9.12.2008
9.08.2008
9.03.2008
Security guards beat man in soccer arena, then get beat up by players, fans
Security guards break in their nightsticks on a banner-waving soccer fan running across the arena, prompting players and fans to storm the field and beat up the guards.
"I'm not for mob justice, but there's something good about seeing these bullies with 'authori-tah! and a nightstick' gettheir comeuppance from angry citizens."
"I'm not for mob justice, but there's something good about seeing these bullies with 'authori-tah! and a nightstick' gettheir comeuppance from angry citizens."
Free the grain: The Canadian Wheat Board is anti-consumer, anti-competitive, anti-poor and deserves to be dismantled
Mark Milke
Financial Post
Politicians who favour government monopolies pretend that when they nationalize companies or protect monopolies their actions are pragmatic and non-ideological, but any reversal that lets in competition is ideological.
The latest example comes courtesy of the Bloc Quebecois, New Democrats and Liberals. Last month, the troika of separatists, socialists and interventionists moved a motion in Parliament to require the federal government to hold a plebiscite for farmers on the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly: i.e., whether the Winnipeg-based "marketing" agency should continue to force Western farmers to sell all their wheat and barley only through the board. (The board is given its monopoly powers by the federal government.) On Monday, a report commissioned by the federal Conservative government recommended freeing farmers to sell their wheat and barley by 2008.
This recommendation might not set the boardrooms of corporate Canada afire but given that even CEOs eat breakfast cereals (the ingredients of which originate on the Prairies), even they might find the current system bizarre and unfair.
For example, one Manitoba farmer I talked to recently, Glenn Tizzey, notes the absurdity of the current system. If Tizzey wanted to mill wheat and barley -- which he presently won't, given current Wheat Board controls -- he'd be forced to unload both from his farm bins, put the grain in trucks, haul it 20-plus kilometres to the nearest grain elevator, sell it to the Wheat Board, pay a fee per tonne for the privilege and then buy both his barley and grain back from the board at a higher price -- all so he could process the product originally stored in grain bins about 40 metres from his factory mill.
To put this in Ontario terms, it's as if steel producers were forced to first ship their product through a government-mandated monopoly before they could buy it back at a higher price, and only then sell it to Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda.
But the parliamentary interventionists see no pragmatic case for abolishing the Wheat Board monopoly. "There is no business case for abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board; it is pure ideological madness," argued Winnipeg NDP Member of Parliament Pat Martin in Parliament last month.
The NDP's chief interventionist wasn't the only one to call for the retention of the monopoly. Also in Parliament, Liberal Agriculture critic Wayne Easter rhetorically asked of the Conservative government, "What will it not do to take power away from primary producers and give that power to the international grain trade?"
"Primary producers" -- Western farmers in the case of the Wheat Board -- have long had their power to decide where, how and to whom they will sell their wheat and barley taken away by Ottawa. In the past, dissenters who violated the monopoly have been jailed. So participating directly in international markets would be an improvement in their currently status. But Easter was just playing the local demagogue, complete with the usual anti-foreigner rhetoric.
But the hypocrisy is spread out evenly. The Wheat Board doesn't have jurisdiction in Quebec and the Bloc would never ask Ottawa to allow a federally created monopoly with Ottawa-sanctioned restrictive powers to enter la belle province and determine how Quebec agricultural interests market and sell their products.
The Wheat Board also doesn't operate in Ontario or Atlantic Canada. Easter, from Prince Edward Island, has yet to ask the government to expand the board's mandate to cover potatoes from P.E.I. or grapes, corn, barley and wheat from Ontario.
Such political doubletalk is also where the charge of ideology from Martin et al. is laid bare as transparent nonsense. The domestic and export markets work perfectly well in the West for every other agricultural product (and in the rest of Canada for all) where producers and buyers find each other without government help.
Worse than the rhetoric is the reality: The Wheat Board monopoly on Western grain and barley distribution is, as with dairy marketing boards, an anti-consumer cartel. The CWB boasts on its Web site that, "Instead of competing against one another for sales, Western Canada's 85,000 wheat and barley farmers sell as one through the CWB and can therefore command a higher return for their grain."
Insofar as the board's monopoly is defended on the justification that it brings higher prices to producers, such defenders frankly admit that consumers at home and abroad are being gouged. Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc like to think of themselves as friends of the poor. Not when they're busy keeping food prices higher than they would be in an open market. It's not only corporate CEOs who eat breakfast cereals made from prairie grains but families with marginal incomes.
As for the troika's motion to require a plebiscite among farmers, it's akin to asking grocery stores to vote on whether new competitors should be allowed; except for the very brave and competitive, a "no" answer would hardly come as a surprise, though that might not be the result in this case. Plenty of Western farmers don't like the Wheat Board.
Regardless, the Conservative government should move ahead and end the monopoly. The Canadian Wheat Board is an anti-consumer, anti-competitive, anti-poor cartel. It's time its' defenders faced up to those facts and for the board to face real-world competition.
Link
The Canadian Wheat Board's Last Stand?
Farmers fear that proposed changes in the CWB will mean that farmers lose out and transnationals cash in
by Anna Kirkpatrick
On October 25, Inside US Trade, an American business magazine, published a report that could have serious implications for Canadian grain farmers. The Report of Technical Task Force on Implementing Marketing Choice for Wheat and Barley was first released not to farmers or the Canadian public, but to this US journal. According to Stewart Wells, President of the National Farmers Union (NFU), that reveals something about the report's underlying aims. "That should provide some indication of whose interests are being served with this report," he said. Essentially, the report argues for eliminating the present Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and replacing it with the so-called CWB II, a move that many argue will threaten the viability of small wheat farmers in Canada and further increase the profitability of Big Agribusiness.
The Canadian Wheat Board was established on the initiative of farmers. At the beginning of the last century, farmers felt helpless at the hands of middlemen and market speculators, observing, among other things, an inordinate difference between the price they received and the eventual selling price. In response to this situation, the pre-cursor to the CWB was established in 1917. The Canadian Wheat Board Act was passed in 1935. The CWB has existed more or less in its present state for 70 years.
Today, the CWB is collectively owned by farmers and receives financial backing from the federal government (including low interest rates and guaranteed payments). The taskforce that wrote the report proposes to scrap the current board, which is composed of 15 members elected by farmers and five government representatives, and replace it with a board appointed entirely by the federal government. The move away from a farmer-controlled board is troubling for NFU's Wells. "Buried in the platitudes is the underlying theme of absolute government control of the Canadian Wheat Board," he said The report also suggests that the Board should be re-structured to a share-capital company, with shares available for sale to any interested buyer. The CWB argues that this move will shift control of the Board away from farmers and into the hands of shareholders. According to a statement issued by the CWB on November 6, "In the share-capital model, farmers are inevitably forced into the position of being a supplier instead of an owner."
Currently, the CWB has the exclusive right to market Western Canadian wheat and barley (with the minor exception of barley grown for feed). This function, referred to as a 'single-desk,' means that one organization represents all Western Canadian barley and wheat farmers. According to the NFU, "The CWB's single-desk selling advantage enables it to extract higher prices in world markets and to price-discriminate between buyers," thus getting more money for farmers. The NFU estimates that this advantage results in annual premiums of $265 million for wheat and $72 million for barley. The taskforce's report recommends that this feature be done away with, allowing other (mainly transnational) companies to compete. Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl, who appointed the taskforce but did not sit on it himself, is in agreement with the recommendations and endorses "freedom of choice for marketing of wheat and barley and voluntary participation in the CWB." But various critics have pointed out that the CWB cannot be both strong and voluntary.
