working on Ebay and Amazon. (All done with help of family members) Heres my idea. Due to the increase in size of people. Generally i mean. People need bigger clothes. And some people find it difficult to afford large clothes (XL+) As they are usually expensive. Which is where i see a gap in the market and would like to buy clothes (Males shirts XL up. Trousers 34" up) and then resale using online techniques. Like Ebay... So i need you, to give me links, names and just any company (Based in england) So that i can buy large clothes and sell. So someplace like a warehouse or holesaler. The whole idea of merchenting comes into to play here. This is simply to make a small business on Ebay (selling items) and my own website (As i can make the website myself and also advertise.) Which who knows. In the future my idea may become very successfull. You may find it hard to beleive i am 16 :) I currently have 1300pounds to work with. I been saving up. To summerise.... I need warehouses or holesalers who will sell clothes cheap, so i can resale them on the internet. So if you know of any then please. Do tell me. Any of the popular supliers who make clothe, if you just so happen to have the website for where i can buy large items of clothing for resale.. (E.g Denim jeans, Easy clothing. Ect Ect.) If anymore information is needed feel free to ask and i shall give you it in as much detail as i can. I'm mainly looking for advice. Where i can buy clothes. Where to start ect ect. Thanks for reading and no silly comments please. I am quite serious about my idea and i hope it will be a big success. Many thanks to people who reply.

Globalization - who does it benefit? Globalization is having a global market with the end goal resulting in free trade amongst competing countries & competitive markets. IE, say a bed was manufactured in the USA with higher wage employees, then a person in Chile couldn't afford to buy it; whereas, if that bed was made in China, then they could afford it. Globalization is a way of leveling the free market playing field 'globally'... that is the end goal. Now my question is and please forgive me for being crass but, "why the hell are we falling for this and why are we so willing to believe it is a good thing for us?" I mean seriously... who gains from globalizing markets? NOT the average workers, NOT the small business person selling books in a shop down the street, NOR your local corner grocer that refuses to turn into a franchise. Seems to me that we have ALL fallen for the 'idea' of globalization as being good for us but will it not destroy the American dream? Will it not benefit global corporations only?

Direct Mail Marketing ????? Me and my husband just started a small business in Computer Repair, I have an idea about sending postcards out to local residents and businesses so we can get more business in. I was able to find a site whom will make the custom postcards for us for $25 for 250 which is GREAT but Im having a problem in finding a direct mailing list or a generator of mailing list addresses. Does anyone know of any sites that sell these list for cheap or a free generator ????? Also wanted to ask about postage, what would be the cheapest way to go about sending bulk mail out. Thanks ........

Is an American moving to Dubai a good idea? With all the attention on Dubai city, I'm trying to figure out what this is all about? Is it a free country? How difficult is it for Americans to move there? What is the cost of living like compared to what people make? How is the market for technology workers (like software and systems) in Dubai? How is the pay for technology workers in Dubai? Can you run a small business in Dubai? Thanks :)

What should I choose for my online business? I really want to make six figures a year online from an online business. I have four online business ideas but I only have time for 2. 1. The first online business idea is a auction/marketplace website where people can sell, trade, or buy gift cards. I will make money from this by charging a small fee once a successfull trade/sale is made. 2. The second online business idea is a website with information on how to build a website. I will make money with this by using ads and affiliate marketing. 3. The third online business idea is a fixed term membership site/program where I charge $25 a month and the program runs through a full year. I send out the fixed term membership course through an autoresponder. 4. The fourth online business idea is a website like yahoo answers where people can debate/argue about different things. The site will be free, but i will put ads on it to make money. Which online business ideas do you think could make me six figures a year? I want to quit my 9-5 job which was paying a nice six and up figures a year. Any ideas on how I can make six figures online? What of my ideas could make me six figures a year? Thanks.

Is time to take a 'Good close look at Capitalism' as it is practiced in most parts of the world? The definition of Capitalism: 'An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.' A critical part of the definition of capitalism is the idea of laissez-faire, a French term which roughly translates into "allow to do" or "leave alone." This is what many so called 'Conservatives' around the world believe especially here in America. The less regulated.. businesses are, the more than can operate and stimulate business. At least this is the argument. But does it really make sense? If all us really take a step back into history and understand that through Capitalism, the common man invested in companies so that said companies could produce goods and or services that said investor needed in his or her community or state. As time progressed investments were soon made in many companies with the sole purpose of making money on the return from their investment. Now with 'speculators' and millions literally 'playing' the stock market, the whole concept of what Capitalism was meant to do has changed dramatically. Economist Thomas Sowell described it this way: "When an investment is made, whether to build a railroad or to open a new restaurant, the first money is spent hiring the people to do the work. Without that, nothing happens. Even when one person decides to operate a store or hamburger stand without employees, that person must first pay somebody to deliver the goods that are going to be sold. Money goes out first to pay expenses and then comes back as profits later—if at all. The high rate of failure of new businesses makes painfully clear that there is nothing inevitable about the money coming back." But who is investing in the small businesses of today?...no one! People don't invest in small businesses today for the sole purpose of said business to succeed. For the most part, people invest today to get rich. Moreover, individuals and corporations have violated the principles of fair trade, by concealing and falsifying information, and while their own personal freedom and wealth may be enhanced, both society and the free market they have conned are suffering. So I ask in all seriousness, do we all need to take a good close look at how we operate as Society, and if more and stiffer government regulations are not the answers....then what are? I would really like to some unbiased thought on this issue. The definition is very 'accurate'. I am sure you can simply Google this to find out. As i said, I would like serious thought into solutions and your thoughts.

What should I do with $100,000? I have $100,000 saved up that I am willing and able to use. I've been thinking this past year on what I should do with the money. I've narrowed down my options: 1. Invest in Stocks 2. Start a small business of some sort... 3. Start something online. A website? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. I don't know if investing in stocks is right for me. I've read a few books and I have a decent understanding of how everything works, but I guess I won't really know how I feel unless I actually try it. I'm still very young (late teens) so I guess I have the ability to recover if I was to lose money in the stock market. To be honest, I think I'm an entrepreneur at heart. So far, the stock market doesn't really appeal to me, but again, I have yet to actually try it. 2. I'd love to start a small business. I don't really know what though. I just love the idea of selling a product or service and seeing happy customers. 3. I'd also love to start something online. Maybe a website? I could combine this option with my second option and make some sort of online business? My dream "job" would be to work at home and run some sort of online business... I know there's no such thing as a risk-free business or investment, but what would be the BEST way to use $100,000? Something that I can feel comfortable putting my money towards...It doesn't even have to be from my list. I feel like I have an advantage because I am very fortunate to have a large sum of money to start with at such a young age. I just don't know what to do with it! The only thing I'm certain about is that I don't want to work for someone and live from paycheck to paycheck. I want to be my own boss. Also, I'm currently in college and I really don't feel like I'm doing the right thing. I believe I am wasting my time and that there are other things to pursue in life at this moment. I'm not saying school is a complete waste, its far from that. It's just not for me... There's no right or wrong answer to this question so all opinions are welcomed. Thank you so much to everyone that contributes.

marketing homework help!!!? Which companies are included in K14s industry? All companies that sell outdoor gear. All companies that make mannequins, retail fixtures, and cash registers. All companies that manufacture parts and material that are used in the manufacture of outdoor gear. All companies that manage outdoor adventure tours. All companies that manufacture outdoor gear. "K14 purchases gear from well-known manufacturers like Metolius Mountain Products, Black Diamond, Boreal, and Petzl and sells these products directly to climbers." What role does K14 play in the supply chain? Retailer Distributor Processor of Raw Goods Manufacturer "Our most significant strength lies in our management team's skills in both rock climbing and running a small business. After years of working the pro circuit, Bill Walsh has gained insight into the history, ethics, and progressive nature of traditional wall and sport climbing. Another huge benefit we offer climbers is the fact that we are the closest outfitter to the mountain." Select the combination of orientations that are expressed here. Product Market Sales Production Based on the company's orientation, do you expect merchandise will be priced at a discount or sold at a premium? Prices will be high. Prices will be low. K14 sells climbing products on its website and through its mail order catalog. Study the sales table for these departments and select all statements that are true. K14s website business division matured in 2005. K14's revenue in 2008 is 20% greater than the revenue reported in 2004, therefore, the company is still in the growth phase. K14 entered the decline phase in 2008. This table provide information about the company's supply chain. This table provides information about the company's orientation. This table provides information about the company's business cycle. K14s catalog division entered the decline phase in 2006. Based on K14's stage in the lifecycle in 2008, which activities do you expect the company to undertake? Offer new products for free to build awareness and acceptance among target customers. Offer a 12 month climbing membership at 50% discount for advance payment. Acquisition of a leading equipment manufacturer in order to lower costs. Close the internet division to free up capital that can be invested to develop new business ideas. Sell the catalog division in order to free up resources that can be used to develop new business ideas. Design a new line of less expensive climbing products to compete against existing competitors. "Weekend warriors and hard-core climbers will pay anything to get into the latest gear. The average climber carries around $1,200 of equipment. Since climbers place their lives on the line when they use their equipment, the majority of them buy only name brand gear at a price premium." Which need is the primary motivator of purchasing behavior for the company's target customers. Self-actualization Belonging Safety Physiological Esteem "K14 purchases gear from well-known manufacturers like Metolius Mountain Products, Black Diamond, Boreal, and Petzl and sells these products directly to climbers." What role does K14 play in the supply chain? Retailer Distributor Processor of Raw Goods Manufacturer

Which business idea should I pick? Over the summer, I would like to start an online business. My goal is to eventually make six or more figures a year. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure which idea sounds the most profitable. 1. A website where users can list, buy, sell, trade, and auction off websites and or domain names. A place whee people can buy and sell websites. I would allow people to create an account for free, and a seller could list his website or domain name for sale by paying a small fee. A other user could buy the site he/she wants with the buy now price, or be entered into the auction for the site where they compete with other people. Right now, there is only one site that does this called flippa.com. The problem is, everyone hates the high fee they charge to list a site (19 bucks). I already have a script for my site, and if I charge smaller fee, create a user interactive friendly version, and implement my marketing plans, I could easily beat flippa. Flippa is making some good money (4-5k a day). Pros: make money from selling ad space and charging small fee. Not much competition. Cons: not really any. 2. I would buy golf bags, clubs, shoes, etc. Wholesale, and dropship them to customers on my website. The problem is, I'm competeting with huge names like golf galaxy, golfers union, and thousands of sites. Although I like all ideas, I think I'm aiming at the first idea. Do you think it could be profitable? Do you think it could make me six or more figures a year? Thanks.

Which services could I offer online? Hello. I am 15. I would really like to start making a lot of money (50k-100k a year) online. I'm really clueless, because after a few years of research, there have been so many ideas thrown at me. I'm just looking for the best one. Here are my ideas (please don't tell me I shouldn't post ideas on yahoo, I'm just looking for feedback). 1. A digital music distribution/marketing company. A service called Tunecore lets people sell music on iTunes and other stores. We would find new bands/artists, use the Tunecore service (and eventually/hopefully partner with Apple to sell directly without Tunecore) to sell their music on iTunes. We could charge a $100 fee per album, which lets them keep 100% of the royalties earned. We would also offer marketing services such as building a basic promotional website, social network marketing, etc. 2. I found a free script online that lets you make a website where bands/artists can share their music, and listeners can share, listen, rate, comment, follow, etc. We would use Adsense and affiliate marketing to make money. 3. A cell phone review site that reviews phones without all of the detail. The reviews would be straight to the point just giving a small description, pros, cons, and recommendation. This site would be for people who don't want to know all of the specifics. 4. A web marketing company. We would promote small businesses by offering websites (made with webs.com), and social media marketing. But would people really pay me to set them up a facebook account? Are any of these ideas good? Do you guys have any other possible online company ideas that could make me money. Reseller hosting is popular, but very populated. What services could I provide online to make a lot of money? Thanks.

How to market photography for cheap or for free? Get wedding photography clients.? My name is Brian and I am a recent college graduate. I studied graphic design, photography and printmaking among many other things. I have been trying to get a wedding photography business started but it is slow going. Most of my past work was through referrals and this year was the first bridal show I have ever done. Unfortunately, it was the exact same week as a major auto show and I had overheard someone say that there was 1/10 of the people as there were the year before. YAY, a great time for me to spend a fortune for nothing. But out of the individuals that were there I got good reactions on my photography and screen prints. Here is a sample of some of my wedding photography. I want to know if anyone has any ideas to help me market myself, get myself out there. And in a cheap or free way. http://brianfreemanphotography.com/ there is a small sample of stuff, websites under construction

If Friday the 13th was remade in Washington D.C. could Nancy Pelosi redo it in the role of Freddy Krueger? Nancy has already gone on record saying the regrab of power was on the top of the agenda and Harry Reid has publicly sided with the Bush recommendations of a temporary troop increase in Iraq...the idea here is is art now imitating life. You dont hear much about the no easy solutions with the liberally biased media and I thought this played clearly like a whacked out horror movie...with the minimum wage increase looming and the idea of a forced sick leave as an owner of a very small family business, im now facing the january takeover with one hand on my wallet and the other hand on the crack of my xxx as government clearly is in places that the free market should handle. does anyone else think this is good story line for a classic horror flick?

Name for Arabic Food Business? I am starting a food business where we sell Arabic foods and Arabic pastries. We do small orders and we cater for big parties. I am working on our new website but I really dont know what to call the business. Any ideas????? Please check the site and tell me what you all think www.eatarabic.webs.com....feel free to give me ideas on how to market it or how to reach customers...

Which online business idea should I do? Hello. I would like to start an online business over the summer. My goal is to eventually make six or more figures a year. I have two ideas which I think could be really profitable. The problem is, I was quoted 40-50 thousand to make each site. I just dont have that kind of money to even build one site. I will list the ideas below, and could you please tell me which idea you think is more profitable. How should I go about building the site? Should I hire someone on craigslist, rent a coder, etc.? Or should I try to build it my self? What should I use? I dont know programming or coding or web design. 1. My first idea is a website where users can submit original songs and other users can listen, rate, comment, share, and chat with other users. Users could also create a page where they could post info, and find new band members. I like this idea since the only competition is www.purevolume.com. PureVolume is making $300 a day! If I make a better site, why can't i make that or more? I would sell ad space on the site. Accounts would be free, but if the site became big enough, I would create a pro membership that costs money in addition to the free account. If you think this idea could be profitable, how should I go about creating the site? I got quoted 40-50k to build by a web design firm. Should I use Kickapps which lets you create a social network site where user submit content (videos, MUSIC, videos etc.) for a small fee? Should I hire a developer on rent a coder? 2. My last idea is a website where users could post, list, sell, buy, auction, and trade websites. An ebay or amazon marketplace for websites. Users would post the site link with info and a snapshot and price, and other users would buy the site if they wanted to. I would take a small 4% commision from the sale. I would also sell ad space on the website. This website has some competition such as websitebroker.com, flippa.com, and sitepoint.com, but the potential is huge, and there is room for another player. If you think this site is profitable, how should I build it? Should I hire someone or build it myself. If build it myself, how should I build it? I really want to make one of these websites with as low startup as possible. I know I would have to market like crazy and do site matinence, but please help me. My parents think i should do a business like normal teens where you mow the lawn, babysit, etc, but I really want to do online business and hopefully make a good living. I think my sites ideas have potential. Which idea should I do? Which idea is more profitable? Even if you think they are not profitable, which would you choose if you had to? How should I build it? Thanks! PS, I am becoming a dealer at Kaeser and Blair and selling promotinal products to get me some startup cash for my online companies (websites). Thanks!!

Do you plan to boycott or support Whole Foods in light of what the boss said about 0bama? Monday, August 24, 2009 Boycotting the Boycotters (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Rick Watts, 49, protests outside a Whole Foods store in West Hollywood, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009. The protest took place after John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market, wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal about health care reform. John Mackey - the founder, CEO and marketing genius behind Whole Foods - finds himself in an organic, unsustainable mess with his carefully cultivated affluent, liberal customer base after penning an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare." For starters, Mr. Mackey opens with a line from known-liberal-allergen Margaret Thatcher that features the dreaded "S" word: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Then he goes on to provide eight sensible free-market solutions gleaned from his company's well-regarded employee health care program. Mr. Mackey, a free-market libertarian, is now at the mercy of an unforgiving grass-roots mob intent on destroying his company. More than 25,000 people have signed on to a Whole Foods boycott on Facebook. "Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives," the online petition reads. "Let them know your money will no longer go to support Whole Foods' anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities." A complementary Web site, WholeBoycott.com, features unintentionally comical video testimonials from aggrieved former customers. The mainstream media have picked up on the story and fanned the flames. The success of Whole Foods is largely built on Mr. Mackey's understanding of the liberal mind. It wants the good life - but with instant absolution for the sin of conspicuous consumption. Whole Foods is marketing at its best. Iconography and slogans throughout the store - not unlike those Barack Obama used to win the presidency - tell the shopper they are saving the planet in large and small ways. The product is so good even conservatives and skeptics are willing to play along. But Mr. Mackey missed the key ingredient of modern liberalism: intolerance to the ideas of nonliberals. And this miscalculation may prove to be devastating to his multibillion-dollar business. Everywhere one looks these days, the intolerance of self-avowed liberals is on display. Especially since Mr. Obama came to power. The purportedly open-minded and empathic among us who now run everything - save for NASCAR and Nashville - openly wage war against those who dare disagree. Witness Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi's joint-penned editorial in USA Today in which the House's two top Democrats describe those publicly questioning Mr. Obama's proposed health care system overhaul as "un-American." One need not go back too far in the political time machine to recall a time when the same people were claiming that the term "un-American" was being tossed at liberals for opposing the Iraq war, and that Republicans were stifling free speech. Examples were rarely, if ever, given. It just was. And we were told this was a very, very bad thing. The Dixie Chicks brilliantly used this sob line to become a Rolling Stone magazine cover staple, a blue-state crossover and an international cause celebre. A chorus line of would-be liberal celebrity martyrs took a similar marketing tack proclaiming McCarthyism was again afoot - as conservative Hollywood kept its collective mouth shut knowing that support for President Bush or the war was an instant career-killer. Yet amid the cries of "dissent is patriotic" - a phrase seen on the bumper stickers of cars in the Whole Foods parking lot - the antiwar movement grew and grew, unfettered by the war's supporters or by the party in power. As the Hollywood Left churned out antiwar film screeds, it was creating a narrative of its victimhood as it victimized Mr. Bush and his administration with the false accusation that dissenters were being persecuted. But now that they are in power, Democrats are brazenly wielding punitive weaponry against dissenting Americans and are using the power of the state to shut up citizens. The Democratic leadership - and its friends in the mainstream media - seem determined to brand opposition to the president's legislative agenda as illegitimate, even racist in origin. Individuals and grass-roots organizations are helping the statists' cause by advocating boycotts and other means of stifling dissent. The strategy is clear: Intimidate people from speaking up or from attending public protests by telegraphing that anyone can be made a demon for standing up and exercising basic, constitutional rights. To call these people hypocrites would be a grave insult to those who fail to live up to their own standards. Liberalism has never been ab

Trying to figure out my "dream job" - Does this sort of job exist? Hi all. I know I'm grasping at straws expecting the Yahoo Answers community to point me in the direction of my dream job, but other than a couple of points I really have nothing to lose by asking, so here I go: I am a college grad with a Bachelor's degree and six years of bookkeeping/administrative/customer service experience, as well as supervisory experience. I mostly stumbled into that line of work haphazardly while I was just trying to make some spare change during my school years. I was hoping to switch to a more personally fulfilling career this year, but now rather than figuring things out at my leisure, I've been given a strong push to quickly figure out what I want to do since the facility where I worked has shut down and now I am out of work. I have a decent severence package so I still have some time to ponder the situation, but this whole unemployed thing is getting me antsy. Anyway, these are the qualities I have to offer and/or am looking for in a new job: *While of course it would be nice, I am not really looking nor expecting to make six figures a year. I am more concerned with quality of life and having free time rather than making tons of money. I am willing to forgo luxuries like cable TV as long as I am otherwise financially secure. At any rate, I live in a two income household so I will not be the only one paying the bills. *I have entrepreneurial inclinations, or certainly a need to work more or less independently (minimal supervision) with an ability to exercise my own judgment. Almost every single member of my family, including my parents, has done the small business thing, so I know what's involved. Right now I don't really have the money necessary to jumpstart any ideas I've come up with, so this aspiration may be more of a long-term requirement than an immediate expecation. *I want to do work that is meaningful and fulfilling. While the day-to-day tasks of work ALWAYS become boring over time, I want to at least be able to look at the big picture and feel like I am fulfilling a positive purpose within the world. In particular, my concerns lie with matters of animal welfare, habitat preservation, and the like. I also have interest in spiritually empowering other people, but I shy away from traditional religion and new age type stuff, so that doesn't leave me much career option of that kind. *I want to travel. Even if this travel is not explicitly built into my work, I should be able to get away for a vacation twice a year, and at least one of those vacations a couple of weeks long. *My strengths include strong writing and proofreading skills, typing, computer literacy, and using the internet for research. I am also detail-oriented, organized, and consider myself to be a planner and a problem-solver. *I consider myself to be somewhat creative and would enjoy composing written works, but I would not feel comfortable composing written pieces freelance as my primary source of income. I would consider this to be a good side project. I also don't really have a professional portfolio that would land me a full-time gig doing that sort of thing. *I am introverted and would NOT be happy in a sales or marketing career. IF I was pitching about something I really cared about and thought was worthwhile, I could probably do it, but I am definitely not interested in hawking some hot new product, whether tangible or intangible. So is there any semi-secure career option that would play both to my interests and my strengths? Preferably without requiring more schooling? I know it's a longshot, but I'm interested to see what (serious) ideas others come up with that I might not have considered. Under the bullet-point mentioning travel, I would also like to mention that I have an interest in other cultures, both in the present and in history. For example, I had considered teaching English abroad as an option that fulfilled all of my strengths/interests, but didn't like the idea of leaving the country for a full year or more.

How do private businesses hurt our country like the left wing say? I was in the car, coming home from golfing; my neighbor was giving me a ride home, and mentioned the construction going on my street and complained about how long it was taking. He asked if i knew why, and i said no. He answered by saying that they fixed the water main, but they had to wait for the water company to inspect it which takes weeks on end. I made a remark which seemed to get to him. I just said "There's state government for you" he retorts by saying something to the effect of "no, its not the state..its the private businesses that are...................." he went on, but i was getting out of the car, not wanting to get into an argument with my good friends dad. I have no idea how private businesses would make this small street project take longer. free market encourages competition, which drives prices down. give me your feedback..im more conservative than liberal im a strong believer in a free market economy, and 100% opposed to expanding government.

Is Obama TRYING to be Super Fly by WINGING IT and MAKING IT UP as he goes ALONG SHOOTING BLANKS from the HIP? Cabinet Nominees: Take the vetting of cabinet nominees. Mr. Obama's aides ignored a federal investigation of New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson that started last August for a possible pay-for-play scandal. Mr. Richardson had to withdraw after being named to become secretary of commerce. Tax Cheats for Officers The administration treated as inconsequential the failure of its choices for Treasury secretary and White House performance officer, as well as its labor secretary-designate's spouse, to pay taxes. It failed to uncover Tom Daschle's problems with more than $102,943 in previously unpaid taxes, penalties and interest -- and once it did, aides assumed Mr. Daschle would be given a pass. Gregg Fiasco Team Obama promised Gen. Anthony Zinni he'd be ambassador to Iraq, then cut him loose without explanation. After the Bill Richardson fiasco, it romanced Republican Sen. Judd Gregg for commerce secretary -- then ignored his advice on the stimulus and wouldn't trust him with running the department, moving supervision of the Census into the White House. Mr. Gregg withdrew himself from consideration. Spending Porkulus Then there is the stimulus itself. Mr. Obama's economic team met with congressional leaders in December to green light a bill costing up to $850 billion. But they described less than $200 billion of what they wanted in the envelope. In return for outsourcing the bill's drafting to Congress, the administration took on two responsibilities: running polls to advise Hill Democrats on how to sharpen their marketing, and putting the president on the road to sell a bill others wrote. Lying about how many jobs saved Team Obama was winging it when it declared the stimulus would "save or create" 2.5 million, then three million, then 3.7 million, and then four million new jobs. These were arbitrary and erratic numbers, and they knew there's no way to count "saved" jobs. Americans, being commonsensical, will focus on Mr. Obama's promise to "create" jobs. It's highly unlikely that more than 180,000 jobs will be created each month by the end of next year. The precise, state-by-state job numbers the administration used to sell the stimulus are likely to come back to haunt them as well. Partisanship Only Bipartisanship? The administration failed even to respond to GOP offers to endorse an Obama campaign proposal to suspend capital gains taxes for new small businesses. Giethner's Plan of Non-planning Inexplicably, the president, in a prime-time press conference, raised expectations for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's bank rescue plan, which turned out the next day to be no plan at all. The markets craved details; they got none. When markets cratered, spokesmen didn't acknowledge the administration's poor planning, but blamed the markets. Freeing Dangerous Terrorists Team Obama was also winging it on enhanced interrogation of terrorists. First it nullified all the Bush administration's legal authorities before considering what rules it should have in place. When the CIA briefed White House officials on the results obtained from these techniques, the administration backtracked and organized a four-month study of what rules were appropriate. Something similar happened with the promise to close Guantanamo Bay within a year: The administration has no idea what it will do with the violent terrorists detained there. And on ethics, Mr. Obama proclaimed an end to lobbyist influence in government -- even as he was nominating lobbyists for major posts and filling White House ranks with former lobbyists.

If the Government gave each individual a check for $2200.00, what would you do with the money? All these bailouts - we all know they will be never-ending. Now we see Cities in line asking for money; Real Estate companies want money; everyone who is doing poorly wants the Government to "bail them out". I HAVE A BETTER IDEA. Interference in the Free Market is never a good idea; the reason the housing market got into trouble is simple: The Government interferred in the housing market when the Democrats put pressure on Banks and lending companies to give out NINJA loans which means "no income, no job, no assets"; if you had a pulse, you got a house, even if you had no job to pay the mortgage. When these bills came due, there was nobody to pay them. Instead of interference in the Markets, I propose to take the $700 Billion dollars and divide it equally among EVERY INDIVIDUAL with a valid social security number: Thats NOT HOUSEHOLD BUT EVERY INDIVIDUAL - Every man, woman and child. You do the Math: Thats about $2200.00 each person, since there are 306 million people in America - it would even be more than that per person, since not everyone living in America is a citizen with a Social Security number. The immediate impact of each person getting this money would be: 1. SPEND IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, helping the retail markets 2. BUY A NEW CAR/TRUCK, helping the auto industries 3. PAY DOWN CREDIT CARD DEBT, with money leftover to spend 4. MONEY DOWN ON A NEW HOME, helping the housing market 5. INVEST IN STOCKS/BONDS, helping Wall Street 6. INVEST IN EXISTING OR NEW SMALL/HOME BUSINESSES. 7. BUY HOME HEATING FUEL, in time for Winter - taking the burden off the emergency energy assistance programs already stretched to the brink, with money left to spend! EACH INDIVIDUAL WOULD GET A CHECK, so for a household of 4 people, they would get a total of $8000.00; a household of 5 would get 10000.00 and so on..... THIS WOULD NEGATE ANY NEED FOR ANOTHER STIMULUS PLAN. AND THINK ABOUT THIS: Every homeless person (citizen) would get the money - a mother with 2 children on the streets would get $6000. total which would LIFT HER OFF THE STREETS AND GIVE HER THE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME A CONTRIBUTING TAXPAYING CITIZEN AGAIN. IF YOU RECEIVED $2200.00, MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF CITIZENS LIVING IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD INCLUDING EVERY CHILD REGARDLESS OF AGE, AND THEN ANSWER THIS: 1. FOR YOU, HOW MUCH MONEY WOULD COME IN ? 2. WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THE MONEY? This question is serious; instead of bailouts, I would like to get an idea of how much better it would be for the economy to give the money back to the American people. Please, serious answers only. Thank you.

What's Really Going On With the "Bailout"? I'm reposting this to give out some facts about the "Bailout" (incorrectly named - It should be Rescue plan because it is SO misleading) The Bailout is in no way shape or form a negative thing. There are two very important distinguishing comments I have to make about this subject. THIS IS NOT A BAILOUT, the reason why this wasn't passed the first time it was brought in Congress was because it was sold to the public in a terrible way. The $700 Billion dollars are NOT going to be put to use to save more major companies and banks. Secondly, THIS IS NOT SPENDING. The money that the government has put forward to this idea IS AN INVESTMENT. The Idea behind the plan is to free up the credit market by buying the bad mortgages from all these banks and major corporations (as well as the individual investors) to alleviate the fear of lending among the banks. What's going on now is that no one can lend money because there is an unstable fear among the banks that believe that no one is capable, nowadays, to pay back their loans. The idea behind the INVESTMENT (Not Spending) is to free up this market so that people may loan again and expand their small businesses and to purchase a house perhaps. Now for the investment part of this question. This is Not Government Spending. This is taking the tax money of the people (approx. $2,000 per person in the USA) and putting it towards buying assets (The Bad Mortgages) to free up the markets. These assets ARE WORTH SOMETHING, they're not pieces of paper that will be worth nothing when the government purchases them. The idea is to get the money now to buy these assets, free up the markets, and when they are worth enough to sell back into the market the government will begin to sell them (They may even make a profit like the RTC did in the '80s). The money that the government makes is hopefully and purposefully going to be given back to the taxpayers in the form of tax relief. The whole matter is who needs the money, how much, and when. Wall Street is not getting a free pass from this, they will pay. The idea is to prevent the taxpayers from paying for their mistakes, and frankly the only way to do that now is to work with the Financial sector of the economy (specifically mortgages and the credit market) to allow the commonpeople to make loans. Without this government intervention I guarantee a nice old Depression, we all know how successful that was... And another thought. How did we get out of that Depression? Oh yeah, World War II, I hope that's not the only way to get out of Depression, another World War *sigh*. "The Banks will be tighter than ever with their money, and will not be any more likely to extend loans to the ordinary consumer than they are today. You said it yourself- "there is an unstable fear among the banks that believe that no one is capable, nowadays, to pay back their loans". Does this plan change that? No." There has to be a compromise between the excessive loaning of yesterday (i.e NINJA loans) and the restricted loaning today (i.e frozen market). You can't expect everyone to get a loan and I do believe that there will be more restrictions on getting loans but at the same time you cannot consider the countless people who loaned what they could not pay back a loan. The reason is because that produces incorrect statistics. The other day we believed that anyone and everyone could loan however much and whenever they wanted to. That has to change now and this is the unfortunate lesson we have to learn through the hard way. To go along with the faith of the financial institutions we have to take into account the human species. There are so many deceptive people in the world, let alone in the USA. You can argue that it wasn't these financial institutions that created this mess, I mean the source of these bad loans are the banks, to go beyond that we can track it individually to the people of the USA. The people who took out loans they could not pay. It's one of those group consequences in which the wrongdoings of one produces a group consequence unfortunately. Socialism, I prefer to think it's far from it. What the government is doing is investing tax money to stabilize the economy not to take control of the economy. So far all I have seen is attempts to take over businesses and liquidate them, no private enterprise has been taken over for government production, it's being liquidated. Without ANY government intervention we will all end up in a shit-hole, whether you invest or not.

