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Advance/Decliner Index Climbs. Our Advance/Decliner Index reversed last
week’s losses, rising to 73% from 67%. Included in this week’s price increases were several January hikes announced by price leaders in the U.S. and China. Nucor (NUE) announced multiple price hikes while AK Steel (AKS), Wuhan (WUHN), and Baosteel raised prices as well. Our China index made a small comeback on these price announcements, rising to 69% after dropping from 100% to 64% the prior week. While China still had several price cuts this week, they were very small in comparison to the price increases so we continue to see price strength in China.
If you have a lot of stainless steel appliances, knobs, faucets, sinks, etc. in your home, you will find that Stainless Steel Magic Wipes can really help in the clean up of smudges and in keeping your stainless steel, aluminum, and chrome looking shiny and beautiful.
The Stainless Steel Magic Wipes come with 35 pre-moistened towels that help you clean and shine stainless steel appliances and fixtures with ease. The towels are non-abrasive and can easily remove water spots, streaks, and finger marks, while leaving protective shield that repels water, reduces finger marks and makes later cleaning easier. I find it very convenient to use whenever I see fingerprints on the faucet, or refrigerator, all I need is take one towel to wipe the marks and smudges out.
Although the instructions on the container say that you would buff the stainless steel with a rag, I hardly ever do it. Oftentimes, I only use the towels and the smudges and fingerprints disappear right away. I only use the rags when I clean up the body of our stainless steel grill after using.
My husband purchased this Stainless Steel Magic Wipes at Lowes for $5.99. We used to clean our stainless steel appliances with the liquid form of cleaner which we applied using rags and then we buff afterwards. The process was not only time consuming but very tedious. There were times I had to redo because the streaks were not completely gone.
With the Stainless Steel Magic Wipes, however, the process is very easy to do and with very little amount of time needed. Just wipe following the direction of the grain once or twice and the job is done. Also, one container can last a long time. We purchased ours a couple of months ago and we still have plenty of towels left, even with our weekly clean-up schedule we have some more to spare. One towel can go a long way if you maintain your refrigerator well- you would only need one or two the most to clean the surface. You can clean several small appliances using only one towel, so this product can save you some money down the road.
Another reason to trust this product is because it comes with a 100% money back guarantee. If you do not think the product works for you, just send them the container with the purchase receipt to get a full refund. For me, I am very satisfied with the results so I am keeping it. I highly recommend the Stainless Steel Magic Wipes and give it a 5-star all the way. I assure you that you will not be disappointed with this product, it really works!
For more information about this product please visit http://www.magicamerican.com.
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Your Tired, Your Poor, et al. [Mark Krikorian]
Catching up on last week's news:
* America's first case of “extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis” (XXDR TB) has surfaced — “a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English.” A TB doctor warns against crimethink: “It's not a foreign problem, you can't keep these TB patients out.” Actually, this guy could very easily have been kept out. And this: “His treatment cost Florida taxpayers an estimated $500,000.” And finally: “The last time doctors saw him, he was walking out of the sanitarium into south Florida's soupy heat.” Think he went home once his visa expired? Me neither.
* An illegal alien in Florida murdered a co-worker for speaking English instead of Spanish. An argument for 287(g) if there ever was one: “Escalante provided four different names to detectives before he was identified through fingerprints at the jail.”
* A “university” in California was selling student visas to enable people to come to the U.S. The school's founder has been arrested but, for some reason, the “students” aren't being prosecuted, though ICE assures us they'll be deported. Yeah, and I'll respect you in the morning.
* Under a new one-year pilot program, temporary workers leaving from two points in Arizona will now have to register their departure to make sure they don't overstay and become illegal aliens. Oh, you thought they had to do that already? Ha ha ha ha!
12/29 04:13 PMShare
Dear Credit Score Report,
I know if I have even one 30-day late payment, my credit
score drops. Question: How long is the penalty? When can I expect to see my
score increase again? — Mike
Hey Mike,
Experts say you can expect a late payment to hurt your
credit score for seven years, with your score gradually recovering over that
time frame as you make smart borrowing decisions — though exactly how much and how fast your score recovers isn't
entirely
clear.
The federal Fair
Credit Reporting Act says that negative items can only appear on your credit report
for seven years,
but it doesn't say how the credit industry should treat the impact of those
items after they happen. That vagueness, combined with the secrecy and complexity
involved in credit scoring, mean that it's tough to say exactly how a
borrower's credit score
will recover from a late payment. Still, provided the
borrower makes smart decisions following a slip-up, time will heal those credit
wounds.
"Every consumer's situation is different, but
generally speaking, the impact from a negative item, such as a late payment,
will lessen as that item ages" says Steve Katz, spokesman for credit bureau TransUnion.
While FICO, creator of the
most-widely used scoring
model, largely keeps the details of its scoring model a secret, we do know the
approximate damage a late payment will cause. FICO pulled the curtain back a bit
on its scoring model recently when it acknowledged just how much certain credit
mistakes can hurt a borrower's credit score. For example, in the case of two
hypothetical consumers, FICO said that a 30-day late payment would reduce a
FICO score of 680 by 60 to 80 points, while an identical late payment would
reduce a FICO score of 780 by 90 to 110 points. (For more on this topic, see
our story on FICO's damage points.) You can run FICO's
credit score simulator to get an idea of how much damage
various mistakes, including a late payment, may cause to your own credit
score.
But when it comes to the recovery process, it's still largely
a mystery. FICO spokesman Craig Watts says your score will recover over time because
the scoring model factors in when you made your errors, how bad they were –
for example, was your payment late by 30 days or by 90 days? — and how often
you made them. However, FICO's mathematical formula can't predict exactly how
fast your score will improve. Watts says there are simply too many changes that
can happen over time in a consumer's credit report, both due to the
cardholder's own actions and changes that are beyond the consumer's control. For
example, you wouldn't have any control over the continual aging of your
existing accounts.
Still, FICO's Web site gives some clues as to how a
credit recovery might play out. FICO says that for negative
items on a credit report, "a collection that is 5 years
old will hurt much less than a collection that is 5 months old." Please
note the use of the phrase "much less" to signal that five years out
from your late payment, its impact will be seriously lessened.
In discussing a foreclosure's
impact, FICO says "it's a common misconception that it will ruin your
score for a very long time. In fact, if you keep all of your other credit
obligations in good standing, your FICO score can begin to rebound in as little
as two years." Based on the fact that a foreclosure is much more damaging
to a credit score than a late payment, it would make sense that in your case, your FICO score would also begin to recover
within two years of your late
payment.
