Fly with the fastest bird on the planet!
America the land of the ignorant and ignoramus...
Top 10 police chases of all time...
Ahhh...sounds of my youth!
Project Gutenberg...
So what...they changed the name...it's still bad for you!
112 of the best FREE downloads...
Marching Through Your Head by Zeus....
Introducing the next gen internet...
The hidden calories found in condiments...
How to peel a potato...
Cool and rare Star Wars behind the scene photos...
Facebook meets free online games...
The secrets to happiness...
Weather forecast is predicting 2 feet of snow...
Beware the free credit reports...
It's funny when you really don't win...
Do our organs have memories?
Top 10 music videos of the 90s...
Beware the hotel security...
New Dork...Jay-Z spoof...
You know what these geeky things...
A steam punk music video...
Gimme that chocolate covered hot dog in a doughnut bun with Girl Scout Caramel Cookie crumbles...
Hockey shootout...FAIL!
Glacier's Eve... (props to JnL)
Soon we'll be able to print up some organs and skin...
Remember this video the next time you sip some milk...
Undercover videos produced by animal rights groups are fueling a debate over the need for new laws to regulate the treatment of American dairy cows. The graphic videos include one filmed inside a huge New York dairy operation where cows never go outdoors, and are tail docked; a procedure where half or more of their tail is amputated, for the purpose of improving cleanliness. This is performed without anesthesia. They are seen being abused by one employee who hits a cow over the head with a wrench when it refuses to move.
An investigator for the group Mercy for Animals worked at the New York dairy farm Willet Dairy for two months. Willet allegedly supplies to Leprino Foods, which produces cheese products that are used at chains including Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and Domino's.
Unfortunately, large-scale confinement farms dominate dairy production in the U.S. today.
A More Humane and Healthier Option
Only 10 to 15 percent of U.S. dairy farms are pasture-based, meaning cows are fed primarily outdoors on pasture, rather than indoors on grain. But a growing number of farmers are finding that pasture-based farming can also mean healthier cows, more nutritious dairy products, profitable family farms and sustainable land stewardship.
Pasturing benefits the farmer, the animals, the consumers who drink the milk, and perhaps most of all, the land and environment on which it all depends.
Grass-based feeding is an ecological and efficient method of farming. Instead of producing tons of grain for feed -- which requires extensive land, fertilizer, pest management, and large equipment for cultivating, harvesting, drying, storage and feeding -- pasture-based farming lets the cows do the work.
They harvest, fertilize, and feed themselves, overseen by the farmer in a carefully-managed system. The net result is significantly less fuel consumption, less erosion, less air and water pollution and greater soil fertility.
Another reason to choose grass-fed dairy products: They're more nutritious.
Milk from cows raised primarily on pasture has been repeatedly shown to be higher in many nutrients, including vitamin E, beta-carotene, and the healthy fats omega-3 and CLA, conjugated linoleic acid.
There is a growing body of research that points to health benefits associated with CLA, including a possible role in fighting certain cancers, diabetes, and obesity.
Pasture-fed cows also live longer and are healthier than cows fed in confinement. The cull rate -- the number of cows that must be taken out of the milking herd each year -- is 30 to 50 percent per year for confinement herds. In pastured herds the cull rate is generally around 15 percent.
Today's Message
Do you have too much to do and too little time? Of course! The most common form of stress that professional people experience is the feeling of being overwhelmed with far too much to do and having too little time to do it in. In fact, “time poverty” is the biggest single problem facing most people today. We simply do not have enough time to fulfill all our responsibilities. Because of budget limitations, staff cutbacks, downsizing, and competitive pressures, individuals are forced to take on more and more work, all of which appears to be indispensable to the smooth functioning of our company or department.
Become an expert! The solution to this problem of work overload is for you to become an expert on time management. There is probably no other skill that you can learn that will give you a “bigger bang for the buck” than to become extremely knowledgeable and experienced in using time-management practices.
Be open to new ideas. The most foolish person of all is either the project manager who feels he or she has no time to learn about time management or, even worse, the manager who, while being overwhelmed with work, feels that he or she already knows all that he or she needs to know about the subject.
The solution to this is to never stop learning. The fact is that you can study time management and take time management courses for your entire career, and you will still never learn everything you need to know to get the most out of yourself while doing your job in the most efficient way.