A unique and different way of getting charity money? We are a local university business magazine (free of cost), slowly expanding in our region. Our Marketing Rep has told us about raising some dollars and contributing back to the community. Trouble is - I don't want to have a bakesale, lemonade stand, small auctions, etc. I need something out of the box which can be somehow related to the business magazine. Also - we would like it to be on a smaller scale. Our goal is to raise a $1000, preferrably for a homeless kids shelter. The point it - we don't have a lot of money so we can't sponsor anything but we have the resources so that our staff members can sit and work on the idea and solicit money from other companies, individuals, university, students, etc. This will help the community and increase our magazine's presence in the community. Any ideas would be helpful.

Can You Believe This Cheap Mexican airlines are taking Mexican right to our border for illegal immigration? MEXICALI, Mexico - Among travelers, it's jokingly known as Aeromigrante - Migrant Air. New discount airlines in Mexico are doing a brisk business shuttling migrants to the U.S. border, turning what was once a days-long trek into an easy hop for legions of workers, both legal and illegal. "It's much more comfortable than the bus and about the same price," said Leopoldo Torres, 37, of Mexico City, as he stretched his legs aboard Volaris Flight 190 to the border city of He and a traveling companion, Julio Menéndez, paid $118 each for the three-hour flight. They planned to cross into the United States illegally through the California desert. Such migrants have become bread-and-butter customers for airlines Volaris, Avolar, Alma, Viva Aerobus, Interjet and Click, all of which have started up in the past two years. Older carriers such as Aero California and Aviacsa have cut their own prices to compete. "The most productive routes we have are cities where you have those passengers who are traveling with the idea of the American Dream," said Luis Ceceña, a spokesman for Avolar. About 70 percent of Avolar's passengers are migrants, he said. For some airlines like Avolar, the emphasis on migrant travel was a conscious decision, with company officials structuring their routes and fares around migrants' needs, he said. For others, it was simply a side effect of low prices, which have opened up air travel to millions of poorer Mexicans. The airlines say they treat migrants like any other passengers. The Mexican government has promised to try to slow emigration by creating jobs in Mexico. But by law, Mexican authorities and companies cannot impede the free travel of their fellow citizens, even if they suspect they are going to cross the U.S. border illegally. Heading for the desert Travelers planning to cross illegally are easy to spot. At the Hermosillo airport, a major crossroads for migrants headed to the Arizona desert, they are the men traveling in groups of three and four, wearing new sneakers or hiking boots and carrying nothing but backpacks. "Altar! Naco! Nogales!" taxi dispatcher Javier Montaño shouted outside the airport as he directed travelers to vans headed to the main staging grounds for illegal border crossers. Because of the increased traffic, Mexican immigration agents now check the IDs of all arriving passengers, even on domestic flights, to try to catch Central American migrants headed to the border. In Hermosillo, federal police conduct spot checks on the vans before they leave the airport. "By law, we can't stop the Mexican (migrants)," police Officer Carlos Zequera Arias said. "But the Central Americans are starting to get on these flights, too." Falling prices Until the flood of discount airlines began in 2005, air travel in Mexico was too expensive for most poor Mexicans. A one-way flight from central Mexico to Tijuana ran $300 or more on the country's two flag carriers, Aeromexico and Mexicana. For most migrants, getting to the border meant days of travel on long-distance buses - or for the very poor, a harrowing and illegal ride on Mexico's railways while clinging to a freight car. The discount airlines cut costs by copying the business model of U.S. carrier Southwest Airlines. They fly out of smaller airports, make several stops on the same trip, bypass travel-agent fees by selling directly to customers, and concentrate on a few high-volume routes instead of a hub-and-spoke system. Typical fares to Tijuana from Toluca, just east of Mexico City, are now around $150 on the discount airlines. That has opened up air travel to millions of new customers, said José Calderoni, marketing director for Volaris. About one-third of the airline's passengers have never flown before, he said. Overall, the number of Mexicans flying has jumped 36 percent since 2004. About 13.4 million people took domestic flights from January to June, according to Mexico's Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information Processing. The discount airlines have been adding planes and routes at a breakneck pace. Avolar has grown from one jetliner and three destinations to nine with 16 destinations. Viva Aerobus has 21 destinations and plans to double its fleet to 10 jets from five. Interjet has nine planes and says it will order 20 more. Alma has 15 regional jets and 25 destinations, Volaris has 12 planes and 17 destinations, while Click has 26 destinations with 18 planes and six on order. Read further details @ http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1012migrantair1012.html

Suppose I was to tell you that I am a Republican? But I am not pro-life. I think Roe v. Wade came out correctly and should be upheld for the lifetime of our government, and perhaps even expanded upon. But I am a Republican. I approve of the graduated income tax; I do not want to be held responsible for extremists such as Ronald Reagan and his ideas about small government and reduction of taxes. I think trickle-down economics is foolhardy - we should have learned our economics lessons from FDR. Bush's tax cuts were disastrous for our economy, and will take decades to fully recover from. But I am a Republican. I believe in the separation of church and state, and think religion has no business using state resources or influencing politics. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are extremists who do not represent Republicans, and anti-Republicans should recognize that. I think that gays should have the right to marry, and it's only extremists who say otherwise. It's unfortunate how some have hijacked the political party's name, but I am a true Republican. I support gun regulation, perhaps even to the extent of rescinding of the Second Amendment (the NRA is a fringe group, and does not represent all of us). I think the economy would do best if we put more of the burden on high-income taxpayers and injected more into the economy in the form of what some would unflatteringly call 'pork barrel spending' but I would call 'public works programs' (I cannot be held responsible for McCain, the Bushes, and Reagan; I am my own man). I think unions are critical to a free market that assigns honest value to labor if their negotiating opponents are also organized in corporations (anti-Republicans must understand that Republicanism is whatever I define it to be, not the product of the party's actions). I am a Republican. For some reason, some might ask me 'why.' This is odd, since it is so obvious: Republicanism is the belief that the slaves should be emancipated, as established by the party's founder, Abraham Lincoln. Anyone who isn't a Republican, thus, must be pro-slavery. While I may have some minor disagreements with some of the party's leaders and some of its modern actions, the important thing is that all Republicans are pro-emancipation, and so all of us who oppose slavery should support Republicans. Do you agree with this statement? Do you agree with the obvious parallel? (And, for the record, I am no more a Republican than I am a feminist.) I have a sneaking suspicion that a couple people here might be surprised to learn that Jonathan Swift wasn't a cannibal :) "The fallacy in your argument is that slavery in America is no longer a reality except in extremely isolated cases (see arrests for involuntary servitude), while gender inequality remains a reality, often to the detriment of women." That's true, I suppose, but it's not too difficult to slightly modify the metaphor so that it's relevant - while slavery was addressed about as succinctly as women's suffrage, racial inequality has endured at least as powerfully as gender inequality - so one could claim that Republicanism is about racial equality, then (so all opponents must be racists, instead of pro-slavery). The point, of course, is that both movements truly don't seem to be about these things anymore, as is evidenced everywhere by both modern actions (in the form of legislation) and modern influential speakers for the movements.

Should we tell the Americans that they haven't been a capitalist society for decades? A dictionary definition of Capitalism Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state and business activities. Capitalists believe that markets are efficient and should thus function without interference, and the role of the state is to regulate and protect. http://www.investorwords.com/713/capitalism.html 1) Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; That has been subverted -- no one owns land anymore -- The idea that a tax can be levied against the ownership of land and still be owned by a private person is contradictory and amounts to rent for land payable to the municipal or State owners This condition of capitalism does not exist in the US or in Canada or in the UK 2) Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; This has been subverted --less than 2% of the population owns 90 % of the money and industry --- there is no competition when a small group of persons attains that level of power - Totalitarian regimes such as communism or fascism are ones where there are one or a handful of owners which defeats the ideals of competition This condition of capitalism has not been met in the US Canada or in the UK 3) and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services. This can only occur during a period when competition is allowed - With no competition an unseen elite sets prices and wages often to the detriment of the proletarian -- This condition of capitalism has not been met 4) Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state and business activities. When the corporation gain too much power they have and will and are currently a force which the government itself must answer to - There is no separation of State and business -- Business has become the government This condition of capitalism has not been met 6) Capitalists believe that markets are efficient and should thus function without interference, and the role of the state is to regulate and protect. Bail outs and massive injections of tax payers cash to failed business is in direct violation of this principle and has occurred on unprecedented levels as of late This condition of capitalism has not been met Should we tell the Americans that they haven't been a capitalist society for decades ? Blame Bush blame Obama blame Joe Blow or Joe the plumber The US has not been a capitalist society for decades now Should we tell them or keep it to ourselves ? Zenmeister Uh ........ no not at all always believe your leaders never question authority just blindly follow ............ yep follow it feels good doesn't it ?

Could this be a profitable online business? Okay. So i really would like to make six or more figures a year online. My online business idea is a website where visitors can sign up to be a user for free. The user then can submit his/her original song(s) and other users can listen, rate, comment, and/or share songs with other users. Their will be some "friend" feature which allows "friends" to be notified when other "friends" submit or share a song. I would make money from the site by having a "Featured Songs List" where people pay a small fee to get on the list. I would also have ads on the site to make money. Since this site would cost me a lot to set up, I am not sure if there is any potential in this site. Should I even attempt it? Also, do you think this online business idea could make me six or more figures a year? If not, should I do ecommerce (wholesale office chairs, teen clothing), content websites with ads and affiliate marketing, or should I stick with the idea above. What are your thoughts? What online business idea could be most profitable? Is my first idea any good? Thanks for the help!!!!

Fax Marketing: Do you think I could make it work? Lots of answers Pls!? I want to start sending out fax ads to businesses in my area. I already have a template and ads on it for all my own stuff but would like to start advertising for other companies for a nominal fee. I want to provide advertising to the local area's for people like me who are broke and struggling and trying to make money selling/doing whatever it is they sell/do. My basic "ad sheet" holds 12 square ads.I have 2610 fax numbers that WORK in my area that I can send this ad sheet to and I was thinking of charging $25 a week for a box. - borders and THEIR graphics included ( whatever style they like) I am good with graphics and wording and can help customers design their ads if they need it either free with a long term contract for advertising or also for a small fee. What do you think? Would you pay $25/week to advertise your business to roughly 12,000 ppl a week? Am I asking too much or too little? Do you have a better idea or a way I could make this idea better? Thank you

The term "Tea baggers" is a hate filled derogatory slur based on nasty sexual reference, is it defamatory? rhetoric which is in fact hate speech against a group of people? Isn't it used as a small minded derogatory slur against one group because another is intolerant and hateful about what they stand for? I know, the hate group who uses it will give a dishonest derogatory response about what they stand for, lie about where they came from, how they comport themselves, and give disinformation about who is behind the movement ... isn't that exactly how Jews were treated by the Nazi Movement? They justified their rhetoric with more dishonest defamation about the subject of their political targeting. The KKK, (founded by the same political party as those who really don't like the Tea Party Protesters) did the same to the black race using much the same small minded tactics. The fact is the Tea party protectors started up while Bush was president because they didn't like trillions spent on bail outs. They felt that the free market economy should be allowed to work, and businesses that don't work should fail. That to prop up bad businesses and put the burden on tax payers to do it is not only a bad idea on the surface, but also incentivizes bad business practices and taking from the people through the government to support those bad, unsound practices that can't sustain themselves. They know that in a free market economy where taxes and government intervention is kept to a minimum the GDP rises and more tax revenue is available to the government, it's happened that way every time taxes have been reduced on the producers in this country They also look at what happens when the Feds overstep, as in the dept of education leading to more money and more money being poured into a bad school system creating parasitic teachers Unions with less focus on the children's education and more on how to grab all that can be grabbed from the public coffers. Just one example, there are many. The Tea parties have nothing to do with race, at least not with those who started them. A few idiots slip in to everything, but that's not what opposition to Obama is all about except for a tiny fringe. It's about wanting to keep our constitution intact. Our economy strong, and the federal government out of our lives as defined in the Constitution because government controls lead to one thing, corruption and massive amounts stealing from the public as does access to any huge pool of cash. If you allow it, the thieves will come in droves, it's their nature, and unfortunately right now it pretty much drives government. According to Martin Luther King, (a man most democrats pretend to respect, but obviously many don't have any respect his message, so it shows the pretension of respect to be a lie) You don't judge a man by the color of his skin, but the content of his character. By the very meaning in his statement, this principal transcends color. It applies to any group, race, religion, political, sex, whatever, because it's not about any special groups we must respect, it's about any group, it's about any individual. No individual is more important than another individual when it comes to respect. No group either because it's all part of the same principal. Obama proposes massive spending and a government take over of many industries. I know he said he doesn't, but the actions speak louder than the words that lie to us. I know they lie, because I know they lied in most instances in the past. Public will be given time to read bills? LOL! Congress isn't even getting time to read the bills. It goes on and on. Laws broken to give his supporters car companies, billions of dollars as in George Soros, Acorn, Al Gore, Unions, Hamas gave him campaign contributions, anything that is Gaza is Hamas, they run the government, nothing goes to Gaza that doesn't go to Hamas, and no one in Gaza has money except it's controlled by Hamas, so it's a fact he got contributions from Hamas and gave a billion to Hamas. There is plenty to be upset about with Obama. How does race enter into it? It doesn't matter what race he is. The same type of people didn't like Carter either, or Clinton before he lost the Congress and made his show of a big shift. The Tea Party movement is not about race, it's not about a party, and it's sure as heck not about big corporations starting something. Obama's bought off most of the big corporations and interests, at our expense. Drug industry by pushing out their patent time so generics take longer, AARP by giving them a monopoly on add on insurances exempting them from high taxes imposed on others, much of the insurance industry, Trial lawyers by opening up a whole new area of fertile potential for them, AMA with a huge contribution to the organization (but he is opposed by nearly 80% of actual doctors) and there is more but that's enough off the top of my head. The big government interests and the filthy rich behind entertainment industry and media are smearing the Tea Party Movement with lies and defamation. Do you real The big government interests and the filthy rich behind entertainment industry and media are smearing the Tea Party Movement with lies and defamation. Do you really want to be with those types? Allow yourself to be turned into a bigoted tool of the fascist interests out to make out riches stolen from the tax payer for themselves at your expense? Or those who are protesting that? Who do you really want to be? What do you really stand for?

I would like to work from home with minimum investment and earning around Rs.25000 p.m..? I would like to earn RS. 20000 And above per month by sitting at home. Would somebody give me ideas to earn such income with minimum investment without doing any jobs whatsoever. I am fed up with the jobs. If any one has new business ideas or new ventures then please feel free to contact me. I have good English language skills in additon to typewriting skiils at 75 w.p.m. If it is possible to do such business without any investment or a small investment then it is a good idea. I am inviting offers from all over the world. Such business must not relate to marketing or multi level marketing, It may be concerned with any type of business requiring an investment involving not more than Rs.500.

How many companies would agree to this? I'm a web/software developer looking to get clients for my own business. I'd love to be able to talk to lots small-business owners/directors in any kind of industry, about what their business does, how it works, and where it's perhaps innefficient. My goal is to find some kind of business scenario in which a software product could drastically improve business efficiency. Once I have that, I'd develop the software for that company entirely free of charge, and once it all worked, get a testimonial from the client. After this, I'd make the product more general and market it to other companies in the same industry, and hopefully I could build a business around it. What do you think of this idea? Has anyone tried anything similar yet? Would there be business owners out there who don't mind having a quick meeting with me? (Completely free-of-charge, of course)

Who Is Really Responsible for “Exporting” Our Jobs? Our politicians blame our corporations. But our corporations did not approve NAFTA or our membership in the WTO. Our corporations did not allow China to join the WTO and they did not open our markets to slave wage countries (including China). I spent over 30 years working with small businesses in a variety of industries. When I started, most of them were manufacturers. By the time I retired, almost all of those who were still in business had become importers. But most of them had gone out of business because they could not produce goods here and compete with foreign manufactures whose labor costs were 80% to 95% lower than theirs. When it costs a domestic manufacturer more to make a product than an importer is selling the same product for, the domestic company cannot continue to manufacture its products here. That guarantees bankruptcy, and many of our companies that could not or would not adapt to the change in the rules of “competition” did go bankrupt. Our corporations may not be perfect, but they did not create or promote the idea that “free” trade was and is “good for everybody,” and they did not hang their workers out to dry as they rushed to buy goods from foreign suppliers. Look in your closets, your kitchens, your bedrooms and your cars. Look for country of origin labels or stickers. You will see who else is responsible for “exporting" our jobs.

Who has heard of DownsizeDC? I think this is a good idea, what about you? "George W. Bush brought death and chaos to Iraq on the basis of lies. Now, as he staggers through the last months of his failed presidency, he is trying one more bit of trickery — forcing the Nuri Al-Maliki government to legitimize a long-term military occupation of Iraq in a treaty, which will make that sovereign country an American colony." -- from an editorial in the "Arab News," June 8, 2008 Subject: A Golden Rule Foreign Policy We advocate a "Golden Rule" foreign policy. We want our government to treat other people as we would want to be treated. Our politicians have not done this. Instead, they've used wrongs committed by others to justify wrongs of their own. It doesn't matter that our government's policies may have done some good, or that our politicians may have intended to do only good. What matters is that they've done too many things to other people that those people didn't want. The above quote of the day reflects widespread Arab and Muslim reaction to the Bush administration's proposed "treaty of permanent occupation" with Iraq. We believe the Golden Rule requires us to give these reactions respectful consideration. Would we accept what we're asking the Iraqi people to accept? The proposed treaty requires that Iraq . . . Allow the U.S. to build 58 permanent military bases on their soil Grant U.S. control of Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet Establish immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and contractors Permit the U.S. to determine when Iraq is at war with another country (Iran for instance) Agree to a two year notice to cancel the treaty Please notice that President Bush wants to impose his preferred policy on the next president. He also asserts that his "agreement" with Iraq will be an "executive accord," NOT subject to ratification by the Senate. The President's policy is unconstitutional. It violates the Golden Rule. It's also dangerous -- to YOU. These treaty proposals, coming in the wake of everything else our government has done -- invasions, renditions, torture, lack of due process -- massively increase the danger of blowback against the American people. We believe it's time to downsize the President's reckless and overreaching foreign policy. But how? DownsizeDC.org tries to provide you with levers -- simple ideas that would do a lot with a little. Our "Read the Bills Act," the "One Subject at a Time," and the "Write the Laws Act," are examples of this approach. We think something similar can be done with Iraq. We should ask Congress to ask the Iraqi government to hold a yes-no public referendum on the U.S. occupation. It will be hard for either U.S. or Iraqi politicians to argue against letting the Iraqi people have their say. Plus . . . If the Iraqis vote for us to stay, then much of the Islamic world will accept that decision, but . . . If they ask us to leave, then the moral problem of "we broke it, we own it" will disappear, allowing us to leave with grace If you like our idea for leveraging our way to a better foreign policy, there are many in Congress who may like it too, if you let them know about it. Please send Congress a message. You can do so here. Please also share this idea with others. Also . . . Get a copy of "The Downsize DC Vision." We'll send you a copy if you start a monthly credit card pledge of $5 or more, or make a one-time donation. Plus, every dollar you contribute now will be worth two because of a matching pledge of $3,600 from a group of generous DC Downsizers. Take advantage of these opportunities. Contribute here. NOTE: You can remove this funding section if you forward this message to others, or post it on your blog. You can also comment on this message at our blog. Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army. Perry Willis Communications Director DownsizeDC.org, Inc. D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government. You are encouraged to forward this message to friends and business associates, and permission is hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as long as attribution is provided for articles and the subscription instructions above are included. IF you have difficulties or inquiries, simply hit reply to this message. We're eager to help, including with requests to unsubscribe. You are subscribed to this newsletter at this email address: I signed up, we called the congress a couple of weeks ago to force them to have diplomatic efforts with Iran, rather than just threaten them like Bush does. Guess what it worked. This is not only for that, they keep an eye for us and tell you what is really going on behind the doors and off the cameras.

Who needs a private sector when we have a Clinton make our health-care choices? Who needs a private sector when we have a Clinton make our health-care choices? The new Hillary health-care plan is very different from the old 1993-1994 Hillary plan. It is far slyer, and far cleverer, far more well-packaged. The same arguments that applied to the old Hillary plan do not necessarily apply to the new plan. But the new health plan ends up in the same place as the old health plan — with the government running everything. Here are the primary problems with the new Hillary health plan: What Entitlement Crisis? As everyone should know by now, our nation faces a dramatic entitlements crisis that will play out over the next 30 years. Federal spending has been hovering in a fairly stable manner, around 20-percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), for over 50 years now, since the early 1950s. But the Federal government’s own official projections show that over the next 30 years or so, federal spending will soar to 40-percent of GDP, requiring total federal taxes as a percent of GDP to double. This is due to the exploding costs of the entitlement programs we already have, primarily Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats respond to this overwhelming crisis by proposing that we not reform any of the existing entitlements. Rather, they suggest that we endorse massive new entitlements, including for instance, National Health Insurance. Policy suggestions like this force one to wonder, are the democrats numerically illiterate? The Individual Mandate Hillary Clinton’s plan starts out very simply: she will mandate under federal law that everyone in America must buy health insurance, and by this she supposedly achieves universal coverage. The catch, of course, is that once you start down the road with this mandate, you end up with government-run health care. If you are going to require people to buy health insurance, then the next question which follows is, exactly what do they have to buy to fulfill this requirement? Suppose they buy the Fraternity Plan that pays only for unlimited beer and pizza during the weekends? Have they satisfied the requirement? The serious point is if you are going to require people to buy health insurance, then you are going to have to specify exactly what health-plan people will have to buy to satisfy this requirement. So the government has gone from telling you that you need health insurance, to telling you what kind of health-insurance coverage or plan you must have. And with Hillary, we can assume that this will be no basic, minimum plan. But Hillary continues to insist that this is not government-run health care. And this, of course, is only the beginning. Special interests will swarm to get their favored coverage in the required plan. People will merrily get used to billing everything in the plan to the insurance company. And costs will rise. People will start complaining that they can’t afford paying for this costly coverage, and whining that the government must do something. The government itself will already be paying for a lot of this coverage, and budgets will therefore explode. So the government will do something to control costs. It will start rationing. It will start telling people what services and treatments they can have, and when. It will start delaying access to new innovations. It will squeeze payments to health care providers so much that the providers will start rationing what they provide. Government guidelines will start dictating to these providers that they ration care, and how to do it. After a while, people start to realize, “hey, we have government run health care.” Don’t doubt it. This is exactly what happens with every other country that tries to mandate or provide coverage through government. They realize ultimately there must be some way to control costs. There is no market in these plans to control costs. So the government must do it through the only alternative – rationing. Indeed (we will see below), Hillary’s plan already includes the machinery for this rationing. It doesn’t help that a small band of too clever conservatives have been supporting just such an individual mandate since 1993-94, when broad objections from conservatives defeated their plan. Congratulations to these folks today. Hillary Clinton has adopted their plan, just as they were forewarned. The Employer Tax Since workers would now have to buy insurance under the Hillary plan; employers would have to pay for it wherever possible. All large companies would be required to provide health coverage for their workers (a plan, again, specified by the government), or pay a tax to the government. Already paying among the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, this is just what our corporations need — another tax. Once the politicians get used to raiding this corporate cookie jar, the tax will soon be higher than the corporate income tax. When that tax burden leads to unemployment, no problem, we will just raise taxes on the rich again, and pay for more welfare. All of this will just improve the economy, the Clintons promise. The Refundable Tax Credit Where employers don’t pay for health coverage, the government will. Hillary proposes a refundable tax credit for the purchase of health insurance that will leave workers paying no more than a specified percentage of their incomes for the coverage. Hillary’s campaign is already calling this “A Net Tax Cut for American Taxpayers.” The problem with this is that the bottom 40-percent of income earners do not pay any income taxes, and the middle 20-percent now pay for very little (this is the end result of all those Republican tax cuts for the rich all these years). But the tax credit is refundable, meaning that if you don’t have enough tax liability to take advantage of the credit, the government will still send you a check for the entire credit. So the tax credit here is not giving you back your own tax money. It is giving you back other people’s tax money. So this is not, in fact, a tax cut. It is a new spending program, a new entitlement program, in fact. We already have a huge program called Medicaid to pay for health coverage for people who are too poor to pay for it themselves. The federal government is now spending close to $250 billion on this program, in addition to probably another $150 billion from the states. And these costs are just projected to explode and explode again over the next 30 years. In other words, we already can’t afford the Medicaid program as it currently stands. But what Hillary is proposing with these tax credits is a massive expansion of it. And we are back to the democratic chimeras again. Unfortunately, some conservative Republicans have recently toyed around with the idea of refundable tax credits for the purchase of health insurance as well. They have rightly been trying to change tax code incentives to get workers to own their own health insurance rather than relying on employers. Realizing, however, that the tax changes would do nothing for at least half of all workers who now pay little or no income tax, they have been considering various refundable plans to expand the help to lower income workers. The fallacy here is trying to provide assistance to the poor, and to low income workers, through the tax code. This is what Medicaid is for, and lawmakers should focus on helping those with lower incomes through reforming that program. But Hillary is not done with the refundable tax credits. She would provide such credits as well to small businesses who buy health insurance for their workers, paying for as much as 50-percent of premiums for firms with fewer than 25 employees. And she would also bail out big companies, who are now being crushed by foolish past promises to pay for health insurance for their retirees, with still more tax credits. In return, corporate big shots from these companies publicly intone that indeed, it is time for national health insurance. A better solution would be to just have the government take over these already socialized companies and finish running them into the ground. Government-Run Health Care Hillary wisely calls her plan the American Health Choices Plan. Accordingly, everyone will be “free” to choose one of the health insurance options in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan. But how is this not government-run health care? No company gets on the list of plans in the FEHBP without first complying with a host of federal requirements and controls. That’s alright when the government is providing insurance for its own employees. But should we be treating all workers in the economy as if they are government workers when it comes to health insurance? Is this not precisely what is meant by excessive government control? While the FEHBP embodies good policy for the federal government dealing with its own employees, excessive rhetoric from the original designers of that system (about how it is a model for all health insurance) has now brought us to the point of believing that all workers in the private economy ought to be treated as government employees when it comes to health care. Hillary will also provide, as another option, the choice of a completely government run, government financed health insurance plan. Why? And, again, how is this not government run health care? Moreover, how benign will this plan really be when she is done subsidizing it up the kazoo, and driving all the private plans out of business with her blizzard of regulatory requirements? Bye, Bye Private Insurance Hillary’s plan will also impose guaranteed issue on all private health-insurance plans. This means that insurers cannot reject anyone for their insurance, even on the grounds that the patient is already woefully sick and costly. Moreover, insurers won’t be able to charge more costly patients higher premiums. Effectively, this would necessarily end any real private insurance in America. Under these requirements, companies are no longer insuring health costs, they are simply financing health costs. Health insurers would be like fire insurers who are required to issue new policies at standard rates to those who show up to buy coverage after their homes have already caught fire. Clearly, this is unworkable. Hillary says the insurers are supposed to be in the business of spreading the risk, not cherry picking the most healthy. But when someone shows up to buy health insurance with cancer and heart disease, we are no longer talking about risks. We are talking about payout. This is not an insurance business. Rest assured, moreover, that the healthy with health insurance do not want to see the “risks” of the irredeemably unhealthy spread to them. Those without health insurance who have become uninsurable can, and should, be served through other means, such as state uninsurable risk pools that do not involve trashing the health-insurance system for everyone else. But trashing the private health-insurance market is exactly what Hillary and her allies advocate. Rationing Finally, there is the Best Practices Institute, which should be called the Ministry of Truth for health care. These folks will study all sorts of medical care, issue protocols, and standards for what is the best way to treat this or that. And don’t expect any insurers anywhere, public or private, to pay for anything other than what these folks say is the best practice. To oppose the Institute, of course, would just be to pay for waste and inefficiency. So this is the ideal mechanism for imposing the inevitably necessary rationing. New, expensive medical breakthroughs will be overlooked, or delayed. If your doctor has a brilliant insight on how to treat you, no problem. All you have to do is go to the Best Practices Institute in Washington, explain why this treatment is the right one for you, and get the regs changed. In this brave new world, life insurance will be a lot more valuable to people than health insurance. Insurers, now all under the control of government, will also impose rationing by squeezing reimbursements to health providers, with the limited funds the new system will allow them, until the providers themselves cut back. This is what the government already does with Medicaid, and increasingly with Medicare. And there is so much more. In Hillary’s three speeches and three papers on her website, she outlines dozens of new health care requirements in her new system, which will not be government run. The government is all wise and all knowing, and just needs to make sure the rickety old health-care system gets it all right, as it is dragged into the 21st century. And when Hillary gets done with those fascist drug companies, you can forget about any new breakthrough drugs coming to market in the future, running up costs. But remember, the system is not government run, and don’t let those nasty Republicans tell you otherwise.