Although FICO leaves it somewhat unclear what a
recovery from score damage looks like, the steps you need to take to recover
from that mistake are clear: "The best way to minimize the impact is to
catch up on the payment and then continue to make all of your payments on
time," says Rod Griffin, director of public education with credit bureau
Experian.
By always making on-time payments from now on, as well
as keeping debt levels low and only taking on additional lines of credit when
necessary, that late payment will become just a minor slip-up on the road to an
improved credit score.
Good luck!
— Jeremy
More from CreditCards.com:
- Improving
a great credit score comes down to timing
- Why
cell phone payments don't help your credit
- Decade-old
credit mistakes shouldn't appear on your report
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Mosquitoes breakfasted on my legs and it was hot. 7:30 a.m., and little curlicues of hair were already pasted to the foreheads of my two girlfriends. We tumbled off the rickety green bus, pausing to check that our backpacks and limbs were still present and intact. Gathering our daypacks, we waved goodbye as the bus driver and her cargo of nonchalant passengers continued down the winding highway, a sputtering cloud of exhaust that disappeared into the misty green mountains of northern Thailand. A giant stone archway stood before us, guarded by the statues of three mild-looking Asian elephants. We had arrived at the National Elephant Institute, a huge national park 90 minutes by bus south of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s northern capitol. Also known as the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, the Institute was established in 1991 to protect and care for the endangered Asian Elephant, a creature both revered and abused in Thai culture. Booked for a “One Day Mahout Training” course – mahout means “elephant handler” – we had traveled to the Institute for a genuine taste of life with elephants. It was an experience we were unlikely to have anywhere else. Though nearly every travel agency in Thailand boasted “elephant trekking” as a feature of most day tours, visitors typically got little more than a short pony ride in a basket atop a sad looking elephant. We wanted to bond with the elephants. We wanted to interact with the stately creatures and gain their trust. We wanted to get our hands dirty. Later that afternoon, up to my elbows in mustard yellow elephant dung, I realized that we had gotten our wish. It didn’t get much more personal than this. This was how our morning as mahout trainees went: We hitched a ride into the main camp with some camp workers piled in the back of a pickup truck, all clad in the heavy denim pajamas that would become our official mahout uniform. Squishing the dung through our fingers, we watched as J.R. swirled a lump of gooey dung in a bucket of water, breaking it up into a thin, fibrous liquid. He then emptied the bucket onto a framed piece of screen, tilting it so that the liquid spread evenly over the screen, and carefully lay it in the sun. “And in a few hours,” he told us, brandishing a dried screen, “you have dung paper!” The morning consisted of “mahout training” Unsure what exactly a “mahout” was and how that involved interacting with elephants, we allowed our English-speaking guide, J.R., to explain. Mahouts are trained elephant handlers. They traditionally pair up with a single elephant for life, an arrangement that ensures that each is dependant on the other for employment and survival. Typically employed in the logging industry until the practice was banned in 1989, mahouts and elephants alike have suffered the loss of income from logging. Now employed by the Institute, some of these mahouts utilize their skills to help conservation efforts and educate visitors about the elephants. We met our first mahout after hitching a ride with some denim-clad workers headed for the camp’s center, about 2 km from the tourist information building at the entrance. J.R. spoke fluid English and was to be our guide for the “Mahout Training” day we had arranged through the travel agent in Chiang Mai. Food and shelter for these two-ton mammals does not come cheap, and organizers have had to invent ways to insure the steady flow of funds to the Institute. One creative solution has been to offer opportunities to tourists like us who desire an intimate but eco-friendly experience with these awesome creatures. Another way the Institute supports itself is through “Mahout Training” and “Home-stay” packages offered to visitors like us. For $33 each, we had the unique opportunity to get up close and personal – and dirty – with our own personal elephant for the day. I met my elephant, Sat-tit, after a brief discussion of our itinerary with our English-speaking guide, J.R. Wearing our supremely attractive training uniforms – baggy denim pajama pants and a parachute-like jacket – we gathered nervously at the show ring and waited for our elephants to be brought out. My petite girlfriend, Dawn, was the first to be introduced to her elephant. Big as he was, I thought, okay, that’s not too bad. I can handle this. Then came Katie’s elephant, a slightly larger, medium-sized elephant to match her medium-sized frame. Detecting a pattern to the matches, my stomach began to flutter since, at 6 feet tall, I was clearly the grande in our trio. When Sat-tit arrived on the scene, our reactions were surprisingly understated. “Whoa,” Dawn observed. “He’s a big one.” Towering above the other elephants, Sat-tit was an undulating wall of gray flesh welded together by a maze of leathery creases sparsely covered with spiky hair. Like a crazed mountain climber shunning ropes and safety harness, the tiny Thai mahout who was to become my guru uttered a fluid command, grabbed hold of Sat-tit’s ear and grinned down at me from his perch aboard the giant elephant’s head before I could say, “What the–?” Seconds later, he stood on the ground next to me and motioned up, towards the head of the elephant. Uncomprehending, I stared at him as he motioned a few more times. Finally, I understood that I was to mount the elephant. What, no introduction? I thought. No saddle? Where’s the stirrup? Never one to back down from a challenge – and unable to say “no thank you” in Thai – I tentatively grabbed an ear, mumbled “Song soong!” and scrambled for traction as my feet slid fruitlessly along Sat-tit’s abdomen and obligingly uplifted leg. Firmly on the ground again, I watched carefully as the mahout motioned Grab his ear firm! You no hurt him! and scampered on and off the elephant’s back a few more times to prove his point. After much exertion and inelegantly hurling myself at his shoulders, I finally succeeded in mounting Sat-tit’s massive body. Atop this lofty perch, I felt a temporary surge of confidence. With his boulder-sized head clenched between my knees, I marveled at my minor accomplishment. I was high above everyone! Now all I had to do was hold on! “Hap Soong!” the mahout commanded, shattering my confidence as he motioned that now I would have to climb down! Playing at the up and down game for most of an hour, I was at last left alone aboard Sat-tit, subject only to the elephant’s will and the confines of the show-ring. As he ambled towards a large water trough, a great river of urine erupted beneath me. Large colonies of ants were washed away as my elephant relieved himself and I hurried to pull my legs up and away from the backsplash. In 2002, Princess Galyani of Thailand took the Institute under her patronage, providing some relief to the financial burden of feeding and caring for the 2-ton mammals and their handlers. However, fundraising is still a problematic and ongoing process. The Institute puts on an elephant show twice daily, where the mammoth residents display their various talents at painting, log-pushing and even musical performance. Though more interesting that the average circus-style performance, the Institute’s real draw is not these rehearsed shows but the one-on-one time with the elephants. Being elbow-deep in elephant dung or bruised and battered from encounters with your new pachyderm friend may not sound like your ideal vacation, but let me advice you: try it. Try it. I wouldn’t have traded a single sweating, stinking moment of it.