Jan Slomp farms near Rimbey in central Alberta; she is one prairie farmer concerned about what will happen if the single-desk is abolished. According to Slomp, in an environment of so-called 'market choice,' "the CWB cannot function. It does not have elevators or terminals, like all the other grain companies do. So in order to do business it would have to use facilities that were owned by other grain companies, making it impossible to capture a price higher than the price offered by these companies." As the CWB notes in its response to the taskforce report: "In the absence of the single-desk, a 'strong and profitable CWB' is a myth. In the absence of a single-desk there is no viable alternative for the Canadian grain industry other than that which exists in the rest of the world."
Globally, the grain industry is dominated by transnational corporations with four companies controlling more than 70 per cent of international grain market. In a report published last year, the NFU notes that while corporate profits are on the increase, farmers are earning less: "…overall, Canadian farmers have not earned a single dollar of profits from the markets since 1984. Over the same period, agribusiness has accumulated profits almost certainly reaching into the trillions."
When asked who stands to benefit from proposed changes to the CWB, Slomp is brief and to the point. She names the four biggest players in the global grain trade: Cargill, Bunge, ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) and Louis Dreyfus. In its statement, the CWB warns that removing its single-desk function would have a crippling effect on Canadian farmers, while boosting the power of transnationals. Control would fall to companies whose "focus is quite naturally on the most profitable way to make the sale…[and who] are necessarily indifferent to whether the grain needed for the sale comes from Argentina, America or Ukraine."
Those who support the re-structuring of the CWB argue that the board is obsolete and not financially viable. Various economists and think tanks (such as the George Morris Centre, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the National Citizens Coalition) have suggested that farmers would have lower costs and higher returns if the CWB were disbanded. The NFU disagrees. After tallying the benefits provided by the CWB (including price premiums, low freight costs and efforts to prevent the introduction of GM wheat) the NFU estimates that the Board saves farmers over $800 million every year.
Despite serious opposition from farmers, Minister Strahl is pushing ahead. According to Strahl, "We have promised to implement a system of marketing choice, and we are moving in that direction." Until recently, Strahl dismissed the notion of farmer plebiscites to determine the future of the CWB, even though such votes are required by law under the Canadian Wheat Board Act. But already, the resistance of farmers has met with some success. According to Stewart Wells, while there is still no commitment to hold a wheat plebiscite, "Farmers have scored a major victory by forcing the federal government to conduct a plebiscite on barley." Much will depend on how the plebiscite is worded, however. Wells, for one, is not optimistic: "We don't have much confidence this government will run a fair vote on this plebiscite."
For Jan Slomp a future without the CWB is a grim prospect. "Many farmers have indicated to quit producing after the single-desk is gone," she said.
"It does not make sense to keep trying if all the farmer market power is gone."
Link
Major ice-shelf loss for Canada
The ice shelves in Canada's High Arctic have lost a colossal area this year, scientists report.
The floating tongues of ice attached to Ellesmere Island, which have lasted for thousands of years, have seen almost a quarter of their cover break away.
One of them, the 50 sq km (20 sq miles) Markham shelf, has completely broken off to become floating sea-ice.
Researchers say warm air temperatures and reduced sea-ice conditions in the region have assisted the break-up.
"These substantial calving events underscore the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Trent University's Dr Derek Mueller.
"These changes are irreversible under the present climate."
Link
Japan's new professional seducers
This woman leads a double life. Her boyfriend thinks she’s a secretary. In fact she is one of Japan’s new breed of professional seducers, hired by embittered spouses to entrap their straying partners. And she’ll stop at nothing to get the desired results.
Lesley Downer
Case 1: Mr A and Kyoko
3.30pm. Mr A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile and a cute giggle. Her blouse is open to reveal her cleavage and she has on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled grey suit and glasses.
Mr A met Kyoko by chance in the street; the first time she asked him for directions, then they bumped into each other again, and since then they have been exchanging flirtatious texts.
They stop off at a cigarette machine, then go to a cheap basement restaurant for spaghetti. He has bought her moisturiser and cleanser. She giggles coyly: “Next time, why don’t you give me a ring?” At 4.30 they’re outside a pawnbroker’s, looking at rings. Their shoulders touch, then they reach for each other’s hands.
They head for north Ikebukuro, an area of love hotels with velvet-covered walls, mirrored ceilings and sexy videos that rent rooms for two-hour periods. At 4.45 they go into one. They take a picture of the two of them on her mobile. At 6.07 they leave. At the station Mr A gives Kyoko a furtive goodbye kiss. Next time, he says, he’ll take her somewhere nice – a hot-spring resort maybe, or Tokyo Disneyland. Then he goes back to the office and, later, home to his wife.
Mr A doesn’t know that a team of private investigators is recording his every move. The boss, the ebullient Mr Tomiya, lurks behind a lamppost on the other side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras.
Link
How two students built an A-bomb
It's one of the burning questions of the moment: how easy would it be for a country with no nuclear expertise to build an A-bomb? Forty years ago in a top-secret project, the US military set about finding out.
Dave Dobson's past is not a secret. Not technically, anyway - not since the relevant US government intelligence documents were declassified and placed in the vaults of the National Security Archive, in Washington DC. But Dobson, now 65, is a modest man, and once he had discovered his vocation - teaching physics at Beloit College, in Wisconsin - he felt no need to drop dark hints about his earlier life. You could have taken any number of classes at Beloit with Professor Dobson, until his recent retirement, without having any reason to know that in his mid-20s, working entirely as an amateur and equipped with little more than a notebook and a library card, he designed a nuclear bomb.
Today his experiences in 1964 - the year he was enlisted into a covert Pentagon operation known as the Nth Country Project - suddenly seem as terrifyingly relevant as ever. The question the project was designed to answer was a simple one: could a couple of non-experts, with brains but no access to classified research, crack the "nuclear secret"?
Link
"If it can be done by certain humans, it can be done by other humans."
9.01.2008
The Selling of World War III
Are we ready to buy World War III? Is it a product we can use?
by Timothy K. Perry
(Libertarian)
Monday, September 1, 2008
The Summer of 2008 has excited End Time eschatologists with Russia and the U.S. talking veiled threats of World War III over the aftermath of the South Ossetian conflict. And then of course, let us not forget the Iranian Drama which apparently excites so much Neo-Con bloodlust that nuclear strikes are seen as not only possible but inevitable, the sooner the better they say. Iran must be atom bombed in the interests of world peace. It must be remembered that however skilled a group is in military strategy and execution, the launching of even small scale nuclear warheads is one of the most dangerous decisions any group will ever make in the history of the human race. If such an option is used, for whatever political reason or reasons, it is a decision with a very high probability factor of igniting into a greater conflict or conflicts where more nuclear warheads are used, in short, the very real somber launching of all-out nuclear war. This would then be a decision that immediately suggests nuclear escalation leading up to The Unthinkable: the complete annihilation of all sentient life forms on the earth, except for possibly a colony of hardy cockroaches.
Link
I was fired for ordering the cups
For the last company picnic, management had decided that, due to liability issues, we could have alcohol, but only one (1) drink per person.
I was fired for ordering the cups.
Ordering from the 'secret' menu at fast food restaurants
Ever had a neopolitan milkshake from McDonald’s?
One where they layer the chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla flavors in the same cup, creating a thick, icy, slow-moving light-brown-swirls-with-pink-flecks taste sensation? Yeah, my friend Chad was a regular customer of those. Of course, when he was working at McDonald’s he got sick of the regular menu pretty quickly and started tinkering in the back like a mad scientist with his coworkers, developing exotic, unstable, and unpredictable meal creations with the ingredients on hand. Yes, there were failed attempts, like the Chicken McNugget Flurry, but sometimes they struck gold and created a new off-the-menu line extension. I guess this is fairly common, because there are reports of online McDonald’s employee communities, where insider recipes such as the McBrushetta and McPancakeBatterFunnelCakes are shared.
Now, my world opened up when I first realized that you could order off-the-menu at fast food restaurants. Since that time I’ve learned about a few other secret options around. Like for instance:
Link
8.31.2008
Things We Forgot To Remember - The Bengal famine of 1943
One day in front of the Municipal Office I saw a little girl trying to drink her mother’s milk. But the girl did not realise that the mother was dead.