Editing help......??? If you have a few minutes to spare, could anyone please, please help me edit my paper. For many years, people have been debating how medical insurance should be paid: Whether private payment or government payment or some combination. Private payment means one would pay for ones own insurance. Government payment would mean the government pays for ones insurance. If the government were to pay for ones insurance, it would limit ones abilities. Also, Government already has to cover Medicare, Social Security, Government housing, the Federal Housing Committee, and the collapse of the Financial Institutions. To a lot of thoughtful people, the only way to fix the health insurance crisis in the United States is to get the federal government to cover everyone. In most states, individuals can be denied coverage for any number of reasons, so it is wise to request and compare more than one individual health insurance quote. The extra short-term effort that's required to apply for individual medical insurance plans is easily worth the long-term savings. If one is insuring ones family, as opposed to just oneself, there are some additional considerations to take into account. Even if one does receive coverage through an employer-sponsored health plan, one should consider the cost-saving benefits of switching to a family medical insurance policy or moving some of your family members off of your group policy into a family policy. Most Americans receive their health coverage through some type of group health insurance. Although large corporations with hundreds or even thousands of employees have the bargaining power to negotiate with medical insurance companies for custom health plans for their workers, the small business owner must still research options and compare prices from multiple providers. Since small business health insurance offers guaranteed coverage to all employees in a given company, it can be difficult and time consuming for a small business owner to find the best policy. Most major colleges and universities require their full-time students to have medical insurance. While many of these same schools also offer their own student health plan, it is wise to explore his or her options. Typically the school will provide the minimum requirements that a health policy must meet in order to waive coverage under the school's policy. As a senior over 65, one is likely covered under some combination of Medicare plans. Changes in recent years to the federal government's medical insurance program for seniors has created a complex system with rigid enrollment timelines. Currently, we have a mixed system, where the government heavily intervenes in health care. In Canada and Great Britain, they have fully governmental health care systems, but a black market of private medicine exists. The government regulates which drugs are available on the market, through the FDA and through the agencies that fight its War on Drugs. Currently, drug companies are granted monopoly privileges called "patents" that give them the exclusive right to sell their drug for 17 years. A few years ago, Congress passed legislation which actually outlawed the importation of cheaper drugs from other countries and prohibited the federal government's health insurance programs (such as Medicare and Medicaid) from negotiating for lower prices. This provision was repealed by the Democrats after they won control of Congress. Britain, Canada, Japan and a number of other rich countries do so, and they each spend less money on health care than the United States does. They also do not have major companies, like General Motors, flirting with bankruptcy in large part because of the cost of health benefits Health insurers made $100 billion in profits last year, and industries of that size are just not legislated out of business, said Jonathan Gruber, an economist. The party that controls the White House and Congress also opposes the idea. Republicans have their own utopian notions, which generally involve letting loose the free market for Americans to demand better care on their own. The discussion has basically been paralyzed for years. In the meantime, the problem has grown worse. In the United States, forty-six million people lack health insurance, according to the most recent estimate, up from thirty-one million in 1987. Massachusetts changed the terms of the debate. Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, and the State Legislature, controlled by the Democrats, reached a deal to cover almost everyone in the state. The plan will cut the cost of health insurance for families that do not have it and make it free for many poor families. The state will also require every resident to have insurance or face a stiff fine. The plan breaks free of the usual ideological shackles by dealing with both of the big reasons that nearly one- sixth of the U.S. population lacks insurance. One, many people cannot afford it. Two, some who can afford it imagin

Another humble note-ish on Economics in its entirety... sort of.? I'm trying to put this in the most efficient way possible. This wasn't for fun, I'd be writing a poem if I wanted "fun." It's long again. I hope it's worth it, and accurate enough for you naysayers. ---------------- It's not going too great right now. America’s economy is fucked, and it was even before the recent crisis. Here’s the problem. Our gross domestic product (GDP) is screwed. But wait… that doesn’t make sense, does it? After all, we’re around first to second globally when it comes to GDP, coming in at about thirteen trillion dollars. That’s great, but there’s a problem. We’re also in a massive pool of debt: ten trillion dollars worth. When your national debt comes close to your GDP, something’s fishy. But how did we enter such a huge debt? We’ve always been in debt. Only the conservative democrat Andrew Jackson managed to significantly reduce it, but that was very short lived when the Panic of 1837 occurred. Since then, it’s dramatically increased for the most part, especially in the past twenty years. Ronald Reagan was a huge part of this, which means, yes nitwits, Reaganomics doesn’t fucking work. The “trickle down” theory only concentrates the wealth on the richest members of America. The idea was, and still is, that if tax breaks are offered to the rich, they’ll invest in things like charities, factories, etc. Nobody seemed to remember that America is now part of a global economy, so the rich will probably invest more in areas where they can get the highest return/profit, outside of the U.S, which is why the policy has failed on a very large scale. So when McCain says he’s offering tax breaks to the rich because by some miracle that’ll help out small business, he’s just flat out wrong. Clinton did increase debt, but not by much. Rather, he leveled it out. How? His idea of achieving fiscal responsibility: “Pay as you go.” What this meant was that if taxes were cut, so was spending. Revenue increased extremely, and everything seemed to be going just magnificently. And then Bush came. Following the failed concepts of Reaganomics and neo-conservatism, President Bush Jr. managed to increase our debt to GDP ratio up to more than 60%. Of course, the Afghan War (by the way, what happened to that?) and the Iraq War ($10 billion a month while the California-sized country itself has a $79 billion dollar surplus) did contribute. But should we have been there in the first place is the main question. One is yes, the other maybe, probably no… actually, almost definitely no. So what can we do to fix the economy? When Obama says “change comes from the bottom up,” it’s not just a catchy phrase. It’s an economic plan. By increasing the productivity of workers across the United States, global capital will naturally come to us if we can increase our net import/export value from the GDP. We export more than we import… that’s bad. If we work on more “American based” products, and not rely on China so much for, well, um, everything, that would definitely decrease our debt as of now. It wouldn’t obliterate it, but it would significantly lower it. Reducing energy costs is also another major factor. The idea is to avoid oil in it’s entirety by focusing on alternate energy sources: wind, solar, tide/hydroelectric, etc. Nuclear power is just too risky, and offshore drilling just doesn’t work. It would only have a major effect in 10 years. The argument then becomes if we had used offshore drilling when Bush became president, none of these energy issues would’ve happened. That’s great, but this is now, and there’s no point in waiting another ten years using the product that got us into the crisis in the first place. However, the main way to increase productivity is through health care, i.e. Universal Health Care (UHC). Whether it is single payer or multi-payer, single probably being the best choice, Americans wouldn’t have to worry nearly as much about the hellhole that is private insurance. Premiums would be almost non-existent or even totally gone. This means employers won’t have to pay as much as before. Jobs would increase because of the new portability of the increase, and so would wages because, again, employers are paying less for health care, so they have more freedom. Businesses would end up prospering just because of UHC. In fact, the National Coalition on Health Care released a report in 2005 showing a single payer system for UHC could even save America $1.1 trillion dollars over 10 years. Our current system using the free market guarantees us that we can never get UHC because the free market makes sure private insurers don’t insure those who really are sick because they’re of such high cost. So, what’s the conclusion? … You tell me. Comment.

Why did those anti-U.S. French elect a pro-U.S. president? Why did those anti-U.S. French elect a pro-U.S. president? E-mail this page Reader Comments (below) By M.D. Harmon Portland Press Herald Friday, May 11, 2007 I guess this is the end of freedom fries, not to mention any remaining sentiment to boycott French wines or certain fragant cheeses. Instead, we should raise a glass of vintage Chardonnay or even Champagne to toast the victory Sunday of a new French president, who without any hesitation said during his entire campaign that it was time to repair relations with "our good friends, the Americans." Nicholas Sarkozy, 52, is the son of Hungarian immigrants and a law-and-order economic conservative. He soundly beat the Socialist Party nominee, 53-year-old SÈgolËne Royal. It's tempting to cast the race in American terms, seeing Sarkozy as a combination of George W. Bush, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, with a dash of Fred Thompson thrown in. Indeed, Sarkozy outraged his leftist critics by visiting the United States during the campaign and being photographed shaking Bush's hand. In that paradigm, Royal becomes (who else?) Hillary ("don't call me Rodham") Clinton -- especially since the Frenchwoman, finding that her "stay-the-collapsing-welfare-state-course" message was failing to get traction, played the gender card at the end, asking women to vote for her as France's first female leader. That would leave aside Joan of Arc, but that's not a comparison worth taking too far. It may or may not be a lesson for Hillary boosters that the appeal to les femmes didn't work. Sarkozy got 53 percent of the total vote and 52 percent of the women's vote, showing that feminist solidarity comes up a bit short when unemployment's soaring and tout le mond wonders why so many of your young people think that if Paris isn't burning, it's not for lack of effort on their part. As a Wall Street Journal analysis noted Wednesday, voters expect a woman candidate to meet a higher standard for toughness and leadership. The story quoted Democratic pollster Peter Hart as saying, "One of the challenges is that 'commander in chief' is so much of the job description." There are those who have tried to downplay this vote, and in some media outlets, coverage of Paris Hilton's scrapes with a drunken-driving charge took precedence over Paris, France's decision to go with the old free-market vintage as opposed to sipping another soupÁon of socialism. Closing one's eyes won't make reality go away, however. This reality indicates, among many other things, that all those people who have been telling us for years that the French really hate Americans may have been confusing France's highly anti-American media with the actual sentiments of the people. Of course, Sarkozy wasn't elected entirely, or even primarily, on his pro-American views. He took a strong stand against rioters in both immigrant (read: Muslim) neighborhoods, where the youth unemployment rate tops 40 percent, and in Paris, where spoiled university students spilled into the streets to protest a law that would have allowed their future employers to dismiss them if they couldn't do their jobs. That sounds odd to U.S. ears, but such productivity-strangling laws are common in the socialist-influenced societies of Europe. They are places where, when the government promises to take care of you from the cradle to the grave, it changes your diapers and drops the lid on your coffin. Sarkozy promised to restore the abandoned dismissal law and make it easier to start small businesses. He vowed to crack down on immigrant rioters, who still protested his election, ironically unable (yet, at least) to see that his policies offer them the best hope they've ever had of escaping France's economic doldrums. Now, conservative leaders expressing a wish for greater friendships with America have been elected not only in France, but in Germany (Angel Merkel, 2005), Canada (Stephen Harper, 2006) and Mexico (Felipe CalderÛn, 2006). With Tony Blair's departure as British prime minister next month, this nation loses a great friend, but where his successor, Gordon Brown, will take the country remains to be seen. That overall trend, however, not only casts the complaints of our own limpid leftists about our support abroad in a somewhat different light, it has very good implications for the struggle against jihadist terrorists in the near future. The hope of further progress in that fight is perhaps the clearest benefit of Sarkozy's election --demonstrating the clarity of the French in seeing what danger confronts them. As Walid Phares, author of "The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy," wrote this week, Sarkozy's victory is a response to a plea his predecessors ignored: "Please resist the rise of terror that is the urban jihad." "This is not just another European election," Phares wrote, "it is a benchmark in the Western struggle to win the war on terror." We can hope the odds of victory took a big leap on Sunday.

Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a give your opinion:? Critics accuse libertarians of reveling in government failures. Yes and No. No one is pleased to see the destruction caused by government policies, whether small scale, as when a tighter regulation causes business failures, or large scale, as when wars destroy life for millions. The kernel of truth to the claim is this: the failure of government illustrates something extremely important about the structure of reality that most people are likely to forget. It comes down to this: statesmen and public officials, no matter how powerful they may be, cannot finally control social outcomes. If I might offer a summary of a point emphasized in all of Mises's works: the structure of society and world affairs generally is shaped by human actions, stemming from imaginative human minds working out individual subjective valuations, and their interactions with the material world, which is governed by laws that are beyond human control. What that means is that you and I cannot on our own, even if we have maximum political power, control all of human society, and especially not its economic side. Let's first consider an example from current popular wisdom about the manufacturing base. Many products that were once made in the US – thinking here of televisions, pianos, firecrackers, plastics, and bicycles--are now made in China. This has caused a great deal of alarm--all unwarranted, so far as sound economics is concerned. But let's say we have the ambition to change this social outcome. Anyone is free to build a bicycle and attempt to market it to willing buyers. Let's say you rent some property, hire the workers, acquire all the necessary capital, and then put your bike on sale. In order to cover your costs and make a profit, you find that you must price your bikes above the going market price. Maybe you can persuade people that you have a special product that is better than the others. Or maybe yours will sit on the floor. Or maybe you will have to lower your price and you will find that your revenue does not cover your costs, and you have to go out of business. No matter what you decide, this much is clear: you are not dictating the outcome. You wanted to build bikes, but it is the consuming public that decides whether it is in our interest to do so. There is nothing you have to say about it. You cannot make people fork over the money. I would venture to suggest that you will ultimately come to the conclusion that you should be doing other things besides attempting to keep up with other businesses that have lower labor and capital costs and hence can make a profit through selling goods at much lower prices. But let's say you decide that you don't want to bow to the realities of the market. Instead you lobby Congress to tax everyone who buys a bike from overseas. The tax is high enough that you can continue to charge exorbitant prices for your bikes. You make a profit. But at what expense? The consumers who buy your bikes have less income left over for other pursuits, whether consumption, saving, or investment. The workers you are employing are being kept from other pursuits as well, and the capital you are consuming is not available for other projects. Ultimately, you have skewed the entire economic system in a way that benefits you at everyone else's expense. Others have found a way to do what you are doing much more efficiently, but because you lobbied and got your way, society is prevented from benefiting from others' innovations. And how long must this distorted system last? That you managed to tax everyone to benefit you does nothing to change the reality that others can do what you are doing more cheaply and better. Do workers really want to be employed in an industry that is something of an artifice? Do consumers really want to pay high prices just so that you can continue to indulge in your bike-making passion? Clearly not. At some point, people will catch on to the racket, and find other ways to go about acquiring bikes. Maybe they will exploit loopholes in the law that allow them to import bike parts. An industry of do-it-yourself bike building becomes a threat to your profits. Or perhaps black markets will take over. Or maybe people will turn away from bikes altogether and starting trying out new forms of informal transportation. Skateboards are fitted with handlebars. Gas-powered scooters develop a peddle-only option. The very definition of a bike comes into question. Increasingly, enforcement will have to become ever more onerous. At some point in this game, we face a choice. We can continue to impose an ever more absurd and preposterous system of regulations and protections just so that you can benefit, or we can bow to reality and let in foreign bikes for consumer purchase. Let's say your tariff lasts a year or even ten years. What will it accomplish? In that time, vast resources are wasted. Consumers of all sorts are exploited. Capital is consumed in economically wasteful ways. People are pushed around and the police powers of the state grow. It does society no good at all. My point is that whatever the fate of the so-called manufacturing base, there is nothing in the long run that can be done to turn it in one direction or another. The fate of manufacturing is in the hands of consumers at large, and subject to the laws of economics which no man can repeal. It is the outcome of human choice. Now, the Bush administration has thought otherwise and imposed a huge range of protections to benefit its supporters and people who the administration hoped would become its supporters. The result has been to skew the world economy, hobble markets, delay inevitable transitions, and impose massive social costs. What this example shows is that governments are not omnipotent. Many try to be, and no government is liberal by nature. But there are limits. Governments bump up against human valuations time and again. Even in the highly rarified event of a despotic government that rules a population unanimously in support of despotism, government still bumps up against the structure of the world, which resists control. Let us consider another example. Let us say that government desires a strong dollar. But it still wants to print dollars and ship them around the world. In this case, there is nothing that government can do to insure the dollar’s strength against depreciation. Nothing. This is due to the laws of economics. All else equal, the value of a currency in terms of goods falls as its quantity increases. Governments that desire otherwise can only shake their fist in anger. The same is true domestically. The government wants economic recovery before a recession has fully run its course. It thereby drops interest rates, spends vast amounts of money to gin up demand, and otherwise encourages as much consumption as possible. These tactics can result in some short-term gains but it doesn't work in the long run. These tactics deplete savings and capital and weaken the foundation for solid future growth. The issue of the price of prescription drugs will be a big one in this coming campaign. The problem is high prices. Popular wisdom has it that this is because of the greed of the medical industry. The truth is that these high prices are partly a result of subsidized demand due to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the restricted supply due to patent laws. In other words, the political class is responsible for the high prices. It's true that the pharmaceutical industry is not complaining. In fact, high prices are precisely what its friends in government want to bring about. They may regret that the poor have to pay the higher prices, but not enough to do anything substantive about it. Prices would plummet today if patents were repealed, free trade (including re-importation) allowed, and subsidized demand ended by the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid. But no one wants to consider that solution, so Congress creates ever more intrusive programs designed to control prices, keeping the prices high enough to satisfy the industry but low enough to reduce the political clamor. The problem is that the government can't have it both ways. It cannot reward its friends with high prices and keep consumers happy at the same time. The current system with its large subsidies is only creating massive new liabilities in programs that cannot be funded in perpetuity without massive tax increases that no one is willing to advocate. Absent tax increases, the only answer is inflation, which taxes us in other ways. One way to think about government is as a rat wandering through a maze with no escape. There is no magic solution to getting around basic economic laws. All lunches must be paid for by someone, prices cannot be both high and low at the same time, and all attempts to coerce generate counter-reactions. In short, there is no alternative universe in which the fantasies of politicians come true. But try telling that to the political class. The last thing they want to hear is that their power is limited, that their will is not a way. They are prone to believe that membership in the political class comes with the privilege of shaping the world to their liking. If you read the social science literature, you find the same error at work on a nearly universal basis. Very rarely does anyone come along and say: great theory but it has nothing to do with reality. You are just playing intellectual games. Socialism was really nothing other than an intellectual game. People from the ancient world to the present conjured up some vision of how they would like the world to work and then advocated a series of measures of how to achieve it. Mises and his generation explained that their vision was fundamentally at odds with reality. In the real world, capital must have price rooted in exchange of private property in order for it to be employed in its highest-valued capacity. It solves nothing to say that everyone should own capital collectively. This was the equivalent of pointing out that the Emperor was wearing no clothes. In some ways, what we do as commentators on economic affairs is to follow this model again and again. The other day, a candidate for president suggested that the answer to our economic woes was more regulation. He had it all figured out in his mind. Immediately, free-market economists from all over the world joined forces to point out that his goal of higher economic productivity could not be achieved this way. It was an unwelcome message but one necessary to deliver regardless. The experience of Iraq has provided myriad examples of the same. The US wants to pump oil. It wants to start factories, stores, and commerce generally. But it refuses to put private owners in charge. As a result, all its military muscle has amounted to very little at great expense. It is a classic example of how governments fail when they try to fight against forces they cannot control. Factories in Iraq that have gone into operation have done so without support of the occupying government. And think of the war generally. At the outset, the visionaries in the Bush administration imagined that Iraq was really a very simple problem to solve. It only needed to be decapitated and the magic dust of the US presence would otherwise create an orderly and prosperous society that would be a model for the region. The reality hit. Crime was unleashed. Feuding political factions clamored for control. Production stopped. Society flew into chaos. This was not because of the absence of the political leadership. It was because of the presence of foreign martial law in a country that was seething in resentment against the US. Time and again, we have seen evidence that the Iraq war only accomplished the opposite of its aims. Its purpose was to find weapons, punish terrorism, and bring order to the region. Instead it has fueled terrorism and brought new levels of disorder to the region. Not having done that, the war is then re-defined in terms that reflect whatever government has done: namely to toss out and capture Saddam, In this sense, the war was like any other government program: bringing about the opposite of its stated intentions and doing so at greater expense. Thus do we see the intersection between foreign and domestic policy. Government is famously ham-handed at home and similarly incompetent abroad. No matter how much government claims that it is master of the universe, it constantly confronts forces beyond its control. In all the talk of the calamity of this war, never forget the broader picture: what an incredible opportunity was squandered after the end of the Cold War. The US had emerged as the universally acknowledged ideological victor in that forty-year struggle. That the Cold War was not actually an ideological struggle so much as a classic standoff between two empires is irrelevant for understanding the implications of this fact: totalitarian communism collapsed while the free economic system of the market remained standing in total triumph. The world was ready for a new period of genuine liberalism, and looking to the US. On the verge of an amazing period of technological advance, we were perfectly situated to lead the way. There had never been a time in US history when George Washington's foreign policy made more sense. A beacon of liberty. Trade with all, belligerence toward none. Commercial engagement with everyone, political engagement with as few as possible. The hand of friendship. Good will. This was the prescription for peace and freedom. It was within our grasp. Our children might have grown up in a world without major political violence. A world of peace and plenty. It could have been. But it was not to be, mainly because George W.'s father decided that he wanted to go down in the history books for doing something big and important. What else but war? The US was now the world's only superpower and itching for some fight somewhere. It's a bit like a playground filled with wimps and one boy with a black belt in karate who never absorbed the lesson in how and where to use his fighting skills. And then there was this oil-drilling dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, and Bush decided to intervene. Twelve years later, the US is still there, causing unrelenting havoc for those poor people. Here at home we are given constant examples of the huge gulf that separates government's perceptions of itself versus the reality. The Bush administration wanted to give the steel industry a boost. The administration established tariffs, which amounts to a tax on all consumers of steel. American manufacturers faced a choice of paying the tax to buy imported steel or paying the higher prices for domestic steel. Those who could do neither had to cut back production and hiring in other areas. Other consumers had to pay higher prices, which diverted income from other pursuits. As for the steel industry itself, the tariffs did nothing to help it achieve greater efficiency, which is the only way to deal with more efficient competitors. They only ended up subsidizing inefficiency. Even then, it wasn't enough. During the period of tariffs, the industry dramatically consolidated in order to become more efficient in other ways. Once faced with the prospect of trade wars, the ultimate cost of protectionism, the Bush administration pulled back and repealed the new tariffs, thereby landing the industry in exactly the same predicament it was in before the tariffs were past. As for commercial society as a whole, it paid dramatically higher steel costs, and faced sporadic shortages, for absolutely no reason. Faced with failure on every front, the Bush administration did the right thing and repealed the tariffs. Not that it was honest about the failure. Instead it claimed its policy worked so well that it could now repeal it. This is like a physician prescribing poison and then changing his mind. He can't but try to put the best spin on it, I suppose. But what a beautiful example of the powerlessness of government this is! The Bush administration wanted to save American industry and only ended up vastly raising the costs of doing all forms of business. More cutbacks are inevitable as steel production shifts to other countries and the US finds its comparative advantage elsewhere. Much legislative energy is poured into helping some groups gain favorable treatment in the workplace. I'm thinking here of the usual litany of victim groups as identified according to race, ability, sex, national origin, religion, and the like. Have these laws actually helped the group in question? The results are mixed at best. If you send people out into the workforce with a high price attached to their heads – and the prospect of a lawsuit is a very high price indeed – you only make employers less likely to hire them. I don’t doubt that some people have been helped by these laws, but they are not the people most in need of help. Today, the disabled, blacks, women, and religious minorities go in search of jobs with a major problem: employers fear them on the margin, and, on the margin, are less likely to hire them relative to others, provided they can get away with it. It is the least qualified among them who pay the highest price. A good test case is disability: it is a documented fact that unemployment among the truly disabled is higher today than it was when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Because libertarians know in advance that government policies are destructive, we tend to focus our editorial energy on pointing to its destructive effects. But in our zeal to draw attention to issues others ignore, let us not forget the bigger picture. There are always limits to what the government can do, and the government's destruction is always accompanied by examples of great creativity on the part of the market. Even as government dominates the headlines, private entrepreneurs are busy every day working to improve products and services that improve our lives. They do it without taxing us or regulating us, or making us suffer through tedious elections or political debates. They make their products and offer them to us in a way that pleases the consuming public the most. We can choose whether we want them or not. Consider the success of Wal-Mart. If government had set out to create a volume discounter that made a world of material goods and groceries available to the multitude in all countries, it might have tried for a thousand years and not created anything resembling this company. Even the military has relented and now routinely points its employees not to its on-base stores but to Wal-Mart, Office Depot, and others for the best prices. Foreign development aid is another example. It took decades to get the message across, but today finance ministers in the developing world understand that they have far more to gain through integration into the world economy than from development aid and all the restrictive policies that come with it. Today, as Sudha Shenoy points out, the largest resistance to new trade deals comes from the developing world, not because they don't want trade but because they desire trade without the labor and environmental controls the US demands. The same is true in the area of communications. In the last century, governments aspired to control them all: the phones, the mails, the media. Today, we see that government, in practice, controls very little of the communications industry, despite every attempt to hobble private enterprise. In that same vein, a major issue for everyone these days are computer viruses and spam, which threaten to make our chief mode of communication less reliable. Congress passes ineffectual legislation against spam and viruses, while private enterprise has given us dozens of means of winning the battle. Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times. Of course there is one way in which government never fails. It can loot. It can gain footholds into society's command centers. It can punish enemies. It can even indoctrinate people in its preferred vision of the world through propaganda. This is the best way to understand the public school system. It doesn't work to educate but it does work to transfer vast sums from the private to the public sector. And here too, we see the power of private enterprise: booster clubs in public schools represent a de facto source of privatization, and the clubs and groups connected to them are the only really successful things going on in public school. We’ll hear much in the coming months about all the wonderful reforms politicians are going to bring us. This is the time when politicians vie for our allegiance by telling all about their ideas and vision for the future. As usual, they will parse their words in ways to maximize the numbers of people who are persuaded and minimize the amount of trouble they get into for inadvertently telling people something they don't want to hear. As an aside, whoever came up with this idea of a mass democracy just wasn't thinking things through very clearly. Nothing runs well by majority vote, to say nothing of the fact that a truly free society shouldn't be "run" at all; it works on its own without would-be masters-and-commanders grasping at the helm. Let me then offer to you my own top ten list of political lies you are told, all designed to make you believe that government should have more power than it already has, so that it can create more of the disasters we are accustomed to: 10. My new program will generate jobs. Truth: only the market generates jobs on net. 9. My education program will reform schools so that they leave no child behind. Truth: the public schools do not work for the same reason no government program can work. They exist outside the market economy. 8. My program will save industry x. Truth: industry must be part of the market or else it is not really industry at all. 7. I won't raise your taxes but I will pass lots of new programs: Truth: all programs must be paid for. 6. As president, I will pursue a humble foreign policy. Truth: nothing in the office of the president encourages humility. 5. This war is humanitarian and winnable. Truth: war is nothing but a government program on a massively destructive scale, and just as error prone. 4. My reform will bring market-based competition. Be on the lookout for this lie, which market partisans are likely to believe. There is only one kind of genuine market, and it is rooted in private property and nothing else. 3. We will secure the nation. Truth: government cannot provide security better than markets, any more than it can provide food or houses better than the market. 2. Government is compassionate. Truth: men who seek power over the lives of others are the coldest, cruelest humans of all. 1. You can't love your country and hate your government. Truth: A person who loves his country loves liberty first. One hundred years from now, the great story of the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century will be the vast improvements in life wrought by technology. Consider the web, the cell phone, the PDA, the affordable laptop computer, advances in medicine, and the spread of prosperity to all corners of the globe. What has government had to do with this? The answer is: nothing contributory. It has worked only to impede progress, and we can only be thankful that it hasn't succeeded. Through all of human history, governments have caused frightening levels of bloodshed and horror, but in the end, what has prevailed is not power but the market economy. Even today governments can only play catch-up. This is because of the reasons that Mises outlined. Government cannot control the human mind, so it cannot, in the long run, control the choices people make. It cannot control economic forces, which are a far more powerful and permanent feature of the world than any government anyway. Governments have a propensity to overreach in so many areas of life that their exercise of power itself leads to their own undoing. The overreach can take many forms: financial, economic, social, and military. In this way, and with enough passion for liberty burning in the hearts of the citizenry, governments can be responsible for their own undoing. It comes about as a result of overestimating the capacity of power and underestimating its limits. I believe this is happening in our time. It may not be obvious when taking the broad view, but when you look at the status of a huge range of government programs and institutions, what you see is a government that is at once enormously powerful and rich, but also fragile and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Events of the last year indicate just how far the government has slipped in its ability to manage the economy, society, culture, and world order. Despite the exalted status of the state today, the vast and sprawling empire called the US government may in fact be less healthy than it ever has been. A few months back, we had a special speaker come to Auburn, probably the most famous man who has visited us since the Country and Western star Alan Jackson was in town. He was Mikhail Gorbachev, a very interesting figure in the history of nations. He came to power with the reputation of a reformer and instituted many reforms that were designed not to give more liberty to the people, but to stop the unraveling of an empire before it was too late. But it was too late. All his talk of perestroika and glasnost couldn't fool the people, who had become convinced that the Soviet machine was something of a hoax. The empire unraveled not because of him, but despite his efforts to save it. When it came time to make the critical decision of whether to try to hold the empire together by more and more force, or not, history had already made the choice for him. The empire dissolved in the blink of an eye. Not too many months later, he was out of a job, not because he was recalled in some formal process, but because the forces of history had run him over. Democratic governments are not immune from the forces of history that overthrew Soviet tyranny. All governments overreach and no government is permanent. So let us fear government but not exaggerate its powers. It can cause enormous damage and it must always be fought. But in this struggle, we are on the right side of history. The power of human choice, aided by the logic of economics and the laws that operate without any bureaucrat's permission, are our source of hope for the future. _______________________________ Llewellyn H. Rockwell http://www.mises.org/story/1396