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Everyone's weighing in on Barack Obama's first year, and I suppose I can't resist — with the caveat that it's far too early to judge his presidency, etc., etc.
I'm worried, frankly, but perhaps not for the same reasons as some other folks might be. Here's my overarching concern: Obama is focusing on foreign-policy problems, not opportunities. He's stabilizing the U.S. economy, working the Iran nuclear issue, trying to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring peace in Israel/Palestine, struggling to contain a dangerous situation in Pakistan, and renegotiating nuclear treaties with the far-off goal being a world without atomic weapons.
Working these tough issues is necessary, especially after the mess George W. Bush left behind, and I don't have too many gripes about the new president's approach to them. What Obama's not doing, however, is more worrisome. He's not presenting a positive vision of a prosperous world, and he's spending too much time worrying about failing backwaters like Yemen and Afghanistan and too little time thinking about the places that work, like East Asia and Europe.
Yes, it's true that in this day and age, threats can come from anywhere and failed states are often incubators of terrorism and instability. Duly noted. Yet the United States became a globla hegemon not only by being the world's policeman and firefighter, but also by being its banker, lawyer, and retailer.
Obviously, the financial crisis has hurt America's economic credibility, but there are still plenty of countries eager to trade with the United States. A great example of a missed opportunity is Obama's recent trip to Asia, where the region's dynamic leaders were clearly disappointed that the U.S. president had so little to offer them on trade. Or look at Europe, where elites are feeling snubbed by perhaps the most "European" American president in recent memory.
Now that the health-care bill seems to be on its way to becoming law, and the economy is recovering, I hope Obama will start to focus on the future he wants to build for the world, not just the dangers he hopes to neutralize.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News
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Sand Hill Wildlife Management Area provides almost a thousand acres of public access land for hunters located along Route 50 on the Ritchie and Wood Counties line. Sand Hill is located about 20 miles east of the Ohio state line. Access to Sand Hill WMA is excellent due to its proximity. Hunters do not need a four wheel drive truck to access this site. Parking is provided with-in sight of Route 50 on the south side of the highway and the area lying to the north of the highway can be accessed by a well maintained road as well. Further access can be made from Volcano Road via Mountwood Park.
The land at Sand Hill WMA begins with on a ridge top at Route 50 and follows the slope in either direction down the hillsides. Hunting in this area is not for those who are out of shape as the slopes can be pretty steep (especially when dragging a deer!). However hunting pressure in this area appears relatively light. While I have not hunted there during deer firearms season I do drive by it on the way to the farm I hunt. I have never seen more than three cars in the parking lot. If it appears there are few hunters in the area you probably could take a stand near the top of a ridge and not have that difficult of a hunt.
While there is no fishing available at the Sand Hill WMA, Mountwood Park located a couple miles away does offer a lake for fishing. Mountwood also offers a shooting range to get sighted in or simply to practice.
Sand Hill WMA is just one of many Public Hunting and Fishing Areas provided by the State of West Virginia.
West Virginia Wildlife Management Areas provide Public Hunting and Public Fishing Areas to assure access to the game and fish in the state of West Virginia. These areas are professionally managed to conserve the state's wildlife for future generations by preserving and rebuilding habitat. Many of the WMA's that I have visited have shown signs of active management such as replanting of trees and native shrubs. Many WMA's also receive fish stockings to support the game fish populations.
Sand Hill WMA is a relatively new property for the state of West Virginia. If you are looking for a place to pursue deer, squirrel, grouse, rabbit, or many other game animals without having to go off road this may be the place for you. Sand Hill WMA is located less than an hour from Parkersburg, WV and Marietta, OH and within a few hours drive of Charleston, Clarksburg, Fairmont, Huntington and Morgantown, WV.
Visit my Content Producer page for more WMA and general West Virginia information.
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Levittown – A Pennsylvania judge says a man accused of strangling an acquaintance and setting his body on fire is competent to stand trial.Twenty-four-year-old Michael Lapish will stand trial on first-degree murder and related charges in the March 2008 death of William Baez-Cintron Jr. Berks County Judge Thomas Parisi on Monday rejected a defense request to have him ruled incompetent.Medical experts for both sides say Lapish has and IQ of 58 and Asperger's syndrome.Reading police say Lapish admitted to killing Baez-Cintron and burning his body. Authorities say he confessed and led investigators to the body.Lapish is being held without bail. His trial is scheduled for May.___Information from: Reading Eagle, http://www.readingeagle.com/
LONDON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – The proposed merger of two live music powerhouses, Live Nation Inc and Ticketmaster (NASDAQ:TKTM) Inc , was given a huge boost on Tuesday when a British regulatory body dropped its objections and approved the deal.
Britain's Competition Commission had laid out its concerns in a provisional ruling, saying music fans could wind up paying more to see live shows under the deal to combine the world's largest concert promoter with the ticketing group.
It also said a merger could hurt an existing partner of Live Nation's CTS Eventim AG in a statement in October that hit both groups' share prices. But the Commission said on Tuesday it had now dropped these concerns after further investigation.
“The Competition Commission (CC) has concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in the market for live music ticket retailing or in any other market in the UK, including live music promotion and live music venues,” it said.
“The CC has found that the merger will make little difference to the prospects of Eventim's success in the UK.”
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Cinema Vérité, a filmmaking style that became popular in France during the 1960's, has come back in style in a big way. Used by the current blockbuster “Paranormal Activity,” this “film as truth” style tends to feature little-known actors, realistic settings and dialogue. The upcoming thriller “The Fourth Kind” also uses Cinema Vérité to help explain what happened to some missing citizens of Nome, Alaska.
Cinema Vérité and “The Blair Witch Project”
Although Hollywood has a tendency to beef up a good story with explosive special effects, “The Blair Witch Project” shows that Cinema Vérité can pack theater seats just as well as a big-budget popcorn movie. Unknown actors Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams play college students who have the same names as the actors. With the camera following their every move, the trio heads into the woods around Burkittsville, Maryland in search of the truth behind the Blair Witch, a local legend.
Captured by hand-held cameras, Donahue, Leonard and Williams had to improvise tense situations as realistically as possible. During post-production interviews, the actors said they received instructions from directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchéz in the form of small notes. For instance, Leonard could receive a note one morning telling him to start a fight with the other two students.
Though it took years for Myrick and Sanchéz to finish editing their piece, “The Blair Witch Project” ultimately broke box-office records and became a modern horror classic. The key scene where Heather Donahue reveals her fear privately to the camera is both an unforgettable moment and a perfect example of Cinema Vérité.
