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The Africa Financial Grid is specifically designed to help MFIs reduce operating costs, streamline lending processes, and expand into additional finan

2009-03-12T23:47:00.000-07:00

The Africa Financial Grid is specifically designed to help MFIs reduce operating costs, streamline lending processes, and expand into additional financial services such as micro-insurance, bill pay, credit scoring and history, and international remittances. Its resource-sharing feature will also enable MFIs to collaborate with credit bureaus, international payment networks, and other financial institutions. Eventually, open platform technologies and standards will be adopted wherever possible to offer additional third-party services and capabilities, such as linking mobile payment providers to allow customers to repay loans and conduct money transfers via mobile phones or other devices

5 Ways to Save Time and Money on Your Business Printing Needs

2008-10-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Andrew Field, founder of e-commerce printing and PrintingForLess.com, shares tips for obtaining affordable, high-quality marketing materials.

1. Research Various Printers
2. Request Samples
3. Ask Questions
4. Only Accept the Best
5. Take Advantage of Special Discounts

175 Power Verbs and Phrases for Resumes, Cover Letters, and Interviews.

2008-10-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

While you’re revamping your resume or cover letter or constructing your proof-by-example stories for interviews, you’ll find you need to watch your word choice. Why? Communication is powerful if the words we use to communicate are powerful. That’s not all it takes, but the right words make for a good beginning.

So as you craft achievement statements or write paragraphs that sell your skills or draft interview responses to knock the employers’ socks off, consider these suggestions:

Use verbs in active tense, not passive tense.
Use verbs that convey power and action.
Use verbs that claim the highest level of skill or achievement you can legitimately claim.
Use verbs to accurately describe what you have done on the job.
Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly, but when you use them, use them well.
Use nouns that are as specific and as descriptive as possible.
Use numbers whenever possible.
Use the most impressive (and still honest) form of the number you use.
Never lie! It IS NOT worth it. It WILL catch up with you.
Proofread all your verbs and nouns for agreement, tense and appropriateness.

Here, then, are 175 powerful verbs and phrases to make use of in resumes, cover letters and interviews:

abated
abolished
accelerated
accomplished
achieved
actively participated
administered
advanced
advised
aggressively analyzed
applied
assumed a key role
authored
automated
built
hired
closed
coached
co-developed
codirected
co-founded
cold called
collected
co-managed
communicated
completed
computerized
conceptualized
conducted
consolidated
contained
contracted
contributed
controlled
convinced
coordinated
cost effectively created
critiqued
cut
dealt effectively
decreased
defined
delivered
designed
developed
developed and applied
directed
doubled
earned
eliminated
emphasized
enforced
established
evaluated
exceeded
executed
exercised
expanded
expedited
facilitated
filled
focused
formulated
fostered
founded
gained
generated
ground-breaking
headed up
helped
identified
implemented
improved
increased
initiated
innovated
instituted
instructed
integrated
interviewed
introduced
investigated
lectured
led
leveraged
maintained
managed
marketed
motivated
negotiated
orchestrated
organized
outmaneuvered
overcame
oversaw
penetrated
performed
permitted
persuaded
planned
played a key role
positioned
prepared
presented
prevented
produced
profitably
project managed
promoted
proposed
prospected
protected
provided
published
quadrupled
ranked
received
recommended
recruited
reduced
removed
renegotiated
replaced
researched
resolved
restored
restructured
reversed
satisfied
saved
scheduled
scoped out
selected
self-financed
set up
sold
solved
staffed
started
stopped
streamlined
substituted
supervised
taught
tightened
took the lead in
trained
trimmed
tripled
troubleshooted
turned around
upgraded
yielded

While you certainly can use the list anytime you’re looking to say something in a more powerful way, you can also use it to help jog your memory about accomplishments on present and past jobs that you might otherwise overlook. Also, consider using the list to help you refine your resumes and cover letters to be more powerful in their presentation and communication.

How to Win the Bankruptcy Game: Your Court Appearance

2008-08-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

Your Court Appearance

Judges are not allowed to be present at your creditors� meeting. As a result the trustee runs the show and the rules can be rather flexible. You are always free to consult with your attorney at any time during the questioning. Your attorney also has the right to interject clarifying remarks when necessary. This is not an inquisition, it�s just an information gathering session. Chances are there will be several other filers waiting in line. The trustee may appear rather bored, as he is required to repeat the same set of questions over and over. You should concentrate on blending in with the whole procedure as much as possible. Don't make waves or try and get into a debate.

Though the law does not require it, some trustees may ask you to surrender all your credit cards at some point in the proceeding. (They are only required to do so for those creditors who specifically demand that their cards be returned) If you plan to keep one or more of your cards, make this intention known to your lawyer before the meeting begins. (These are the cards you paid off in anticipating of your filing).

Schedule your court appearance carefully. Discuss this important subject with your attorney. If he doesn�t mention the following � you bring it up. The best times are 1. Just before Christmas, 2. On a Friday just before a holiday weekend 3. During July or August during the vacation season.

Have your attorney sit down and prepare you for each court appearance. Be sure to discuss all questions you may be asked. Try to anticipate the unexpected as much as possible. You don�t want any surprises at this stage of the game.

Should a repossession agent show up to repossess an asset inside your home, you can legally refuse them access to your residence. The only way they can prevail is to go to a court and obtain a court order. Few creditors will bother. Especially if there�s an automatic stay in effect.

I would be remiss if I didn�t include a short note about what can go wrong at this point. When you get to court, you will be placed under oath and asked a series of detailed questions regarding your financial situation. Be very careful. This is no time for playing games. If the trustee comes to feel that you are not being completely honest he can do some rather unpleasant things to you. First he may forward a recommendation to the court that the discharge of your debts be disallowed. (Ouch!) But it gets worse. He may also report your suspected deception to the U.S. Attorney for federal prosecution! So the motto here is - be honest! Make every effort to appear open and fully cooperative.

The Infamous "Slam-Dunk"

If you�re facing a divorce - this information may be useful. But please, if you use this ploy against a spouse, be sure that they really deserve it.

Jack and Sally have been having problems lately and it appears that divorce is in the wind. One night Jack asks Sally to sit down and discuss their problems. In his most sincere voice he tells her how much he regrets what has happened and that he feels that the marriage is over. The only thing left to do is to divide up the marital assets fairly. Jack says that he wants to do the right thing for Sally. He offers Sally what sounds like a really good deal provided she doesn�t hire an attorney and is willing to forgo receiving any alimony. Jack offers to make the house payments for a full ten years. He also offers to pay off her car and will even make the payments on their considerable credit card debt. Not a bad deal she thinks. She gets to live in the house for a full decade. She gets her car paid off and she can stop worrying about those old credit card bills. Jack tells Sally that she won�t get a better deal through an attorney and if she decides to hire one, this deal is off. This is a limited one-time offer. Jack pulls out some papers which Sally happily signs. Smiles all around. Sally keeps the house and Jack accepts all the debt.