The two indispensable keys to time management are 1) the ability to set priorities; and 2) the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time.
Since there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, you must be continually setting priorities on your activities. Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
This question, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” will do more to keep you on track, hour by hour, than any other single question in the list of time-management strategies. Start with your top tasks. The natural tendency for all of us is to major in minors and to give in to the temptation to clear up small things first. After all, small things are easier and they are often more fun than the big, important things that represent the most valuable use of your time. However, the self-discipline of organizing your work and focusing on your highest-value tasks is the starting point of getting your time under control and lowering your stress levels.
Here are two things you can do immediately to get your time under control. First, make a decision today to become an expert on time management. Read the books, listen to the audio programs, and take a time-management course. Then practice, practice, practice every day until you master time-management skills.
Second, set clear priorities on your work each day, before you begin. Then, discipline yourself to start on your most important task, and stay at that until it is complete. This will relieve much of your stress immediately.
Break Away from Old Ideas
Highly creative people tend to have fluid, flexible, adaptive minds. Here are three statements that creative people can make easily and which you can learn by regular practice:
1. Admit It When You Are Wrong
The first is simply, “I was wrong.” Many people are so concerned with being right that all their mental energy is consumed by stonewalling, bluffing, blaming, and denying. If you’re wrong, admit it and get on to the solution or the next step.
2. Face Up to Mistakes
Second, noncreative people think that it is a sign of weakness to say, “I made a mistake.” On the contrary, it is actually a sign of mental maturity, personal strength, and individual character. Remember, everybody makes mistakes every single day.
3. Be Flexible with New Information
The third statement that creative people use easily is, “I changed my mind.” It is amazing how many uncomfortable situations people get into and stay in because they are unwilling or afraid to admit that they’ve changed their minds.
You also need to be willing to cut your losses. If you get new information or if you find that you feel differently about a previous decision, accept that you have changed your mind and don’t let anyone or anything back you into a corner. If a decision does not serve your best interests as you see them now, have the ego-strength and the courage to “cut your losses,” to change your mind, and then get on to better things.
So, here are two ways you can break out of narrow thinking patterns and become more creative:
First, be willing to admit that you are not perfect and you do make mistakes. This is a mark of intelligence and courage.
Second, with new information, be willing to change your mind. Most of what you know about your business today will change completely in the coming years, so be the first to recognize it.
Success Leaves Tracks
When I began searching for the secrets of success many years ago, I discovered an interesting principle: Success leaves tracks. A wise man who had studied success for more than 50 years concluded that the greatest success principle of all was “learn from the experts.”
If you want to be a big success in any area, find out what other successful people in that area are doing, and do the same things until you get the same results. When I studied the interviews, speeches, biographies, and autobiographies of successful men and women, I found that they all had one quality in common. They were all described as being “extremely well organized.” They used their time very, very well. They were highly productive, and they got vastly more done in the same period of time than the average person.
The next idea is to be both effective and efficient. High-performing men and women were both effective and efficient. They did the right things, and they did them in the right way. They were constantly looking for ways to improve the quality and quantity of their output. As a result, their contribution to their organizations was vastly higher, and therefore much better paid, than the contributions of the average person.
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, develop a study plan today to learn from the experts in your field. This can save you years of hard work.
Second, decide what the most important thing to do is and then decide how to do it.
Here’s to your continued success!
Insight
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.--African Proverb
There is nothing wrong with making mistakes.
Just don't respond with encores.
--Anonymous
Knowledge
Baseball Reference
If baseball is your game, Baseball Reference is a good source for major league baseball statistics and history. You'll have access to just about any fact concerning baseball, from players to teams, leagues, managers, schools and even games. The person who submitted the site wanted to share with 'others who have an interest or questions' about the game and suggests visitors 'might find it worth their while to have Baseball Reference.com bookmarked.' She 'found it fascinating' and she's not even 'a serious fan,' so don't let the sports title deter those of you who do not live and breathe this great American pastime! Check it out!
| Animated Atlas: Growth of a Nation |
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Though they're still putting on the final touches/acquiring more lodging partners, LMG's backing any booking you make with its "120% happiness guarantee" -- the very deal responsible for all your pants being custom-stitched with elastic waists. |
Today's Quotes
CHANGE/CHOICE
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” —Aldous Huxley
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” —Viktor Frankl
“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” —Nathaniel Braden
“A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.” —Denis Waitley
Fun
Frugality Now
A millionaire, a hard hat, and a drunk are at a bar. When they get their beers, they notice a fly in each mug. The millionaire politely asks the bartender for another beer, then proceeds to sip it. The hard hat spills out just enough to get rid of the fly and quaffs the rest. It's now the drunk's turn. He sticks his hand into the beer, grabs the fly by the wings, and shouts, "Spit it out! Spit it out!"