“Cloverfield” and the power of Cinema Vérité
Like “The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield” begins with a frame explaining the origins of the film that the audience is about to see. In this case, the digital video footage was “discovered” in the rubble that once was Central Park. The story opens with scenes of happy people at a party, but smiles and laughter soon turn to terror as something horrible invades New York City.
The hand-held camera follows a small group of terrified survivors as they make their way across the city. The action takes a detour into the fantastic, with large bug-like creatures biting hapless human victims, whose bodies subsequently burst apart. Still, the shaky footage and realistic reactions make “Cloverfield” another great use of Cinema Vérité.
Factual evidence in “The Fourth Kind”
In the 1970's, Steven Spielberg made sure everyone knew the meaning of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A reference to the different kinds of alien encounters, “Third Kind” means actual contact with beings from another planet. “The Fourth Kind” describes a more frightening encounter, namely alien abduction.
This upcoming movie uses the fact that many citizens of Nome, Alaska mysteriously go missing each year as a jumping-off point. Using recorded interviews that are supposed to be with actual abduction victims, “The Fourth Kind” attempts to use Cinema Vérité to explain what has been going on in Nome for years.
“The Fourth Kind,” rated PG-13 for violent/disturbing images, some terror, thematic elements and brief sexuality, opens nationwide on Friday, November 6.
Resources:
http://www.parlez-vous.com/misc/realism.htm
http://www.thefourthkind.net/
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Dr Drew – Would you hit it?
So this is what Dr. Drew Peensky is hiding under those Geoffrey Beene button-downs and Izod ties! Dr. Drew is trying to give a bitch a sex addiction around here. Genitals everywhere want their fix! Now we know what his game is. I mean, who could ever resist this. You just want to pinch his pink nipples with your ass lips. If you don't know that trick yet, I'll be teaching a class on it at the Learning Annex over the holidays.
Here's Dr. Drew keeping it sexy in Hawaii over the weekend.
source
Dam this was fast. Despite earlier reports saying her autopsy would take place tomorrow, “the L.A. County Coroner is currently conducting an autopsy on Brittany Murphy, despite the wishes of her husband Simon Monjack.”
When asked for a comment, Tiger Woods leaned back in a huge leather chair in front of a 20-foot wall of flat screen TVs all showing different shows, tapped his fingers together and said, “Exxx-cellent. Everything is going according to plan.”
CONFUSING UPDATE – or maybe it’s not underway. Radar now says, “the (autopsy) would occur on Monday and was not underway as of Monday morning despite internet reports.”
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New product launches are a key driver of business growth. Launching a new product or service can be an exciting time but it has to be done right or the chances of success are severely diminished. Although difficult to find exact statistics for new product launches in general, the failure rate for new product launches ranges from an estimated 50% to 75%. A 1997 study showed that:
*The failure rate for new product introduction in the retail grocery industry is 70-80 percent;
*The U.S. Top 20 food companies enjoy a 76 percent success rate for their new product introductions;
*The “Bottom 20,000″ U.S. food companies have an 11.6 percent success rate for new product introductions;
*A major difference between Top 20 new product introductions and Bottom 20,000 introductions is the apparent lack of research and strategic marketing done by the Bottom 20,000.
Here is a list of the ten most common mistakes businesses make when planning and executing a new product launch:
1. Not planning early enough: Companies often devote most of their time to planning and developing their new product, not planning the launch. Several weeks before the launch date they realize that they don't have a plan in place, that they don't have the expertise or resources that they need to successfully carry out the launch.
2. Poor or non-existent marketing strategy: Sometimes companies focus all of their efforts on planning their launch but pay little attention to develop a marketing strategy to carry sales in for the long-term. The launch doesn't go well and they wonder why.
3. Failing to define your target market: If you haven't clearly defined your target market, how can you be sure what they want and how to reach them?
4. Launching too soon: Companies are often so eager to be first to market that they overlook important aspects of the launch and it doesn't go well.
5. Poor quality product: This goes along with launching too soon. I've seen it time and time again-a company is so anxious to launch its new product that they overlook critical flaws.
6. A rigid, inflexible launch plan: Successfully launching a new product is an art not a science. Because of that, you need to be flexible. Companies that aren't flexible pay the price with unsuccessful launches.
7. Insufficient funding: This is a common mistake not just in product launches but in small companies in general-they fail to ensure that they have sufficient funding in place to carry them until they develop a regular cash flow.
8. Overestimating results: Sure, it's great to daydream about the perfect product launch where you spend a few thousands dollars on publicity and the next thing you know, you're the toast of radio and television programs across the country and everyone is raving about your new product. A nice fantasy yes, but that rarely ever happens in real life.
9. Not delegating (trying to do everything yourself): No one is an expert at everything. Particularly in small businesses, CEOs tend to think of themselves as jacks of all trades with the expertise to do everything. Unfortunately, that's not usually the case.
10. Not having a crisis plan: What do you do when things go wrong? A lot of people just panic but that strategy usually doesn't help. While obviously no one can plan for every possible catastrophe, having a crisis plan in place can be a huge help.
Paying attention to these common errors and planning ahead so you can avoid them can be an extremely important part of planning and executing a successful new product launch.
Turner Group Marketing, Inc. has more than 20 years experience successfully launching products in the mass market.
Linton, Matysiak & Wilkes, Inc., Marketing, Witchcraft or Science, July 1997
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I must say, even her father admires her natural qualities. This however was when she looked normal. She is prematurely aging, and if you don't mind me saying so, she should go to the Ponds section in Walgreens and brouse a while, and then go over to the hair color section and find another choice. A good one presumably.
It wouldn't be the holiday season without hearing Ronnie Spector Christmas songs rocking around your radio dial. The singer, who inspired countless artists today with her perfect rock and soul vocals, is doing a small holiday tour performing her festive hits as well as classic tunes, and songs off her latest album The Last of the Rock Stars. I spoke with the icon and former Ronette frontwoman in the business about the holidays, the impact her music has had, but sadly, not Eddie Money. Feliz Navidad.
Do you ever get sick of the holiday season?
I never ever get sick of Christmas. I was in love with Santa when I was a little girl. I would be standing in line with my mom at Macy's and waiting and waiting, and then all of a sudden as the line moved up I would get a glimpse of Santa, and I would freak. I just couldn't wait to sit on his lap. And I love the lights and colors around the holidays. People are nicer, too.
Amen to that. Is your show all Christmas or a combination of hits and holiday tunes?
My Christmas show has all my hits, plus a few songs I recorded first that went on to be hits for other people. And I sing all my Christmas hits, and a few of my Christmas favorites, but it's not Andy Williams.
That's a good thing. What's your favorite holiday song to sing?