I still remember as a young boy seeing those starving men and women and children in the streets. They lay there and they died. As easy and simple and weird as that. They died.
It’s a catastrophe that in Britain at least is not so much misremembered as completely forgotten. It claimed the lives of millions. The Bengal famine of 1943 occurred when provincial government was largely in the hands of Indians but Britain remained the colonial power. Both the Indians and the British have good reason to forget for it makes uncomfortable listening even today.
And I was quite appalled at the end of Satyajit Ray’s film as we see a backdrop of famine victims slowly moving across the landscape he says that the manmade famine in Bengal in 1943-44, killed five million people. I’d never heard of this. And I went to my history books in my big personal library. It was not there. I immediately went to a local, very large academic library and there the primary documents from Bengali sociologists and academics from American writers and indeed some British writers, it was there in the Achaean academic literature.
Link
8.30.2008
Top 5 Gadgets That Could Get You Arrested
OK, we'll admit it. Some of us are drawn to dangerous gear like bears to a picnic basket. There's just something devilishly appealing about mixing a few of our favorite things (tech toys) with one of our least (a ride in the back of a squad car).
Although we'd never condone breaking the law with these five gadgets, we can't deny our morbid fascination with them. Just remember: If misused, these gizmos could get you slapped with a set of handcuffs along with a criminal record.
Link
Although we'd never condone breaking the law with these five gadgets, we can't deny our morbid fascination with them. Just remember: If misused, these gizmos could get you slapped with a set of handcuffs along with a criminal record.
Link
The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History
There was a TV ad for deodorant that said, "Never let them see you sweat." The John McCain campaign has just showed the world that it is drenched.
Selecting Sarah Palin as its choice for a vice presidential candidate is perhaps the worst such choice in American History. To be fair, maybe there are worse choices, but I don't know how bad William O. Butler was when he ran with Lewis Cass against Zachary Taylor.
But it's far worse than Dan Quayle, who was a sitting senator. Worse even than Geraldine Ferraro, who at least served in Congress for three-terms. And far worse than William Miller, a choice so obscure when selected by Barry Goldwater that he (honestly) later did an American Express commercial asking, "Do you know me?" And that ad was after the election. But even Miller had been a Congressman for 12 years. And been a prosecutor during the Nuremberg War trials against Nazis. Sarah Palin lists her credits as a hockey mom.
There was a point during the Republican primaries when I was trying to figure out who I hoped got the presidential nomination. Someone so weak he'd be easy for the Democrats to beat, or someone more challenging who at least wouldn't be a disaster for America. I decided on the latter because America has to resolve its serious problems and can't afford risking some glitch where another George Bush got elected. And so I felt that John McCain, for all his weaknesses, was the lesser of all evils and was glad he got the nomination. Throw that out the window. McCain-Palin is an unthinkable disaster.
I completely understand the reasoning behind the decision for John McCain to select Sarah Palin. Absolutely. It's the thinking that settled on Sarah Palin that's missing.
No doubt John McCain will get some women to vote for him who wouldn't have otherwise, and even some independents. But he will also probably lose as many Republicans uncomfortable with a woman on the ticket - let alone a woman with so little experience as Sarah Palin. Not to mention that the choice will cause many undecided Democratic women to be aghast and push them back to following their Democratic beliefs. And further, it will lose all the independents who look at the GOP ticket and say "This is who I'm supposed to give my vote for the next four years to lead and protect America??" It may even appeal to right-wing evangelicals for her strong pro-life stance and get some to vote - but that position and others related to it are specifically what loses even more women voters. And men. Ultimately, the nomination will lose far, far more votes than it gains.
But this is not the reason the decision is so terrible.
Link
"Some excellent points, unless something goes drastically wrong with Obama's campaign, I do believe we will have the first black president in the USA."
Selecting Sarah Palin as its choice for a vice presidential candidate is perhaps the worst such choice in American History. To be fair, maybe there are worse choices, but I don't know how bad William O. Butler was when he ran with Lewis Cass against Zachary Taylor.
But it's far worse than Dan Quayle, who was a sitting senator. Worse even than Geraldine Ferraro, who at least served in Congress for three-terms. And far worse than William Miller, a choice so obscure when selected by Barry Goldwater that he (honestly) later did an American Express commercial asking, "Do you know me?" And that ad was after the election. But even Miller had been a Congressman for 12 years. And been a prosecutor during the Nuremberg War trials against Nazis. Sarah Palin lists her credits as a hockey mom.
There was a point during the Republican primaries when I was trying to figure out who I hoped got the presidential nomination. Someone so weak he'd be easy for the Democrats to beat, or someone more challenging who at least wouldn't be a disaster for America. I decided on the latter because America has to resolve its serious problems and can't afford risking some glitch where another George Bush got elected. And so I felt that John McCain, for all his weaknesses, was the lesser of all evils and was glad he got the nomination. Throw that out the window. McCain-Palin is an unthinkable disaster.
I completely understand the reasoning behind the decision for John McCain to select Sarah Palin. Absolutely. It's the thinking that settled on Sarah Palin that's missing.
No doubt John McCain will get some women to vote for him who wouldn't have otherwise, and even some independents. But he will also probably lose as many Republicans uncomfortable with a woman on the ticket - let alone a woman with so little experience as Sarah Palin. Not to mention that the choice will cause many undecided Democratic women to be aghast and push them back to following their Democratic beliefs. And further, it will lose all the independents who look at the GOP ticket and say "This is who I'm supposed to give my vote for the next four years to lead and protect America??" It may even appeal to right-wing evangelicals for her strong pro-life stance and get some to vote - but that position and others related to it are specifically what loses even more women voters. And men. Ultimately, the nomination will lose far, far more votes than it gains.
But this is not the reason the decision is so terrible.
Link
"Some excellent points, unless something goes drastically wrong with Obama's campaign, I do believe we will have the first black president in the USA."
8.29.2008
8.28.2008
Dealing with Difficult People
Can you recall the last time you had to deal with a negative or difficult person? Or the last time someone said something with the intention of hurting you? How did you handle it? What was the result? What can you do in the future to get through these situations with peace and grace?
No matter where we go, we will face people who are negative, people who oppose our ideas, people who piss us off or people who simply do not like us. There are 6.4 billion people out there and conflict is a fact of life. This fact isn’t the cause of conflict but it is the trigger to our emotions and our emotions are what drive us back to our most basic survival instinct; react and attack back to defend ourselves.
In these instinctual moments, we may lose track of our higher selves and become the human animal with an urge to protect ourselves when attacked. This too is natural. However, we are the only animal blessed with intelligence and having the ability to control our responses. So how can we do that?
I regularly get asked “How do you deal with the negative comments about your articles? They are brutal. I don’t think I could handle them.” My answer is simple, “I don’t let it bother me to begin with.” It wasn’t always this simple, and took me some time before overcoming this natural urgency to protect myself and attack back.
I know it’s not easy, if it was easy, there wouldn’t be difficult or negative people to begin with.
15 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People
While I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with negativity, it is something I find myself having to actively work on. When I’m caught off guard and end up resorting to a defensive position, the result rarely turns out well.
The point is, we are humans after all, and we have emotions and egos. However, by keeping our egos in-check and inserting emotional intelligence, we’ll not only be doing a favor for our health and mental space, but we’ll also have intercepted a situation that would have gone bad, unnecessarily.
Here are some tips for dealing with a difficult person or negative message:
1. Forgive - What would the Dali Lama do if he was in the situation? He would most likely forgive. Remember that at our very core, we are good, but our judgment becomes clouded and we may say hurtful things. Ask yourself, “What is it about this situation or person that I can seek to understand and forgive?“
2. Wait it Out - Sometimes I feel compelled to instantly send an email defending myself. I’ve learned that emotionally charged emails never get us the result we want; they only add oil to the fire. What is helpful is inserting time to allow ourselves to cool off. You can write the emotionally charged email to the person, just don’t send it off. Wait until you’ve cooled off before responding, if you choose to respond at all.