Two days after the divorce was final, Jack filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and wiped out all the debt he just accepted! Sally gets absolutely nothing out of the deal. She must now make the house payments or lose the house, must make the car payments or lose the car and like a boomerang those nasty old credit card bills come swooping back!

This terrible ploy has been visited upon so many ex-wives that new protections have been written into the bankruptcy code with the intention of protecting the victim�s situation. But there are some limitations.

The new bankruptcy law now allows the injured (slam-dunked) spouse to file for protection within 60 days of their ex-spouse�s creditors� meeting. This means that she must retain a lawyer (who of course will need to be paid) and file during the relatively restricted 60 day window. If she misses the window or cannot afford to hire an attorney � she loses. Many ex-husbands are hoping that their ex-wives lack either the knowledge or the resources to take advantage of this new law.

Leasing a Car So That the Bankruptcy Court Can�t (or won't) Touch it�

As with everything else in this report, be sure to run this past your lawyer before you take any actions. This strategy may be just the ticket you need to drive a decent late-model car or it might work at all. It's a gamble but there are those who have pulled it off...

You lease a car. Don�t get greedy here. Just lease a decent non-luxury model. A new Chevy or Ford will do nicely. Do not make a large down payment, just the usual one. Be sure there is no automatic-repossession-upon-notification-of-bankruptcy-filing clause in the lease agreement. Increase the contract�s penalties for returning the car before the final lease expiration date. Make sure there are no provisions for recovering any funds by surrendering the vehicle during the term of the lease. Make sure you stay current on the payments. And of course, don�t list the lease on your list of debts to be discharged on your bankruptcy petition.

The court may not like your lease if the car is too fancy or the term of the lease too long. Keep the lease down to two or three years, the shorter the term the better.

The court assigns a trustee whose job it is to recover as much money as possible by selling off your non-exempt assets. If you owned the car outright with no debt, and it�s value exceeds the usual maximum threshold (usually a measly $1,200) the trustee would quickly sell it off and use the funds to help satisfy your creditors. His decision would be a simple one.

But when a trustee decides whether or not to sell off a particular asset he must look at how much time and effort will be required versus how much money he might recover. If the effort is not worth the return, the trustee will take a pass, which is our goal in this case.

Because lease agreements vary so much, there are no black and white rules about whether or not a trustee will terminate a lease. A vehicle leased according the formula provided above may present the trustee with one of those situations where terminating the lease is more trouble than it�s worth. (Besides, it�s not going to produce any additional funds for your creditors - so why bother at all?)

85 Penis Size "Facts"

2007-11-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

85 Penis Size "Facts"

After all this, you must be more than ready for the penis size "facts". Note: When it says "men" or "women" then that is what it says, otherwise it would say "all men" or "all women". So think about this before making a comment. There are exceptions to everything in life… Enjoy!
If you are a woman and you don't prefer bigger than average penises, then you are... an exception.

Women prefer bigger penises more than men prefer bigger breasts.

The average penis measures 6 to 7 inch long and 5 to 5 ½ inch in circumference (about 1 ¾ inch wide).

When you think you have a small penis, you are generally right.

Shorter and thinner than average flaccid penises are averagely shorter and thinner when erect than average erect penises. (Does that make any sense?)

Penis size is not just a locker room issue.

Women care about the size of flaccid penises.

Women love touching and looking at big flaccid penises.

Women love touching and looking at big erect penises.

Women love giving oral sex to big penises, if they are able to of course.

Big penises cause more vaginal pleasure for women.

What about this: Twenty percent of all women stay with a man for his big penis...

forty percent stay with a man for his money...

forty percent stay with a man because of who he is...

...eighty percent would like their partner to have a bigger penis!

...eighty percent of women don't orgasm from intercourse alone!

...eighty percent of men have an average or small penis!

If your penis slips out often during intercourse, you probably have a small penis.

Women find small penises frustrating.

Women find small penises annoying.

Women find small penises boring.

Women find small penises embarrassing.

Women look for bulge when meeting men.

Women look up to men with big penises.

Women find big penises impressive.

Women consider men with big penises more masculine.

Men with big penises are more self secure.

Women prefer men who are self secure.

Most women consider men with a big penis a sex object.

Most men don't mind to be considered a sex object by women.

Women pretend they want a sensual and sensitive man no matter his size.

Women know they want a macho and masculine man with big penis size.

Women want to sleep at least once in their life with a man with a very big penis.

Men with bigger penises date more women than men with smaller penises.

Men with a big penis have more chance to have sex with two or more women at the same time.

Women brag to other women if their partner has a big penis.

Women have more patience when it comes to well hung guys.

Men with a big penis get dumped less by their girlfriend than men with a small penis.

Most women are sexually very active with different partners between the age of 17 and 21.

Most women have had many more sexual partners than they are telling you.

Consequently, the probability that a man's new date has seen a bigger penis than his is very high.

If a woman doesn't make a comment about a man's penis it means she is not impressed, …or worse.

Women make favorable comments when they discover their new mate has a big penis.

If you haven't heard any great comments about your penis size when having sex the first time with a woman, you don't have a big penis.

If you have never heard a complaint about your penis being too small, it might be because the complaint was muted while pronounced.

Asking a woman if she thinks your penis is big is useless.

If a woman tells you your penis is nice, it means usually it is rather small.

If a woman tells you your penis is big, it means usually it is plain average.

If a woman tells you your penis is so huuuuge, it usually means it is just big.

If a woman lowers your pants, utters a shriek, takes off her clothes and hugs your penis, it usually means you are too big.

However, if a woman lowers your pants, utters a shriek, puts her clothes back on and leaves, it usually means you are too small.

Women don't tell you that you are average. They will tell you that you are big, the rest is small and very few are humongous.

If your girlfriend's previous lover was above average thick, she will not feel you inside if you are below average thick.

If your girlfriend's previous lover was way above average thick, she will not feel you inside if you are average thick.

Most vaginas prefer thick penises.

Most penises prefer tight vaginas.

If your woman purposely squeezes her vagina very tight during intercourse, she wants to make you feel big.

Women have to strain themselves to get off on a thinner than average penis.

Men with a short penis have to work harder to give pleasure to a woman.

Men with a long penis have to work less hard during intercourse.

Men with a long penis have more fun during intercourse.

Men with a long penis cause more fun during intercourse.

Men with a long and thick penis cause the most fun during intercourse.

Women consider a penis between 7 and 8 inch in length and between 6 and 6 1/2 inch girth ideal.

Women whose partner is smaller than average, wish sometimes he would wear a big strap-on.

A big strap-on causes less pleasure than a real penis of the same size.

Women whose partner is larger than average never think of him wearing a strap-on.

Men with small penises masturbate more often.

Over-masturbating causes your penis to shrink by eventually depleting your sexual energy.

Men with small penises are getting masturbated more often than getting laid.

Not using your penis by getting laid might cause it to shrink as well.

If a woman publicly says that size doesn't matter, it is often because she is with a small penis guy.

Women who believe size is a non-issue tend to be more spiritual than sexual.

Women who believe size is a non-issue tend to be more insecure and are looking for long-term relations.