I love Frankie Lymon's “It's Christmas Once Again.” I just recorded my own version of it. I had been singing it for about 15 years.
What's your favorite holiday song to listen to?
I like “Gee Whiz it's Christmas” and “The Christmas Song.”
What current artists are you listening to?
I am not listening to any current projects. I am touring around, doing interviews, getting everything together for my shows. I love making music, not so much listening to it except when I am driving.
OK, what contemporary artist do you respect the most?
If I had to mention anyone right off the top of my head, I would have to say Taylor Swift.
What do you make of Lady Gaga?
I think that is a question you should ask me in two years from now.
OK, what do you make of the song “Radio Gaga?”
I am goo goo for gaga.
Are you surprised with how timeless your tunes have been?
Yes I am. Recording back in the 60's I never thought I would be in Stop & Shop 40 years later picking up a few items and they would be playing my songs in the store. I still get a kick out of it to this day. When I was at the movies a while back and the closing credits were rolling and they played one of my songs, I leaned over to the lady next to me and said 'That's me singing', and she looked at me like I was crazy.
Lastly, what is a typical audience like for you?
It's a mixed audience, the hardcore Ronette's fans from the 60's. Fans that knew me from touring and recording with Springsteen and the 'E' Street Band and Southside Johnny in the 70's, punk kids that love my style, and my work with Joey Ramone. I have always had a gay following since the days we started out down in the West Village at the Cafe Wha and the Bazaar. And the young girls and boys that discover me either through their parents or the other bands they listen to who mention me as an influence, like the Raveonettes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You will always find a bunch of mothers who bring their teenage daughters to see me. I like that a lot.
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Today is the birthday of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. The Very Hungry Caterpillar kid's book published by Eric Carle was written 40 years ago today. I can't believe how the time went by so fast. This caterpillar book is still one of America's favorites. Kids love how the caterpillar eats his way through all the fruits, ends up with a stomachache, and turns into a gorgeous butterfly. If you never heard of or read the Very Hungry Caterpillar I highly suggest you do so. This is one great book for kids. Make a learning lesson by having your child count the fruits, teach them how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, days of the week, and of course nutrition. Your child will make this book one of their favorites. I loved this book and being that today is the caterpillar's birthday I searched online for some real cute Very Hungry Caterpillar coloring pages, activities, and crafts for your child to enjoy in or out of the classroom.
Dltk-teach.com- On this website your child will be able to make their own very hungry caterpillar out of felt or they can turn the caterpillar into a puppet. Also on this website you will be able to color butterfly coloring pages, leaf coloring pages, fruit coloring pages, and other cute items that were mentioned in the book. If your child doesn't want to color then maybe they would enjoy making a butterfly craft, caterpillar craft, or a food craft. DLTK offers 19 free butterfly coloring pages, 20 fruit coloring pages, 8 leaf coloring pages, 1 big caterpillar coloring page, 1 Monarch Chrysalis coloring page, and 1 Monarch butterfly coloring page.
Lucygardens.com- This site offers free butterfly coloring pages, garden coloring pages and caterpillar coloring pages. For the caterpillar coloring pages you get to choose from 8 different stages of the caterpillar. Then for the butterfly you have 9 great looking pages to color. As a bonus your child can also color free garden pages. This site offers a huge variety of pictures to color to celebrate the birthday of the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
First-school preschool activities and crafts- This fun website your child can learn the days of the week, the growth stages of the caterpillar, print out C for caterpillar activities, free insect coloring pages, butterfly and moth coloring pages, and make their own colorful caterpillar craft.
Teachingheart.net- Here you can make our own Monarch mini book, color some neat looking butterflies, caterpillar's, fruits, and leafs. Then you can have fun with the caterpillar maze, puzzles, connect the dots, or the caterpillar quiz. After having fun make sure to read the Very Hungry Caterpillar to your child.
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The Houston Texans are certainly not afraid of change and finally made the switch to a new quarterback this off season. Matt Schaub has arrived from the Atlanta Falcons and former number one draft pick David Carr is now in Carolina. The effect this should have on the receivers should be minimal as the real problem in Houston was not Carr, but the offensive line. Any quarterback that had the minimal time to throw that Carr faced would be sacked often, but the Texans went with Schaub anyway. The receiving corp again will be lead by Andre Johnson and filled in with some young talent and dependable Keenan McCardell.
Andre Johnson was everything the Texans could have hoped for in 2006. He gained over 1100+ yards and caught over 100+ balls for an offense that really struggled at times. About the only knock on Johnson has been getting into the end zone. As a number one receiver you have to hit pay dirt more than his anemic 5 touchdown output last season. For Johnson to take his place at the top of the position, he will have to find a way to score more often. To be fair, he has not really had a solid number two receiver in the past to take away the double team, and this year is more of the same.
Listed number two on the depth chart is fifth year player Kevin Walter. Acquired from the Bengals a year ago, he is an unproven commodity, and no one knows for sure what to expect from him. He has great size at 6-3 and 215 pounds, and should make a nice target for Schaub, but he does not have the skills to fill a true number two spot.
Keenan McCardell is much more likely to fill the number two spot this season, barring injury. After a few seasons with the Chargers, the longtime Jaguar is heading into his sixteenth year in the NFL. Always productive, and often overlooked, he might be the pickup that really makes a difference this season. A slightly slower McCardell is still better than the average number two receiver in today's NFL and the Texans have a gem in Keenan.
After the three guys mentioned above, the position is pretty thin, filled with young and old underachievers and unproven talent. The Texans can ill afford injury to the receivers, particularly Andre Johnson. If Johnson goes down, the Texans will be in trouble as he is the only real big play threat on the roster at the position. McCardell is capable of the big play, but only in spots as he has been around before.
Barring injury, the receivers should hold their own this season, yet it won't be enough to get the Texans into the playoffs. Their is simply to much uncertainty in the offensive line to expect much more than a 500 season at best.
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Enjoy the show people. You are watching plasma from space reacting with our atmosphere. Lab experiments performed by Tony Peratt (read his paper: “Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity.” He compares laboratory experiments with plasma effects with ancient hieroglyphs, concluding that plasma-based phenomena due to solar winds and cosmic plasma radiation caused observable aurora. Early cultures would witness the light shows and draw the patterns on cave walls which explains why diverse cultures with no communication had similar patterns and drawings.
On page 3, there is a photo of a ten kilometer, 150-mA electron current injected approx 100 km above earth. It is exactly like the spiral contrails of the Norwegian observation!! These are not rocket contrails. It is electro-magnetic current from plasma columns (see photo on dailymail.uk site to compare).
Enjoy the show people. Northern lights at their best!!