3. “Does it really matter if I am right?” - Sometimes we respond with the intention of defending the side we took a position on. If you find yourself arguing for the sake of being right, ask “Does it matter if I am right?” If yes, then ask “Why do I need to be right? What will I gain?“
4. Don’t Respond - Many times when a person initiates a negative message or difficult attitude, they are trying to trigger a response from you. When we react, we are actually giving them what they want. Let’s stop the cycle of negative snowballing and sell them short on what they’re looking for; don’t bother responding.
5. Stop Talking About It - When you have a problem or a conflict in your life, don’t you find that people just love talking about it? We end up repeating the story to anyone who’ll listen. We express how much we hate the situation or person. What we fail to recognize in these moments is that the more we talk about something, the more of that thing we’ll notice. Example, the more we talk about how much we dislike a person, the more hate we will feel towards them and the more we’ll notice things about them that we dislike. Stop giving it energy, stop thinking about it, and stop talking about it. Do your best to not repeat the story to others.
6. Be In Their Shoes - As cliché as this may sound, we tend to forget that we become blind sighted in the situation. Try putting yourself in their position and consider how you may have hurt their feelings. This understanding will give you a new perspective on becoming rational again, and may help you develop compassion for the other person.
7. Look for the Lessons - No situation is ever lost if we can take away from it some lessons that will help us grow and become a better person. Regardless of how negative a scenario may appear, there is always a hidden gift in the form of a lesson. Find the lesson(s).
8. Choose to Eliminate Negative People In Your Life - Negative people can be a source of energy drain. And deeply unhappy people will want to bring you down emotionally, so that they are not down there alone. Be aware of this. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands and do not mind the energy drain, I recommend that you cut them off from your life. Cut them out by avoiding interactions with them as much as possible. Remember that you have the choice to commit to being surrounded by people who have the qualities you admire: optimistic, positive, peaceful and encouraging people. As Kathy Sierra said, “Be around the change you want to see in the world.”
9. Become the Observer - When we practice becoming the observer of our feelings, our thoughts and the situation, we separate ourselves away from the emotions. Instead of identifying with the emotions and letting them consume us, we observe them with clarity and detachment. When you find yourself identifying with emotions and thoughts, bring your focus on your breathe.
10. Go for a Run … or a swim, or some other workout. Physical exercise can help to release the negative and excess energy in us. Use exercise as a tool to clear your mind and release built up negative energy.
11. Worst Case Scenario - Ask yourself two questions, “If I do not respond, what is the worst thing that can result from it?“, “If I do respond, what is the worst thing that can result from it?” Answering these questions often adds perspectives to the situation, and you’ll realize that nothing good will come out of reacting. Your energy will be wasted, and your inner space disturbed.
12. Avoid Heated Discussions - When we’re emotionally charged, we are so much in our heads that we argue out of an impulse to be right, to defend ourselves, for the sake of our egos. Rationality and resolution can rarely arise out of these discussions. If a discussion is necessary, wait until everyone has cooled off before diving into one.
13. Most Important - List out things in your life most important to you. Then ask yourself, “Will a reaction to this person contribute to the things that matter most to me?“
14. Pour Honey - This doesn’t always work, but sometimes catches people off guard when they’re trying to “Pour Poison” on you. Compliment the other person for something they did well, tell them you’ve learned something new through interacting with them, and maybe offer to become friends. Remember to be genuine. You might have to dig deep to find something that you appreciate about this person.
15. Express It - Take out some scrap paper and dump all the random and negative thoughts out of you by writing freely without editing. Continue to do so until you have nothing else to say. Now, roll the paper up into a ball, close your eyes and visualize that all the negative energy is now inside that paper ball. Toss the paper ball in the trash. Let it go!
Link
8.27.2008
Carbon Offsets: More Harm Than Good?
By MELISSA CHECKER
From Coldplay to Leonardo diCaprio to Al Gore, influential environmentalists are increasingly modeling green behavior by neutralizing their carbon emissions through carbon offsets. Briefly, offsets are based on the notion that consumers can balance out carbon intensive activities, like travel, by contributing to projects that reduce greenhouse gases. Between 2005 and 2007 the market for carbon offsets grew 175%, reaching $110 million (Faris 2007). But just as buying indulgences in the Middle Ages never really erased your sins, carbon offsets rarely counteract your carbon use. Moreover, in some cases, carbon offset projects actually hurt local people. Many experts now believe that well-intentioned consumers are not just wasting their money on offsets, but that purchasing them actually does more harm than good.
How it Works
Suppose you buy airplane tickets for your family’s summer vacation on a website like Travelocity, Orbitz or Expedia. Somewhere in the process of taking your credit card information, the website will ask whether you would like to offset your trip’s carbon emissions for a nominal fee (e.g., a roundtrip flight from NYC to San Francisco = 5,142 miles = 2,455 lbs CO2 = $17.85). Or, you can offset your car rental, hotel stay and flight (a seven day cross-country trip can be offset for $5.44/day/person). You can also offset your wedding, and, if you’re feeling guilty on a daily basis, you can offset energy usage in your home, or your dorm room.
At this point, your original travel search engine will have linked you to a carbon offset company. These for-profit organizations act as brokers, channeling consumer contributions to projects that either replace atmospheric carbon (i.e., by planting trees) or promote renewable energy. Sounds promising, but is it really so easy to “zero-out” the carbon that leads global warming? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
The Trouble with Trees
Take, for example, carbon sequestration programs, which account for approximately 20% of the carbon offset market. Based on the idea that trees absorb carbon, these programs sponsor the planting of large forests designed to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For over a decade, governments and non-profit foundations in the developing world have been offering large sums of money to developing countries in exchange for tree plantations, also known as “carbon sinks”.
However scientists point out that there is a major difference between the kind of carbon emitted from the burning of fossil fuels and the kind of carbon stored by trees. “Carbon emissions from burned oil, gas or coal cannot be considered as equal to the same amount of biological carbon in a tree,” write scientists at the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN 2005). Whereas in nature, carbon moves freely between forests, oceans and air, the fossil carbon pool is inert. Once out of the ground and into the air via cars, coal extraction, etc., fossil carbon joins the active carbon pool. It will not return to the fossil carbon pool for millennia. So, the carbon absorbed by trees does not zero out the carbon emitted by airplanes.
Even if the carbon were equivalent, trees are not necessarily reliable carbon storehouses. First, scientists point out that when trees burn, rot, or are chopped down, they release any carbon they have stored (Kill 2003). Second, according to ecologist Ram Oren, principal investigator on Duke University’s ongoing Free Air Carbon Enrichment project, if trees do not receive enough water or nutrients, any extra carbon they store very quickly goes back into the atmosphere (Cropping 2007). For instance, in 2002, the band Coldplay announced it would offset the environmental impact caused by the release of its second album by planting 10,000 mango trees in southern India. More precisely, Coldplay worked with CarbonNeutral, an offset company, which in turn contracted with Women for Sustainable Development, an NGO. Eventually funds went to local farmers who were supposed to plant and care for the trees. However, four years after the album's release, many of the trees had died – a drought dried the soil, and many villagers never received funding to help them maintain their trees (Dhillon and Harnden 2006).
Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Violations
The Coldplay/Carbon Neutral project left behind more than just dead mango trees. Indian villagers, who are economically marginalized to begin with, invested time and energy that could have been directed at other, more secure income-generating projects. In fact, one of the biggest problems with Carbon offset schemes, particularly forests, is their lack of attention to the lives of local people. Frequently, carbon sinks displace local populations, generating poverty, inequality, and food and water scarcity. They also drastically reduce biological diversity. In turn, the erosion of resources at every level exacerbates local conflicts (McAfee 2003). Even more seriously, some carbon offset tree plantations have become an excuse for human rights violations.