Gas Price Whining Forces Rush to Explain Capitalism Yet Again? Gas Price Whining Forces Rush to Explain Capitalism Yet Again RUSH: I went to the MoveOn.org website today. You know what they're all up in arms about today? High gas prices. They're sending out an action e-mail to all of their members asking people to sign a petition to get Congress to do something about high gas prices, and Congress is going to do something about high gas prices. Have you heard this? They are going to sue OPEC! They are going to sue OPEC for high gas prices. Why aren't they suing Big Oil, I wonder? The House voted yesterday to allow the government to sue OPEC over oil production quotas. They ought to sue themselves! They're the ones standing in the way of our energy independence. You know, high gasoline prices, high oil prices today are partially due to the fact that back in the Clinton administration and since the Democrats have prevented any drilling in, say, ANWR or anywhere else for our own supplies of oil. They have all this dramatic talk about alternative fuels and so forth, which is a pipe dream. There's nothing down the road that's anywhere near something that's going to solve whatever problem we have. But I find it interesting they want to sue OPEC and not Big Oil. This is, again, something that will go nowhere. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "The jump in U.S. gasoline prices this year has so far drained consumers of an extra $20 billion, or about $146 for each passenger car in the country, the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Tuesday." That's also known as the GAO. "The national price for regular unleaded gasoline hit a record $3.22 a gallon this week, and is up $1.05 since the beginning of February, according to the Energy Department." Now, get this. "The added expense is taking money away from consumers to spend on other goods and services." Yes, it is. "Spending billions more on gasoline constrains consumers' budgets, leaving less money available for other purchases." Why don't you people think about this on tax cuts, for crying out loud? If you want to cut prices on gasoline, cut the taxes, the state, the city, the feds, whatever else. It adds up to 60 cents a gallon. It's all profit. We've been over this I don't know how many times. Mrs. Clinton said something about doing something to increase the supply, lower the price, I forget what it was, and I'm sitting there thinking, if you are Big Oil and you are a global concern, your market is the world, why in the world would you invest heavily in -- I think this is about refineries, we need to be building more refines -- who's standing in the way of building more refineries? Environmentalist wackos. And who are they aligned with? They're aligned with the Democrats and left. But if you're Big Oil, why would you even consider investing gazillions of dollars in a country that is trying to ban your product? Somebody needs to ask that question besides me. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Mike in northern Wisconsin somewhere you're next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir. CALLER: Hey, Rush, how's it going? RUSH: Fine, sir. CALLER: I got a tanker up here, a gas tanker, and I'm not going to tell you who I drive for -- RUSH: Wait, wait, hold -- time-out, time-out, I want to hear -- you driving the tanker? CALLER: Yes, I am right now. I'm going to get another load of that precious liquid gold. RUSH: Yes. CALLER: (Laughing.) Anyway, what I wanted to say was, I just delivered in a store here, and they were lined up at two stations, the one I was at and one across the street. The prices -- for granted, let's say they're just high, okay, whatever. RUSH: Right. CALLER: We can't keep gas in the ground, people are buying it as fast as we can put it in the ground. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just telling you it doesn't seem -- if the world is going you know where in a handbasket and everything is going bad, people seem to be buying gas and going on vacations up here and -- RUSH: We know this is true. Your little story here is anecdotal, but we know it's true. There have been surveys. Something came out yesterday that driving went down for a while, on a percentage basis from the previous year. But from what you're describing, people waiting in line for your truck to show up to refill the tanks at the station? CALLER: There was people there waiting, and I pulled in, and I had to block the road just so I could get in and unload this thing, and we ran all weekend. We had trucks out all week running. Now, if the economy is so bad, how come people keep buying all this gas and the motorcycles and their motor homes and -- somebody's making money somewhere putting this gas in their tanks. RUSH: You are really shrewd, I have to tell you, and plus you have the benefit of being an eyewitness to this. This notion the economy is in bad shape and that people are fretting over gasoline prices is simply manufactured news, manufactured news from the Democrat Party, and they're trying to compare it to food prices, which it is a necessary. We all have to eat in this country. I had somebody ask me the other day, "Rush, let me ask you a question, you once said, and you're right, that that you go to the grocery store and the profit markup in a grocery store on basic foodstuffs is 1%, grocery stores make their money selling the stuff at the checkout counter and the magazines and the candy and all this sort of stuff and the mops and the spic-and-span, whatever's in there. But on basic foodstuffs, profit margin is 1%, because people have to eat." He said, "Well, why doesn't Big Oil look at it that way. People have to drive to get to the grocery store to eat." I said, "Well, both prices, both profit markups, both businesses are constrained by the market forces in which they operate. People do need gasoline, and that's why they're driving." They're not going to slow down and they're not going to stop going to work and they're not going to get on the light rail train. We have some of the ugliest light rail trains I have ever seen in my life right down here in West Palm Beach. I don't go over there much, but sometimes I have to get to the airport. You get stopped sometimes, when I come in late from a flight getting home, midnight or one o'clock, that seems to be when these things are moving, and nobody's on them -- wait, no, that's the freight trains. Take it back. These are the transit, the rush hour, little all-day-long light train. They're supposed to be painted to look like Florida blue with the palm trees. They don't look like that. They look ugly. They look like they're unfinished, looks like they bought used train cars and they haven't done anything to them. But the thing I noticed, they're always empty. I scour, I look in the windows, you might see one or two people on a three-car train. They're empty. People don't want to get on these things, and they don't want to get on buses, outside of New York, where this is standard form of transportation, cabs and buses and subways and so forth. But around the rest of the country they want to drive their cars and they're going to and they're going to pay whatever it costs. They might complain but they'll pay it. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Darren in Billings, Montana, I'm glad you waited as we get back to the phones. Welcome to the EIB Network. CALLER: Hey, Rush, it's great to talk with you. Mostly dittos from Montana. RUSH: Thank you, sir. Never been there and would love to go. CALLER: I'd say, we'd love to have you up here sometime. RUSH: I'll make it at some point. CALLER: There we go. Hey, the problem with the analogy of the oil company and the grocery store is that the oil companies own the product from the raw stage to the retail stage. And the grocery store is actually the true showcase of the free market, where they're buying products from different places and different manufacturers and wholesalers, whereas the oil companies are controlling it all. RUSH: So? CALLER: Well, this is the reason that gas is the price that it is. They're the ones handling that. There is no free market in the oil business. RUSH: Okay. There's no free market in the oil business? The prices in the oil business are fixed? Democrats in Congress conducted an investigation, I think it was Senate Democrats might have conducted an investigation after Hurricane Katrina to find out if there was price fixing. The Democrats couldn't find any evidence of it. CALLER: No, I wouldn't say that there's price fixing. RUSH: Well, if you -- CALLER: I simply don't think that there is the true free market that we see in all the other industries. I don't see any other industry that controls things from raw material to retail sale. I don't think that the supply-demand -- RUSH: Well, then tell me how it is that the prices in this country are lower than they are anywhere else in the world? CALLER: I don't have an answer for you right off on that. RUSH: Well, you know, I've got limited time -- CALLER: I don't know how all the other countries are working. RUSH: You're a great guy, you're a nice guy. There's no free market in gasoline. Propaganda works on this every time the price starts going up, and I don't get it. I just don't. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: When you get otherwise intelligent people saying there's no free market in the price of gasoline, after all of the countless years of detailed attention paid to the subject, the painstaking research, the patient presentation of facts by me, I often throw up my hands. Let me try, because I know that the gas price is one of these things that when it comes up, it goes up, people think that there's some suspicious or conspiratorial reason behind it, they just cannot accept the fact that the free market works in gasoline. So let me ask a question. Or let me ask many questions. Let us speak of many answers. How many oil companies are there that sell gasoline in the United States of America? How many are there? Take a wild guess. I don't even know the answer, but it doesn't matter because there's more than one. If you don't think they are competing with each other, then you don't know the world. ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and whoever the others are, they compete with one another. That's number one. I realize that some of you might think they all get together and set the price and so forth. Second thing is, how many companies are there selling gasoline in this country that are not American? Citgo is one, there's Hugo Chavez. British Petroleum. Do you think that ExxonMobil and BP and the rest are getting together with Hugo to set prices in the United States? Remember, now, these people are the world market. Now, where does this oil come from? Gasoline is oil first and there are a bunch of different places it comes from. All over the world. Comes from Canada. In fact, that's the number one country we get oil from. That's our number one importer. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia. The oil companies do not own this oil as it is. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Hugo Chavez just kicked the oil companies out of Venezuela. He's nationalizing everything. He's taken it, screw you, if you want to stay here and run the wells and so forth we can work out a little production deal, but, ha-ha-ha-ha, this stuff belongs to Venezuela because the oil is ours. Same thing happened in Saudi Arabia and Rockefeller got his change before that happened, but same thing happened there, basically. "We don't need you anymore." So tell me how it is that oil, which starts the whole price timeline, coming from so many different places in the world, ends up as refined gasoline with no free market determining the price in this country. I want to know how this is possible. I want to know how it is that BP, ExxonMobil, Citgo, name other companies, the size that are out there -- hell, I don't know -- Conoco's merged with somebody. I want to know how they're getting together with the Russians and with the Saudis and coordinating this. Then I want you to tell me, the guys playing the futures market in oil on the commodities market, I want you to tell me how they are involved in this so that the price is set by one person from the time it comes out of the ground 'til it gets to your car as gasoline, the idea that that's true is false. All these companies compete with one another at the retail level, they are competing with each other to find oil all over the world. We have to buy oil from all these different countries, and we have to refine it here. All of these aspects have market circumstances that rein in the desire for people to charge more than what they can get for it. Then you've got the stockholders of these publicly traded companies who are demanding profits as big as they can be. They're publicly traded companies and if the managers of these companies don't get as big a profit as they could or if they get too little a profit, there's going to be hell to pay from the shareholders. Now, I want to know how in the world anybody can genuinely think that the oil companies, who are citizens of the world, own every bit of oil that comes out of the ground and then every bit of the processing before it becomes gasoline, then it becomes gasoline and goes into your tank, I want to know how this happens. This is news to me. And why is it that the Democrats in the Congress are suing OPEC in order to do something about the rising gas prices. Why aren't they suing Big Oil? And how is it that OPEC isn't Big Oil and how is it that Hugo Chavez isn't Big Oil and how is it that Russia isn't Big Oil, and how is it that British Petroleum and ExxonMobil and Conoco or whoever else, how come they are? I'm sitting here mystified by all this. This is not to say that I'm insensitive to the price, but the idea here -- oh, and one more question. Have you heard of a country called China? I'm sure many of you have. We refer to them here lovingly and affectionately as the ChiComs. Well, despite their best efforts over there, they are having an expanding economy. There are now multimillionaires in China and more and more people have access to automobiles that use gasoline, and they are putting a lot of pressure on the worldwide supply of gasoline, and in this country, your friends, the Democrats, are standing in the way of this country finding any more oil on our property; be it Alaska; be it off one of the coasts, they won't let it happen, while at the same time they're talking about energy independence. So I want to know how it is, at that Big Oil, which earns 30% of its income from operations in the United States, I want to know how it is that Big Oil and all these companies competing with one another somehow control the product around the world from the moment it comes out of the ground. I want to know how they own Saudi Arabia. I want to know how they own Russia. I want to know how they own Iran. I want to know how they own Venezuela. Niger, Big Oil -- there's oil coming out of the ground everywhere but here. I want to know this. If you can answer these questions, with all the pressure on the supply, the worldwide supply that the rising Chinese economy is put -- and the Indian economy, by the way, they're going bonkers as well, if you can tell me how Big Oil controls every drop from the time it comes out of the ground until tends up as gasoline in your tank, then I can maybe accept your -- but you can't tell me because it's not possible, because it isn't true, because it doesn't happen. If you want a shocking statistic, I've forgotten the actual numbers here. Going to have to go back to my website tonight to the archives, I gotta remember the date and find this. Maybe Koko can search for it real quick when he hears what I'm talking about here. I was playing golf with a guy who had just had a conversation with an energy expert and he was passing the story on, secondhand. I didn't hear it from the horse's mouth, but the numbers of people in the world who don't have electricity would stun you. Who don't have running water, stun you. Don't drive, don't have automobile, would stun you. It's a vast, vast majority. If those people ever got -- by the way, you people like flipping on the light switch at home. You like when the air-conditioner works? Where do you think that comes from? They won't let us do nuke power, so it's coal and it's oil. I haven't even scratched the surface of the oil industry here. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface, the costs in finding it, drilling it, bringing it up, transporting it as crude across the oceans and pipelines and so forth. I literally am amazed that somehow the truth and the facts of the oil business, economics of the oil business, escape people when the economics of most other things are never questioned. Well, I'm not totally mystified. You've got the Democrat Party and the Drive-By Media routinely telling people they're being gouged, and you've got Democrats talk windfall profits taxes and so forth and so on. I'm blue in the face trying to describe to you how much every gallon you buy goes to your state, local, and federal government as total profit. Nobody ever complains and they're talking about raising those taxes, by the way, in the midst of all this, yeah, because, you know what, as the price goes up, some people are buying fewer gallons of gas, and that's less tax money. So the roads may not be repaired, bridges may not be prepared and so forth. So all these people out there wanting you driving these little windmill hybrids. I'll tell you what, if everybody did that, and the consumption of gasoline went down big time, you think the taxes wouldn't go up to make up the loss to the government? It would. This market is so complex, it's like the climate, although it's not nearly as complex as the climate, it is profoundly complex, and to try to control it and corner it is impossible. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I have a little chart from the year 2001 from the Wall Street Journal. The source of this chart is Energy Intelligence Group. It's a chart of oil companies by size of crude production. The largest oil company in the world: Saudi ARAMCO is the number one oil company in the world in 2001, producing 8.3 million barrels of oil a day. Next is the National Iranian Oil Company, NIOC, at 3.77 million barrels of crude a day. The third largest oil company is PEMEX, that's Mexico, 3.56 million barrels, and they just announced a huge find in the in the Gulf of Mexico off of their shores. The fourth largest oil company by crude production -- and this is going to be a small number now given what's recently happened there -- is Venezuela. The company is PDVSA, three million barrels of crude a day, but they've just nationalized a bunch of oil down there, they claim, so they're going to be higher than that. Number five is ExxonMobil at 2.54 million barrels of crude a day. So you got Saudi Arabia at 8.3 million barrels a day. There's ExxonMobil at 2.54. ExxonMobil's market share of the world oil market is 3%. Don't anybody call here again and tell me about Big Oil engaging in price fixing and controlling every bit of the oil from the ground to your tank as gasoline.

help i have no idea wat this means some body explain in short text 10 points best answer in plain explantion? Overview Instant messaging (IM) and chat are technologies that facilitate near real-time text based communication between two or more participants over a network. It is important to understand that what separates chat and instant messaging from technologies such as e-mail is the perceived synchronicity of the communication by the user - Chat happens in real-time before your eyes. For this reason, some people consider communication via instant messaging to be less intrusive than communication via phone. However, some systems allow the sending of messages to people not currently logged on (offline messages), thus removing much of the difference between Instant Messaging and e-mail. Instant Messaging allows instantaneous communication between a number of parties simultaneously, by transmitting information quickly. Some IM systems allow users to use webcams and Microphone which made them more popular than others. Due to this feature users can have a real-time conversation. In addition IM has additional features such as: the immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply, group chatting, conference services (including voice and video), conversation logging and file transfer. IM allows effective and efficient communication, featuring immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply. In certain cases Instant Messaging involves additional features, which make it even more popular, i.e. to see the other party, e.g. by using web-cams, or to talk directly for free over the Internet. It is possible to save a conversation for later reference. Instant messages are typically logged in a local message history which closes the gap to the persistent nature of e-mails and facilitates quick exchange of information like URLs or document snippets (which can be unwieldy when communicated via telephone). [edit] History In early instant messaging programs each character appeared when it was typed. The UNIX "talk" command shown in these screenshots was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s.Instant messaging actually predates the Internet, first appearing on multi-user operating systems like CTSS and Multics[1] in the mid-1960s. Initially, many of these systems, such as CTSS'.SAVED, were used as notification systems for services like printing, but quickly were used to facilitate communication with other users logged in to the same machine. As networks developed, the protocols spread with the networks. Some of these used a peer-to-peer protocol (eg talk, ntalk and ytalk), while others required peers to connect to a server (see talker and IRC). During the Bulletin board system (BBS) phenomenon that peaked during the 1980s, some systems incorporated chat features which were similar to instant messaging; Freelancin'_Roundtable was one prime example. In the last half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the Quantum Link online service for Commodore 64 computers offered user-to-user messages between currently connected customers which they called "On-Line Messages" (or OLM for short). Quantum Link's better known later incarnation, America Online, offers a similar product under the name "AOL Instant Messages" (AIM). While the Quantum Link service ran on a Commodore 64, using only the Commodore's PETSCII text-graphics, the screen was visually divided up into sections and OLMs would appear as a yellow bar saying "Message From:" and the name of the sender along with the message across the top of whatever the user was already doing, and presented a list of options for responding.[2] As such, it could be considered a sort of GUI, albeit much more primitive than the later Unix, Windows and Macintosh based GUI IM programs. OLMs were what Q-Link called "Plus Services" meaning they charged an extra per-minute fee on top of the monthly Q-Link access costs. Modern, Internet-wide, GUI-based messaging clients, as they are known today, began to take off in the mid 1990s with ICQ (1996) being the first, followed by AOL Instant Messenger (AOL Instant Messenger, 1997). AOL later acquired Mirabilis, the creators of ICQ. A few years later ICQ (by now owned by AOL) was awarded two patents for instant messaging by the U.S. patent office. Meanwhile, other companies developed their own applications (Excite, MSN, Ubique, and Yahoo), each with its own proprietary protocol and client; users therefore had to run multiple client applications if they wished to use more than one of these networks. In 1998 IBM released IBM Lotus Sametime, a product based on technology acquired when IBM bought Haifa-based Ubique and Lexington-based Databeam. In 2000, an open source application and open standards-based protocol called Jabber was launched. Jabber servers could act as gateways to other IM protocols, reducing the need to run multiple clients. Multi-protocol clients such as Digsby,Pidgin, Trillian, Adium and Miranda can use any of the popular IM protocols by using additional local libraries for each protocol. IBM Lotus Sametime's November 2007 release added IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway support for XMPP. Recently, many instant messaging services have begun to offer video conferencing features, Voice Over IP (VoIP) and web conferencing services. Web conferencing services integrate both video conferencing and instant messaging capabilities. Some newer instant messaging companies are offering desktop sharing, IP radio, and IPTV to the voice and video features. The term "instant messenger" is a service mark of Time Warner[3] and may not be used in software not affiliated with AOL in the United States. For this reason, the instant messaging client formerly known as Gaim or gaim announced in April 2007 that they would be renamed "Pidgin"[4]. [edit] Cooperation Standard free instant messaging applications offer functions like file transfer, contact lists, the ability to have similtaneous converstations etc. These may be all the functions that a small business needs but larger organisations will require more sophisticated applications that can work together. The solution to finding applications capable of this is to use enterprise versions of instant messaging applications. These include titles like Jabber, Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Office Communicator, etc., which are often integrated with other enterprise applications such as workflow systems. These enterprise applications, or Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), are built to certain constraints, namely storing data in a common format. There have been several attempts to create a unified standard for instant messaging: IETF's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions), APEX (Application Exchange), Prim (Presence and Instant Messaging Protocol), the open XML-based XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), more commonly known as Jabber and OMA's (Open Mobile Alliance) IMPS (Instant Messaging and Presence Service) created specifically for mobile devices. Most attempts at creating a unified standard for the major IM providers (AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft) have failed and each continues to use its own proprietary protocol. However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, Reuters head of collaboration services, David Gurle (the founder of Microsoft's Real Time Communication and Collaboration business), signed the first inter-service provider connectivity agreement on September 2003. This agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger users to talk with Reuters Messaging counterparts and vice-versa against an access fee. Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL came to a deal where Microsoft's Live Communication Server 2005 users would also have the possibility to talk to public instant messaging users. This deal established SIP/SIMPLE as a standard for protocol interoperability and established a connectivity fee for accessing public instant messaging clouds. Separately, on October 13, 2005 Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that by (the Northern Hemisphere) summer of 2006 they would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE which is followed on December 2005 by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal where Google Talk users would be able to talk with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an identity at AOL. There are two ways to combine the many disparate protocols: One way is to combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM client application. The other way is to combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM server application. This approach moves the task of communicating to the other services to the server. Clients need not know or care about other IM protocols. For example, LCS 2005 Public IM Connectivity. This approach is popular in Jabber/XMPP servers however the so-called transport projects suffer the same reverse engineering difficulties as any other project involved with closed protocols or formats. Some approaches, such as that adopted by the Sonork enterprise IM software or the Jabber/XMPP network or Winpopup LAN Messenger, allow organizations to create their own private instant messaging network by enabling them to limit access to the server (often with the IM network entirely behind their firewall) and administer user permissions. Other corporate messaging systems allow registered users to also connect from outside the corporation LAN, by using a secure firewall-friendly HTTPS based protocol. Typically, a dedicated corporate IM server has several advantages such as pre-populated contact lists, integrated authentication, and better security and privacy. Some networks have made changes to prevent them from being utilized by such multi-network IM clients. For example, Trillian had to release several revisions and patches to allow its users to access the MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! networks, after changes were made to these networks. The major IM providers typically cite the need for formal agreements as well as security concerns as reasons for making these changes. [edit] Mobile Instant Messaging Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) is a presence enabled messaging service that aims to transpose the desktop messaging experience to the usage scenario of being on the move. While several of the core ideas of the desktop experience on one hand apply to a connected mobile device, others do not: Users usually only look at their phone's screen — presence status changes might occur under different circumstances as happens at the desktop, and several functional limits exist based on the fact that the vast majority of mobile communication devices are chosen by their users to fit into the palm of their hand. Some of the form factor and mobility related differences need to be taken into account in order to create a really adequate, powerful and yet convenient mobile experience: radio bandwidth, memory size, availability of media formats, keypad based input, screen output, CPU performance and battery power are core issues that desktop device users and even nomadic users with connected network. [edit] Friend-to-friend networks Instant Messaging may be done in a Friend-to-friend network, in which each node connects to the friends on the friendslist. This allows for communication with friends of friends and for the building of chatrooms for instant messages with all friends on that network. Emotions are often expressed in shorthand. For example; lol. But a movement is currently underway to be more accurate with the emotional expression. Real time reactions such as (chortle) (snort) (guffaw) or (eye-roll) are rapidly taking the place of acronyms.[citation needed] [edit] Business application Instant messaging has proven to be similar to personal computers, e-mail, and the WWW, in that its adoption for use as a business communications medium was driven primarily by individual employees using consumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technology departments. Tens of millions of the consumer IM accounts in use are being used for business purposes by employees of companies and other organizations. In response to the demand for business-grade IM and the need to ensure security and legal compliance, a new type of instant messaging, called "Enterprise Instant Messaging" ("EIM") was created when Lotus Software launched IBM Lotus Sametime in 1998. Microsoft followed suit shortly thereafter with Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging, later created a new platform called Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, and released Office Communications Server 2007 in October 2007. Both IBM Lotus and Microsoft have introduced federation between their EIM systems and some of the public IM networks so that employees may use a single interface to both their internal EIM system and their contacts on AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!. Current leading EIM platforms include IBM Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Jabber XCP. In addition, industry-focused EIM platforms such as IMtrader from Pivot Incorporated, Reuters Messaging, and Bloomberg Messaging provide enhanced IM capabilities to financial services companies. The adoption of IM across corporate networks outside of the control of IT organizations creates risks and liabilities for companies who do not effectively manage and support IM use. Companies implement specialized IM archiving and security products and services like those from Secure Computing, Akonix, SurfControl, and ScanSafe to mitigate these risks and provide safe, secure, productive instant messaging capabilities to their employees. [edit] Practical Use in Enterprise The popular embrace of IM technology for sharing information has quickly led to organizations adopting IM solutions for the perceived advantages that can be brought by it. As organizations are becoming more information based (McNurlin & Sprague, 2006, p.499) the need for effective knowledge sharing, team working and collaborative environments amongst employees has become vital, especially within more geographically dispersed teams. Typically IM conversations tend to have a certain "character", they are often short and only cover one topic. Media-switching and multitasking are common throughout, however IM might also be used between established coworkers and friends for longer, more intermittent conversation. In their report of IM use at the workplace Nardi et al. (2000) identifies the four primary functions of IM which are often cited in other reports, These primary functions are: Quick Questions and Clarifications Coordinating and scheduling tasks Coordinating impromptu social meetings Keeping in touch with friends and family IM is perhaps best suited to "Quick Questions and Clarifications" as this is the most often mentioned attribute in other reports. A user can "respond rapidly without the overhead of telephone or FTF interaction. For example, IDC reports, "Users see IM as a medium for quick, semi-permanent ‘flashes’ that beg a near-immediate response" (Isaacs et al., 2002). Nardi's second and third observations are enabled in part due to the "Presence Awareness" feature of IM clients in which the user knows who is "available". This is the most relevant for colleagues who share the same physical space as each other and even paves the way for other mediums to take up the task of communication e.g. F2F or Phone. The implication is that viable communication of any sort can in someway be encouraged through IM's "Presence Awareness" feature. (Issacs et al, 2002) supports this view, "IM in business might not be the main tool for of communication, it could just be the meeting point for another type of media e.g. conference calls. Nardi's third and fourth observations focus on the social use of IM, which have also been widely publicized in other report. That IM is used for keeping in touch with friends and arranging social events has led some employers to believe that it is used primarily for this purpose. According to (Issacs et al, 2002) a market study found that "'Fear of losing employee productivity’ was the greatest concern of businesses in regards to instant messaging". The study by (Issacs et al, 2002) goes on to suggest this fear is unfounded as it was found that on average "only 13% of conversations contained personal topics", and "only 6.4% were exclusively personal". [edit] Review of Products "IM solutions can typically be catagorised into two types: Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) and Consumer Instant Mesaging (CIM). Enterprise solutions use an internal IM server, however this isn't always feasible, particularly for smaller businesses with limited budgets. The second option, using a (CIM) provides the advantage of being inexpensive to implement and has little need for investing in new hardware or server software. However, in recent years open source IM clients such as Jabber have emerged that provide free EIM grade solutions. (Wikipedia,. 2008) For corporate use encryption and conversation archiving are usually regarded as important features due to security concerns. Sometimes the use of different operating systems in organizations calls for the use of software that supports more than one platform. For example many software companies use Windows XP in administration departments but have software developers who use Linux. Most people have had experience of using online chat and messaging over the internet whether it is with Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, Skype or e-mail. One form of chat and messaging currently popular is Bebo. It is a non-corporate form of messaging which allows its user to create and maintain a social network. Libraries use chat applications and Morris Messenger is an application commonly used by them. This is a power based instant messenger, which uses Perl, SQL, and small Java. It accepts input from both staff and regular customers and saves important information in an SQL database built for the system. [edit] Risks and liabilities Although instant messaging delivers many benefits, it also carries with it certain risks and liabilities, particularly when used in workplaces. Among these risks and liabilities are: Security risks (e.g. IM used to infect computers with spyware, viruses, trojans, worms) Compliance risks Inappropriate use Intellectual property leakage Crackers (malicious "hacker" or black hat hacker) have consistently used IM networks as vectors for delivering phishing attempts, "poison URL's", and virus-laden file attachments from 2004 to the present, with over 1100 discrete attacks listed by the IM Security Center[5] in 2004-2007. Hackers use two methods of delivering malicious code through IM: delivery of virus, trojan, or spyware within an infected file, and the use of "socially engineered" text with a web address that entices the recipient to click on a URL that connects him or her to a website that then downloads malicious code. Viruses, worms, and trojans typically propagate by sending themselves rapidly through the infected user's buddy list. An effective attack using a poison URL may reach tens of thousands of people in minutes when each person's buddy list receives messages appearing to be from a trusted friend. The recipients click on the web address, and the entire cycle starts again. Infections may range from nuisance to criminal, and are becoming more sophisticated each year. In addition to the malicious code threat, the use of instant messaging at work also creates a risk of non-compliance to laws and regulations governing the use of electronic communications in businesses. In the United States alone there are over 10,000 laws and regulations related to electronic messaging and records retention.[6] The more well-known of these include the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA, and SEC 17a-3. Clarification from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") was issued to member firms in the financial services industry in December, 2007, noting that "electronic communications", "email", and "electronic correspondence" may be used interchangeably and can include such forms of electronic messaging as instant messaging and text messaging.[7] Changes to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 1, 2006, created a new category for electronic records which may be requested during discovery (law) in legal proceedings. Most countries around the world also regulate the use of electronic messaging and electronic records retention in similar fashion to the United States. The most common regulations related to IM at work involve the need to produce archived business communications to satisfy government or judicial requests under law. Many instant messaging communications fall into the category of business communications that must be archived and retrievable. Organizations of all types must protect themselves from the liability of their employees' inappropriate use of IM. The informal, immediate, and ostensibly anonymous nature of instant messaging makes it a candidate for abuse in the workplace. The topic of inappropriate IM use became front page news in October 2006 when Congressman Mark Foley resigned his seat after admitting sending offensive instant messages of a sexual nature to underage former House pages from his Congressional office PC. The Mark Foley Scandal led to media coverage and mainstream newspaper articles warning of the risks of inappropriate IM use in workplaces. In most countries, corporations have a legal responsibility to ensure harassment-free work environment for employees. The use of corporate-owned computers, networks, and software to harass an individual or spread inappropriate jokes or language creates a liability for not only the offender but also the employer. A survey by IM archiving and security provider Akonix Systems, Inc. in March 2007 showed that 31% of respondents had been harassed over IM at work.[8] Companies now include instant messaging as an integral component of their policies on appropriate use of the World Wide Web, e-mail, and other corporate assets. Within the company there is also the risk of employees using instant messaging to release confidential information and project details to an outside source. This issue is best controlled by a combination of written policy and technology. An organization's policies on use of IM in the workplace should be an integral part of the overall computing and network use policies, and should be published and communicated at least annually. In addition to written policy, organizations should implement "gateways" or IM security products to monitor content of inbound and outbound messages. Products from IM security providers (See section on IM security) typically allow administrators to set alerts and enforce policy (i.e. allow or block messages) based on keywords and regular expressions within instant messages. Employees may also misuse IM to communicate on a personal level with friends and family. This is poor use of a business’s time and resources, as the employee’s effectiveness will most certainly decrease due to the added distractions. (Licari, J., May 2005). Businesses often use IM security products to monitor and archive IM conversations for the purpose of minimizing this type of productivity drain. [edit] Security and archiving In the early 2000s, a new class of IT security provider emerged to provide remedies for the risks and liabilities faced by corporations who chose to use IM for business communications. The IM security providers created new products to be installed in corporate networks for the purpose of archiving, content-scanning, and security-scanning IM traffic moving in and out of the corporation. Similar to the e-mail filtering vendors, the IM security providers focus on the risks and liabilities described above. With rapid adoption of IM in the workplace, demand for IM security products began to grow in the mid-2000s. By 2007, the preferred platform for the purchase of security software had become the "appliance", according to IDC, who estimate that by 2008, 80% of network security products will be delivered via an appliance.[9] [edit] User base Note that many of the numbers listed in this section are not directly comparable, and some are speculative. Some instant messaging systems are distributed among many different instances and thus difficult to measure in total (e.g. Jabber). While some numbers are given by the owners of a complete instant messaging system, others are provided by commercial vendors of a part of a distributed system. Some companies may be motivated to inflate their numbers in order to increase advertisement earnings or to attract partners, clients, or customers. Importantly, some numbers are reported as the number of "active" users (without a shared standard of that activity), others indicate total user accounts, while others indicate only the users logged in during an instance of peak usage. Service User count Date/source AIM 53 million active September 2006 >100 million total January 2006 Jabber 40-50 million total January 2007, based on calculations of Jabber Inc 90 million total Based on calculations of Process-One: Process-One uses ejabberd as Jabber server software. If it is assumed that ejabberd has a 40% market share amongst public and private open source server deployments, there are 50 million users using open source servers. With Jabber Inc's numbers, this adds up to the 90 million number stated here. eBuddy 35 million total October 2006, including 4 million mobile users Windows Live Messenger 294 million active worldwide November 2007 Yahoo! Messenger 22 million total September 2006 QQ 20 million peak online (majority in China) 3 June 2006 221 million "active" (majority in China) 3 June 2006 IBM Lotus Sametime 17 million total (private, in enterprises) November 2007 ICQ 15 million active July 2006 Skype 12 million peak online February 2008 309 million total April 2008 Xfire 10 million total May 2008 MXit 7 million total (>560,000 outside of South Africa) 10 August 2007. Note that these users are part of the Jabber user base as MXit federates with the Jabber network. Gadu-Gadu 5.6 million total June 2006 Paltalk 3.3 million unique visitors per month August 2006 IMVU 1 million total June 2007 Mail.ru Agent 1 million active (daily) September 2006 Meebo 1 million total October 2006 PSYC 1 million active (daily) (majority in Brazil) February 2007. Total count cannot be accurately estimated due to the decentralized nature of the protocol. VZOchat >200,000 October 2007 [edit] IM Language Users sometimes make use of internet slang or text speak to abbreviate common words or expressions in order to quicken conversations or to reduce keystrokes. [edit] See also Comparison of instant messaging clients Comparison of instant messaging protocols Instant messaging manager LAN messenger Text messaging it is a question