Women who believe size is a non-issue care less about sex to begin with.

Women who believe size is a non-issue usually want flowers, candies and long walks under the moonlight instead of wild sex.

Women who believe size is a non-issue only want to make love.

Normal women want to make love on some days and have sex on the other ones.

Making love is spiritual..., having sex is physical attraction, size and technique.

Men with a big penis can be just as good or bad in technique as smaller endowed men.

If a smaller endowed man has great technique, it might be because he doesn't have much choice.

Most women who always prefer receiving oral sex to penetration, do so because of either mental or physical causes.

In general, women prefer vaginal penetration above oral stimulation.

The main reason some women feel pain from penetration by a large penis is that the guy rushes without waiting for the vagina to be expanded.

Other reasons a woman can feel pain from penetration by a large penis is that she is not relaxed enough or that the guy has bad technique.

25 historic Time Magazine "Person of the एअर"

2007-11-15T19:38:00.000-08:00

The15 Tips for Writing an Apology Letter: What You Need to Know

2007-10-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Writing an Apology Letter: What You Need to Know

By Alice Feathers, M.A. TESOL, Professional Editor and Writer

Each of us has, at one time or another, said or done something that we wish we hadn't said or done. Rather than dwell on the mistake, however, we should take quick action to remedy the problem and then get on with life. An effective letter of apology is an important part of that process and can help turn "lemons into lemonade" and actually improve a relationship. This short article will give you several reasons for writing an apology letter and offer a few important suggestions to help you write a good one.

* TIMING. Write the apology letter as soon as possible.
* ACTIONS. Rather than focusing on the damage you have caused, write about things you will do to rectify the situation.
* BRIEF. Keep your apology letter short and to the point.
* SINCERITY. No one wants to read overly dramatic language. Choose your words carefully and express yourself clearly and simply.
* TONE. Your apology letter should be considerate and respectful. Remember, you are trying to rebuild a damaged relationship.
* BLAME. Take full responsibility for what you have done.
* FOLLOW UP. Try to set up a time when you can apologize in person, then back up your apology with considerate behavior in the future.

Apology Letter Tips:

*

For a defective, damaged, or incomplete product
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Focus on actions to rectify the situation rather than any damage you may have caused. Accompany your apology with a promise of compensation or restitution. A sincere apology can go a long way toward winning back a disgruntled customer. Consider offering the customer a peace offering such as a discount on their next purchase.
*

For a late payment
Your apology should be brief and to the point. Your reputation as a trustworthy customer and credit risk may be in question, so your immediate and thorough attention to the matter is important. Focus on your actions to correct the problem and offer assurance it won't happen again. A sincere, well-worded apology can do much to defuse a potential problem. Rebuild your reputation by consistently making payments on time in the future.
*

For a missed deadline
Apologize for a missed deadline as soon as possible after the incident. The tone of your letter should be considerate and respectful because you have probably caused some inconvenience. The letter should focus on actions you will take to make up for the missed deadline. A sincere, well-worded apology followed by positive action can do much to undo any damage to your reputation. Rebuild your reputation by consistently making your deadlines in the future.
*

For a shipping delay or error
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Do not apologize unless you plan to take full responsibility, and do not blame your reader or anyone else in any way. A sincere, well-worded apology can be effective in winning back an unhappy customer's confidence and patronage. Consider offering the customer a peace offering such as a discount on their next purchase.
*

For betrayed trust
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Don't apologize unless you plan to take full responsibility. Focus your comments on the actions you are taking to rectify the situation, not on the damage done. A sincere, well-worded apology, coupled with action, can go a long way toward repairing the damaged relationship. In this situation, it is usually best to apologize with a handwritten note or face to face.
*

For hurt feelings
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Assume your reader has good reason for being offended. Express your regret with deep sincerity. In this situation, it is usually best to apologize with a handwritten note or face to face.
*

For missing a meeting or an appointment
Whether you have already missed an appointment or will miss an appointment in the future, an explanatory note is a courtesy that will be appreciated. It shows you do take the relationship seriously. Be concise and polite.
*

For missing an event or for forgetting someone
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Focus your comments on what you are doing to rectify the situation rather than on any damage you may have caused. A sincere, well-worded apology can go a long way toward patching up a damaged relationship. Back up your apology with considerate behavior in the future.
*

For being late to a meeting or appointment
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Don't apologize unless you plan to take full responsibility and don't blame anyone. Rebuild your reputation by being consistently on time in the future.
*

For offensive behavior
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. This apology is best expressed with a handwritten note. Back up your apology with considerate behavior in the future.
*

For poor or inadequate service
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Don't apologize unless you plan to take full responsibility. A sincere, well-worded apology can help win back disgruntled customers and business associates. Back up your apology with model behavior in the future.
*

For someone else (business)
Normally, you should only apologize for your own offenses. However, if you are in some way accountable for the offender's behavior--as a supervisor might be, for example--it may be appropriate to write an apology even if the offender also writes one. Write a sincere apology as soon as possible after the incident.
*

For someone else (personal)
Normally, you should only apologize for your own offenses. However, if you are in some way accountable for the offender's behavior--as a parent or youth leader might be, for example--it would be a good idea to write an apology, even if the offender also writes one (under your guidance). Write a sincere apology as soon as possible after the incident.
*

To an employee or employees
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. The apology should be unilateral. Do not attempt to apologize unless you plan to take full responsibility. A sincere, well-worded apology, coupled with action, can go a long way toward patching up damaged relationships with employees. Consider offering the employee(s) some sort of peace offering such as a check bonus or a one-time, 2-hour lunch break.
*

Business apology
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. It should be clear, concise, and dignified. Focus on actions you are taking to rectify the situation, rather than on any resultant damage. A sincere, well-worded apology can go a long way toward winning back disgruntled customers and business associates.
*

Personal apology
Write this apology as soon as possible after the incident. Focus on actions you are taking to rectify the situation, rather than on any damage you may have caused. A sincere, well-worded apology can go a long way toward patching up a damaged relationship. Back up your apology with considerate behavior in the future.

Summary

In order to make a letter of apology effective, always write it as soon as possible after the offensive action takes place. Write a brief letter that is carefully worded and sincere. Whenever possible, make suitable restitution and assure the offended party that you will not repeat your regrettable behavior in the future. Back up your apology letter with appropriate behavior at the next available opportunity.

14 Methods to help resolve issues and improve system performance of Your Notebook PC

2007-10-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Description

As a computer is used to access information on the Internet and additional programs are added, the computer's performance may begin to degrade. A combination of unintentional changes to the system configuration files and some poorly designed software, can cause the PC to run slowly and freeze up for no obvious reason.

Solution

Perform one or more of the following methods to help resolve issues and improve system performance. The methods include a mixture of operational diagnostics, software configuration changes, and hardware maintenance activities.

Method 1: Use an antivirus program to remove spyware and adware

Adware is any program that displays advertising banners while it is running. This may include sometimes annoying pop-up windows. Spyware is any application that collects information from the computer and sends that information to another computer over the Internet.