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These days, everywhere you turn there is another “celebrity” scandal. When I was young, kids could look up to the people in the news: little boys wanted to be ball players, little girls beauty queens and both sexes President. These days, the thought of our children wanting those same things, send chills down our spine! Now, we read about athletics taking steroids, the President, well, I don't have enough time to go into that and the beauty queens, what has happened to the Beauty contestants? Let's just review:
1. The latest beauty-queen-gone-bad episode is 25-year-old Kumari Fulbright who has recently been indicted. Back in 2005 Fulbright was Miss Pima County in 2005 and then went on to participated in the Miss Arizona pageant. She was also Miss Desert Sun in 2006.
Fulbright is charged with allegedly kidnapping, taunting, torturing (with a knife and gun) and biting her former 24-year-old boyfriend for 10 hours. The Arizona Daily Star has reported that court documents stated Kumari Fulbright, and three men kept the unidentified man subdued by tying him up with plastic cable ties and duct tape. They are also accused of taking over $500, his wallet, cell phone and briefcase.
Great behavior for a so called role model not to mention the fact she is employed as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Raner Collins.
2. Probably the most viewed (thanks to youtube) is the answer Miss South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton gave to a question during the Miss Teen USA 2007. If you somehow missed this, here is the transcript of the funny, yet so sad, question.
Question: “Recent polls have shown that a fifth of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Upton's answer: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our .”
Here is the great part, she ended up still being 3rd runner up!
3. Katie Rees, 22, was crowned Miss Nevada 2007 in Las Vegas in October only to have it stripped from her in December. The title was handed over to her runner up after racy photos (exposing one of her breasts, kissing and licking both sexes etc) started showing up all over the Net. Donald Trump (USA co-owner) stated on CNN that “These pictures were pretty far out there and that is not representative of Miss USA. We had no choice but to terminate her.” Rees insisted that was “not who she was” and that it was an “isolated incident” but apparently nobody cared.
4. Tara Conner is known as the Miss USA 2006 and as the alcoholic thats crown was saved by Donald Trump. Many are unsure as to why she was allowed to “break the rules” and standards (underage drinking, drug use and promiscuous behavior) while other contestants are dropped without a second chance. Conner had to enter rehab, but was able to hang onto her title. After leaving rehab, Conner gave an interview with People magazine where she admits to taking her first drink at the age of 14, that she also tried drugs and came out “a completely different person.” Since she tested positive for cocaine I doubt anyone was shocked to hear she had tried drugs, or were we suppose to miss that?
Another reason to push our kids to get an education!
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Today, all eyes will be on the chancellor, Alistair Darling, as he announces his pre-budget report and outlines key spending plans for the public sector for the next three years.
Public managers, who for months have been modelling what would happen to the services they run if budgets are cut by 10%, 20% or even 30%, will be keen to get a feel for the real figures. There is apprehension — but there is also a feeling that, once the worst is known, at least managers can work on what they need to do. Senior managers across the public sector have been frustrated for some time by the refusal of politicians in both parties to be more definite about their future spending policies.
The pre-budget report may be the most important event of the week, but it stands amid other announcements that reflect the way public services are changing. Today also sees the first release of results from a new way of monitoring local councils' performance, while Monday saw the Treasury report on public sector reform, Smarter Government, which outlined plans to reduce the cost of the senior civil service, cut the number of Whitehall quangos, and move tens of thousands of civil servants out of expensive London offices into other locations around the UK.
The new framework for inspecting local services, known as Oneplace and accessible via the government's Directgov website, is a bid to get over the well-known problem of previous inspections: councils were capable of meeting the targets, but missing the point. Their internal workings could be four-star, but the services they were actually delivering might fall well short of excellence.
Oneplace assesses not just councils, but also police authorities, primary care trusts and fire and rescue services. The output is not a league table or star system, but a “narrative in plain English” of the priorities that areas have themselves set, and inspection is no longer a matter of inspectors descending on a council, or a fire service, for one or two weeks, and then going away to write a report.
All this fits in with a drive towards greater local partnerships and great interest in the government's Total Place pilot schemes, where all public bodies in a specific area add up what they are spending and try to identify unnecessary duplication.
The new monitoring system, which covers 152 areas of England, uses a flag system to signal examples of particularly good or bad practice.
It's new for local areas and it's new for the six inspectorates involved, led by the local authority watchdog, the Audit Commission. But will it get closer to what the public perceive as good-value local public services? That's a harder question to answer. The new system means there is no longer a simple, standardised national measurement of councils.
However, there's a strong counterpoint to this. There are two words that make many public managers and politicians shudder: postcode lottery. The very mention of these words is enough to derail many innovative plans for reforming public services, says David Halpern, former government adviser and now director of research at the Institute for Government thinktank.
Halpern's book on the policy challenges posed for government in the face of social and economic change, The Hidden Wealth of Nations, also published this week, is in many ways an enlargement on the ideas that underlie the Smarter Government report. It sets out the many paradoxes in our ideas as a society, about prosperity, wellbeing, crime, inequality and fairness — or unfairness.
Real challenge
One of Halpern's points is that the government faces a real challenge as it moves towards the idea of greater allocation of public sector funding at local level. For instance, finding the right ways to allocate budgets, so that services can be spent in more innovative ways, has proved elusive.
Will the prospect of major cuts finally propel government services into true joined-up services? No one yet knows. There will be big resistance to some of the government's more sweeping proposals – but there is also, among senior managers, more acceptance of innovative ideas and the need to explore the inherent tensions involved in organising public services.
• Jane Dudman is editor of Public, the Guardian's website for senior public sector managers. guardianpublic.co.uk
Mark Stuart, Derek Morris and David Krejci scored to give the Bruins a 3-0 lead after two periods. Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin had goals in the third to cut Toronto's deficit to 3-2, but Recchi scored with 2:37 to play and then added an empty netter with 12 seconds left to clinch it.
Vesa Toskala made 29 saves for Toronto, which lost 7-2 in Boston on Saturday night.
The Bruins improved to 8-1-1 in the last 10 games and took over first place in the Northeast Division.
It was the second time in six days Boston took a big lead on the Maple Leafs and former Bruins forward Phil Kessel, who signed with Toronto as a restricted free agent in the offseason. On Saturday, the Bruins scored the first seven goals and coasted.
This time, Boston squandered most of a 3-0 lead before getting a late power play when Jason Blake was called for high-sticking with 4:01 left.
The Bruins put pressure on, bouncing the puck in front of the net, but Recchi and Krejci failed to put it in until it went wide to Blake Wheeler. He passed it back into the slot where Recchi redirected it in to make it 4-2.
Recchi added an empty netter with 12 seconds left.