Please Help Me: I need some idea's on how to organize in Power Point With some nice Pictures? I need help on finding gooe pictures for each of my ideas posted here; perhaps i can help you with something? i am in South Korea; just ask. I am doing a Power Point Presentation on Protect the Enviroment; and i have the following ideas; however i could use great help on pictures for each idea. Please help me? To Stop Global Warming (Protect our Environment) 1. Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl) CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. 2. Install a programmable thermostat Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill. 3. Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has more tips for saving energy on heating and cooling. 4. Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. 5. Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models available. 6. Do not leave appliances on standby Use the "on/off" function on the machine itself. A TV set that's switched on for 3 hours a day (the average time Europeans spend watching TV) and in standby mode during the remaining 21 hours uses about 40% of its energy in standby mode. 7. Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket You'll save 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple action. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 50°C. 8. Move your fridge and freezer Placing them next to the cooker or boiler consumes much more energy than if they were standing on their own. For example, if you put them in a hot cellar room where the room temperature is 30-35ºC, energy use is almost double and causes an extra 160kg of CO2 emissions for fridges per year and 320kg for freezers. 9. Defrost old fridges and freezers regularly Even better is to replace them with newer models, which all have automatic defrost cycles and are generally up to two times more energy-efficient than their predecessors. 10. Don't let heat escape from your house over a long period When airing your house, open the windows for only a few minutes. If you leave a small opening all day long, the energy needed to keep it warm inside during six cold months (10ºC or less outside temperature) would result in almost 1 ton of CO2 emissions. 11. Replace your old single-glazed windows with double-glazing This requires a bit of upfront investment, but will halve the energy lost through windows and pay off in the long term. If you go for the best the market has to offer (wooden-framed double-glazed units with low-emission glass and filled with argon gas), you can even save more than 70% of the energy lost. 12. Get a home energy audit Many utilities offer free home energy audits to find where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. You can save up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Energy Star can help you find an energy specialist. 13. Cover your pots while cooking Doing so can save a lot of the energy needed for preparing the dish. Even better are pressure cookers and steamers: they can save around 70%! 14. Use the washing machine or dishwasher only when they are full If you need to use it when it is half full, then use the half-load or economy setting. There is also no need to set the temperatures high. Nowadays detergents are so efficient that they get your clothes and dishes clean at low temperatures. 15. Take a shower instead of a bath A shower takes up to four times less energy than a bath. To maximise the energy saving, avoid power showers and use low-flow showerheads, which are cheap and provide the same comfort. 16. Use less hot water It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year) instead of hot. 17. Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year. 18. Insulate and weatherize your home Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Caulking and weather-stripping can save another 1,700 pounds per year. Energy Efficient has more information on how to better insulate your home. 19. Be sure you're recycling at home You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates. Earth 911 can help you find recycling resources in your area. 20. Recycle your organic waste Around 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions through the methane is released by decomposing bio-degradable waste. By recycling organic waste or composting it if you have a garden, you can help eliminate this problem! Just make sure that you compost it properly, so it decomposes with sufficient oxygen, otherwise your compost will cause methane emissions and smell foul. 21. Buy intelligently One bottle of 1.5l requires less energy and produces less waste than three bottles of 0.5l. As well, buy recycled paper products: it takes less 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide. 22. Choose products that come with little packaging and buy refills when you can You will also cut down on waste production and energy use! 23. Reuse your shopping bag When shopping, it saves energy and waste to use a reusable bag instead of accepting a disposable one in each shop. Waste not only discharges CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, it can also pollute the air, groundwater and soil. 24. Reduce waste Most products we buy cause greenhouse gas emissions in one or another way, e.g. during production and distribution. By taking your lunch in a reusable lunch box instead of a disposable one, you save the energy needed to produce new lunch boxes. 25. Plant a tree A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15%. The Arbor Day Foundation has information on planting and provides trees you can plant with membership. 26. Switch to green power In many areas, you can switch to energy generated by clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar. The Green Power Network is a good place to start to figure out what's available in your area. 27. Buy locally grown and produced foods The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community. 28. Buy fresh foods instead of frozen Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce. 29. Seek out and support local farmers markets They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. You can find a farmer's market in your area at the USDA website. 30. Buy organic foods as much as possible Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, we'd remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere! 31. Eat less meat Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath. 32. Reduce the number of miles you drive by walking, biking, carpooling or taking mass transit wherever possible Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year! Look for transit options in your area. 33. Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates Sharing a ride with someone just 2 days a week will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds a year. eRideShare.com runs a free national service connecting commuters and travelers. 34. Don't leave an empty roof rack on your car This can increase fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 10% due to wind resistance and the extra weight - removing it is a better idea. 35. Keep your car tuned up Regular maintenance helps improve fuel efficiency and reduces emissions. When just 1% of car owners properly maintain their cars, nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere. 36. Drive carefully and do not waste fuel You can reduce CO2 emissions by readjusting your driving style. Choose proper gears, do not abuse the gas pedal, use the engine brake instead of the pedal brake when possible and turn off your engine when your vehicle is motionless for more than one minute. By readjusting your driving style you can save money on both fuel and car mantainance. 37. Check your tires weekly to make sure they're properly inflated Proper inflation can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Since every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, every increase in fuel efficiency makes a difference! 38. When it is time for a new car, choose a more fuel efficient vehicle You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid! You can find information on fuel efficiency on FuelEconomy and on GreenCars websites. 39. Try car sharing Need a car but don't want to buy one? Community car sharing organizations provide access to a car and your membership fee covers gas, maintenance and insurance. Many companies - such as Flexcar - offer low emission or hybrid cars too! Also, see ZipCar. 40. Try telecommuting from home Telecommuting can help you drastically reduce the number of miles you drive every week. For more information, check out the Telework Coalition. 41. Fly less Air travel produces large amounts of emissions so reducing how much you fly by even one or two trips a year can reduce your emissions significantly. You can also offset your air travel by investing in renewable energy projects. 42. Encourage your school or business to reduce emissions You can extend your positive influence on global warming well beyond your home by actively encouraging other to take action. 43. Join the virtual march The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is a non-political effort to bring people concerned about global warming together in one place. Add your voice to the hundreds of thousands of other people urging action on this issue. 44. Encourage the switch to renewable energy Successfully combating global warming requires a national transition to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass. These technologies are ready to be deployed more widely but there are regulatory barriers impeding them. Take action to break down those barriers with Vote Solar. 45. Protect and conserve forest worldwide Forests play a critial role in global warming: they store carbon. When forests are burned or cut down, their stored carbon is release into the atmosphere - deforestation now accounts for about 20% of carbon dioxide emissions each year. Conservation International has more information on forests and global warming. 46. Consider the impact of your investments If you invest your money, you should consider the impact that your investments and savings will have on global warming. Check out SocialInvest and Ceres to can learn more about how to ensure your money is being invested in companies, products and projects that address issues related to climate change. 47. Make your city cool Cities and states around the country have taken action to stop global warming by passing innovative transportation and energy saving legislation. 194 cities nationwide representing over 40 million people have made this pledge as part of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Find out how to make your city a cool city. 48. Tell Congress to act The McCain Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act would set a firm limit on carbon dioxide emissions and then use free market incentives to lower costs, promote efficiency and spur innovation. Tell your representative to support it. 49. Make sure your voice is heard! Americans must have a stronger commitment from their government in order to stop global warming and implement solutions and such a commitment won't come without a dramatic increase in citizen lobbying for new laws with teeth. Get the facts about U.S. politicians and candidates at Project Vote Smart and The League of Conservation Voters. Make sure your voice is heard by voting!

Please Help Me: I need some idea's on how to organize in Power Point With some nice Piictures? I need help on finding gooe pictures for each of my ideas posted here; perhaps i can help you with something? i am in South Korea; just ask. I am doing a Power Point Presentation on Protect the Enviroment; and i have the following ideas; however i could use great help on pictures for each idea. Please help me? To Stop Global Warming (Protect our Environment) 1. Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl) CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. 2. Install a programmable thermostat Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill. 3. Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has more tips for saving energy on heating and cooling. 4. Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. 5. Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models available. 6. Do not leave appliances on standby Use the "on/off" function on the machine itself. A TV set that's switched on for 3 hours a day (the average time Europeans spend watching TV) and in standby mode during the remaining 21 hours uses about 40% of its energy in standby mode. 7. Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket You'll save 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple action. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 50°C. 8. Move your fridge and freezer Placing them next to the cooker or boiler consumes much more energy than if they were standing on their own. For example, if you put them in a hot cellar room where the room temperature is 30-35ºC, energy use is almost double and causes an extra 160kg of CO2 emissions for fridges per year and 320kg for freezers. 9. Defrost old fridges and freezers regularly Even better is to replace them with newer models, which all have automatic defrost cycles and are generally up to two times more energy-efficient than their predecessors. 10. Don't let heat escape from your house over a long period When airing your house, open the windows for only a few minutes. If you leave a small opening all day long, the energy needed to keep it warm inside during six cold months (10ºC or less outside temperature) would result in almost 1 ton of CO2 emissions. 11. Replace your old single-glazed windows with double-glazing This requires a bit of upfront investment, but will halve the energy lost through windows and pay off in the long term. If you go for the best the market has to offer (wooden-framed double-glazed units with low-emission glass and filled with argon gas), you can even save more than 70% of the energy lost. 12. Get a home energy audit Many utilities offer free home energy audits to find where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. You can save up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Energy Star can help you find an energy specialist. 13. Cover your pots while cooking Doing so can save a lot of the energy needed for preparing the dish. Even better are pressure cookers and steamers: they can save around 70%! 14. Use the washing machine or dishwasher only when they are full If you need to use it when it is half full, then use the half-load or economy setting. There is also no need to set the temperatures high. Nowadays detergents are so efficient that they get your clothes and dishes clean at low temperatures. 15. Take a shower instead of a bath A shower takes up to four times less energy than a bath. To maximise the energy saving, avoid power showers and use low-flow showerheads, which are cheap and provide the same comfort. 16. Use less hot water It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year) instead of hot. 17. Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year. 18. Insulate and weatherize your home Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Caulking and weather-stripping can save another 1,700 pounds per year. Energy Efficient has more information on how to better insulate your home. 19. Be sure you're recycling at home You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates. Earth 911 can help you find recycling resources in your area. 20. Recycle your organic waste Around 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions through the methane is released by decomposing bio-degradable waste. By recycling organic waste or composting it if you have a garden, you can help eliminate this problem! Just make sure that you compost it properly, so it decomposes with sufficient oxygen, otherwise your compost will cause methane emissions and smell foul. 21. Buy intelligently One bottle of 1.5l requires less energy and produces less waste than three bottles of 0.5l. As well, buy recycled paper products: it takes less 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide. 22. Choose products that come with little packaging and buy refills when you can You will also cut down on waste production and energy use! 23. Reuse your shopping bag When shopping, it saves energy and waste to use a reusable bag instead of accepting a disposable one in each shop. Waste not only discharges CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, it can also pollute the air, groundwater and soil. 24. Reduce waste Most products we buy cause greenhouse gas emissions in one or another way, e.g. during production and distribution. By taking your lunch in a reusable lunch box instead of a disposable one, you save the energy needed to produce new lunch boxes. 25. Plant a tree A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15%. The Arbor Day Foundation has information on planting and provides trees you can plant with membership. 26. Switch to green power In many areas, you can switch to energy generated by clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar. The Green Power Network is a good place to start to figure out what's available in your area. 27. Buy locally grown and produced foods The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community. 28. Buy fresh foods instead of frozen Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce. 29. Seek out and support local farmers markets They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. You can find a farmer's market in your area at the USDA website. 30. Buy organic foods as much as possible Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, we'd remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere! 31. Eat less meat Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath. 32. Reduce the number of miles you drive by walking, biking, carpooling or taking mass transit wherever possible Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year! Look for transit options in your area. 33. Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates Sharing a ride with someone just 2 days a week will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds a year. eRideShare.com runs a free national service connecting commuters and travelers. 34. Don't leave an empty roof rack on your car This can increase fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 10% due to wind resistance and the extra weight - removing it is a better idea. 35. Keep your car tuned up Regular maintenance helps improve fuel efficiency and reduces emissions. When just 1% of car owners properly maintain their cars, nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere. 36. Drive carefully and do not waste fuel You can reduce CO2 emissions by readjusting your driving style. Choose proper gears, do not abuse the gas pedal, use the engine brake instead of the pedal brake when possible and turn off your engine when your vehicle is motionless for more than one minute. By readjusting your driving style you can save money on both fuel and car mantainance. 37. Check your tires weekly to make sure they're properly inflated Proper inflation can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Since every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, every increase in fuel efficiency makes a difference! 38. When it is time for a new car, choose a more fuel efficient vehicle You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid! You can find information on fuel efficiency on FuelEconomy and on GreenCars websites. 39. Try car sharing Need a car but don't want to buy one? Community car sharing organizations provide access to a car and your membership fee covers gas, maintenance and insurance. Many companies - such as Flexcar - offer low emission or hybrid cars too! Also, see ZipCar. 40. Try telecommuting from home Telecommuting can help you drastically reduce the number of miles you drive every week. For more information, check out the Telework Coalition. 41. Fly less Air travel produces large amounts of emissions so reducing how much you fly by even one or two trips a year can reduce your emissions significantly. You can also offset your air travel by investing in renewable energy projects. 42. Encourage your school or business to reduce emissions You can extend your positive influence on global warming well beyond your home by actively encouraging other to take action. 43. Join the virtual march The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is a non-political effort to bring people concerned about global warming together in one place. Add your voice to the hundreds of thousands of other people urging action on this issue. 44. Encourage the switch to renewable energy Successfully combating global warming requires a national transition to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass. These technologies are ready to be deployed more widely but there are regulatory barriers impeding them. Take action to break down those barriers with Vote Solar. 45. Protect and conserve forest worldwide Forests play a critial role in global warming: they store carbon. When forests are burned or cut down, their stored carbon is release into the atmosphere - deforestation now accounts for about 20% of carbon dioxide emissions each year. Conservation International has more information on forests and global warming. 46. Consider the impact of your investments If you invest your money, you should consider the impact that your investments and savings will have on global warming. Check out SocialInvest and Ceres to can learn more about how to ensure your money is being invested in companies, products and projects that address issues related to climate change. 47. Make your city cool Cities and states around the country have taken action to stop global warming by passing innovative transportation and energy saving legislation. 194 cities nationwide representing over 40 million people have made this pledge as part of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Find out how to make your city a cool city. 48. Tell Congress to act The McCain Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act would set a firm limit on carbon dioxide emissions and then use free market incentives to lower costs, promote efficiency and spur innovation. Tell your representative to support it. 49. Make sure your voice is heard! Americans must have a stronger commitment from their government in order to stop global warming and implement solutions and such a commitment won't come without a dramatic increase in citizen lobbying for new laws with teeth. Get the facts about U.S. politicians and candidates at Project Vote Smart and The League of Conservation Voters. Make sure your voice is heard by voting!