These programs, as well as viruses and worms, can degrade the system resources. Set up a schedule to search for and remove these types of programs.

Install an antivirus and antispyware software and use the automatic update feature to keep the virus and spyware definition files current. Use the Symantec Security Check to test the computer's exposure to a wide range of online threats. It's a free service designed to help HP customers determine their Internet security needs.

For additional information, see HP Notebook PCs - Computer May be Infected by a Virus, Worm, Adware, Spyware or Other Malicious Software

Method 2: Close programs that are not being used

It is a good idea to save data and close program when the task is finished. Minimizing the window for a program does not stop that program from using the computer's processor and memory. Activities, like being connected to the Internet, listening to music, and running virus scans all use a lot of system resources. Schedule the use of virus scans and other system tools for a time when the computer is not being used. Work offline when convenient. Close unnecessary programs to help Windows perform more efficiently.

Method 3: Empty the Recycle Bin

Deleting a file is a two-step operation. First the file is marked for deletion and temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin, then action is taken to empty the Recycle Bin. Files in the Recycle Bin take up disk space and can slow a program's operation. Do the following actions to empty the Recycle Bin frequently.

From the Windows desktop, right-click the Recycle Bin , and select Empty Recycle Bin .
Select Yes to confirm the deletion of multiple files.

Windows will remove the contents of the Recycle Bin from the hard disk (C: is most common hard drive designation).

If there is a question about which files will be deleted, do the following actions to open the Recycle Bin and view the file names.

From the Windows desktop, right-click the Recycle Bin , and select Open to view the contents of the Recycle Bin.
Select any file that is mistakenly marked for deletion, then click File on the top menu, and click Restore .

The file will be returned to its original location on the hard drive.
After restoring any files, click File on the top menu, and click Close to exit the Recycle Bin.

Method 4: Delete temporary files and directories - Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP

Windows uses several directories, such as the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP directory, to store files (*.tmp, *.spc) intended only for temporary use. Over time, the number of files can build up and slow the operation of programs, such as print spooling. For Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP, do the following activities to delete these files to increase hard disk space and reduce the time needed to access the hard drive.

Close all open programs.
Click Start , select Programs , select Accessories , select System Tools , and then click Disk Cleanup (see Figure 1).
When prompted, select the name of a drive from the drop-down list. (Drive C:\ is normally the hard drive on a PC. However it may be both drive C:\ and drive D:\ if there are multiple hard drives, or if hard drive is configured for multiple logical drives.)
Place a check next to the types of files to be deleted. It is always safe to delete temporary files, Internet files, and recycle bin files.
Select OK to begin the cleanup. When prompted, click Yes to confirm the actions.

Figure 1: Disk Cleanup Window

After completing this action, continue on to Method 6: Scan the hard drive for errors .

Method 5: Delete temporary files and directories - Windows 95

In Windows 95, temporary files (*.tmp) are stored in the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP directory. There is no utility to safely remove these file.

Actions should be taken by experienced users only

To delete these files, it is necessary to open a DOS command window , use the CD command to change to the c:\ root directory, use the DIR command to verify what type of files in the temporary directory, and use the DEL TEMP\*.tmp command to delete the files.

WARNING:

Running these commands incorrectly may delete important files and could cause the computer to stop working. Do not perform these activities if you are not experienced using these commands.

Method 6: Scan the hard drive for errors - Windows 2000 and XP

The ScanDisk program checks the hard drive for file structure and physical errors. Do the following activities to run ScanDisk before running the disk defragmenter program.

Close all programs including background programs such as virus scanners and screen savers.
Click Start , then open My Computer .
Right-click the hard drive's icon (usually C:\).
Click Properties , and then click the Tools tab.
Click Check Now .
Place checkmarks in the check boxes for the Fix file system errors and Attempt recovery of bad sectors options.
Click Start , and then click Yes to schedule a full disk scan when the computer is restarted.
Restart the computer. The disk scan can take a very long time to complete.
The results of the DiskScan testing is displayed. Click Close to exit program when finished.
Go to Method 8: Defragment the hard drive .

Method 7: Scan the hard drive for errors - Windows 95, 98, and ME

The ScanDisk program checks the hard drive for file structure and physical errors. Do the following activities to run ScanDisk before running the disk defragmenter.

Close all programs including background programs such as virus scanners and screen savers.
Select Start , Programs , Accessories , System Tools , and ScanDisk .
Select the drive (usually C:\) and check Automatically Fix Errors .
Select the type of scan to be done.

Check Thorough to perform a complete scan of the hard drive. A thorough scan may take more than an hour to complete.

If the PC is not often used, select the Standard scan to check only for errors in the files and folders.
Click Start and follow the onscreen instructions. If the ScanDisk starts itself over and over, then a hidden background program is still accessing the hard drive. Restart the computer in Safe mode and try again.
The results of the DiskScan testing is displayed. Fix or repair any files, if asked. Click Close to exit program when finished.
Go to Method 8: Defragment the hard drive .

Method 8: Defragment the hard drive

The Disk Defragmenter program examines all the fragmented data and program files and reorganizes them into continuous storage places on the hard drive. The defragmentation process reduces the time needed to access files on the hard drive.

Do the following activities to defragment the hard drive. Depending on the size of the hard drive, it could take over an hour to complete the defragmentation process.

Close all programs including background programs such as virus scanners and screen savers.
Click Start , Programs or All Programs , Accessories , then System Tools .
Click Disk Defragmenter .

Click Defragment to start the program. If Disk Defragmenter starts itself over and over, then a hidden background program is still accessing the hard drive. Restart the computer in Safe mode and try again.

Method 9: Use MSCONFIG to prevent programs from loading - Microsoft Windows 98, ME, and XP

At start-up, many programs launch background processes that take up space in memory waiting for some system level action to be called. Most of the processes are not needed by every program or games. Removing these speciality programs from a normal start-up will improve overall performance.

CAUTION:

This process will display lists of files with unique names. You should search on the Internet for definitions of the individual files and decide if each file is needed before disabling it. Disabling system critical items could cause the computer to stop operating.

Do the following activities to use MSCONFIG to selectively prevent items from starting when Windows launches.

Click Start and then click Run .
In the Open dialogue box type MSCONFIG and then click OK .
Select the Startup tab (see Figure 2) and remove the checks from any tasks that do not contribute to the system and are unwanted. If a task is unknown, write the name down and research it on the Internet later. Do not remove a checkmark if the task is not known.

Figure 2: Startup tab of the System Configuration Utility

After removing the checkmark from the unwanted files, click OK to accept the changes. Allow the computer to restart.

NOTE:

If Windows or other software stops working after a checkmark is removed from a task, restart the computer, go to the Startup tab and replace the checkmark.

After completing these steps, Windows will re-start using the Selective Startup option. This means Windows prevents the selected programs from starting automatically. To revert the original state, during the start-up process, un-select the Selective Startup option and reselect the Normal Startup.