Just as they did on Saturday, when the Bruins dominated in Kessel's first visit, the crowd booed him virtually every time he touched the puck. At least one fan in the crowd wore a Kessel T-shirt, but the name and number on the back had been X'd out.
The Bruins controlled the game from the start when Blake was sent off 16 seconds in with a double minor for high-sticking. Boston couldn't score on the power play, but took a 1-0 lead with 11:59 to play in the first when a faceoff went around the horn and found its way to Stuart, who slapped it in from the point.
It was his first goal since Oct. 17, and Johnny Boychuk's first NHL assist.
Morris made it 2-0 with a slapper from the point 35 seconds into the second period, 6 seconds after Ian White was sent off for holding. Krejci gave Boston a 3-0 lead midway through the second when he blocked a shot with his skate and took off on a breakaway, faking out Toskala to score.
Toronto made it 3-1 just 18 seconds into the third period when Blake shot the puck across the net, and Grabovski slammed home the rebound. Kulemin cut the deficit to one goal, deflecting a shot in from the side of the crease.
Kessel was scoreless for the second time in two games against the Bruins. The No. 5 overall pick in the 2006 draft scored 36 goals last season – and a total of 66 in his first three NHL seasons but he couldn't come to terms with the Bruins.
Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli said Kessel had told the Bruins he wanted to play elsewhere and traded him to Toronto for two first-round draft picks and a second-rounder.
NOTES: Rask has not lost in regulation since Nov. 16. … Bruins forward Byron Bitz was sick and didn't play.
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These days, everywhere you turn there is another “celebrity” scandal. When I was young, kids could look up to the people in the news: little boys wanted to be ball players, little girls beauty queens and both sexes President. These days, the thought of our children wanting those same things, send chills down our spine! Now, we read about athletics taking steroids, the President, well, I don't have enough time to go into that and the beauty queens, what has happened to the Beauty contestants? Let's just review:
1. The latest beauty-queen-gone-bad episode is 25-year-old Kumari Fulbright who has recently been indicted. Back in 2005 Fulbright was Miss Pima County in 2005 and then went on to participated in the Miss Arizona pageant. She was also Miss Desert Sun in 2006.
Fulbright is charged with allegedly kidnapping, taunting, torturing (with a knife and gun) and biting her former 24-year-old boyfriend for 10 hours. The Arizona Daily Star has reported that court documents stated Kumari Fulbright, and three men kept the unidentified man subdued by tying him up with plastic cable ties and duct tape. They are also accused of taking over $500, his wallet, cell phone and briefcase.
Great behavior for a so called role model not to mention the fact she is employed as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Raner Collins.
2. Probably the most viewed (thanks to youtube) is the answer Miss South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton gave to a question during the Miss Teen USA 2007. If you somehow missed this, here is the transcript of the funny, yet so sad, question.
Question: “Recent polls have shown that a fifth of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Upton's answer: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our .”
Here is the great part, she ended up still being 3rd runner up!
3. Katie Rees, 22, was crowned Miss Nevada 2007 in Las Vegas in October only to have it stripped from her in December. The title was handed over to her runner up after racy photos (exposing one of her breasts, kissing and licking both sexes etc) started showing up all over the Net. Donald Trump (USA co-owner) stated on CNN that “These pictures were pretty far out there and that is not representative of Miss USA. We had no choice but to terminate her.” Rees insisted that was “not who she was” and that it was an “isolated incident” but apparently nobody cared.
4. Tara Conner is known as the Miss USA 2006 and as the alcoholic thats crown was saved by Donald Trump. Many are unsure as to why she was allowed to “break the rules” and standards (underage drinking, drug use and promiscuous behavior) while other contestants are dropped without a second chance. Conner had to enter rehab, but was able to hang onto her title. After leaving rehab, Conner gave an interview with People magazine where she admits to taking her first drink at the age of 14, that she also tried drugs and came out “a completely different person.” Since she tested positive for cocaine I doubt anyone was shocked to hear she had tried drugs, or were we suppose to miss that?
Another reason to push our kids to get an education!
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Latest News
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Walter Smith has agreed to work without a contract at Rangers once his deal expires next month.
The club's chief executive, Martin Bain, told shareholders that the manager, the assistant Ally McCoist and the coach Kenny McDowall would all stay on without signing deals as the majority shareholder Sir David Murray tries to sell his stake in the club.
“We are lucky to have a management team who are all true Rangers supporters,” Bain said at the club's annual meeting. “Walter, Ally and Kenny have agreed to work without contracts to protect the club from having a management team that new owners might not want.”
Smith is reportedly the Scottish Football Association's top target along with Craig Levein to become the new national team coach, despite ruling himself out of a return to the role he vacated in January 2007 to begin a second stint at Rangers.
Confirmation of Smith's willingness to work without a contract will be a blow to the SFA board members, who thought they could take advantage of the uncertainty surrounding his future.
Smith, 61, led Rangers to the Premier League title in May and has also won three cup competitions and reached the Uefa Cup final in his two full seasons.
Meanwhile, the chairman Alastair Johnston received generous applause when he ruled out the renaming of Ibrox. Rangers are £31m in debt but Johnston insisted they would not follow Newcastle by selling the naming rights. He said: “One thing we will not be putting in this business plan, or in future business plans; there is no plan to sell the naming rights to this stadium. Ibrox is non-negotiable.”
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Barack Obama's victory in the Presidential election is stunning and historic, but not really surprising. A number of factors contributed to his victory, and all were easily visible throughout the campaign. The good news is that those same factors will help Obama govern once he takes office.
The four main factors were: the nation in crisis, his personality, his political organization, and his stands on the issues. I will attempt to explain how each of those helped him win, how they will make it easier for him to govern and some of the pitfalls which nonetheless remain.
1. Nation in Crisis
There's nothing like a crisis to convince people we need a change of leadership. I think everyone will agree that crisis helped Obama win. And I'm not just talking about the financial crisis of this fall, but the ongoing crisis of eight years of Bush rule (of which the financial crisis was certainly part). Iraq, Katrina, the failure to capture Bin Laden, plus a general sense of global disaster, all convinced the public it was time to change not just the president, but leadership at all levels. The financial crisis was just the icing on the cake.
How It Helps Him Govern — Times of crisis are times of opportunity. The various crises, especially the financial meltdown, give Obama the freedom to try much more radical programs than might have been possible before. The American public is willing to try almost anything which might fix the problem. Roosevelt would never have been able to enact the New Deal without the Depression. And Reagan would never have been able to enact his agenda without the various crises, financial and international, of the late 70's. Obama may be able to do something equally dramatic. Even if Obama's plans are not as ambitious at the New Deal, the sense of crisis gives him greater leeway, to propose and try out a variety of programs, as long as he is seen to be tackling the problem(s).