One well-known case exemplifies the violence created by offset forests. In the early 1990s, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Face Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established by Dutch power companies, launched an initiative to plant scores of trees in Mount Elgon National Park. In order to implement the project, the Ugandan government evicted thousands of local farmers. Most have been fighting to regain their land ever since.
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Cranberry juice creates energy barrier that keeps bacteria away from cells
For generations, people have consumed cranberry juice, convinced of its power to ward off urinary tract infections, though the exact mechanism of its action has not been well understood. A new study by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) reveals that the juice changes the thermodynamic properties of bacteria in the urinary tract, creating an energy barrier that prevents the microorganisms from getting close enough to latch onto cells and initiate an infection.
The study, published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces: B, was conducted by Terri Camesano, associate professor of chemical engineering at WPI, and a team of graduate students, including PhD candidate Yatao Liu. They exposed two varieties of E. coli bacteria, one with hair-like projections known as fimbriae and one without, to different concentrations of cranberry juice. Fimbriae are present on a number of virulent bacteria, including those that cause urinary tract infections, and are believed to be used by bacteria to form strong bonds with cells.
For the fimbriaed bacteria, they found that even at low concentrations, cranberry juice altered two properties that serve as indicators of the ability of bacteria to attach to cells. The first factor is called Gibbs free energy of attachment, which is a measure of the amount of energy that must be expended before a bacterium can attach to a cell. Without cranberry juice, this value was a negative number, indicating that energy would be released and attachment was highly likely. With cranberry juice the number was positive and it grew steadily as the concentration of juice increased, making attachment to urinary tract cells increasingly unlikely.
Surface free energy also rose, suggesting that the presence of cranberry juice creates an energy barrier that repels the bacteria. The researchers also placed the bacteria and urinary tract cells together in solution. Without cranberry juice, the fimbriaed bacteria attached readily to the cells. As increasing concentrations of cranberry juice were added to the solution, fewer and fewer attachments were observed.
Cranberry juice had no discernible effect on E. coli bacteria without fimbriae, suggesting that compounds in the juice may act directly on the molecular structure of the fimbriae themselves. This reinforces previous work by the WPI team that showed that exposure to cranberry juice alters the shape of the fimbriae, causing them to become compressed. Using an atomic force microscope as a minute strain gauge, the team also showed that the adhesive force exerted by bacteria on urinary tract cells declined in direct proportion to the concentration of cranberry juice in the solution.
“Our results show that, at least for urinary tract infections, cranberry juice targets the right bacteria—those that cause disease—but has no effect on non-pathogenic organisms, suggesting that cranberry juice will not disrupt bacteria that are part of the normal flora in the gut,” Camesano says. “We have also shown that this effect occurs at concentrations of cranberry juice that are comparable to levels we would expect to find in the urinary tract.”
Camesano notes that unpublished work has shown that while cranberry juice has potent effects on disease-causing bacteria, those effects are transitory. “When we takes E. coli. bacteria that have been treated with cranberry juice and place them in normal growth media, they regain the ability to adhere to urinary tract cells,” she says. “This suggests that to realize the antibacterial benefits of cranberry, one must consume cranberry juice regularly—perhaps daily.”
For those watching calories, Camesano says other recent work in her lab has shown that the effects of regular cranberry juice cocktail and diet (sugar-free) cranberry juice are identical. “That’s good news for people who do not like to consume a lot of sugary juice,” she says.
Source: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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When Good Lizards Go Bad: Komodo Dragons Take Violent Turn
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
August 25, 2008; Page A1
KAMPUNG KOMODO, Indonesia -- At least once a week, an unwelcome intruder crawls under a clapboard wall and, forked tongue darting, lumbers its way into Syarif Maulana's classroom.
"Then, everyone screams, there is no more school, and we all run away very fast," says the 10-year-old boy. "We are very afraid."
The intruder, a Komodo dragon, is the world's largest lizard, an ancient, fierce carnivore found only on a handful of remote islands in eastern Indonesia. Reaching 10 feet in length, the dragons feed on buffaloes, deer and an occasional human. Just a year ago, a boy about Syarif's age died in a dragon's jaws, his bones smashed against rocks to facilitate reptilian digestion.
That killing, and a spate of other close encounters, has fanned a panic in the dragons' main habitat, the Komodo National Park. Touted by Indonesia as its "Jurassic Park," this rocky, barren archipelago is home to some 2,500 dragons and nearly 4,000 people, clustered in four fishing villages of wooden stilt houses.
These locals have long viewed the dragons as a reincarnation of fellow kinsfolk, to be treated with reverence. But now, villagers say, the once-friendly dragons have turned into vicious man-eaters. And they blame policies drafted by American-funded environmentalists for this frightening turn of events.
"When I was growing up, I felt the dragons were my family," says 55-year-old Hajji Faisal. "But today the dragons are angry with us, and see us as enemies." The reason, he and many other villagers believe, is that environmentalists, in the name of preserving nature, have destroyed Komodo's age-old symbiosis between dragon and man.
For centuries, local tradition required feeding the dragons -- which live more than 50 years, can recognize individual humans and usually stick to fairly small areas. Locals say they always left deer parts for the dragons after a hunt, and often tied goats to a post as sacrifice. Island taboos strictly prohibited hurting the giant reptiles, a possible reason why the dragons have survived in the Komodo area despite becoming extinct everywhere else.
'Sacred Duty'
"For us, giving food to the dragons is an obligation, our sacred duty," says Hajji Adam, headman of the park's biggest village, Kampung Komodo.
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Waffle Bike
Waffle Bike is a fully weaponized waffle making device complete with call to prayer public address system.
AC/DC new album Black Ice is revealed
By Kathy McCabe
August 18, 2008 04:05pm
THE Rock'n'Roll Train will soon be pulling into a station near you, driven by none other than the world's biggest rock band, AC/DC.
The legendary Australian rockers, who have made their reputation by staying true to their chosen genre's signatures, announced their new single Rock'N'Roll Train will hit the airwaves on August 28.
It introduces their first new album in eight years, Black Ice, which is guaranteed to be one of the biggest selling records of the year when it drops on October 18.
The band finished the record with repsected rock producer Brendan O'Brien in Vancouver in just eight weeks and recently filmed a video for Rock'n'Roll Train, which will premiere next month.
Black Ice will feature 15 tracks including She Likes Rock'n'Roll and War Machine.
You gotta love a band who don't mess around with their song titles.
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Introducing Fortune Cookies to China
Are fortune cookies Chinese?
Clearly not. They are arguably more American (by way of Japan), judging by the way that people in China react to fortune cookies — with a mixture of confusion and amusement. As part of research for my book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, I went around China handing out fortune cookies to random people (my bellhop, people on the street, vendors) and recorded their reactions.
Often times, they would put the cookies in their mouth, and then be surprised when they found a piece of paper either in their mouth or in a cookie.
Fortune cookies are not intuitive. This was confirmed when I discovered a woman named Nana Shi who was making fortune cookies in China. But she too put instructions on the red wrapper telling people to break the cookie before eating them because they were necessary.
Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies, looking to them for winning lottery numbers and becoming upset when the fortunes inside are unfortunate. The Chinese, on the other hand, would often tell me after trying the curved vanilla-flavored wafers, “Americans are so strange, why are they putting pieces of paper in their cookies?”
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Clearly not. They are arguably more American (by way of Japan), judging by the way that people in China react to fortune cookies — with a mixture of confusion and amusement. As part of research for my book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, I went around China handing out fortune cookies to random people (my bellhop, people on the street, vendors) and recorded their reactions.
Often times, they would put the cookies in their mouth, and then be surprised when they found a piece of paper either in their mouth or in a cookie.
Fortune cookies are not intuitive. This was confirmed when I discovered a woman named Nana Shi who was making fortune cookies in China. But she too put instructions on the red wrapper telling people to break the cookie before eating them because they were necessary.
Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies, looking to them for winning lottery numbers and becoming upset when the fortunes inside are unfortunate. The Chinese, on the other hand, would often tell me after trying the curved vanilla-flavored wafers, “Americans are so strange, why are they putting pieces of paper in their cookies?”
Link
TELUS Forcing Customers Off Unlimited Plans
"Canadian telco TELUS sold a bunch of (expensive) Unlimited EV-DO aircard accounts last winter and are now summarily canceling them or forcing people to switch to much less valuable plans. TELUS is citing 'Violations,' but their Terms Of Service (see #5) are utterly vague and self-contradictory. The TELUS plans were marketed as being unlimited, without the soft/hard caps that the other providers had at the time. They were purchased by a lot of rural Canadians who had no other choice except dialup. Now TELUS is forcing everyone to switch from a $75 Unlimited plan to a $65 1GB plan, and canceling those who won't switch. Have a look at the thread at Howardforums, a discussion of the TELUS ToS (in red at the bottom), an EV-DO blogger who's been a victim, a post at Electronista, and of course Verizon getting fined for doing the same thing! Michael Geist has taken an interest as well."
Link
"Nothing like giving the customer what they don't want!"
8.26.2008
Canada remains happily mediocre
Bruce Dowbiggin, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Was I the only one wondering why Donovan Bailey, perhaps the greatest Summer Olympian ever in this country, was mentoring Jamaican athletes in Beijing? Why was he hugging Usain Bolt, not Canadians Gary Reed or Priscilla Lopes-Schliep? Oh, right . . . he was frozen out by Canadian officials despite a medal dry spell going back to 1996 for Canadian track.
Am I the only one who wonders why this is going on in a country that supposedly needs all the help it can get?
Our athletes won 18 medals. A lot better than the 12 in Athens. Better than the 14 in Sydney. A lot more than anyone believed in the futile first week in Beijing. The nation finished in the top 14 nations, slightly ahead of its own predictions. Tied with Spain! And we had another nine near-misses for fourth (can we get the IOC to cast a copper medal?)
Eighty per cent of Canadians think the team did a swell job. So let's celebrate as Canada exceeds expectations at the Summer Olympics.
Or not. There was something hollow in much of Canada's self-satisfied Olympic machinery in Beijing. Call it the triumph of low expectations. Like the faux-Beatles commercials for Little Mosque On The Prairie flogged by CBC during the Games, (turns out that virtually none of Little Mosque's actors are even Islamic), there was a smug satisfaction with our cleverness in grabbing a whole three gold medals in China.
Hey, look at us, overcoming the odds. Underdogs defying gravity.
As one reader has pointed out, much of that medal production came in low-hanging fruit, sports such as trampoline, rowing, diving and wrestling, with smaller participant bases. In the major team sports that enjoy worldwide attention, there had not been a Canadian squad that has won a medal in a summer Games since 1936. Soccer. Basketball. Field hockey. Baseball. Volleyball. Kaput.
Canada has (for the past three Olympics) virtually disappeared in the swimming pool. The track team that kicked butt in Athens in 1996 is now a hope here and a prospect there. After Kyle Shewfelt's 2004 revelation in gymnastics, Canada once more disappeared in the sport in Beijing. Boxing? Zilch. Cycling: Nada.
This is not to knock the athletes who dedicate themselves with their hearts and soul. They try, they sacrifice. But there are still too many in this country consoled by a nanny culture that celebrates 17th place with a trophy. CBC and other Canadian media compliantly promote the plucky Canuck scenario, but it obscures the reality of what can truly be achieved in Canada.
Let's reflect on this wonderful country a moment. Blessed with great prosperity, immense talent and guaranteed health care for all, we still can't win more than three gold medals in each of the past three Olympics? Spain's a cool place to visit, but with our resources we should school them (and much of the world) on a quadrennial basis.
Some will say that, unlike the Australias and Spains, we must split our focus between Summer and Winter games, diminishing our resources. Vancouver 2010 is the big dog that must eat first. That our corporate community is too branch-plant to mount the funding effort needed to push Canada to the top. Government has other priorities for the money.
All good excuses. Excuses that many in the sports community and media readily grab to explain failure. Reliable, clutch performers such as Alex Despatie or Karen Cockburn are the exception, not the rule in Canada's Olympic firmament. There are legions who believe that, when the going gets tough, it's time to go home.
There is reportedly a new spirit in our sports culture -- Own The Podium -- that seems to be working on the Winter Games side. Our hockey teams now possess a newfound mental toughness. The ski team is headed in the right direction, etc. Vancouver could be the showcase for mental toughness that Summer Games are not.
Now, former swim hero Alex Baumann has been repatriated from Australia to spread this gospel to Canada's summer athletes. Maybe we'll see the rewards of that by London in 2012. But why not also bring Bailey and Bruny Surin back as well to help the track team? There are still too many stories out there about bureaucrats who refuse to rethink the paradigm of carded athletes and mediocre coaches in their sports.
In women's field hockey, for instance, a group of parents and supporters came forth with four proposals to make sure the team gets to the Games in 2012 after failing to reach Beijing. They were turned down each time by the governing body. This is not an aberration in Canadian sport.
Look, if we want to be the world's 14th-place team, that's fine by me. But let's not pretend that riding in the fumes of other nations is the natural state of our potential, either. We can do better. We just choose not to and then create a myth of inferiority to excuse the results. (We do this is in business, too.) Canada has the best -- we just need to tell them it's OK to be so.
Link
Published: Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Was I the only one wondering why Donovan Bailey, perhaps the greatest Summer Olympian ever in this country, was mentoring Jamaican athletes in Beijing? Why was he hugging Usain Bolt, not Canadians Gary Reed or Priscilla Lopes-Schliep? Oh, right . . . he was frozen out by Canadian officials despite a medal dry spell going back to 1996 for Canadian track.
Am I the only one who wonders why this is going on in a country that supposedly needs all the help it can get?
Our athletes won 18 medals. A lot better than the 12 in Athens. Better than the 14 in Sydney. A lot more than anyone believed in the futile first week in Beijing. The nation finished in the top 14 nations, slightly ahead of its own predictions. Tied with Spain! And we had another nine near-misses for fourth (can we get the IOC to cast a copper medal?)
Eighty per cent of Canadians think the team did a swell job. So let's celebrate as Canada exceeds expectations at the Summer Olympics.
Or not. There was something hollow in much of Canada's self-satisfied Olympic machinery in Beijing. Call it the triumph of low expectations. Like the faux-Beatles commercials for Little Mosque On The Prairie flogged by CBC during the Games, (turns out that virtually none of Little Mosque's actors are even Islamic), there was a smug satisfaction with our cleverness in grabbing a whole three gold medals in China.
Hey, look at us, overcoming the odds. Underdogs defying gravity.
As one reader has pointed out, much of that medal production came in low-hanging fruit, sports such as trampoline, rowing, diving and wrestling, with smaller participant bases. In the major team sports that enjoy worldwide attention, there had not been a Canadian squad that has won a medal in a summer Games since 1936. Soccer. Basketball. Field hockey. Baseball. Volleyball. Kaput.
Canada has (for the past three Olympics) virtually disappeared in the swimming pool. The track team that kicked butt in Athens in 1996 is now a hope here and a prospect there. After Kyle Shewfelt's 2004 revelation in gymnastics, Canada once more disappeared in the sport in Beijing. Boxing? Zilch. Cycling: Nada.
This is not to knock the athletes who dedicate themselves with their hearts and soul. They try, they sacrifice. But there are still too many in this country consoled by a nanny culture that celebrates 17th place with a trophy. CBC and other Canadian media compliantly promote the plucky Canuck scenario, but it obscures the reality of what can truly be achieved in Canada.