Method 10: Remove icons from the Startup folder to prevent programs from loading - Windows 95

When a computer starts, Windows 95 (and later) can automatically launch programs that might be needed later. Common programs that load at startup are virus scanners, display settings, and multimedia programs. These programs take up space in memory.

As the programs load, they usually display an icon on the systray bar (Figure 3). Increase system performance by stopping these tasks from loading, or by changing their settings.

Figure 3: Systray icons

Do the following actions to remove the unwanted programs from the Startup menu.

Click Start , select Programs , select Accessories , and click Windows Explorer .
Navigate to the Startup folder on the hard drive (usually C:\Documents and Settings\Start\Programs . The shortcuts to programs listed in this folder will start at startup.
To prevent the program from automatically launching at startup, remove the program shortcut from the Startup folder.
- To permanently remove the startup item, delete the item from the C:\...\Start\Programs\Startup folder.
- To preserve the startup item for possible reuse, create a new folder in Programs folder and name it something other than Startup. Drag-and-drop the specific shortcut from the Startup folder to the new folder.
Sample Folder Names:

C:\...\Start\Programs\Startup

C:\...\Start\Programs\NonStartup
Restart the computer. Any items removed from the Startup folder will no longer load at startup but can be launched by clicking the desired item on the standard Start and Programs menus.

Method 11: Determine memory leakage

Memory leakage was a problem with Windows 98, Me, and 2000 operating system. When a program started, it reserved a specific amount of memory for its processes. When a program ended, it should have released all the reserved memory. Unfortunately, some programs did not always release all the reserved memory. As a result, less memory was available for the next program. This loss of available memory is called memory leakage. If the computer runs well when first turned on, but performs noticeably slower after several programs are opened and closed, there may be a problem with memory leakage. In most cases, the solution is to upgrade to a modern operating system like Windows XP SP2 and install the latest program upgrade. The only workaround is to restart the computer after using the program(s) with large memory leakage.

Memory Calculations

Do the following activities to identify programs that cause large amounts of memory leakage. The general diagnostic procedure is to determine and record the amount of available memory at three measurement points:

(A) ______ Before starting the program.

(B) ______ After starting the program.

©) ______ After closing the program completely.

The available memory at measurement points A and C should be the same. To determine memory leakage, subtract the value at C from the value at A. If there is a large leakage, contact the software manufacture for current updates or patches.

Windows 98, ME, 2000

Do the following activities to view the amount of available memory and CPU usage for Windows 98, Me, 2000 operating systems.

Start with a fresh session of Windows by shutting down and then restarting the computer.
Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop and select Properties .
Select the Performance tab to view the available percentage of System Resources.

Windows XP

Do the following activities to view the amount of available memory and CPU usage for Windows XP operating systems.

Start with a fresh session of Windows by shutting down and then restarting the computer.
In Windows XP, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete .
Select the Performance tab on the Windows Task Manager.

Note the change in CPU Usage when the program starts and stops (see Figure 5).

Record the amount of Physical Memory Available (Figure 4).

Figure 4: View System Resources - Windows XP

Method 12: Determine hard drive usage

On older PCs with small hard drives, unused programs take up space that could be used for other processing activities. Windows uses space on the hard drive for different types of operations such as caching and virtual memory. If available free space is less than five percent of the total disk space, the computer's performance will degrade and the computer may become unreliably.

Do the following activities to verify how much disk space is available on the hard drive.

Right-click on the hard drive icon , and click Properties .
View the percentage of Used Space and Free Space on the General tab.

If the percentage of Free Space is near or less than 5%, then files and/or programs should be removed.

Method 13: Remove unused files from the hard drive

One way to increase the amount of disk space available on a hard drive is to make a backup copy of the old data files onto a storage device and then delete the unused original files.

To simplify the process for backing up and restoring files, it is helpful to decide where files will be stored on the hard drive. By default, most Microsoft programs save the data files to the My Documents folder on the desktop. However, the programs allow users to store files in other directories. Having data files scattered across multiple folders makes it difficult to find and copy files. Choose some file organizing scheme and use it consistently.

Do the following activities to backup and delete data files.

Open a Windows Explorer window, right-click the hard drive icon , and click Properties .
Select Backup on the Tools tab, and follow the instructions on selecting files to be backed up.
- Specify what directories and file types are to be backed up.
- Specify where the files are to be stored. Backup files to a folder, multiple diskettes, burn files to a CD, an external drive, etc.
After data files are backed up, move the original files from the hard drive folder to the Recycle Bin, then empty the Recycle bin.

Method 14: Remove unused programs from the hard drive

One way to increase the amount of disk space available on a hard drive is to uninstall unused programs. The unwanted program might be an old word processing program or a game that has not been played in months. You simply decide what is important. If you have the original disks, you can always reinstall the program if necessary.

Use the following activities to remove unwanted programs and increase hard drive space.

Click Start , Settings , and Control Panel .
Open Add/Remove Programs .
Click the Install/Uninstall tab. Select programs that are no longer used and will not be used.
Highlight the program name, and then click the Add/Remove or Change/Remove button and OK (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Select and Remove One Program At A Time
When the program is removed, a prompt might appear to restart Windows. Restart Windows, then repeat the above steps to remove any other programs.
After removing all the desired programs, go to Method 8: Defragment the hard drive .

The 20 Commonly Mispronounced Words.

2007-08-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

Commonly Mispronounced Words

* aegis: ee-jis, not ay-jis
* asterisk: as-ter-isk, not as-ter-ik
* alumnae: a-lum-nee, not a-lum-nay
* archipelago: ar-ki-PEL-a-go, not arch-i-pel-a-go
* athlete: ath-leet, not ath-a-leet
* candidate: kan-di-dayt, not kan-i-dayt
* chimera: kiy-MEER-a, not CHIM-er-a
* disastrous: di-zas-tres, not di-zas-ter-es
* electoral: e-LEK-tor-al, not e-lek-TOR-al
* etcetera: et-set-er-a, not ek-set-er-a
* lambaste: lam-bayst, not lam-bast
* larvae: lar-vee, not lar-vay
* library: li-brar-y, not li-bar-y
* mischievous: MIS-che-vus, not mis-CHEE-vee-us

* mispronunciation: mis-pro-nun-see-ay-shun, not mis-pro-nown-see-ay-shun
* nuclear: noo-klee-ur, not noo-kyu-lur
* nuptial: nup-shul, not nup-shoo-al
* primer: (schoolbook) prim-mer, not pry-mer
* picture: pik-cher, not pit-cher
* prescription: prih-skrip-shun, not per-skrip-shun
* prerogative: pre-rog-a-tive, not per-rog-a-tive
* peremptory: per-emp-tuh-ree, not pre-emp-tuh-ree
* probably: prob-a-blee, not pra-lee or prob-lee
* Realtor: reel-ter, not ree-la-ter
* supposedly: su-pos-ed-lee, not su-pos-ab-lee
* spurious: spyoor-ee-us, not spur-ee-us
* ticklish: tik-lish, not tik-i-lish
* triathlon: try-ath-lon, not try-ath-a-lon

How To Make Your Own Web Mashup

2007-07-31T00:24:00.000-07:00

How To Make Your Own Web Mashup

So you want to make a mashup but aren't entirely sure where to begin? This page can help you get there.