Is it good to drink milk? The text is too long but worthwhile read....? "MILK" Just the word itself sounds comforting! "How about a nice cup of hot milk?" The last time you heard that question it was from someone who cared for you--and you appreciated their effort. The entire matter of food and especially that of milk is surrounded with emotional and cultural importance. Milk was our very first food. If we were fortunate it was our mother's milk. A loving link, given and taken. It was the only path to survival. If not mother's milk it was cow's milk or soy milk "formula"--rarely it was goat, camel or water buffalo milk. Now, we are a nation of milk drinkers. Nearly all of us. Infants, the young, adolescents, adults and even the aged. We drink dozens or even several hundred gallons a year and add to that many pounds of "dairy products" such as cheese, butter, and yogurt. Can there be anything wrong with this? We see reassuring images of healthy, beautiful people on our television screens and hear messages that assure us that, "Milk is good for your body." Our dieticians insist that: "You've got to have milk, or where will you get your calcium?" School lunches always include milk and nearly every hospital meal will have milk added. And if that isn't enough, our nutritionists told us for years that dairy products make up an "essential food group." Industry spokesmen made sure that colourful charts proclaiming the necessity of milk and other essential nutrients were made available at no cost for schools. Cow's milk became "normal." You may be surprised to learn that most of the human beings that live on planet Earth today do not drink or use cow's milk. Further, most of them can't drink milk because it makes them ill. There are students of human nutrition who are not supportive of milk use for adults. Here is a quotation from the March/April 1991 Utne Reader: If you really want to play it safe, you may decide to join the growing number of Americans who are eliminating dairy products from their diets altogether. Although this sounds radical to those of us weaned on milk and the five basic food groups, it is eminently viable. Indeed, of all the mammals, only humans--and then only a minority, principally Caucasians--continue to drink milk beyond babyhood. Who is right? Why the confusion? Where best to get our answers? Can we trust milk industry spokesmen? Can you trust any industry spokesmen? Are nutritionists up to date or are they simply repeating what their professors learned years ago? What about the new voices urging caution? I believe that there are three reliable sources of information. The first, and probably the best, is a study of nature. The second is to study the history of our own species. Finally we need to look at the world's scientific literature on the subject of milk. Let's look at the scientific literature first. From 1988 to 1993 there were over 2,700 articles dealing with milk recorded in the 'Medicine' archives. Fifteen hundred of theses had milk as the main focus of the article. There is no lack of scientific information on this subject. I reviewed over 500 of the 1,500 articles, discarding articles that dealt exclusively with animals, esoteric research and inconclusive studies. How would I summarize the articles? They were only slightly less than horrifying. First of all, none of the authors spoke of cow's milk as an excellent food, free of side effects and the 'perfect food' as we have been led to believe by the industry. The main focus of the published reports seems to be on intestinal colic, intestinal irritation, intestinal bleeding, anemia, allergic reactions in infants and children as well as infections such as salmonella. More ominous is the fear of viral infection with bovine leukemia virus or an AIDS-like virus as well as concern for childhood diabetes. Contamination of milk by blood and white (pus) cells as well as a variety of chemicals and insecticides was also discussed. Among children the problems were allergy, ear and tonsillar infections, bedwetting, asthma, intestinal bleeding, colic and childhood diabetes. In adults the problems seemed centered more around heart disease and arthritis, allergy, sinusitis, and the more serious questions of leukemia, lymphoma and cancer. I think that an answer can also be found in a consideration of what occurs in nature & what happens with free living mammals and what happens with human groups living in close to a natural state as 'hunter-gatherers'. Our paleolithic ancestors are another crucial and interesting group to study. Here we are limited to speculation and indirect evidences, but the bony remains available for our study are remarkable. There is no doubt whatever that these skeletal remains reflect great strength, muscularity (the size of the muscular insertions show this), and total absence of advanced osteoporosis. And if you feel that these people are not important for us to study, consider that today our genes are programming our bodies in almost exactly the same way as our ancestors of 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. WHAT IS MILK? Milk is a maternal lactating secretion, a short term nutrient for new-borns. Nothing more, nothing less. Invariably, the mother of any mammal will provide her milk for a short period of time immediately after birth. When the time comes for 'weaning', the young offspring is introduced to the proper food for that species of mammal. A familiar example is that of a puppy. The mother nurses the pup for just a few weeks and then rejects the young animal and teaches it to eat solid food. Nursing is provided by nature only for the very youngest of mammals. Of course, it is not possible for animals living in a natural state to continue with the drinking of milk after weaning. IS ALL MILK THE SAME? Then there is the matter of where we get our milk. We have settled on the cow because of its docile nature, its size, and its abundant milk supply. Somehow this choice seems 'normal' and blessed by nature, our culture, and our customs. But is it natural? Is it wise to drink the milk of another species of mammal? Consider for a moment, if it was possible, to drink the milk of a mammal other than a cow, let's say a rat. Or perhaps the milk of a dog would be more to your liking. Possibly some horse milk or cat milk. Do you get the idea? Well, I'm not serious about this, except to suggest that human milk is for human infants, dogs' milk is for pups, cows' milk is for calves, cats' milk is for kittens, and so forth. Clearly, this is the way nature intends it. Just use your own good judgement on this one. Milk is not just milk. The milk of every species of mammal is unique and specifically tailored to the requirements of that animal. For example, cows' milk is very much richer in protein than human milk. Three to four times as much. It has five to seven times the mineral content. However, it is markedly deficient in essential fatty acids when compared to human mothers' milk. Mothers' milk has six to ten times as much of the essential fatty acids, especially linoleic acid. (Incidentally, skimmed cow's milk has no linoleic acid). It simply is not designed for humans. Food is not just food, and milk is not just milk. It is not only the proper amount of food but the proper qualitative composition that is critical for the very best in health and growth. Biochemists and physiologists -and rarely medical doctors - are gradually learning that foods contain the crucial elements that allow a particular species to develop its unique specializations. Clearly, our specialization is for advanced neurological development and delicate neuromuscular control. We do not have much need of massive skeletal growth or huge muscle groups as does a calf. Think of the difference between the demands make on the human hand and the demands on a cow's hoof. Human new-borns specifically need critical material for their brains, spinal cord and nerves. Can mother's milk increase intelligence? It seems that it can. In a remarkable study published in Lancet during 1992 (Vol. 339, p. 261-4), a group of British workers randomly placed premature infants into two groups. One group received a proper formula, the other group received human breast milk. Both fluids were given by stomach tube. These children were followed up for over 10 years. In intelligence testing, the human milk children averaged 10 IQ points higher! Well, why not? Why wouldn't the correct building blocks for the rapidly maturing and growing brain have a positive effect? In the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1982) Ralph Holman described an infant who developed profound neurological disease while being nourished by intravenous fluids only. The fluids used contained only linoleic acid - just one of the essential fatty acids. When the other, alpha linoleic acid, was added to the intravenous fluids the neurological disorders cleared. In the same journal five years later Bjerve, Mostad and Thoresen, working in Norway found exactly the same problem in adult patients on long term gastric tube feeding. In 1930 Dr. G.O. Burr in Minnesota working with rats found that linoleic acid deficiencies created a deficiency syndrome. Why is this mentioned? In the early 1960s pediatricians found skin lesions in children fed formulas without the same linoleic acid. Remembering the research, the addition of the acid to the formula cured the problem. Essential fatty acids are just that and cows' milk is markedly deficient in these when compared to human milk. WELL, AT LEAST COW'S MILK IS PURE Or is it? Fifty years ago an average cow produced 2,000 pounds of milk per year. Today the top producers give 50,000 pounds! How was this accomplished? Drugs, antibiotics, hormones, forced feeding plans and specialized breeding; that's how. The latest high-tech onslaught on the poor cow is bovine growth hormone or BGH. This genetically engineered drug is supposed to stimulate milk production but, according to Monsanto, the hormone's manufacturer, does not affect the milk or meat. There are three other manufacturers: Upjohn, Eli Lilly, and American Cyanamid Company. Obviously, there have been no long-term studies on the hormone's effect on the humans drinking the milk. Other countries have banned BGH because of safety concerns. One of the problems with adding molecules to a milk cows' body is that the molecules usually come out in the milk. I don't know how you feel, but I don't want to experiment with the ingestion of a growth hormone. A related problem is that it causes a marked increase (50 to 70 per cent) in mastitis. This, then, requires antibiotic therapy, and the residues of the antibiotics appear in the milk. It seems that the public is uneasy about this product and in one survey 43 per cent felt that growth hormone treated milk represented a health risk. A vice president for public policy at Monsanto was opposed to labelling for that reason, and because the labelling would create an 'artificial distinction'. The country is awash with milk as it is, we produce more milk than we can consume. Let's not create storage costs and further taxpayer burdens, because the law requires the USDA to buy any surplus of butter, cheese, or non-fat dry milk at a support price set by Congress! In fiscal 1991, the USDA spent $757 million on surplus butter, and one billion dollars a year on average for price supports during the 1980s (Consumer Reports, May 1992: 330-32). Any lactating mammal excretes toxins through her milk. This includes antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals and hormones. Also, all cows' milk contains blood! The inspectors are simply asked to keep it under certain limits. You may be horrified to learn that the USDA allows milk to contain from one to one and a half million white blood cells per millilitre. (That's only 1/30 of an ounce). If you don't already know this, I'm sorry to tell you that another way to describe white cells where they don't belong would be to call them pus cells. To get to the point, is milk pure or is it a chemical, biological, and bacterial cocktail? Finally, will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protect you? The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) tells us that the FDA and the individual States are failing to protect the public from drug residues in milk. Authorities test for only 4 of the 82 drugs in dairy cows. As you can imagine, the Milk Industry Foundation's spokesman claims it's perfectly safe. Jerome Kozak says, "I still think that milk is the safest product we have." Other, perhaps less biased observers, have found the following: 38% of milk samples in 10 cities were contaminated with sulfa drugs or other antibiotics. (This from the Centre for Science in the Public Interest and The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 1989).. A similar study in Washington, DC found a 20 percent contamination rate (Nutrition Action Healthletter, April 1990). What's going on here? When the FDA tested milk, they found few problems. However, they used very lax standards. When they used the same criteria, the FDA data showed 51 percent of the milk samples showed drug traces. Let's focus in on this because it’s critical to our understanding of the apparent discrepancies. The FDA uses a disk-assay method that can detect only 2 of the 30 or so drugs found in milk. Also, the test detects only at the relatively high level. A more powerful test called the 'Charm II test' can detect drugs down to 5 parts per billion. One nasty subject must be discussed. It seems that cows are forever getting infections around the udder that require ointments and antibiotics. An article from France tells us that when a cow receives penicillin, that penicillin appears in the milk for from 4 to 7 milkings. Another study from the University of Nevada, Reno tells of cells in 'mastic milk', milk from cows with infected udders. An elaborate analysis of the cell fragments, employing cell cultures, flow cytometric analysis , and a great deal of high tech stuff. Do you know what the conclusion was? If the cow has mastitis, there is pus in the milk. Sorry, it’s in the study, all concealed with language such as "macrophages containing many vacuoles and phagocytosed particles," etc. IT GETS WORSE Well, at least human mothers' milk is pure! Sorry. A huge study showed that human breast milk in over 14,000 women had contamination by pesticides! Further, it seems that the sources of the pesticides are meat and--you guessed it-- dairy products. Well, why not? These pesticides are concentrated in fat and that's what's in these products. (Of interest, a subgroup of lactating vegetarian mothers had only half the levels of contamination). A recent report showed an increased concentration of pesticides in the breast tissue of women with breast cancer when compared to the tissue of women with fibrocystic disease. Other articles in the standard medical literature describe problems. Just scan these titles: 1.Cow's Milk as a Cause of Infantile Colic Breast-Fed Infants. Lancet 2 (1978): 437 2.Dietary Protein-Induced Colitis in Breast- Fed Infants, J. Pediatr. I01 (1982): 906 3.The Question of the Elimination of Foreign Protein in Women's Milk, J. Immunology 19 (1930): 15 There are many others. There are dozens of studies describing the prompt appearance of cows' milk allergy in children being exclusively breast-fed! The cows' milk allergens simply appear in the mother's milk and are transmitted to the infant. A committee on nutrition of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on the use of whole cows' milk in infancy (Pediatrics 1983: 72-253). They were unable to provide any cogent reason why bovine milk should be used before the first birthday yet continued to recommend its use! Doctor Frank Oski from the Upstate Medical Centre Department of Pediatrics, commenting on the recommendation, cited the problems of acute gastrointestinal blood loss in infants, the lack of iron, recurrent abdominal pain, milk- borne infections and contaminants, and said: Why give it at all - then or ever? In the face of uncertainty about many of the potential dangers of whole bovine milk, it would seem prudent to recommend that whole milk not be started until the answers are available. Isn't it time for these uncontrolled experiments on human nutrition to come to an end? In the same issue of Pediatrics he further commented: It is my thesis that whole milk should not be fed to the infant in the first year of life because of its association with iron deficiency anemia (milk is so deficient in iron that an infant would have to drink an impossible 31 quarts a day to get the RDA of 15 mg), acute gastrointiestinal bleeding, and various manifestations of food allergy. I suggest that unmodified whole bovine milk should not be consumed after infancy because of the problems of lactose intolerance, its contribution to the genesis of atherosclerosis, and its possible link to other diseases. In late 1992 Dr. Benjamin Spock, possibly the best known pediatrician in history, shocked the country when he articulated the same thoughts and specified avoidance for the first two years of life. Here is his quotation: I want to pass on the word to parents that cows' milk from the carton has definite faults for some babies. Human milk is the right one for babies. A study comparing the incidence of allergy and colic in the breast-fed infants of omnivorous and vegan mothers would be important. I haven't found such a study; it would be both important and inexpensive. And it will probably never be done. There is simply no academic or economic profit involved. OTHER PROBLEMS Let's just mention the problems of bacterial contamination. Salmonella, E. coli, and staphylococcal infections can be traced to milk. In the old days tuberculosis was a major problem and some folks want to go back to those times by insisting on raw milk on the basis that it's "natural." This is insanity! A study from UCLA showed that over a third of all cases of salmonella infection in California, 1980-1983 were traced to raw milk. That'll be a way to revive good old brucellosis again and I would fear leukemia, too. (More about that later). In England, and Wales where raw milk is still consumed there have been outbreaks of milk-borne diseases. The Journal of the American Medical Association (251: 483, 1984) reported a multi-state series of infections caused by Yersinia enterocolitica in pasteurised whole milk. This is despite safety precautions. All parents dread juvenile diabetes for their children. A Canadian study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Mar. 1990, describes a "...significant positive correlation between consumption of unfermented milk protein and incidence of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus in data from various countries. Conversely a possible negative relationship is observed between breast-feeding at age 3 months and diabetes risk.". Another study from Finland found that diabetic children had higher levels of serum antibodies to cows’ milk (Diabetes Research 7(3): 137-140 March 1988). Here is a quotation from this study: We infer that either the pattern of cows' milk consumption is altered in children who will have insulin dependent diabetes mellitus or, their immunological reactivity to proteins in cows' milk is enhanced, or the permeability of their intestines to cows' milk protein is higher than normal. The April 18, 1992 British Medical Journal has a fascinating study contrasting the difference in incidence of juvenile insulin dependent diabetes in Pakistani children who have migrated to England. The incidence is roughly 10 times greater in the English group compared to children remaining in Pakistan! What caused this highly significant increase? The authors said that "the diet was unchanged in Great Britain." Do you believe that? Do you think that the availability of milk, sugar and fat is the same in Pakistan as it is in England? That a grocery store in England has the same products as food sources in Pakistan? I don't believe that for a minute. Remember, we're not talking here about adult onset, type II diabetes which all workers agree is strongly linked to diet as well as to a genetic predisposition. This study is a major blow to the "it's all in your genes" crowd. Type I diabetes was always considered to be genetic or possibly viral, but now this? So resistant are we to consider diet as causation that the authors of the last article concluded that the cooler climate in England altered viruses and caused the very real increase in diabetes! The first two authors had the same reluctance top admit the obvious. The milk just may have had something to do with the disease. The latest in this remarkable list of reports, a New England Journal of Medicine article (July 30, 1992), also reported in the Los Angeles Times. This study comes from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and from Finnish researchers. In Finland there is "...the world's highest rate of dairy product consumption and the world's highest rate of insulin dependent diabetes. The disease strikes about 40 children out of every 1,000 there contrasted with six to eight per 1,000 in the United States.... Antibodies produced against the milk protein during the first year of life, the researchers speculate, also attack and destroy the pancreas in a so-called auto-immune reaction, producing diabetes in people whose genetic makeup leaves them vulnerable." "...142 Finnish children with newly diagnosed diabetes. They found that every one had at least eight times as many antibodies against the milk protein as did healthy children, clear evidence that the children had a raging auto immune disorder." The team has now expanded the study to 400 children and is starting a trial where 3,000 children will receive no dairy products during the first nine months of life. "The study may take 10 years, but we'll get a definitive answer one way or the other," according to one of the researchers. I would caution them to be certain that the breast feeding mothers use on cows' milk in their diets or the results will be confounded by the transmission of the cows' milk protein in the mother's breast milk.... Now what was the reaction from the diabetes association? This is very interesting! Dr. F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, the president of the association says: "It does not mean that children should stop drinking milk or that parents of diabetics should withdraw dairy products. These are rich sources of good protein." (Emphasis added) My God, it's the "good protein" that causes the problem! Do you suspect that the dairy industry may have helped the American Diabetes Association in the past? LEUKEMIA? LYMPHOMA? THIS MAY BE THE WORST--BRACE YOURSELF! I hate to tell you this, but the bovine leukemia virus is found in more than three of five dairy cows in the United States! This involves about 80% of dairy herds. Unfortunately, when the milk is pooled, a very large percentage of all milk produced is contaminated (90 to 95 per cent). Of course the virus is killed in pasteurisation-- if the pasteurisation was done correctly. What if the milk is raw? In a study of randomly collected raw milk samples the bovine leukemia virus was recovered from two-thirds. I sincerely hope that the raw milk dairy herds are carefully monitored when compared to the regular herds. (Science 1981; 213:1014). This is a world-wide problem. One lengthy study from Germany deplored the problem and admitted the impossibility of keeping the virus from infected cows' milk from the rest of the milk. Several European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, have attempted to "cull" the infected cows from their herds. Certainly the United States must be the leader in the fight against leukemic dairy cows, right? Wrong! We are the worst in the world with the former exception of Venezuela according to Virgil Hulse MD, a milk specialist who also has a B.S. in Dairy Manufacturing as well as a Master's degree in Public Health. As mentioned, the leukemia virus is rendered inactive by pasteurisation. Of course. However, there can be Chernobyl like accidents. One of these occurred in the Chicago area in April, 1985. At a modern, large, milk processing plant an accidental "cross connection" between raw and pasteurized milk occurred. A violent salmonella outbreak followed, killing 4 and making an estimated 150,000 ill. Now the question I would pose to the dairy industry people is this: "How can you assure the people who drank this milk that they were not exposed to the ingestion of raw, unkilled, bully active bovine leukemia viruses?" Further, it would be fascinating to know if a "cluster" of leukemia cases blossoms in that area in 1 to 3 decades. There are reports of "leukemia clusters" elsewhere, one of them mentioned in the June 10, 1990 San Francisco Chronicle involving Northern California. What happens to other species of mammals when they are exposed to the bovine leukemia virus? It's a fair question and the answer is not reassuring. Virtually all animals exposed to the virus develop leukemia. This includes sheep, goats, and even primates such as rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees. The route of transmission includes ingestion (both intravenous and intramuscular) and cells present in milk. There are obviously no instances of transfer attempts to human beings, but we know that the virus can infect human cells in vitro. There is evidence of human antibody formation to the bovine leukemia virus; this is disturbing. How did the bovine leukemia virus particles gain access to humans and become antigens? Was it as small, denatured particles? If the bovine leukemia viruses causes human leukemia, we could expect the dairy states with known leukemic herds to have a higher incidence of human leukemia. Is this so? Unfortunately, it seems to be the case! Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin have statistically higher incidence of leukemia than the national average. In Russia and in Sweden, areas with uncontrolled bovine leukemia virus have been linked with increases in human leukemia. I am also told that veterinarians have higher rates of leukemia than the general public. Dairy farmers have significantly elevated leukemia rates. Recent research shows lymphocytes from milk fed to neonatal mammals gains access to bodily tissues by passing directly through the intestinal wall. An optimistic note from the University of Illinois, Ubana from the Department of Animal Sciences shows the importance of one's perspective. Since they are concerned with the economics of milk and not primarily the health aspects, they noted that the production of milk was greater in the cows with the bovine leukemia virus. However when the leukemia produced a persistent and significant lymphocytosis (increased white blood cell count), the production fell off. They suggested "a need to re-evaluate the economic impact of bovine leukemia virus infection on the dairy industry". Does this mean that leukemia is good for profits only if we can keep it under control? You can get the details on this business concern from Proc. Nat. Acad. Sciences, U.S. Feb. 1989. I added emphasis and am insulted that a university department feels that this is an economic and not a human health issue. Do not expect help from the Department of Agriculture or the universities. The money stakes and the political pressures are too great. You're on you own. What does this all mean? We know that virus is capable of producing leukemia in other animals. Is it proven that it can contribute to human leukemia (or lymphoma, a related cancer)? Several articles tackle this one: 1.Epidemiologic Relationships of the Bovine Population and Human Leukemia in Iowa. Am Journal of Epidemiology 112 (1980):80 2.Milk of Dairy Cows Frequently Contains a Leukemogenic Virus. Science 213 (1981): 1014 3.Beware of the Cow. (Editorial) Lancet 2 (1974):30 4.Is Bovine Milk A Health Hazard?. Pediatrics; Suppl. Feeding the Normal Infant. 75:182-186; 1985 In Norway, 1422 individuals were followed for 11 and a half years. Those drinking 2 or more glasses of milk per day had 3.5 times the incidence of cancer of the lymphatic organs. British Med. Journal 61:456-9, March 1990. One of the more thoughtful articles on this subject is from Allan S. Cunningham of Cooperstown, New York. Writing in the Lancet, November 27, 1976 (page 1184), his article is entitled, "Lymphomas and Animal-Protein Consumption". Many people think of milk as “liquid meat” and Dr. Cunningham agrees with this. He tracked the beef and dairy consumption in terms of grams per day for a one year period, 1955-1956., in 15 countries . New Zealand, United States and Canada were highest in that order. The lowest was Japan followed by Yugoslavia and France. The difference between the highest and lowest was quite pronounced: 43.8 grams/day for New Zealanders versus 1.5 for Japan. Nearly a 30-fold difference! (Parenthetically, the last 36 years have seen a startling increase in the amount of beef and milk used in Japan and their disease patterns are reflecting this, confirming the lack of 'genetic protection' seen in migration studies. Formerly the increase in frequency of lymphomas in Japanese people was only in those who moved to the USA)! An interesting bit of trivia is to note the memorial built at the Gyokusenji Temple in Shimoda, Japan. This marked the spot where the first cow was killed in Japan for human consumption! The chains around this memorial were a gift from the US Navy. Where do you suppose the Japanese got the idea to eat beef? The year? 1930. Cunningham found a highly significant positive correlation between deaths from lymphomas and beef and dairy ingestion in the 15 countries analysed. A few quotations from his article follow: The average intake of protein in many countries is far in excess of the recommended requirements. Excessive consumption of animal protein may be one co-factor in the causation of lymphomas by acting in the following manner. Ingestion of certain proteins results in the adsorption of antigenic fragments through the gastrointestinal mucous membrane. This results in chronic stimulation of lymphoid tissue to which these fragments gain access "Chronic immunological stimulation causes lymphomas in laboratory animals and is believed to cause lymphoid cancers in men." The gastrointestinal mucous membrane is only a partial barrier to the absorption of food antigens, and circulating antibodies to food protein is commonplace especially potent lymphoid stimulants. Ingestion of cows' milk can produce generalized lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, and profound adenoid hypertrophy. It has been conservatively estimated that more than 100 distinct antigens are released by the normal digestion of cows' milk which evoke production of all antibody classes [This may explain why pasteurized, killed viruses are still antigenic and can still cause disease. Here's more. A large prospective study from Norway was reported in the British Journal of Cancer 61 (3):456-9, March 1990. (Almost 16,000 individuals were followed for 11 and a half years). For most cancers there was no association between the tumour and milk ingestion. However, in lymphoma, there was a strong positive association. If one drank two glasses or more daily (or the equivalent in dairy products), the odds were 3.4 times greater than in persons drinking less than one glass of developing a lymphoma. There are two other cow-related diseases that you should be aware of. At this time they are not known to be spread by the use of dairy products and are not known to involve man. The first is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and the second is the bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV). The first of these diseases, we hope, is confined to England and causes cavities in the animal's brain. Sheep have long been known to suffer from a disease called scrapie. It seems to have been started by the feeding of contaminated sheep parts, especially brains, to the British cows. Now, use your good sense. Do cows seem like carnivores? Should they eat meat? This profit-motivated practice backfired and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease, swept Britain. The disease literally causes dementia in the unfortunate animal and is 100 per cent incurable. To date, over 100,000 cows have been incinerated in England in keeping with British law. Four hundred to 500 cows are reported as infected each month. The British public is concerned and has dropped its beef consumption by 25 per cent, while some 2,000 schools have stopped serving beef to children. Several farmers have developed a fatal disease syndrome that resembles both BSE and CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob- Disease). But the British Veterinary Association says that transmission of BSE to humans is "remote." The USDA agrees that the British epidemic was due to the feeding of cattle with bonemeal or animal protein produced at rendering plants from the carcasses of scrapie-infected sheep. The have prohibited the importation of live cattle and zoo ruminants from Great Britain and claim that the disease does not exist in the United States. However, there may be a problem. "Downer cows" are animals who arrive at auction yards or slaughter houses dead, trampled, lacerated, dehydrated, or too ill from viral or bacterial diseases to walk. Thus they are "down." If they cannot respond to electrical shocks by walking, they are dragged by chains to dumpsters and transported to rendering plants where, if they are not already dead, they are killed. Even a "humane" death is usually denied them. They are then turned into protein food for animals as well as other preparations. Minks that have been fed this protein have developed a fatal encephalopathy that has some resemblance to BSE. Entire colonies of minks have been lost in this manner, particularly in Wisconsin. It is feared that the infective agent is a prion or slow virus possible obtained from the ill "downer cows." The British Medical Journal in an editorial whimsically entitled "How Now Mad Cow?" (BMJ vol. 304, 11 Apr. 1992:929- 30) describes cases of BSE in species not previously known to be affected, such as cats. They admit that produce contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy entered the human food chain in England between 1986 and 1989. They say. "The result of this experiment is awaited." As the incubation period can be up to three decades, wait we must. The immunodeficency virus is seen in cattle in the United States and is more worrisome. Its structure is closely related to that of the human AIDS virus. At this time we do not know if exposure to the raw BIV proteins can cause the sera of humans to become positive for HIV. The extent of the virus among American herds is said to be "widespread". (The USDA refuses to inspect the meat and milk to see if antibodies to this retrovirus is present). It also has no plans to quarantine the infected animals. As in the case of humans with AIDS, there is no cure for BIV in cows. Each day we consume beef and diary products from cows infected with these viruses and no scientific assurance exists that the products are safe. Eating raw beef (as in steak Tartare) strikes me as being very risky, especially after the Seattle E. coli deaths of 1993. A report in the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, October 1992, Vol. 56 pp.353-359 and another from the Russian literature, tell of a horrifying development. They report the first detection in human serum of the antibody to a bovine immunodeficiency virus protein. In addition to this disturbing report, is another from Russia telling us of the presence of virus proteins related to the bovine leukemia virus in 5 of 89 women with breast disease (Acta Virologica Feb. 1990 34(1): 19-26). The implications of these developments are unknown at present. However, it is safe to assume that these animal viruses are unlikely to "stay" in the animal kingdom. OTHER CANCERS--DOES IT GET WORSE? Unfortunately it does. Ovarian cancer--a particularly nasty tumour--was associated with milk consumption by workers at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York. Drinking more than one glass of whole milk or equivalent daily gave a woman a 3.1 times risk over non-milk users. They felt that the reduced fat milk products helped reduce the risk. This association has been made repeatedly by numerous investigators. Another important study, this from the Harvard Medical School, analyzed data from 27 countries mainly from the 1970s. Again a significant positive correlation is revealed between ovarian cancer and per capita milk consumption. These investigators feel that the lactose component of milk is the responsible fraction, and the digestion of this is facilitated by the persistence of the ability to digest the lactose (lactose persistence) - a little different emphasis, but the same conclusion. This study was reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology 130 (5): 904-10 Nov. 1989. These articles come from two of the country's leading institutions, not the Rodale Press or Prevention Magazine. Even lung cancer has been associated with milk ingestion? The beverage habits of 569 lung cancer patients and 569 controls again at Roswell Park were studied in the International Journal of Cancer, April 15, 1989. Persons drinking whole milk 3 or more times daily had a 2-fold increase in lung cancer risk when compared to those never drinking whole milk. For many years we have been watching the lung cancer rates for Japanese men who smoke far more than American or European men but who develop fewer lung cancers. Workers in this research area feel that the total fat intake is the difference. There are not many reports studying an association between milk ingestion and prostate cancer. One such report though was of great interest. This is from the Roswell Park Memorial Institute and is found in Cancer 64 (3): 605-12, 1989. They analyzed the diets of 371 prostate cancer patients and comparable control subjects: Men who reported drinking three or more glasses of whole milk daily had a relative risk of 2.49 compared with men who reported never drinking whole milk the weight of the evidence appears to favour the hypothesis that animal fat is related to increased risk of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer diagnosed in US men and is the second leading cause of cancer mortality. WELL, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? Is there any health reason at all for an adult human to drink cows' milk? It's hard for me to come up with even one good reason other than simple preference. But if you try hard, in my opinion, these would be the best two: milk is a source of calcium and it's a source of amino acids (proteins). Let's look at the calcium first. Why are we concerned at all about calcium? Obviously, we intend it to build strong bones and protect us against osteoporosis. And no doubt about it, milk is loaded with calcium. But is it a good calcium source for humans? I think not. These are the reasons. Excessive amounts of dairy products actually interfere with calcium absorption. Secondly, the excess of protein that the milk provides is a major cause of the osteoporosis problem. Dr. H egsted in England has been writing for years about the geographical distribution of osteoporosis. It seems that the countries with the highest intake of dairy products are invariably the countries with the most osteoporosis. He feels that milk is a cause of osteoporosis. Reasons to be given below. Numerous studies have shown that the level of calcium ingestion and especially calcium supplementation has no effect whatever on the development of osteoporosis. The most important such article appeared recently in the British Journal of Medicine where the long arm of our dairy industry can't reach. Another study in the United States actually showed a worsening in calcium balance in post-menopausal women given three 8-ounce glasses of cows' milk per day. (Am. Journal of Clin. Nutrition, 1985). The effects of hormone, gender, weight bearing on the axial bones, and in particular protein intake, are critically important. Another observation that may be helpful to our analysis is to note the absence of any recorded dietary deficiencies of calcium among people living on a natural diet without milk. For the key to the osteoporosis riddle, don’t look at calcium, look at protein. Consider these two contrasting groups. Eskimos have an exceptionally high protein intake estimated at 25 percent of total calories. They also have a high calcium intake at 2,500 mg/day. Their osteoporosis is among the worst in the world. The other instructive group are the Bantus of South Africa. They have a 12 percent protein diet, mostly p lant protein, and only 200 to 350 mg/day of calcium, about half our women's intake. The women have virtually no osteoporosis despite bearing six or more children and nursing them for prolonged periods! When African women immigrate to the United States, do they develop osteoporosis? The answer is yes, but not quite are much as Caucasian or Asian women. Thus, there is a genetic difference that is modified by diet. To answer the obvious question, "Well, where do you get your calcium?" The answer is: "From exactly the same place the cow gets the calcium, from green things that grow in the ground," mainly from leafy vegetables. After all, elephants and rhinos develop their huge bones (after being weaned) by eating green leafy plants, so do horses. Carnivorous animals also do quite nicely without leafy plants. It seems that all of earth's mammals do well if they live in harmony with their genetic programming and natural food. Only humans living an affluent life style have rampant osteoporosis. If animal references do not convince you, think of the several billion humans on this earth who have never seen cows' milk. Wouldn't you think osteoporosis would be prevalent in this huge group? The dairy people would suggest this but the truth is exactly the opposite. They have far less than that seen in the countries where dairy products are commonly consumed. It is the subject of another paper, but the truly significant determinants of osteoporosis are grossly excessive protein intakes and lack of weight bearing on long bones, both taking place over decades. Hormones play a secondary, but not trivial role in women. Milk is a deterrent to good bone health. THE PROTEIN MYTH Remember when you were a kid and the adults all told you to "make sure you get plenty of good protein". Protein was the nutritional "good guy”" when I was young. And of course milk is fitted right in. As regards protein, milk is indeed a rich source of protein- -"liquid meat," remember? However that isn't necessarily what we need. In actual fact it is a source of difficulty. Nearly all Americans eat too much protein. For this information we rely on the most authoritative source that I am aware of. This is the latest edition (1oth, 1989: 4th printing, Jan. 1992) of the Recommended Dietary Allowances produced by the National Research Council. Of interest, the current editor of this important work is Dr. Richard Havel of the University of California in San Francisco. First to be noted is that the recommended protein has been steadily revised downward in successive editions. The current recommendation is 0.75 g/kilo/day for adults 19 through 51 years. This, of course, is only 45 grams per day for the mythical 60 kilogram adult. You should also know that the WHO estimated the need for protein in adults to by .6g/kilo per day. (All RDA's are calculated with large safety allowances in case you're the type that wants to add some more to "be sure.") You can "get by" on 28 to 30 grams a day if necessary! Now 45 grams a day is a tiny amount of protein. That's an ounce and a half! Consider too, that the protein does not have to be animal protein. Vegetable protein is identical for all practical purposes and has no cholesterol and vastly less saturated fat. (Do not be misled by the antiquated belief that plant proteins must be carefully balanced to avoid deficiencies. This is not a realistic concern.) Therefore virtually all Americans, Canadians, British and European people are in a protein overloaded state. This has serious consequences when maintained over decades. The problems are the already mentioned osteoporosis, atherosclerosis and kidney damage. There is good evidence that certain malignancies, chiefly colon and rectal, are related to excessive meat intake. Barry Brenner, an eminent renal physiologist was the first to fully point out the dangers of excess protein for the kidney tubule. The dangers of the fat and cholesterol are known to all. Finally, you should know that the protein content of human milk is amount the lowest (0.9%) in mammals. IS THAT ALL OF THE TROUBLE? Sorry, there's more. Remember lactose? This is the principal carbohydrate of milk. It seems that nature provides new- borns with the enzymatic equipment to metabolize lactose, but this ability often extinguishes by age 4 or 5 years. What is the problem with lactose or milk sugar? It seems that it is a disaccharide which is too large to be absorbed into the blood stream without first being broken down into monosaccharides, namely galactose and glucose. This requires the presence of an enzyme, lactase plus additional enzymes to break down the galactose into glucose. Let's think about his for a moment. Nature gives us the ability to metabolize lactose for a few years and then shuts off the mechanism. Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something? Clearly all infants must drink milk. The fact that so many adults cannot seems to be related to the tendency for nature to abandon mechanisms that are not needed. At least half of the adult humans on this earth are lactose intolerant. It was not until the relatively recent introduction of dairy herding and the ability to "borrow" milk from another group of mammals that the survival advantage of preserving lactase (the enzyme that allows us to digest lactose) became evident. But why would it be advantageous to drink cows' milk? After all, most of the human beings in the history of the world did. And further, why was it just the white or light skinned humans who retained this knack while the pigmented people tended to lose it? Some students of evolution feel that white skin is a fairly recent innovation, perhaps not more than 20,000 or 30,000 years old. It clearly has to do with the Northward migration of early man to cold and relatively sunless areas when skins and clothing became available. Fair skin allows the production of Vitamin D from sunlight more readily than does dark skin. However, when only the face was exposed to sunlight that area of fair skin was insufficient to provide the vitamin D from sunlight. If dietary and sunlight sources were poorly available, the ability to use the abundant calcium in cows' milk would give a survival advantage to humans who could digest that milk. This seems to be the only logical explanation for fair skinned humans having a high degree of lactose tolerance when compared to dark skinned people. How does this break down? Certain racial groups, namely blacks are up to 90% lactose intolerant as adults. Caucasians are 20 to 40% lactose intolerant. Orientals are midway between the above two groups. Diarrhea, gas and abdominal cramps are the results of substantial milk intake in such persons. Most American Indians cannot tolerate milk. The milk industry admits that lactose intolerance plays intestinal havoc with as many as 50 million Americans. A lactose-intolerance industry has sprung up and had sales of $117 million in 1992 (Time May 17, 1993.) What if you are lactose-intolerant and lust after dairy products? Is all lost? Not at all. It seems that lactose is largely digested by bacteria and you will be able to enjoy your cheese despite lactose intolerance. Yogurt is similar in this respect. Finally, and I could never have dreamed this up, geneticists want to splice genes to alter the composition of milk (Am J Clin Nutr 1993 Suppl 302s). One could quibble and say that milk is totally devoid of fiber content and that its habitual use will predispose to constipation and bowel disorders. The association with anemia and occult intestinal bleeding in infants is known to all physicians. This is chiefly from its lack of iron and its irritating qualities for the intestinal mucosa. The pediatric literature abounds with articles describing irritated intestinal lining, bleeding, increased permeability as well as colic, diarrhea and vomiting in cows'milk-sensitive babies. The anemia gets a double push by loss of blood and iron as well as deficiency of iron in the cows' milk. Milk is also the leading cause of childhood allergy. LOW FAT One additional topic: the matter of "low fat" milk. A common and sincere question is: "Well, low fat milk is OK, isn't it?" The answer to this question is that low fat milk isn't low fat. The term "low fat" is a marketing term used to gull the public. Low fat milk contains from 24 to 33% fat as calories! The 2% figure is also misleading. This refers to weight. They don't tell you that, by weight, the milk is 87% water! "Well, then, kill-joy surely you must approve of non-fat milk!" I hear this quite a bit. (Another constant concern is: "What do you put on your cereal?") True, there is little or no fat, but now you have a relative overburden of protein and lactose. It there is something that we do not need more of it is another simple sugar-lactose, composed of galactose and glucose. Millions of Americans are lactose intolerant to boot, as noted. As for protein, as stated earlier, we live in a society that routinely ingests far more protein than we need. It is a burden for our bodies, especially the kidneys, and a prominent cause of osteoporosis. Concerning the dry cereal issue, I would suggest soy milk, rice milk or almond milk as a healthy substitute. If you're still concerned about calcium, "Westsoy" is formulated to have the same calcium concentration as milk. SUMMARY To my thinking, there is only one valid reason to drink milk or use milk products. That is just because we simply want to. Because we like it and because it has become a part of our culture. Because we have become accustomed to its taste and texture. Because we like the way it slides down our throat. Because our parents did the very best they could for us and provided milk in our earliest training and conditioning. They taught us to like it. And then probably the very best reason is ice cream! I've heard it described "to die for". I had one patient who did exactly that. He had no obvious vices. He didn't smoke or drink, he didn’t eat meat, his diet and lifestyle was nearly a perfectly health promoting one; but he had a passion. You guessed it, he loved rich ice cream. A pint of the richest would be a lean day's ration for him. On many occasions he would eat an entire quart - and yes there were some cookies and other pastries. Good ice cream deserves this after all. He seemed to be in good health despite some expected "middle age spread" when he had a devastating stroke which left him paralyzed, miserable and helpless, and he had additional strokes and d ied several years later never having left a hospital or rehabilitation unit. Was he old? I don't think so. He was in his 50s. So don't drink milk for health. I am convinced on the weight of the scientific evidence that it does not "do a body good." Inclusion of milk will only reduce your diet's nutritional value and safety. Most of the people on this planet live very healthfully without cows' milk. You can too. It will be difficult to change; we've been conditioned since childhood to think of milk as "nature's most perfect food." I'll guarantee you that it will be safe, improve your health and it won't cost anything. What can you lose? es esta pagina link http://notmilk.com/kradjian.html The most important information dissemination my. Not that, but I can make your text too long jajaja. If I write bad is that I am leading a translator jaja

Is there anyone hoping to run small busineses with China? I am a chinese native and understand local market very much. there are a lot of small things produced in China with very low labor cost, like jewelry, rings, man-made germ, cups, pens, not-books, mp3, mp4 and others. Of course, I know some local manufacturers who wanna all kinds of small things according to your requirement. I am therefore wondering whether there is anybody who wants to run trading or other businesses with me. I can provide the resources of suppliers in china and some funds, and you can provide the resouces of buyes oversea and of course some funds. if anybody interests this opportunity, pls feel free to connect me by email wangying117@yahoo.com.cn and we can have a deep talk about this idea.

Basic Questions For Conservatives...? I hear a lot of conservatives caracturize liberals as communist snobby tofu-eating etc etc etc...but what I don't hear many of them do, is specify which beliefs they have that are offensive, with much specificity...so here's a list of common liberal beleifs...please...enlighten me about which of these you find so offensive... 1.- The belief that bombing and killing our fellow man, should only be reserved for situations of clear and imminent self-defense. 2.- The belief that when these situations occur, lessening the horror of what is happening by making it into playful lyrics for country songs is probably an unhealthy thing to embrace. 3.- The belief that in a world where poverty and famine are rampant, it's mindless to imply that volunteer charity will end these things, because the fact it's still rampant today, despite capitalism being the global force of the 20th century, proves it clearly doesn't. 4.- The belief that by the time the free-market without any government incentive would get around to ending environmental disasters such as Amazonian clearcutting, oilspills, toxic emmisions, etc, it would be too late to return the world to a phyrically diverse and sustaining place. 5.- The belief that two consenting adults wishing to sanctify their love for each other, has nothing to do with you, and you have no business imposing your morality or religion into a law that forces people that are doing nothing to harm you, to abide by your version of right and wrong. 6.- The belief that anyone who beleives in a book claiming talking snakes, men trapped in whales, earth being 6,000 year old, people living to be 300, or invisible space gods battling invisible horned demons, really has no business lecturing the rest of us on what is and isn't intelligent beliefs. 7.- The belief that something is wrong with the world when a mixed- race kid abandon by his dad and raised by a teenage mom and her midwestern grandparents in a small apartment, is "the elitist snob", and a 4th generation son of an American political dynasty rolling in millions of dollars of oil who was handwalked into Harvard and whose mom, dad, and brother are a first lady, a president, and a governor, is the "down home regular guy". 8.- The belief that electing a woman 2 years removed from mayoring an Alaskan hamlet and who appears to have a general knowledge field that might lose to the kids on "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader" as a 71-year old heartbeat from ruler of the free world....PROBABLY isn't a great idea, even if you find the idea of a pin-up president to be befitting your lifelong worldview of women. 9.- That the Hannity/Limbaugh/Beck/O'Reilly crowd, are so far into that kool-aid that no life-raft made of proveable facts and proveable data, could change them. They are going to accept information from their talk-radio-deities with about at much critical thought as Christians put into the logistics of the Bible's claims, which is why those two groups overlap quite a bit. 10.- The belief that while rifles and handguns serve legitimate functions for hunters and self-defense, assault weapons serve little function other than to make men with short penises feel more endowed, and to make postal-minded white guys have an easier road to mowing down their entire office in 20 seconds. I should not my dear conservatives, I already know there's no truth in anything i said...i just am really excited to hear the wisdom of why that is ;)

Some questions about part-time web design? Just for like, small businesses around my area that just want someone who knows how to make a nice site and will charge much, MUCH less than a "professional." I know it's possible to make some decent rainy-day money on this, as my dad (yes, I know, as a teenage girl, I may have a greater struggle with marketing) used to do sites for similar clients (but doesn't anymore because of the fact that they then seem to view you as obligated to make as many alterations as they wish and consider it part of the initial job, even if YEARS have passed. This may bug me, but it's not like I have any real responsibilities at the moment or in the near future, so it wouldn't be as much of a hassle for me.) I'm computer-literate (At least, in the skills that I'd need to make awesome graphics/webpages... Just don't ask me anything about myspace.Most of my family consists of supernerds, who have taught me well.), good at (at least coming off as) being professional (when I want to. :) ) Despite the way I'm writing this post, I even have great language skills. So... My questions are: -Where should I go first for customers? I got the idea to do this when visiting the craptastic sites of some places I frequent, (The music store's looks like a shady flea market ad, the skatepark's looks like a "Roll-Bounce" fan site, the cafe's looks... unpalatable, and some places that could just use a simple page don't have one.) I take it that would be a good place to start? -How should I offer my services to the people in charge? Meaning: How does one say "Your page sucks; give me your spare change and lemme at it," without getting rejected and having security called? -Is this even a good idea for me? I'm mostly doing this because I like and am good at that sort of work, have more free time than I know what to do with, and would really like a part-time job that doesn't involve ground beef. Do I even have a chance at making this work, if I build a resume with "friendly" customers?