Let's reflect on this wonderful country a moment. Blessed with great prosperity, immense talent and guaranteed health care for all, we still can't win more than three gold medals in each of the past three Olympics? Spain's a cool place to visit, but with our resources we should school them (and much of the world) on a quadrennial basis.
Some will say that, unlike the Australias and Spains, we must split our focus between Summer and Winter games, diminishing our resources. Vancouver 2010 is the big dog that must eat first. That our corporate community is too branch-plant to mount the funding effort needed to push Canada to the top. Government has other priorities for the money.
All good excuses. Excuses that many in the sports community and media readily grab to explain failure. Reliable, clutch performers such as Alex Despatie or Karen Cockburn are the exception, not the rule in Canada's Olympic firmament. There are legions who believe that, when the going gets tough, it's time to go home.
There is reportedly a new spirit in our sports culture -- Own The Podium -- that seems to be working on the Winter Games side. Our hockey teams now possess a newfound mental toughness. The ski team is headed in the right direction, etc. Vancouver could be the showcase for mental toughness that Summer Games are not.
Now, former swim hero Alex Baumann has been repatriated from Australia to spread this gospel to Canada's summer athletes. Maybe we'll see the rewards of that by London in 2012. But why not also bring Bailey and Bruny Surin back as well to help the track team? There are still too many stories out there about bureaucrats who refuse to rethink the paradigm of carded athletes and mediocre coaches in their sports.
In women's field hockey, for instance, a group of parents and supporters came forth with four proposals to make sure the team gets to the Games in 2012 after failing to reach Beijing. They were turned down each time by the governing body. This is not an aberration in Canadian sport.
Look, if we want to be the world's 14th-place team, that's fine by me. But let's not pretend that riding in the fumes of other nations is the natural state of our potential, either. We can do better. We just choose not to and then create a myth of inferiority to excuse the results. (We do this is in business, too.) Canada has the best -- we just need to tell them it's OK to be so.
Link
A Beautiful Place to Die
THE SIGNS ARE SUPPOSED TO remind hikers of their vulnerability. Especially those who, emboldened by cellphones and global positioning systems, set off into the Presidential Range in New Hampshire's White Mountains carrying little else besides day packs stocked with PowerBars. The message, in black lettering on yellow, is blunt: "STOP. The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad." And each year, many people do stop, long enough to pose for a picture. Some photographs are uploaded to Flickr and other websites - including one of a pink-faced man gleefully acknowledging the warning with upraised middle fingers. A caption reads, "Tom showing the White Mountain National Forest what he thinks of their sign."
Todd Bogardus, the search and rescue leader with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, is accustomed to such cavalier attitudes. For a new breed of hikers, he says, high-tech gadgets have replaced common sense, even though cellphone service is spotty in the mountains, and many people do not know how to operate their GPS devices. "Technology is good when it's used with proper basics and education, but it also gives a false sense of security," says Bogardus. "They figure, 'This is the weekend I took off , and, by God, I'm going to climb that mountain.'"
He is talking about hikers like Tom, who probably returned home unscathed. Most of the 5 million visitors to the 800,000-acre national forest each year do, even if they have spent less time preparing to navigate its wilderness trails than they would their local supermarket. "People don't start the day thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to get hurt,' " says Rebecca Oreskes, spokeswoman for the national forest. "They might not have the proper equipment, and they underestimate how difficult the White Mountains can be. They're starting from the valley, where it's 80 degrees. They're in shorts and T-shirts, and they get up high, and there's sleet. It's a really different world."
ABOUT TWO HOURS NORTH OF BOSTON, INTERSTATE 93 CURVES SOFTLY to reveal the indent of Franconia Notch, etched by Cannon Cliff on one side and Franconia Ridge on the other. It is so seemingly benign, so accessible. Seventy million people live within a day's drive.
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Todd Bogardus, the search and rescue leader with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, is accustomed to such cavalier attitudes. For a new breed of hikers, he says, high-tech gadgets have replaced common sense, even though cellphone service is spotty in the mountains, and many people do not know how to operate their GPS devices. "Technology is good when it's used with proper basics and education, but it also gives a false sense of security," says Bogardus. "They figure, 'This is the weekend I took off , and, by God, I'm going to climb that mountain.'"
He is talking about hikers like Tom, who probably returned home unscathed. Most of the 5 million visitors to the 800,000-acre national forest each year do, even if they have spent less time preparing to navigate its wilderness trails than they would their local supermarket. "People don't start the day thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to get hurt,' " says Rebecca Oreskes, spokeswoman for the national forest. "They might not have the proper equipment, and they underestimate how difficult the White Mountains can be. They're starting from the valley, where it's 80 degrees. They're in shorts and T-shirts, and they get up high, and there's sleet. It's a really different world."
ABOUT TWO HOURS NORTH OF BOSTON, INTERSTATE 93 CURVES SOFTLY to reveal the indent of Franconia Notch, etched by Cannon Cliff on one side and Franconia Ridge on the other. It is so seemingly benign, so accessible. Seventy million people live within a day's drive.
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The class of 2012 Mindset List
Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.
For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.
1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
19. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
21. Students have always been "Rocking the Vote.”
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
23. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
24. We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
25. There have always been gay rabbis.
26. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
27. College grads have always been able to Teach for America.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
29. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
30. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
31. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
35. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.
36. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
37. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
38. Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.
39. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
40. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
41. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
42. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
43. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
45. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
46. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
47. They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
48. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
49. Soft drink refills have always been free.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
52. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
53. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
54. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
55. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
56. Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
57. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
58. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
59. There have always been charter schools.
60. Students always had Goosebumps.
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For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.
1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
19. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
21. Students have always been "Rocking the Vote.”
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
23. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
24. We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
25. There have always been gay rabbis.
26. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
27. College grads have always been able to Teach for America.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
29. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
30. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
31. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
35. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.
36. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
37. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
38. Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.
39. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
40. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
41. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
42. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
43. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
45. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
46. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
47. They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
48. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
49. Soft drink refills have always been free.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
52. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
53. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
54. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
55. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
56. Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
57. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
58. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
59. There have always been charter schools.
60. Students always had Goosebumps.
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The Great Consumer Crash of 2009
“It is easy to ignore the storm if you look at the opposite horizon. When the storm reaches your location there can be no more ignorance.”
I hate to tell you, but the storm has reached your location and it is a Category 5 hurricane. The levees are leaking. Ignore it at your own peril. The 6,000 sq ft McMansion buying, BMW leasing, $5 Starbucks latte drinking, granite countertop upgrading, home equity borrowing days are coming to an end. The American consumer will not go without a fight.
For the last seven years the American consumer has carried the weight of the world on its shoulders. This has been a heavy burden, but when you take steroids it doesn’t seem so heavy. The steroid of choice for the American consumer has been debt. We have utilized home equity loans, cash out refinancing, credit card debt, and auto loans to live above our means. It has been a fun ride, but the ride is over. We can’t get steroids from our dealer (banks) anymore.
After examining these charts, it is clear to me that the tremendous prosperity that began during the Reagan years of the early 1980’s has been a false prosperity built upon easy credit. Household debt reached $13.8 trillion in 2007, with $10.5 trillion of that mortgage debt. The leading edge of the baby boomers turned 30 years of age in the late 1970’s, just as the usage of debt began to accelerate. Debt took off like a rocket ship after 9/11 with the President urging Americans to spend and Alan Greenspan lowering interest rates to 1%. Only in the bizzaro world of America in the last 7 years, while in the midst of 2 foreign wars, would a President urge his citizens to show their patriotism by buying cars and TVs. When did our priorities become so warped?
How Did I Get Here
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
-Talking Heads, David Byrne lyrics to Once in a Lifetime
By 2005 practically everyone had a large automobile and a beautiful house. By 2010 many of these people will be asking where is that large automobile and will realize as the sheriff escorts them out of their house that this is not my beautiful house. There is plenty of blame to go round for this predicament. According to Northern Trust economist Paul Kasriel, “We’re a what’s my monthly payment nation. The idea is to have my monthly payments as high as I can take. If you cut interest rates, I’ll get a bigger car.” Major banks offer credit cards using your home equity as a way to pay everyday expenses like groceries, gas and clothes. Eating your house was never so easy.