1. Pick a subject

Answer the question: a mashup of what? Hint: Plotting markers on maps is probably the easiest place to start. It might just be the best delis in your neighborhood. While you could go for something more complex with muliple data sources: maps + photos + bookmarks + more, you may want to keep it simple to start.

This helps define what APIs and tools you'll be looking at: maps, news, auctions, products, etc. Browse this site's API Database and sort by Category to get a sense of API types. You can also browse the Mashup Listing to see which interesting applications have been built using which APIs.

2. Decide where your data is coming from

What is the source of your data? This can drive the APIs you'll use. For example, if you want to do something with your photos on Flickr or sale items on eBay, then those vendors APIs are the likely candidates. Or, you may be inputting the data yourself such as with simple map markers. In which case your options are more open.

(For the purposes of this Guide, I won't spend time distinguishing between a true 'mashup', thus 2 or more data sources, and just using an API, which may mean only 1 external source. The exact definition of mashup is vague so no need to fight semantics at the moment.)

3. Weigh your coding skills

Mashups, as of today, are mostly a programmer's affair although there are some tools such as MapBuilder and Wayfaring that can help you create basic maps without coding.

How much of a coder are you?
Maps APIs are simplest but more sophisticated APIs, such as those for conducting financially-sensitive operations like auctions, are more complex.

How much time do you have?
Again, development speed is inversely proportional to complexity.

Do you have a server to run this on?
Simpler APIs can be used from JavaScript in a web page or take specially formated XML file as input (as shown here at Engadget). While this is indeed simple, security issues limit JavaScript's suitability for true client-only mashups. Odds are that you will need to run your application from a web server which you manage or have access to.

What language will you use?
This is primarily driven by what programming languages you know. While your decision may also be influenced by vendor-provided toolkits, most web APIs aim to be language-agnostic so this is less of a vendor-dictacted issue than your own choice. You can use the API reference to see if an API has a language-specific toolkit (such as Flickr which has many).

Note that this whole step may arguably be Step 1, depending on your perspective.

4. Sign-up for an API

Most, but not all, API providers require you to have a developer/application ID, a user account with their service, or both. Some services give you one ID for as many applications as you write while others require you to get an ID for each application that you create. While this signup may sound complicated, and for a few services it is, most of the time this takes only a minute or two to complete. As an example, take a look at the Google Sign-up Page.

5. Start coding

For this step, the big one, rather than describe the many variations in detail, I'll refer you to a variety of well-written and useful API-specific tutorials and introductions. You can also check the profile for any of the APIs and refer to resources from the reference section as needed.

Note that this list is dynamic and will change over time so check back later for updates.

New 2008 BMW M3

2007-07-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books

2007-07-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Tintin and the Crabs with the Golden Claws

2007-07-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Please enjoiy this book.

What is ChexSystems?

2007-07-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

What is ChexSystems?

ChexSystems provides deposit account verification services to its financial institution members to aid them in identifying account applicants who may have a history of account mishandling (for example, people whose accounts were overdrawn and then closed by them or by their bank). ChexSystems is also licensed to do business as ChexSystems Collection Agency providing debt collection services to members participating in this service.

Is ChexSystems a credit bureau?
ChexSystems is a consumer-reporting agency governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other laws. ChexSystems Collection Agency is a debt collector subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and other laws. The Federal Trade Commission enforces the FCRA and FDCPA.

How long does the report stay on file?
How do I get it deleted?

Each report submitted to ChexSystems remains on our files for five years, unless the bank or credit union that filed the report requests its removal or ChexSystems becomes obligated to remove it under applicable law. The decision to delete a report is entirely up to each bank or credit union and its individual policies.

I paid the bank. Why wasn't the report removed?

A reporting member is under no obligation to remove an accurate report of account mishandling due to payment of monies owed. However, if a collection amount is reported, the member is obligated to mark the account as paid.

How can I see what is in my file?

You can order a copy of your report from ChexSystems.

How do I dispute information?

ChexSystems Consumer Relations Department helps people who believe their file contains misinformation. Visit disputes for more information.

Why do I have to give you personal information, like my social security number and drivers license number?
ChexSystems ask for this information to ensure that they make a complete and accurate search and are able to identify all information that may pertain to you.

Why did you tell the bank not to open an account for me?

ChexSystems neither approves nor declines accounts for banks and credit unions. The decision is entirely up to them.

Why wasn't my ChexSystems report removed when I filed bankruptcy?

A bankruptcy filing only affects the collection of outstanding debts. It does not require the removal of accurate factual information concerning your account.

Why can't I get a copy of my spouse's report?

ChexSystems is required by law to deal directly with the individual to whom the information pertains. They strictly adhere to this to protect consumer privacy. To discuss the information with anyone else, ChexSystems must receive a notarized Power of Attorney or specific written instructions, signed by the consumer whose information is being requested, authorizing ChexSystems to disclose the information to the person named in the Power of Attorney.

What does NSF activity mean?
NSF or non-sufficient funds activity refers to overdrafts that occur on an account.

Do I pay ChexSystems or the bank?

It depends. If your report contains a record of an outstanding debt and you have received collection notices from ChexSystems Collection Agency, you pay ChexSystems Collection Agency directly by sending your check or money order to:

ChexSystems
ATTN: Dept. C
1550 E 79th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55425

In other cases, you pay the bank or credit union directly.

How do I add a statement to my file?

You are entitled to add a brief statement to your consumer file describing the nature of your dispute of the information. If you wish to add a statement to your file, you must submit your statement in writing with a clear indication that you wish the statement to be added to your file, ensuring that you sign the request. If you would like assistance in writing a clear summary of your statement, you may contact ChexSystems or obtain the assistance from your Attorney.

How do I contact ChexSystems?

CALL

ChexSystems
Consumer Relations
1-800-428-9623
(Recording only-Instructions)

WRITE

ChexSystems
Attn: Consumer Relations
12005 Ford Road - Suite 600
Dallas, TX 75234

FAX

972-241-4772

Inquiry about negative information on file:

Information you will have to send if you have been rejected by a bank or you have received notification that there is negative information on file that shows you still owe a bank money.

Either send your request in writing or by fax. Make sure you have available the following information to submit to them:

* your full name and any alias names used
* your current and prior address (5 years)
* your social security number
* your driver license and/or ID card number
* any business you signed on during the pass 5 years.

We hope that you can resolve your personal problem. If we can assist you further, please contact this office by phone, e-mail, or in writing.

View a SAMPLE CONSUMER REPORT

Order your own PERSONAL CONSUMER REPORT from ChexSystems.