WHY DO IGNORANT PEOPLE KEEP SAYING THAT THE ONLY REASON WHY BLACK PEOPLE ARE VOTING 4 OBAMA BECAUSE HE'S BLACK? IM VOTING FOR OBAMA BECAUSE HE STANDS FOR SOMETHING AND HE WILL MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN THIS COUNTRY...... * Barack Obama will reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests and he will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college. * Invest in early childhood education: The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. And they will help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. * Make college affordable to all Americans: Obama and Biden will create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit worth $4,000 in exchange for community service. It will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. * Barack Obama will combat employment discrimination: Obama and Biden will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails women’s and racial minorities' ability to challenge pay discrimination. They will also pass the Fair Pay Act to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. * Strengthen civil rights enforcement: Obama and Biden will reverse the politicization that has occurred in the Bush Administration's Department of Justice. They will put an end to the ideological litmus tests used to fill positions within the Civil Rights Division. * Expand hate crime statutes: Obama and Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section. # Barack Obama will provide a tax cut for working families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 95 percent of working Americans the tax relief they need. They will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. # Provide tax relief for small businesses and startups: Obama and Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on startup and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. # Fight for fair trade: Obama and Biden will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. They will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world * Barack Obama will defeat terrorism worldwide: Obama and Biden will find, disrupt, and destroy al Qaeda; prepare the military to meet 21st century threats; and win “the Battle of Ideas” by ensuring American foreign policy is consistent with America's traditional values. * Prevent nuclear terrorism: Obama and Biden will lead the effort to secure nuclear weapons materials at vulnerable sites within four years and help our allies stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. * Strengthen American biosecurity: Obama and Biden will work to prevent bioterror attacks and mitigate consequences by improving U.S. intelligence collection and response management. WE ALSO NEED SOMEONE DIFFERENT AND THAT WOULD MAKE A CHANGE AND THAT'S SOMETHING WE HAVE NOT HAD IN YEARS SO I WANT CHANGE!!!!!!!

Some questions about part-time web design? Just for like, small businesses around my area that just want someone who knows how to make a nice site and will charge much, MUCH less than a "professional." I know it's possible to make some decent rainy-day money on this, as my dad (yes, I know, as a teenage girl, I may have a greater struggle with marketing) used to do sites for similar clients (but doesn't anymore because of the fact that they then seem to view you as obligated to make as many alterations as they wish and consider it part of the initial job, even if YEARS have passed. This may bug me, but it's not like I have any real responsibilities at the moment or in the near future, so it wouldn't be as much of a hassle for me.) I'm computer-literate (At least, in the skills that I'd need to make awesome graphics/webpages... Just don't ask me anything about myspace.Most of my family consists of supernerds, who have taught me well.), good at (at least coming off as) being professional (when I want to. :) ) Despite the way I'm writing this post, I even have great language skills. So... My questions are: -Where should I go first for customers? I got the idea to do this when visiting the craptastic sites of some places I frequent, (The music store's looks like a shady flea market ad, the skatepark's looks like a "Roll-Bounce" fan site, the cafe's looks... unpalatable, and some places that could just use a simple page don't have one.) I take it that would be a good place to start? -How should I offer my services to the people in charge? Meaning: How does one say "Your page sucks; give me your spare change and lemme at it," without getting rejected and having security called? -Is this even a good idea for me? I'm mostly doing this because I like and am good at that sort of work, have more free time than I know what to do with, and would really like a part-time job that doesn't involve ground beef. Do I even have a chance at making this work, if I build a resume with "friendly" customers? Yes, I know it's long. Anyone who reads anything I've ever posted on here knows I make stuff long. If you choose to read and give a legitimate answer, then thank you. If not, go to P&S, do not pass go, do not collect two points. See what a nice answer Jerry has? Let's be like Jerry.

Stock market bailout? Hold on, wait just a minute! Say what? Ok So I will be the first to admit I know nothing about the stock market or how it works or operates. But I keep hearing that the tax payers are the ones that are bailing these companies out. Why? I just paid all my debt off, I'm currently debt free and I still can hardly get by! no one helped me out of my debt why should we as tax payers take one some massive companies debt and not be repaid or see a profit from it ourselves? I didn't agree to help them out, and now I'm being forced to? why doesn't someone help all the avage american people that are losing their homes or are struggling to put food on the table! Why are we doing this? can someone help me understand why this is a good idea? Why should they not be held liable for their own mistakes just like the rest of us? If I owned a small personal Business I 'm sure they wouldn't be bailing me out! This is getting out of hand. No one can afford just the basic things anymore; gas, food, homes. I went to the store yesterday and only got things I needed and have to have like everyone else. I got towel paper, toilet paper, dish soap, laundry detergent, dishwasher soap, a bottle of 409, diapers, and baby wipes. $109!!!! what? when did that happen? I couldn't believe it! And when did it start coasting over $200 to buy grocery to feed a family of 4 for 7 days! 6 years ago I could get to buggys full of food for under $200 but now that same $200 gets me half a buggy! is all this related? whats going on? I make more now, I have no dibet but I'm in the hole more now than I'e ever been. is all this related to the stock market or not? why do we have to bail these companys out? I can't afford to pay more taxes is that what's going to happen? I'm sure my social secuity will be used to pay for it, or has already been spent on something else. If social security isn't around when I get to that age, but the cost of living stays this ways how can any of us save for or future? we all can't work till the day we die. where will we get money for our retuirment?

teachers should accept that tenure has outlived its usefulness? Last week I went shopping in our small rural hometown, where my family has attended the same public schools since 1896. Without exception, all six generations of us — whether farmers, housewives, day laborers, business people, writers, lawyers, or educators — were given a good, competitive K-12 education. But after a haircut, I noticed that the 20-something cashier could not count out change. The next day, at the electronic outlet store, another young clerk could not read — much less explain — the basic English of the buyer’s warranty. At the food market, I listened as a young couple argued over the price of a cut of tri-tip — unable to calculate the meat’s real value from its price per pound. As another school year is set to get under way, it’s worth pondering where this epidemic of ignorance came from. Our presidential candidates sense the danger of this dumbing down of American society and are arguing over the dismal status of contemporary education: poor graduation rates, weak test scores, and suspect literacy among the general population. Politicians warn that America’s edge in global research and productivity will disappear, and with it our high standard of living. Yet the bleak statistics — whether a 70-percent high-school graduation rate as measured in a study a few years ago by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, or poor math rankings in comparison with other industrial nations — come at a time when our schools inflate grades and often honor multiple valedictorians at high school graduation ceremonies. Aggregate state and federal education budgets are high. Too few A’s, too few top awards, and too little funding apparently don’t seem to be our real problems. Of course, most critics agree that the root causes for our undereducated youth are not all the schools’ fault. Our present ambition to make every American youth college material — in a way our forefathers would have thought ludicrous — ensures that we will both fail in that utopian goal and lack enough literate Americans with critical vocational skills. The disintegration of the American nuclear family is also at fault. Too many students don’t have two parents reminding them of the value of both abstract and practical learning. What then can our elementary and secondary schools do, when many of their students’ problems begin at home or arise from our warped popular culture? We should first scrap the popular therapeutic curriculum that in the scarce hours of the school day crams in sermons on race, class, gender, drugs, sex, self-esteem, or environmentalism. These are well-intentioned efforts to make a kinder and gentler generation more sensitive to our nation’s supposed past and present sins. But they only squeeze out far more important subjects. The old approach to education saw things differently than we do. Education (“to lead out” or “to bring up”) was not defined as being “sensitive” to, or “correct” on, particular issues. It was instead the rational ability to make sense of the chaotic present through the abstract wisdom of the past. So literature, history, math and science gave students plenty of facts, theorems, people, and dates to draw on. Then training in logic, language, and philosophy provided the tools to use and express that accumulated wisdom. Teachers usually did not care where all that training led their students politically — only that their pupils’ ideas and views were supported with facts and argued rationally. What else can we do to restore such traditional learning before the United States loses it global primacy? To encourage our best minds to become teachers, we should also change the qualifications for becoming one. Students should be able to pursue careers in teaching either by getting a standard teaching credential or by substituting a master’s degree in an academic subject. That way we will eventually end up with more instructors with real academic knowledge rather than prepped with theories about how to teach. And once hired, K-12 teachers should accept that tenure has outlived its usefulness. Near-guaranteed lifelong employment has become an archaic institution that shields educators from answerability. And tenure has not ensured ideological diversity and independence. Nearly the exact opposite — a herd mentality — presides within many school faculties. Periodic and renewable contracts — with requirements, goals and incentives — would far better ensure teacher credibility and accountability. Athletics, counseling and social activism may be desirable in schools. But they are not crucial. Our pay scales should reflect that reality. Our top classroom teachers should earn as much as — if not more than — administrators, bureaucrats, coaches, and advisers. Liberal education of the type my farming grandfather got was the reason why the United States grew wealthy, free, and stable. But without it, the nation of his great-grandchildren will become poor, docile, and insecure.

newer horizon demanded in usa politicking. can non natural born + nonbinding resolution senate run pres U S ?

association of committee to elect the rev dr kamal karna roy v. homeland security dept us issue birth obama?

How to promote a paranormal group....? I am a member of a small paranormal investigation group....we take the approach of debunk it down to logic and if you can't debunk any further, call it unexplained....100% ouija board free....we are trying to promote our team. We want to get the word out to the community and let them know we are available to investigate homes, businesses, etc....BUT, we are not sure how to get our name out there. Please answer only if you have some ideas about a marketing approach, keep your ghosts aren't real opinions to yourself, we've heard them all, you will not come up with anything original in that department.....but if you have any ideas for marketing a hard to market subject please do. Keep in mind we do not charge ever for anything so there is no budget to work with. We need ideas that are free, cheap or at least minimal money involved.

milestone jokes? JOKE TIME AGAIN The Catholic Church's air conditioning broke down, so they had to hire a man to crawl around in the ducts and figure out what was wrong. As the man peeked down through one of the vents in the sanctuary, he saw little old Mrs. Murphy kneeling by the altar, apparently saying her rosary. Since the man was a fundamental Baptist, he thought it'd be funny to try and mess with the lady's mind. In his best authoritative voice, he said, "This is Jesus. Your prayers will be answered." The little old lady didn't even blink, just kept on saying her prayers. The man decided maybe she didn't hear him, and tried again. "This is Jesus, the Son of God! Your prayers will be answered!" Again, she didn't react at all. Mustering up a big breath of air, the man decided to try again. "THIS IS JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD! YOUR PRAYERS WILL BE ANSWERED!" The lady looks up and says, "SHUT UP! I'M TALKING TO YOUR MOTHER!" Two blondes were driving through Louisiana. As they were approaching Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town. They argued back and forth until they stopped at a fast-food restaurant for lunch. As they stood at the counter, one blonde asked the manager, "Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are . very slowly?" The manager leaned over the counter and said: "Burrrrrrr-gerrrrrr Kiiiiiing." A little girl and a little boy were at day care one day. The girl approaches the boy and says, "Hey Tommy, want to play house?" He says, "Sure! What do you want me to do?" The girl replies, "I want you to communicate your feelings." "Communicate my feelings?" said a bewildered Tommy. "I have no idea what that means." The little girl smirks and says, "Perfect. You can be the husband then." Employer to applicant: "In this job we need someone who is responsible. " Applicant: "I'm the one you want. On my last job, every time anything went wrong, they said I was responsible. " A blonde goes into aDunkin Donuts and notices there's a "peel and win" sticker on her coffee cup. So she peels it off and starts screaming, "I've won a motorhome! I've won a motorhome!" The waitress says, "That's impossible. The biggest prize is a free Lunch." But the blonde keeps on screaming, "I've won a motorhome! I've won a motorhome!" Finally, the manager comes over and says, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. You couldn't have possibly won a motorhome because we didn't have that as a prize." The blonde says, "No, it's not a mistake. I've won a motorhome!" And she hands the ticket to the manager and HE reads... "W I N A B A G E L" A husband was in big trouble when he forgot his wife's birthday. His wife told him "Tomorrow there better be something in the driveway for me that goes zero to 200 in 2 seconds flat". The next morning the wife found a small package in the driveway. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale. Funeral arrangements for the husband have been set for Saturday. "Arizona Vacation" On doctor's orders, Johnny had moved to Arizona. Two weeks later, he was dead. His body was shipped back home, where the undertaker prepared it for the services. Johnny's brother came in to make sure everything was taken care of. "Would you like to see the body?" the undertaker asked. "I might as well take a look at it before the others get here." The undertaker led him into the next room and opened the top half of the casket. He stood back and proudly displayed his work. "He looks good," the brother said. "Those two weeks in Arizona were just the thing for him." "Airline Ticket" As an airline reservation agent, I took a call from a man who wanted to book a flight for two but wasn't happy with the price of $59 per ticket. "I want the $49 fare I saw advertised," he insisted, saying he would accept a flight at any time. I managed to find two seats on a 6 a.m. flight. "I'll take it," he said, then worried his wife might not like the early hour. I warned there was a fee of $25 per person if he changed the reservation. "Oh, that's no problem," he said dismissively. "What's fifty bucks?" "Twelve of the Most Terrifying Things to Hear" 1. The dentist says: "This won't hurt a bit." 2. The IRS announces: "We are simplifying the tax forms." 3. Your lawyer says: "This is an air-tight case-- you can't lose." 4. Your stock broker says: "This little drop in the market is just a minor correction." 5. Your physician says: "You're in great shape-- you'll live to be 100!" 6. Your business partner says: "Nothing can possibly go wrong." 7. Your best friend says: "Trust me-- I'll never tell a soul." 8. The directions on a do-it-yourself kit say: "Even a child can do it." 9. Your colleagues say: "We're behind you 100%-- we'll back you up." 10. Someone giving you directions says: "You can't miss it." 11. The airline pilot announces: "Just a bit of turbulence folks-- nothing to worry about." 12. A voice on the telephone says: "Congratulations! You're an instant winner!" "Fishing on Sunday" A village pastor, known for his weakness for trout, preached against fishing on Sunday. The next day, one of his members presented him with a fine string of fish and said, hesitatingly, "I guess I ought to tell you, parson, that those trout were caught on Sunday." The minister hesitated, gazed appreciatively at the speckled trout, and then said piously as he reached for his gift, "The fish aren't to blame for that." "Cross-eyed Bear" A little boy came home with his parents from church one Sunday. He seemed a little depressed, so his mother asked him if something happened in Sunday School class that he would like to talk about. He told his mother, "Well, we were singing songs and the teacher made us sing about a poor bear named Gladly that needed glasses and I can't stop thinking about him. She said he was cross-eyed and I feel bad for him. The mother couldn't understand why the teacher would teach such a song in Sunday school, so she decided to call her. To the woman's amazement, the teacher said she only taught hymns that morning. Then the teacher began laughing out loud and said to the mother, "I know what Jeffrey's talking about! We learned the hymn 'Gladly The Cross I'd Bear!'" "Benefits of Tithing" Two men off for a sailing trip around the world are shipwrecked. The minute they got on to the island one of them started screaming and yelling, "We're going to die! We're going to die! There's no food! No water! We're going to die!" The second man comfortably propped himself up against a palm tree and acted so calmly it drove the first man crazy. "Don't you understand?! ? We're going to die!!" The second man replied, "You don't understand, I make $100,000 a week." The first man looked at him quite dumbfounded and asked, "What difference does that make?!? We're on an island with no food and no water! We're going to DIE!!!" The second man answered with a confident smile, "No, you just don't get it. I make $100,000 a week and I tithe ten percent on that $100,000 a week. Our church is getting ready to start a building program. My pastor and the finance committee will find me"

every single rat word ever!? A Aeratted: Said of a garment that has acquired so many chewed holes as to now be considered summer attire. Alphamosity: The rampant animosity exhibited by alphas when they meet new rats. Alpha Romeo: A dominant buck who has the style, performance and speed to reach the girl rat cage before his owner realises he's escaped. Aquafrenzy: A fit of uncontrollable terror involving anatomically inconceivable twisting and writhing, ear piercing screeching and maniacal claw shredding exerted by a rat who dislikes baths. Aromatherapee: An ancient technique by which rats can turn their pee into various odors pleasing to their rat loving humans, such as cinnamon muffins and warm corn chips. (see also Furomatherapy, Peeterent and Peeseekery) Awra: The luminous air about a ratty due to his whiskers and soft furriness, that when seen in the light causes an involuntary "Awwwwwwwww...." from the viewer. B Bacupuncture: An alternative healing method performed by rats who use their claws to cling to the area between your shoulder blades where you cannot remove them without assistance. Berko: Describes a person who is fanatically crazy about rats with white bellies. Boggling: The creepily charming ability of rats to bulge their eyeballs out of their sockets and vibrate them when particularly happy or content. BooBoolean Command: The phenomenon where your rat decides to play on your computer keyboard while you're using google, and you end up searching for "sllllvmmbkppf34-0--34rjse'39ksp;;;;;;;;;", with no website results found. Bouquet de Buck: the rich studly aroma of musky male rat, with overtones of corn tortilla, spicy cinnamon and a subtle hint of pee. Mmmmmm. (see also Eau de Doe) Brusking: The irresistible performance of a hungry rat, begging and eye boggling for yogurt drops. Bruxing: The complete ratty repertoire involving fooffing of air, chattering and grinding of teeth, and bulging eye boggling that indicates a happy or contented rat. (see also Boggling and Fooffery) Bruxtaposition: The condition of having a happy rat sit next to you on the sof Buck grease: The orange oily dandruffy gunk that overly hormonal boy rats sometimes get on their backs. Bucksome: Healthily plump and ample of male rat rump. Bucktion: The irresistible force that attracts people to big, lazy, squishy male rats. Buckwurst: Descriptive term for a lazy old male rat who enjoys his food so much that he resembles a large furry Germanic sausage. Bumbleball: Unfortunate affliction caused by the friction of continued dragging of large testicles over everything. Bummer: The phrase often exclaimed when a rat wipes his/her squishy raisins all over you. C Cage fright: The instantaneous horror that you feel when you're sitting at your desk at work and the realisation dawns on you that you've left the rat cage door open at home. Chewelry: Personal adornments that have been improved by artistic rattie designers. Claustrophrenia: The frenetic madness exhibited by rats who, having spent the entire day happily abiding in their ample cage, suddenly find the space utterly unbearable. The resulting conniptions are often triggered by a delay in their normal daily scheduled out time, or observation of another rat getting free range time before them. Claw warning: A simple request to our rats to yell "I'm coming!" before they leap onto our bare flesh with claws outstretched... rather than leaping first, scaring the bejeezus out of us, and then announcing cheerfully "I'm here!". Clawdacity: The intrepid boldness with which rats recklessly climb your bare skin with complete disregard to your comfort or screams of protest. Corn grooming: The systematic repetitive linear grooming pattern rats often apply to their cagemates, which is reminiscent of eating a cob of corn. Crammock: The term given to a hammock straining to support more rats than it's structurally capable of holding. Cross Scritch: A crafty technique requiring the skill of petting two rats at once on different sides of your lap. Curtailer: A person harboring the completely unfounded, ignorant belief that rat tails are cold, scaly and horrible and they'd be better off without them. D Dampressionism: An artistic style of watercolour painting involving the use of one's tail as a pee paintbrush. Dawnfall: The sudden degenerative state within your rat cage should you accidentally sleep in past your rats' usual morning free range time. Demarkation: The act of removing alpha rat pee from throughout your house. Deturdant: The latest miracle cleaning product on the market for removing rat raisins stuck on your furniture, carpet, clothes, curtains, pillow case, bath towels, etc. Drive-by grooming: A heartless crime whereby an alpha rat will stride up to an innocent bystander, furiously groom the victim's head, and then continue on his way as though nothing happened. Dropsy: A hyperactivity disorder in rats caused by eating way too many sugary yogurt treats. E Eau de Doe: That irresistibly tantalising scent that sends bucks wild with passionate distraction. (see also Bouquet de Buck) Exherbitionist: A rat who has a compulsive desire to draw attention to itself by digging up pot plants. Exvermination: The act of removing all traces of your pet rats from view when your landlord is about to visit. F Fibervore: An animal that grazes on socks, your favourite t-shirt, carpet, sofa cushions and other soft furnishings. Flash Animation: The blind frenzy a rat goes into when unexpectedly subjected to a camera lighting system. (see also Vampire Rat) NEW! Fluffy Fund: A rat health insurance plan that involves keeping an extra layer of squish on a rat to provide a buffer in case of illness. Fooffery: The impressive array of cheerful noises a rat will make when excited, specifically involving puffing air in and out of the mouth rapidly. (see also Bruxing and Boggling) Furabdophile: A person with an inexplicable and irresistible attraction to rat bellies, and is unrepentant in their need to kiss every soft fuzzy one they encounter. Furgiveness: The amazing ability rats have to be forgiven for anything just because they're cute and furry. Furomatherapy: The joy and peace one gets from sticking one's nose into rat fur and inhaling deeply. Fuzzbutt: An endearing nickname for your furry loved ones; also the image of a rat usually recorded by photographic film. Fuzzlet: An affectionate name for a young rat, along with ratlet, ratling, kitten, ritten, pup, etc. G Gnawtification: A formal indication that your rat was here. Groominate: To subconsciously and incessantly clean oneself while pondering life and the universe. Grottofication: The satisfaction one derives from providing their ratties with an extra large, fun, clean, safe place to live. H Heat wave: The courtship process whereby a female rat wiggles her ears at a potential male across the room. Hell raisin': When your rat causes trouble by depositing a wet, squishy smelly poop then steps in it and proceeds to drag it all over the house. Homo norvegicus: A species of rat that thinks it's human (e.g. Homo norvegicus nimbii) Honing stone: The rock or paver placed in a rat cage for the express purpose of keeping rat claws blunt, which is secretly utilised by the rats as a honing tool for precision sharpness. I Ickspression: The emphatic body language exhibited by a rat when fed something that tastes icky, usually observed as frantic chin rubbing along the floor. Intolerodent: Said of a pitiful person who has an irrational, unreasonable and completely unfounded dislike of rats. J Jackhammer snout: a pneumatically operated power-sniffing tool used to extract even the smallest wisp of scent from surfaces via percussive impact. K Karatty: Skillful fleet-footed fighting technique involving kicks, twists and leaps used by smaller rats during fights with big alpha thugs. L Lashybug: Small dark delicate hairy insect that is irresistible to rats, commonly found fluttering around human eyes. Literatty: Rats who like to chew scholarly or intellectually challenging books. M Madaptation: The remarkable ability of rats to change their daily schedule so that they are rampantly playful when their humans are sleepy. Manxious: Overly worried that your new litter might not have tails. Masokisstic: Said of a person who indulges in the irresistible pleasure of kissing rat bellies despite having resulting horrific allergic reactions to their fur. Marinating: The act of sleeping in one's pee soaked bedding Meducation: The end result of the many devious machinations required to get the rat on the outside of his meds. Also describes the remarkable and rapid learning by rat owners of the large array of drug uses and dosages for rats. NEW! Meep / Meeping / Meeper: The plaintive sound (usually in a whining tone) that a rat emits when being power groomed, shoved about, or otherwise unfairly picked on. In ratspeak "meep" is a shortened form of "Me Poor!" (or "Poor Me!"). Thus a "meeper" is a rat who meeps excessively. Metamorfuzzus: A conditional response to spending too much time with one's rats, which results in the gradual transformation from human to more rat-like tendencies. e.g. stealing food out of other people's mouths, bruxing during romantic moments with your partner, and peeing on the sofa. Mischief maker (a.k.a. Breeder): A person who deliberately amasses large numbers of rodents with the express purpose of distributing them to as many people as possible. Moodging: An aussie slang term for holding your rat in both hands facing you and moving your fingers in a circular motion to massage them. Mycophobia: An intense and irrational fear experienced by all rat owners at the first sign of a sneeze. N Nasal Spelunking: A recreational pursuit for rats who are skilled in facial cavity exploration. New Rat Fever (NRF): A highly contagious and debilitating virus, often spread at rat shows. While medically incurable, sufferers are able to gain temporary relief by acquiring regular "hits" from unscrupulous ratlet peddlers. Newton's Law of Rodent Physics 1: The harder one tries to prevent a rat from gnawing, the more determined a rat will be to gnaw. Newton's Law of Rodent Physics 2: The volume of a nest box is equivalent to half the volume of the rats that are currently sleeping in it. Nimitations: Wannabe big bad alpha rats (after Nimbus, the biggest baddest buck in the business) Nipple-nipper: A rat with an unfortunate penchant for human mammary protrusions. O Omniratent: Having rats present in all parts of your house at all times. P Peasqueak: An insignificant or contemptible rat, outcast due to it's abnormal aversion to green peas. Peckerish: Said of a rat who has a hunger for nipping delicate human male body parts. Pednipology: The study of why rats love to bite socked toes. Peeseekery: The act of searching in darkness for rat whiz using high tech, state of the art black light equipment. Peeterrent: The unmistakable aroma of rat pee on your clothes that prevents non rat lovers from hitting on you. Pewtophile: A lover of white rats. Pissertive: Said of a rat owner who decidedly and confidently assumes the alpha role in their home by scent marking the cage and all the rats with their own urine (aka The Adamo Approach). Pocratsinaction: To put off doing important work due to the overwhelming distraction of poking your rats awake to play with them. Q Quid pro doe: The means by which male rats will do anything you ask in exchange for just one sniff of a girl rat. (see also Eau de Doe) R Rat Couture: Exclusively re-modelled high fashion attire and general decor for the discerning ratlover. Rat Room Netball: A skillful sport whereby you clean the rat cage, tidy up the room, and perform other important tasks with your feet firmly planted in the one position the entire time, so as not to squish free ranging rampant ratlets. Ratalyst: An as yet unidentified substance present on rat fur that promotes the lowering of human willpower so that more rats are easily and rapidly absorbed into the household. Rata-tatty: The point at which aeratted clothing can no longer be worn in public without legal repercussions. Ratatonic (or Ratatonia): That pitiful look rats get when they are someplace they don't want to be and just sit stock still in spooked stoney silence (vet, outdoors, one room away from the vacuum cleaner, etc.). Ratattoo: Scratches on your neck, arms and legs that indicate your membership to SORE (Society Of Rat Enthusiasts). Ratification: A formal approval from your partner that you can modify the house, furniture and appliances in any way necessary to provide a safe, fun environment for free ranging rats. Ratochistic: Said of one who derives pleasure from being scratched, peed on, enduring violent allergic reactions, picking up raisins, cleaning cages and spending all their money on rat food and vet bills. Ratriarchy: A form of social organisation in which rats hold all of the power (common in most pet rat households). Rattisphere: The small circle of friends who love your rats with which you socialise now that all your other old rat intolerant friends aren't welcome anymore. (See Intolerodent) Rattitude: The cheeky, clever and defiant air of confidence exuded by all rats. Rattorney: A rat able to weasel it's way out of damaging circumstances Rattus stalactitus: The rare species of rat that has a propensity to hang upside down from wire cage lids. Remarkable: The amazing way rats have to re-scent everything in the house over and over and over again. Rexpectation: The state of hoping for a few curly whiskers in your next litter. Rodentertainment: The joy and happiness you acquire from watching the comical and clever antics of your rats rather than television. Rodentist: A rat skilled in human teeth cleaning and oral hygiene. Rodentomontade: A long bragging speech where one boasts about the charm, cuteness and downright perfection of one's ratties. S Scentscape: The results of a rat's careful scent marking of his cage, getting all the different zones of the cage arranged in a delightful (to rats) scentsoria of odors. Scentinel / Scentry: A pee drop placed at the border of a rat's territory to guard their domain from rogue rodent invaders. SCUBRA: (Self Contained Under Blouse Rat Apparatus) A supportive undergarment worn by women for the express purpose of providing safe and comfortable shirt diving for their rats. Self restraint: Control imposed by oneself when one sees a tank full of solid coloured ratlets for adoption in the pet shop. Shredware: The high necked, long sleeved garments commonly worn by rat owners when playing with their rats. Smug sluggery: The act whereby a rat lazes with his head lolling over the edge of his hammock, wearing a smugly contented expression. Snottoisseur: A rat who has special skills in the gourmet art of used tissue eating. Sofamorphism: The incredible ability of all rats to squish themselves into any shape in order to fit behind/inside large immovable furniture and household appliances. Squat: Repetitive leg exercise performed by rat owners who wish to sit on their sofa, despite their rats' considering it their own personal territory. Squirmish: A rambunctious fight for position on a lap involving more rats than the owner has hands for scritching. Squish: A rat known for it's large soft cuddly form, which tends to go all limp and pliable when scritched. (See Ramekin The Squish) Stashism: Political belief that all extra food and miscellaneous items should be stored for later use. Stat!ic cling: The invisible attraction that draws and holds male rats to any item that female rats have touched. (see also Eau de Doe) This term evolved after I needed a crowbar to lever Stat! off my lap after I'd played with some girl rats. Stynchronisation: The amazing coincidence that visitors always manage to drop in unannounced just before cage cleaning day when the whole house reeks of rat pee. Suffosafe: The amazing ability of rats to breathe sufficient oxygen despite being on the bottom of a huge rat pile-up in the hammock. T The Badlands: Anywhere in your home that is out of bounds to rats (because they do bad things there) that they therefore spend all their free range time trying to sneak into. Tomfooffery: Rats who are horsing around, and unrepentant in their silly behaviour. (see also Fooffery) Treatise: A written document that states all owners are required by law to offer at least one yogurt drop per rat per day. Treatoscopic: Describes rat eye-sight that, despite being generally poor, is somehow able to locate a treat you aren't sharing from 50 paces. TwoRattes Syndrome: The involuntary utterance of a string of expletives, usually found to occur when attempting to place a pair of rodents safely into a single cage after free-range time. U Understudly: A rat who aspires to be alpha. V Vampire Rat: A rat who will not show up on photographic film, despite being in centre frame and in-focus moments before shutter release. Vermen: Those wonderful rare human males who love rats. They often accept being second best in their partners affections (after the rats, of course), and cheerfully offer their hard earned cash to pay for and/or build every whim their rats might want or need. W Whizard: A rat who manages to pee in the most unexpected places. Wildefuzz: An endearing term to describe any wild rodent. X Xenofaecalurker: A foreign, unidentifiable object found in your rat's raisin that you have no idea where it came from or how it got there. Y Yellow-belly: A rat too cowardly to admit he's been marinating in his own pee. Z Zoomerang: A rat who dashes out and about but periodically homes in on mom or dad to make sure everything's okay. please leave me a star left of interesting im 14, but i am going to be in the animal feild its all i want to do exspacially rodents! oh yeah this is from dapper.com