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Should Theaters Offer Kid-free Screenings?
Mark Oakley at Den of Geek says, in no uncertain terms, that it's high time for theaters to start catering to their adult customers by offering no-kids-allowed shows. What do you think? Until recently, I'd have said it wasn't necessary. After all, go to a late enough screening, and kids generally aren't a problem, right?
Wrong.
My brother and I hit the local multiplex recently to catch the 8:15 Dark Knight show. Should be a no-brainer on the kid front -- late-ish show that lets out well past bedtime on a Monday night, creepy, malevolent villain, loud, blam-heavy soundtrack, PG-13 rating, plus a slew of reviews noting how not-kid-friendly the film is. There's also Nolan's previous go, Batman Begins. Anyone who's seen it should be aware that his take on the Caped Crusader isn't going to be appropriate for youngsters. Yet we saw one couple walk in leading a preschooler by the hand. The kid couldn't have been over three, and the ticket-taker said that this is quite common.
Few things ruin a movie for me more quickly than a theater full of talking, thrashing, hollering, seat-kicking, popcorn-pitching kids. But is that enough to justify kids-banned shows? As a parent, I want to say "No!" I'm capable of deciding what movies are appropriate for my kids, and what times are appropriate for them to see them. But as a theater patron who's had more than one show ruined by kids, and who's seen kids taken into movies where the plainly had no business, I want to say "Of course!"
Clearly, the preferable solution would be for parents to (a) be smarter about what movies are okay for kids, and (b) teach their kids to behave properly in public. Short of miraculous improvement in parenting competence, banning kids at later shows, say anything past 8 or 9pm, might be a workable solution. Still, that forces adults to pick between staying out late or suffering with someone else's ill-behaved offspring Another choice especially with multiplexes, might be simply designate one screen for child-free shows. Surely there are other possibilities as well.
What say the GeekDad readers (and the other GeekDads, for that matter)? Is there a good, workable solution to reach detente between cranky adults and poorly-controlled children? Is it inappropriate to even consider no-kids shows? Or is Mark Oakley spot-on in calling for theaters to designate some screens exclusively for the 18+ crowd?
Link
"I for one, would welcome this - there should be adults-only theatre times - I can remember when we have had movies ruined by yappy kids and crying babies - weget babysitter when we go to the late show - I see no reason why others should bring young children and ruin the viewing for other people."
Bartering sex for stuff or services
LifeWire) -- While she was studying in Brazil during college, the one thing Stephanie Gerson longed to do before leaving was spend time in the thick of the Amazon rain forest. Unfortunately, she couldn't find a tour that would take her past the forest's edge.
So, when a college-aged busboy at a resort she was visiting began flirting with her, she asked him if he thought a tourist could survive alone in the jungle.
"He laughed and told me I was nuts," says Gerson, 27, who works part-time in online marketing for a chocolate company in San Francisco.
Then he told her that he'd grown up in the jungle in a nearby indigenous community. That was all Gerson needed to hear. Although she wasn't attracted to the guy, Gerson flirted right back in the hopes that he would be her jungle tour guide. It worked. The busboy wormed his way out of work, and the two headed into the rain forest.
"It was amazing," Gerson says of her adventure in 2000. "We built our homes out of palm leaves, I saw animals I'd never seen before, he taught me the medicinal properties of all the plants, we picked fruit off the trees, we swam with and ate piranhas. And, of course, we had sex ... for almost two weeks."
Body currency system
Gerson never felt sleazy or uncomfortable with her unspoken arrangement with the busboy.
"It was a good barter both ways," she says. "I got to stay in the jungle, and he got to have sex with a cute, young American girl."
Such trades aren't so unusual. Throughout history, humans have used their bodies to get what they want -- from ancient Egyptian ruler Cleopatra, who cemented her power through liaisons with Roman rulers Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, to the man and woman who were arrested at a Fort Wright, Kentucky, motel in late June for allegedly swapping sex for gasoline. Regardless of our motivation, scientists say we're hardwired to use our bodies as a bargaining chip.
A recent study of 475 University of Michigan undergraduates ages 17 to 26 found that 27 percent of the men and 14 percent of the women who weren't in a committed relationship had offered someone favors or gifts -- help prepping for a test, laundry washing, tickets to a college football game -- in exchange for sex. On the flip side, 5 percent of the men surveyed and 9 percent of the women said they'd attempted to trade sex for such freebies.
And although they weren't hard up for resources, the students surveyed "recognized the value of this socioeconomic currency system," says Daniel Kruger, research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, who published his findings in the April issue of "Evolutionary Psychology."
"It's more about getting what you want than getting what you need," he says. "Unless you think everyone needs a $200 Louis Vuitton bag."
The handyman hookup
But unattached coeds aren't the only ones who barter with their bodies. Some professionals will attest that their skills are, well, sexy.
"Women are turned on just by the simple idea of their guy getting off his ass and doing something for them," says Rocky Fino, author of "Will Cook for Sex: A Guy's Guide to Cooking."
It works both ways, he adds.
"Give it to me first thing in the morning, and I'll play [handyman] all day," says Fino, a 39-year-old father of two and part-time construction worker.
Ben Corbett, a 39-year-old contractor from Boulder, Colorado, credits his tool belt with prompting the barrage of come-ons he fields from female clients -- most of them married -- on a regular basis.
"It starts with the flirting, and it just progresses," says Corbett, who has run a construction and remodeling business for 20 years. "They'll touch my hand, and there's all this physical contact. Or they'll run around in their pajamas."
"Once," he says, "I was painting the hallway right outside a client's bedroom, and she was lying on her bed like a girl at a slumber party with her legs up and her arms crossed and her head resting on them, asking me if I had a girlfriend.
"It's all about the fantasy of being taken by the rough-hewn construction guy," muses Corbett, who, despite the temptation, has avoided getting sexually involved with his clientele for fear of jeopardizing his business.
It's the biology, stupid
Call it crass, sexist or gender stereotyping all you want, but there are thousands of years of biological programming at work here, says Dr. Chris Fariello, director of the Institute for Sex Therapy at the Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group based in Philadelphia.
Plain and simple, a partner who provides more resources -- wealth, shelter, home repairs -- is seen as more attractive and stands to reap more sexual rewards.
Or, as Fariello puts it, "I don't get anybody in my office who says, 'My husband sits on the couch all day and eats bonbons, and I want to have sex with him all the time.'"
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8.25.2008
New Stargate series announced for summer 2009
SCI FI Channel and MGM Television Entertainment have reached an agreement to extend MGM’s Stargate brand with a new series for the Channel. Production on the first season of Stargate Universe, a weekly series based on the popular Stargate franchise, will begin in early 2009, with the show targeted to premiere that Summer.
Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, co-creators of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and who both currently serve as executive producers on Atlantis, will serve as executive producers and writers on the new series.
“SCI FI has enjoyed tremendous success with Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and we’re proud to be the home of the new Stargate Universe,” said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President, Original Programming for SCI FI & Co-Head Original Content, Universal Cable Productions. “Universe will continue the Stargate legacy of vibrant storylines and compelling adventures, but will re-invent the format in a whole new way.”
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Star Wars: Clone Wars… better than expected
Okay, I did the unthinkable. I actually went and saw STAR WARS: CLONE WARS. My eight and a half year old step-son wanted to see it, and I guess I wasn’t as vehemently opposed as many others were. There has been a lot of negative press and discussion around this movie. Last week it was even a topic of discussion over on THE UNIQUE GEEK. Going into the movie I was curious as to whether it was really that awful, or had just gotten a bad rap thanks to all the Lucas hatred out there.
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