Top 100 Newspapers in the United States

2007-07-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

Top 100 Newspapers in the United States
Rank Newspaper Circulation
1. USA Today (Arlington, Va.) 2,528,437
2. Wall Street Journal (New York, N.Y.) 2,058,342
3. Times (New York, N.Y.) 1,683,855
4. Times (Los Angeles) 1,231,318
5. Post (Washington, DC) 960,684
6. Tribune (Chicago) 957,212
7. Daily News (New York, N.Y.) 795,153
8. Inquirer (Philadelphia) 705,965
9. Post/Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 704,806
10. Chronicle (Houston) 692,557
11. Post (New York, N.Y.) 691,420
12. News/Free Press (Detroit) 669,315
13. Morning News (Dallas) 649,709
14. Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 606,698
15. Globe (Boston) 604,068
16. Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.) 599,628
17. Journal-Constitution (Atlanta) 561,405
18. Arizona Republic (Phoenix) 556,465
19. Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.) 488,825
20. Chronicle (San Francisco) 451,504
21. Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 450,875
22. Times/Post-Intelligencer (Seattle) 435,581
23. Post-Dispatch (St. Louis) 423,291
24. Times (St. Petersburg, Fla.) 422,410
25. Union-Tribune (San Diego) 408,392
26. Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee) 405,355
27. Sun (Baltimore) 401,918
28. Herald (Miami) 390,171
29. Oregonian (Portland) 384,729
30. Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pa.) 373,980
31. Star (Kansas City, Mo.) 367,712
32. Register (Orange County, Calif.) 354,632
33. Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) 352,510
34. Star (Indianapolis) 347,217
35. Express-News (San Antonio, Tex.) 342,709
36. Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.) 341,025
37. South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) 339,728
38. Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) 330,993
39. Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Tex.) 322,824
40. Tribune & Times (Tampa, Fla.) 309,916
41. Enquirer/Post (Cincinnati) 293,151
42. Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) 287,505
43. Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, Ark.) 275,991
44. Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) 274,125
45. News (Buffalo, N.Y.) 273,177
46. Courant (Hartford, Conn.) 272,918
47. Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.) 271,920
48. Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) 263,373
49. Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) 251,565
50. Register (Des Moines, Iowa) 240,912
51. Tennessean (Nashville) 236,563
52. World-Herald (Omaha, Neb.) 231,115
53. Herald (Boston) 230,344
54. American-Statesman (Austin, Tex.) 228,619
55. Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) 225,730
56. Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.) 222,392
57. Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) 219,660
58. Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.) 219,595
59. Review-Journal (Las Vegas) 219,228
60. Journal (Providence, R.I.) 218,388
61. Commercial Appeal (Memphis) 216,705
62 News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) 213,878
63. Post (W. Palm Beach, Fla.) 211,697
64. Investors Business Daily (Los Angeles) 210,708
65. Record (Hackensack, N.J.) 206,086
66. Asbury Park Press (Neptune, N.J.) 199,723
67. Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) 190,613
68. Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) 189,000
69. Daily News (Los Angeles) 187,740
70. Bee (Fresno, Calif.) 183,744
71. Press (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 182,810
72. News (Birmingham, Ala.) 180,451
73. Daily Star (Tucson, Ariz.) 173,064
74. Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio) 170,870
75. Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) 168,645
76. Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 168,393
77. Blade (Toledo, Ohio) 167,686
78. Advertiser (Honolulu) 160,723
79. Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) 158,013
80. Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, Ill.) 153,291
81. News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.) 152,945
82. Tribune/Deseret News (Salt Lake City) 151,422
83. Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) 150,936
84. Journal (Albuquerque) 149,455
85. Wisconsin State Journal/Capital Times (Madison, Wis.) 148,489
86. Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) 148,301
87. Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.) 144,231
88. Eagle (Wichita, Kans.) 143,948
89. Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.) 141,019
90. State (Columbia, S.C.) 140,362
91. Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.) 138,675
92. News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.) 137,730
93. News Journal (Wilmington, Del.) 134,865
94. Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) 133,787
95. La Opinion (Los Angeles) 128,553
96. Republican (Springfield, Mass.) 125,864
97. News-Journal (Daytona Beach, Fla.) 125,754
98. Daily News (Philadelphia) 123,483
99. Journal Gazette/News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.) 121,475
100. Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) 120,632

The Least Livable” Countries, 2006

2007-07-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

Least Livable” Countries, 2006
1. Niger
16. Tanzania
2. Sierra Leone
17. Angola
3. Mali
18. Guinea
4. Burkina Faso
19. Nigeria
5. Guinea-Bissau
20. Rwanda
6. Central African Republic
21. Eritrea
7. Chad
22. Senegal
8. Ethiopia
23. Gambia
9. Burundi
24. Haiti
10. Mozambique
25. Mauritania
11. Congo, Dem. Rep. of the
26. Kenya
12. Malawi
27. Zimbabwe
13. Zambia
28. Yemen
14. Côte d'Ivoire
29. Lesotho
15. Benin
30. Djibouti

10 Most Censored Countries in the World.

2007-07-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

10 Most Censored Countries

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) studied media freedom in dozens of countries to determine the level of access people have to information and the methods some states use to censor news and information. The CPJ used the following criteria to develop its list of the world's most censored countries: state control of the media, formal censorship rules, violence against and imprisonment of journalists, and restricted access to foreign news and the Internet.

1. North Korea
2. Myanmar (Burma)
3. Turkmenistan
4. Equatorial Guinea
5. Libya
6. Eritrea
7. Cuba
8. Uzbekistan
9. Syria
10. Belarus

Is ishmael the Father of Prophet Muhammad?

2007-07-10T05:40:00.000-07:00

Ishmael is not the Father of Muhammad

Sam Shamoun

According to the Holy Bible Ishmael settled in Paran and married an Egyptian from whom he had twelve sons:

“Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, ‘I cannot watch the boy die.’ And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.” Genesis 21:13-21

The Holy Bible locates Paran near Israel (Canaan) and Egypt, south of Judah. John L. McKenzie in his Dictionary of the Bible notes:

Paran (Hb pa’ran, most frequently the name of a desert region). The place name Elparan (Gn 14:6) no doubt is associated with the desert; this place is thought to be identical with Elath* by some scholars. The desert of Paran was the home of the Ishmaelites (Gn 21:21). It was, the itinerary according to P (cf. PENTATEUCH), reached by the Israelites after the desert of Sinai (Nm 10:12), and they camped in this desert for some time (Nm 10:12; 13:3, 26, mission and return of the scouts). In Dt 1:1 Paran is vaguely defined as a place in the desert. Hadad of Edom passed through the desert of Paran on his journey from Midian* to Egypt (1 Kings 11:18). The mountains of Paran are the place from which the theophany* appears (Dt 33:2; Hab. 3:3); like most other names mentioned in the theophanies, Paran reflects the region S of Judah. The desert of Paran is probably that region of the Negeb* which lies S of Kadesh-barnea*. (McKenzie, p. 637)

Compare the following OT passages:

“In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran near the desert. Then they turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who were living in Hazazon Tamar.” Genesis 14:5-7

“On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony. Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran. They set out, this first time, at the LORD’s command through Moses.” Numbers 10:11-13

“So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back. After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.” Numbers 12:15-16

“The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.’ So at the LORD’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.” Numbers 13:1-3

“At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: ‘We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.’” Numbers 13:25-27

“These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan—that is, in the Arabah—opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. (It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)” Deuteronomy 1:1-2

Unless Muslims want to claim that Moses and the Israelites traveled from Sinai all the way to Mecca and back during their 40-year desert wandering, it becomes quite evident that Paran is nowhere near Mecca.