help with a summary? Last Rites for Indian Dead by Suzan Shown Harjo What if museums, universities, and government agencies could put your dead relatives on display or keep them in boxes to be cut up and otherwise studied? What if you believed that the spirits of the dead could not rest until their human remains were placed in a sacred area? The ordinary American would say there ought to be a law—and there is, for ordinary Americans. The problem for American Indians is that there are too many laws of the kind that make us the archeological property of the United States and too few of the kind that protect us from such insults. Some of my own Cheyenne relatives’ skulls are in the Smithsonian Institution today, along with those of at least 4,500 other Indian people who were violated in the 1800s by the U.S. Army for an “Indian Crania Study.” It wasn’t enough that these unarmed Cheyenne people were mowed down by the cavalry at the infamous Sand Creek massacre; many were decapitated and their heads shipped to Washington as freight. (The Army Medical Museum’s collection is now in the Smithsonian.) Some had been exhumed° only hours after being buried. Imagine their grieving families’ reaction on finding their loved ones disinterred° and headless. Some targets of the Army’s study were killed in noncombat situations and beheaded immediately. The officer’s account of the decapitation of the Apache chief Mangas Coloradas in 1863 shows the pseudoscientific nature of the exercise. “I weighed the brain and measured the skull,” the good doctor wrote, “and found that while the skull was smaller, the brain was larger than that of Daniel Webster.” These journal accounts exist in excruciating detail, yet missing are any records of overall comparisons, conclusions, or final reports of the Army study. Since it is unlike the Army not to leave a paper trail, one must wonder about the motive for its collection. The total Indian body count in the Smithsonian collection is more than 19,000, and it is not the largest in the country. It is not inconceivable that the 1.5 million of us living today are outnumbered by our dead stored in museums, educational institutions, federal agencies, state historical societies, and private collections. The Indian people are further dehumanized by being exhibited alongside the mastodons and dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. Where we have buried our dead in peace, more often than not the sites have been desecrated. For more than two hundred years, relic-hunting has been a popular pursuit. Lately, the market in Indian artifacts has brought this abhorrent activity to a fever pitch in some areas. And when scavengers come upon Indian burial sites, everything found becomes fair game, including sacred burial offerings, teeth, and skeletal remains.One unusually well-publicized example of Indian grave desecration occurred two years ago in a western Kentucky field known as Slack Farm, the site of an Indian village five centuries ago. Ten men—one with a business card stating “Have Shovel, Will Travel”—paid the landowner $10,000 to lease digging rights between planting seasons. They dug extensively on the forty-acre farm, rummaging through an estimated 650 graves, collecting burial goods, tools, and ceremonial items. Skeletons were strewn about like litter. What motivates people to do something like this? Financial gain is the first answer. Indian relic-collecting has become a multimillion-dollar industry. The price tag on a bead necklace can easily top $1,000; rare pieces fetch tens of thousands. And it is not just collectors of the macabre° who pay for skeletal remains. Scientists say that these deceased Indians are needed for research that someday could benefit the health and welfare of living Indians. But just how many dead Indians must they examine? Nineteen thousand? There is doubt as to whether permanent curation of our dead really benefits Indians. Dr. Emery A. Johnson, former assistant Surgeon General, recently observed, “I am not aware of any current medical diagnostic or treatment procedure that has been derived from research on such skeletal remains. Nor am I aware of any during the thirty-four years that I have been involved in American Indian . . . health care.” Indian remains are still being collected for racial biological studies. While the intentions may be honorable, the ethics of using human remains this way without the full consent of relatives must be questioned. Some relief for Indian people has come on the state level. Almost half of the states, including California, have passed laws protecting Indian burial sites and restricting the sale of Indian bones, burial offerings, and other sacred items. Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have introduced bills that are a good start in invoking the federal government’s protection. However, no legislation has attacked the problem headon by imposing stiff penalties at the marketplace, or by changing laws that make dead Indians the nation’s property. Some universities—notably Stanford, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Seattle—have returned, or agreed to return, Indian human remains; it is fitting that institutions of higher education should lead the way.Congress is now deciding what to do with the government’s extensive collection of Indian human remains and associated funerary objects. The secretary of the Smithsonian, Robert McC. Adams, has been valiantly° attempting to apply modern ethics to yesterday’s excesses. This week, he announced that the Smithsonian would conduct an inventory and return all Indian skeletal remains that could be identified with specific tribes or living kin. But there remains a reluctance generally among collectors of Indian remains to take action of a scope that would have a quantitative impact and a healing quality. If they will not act on their own—and it is highly unlikely that they will—then Congress must act. The country must recognize that the bodies of dead American Indian people are not artifacts to be bought and sold as collector’s items. It is not appropriate to store tens of thousands of our ancestors for possible future research. They are our family. They deserve to be returned to their sacred burial grounds and given a chance to rest. The plunder of our people’s graves has gone on too long. Let us rebury our dead and remove this shameful past from America’s future. 0 comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) __________________________________________ Recently Dugg Stories The Covers Project The Covers Project began as a simple idea to help listeners discover new music by showcasing covers of famous songs. Users can search for their favorite artists and listen to different renditions of their songs online. 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What do you thing about this article? Anna Politkovskaya and the Self-Defense of Democracy By Jon Hellevig The writer is a Finnish lawyer who has lived in Moscow for 15 years. He has written the book Expressions and Interpretations (www.hellevig.ru) discussing Russia's social development from the viewpoint of philosophy and judicial philosophy. He is also the author of several books on the Russian tax and labor law. The murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya has once again induced a surge of anti-Russianism in Finland. Politicians, so-called researchers and media declare that Russian leaders masterminded the murder. Many people cautiously avoid these direct expressions, while being highly critical of the Russian government. Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja falls somewhere between the two groups, whereas Markku Kivinen from the University of Helsinki affiliated Aleksanteri Institute and MP Heidi Hautala clearly belong to the latter. It is obviously not in the interests of the Russian President to have a well known journalist killed (pointing this out would not be necessary, but for the continuous smear campaign against Russia). Based on information I received from Jukka Mallinen (translator of Politkovskaya's "Putin's Russia" into Finnish), there were no Russian government officials behind the murder. On the other hand, there is reason to put forward an alternative motive, which is quite possible -- that the murder was orchestrated by those wishing to create the kind of public opinion climate to compliment an anti-Russian agenda. In our culture, we usually honor the memory of the deceased by saying positive things about the departed in times of sorrow. One would like to show the same respect for Politkovskaya as well. But I cannot keep quiet when I see how her memory has been turned into a weapon to hit the Russian people in a manner that hinders Russia's development. Some are not happy with the opportunities that have been created during Putin's presidency.This includes the chance for many to now actively participate in a democratically run market economy. Upon the Soviet breakup, criminal elements took advantage of the weakness of a young nascent democracy by grabbing and stealing enormous possessions. Putin, courageously challenged the Mafia and oligarchs (often separated through a fine line drawn on water). Thirsty for "revenge", some of the non-Russian former Soviet states egg on the EU to engage Russia in a confrontational manner They overlook that Russia and the Russian people were the biggest victims of communism. Led by Yeltsin, the Russian people freed themselves from that burden and encouraged this spirit to other former prisoner-countries. Due to Russia's large land mass encompassing troubled regions, Russia unwillingly gets drawn into dirty games. This predicament gets twisted into the claim of a revanchist Russia bullying small, defenseless others. Given the uncritical fanfare accorded to Politkovskaya's work as a journalist, there is reason to critically review it. A case in point is her book "Putin's Russia", (published in 2004) which has been translated into several languages. In this book, she emotionally focuses on peoples' life situations (a style used in Karl Marx's Das Kapital, where he childishly tries to prove his theories of capital through the stories of people's everyday lives). Politkovskaya begins and ends her book with a stated disgust of Putin (as per the English translation of the book, see the Introduction as well as pages 281 and 282). She states her dislike of Putin "because he was a product of the Russian security service" (as if George Bush Sr.'s politics should be condemned on the grounds that he headed the CIA; a prevalent talking point in some circles). According to Politkovskaya, the KGB influenced Putin "does nothing but destroy civil liberties as he has all through his career". No mention is made of Putin's support for the late democratic mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. At the end, Politkovskaya states she is disgusted with Putin because there is a war in Chechnya (as if he started it). She adds that in her view, he is a cold, cynical, racist, who is prone to lying (among other references in her book, see pages 281-82). Politkovskaya does not like the fact that this evil (in her view) man goes to Easter church services (pages 279 and 280). Politkovskaya attacks Putin for being a "racist" and then like a racist claims that Silvio Berlusconi as a European has better powers of thinking than Russia's Putin (page 279). Politkovskaya's likening of Putin with Stalin (page 272) shows that neither the journalist nor her prize givers and back patters have any sense of proportion. But one should remember that the purpose of this investigative journalist was to tell us about her feelings on why she abhors another person. Politkovskaya displayed no perception that all phenomena in society are based on social practices and that only a positive historical process can promote the wellbeing of society. She does not understand that the basis of a working society was totally destroyed in the Soviet Union and that it was not until 1990 that the building of a democracy, market economy and society at large was started from the ruins of the bankrupt Soviet estate. Through glimpses of peoples' life experiences, she brings up some of Russia's problems, such as the undeveloped democracy, criminality, corruption, the poor condition of the army, low pensions and the state of the judicial system. In her state of disgust, Politkovskaya did not analyze what has been done about these matters during Putin's presidency. Nor does she consider the impact of decisions taken under him. Instead, she writes of human tragedies like the suicide of an alcoholic and about a former friend of hers; a busy businesswoman who went into politics to grab more riches, etc. She tries to convince the reader that Putin is to be blamed for a tragic suicide and a woman politician's ruthlessness (who succeeded remarkably well). Politkovskaya's idea was that from day one of his presidency, Putin alone had to make sure that all in Russia was right. Much like if President Tarja Halonen was responsible for the unemployment in Kainuu and drunks at Hakaniemi Market Square. In one of her brief accounts, Politkovskaya mentions an 80 year old man, who had been found frozen to a floor in Irkutsk, Siberia (page 194). The journalist says the emergency services refused to come to the rescue claiming "the man was so old he could obviously not be all right". According to Politkovskaya - Putin should have stopped this. She seemingly suggests that it was brave of her to have said as much. Politkovskaya writes of an impoverished former navy captain Aleksey Dikinin (page 198). His fate is attributed to Putin (with Politkovskaya having the guts to say so). She does not even think of referencing Soviet Communism as the main culprit Mind you, her chronicling of Dikinin was in the first year of Putin's presidency (2000). Since then, there has been an enormous increase in pensions. I have personally experienced this in the Russian hinterland. At the beginning of this year, I visited a friend of mine in the native village of Azikeevo, situated in the Ural Mountains region of Bashkortostan. A road connection to Azikeevo was opened about ten years ago, at approximately the same time that gas and heating systems were installed. A couple of years ago, phone connections were completed to every cottage. Without any prompting, my friend's 70 year old uncle repeatedly lauded how good living conditions had become. In a healthy spirit, this senior citizen regularly takes care of horses, cows and chickens. Some retired teachers in that village (a married couple) said that pensions were now so good that they could support their children's families (there is a photo report of this trip at www.hellevig.ru). Politkovskaya was far from expert on government, military and legal matters. Topics which Putin has frequently discussed in an openly candid way. Politkovskaya's writing on terrorist dramas sugarcoated the actions of terrorists. Through their deeds, terrorists try to hurt the society they hit. By killing innocent people, they create public discussion designed to fault the leaders of the target country (reference how terrorists sparked a change in government in Spain). This is incomprehensible logic for a sound person to comment on. In "Putin's Russia", Politkovskaya blames Putin for government corruption in Ekaterinburg. There is no acknowledgement on her part that this political environment was evident BEFORE Putin became president. Putin proposed to correct this by having the political center play a more active role with the outlying regions. Instead of lauding this action (a popular one with most Russians), Politkovksaya wrongly concluded it to be anti-democratic. A stance overlooking how the political center was more democratic than the most "independent" of Russian regions. The regional governors operated under the cloak of democracy. They were chosen through "democratic" elections, as in the Soviet Union (in another connection, Politkovskaya remembered how people were elected in the Soviet Union, page 271). A colorful bunch of criminals and adventurers appointed themselves as governors under the shelter of formal electing and voting procedures. This view is acknowledged by the European Commissioner for Human Rights (see: Alvaro Gil-Robles, Report on Visits to the Russian Federation, 2004). In these conditions, anyone wanting to be governor had himself elected by using threats, bribes, blackmail and bodily harm. Putin's proposal to strip the regional governors of their mandates made a positive impression. Democracy is now practiced in much more civilized circumstances, based on a democratic competition between the regional parliament and the president. To have the courage to rise against a powerful elite and to succeed is an unbelievably big achievement. In the West, this reality is not fully appreciated, let alone understood. Instead, Politkovskaya's blinded disgust with Putin is uncritically accepted as the gospel. Politkovskaya characterizes Putin as seeking "revenge" against the oligarchs. Her characterization of the Mikhail Khordorkovsky owned and operated YUKOS is flawed (pages 275, 276, 284 and 285). She erroneously claims that this business entity "operated in daylight" and "gave five percent of its profits to charity". YUKOS flagrantly violated tax laws and other legislation through (among other things) criminal tax paradise companies (I reference a Sitra Report: Suuri Maa Pitka Kvartaali, Big Country Long Quartile, 2005). Furthermore, Politkovskaya claims that Khodorkovsky got into trouble with Putin because he supported "the liberal opposition". She omits the fact that Khodorkovsky supported the Communist Party. The romantic side of her activity would be lost if this point was made. She did not state the ulterior motive behind Khodorkovsky's political activism. The "democratic" parties sold him top positions in electoral candidate lists to enable him to place his own trusted candidates. This was how he planned to carry through a takeover of the Russian Duma. But is this the kind of democracy desired by Politkovskaya, Tuomioja and Hautala? In Finland, this advocacy would be considered treason. A number of anti-Putin analysts admit that former YUKOS CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky had committed crimes, while rhetorically asking "but why Khodorkovsky, just Khodorkovsky"? The answer is clear: others were quicker to realize that their criminal activities in Russia were over. A society cannot be built on revenge. Putin offered an invitation for all to move forward. Russia loses if there is a large scale injustice. This does not mean that democracy has no right to self-defense. This is Putin's Russia, and mine.

did you know about the world largest ship to be build? Capital letters Nearly a mile long and 40,000 on board - the first floating city Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles Saturday May 6, 2000 It may sound like something from a science fiction story - a floating city of 40,000 people that will slowly circumnavigate the globe - but the building of what will be the world's largest ship is about to begin. The Freedom Ship's creators say the vessel, whose constuction is due to start in Honduras this summer, will be one of the wonders of the world. The company behind the scheme said reservations for the 20,000 homes on board had begun to accelerate, and there were already plans to build two other floating cities. Freedom Ship will be nearly a mile long (4,320ft), 725ft wide and 340ft tall and will have room for 40,000 people, including a staff of 10,000. There will be a school and university on board, not to mention a landing strip, a hospital, a casino, a shopping mall and 200 acres of open space. The idea is that it will slowly travel the world, pausing a few miles out from chosen destinations such as ports or exotic tropical islands that can only be reached by sea. It will be on the move for 25% of the time and otherwise anchored off different ports. People who want to live on board can purchase their homes for prices which range from $150,000 (£94,000) for a small unit to $40m for something rather larger. There will be 20,000 units in total and the whole venture will cost $9bn. Developers are being encouraged to pre-purchase space and sell it on in the same way as their real estate counterparts do on dry land. "Already we have reservations for 15% [of the units]," said Roger Gooch, the marketing vice-president for the venture from his Florida office yesterday. "Once we are under construction, people will come running. It's already being termed one of the wonders of the world." Construction would start in "60 to 90 days", and would take three years to complete, with the shipyard operating 24 hours a day, he said. The ship is the brainchild of the project director, Norman Nixon of Engineering Solutions, an engineer from Arkansas who has overseen the construction of chemical plants and office buildings from Saudi Arabia to Texas. Application forms for workers on either the construction or staff of the ship when it is finally launched have been placed on the internet and talks are under way with the Nova Southwestern University to ensure that an established academic institution will be responsible for running the degree courses on the ship. Mr Gooch said that the hope was that the vessel would have a "global environment", with a large mixture of different nationalities and ages. It was not meant to be seen as a retirement cruise ship but one where people could run their businesses and educate their children. As a sales incentive, the company's material points out that there will be no local taxes to pay. So far, the greatest interest had come from Europe, with Germans and Scandinavians already paying deposits to secure their units. "We're just a giant landlord," Mr Gooch said, adding that anyone who wanted to start and run a business on the ship was free to do so. "We're not in the business of owning a barber shop or a restaurant. We're shipbuilders." There had been scepticism, he accepted, about the safety of such a vessel, but the company's engineers were confident that a ship of such a size would be secure and viable. But was there not a concern that the ship's size seemed to make it the stuff of which Titanic-style disaster movies are made, the vessel taken hostage perhaps by international pirates or the like? Mr Gooch said that a former FBI man would head a 2,000-strong security force, and the ship would be equipped with "state-of-the-art defensive weapons". The laws on board will be those of the country under whose flag the ship eventually sails - that country is still to be decided, but will not be the US, he said. Serious offenders would be held until the ship reached its next port and then surrendered to the authorities, he added. And will the city have its own government? Different decks and floors would be able to elect their representatives, Mr Gooch said, but "the captain's word will be final". Bh I was asking everyone did they know about the world biggest ship to be build ?BH it's good to know what is going on around you in other parts of the world ,anyone one can comment on this question.people thinking titanic you think this might be a nother big disaster or you thing the bernuda triangle I think not because they have better thing to build this ship with what do you think?

What is the relationship between 911 and Saddam?

Jews of Iraq? What about them?

plz. help me to write the main idea of this article in the NY Times. in two pages.?

Any body has an idea? u can tell me what u think about it.? FOR SALE: 24 Small Children that come with their original warranty papers, clothing etc.. 8 of them have over-sized heads, and were supposed to be called back, but never were. All are ages 2-5, and have had as many years experience in the Japanese language. All of the children above age 3 have already had training in factories owned by Disney, making Donald Duck Velcro wallets. I am asking $14 dollars a head for this bunch, or take them all for $6,000! Also available - GRAB BAG! Receive in your grab bag: 3 random children and a fun, free mystery prize. Shipping costs vary depending on order size and how large my friend Jerry and I have to make the wooden box. Boxes range from $35 to $65 dollars, food, water and air holes cost extra. (2004), What the heck.com. The above listing is an actual item that appeared on an eBay auction February 20th, 1999. The bidding got to $51 dollars before it was halted. According to Hoovers (2004), eBay currently has sales of $2.1 billion with net profits of $441 million. Hof (2004) writes, “Sure, it already boasts more than 25 million items at any one time -- from vintage lunch boxes to new DVD players. But its heady growth suggests a need for even more stuff. Last year, more than 40 million active buyers bought $24 billion worth of goods, up 60% from 2002.” (par.1). More than just a growth company, eBay is changing the way business is conducted around the world. Please describe the four market structures in terms of both allocative and productive efficiency. Then examine how eBay (and companies like it) are impacting each? How might you respond to this challenge if a company you worked for was directly affected?

why world hates somaliland ???? i wonder god help us? ony Blair's Africa Commission has a profound historic opportunity to, firstly, facilitate development in Africa and, secondly, to focus on promoting peace and stability. MEET THE PANEL Name: Iqbal Dawood Jhazbhay Age: 41 Lives: Pretoria, South Africa Occupation: Community activist and Senior Lecturer, University of South Africa Born: Durban, South Africa Religion: Islam with strong focus on spirituality In 10 words or less: Activist, loves swimming, Zikr meditation and country walks with family Often, Africa as an agenda item has fallen off the table. The time to bring it to the centre stage is well overdue, in the interest of world peace and security. Clearly, the world's security lies in the continent's development and stability. I am hopeful that this Commission can focus on solving the most neglected conflict of Western Sahara, which is 28 years old. Another area I would suggest needs focus is the current democratic transition in Somaliland (former British Protectorate), now the northern section of the defunct Somalia. The Commission must support its parliamentary elections on 29 March 2005, which is the first in the area since 1968. African voices: See where our panel live Enlarge Image I agree with South African President Mbeki that it is "shameful and regretful" that we have neglected Western Sahara. Why neglect the wishes of the people of Western Sahara and Somaliland for self-determination? Mercifully, South African NGO's, political parties and the business sector have started working with Somaliland. I have travelled seven times to Somaliland via Addis Ababa. Tony Blair's Africa Commission will be fondly remembered if it succeeds in highlighting the key development concern of fair trade and market access and, moving towards resolving the situation of the two neglected peoples of Western Sahara and Somaliland. We all indeed have a positive role to play in contributing to a better life for all. As a success story, Somaliland is Africa's best kept secret" Iqbal Jhazbhay Click here to read Iqbal's essay Our own humanity remains compromised as long as the people of Africa, Western Sahara and Somaliland, remain shackled by redundant policies, which do not see the urgency for creative action. We all recall it took the ANC in South Africa 82 long years before the first democratic election in 1994 (1912-1994). Surely, we all can do better. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your comments: 97% of the Somaliland people voted in 2001 to end the union with the rest of Somalia. In December 2002 there were elections to elect the three parties that would run for the president's office. And in April 2003 we elected our own leader. Somaliland has already done more to accommodate the will of the people which is more than I can say about other African countries. Hopefully Mr Jhazbhay will have given the commission a great deal to think about in regards to the aspirations of the people of Western Sahara and Somaliland. Said Mahad, Copenhagen, Denmark Bravo Iqbal and those who support the cause of the neglected states, such as Somaliland! It is now time to give credit to those who deserve it. Somalis are not the same. Unity is good if it is fair and balanced. But when it gets inclined to one side, it leads to disaster, rather than progress. We, the Somalilanders, have seen it, and we are not ready to go back to the failed unity with our poor brothers, in Somalia. We are not ready to lose our independence that easily. I think that is very clear to all. Omer Hassan, Bloomington, MN, USA To me Tony Blair has no real desire to alleviate poverty, disease, illiteracy and to bring stability in the content of Africa Alganesh Weldu, Norway I am an Eritrean woman who lives abroad looking for peace of mind and struggling to prop up the worst life situation of my family who live in one of the countries in Africa that has an imminent threat of war. To me Tony Blair has no real desire to alleviate poverty, disease, illiteracy and to bring stability in the content of Africa. If we try to scrutinize and review his speech, his blue print and his close relation with Prime Minister Melles Zenawi it shows the existence of something behind the curtain. To see prominent persons like Tony Blair and Bush supporting those who are violating and offending laws for those who respect laws is great sorrow for majority of Eritreans and it will take aeons of time to forget/obliterate it from our minds. Alganesh Weldu, Oslo, Norway A new dawn and fresh page for the Somali people after a long struggle and suffering Mohamed Abdi Hassan The new election of President of Somali's interim parliament Sharif and the newly sworn president of Somalia Hon. Abdullahi Yusuf are a new dawn and fresh page for the Somali people after a long struggle and suffering. Let us put aside personal grudges and emotions and support the new system. I am from Sanag region and the majority of the people in Sanaag, Sool and Buhodle and many others from Hargeisa and Buroa and Borama regions whole heartedly support the new government. I was really moved by the support of many African head of states and Middle Eastern who presented themselves at the ceremony in Nairobi. It is time for healing our wounds and forgiving one another. Finger pointing and creating unnecessary alarms are never forgiving. A federal government where each state has its autonomy is what we missed in the sixties. Time has come where we can all stand together and built our shattered nation. Let's give maximum support to the new President. Abdullahi Yusuf. May God bless you. Mohamed Abdi Hassan I'm welcoming the commission's initiatives for Africa, I would like to see Africa to come up ideas to help and resolve their problems rather outside figures always coming first to help Africa's issues. I also appreciate Iqbal's brilliant view and I urge Africa countries to take an example from Somaliland's popular method for solving the issues, and it is about the time Africa get realistic and recognize Somaliland. Omar Abdul, Ottawa, Canada Those who think South Africa was right to recognise Western Sahara are wrong Ari Ayour, London Those who think South Africa was right to recognise Western Sahara are wrong. Western Sahara was and is Moroccan land before Spain occupation. The Almoravides dynasty was extended even to Mauritania and Mali. The inhabitants of Western Sahara were African Berbers. The issue of Western Sahara was made up with help of Algeria. Please read the historical facts about African issues. In order to go forward with Africa, we need to work harder, not rely on anybody to solve our problems. Africa has all the resources needed to do so. Africa is already subdivided. Ari Ayour, London, UK Whether you live in Sool or Burao in Somaliland you shouldn't be thinking like one who has only been created for clans. You need a life, development for you and your family. If I am from Burao and the government of Hargaysa did nothing for me. I must vote for the other party for the next election. Some people are claiming they have been in the USA and UK for 25 years and still travelling the world. Get up and tell us how we can develop Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia, Ethiopia and Africa as a whole. We know Africa is a good place but has had bad management and it needs improvement. Mohamoud Abdirahman Ali, Birmingham, UK Somalis are one people, one ethnicity, one religion, one language and one culture so it would make sense to have one country. Somali problems will only be fixed by Somalis who can understand what is going on from grassroots on up. Not by outsiders who only have a peripheral vision of the problem, just as you have a disagreement in your household it is most hurtful when an outsider comes in who not only knows of your problems but also takes sides. We as Somalis must move forward and forgive one another. Dr Hussien Ali Abdulahi, London I hope South Africa will lead the rightful diplomatic recognition of Somaliland Yassin, Somaliland It is a great pleasure to read Iqbal's views about neglected countries like Somaliland. I hope South Africa will lead the rightful diplomatic recognition of Somaliland as they did last month for recognition of Western Sahara. Yassin Abdillahi Ahmed, Hargeisa, Somaliland I agreed with Mr Iqbal's idea of freeness and self determination. It's a will of the person(s) and we will never ever get a life until we accept the self determination and free of speech. Ismail Keyse (Dheere), Oslo, Norway But now after the election of Somalia and when Abdullah Yusuf became president I lost my hope Mohamed Saeed, UK I am a 26-year-old Somaliland man. I have been away from my country for 23 years. I was born in Somaliland but I have never been there except for only one small visit for two months. Now I have a wife and two children. I want from deep within my heart that my children will be able to have a life in Somaliland after the election of parliament on 25 March 2005. That was my hope until a month ago. But now after the election of Somalia and when Abdullah Yusuf became president I lost my hope. So I now prefer to continue living in the UK. I think many feel the same. Africa is the no hope land because of dictatorships and because when the people remove them, the international community then gives them back their chair again and again. I hope to live in my country once again but I think this is not a possible dream for now. Until that day comes I would like to thank the UK government for all the help that they give us. Mohamed Saeed, UK (ex Hergisa, Somaliland) I commend the true vision and honest idea of Mr Iqbal D Jhazbhay. It is way overdue for Africans to recognize and respect the will of the people of any African nation or group. Both Somalilanders and Sahawarians have spoken and it must be respected. Well done Jhazbhay. Hassan M Ogeh Hirsi, Los Angeles, California, USA Surely, you will agree with me that one person's right to self-determination should not result in the oppression of another Mohamoud Jibrell, USA I am a Somali from the Sanaag region of Somalia and I have been living in the US for the past 24 years. I understand that you are an advocate of Somaliland independence/recognition but are you aware of the simple fact that inhabitants of 50% of the land that Somaliland claims do not want to be part of Somaliland? If the inhabitants of Hargeysa and Burco do not want to be dominated by any Mogadishu based government, I respect their right to self-determination. Surely, you will agree with me that one person's right to self-determination should not result in the oppression of another. Unfortunately, Somalis are a clan based society and the Hargeysa regime is dominated by one clan. The inhabitants of Hargeysa, Burco and Borama absolutely have the right to say they don't want to be a minority in Mogadishu. Both you and they should also respect the fact that the inhabitants of Sanaag and Sool regions do not want to be a minority in Hargeysa. I spent part of my very happy childhood in Hargeysa in the early 70s; unfortunately, I also have very sad memories of the atrocities committed by both the SNM militia and the NSS of the Siad Barre regime in Northern Somalia in the late 80s and early 90s. If you are ever in New York, I hope you will contact me so we may have a friendly debate. Insha Allah all of Somalia and indeed all of Africa will have a peaceful and prosperous future. Best regards, Mohamoud Jibrell, New York, USA To Mohamoud Jibrell, USA: If you have been following the news, you would know that 97% approved the referendum. I am from Sanaag; every one in Sanaag does not share your opinion. If you disagree please check the referendum. Mr Jhazbhay, thank you for your hard work. Ahmed M, Ohio, USA To Mohamoud Jibrell, USA: It is one step forward. Personally, I have a close attachment to professor Iqbal's activities and articles. In my opinion he is one of a few African intellectuals pushing for past wrongs to be rectified so that neglected people's rights are addressed once and for all! Let me say one thing to my fellow Somalilander from Sanaag region: You know that 97% Somalilanders voted for reclaim of their sovereignty and for Somaliland's constitution. From that vote, Somalilanders decided to take the fate of their nation in their own hands. Mr Iqbal was there when Somalilanders were voting. Mr Iqbal, keep up the good work, may Allah bless you. Mohamoud H Nugidoon, Ottawa, Canada I continuously followed the contradictory statements of Mr Iqbal, but I did not find it intellectually stimulating or academically inspiring, particularly when he calls for the division of Muslim territories, while vehemently supporting the unity of his country. Thank you. Omer Kulmiye, UK Iqbal's views about the neglected countries like Somaliland and Western Sahara is a mirror image reflection of what South Africa went through for all those years. It's time the Western countries realise the need to help those countries where the help can make a difference in life economically, politically and socially. Somaliland is an example of success; all it needs is to have common ground officially among the rest of the world. It doesn't cost that much, does it? Max Horeh, London, UK This is very sincere advice for the international community in order that they do not make the same mistake as they did denying the people of South Africa their right of self determination. Allowing the same ordeal in the 21st century means we never learn from mistakes. Mohammed Yousuf Abdi, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia I too hope that this commission will play a positive role in contributing a better life for all Asmahan Sh Mussa, Canada Thank you Iqbal for being such a staunch supporter of Somaliland. I too hope that this commission will play a positive role in contributing a better life for all and will take a hard look at both the Western Sahara and Somaliland. In the case of Somaliland a union that was illegal to begin with should not he upheld at any cost. It is time for Africa to take a hard look at its old and compromising policies and come up with solutions for those who have been held hostage by a union that is illegal. Once again I on behalf of the people of Somaliland thank you for your tireless efforts in bringing to the attention of the world this neglected country that has risen from the ashes. Also, I congratulate South Africa for doing the right thing in recognizing Western Sahara and also thank this nation for being a friend of Somaliland. Asmahan Sh Mussa, Toronto, Canada

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