The Pitfalls — Obama may be encouraged tot ry something too radical, which the public won't support, or worse, which fails and makes the situation worse. Or, if the situation does not improve, despite his best efforts, the public may well turn against him. In any of these scenarios, the crisis now becomes his fault.
2. His Personality
Likewise, Obama's personality had a lot to do with his election. There are, in fact, two sides to Obama's personality which got him elected. The first operated primarily at the start of his campaign, the second at the very end.
The first was his ability to inspire. His soaring rhetoric and calls to hope and change caught the ear, and the mood, of a large swathe of the public back in January, and moved them to vote, and even volunteer. This lead to his victory in Iowa, and got him through the primaries.
Then, in the fall campaign, a second side of his personality came to the fore. This was the cool character Obama. The one who could stare down a financial crisis and not blink. This side convinced the public that he wasn't just talk, that he could handle whatever problems the presidency held. That he might be able to lead us. It was this side, even more than the inspirational side, which actually got him elected. Especially when compared with McCain's frantic and erratic response to the crisis.
How It Helps Him Govern — Obama is going to need both sides of his personality to govern, especially if/when our various crises deepen. Again, both Roosevelt and Reagan are relevant examples. The Great Depression lasted through Roosevelt's first two terms, yet he could govern (and remain popular) because he was able to inspire and reassure the public. Likewise, Reagan remained popular through success and failure because of his optimistic nature.
There are tough times ahead. Obama is going to need to continue to both inspire and calm the country to get through them. Moreover, the longtime good of the country may well demand short term sacrifice, whether it be higher taxes, continued deficits, or a call to arms, metaphorical or real. Obama alluded to this sacrifice in his victory speech. We will almost certainly hear more about the need for sacrifice in the months and years to come. Obama, steadfast and inspirational, is just he person to successfully deliver that message.
Pitfalls — If he doesn't manage to make some progress on some major problems, he may come to be viewed (as some opponents accused him) as all talk, no ability.
3. Political Organization
It is impossible to overstate how much organization won this election. From the Iowa caucuses to the final get-out-the-vote push, Obama not only out-organized his opponents, he probably had the best organization of any presidential election ever. Not only was he organized on the ground, he was organized on the internet. He had direct, back and forth communication with millions of supporters.
How It Helps Him Govern — He still has that organization. He can call, directly, on his supporters when he needs them, whether to pressure Congress to pass legislation, or just to demonstrate that support publicly. Large public demonstrations of support will inevitably help him advance his agenda.
Pitfalls — His supporters can talk back to him. Many of those supporters are more radical than the general public, and they may push his administration in a more radical direction. And there we could have that problem I already mentioned, where he enacts a radical solution which doesn't work.
4. His Stand on the Issues
It may seem strange that I've saved his stand on the issues for last, but they may have been the least important factor in his election. People knew they wanted change, but I'm not sure how much they thought about what that change would actually entail. Yet this will be the most important aspect of how he governs, for you can't govern just by talking pretty, you have to actually do something.
This is not to say that Obama was on the wrong side of the issues, and the country is in for a nasty shock. He was on the right side of the two biggest issues — Iraq and the economy. And what is significant, and unites the two issues, is that they both don't just represent policy failures, they represent philosophical failures.
Iraq represents the failure of the neocon idea of spreading democracy by force. (It is a bit amazing how fast that philosophy failed its very first test.) The financial meltdown represents the failure of supply-side economics — giving financial and tax breaks to the richest didn't encourage them to put the money back into he economy, it just made them greedier. And massive deregulation did not, in the end, strengthen the markets, it actually made them weaker. It is this failure of supply-side economics Obama referred to when he talked about building the economy from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.
Those are the issues Obama, deservedly, won on.
How It Helps Him Govern — It should be obvious. Being a liberal president at the collapse of the conservative era has some obvious advantages. His options are wide open. The public is ready for an activist government again. Both Katrina and the financial crisis have demonstrated that government does have a role to play, that it is not always (to quote the old conservative mantra) “the problem.”
On the other hand, Iraq and many aspects of the War on Terror –Guantanamo, wiretaps and torture — provide a nice counterpoint about the continuing dangers of governmental overreach.
If Obama can use his oratorical skills to articulate this and swing the public behind him, he could successfully pull of a massive reorganization and redirection of government.
The Pitfalls — The old liberal government did have it drawbacks. That's what enabled the conservative view to dominate our politics for 30 years. Obama has to thread the needle, reintroducing a liberal, activist government, while simultaneously getting a grip on the budget deficit. That will be his supreme challenge — reinvention of liberal government to fit a new era.
But if anyone can do this, I believe it is Obama. As I have shown, he has both the talents and the tools to govern not just effectively, but dramatically. To pull off major changes in how our government operates, and how our citizens perceive it.
If Obama puts these talents to proper use, he could go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. One who not only governed well, but changed the direction of our country and our politics, changed it for the better.
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Francis Cantrell
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 2:43 am
What theaters since it has been free access on the web all along. Just more Neocon spamming with out any sources to back your Neocon spamming claims I can see. If you don’t like the video don’t watch it and mind your own business spammer. Haliburton embezzled billions from America and, Iraq and Dick Cheney owns the company. Now that’s a problem…
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 7:06 am
It’s sad, isn’t it? “Oh, open your eyes, you’re all blind and brainwashed!” is all they say. For God’s sake, whoever made them high and mighty rulers? Just because they have an opinion doesn’t mean it’s a true opinion. I’d rather believe in reality OUTSIDE of the internet and Loose Change. I mean, come on, what seems a better source: Loose Change and Infowars or real people from real countries with real jobs and real lives? You’d think they had no brains… oh, wait… they don’t.
And FYI to all the foolish believers of this crap: Reality isn’t Hollywood. Reality is, shi.t happens, life does actually come as you see it, and that’s the way it is. A woman gets raped on the street; that happens as you see it. There was no secret government plot to rape that woman. There was no inside job. It just happened.
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Well seeing as they have been giving it away on line for free ever since it was made, your assumption has no truth in it’s base.
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
No FBI warning labels, therefore, money wasn’t their priority.
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
The one guy, the fellow with that monstrous, hydrocephalus head that he swings about like a mace on the end of a chain…..that dude is freaking scary…
BHAAA….like the dudes’ motives are nothing but altruistic….. suppose they haven’t made a thing from their delving into the conspiracy sea
For some, reality is elusive like the Fountain of Youth was for Ponce de’ Leon….
Posted on December 27th, 2009 at 2:51 am
*claps* you just spoke truth. Instead of people doing research and challenge what they hear and see, they take everything for gospel and that makes them look like a gullible idiot!