True Identity
During Sunday school, the substitute teacher asked my four-year-old what his name was. "Spider-Man," said my son.
"No, I mean your real name," pressed the teacher.
My son apologized. "Oh, I"m sorry. It"s Peter Parker."
The Trust Fund Con
By David Walker
New York, New York
Social Security is in trouble. According to the Social Security Trustees Report, the Social Security program was in a $7.7 trillion hole as of January 1, 2009. That means Washington would have needed $7.7 trillion on that date, invested at prevailing rates, to deliver for the next seventy-five-years on the promises that the federal government has made. But we actually need much more than that to keep Social Security healthy, because it will experience larger and larger deficits both in the near future and beyond the seventy-five-year accounting horizon. As of January 1, 2009, that number - the amount we would need to invest to ensure the sustainability of the program for seventy-five years and beyond - was $15.1 trillion. How much of this huge sum do we have invested in real liquid and transferable assets today - that is, how much in actual money? Zero, zip, cero, nada, nothing!
The truth is that the government's Social Security guarantee is one huge unfunded promise. How can this be? I have mentioned the Social Security "trust funds," where our payroll taxes go. All this money is transmitted to the federal government and credited to the Social Security trust funds. You would logically assume that these funds would have hard assets that have been saved and invested to cover the program's future costs. However, rather than saving the money and investing it in a diversified pool of real and readily marketable assets, the government spends it and provides "special-issue" government securities in return.
Just consider what actually goes into those funds. First there are the numbers reported in government financial statements. According to those numbers, Washington had issued approximately $2.4 trillion in special- issue US government securities that had been credited to the Social Security trust fund as of January 1, 2009. The computer records documenting these securities are held in a locked file cabinet in West Virginia. But there is a reason they are called special-issue securities, and it's not good. Unlike regular government bonds, which people like us and the Chinese government can buy, these special-issue bonds cannot be sold; in other words, they are government IOUs that the government has issued to itself, to be paid back later - with interest. Imagine if you or I could sit around writing IOUs to ourselves that were worth something. Great way to make a living.
Washington says that we can count on these bonds because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, which guarantees both principal and interest. But - believe it or not - under current federal accounting principles, the government does not consider these bonds to be liabilities - which is another way of saying the government doesn't really think that it's our money.
Think about that for a minute. If you or I lend the government money by buying a bond, the government has to pay us back with interest. In other words, that bond is a government liability. But when it comes to the Social Security trust funds, the government is saying the special- issue securities it deposits are not a liability - in other words, they're basically worth nothing at all. Now get this: The trust funds report these securities as assets on the annual reports that they provide to the public. Does that sound like wanting to have your cake and eat it too? Con artists of the world, I hope you're taking notes.
In my view, these bonds should be treated as liabilities, and their value should be counted as part of our debt-to-GDP ratio. After all, they are backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government, and I do not believe the federal government will default on them.
Under the current scheme, the Social Security program has been running large surpluses since the reforms of 1983. But in actuality, Washington has spent those surpluses every year on other government activities. That is one way the government can reduce its public borrowing and keep interest rates down.
To say the least, the federal government's accounting for these funds understates both its total liabilities and its annual operating deficits. That brings us to another clever bit of Washington wordsmithing: the "unified deficit." In public reporting, the government takes the real operating deficit, $638 billion in fiscal 2008, and subtracts the nonexistent amount credited to the Social Security trust funds, $183 billion in fiscal 2008. This "unified" figure - $455 billion - makes the federal budget deficit seem smaller than it actually is. And they have been doing this for many years.
These accounting tricks would never be allowed in the real world, where trust funds are subject to stringent accounting rules and fiduciary standards. In essence, Washington is playing a massive con game - collecting your Social Security taxes, spending that money for its own purposes, and accounting for it in trust funds that are largely a fiction. A more proper description would be "trust-the-government funds." Or as my boss, Pete Peterson, would say, "You can't trust them, and they aren't funded." Just another example of how words used in Washington don't have the same meaning they have in Webster's dictionary.
Don't worry, the reforms of the 1980s are still keeping the system above water. Monthly benefits should be paid in full for at least another three decades. However, the Social Security program will begin to pay out more than it takes in much sooner than that. The retirement and survivors income program expects its payments to exceed its revenues in 2010 and 2011. That will happen because revenue has declined during the recession -while at the same time, more people are retiring. When the federal government has to start cashing in the special-issue securities in the trust funds in order to pay benefits, it will have to raise taxes, cut benefits, and/or sell real bonds to the public in order to raise real money for retirees receiving benefits. If the government issues more public debt - in part to attract more foreign investors - that will likely increase our foreign dependency.
Don't Bet on a Recovery
By Peter Schiff
Westport, Connecticut
It is astounding how many economists, government officials, and Wall Street strategists construe the current economic conditions as evidence of a bona fide recovery. It is a testament to the power of the rose- colored glasses handed out by our nation's leading universities that such a feeling could be widely held despite the clear and present danger that compounds daily. The myopia leads us to enact policies that actually exacerbate our problems. The "remedies" are postponing, perhaps indefinitely, a true recovery.
The oracles who have described the nature of this imminent recovery do so based on their conviction that consumer spending is slowly returning to levels that existed prior to the recession. New data released today seems to support this view, with consumer spending up 0.5% in January.
However, missing from their analysis is any plausible explanation as to why consumers will be able to sustain such spending given the plunge in income and credit, and the lack of available savings. In fact, the same January spending report showed that personal income increased by only 0.1%, while the savings rate slowed to the smallest since 2008.
I would challenge those who fantasize about a consumer-led recovery to describe where the spending money will come from. Most consumers are tapped out, millions are unemployed, and home equity has been wiped out. The only reasonable thing for them to do is to pay down debt and sock away as much money as possible to rebuild their savings.
Beyond the question of "how" the spending could be achieved, is the deeper question of "why" such activity should be sought at all. Excessive spending, fueled by an insane housing bubble and catalyzed by reckless monetary and fiscal policy, was the reason that our current recession became unavoidable. Why would we want to go down that road again?
During the run up to the crash, excess spending had created economic distortions that have yet to be resolved. Too many resources, including land, labor, and capital, were devoted to servicing an unsustainable economic model in which Americans borrowed money to buy homes, products and services they really could not afford. In many cases consumer behavior was influenced by overly optimistic assumptions regarding real estate related riches.
However, now that the real estate bubble has burst, Americans are coming to terms with a more sober reality. Many have cut up their credit cards, dramatically reduced their spending, and have squirreled away as much money as they can. This change in behavior should necessitate a dramatic shift in the labor market as workers move away from jobs associated with consumer spending and toward jobs associated with real production, primarily for exportable goods.
The real problem is that monetary and fiscal policy designed to re- inflate the burst spending bubble is preventing this transition from taking place. As a result we are not creating the jobs we need to replace - the ones we have lost in mortgage servicing, home improvement, and real estate sales (which we never really needed to begin with). As these jobless remain unable to find alternative employment, our economy will continue to languish.
Some will argue that the new jobs created by government stimulus spending will provide the additional purchasing power necessary to revitalize consumer spending. There are two problems with this expectation. First, those jobs being "created" by the government are outnumbered by those being destroyed by government domination of resources. Second, even if it were possible for job growth to return, having hopefully learned from their mistakes, workers will be far more frugal with their paychecks than they were in the past.
Others hope that rising real estate prices will give consumers more confidence to spend. The reality is that housing prices are still too high and will likely fall further. But even if they did rise, consumers will still be reluctant to resume their shopping spree. Home equity extraction loans, which just a few years ago turned houses into ATMs, are now much harder to come by. When it comes to spending, it's not just about confidence; it's about cash.
The only possible way consumers can spend is if the government gives them the money. However, since the government cannot legitimately give money to one American without first taking it from another, the most likely means of doling out cash will be to run it off the printing presses.
That, in a nutshell, is our government's plan for economic recovery. Print a bunch of money and give it to consumers to spend. This is not a plan for recovery but a recipe for disaster. Those betting that this program can succeed in putting together a healthy and sustainable economy simply do not understand the nature of their wager. The smart money is going the other way.
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