Continuing further:

“Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David got up and went down to the wilderness of Paran.” 1 Samuel 25:1

Are we to assume that David went to Mecca after Samuel’s death?

“This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death. He said: “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes. Deuteronomy 33:1-2

“But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father. They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking men from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food. Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage.” 1 Kings 11:17-19

“God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth.” Habakkuk 3:3

Interestingly, the preceding passages connect Mount Paran with Seir and Teman. Both Seir and Teman are associated with Edom. Here is McKenzie regarding the locations of Seir and Teman:

Seir (Hb se’ir), a geographical name; Seir is associated with Esau* and Edom* and the association is expressed in a play on the words se’ar, “goat,” and sa’ir, “hairy,” in Gn 25:25; 27:11, 23. The name appears as the designation of a land, of a mountain, and as a gentilic. There is no doubt that the mountain is the chain which extends SW of the Dead Sea along the W side of the Arabah*, rising to an average height of 5000 ft. The name was later extended to the corresponding mountain chain on the E side of the Arabah. As a territorial designation the term is used more loosely of the region adjacent to the mountain chain, substantially identical with the territory of Edom … Israelite tradition itself recognized that the claim of Edom to Seir and its settlement there were older than its own claim to Canaan. It was the region of Esau the brother of Jacob … The mountain becomes a loose designation of its inhabitants as “the men of Seir or Mt Seir” (2 Ch 20:10, 22f; 25:11, 14); these must be the Edomites … (McKenzie, pp. 783-784)

Teman (Hb teman, “the south”), a place name; a region of Edom (Je 49:7; Ezk 25:13; Am 1:12; Ob 9) mentioned with Dedan* (Ezk 25:13), famous for its wise men (Je 49:7), the place from which Yahweh appears (Hab 3:3; mentioned with Mt Paran*); genealogically reckoned a descendant of Esau and a son of Eliphaz (Gn 36:11, 15, 42; 1 Ch 1:36, 53). The situation is unknown except that it must be in the territory of Edom. Very frequently in the OT teman is used to signify simply “south” as a point of direction. (McKenzie, p. 872)

J. Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, p. 897, states:

TEMAN.- A tribe (district) of Edom.

In light of this, it is little wonder that Hadad of Edom passed through Paran en route to Egypt. It makes no sense for Hadad to travel from Edom to Mecca in order to get to Egypt.

[See also this discussion on the location of Paran in the rebuttal to Al-Kadhi, section 6.4.]

Furthermore, there is no evidence apart from the later Muslim traditions that Ishmael ever married a Jurhumite woman since the Holy Bible indicates that he married an Egyptian. The Holy Bible also tells us where Ishmael’s sons settled:

“This is the account of Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps. Altogether, Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people. His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.” Genesis 25:12-18

McKenzie locates Shur around the area of Palestine and Egypt:

Shur (Hb sur), a geographical name which designates the slopes of Palestine and E of Egypt and N of the deserts of the Sinai peninsula. The Hb word suggests sur, “wall”, and some geographers have thought that the name alludes to the line of fortresses constructed by the Egyptians to protect the E frontier of Egypt. The region is the scene of the flight of Hagar* in the account of J (Gn 16:7). Abraham dwelt for a time in the Negeb* between Kadesh* and Shur (Gn 20:1). The Israelites traversed the desert of Shur after crossing the Sea of Reeds (Ex 15:22). The area from Havilah* to Shur was the home of the Amalekites* and other nomad tribes (Gn 25:18; 1 S 15:7; 27:8). (McKenzie, pp. 810-811)

This conclusively demonstrates that neither Ishmael nor his twelve sons settled in Mecca. It is claimed that some of the descendents of Ishmael’s twelve sons migrated to Arabia. For instance Nebaioth is said to be the father of the Nabateans. The Nabateans flourished in northern Arabia, first establishing their capital in Petra in the 4th century B.C. which was captured by the Romans in 106 B.C. They then moved to Damascus. The Dead Sea Scrolls actually contains Nabatean documents from the later period.

There are two major problems with the above assertion. Even though it may be true that some of Ishmael’s descendants settled in Arabia, this does not mean that they necessarily were the fathers of the Arabs. Muslim tradition itself affirms that Ishmael was not the father of the Arabs. Ibn Ishaq’s biography of Muhammad states:

Ishmael is the son of Ibrahim (Abraham) b. Tarih (Azar) b. Nahur b. Sarugh b. Rau’u b. Falikh b. ‘Aybar b. Shalikh b. Arfakhshadh b. Sam (Shem) b. Nuh (Noah). (Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, tr. Guillaume, p. 3)

Then we have another line from Noah, where we read:

‘Ad b. ‘Aus b. Iram b. Sam b. Nuh and Thamud and Jadis the two sons of ‘Abir b. Iram b. Sam b. Nuh, and Tasm and ‘Imlaq and Umayan the sons of Lawidh b. Sam b. Nuh are all Arabs. Nabit b. Isma’il begat Yashjub and the line runs: Ta’rub-Tayrah-Bahur-Muqawwan-Udad-’Adnan. (Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, tr. Guillaume, p. 4)

This demonstrates that Arabs existed long before Ishmael was even born since according to this tradition, Ishmael’s great-great-great-great…-great uncles were already the Arabs.

Second, the Hadith does not agree with the biblical record at all. The Hadith claims that after settling in Mecca Ishmael married twice, and both of his wives were of Arab descent:

Narrated Ibn Abbas:

The first lady to use a girdle was the mother of Ishmael. She used a girdle so that she might hide her tracks from Sarah. Abraham brought her and her son Ishmael while she was suckling him, to a place near the Ka’ba under a tree on the spot of Zam-zam, at the highest place in the mosque. During those days there was nobody in Mecca, nor was there any water. So he made them sit over there and placed near them a leather bag containing some dates, and a small water-skin containing some water, and set out homeward. Ishmael’s mother followed him saying, “O Abraham! Where are you going, leaving us in this valley where there is no person whose company we may enjoy, nor is there anything (to enjoy)?” She repeated that to him many times, but he did not look back at her. Then she asked him, “Has Allah ordered you to do so?” He said, “Yes.” She said, “Then He will not neglect us,” and returned while Abraham proceeded onwards, and on reaching the Thaniya where they could not see him, he faced the Ka’ba, and raising both hands, invoked Allah saying the following prayers:

“O our Lord! I have made some of my offspring dwell in a valley without cultivation, by Your Sacred House (Kaba at Mecca) in order, O our Lord, that they may offer prayer perfectly. So fill some hearts among men with love towards them, and (O Allah) provide them with fruits, so that they may give thanks.’ (14.37) Ishmael’s mother went on suckling Ishmael and drinking from the water (she had).

When the water in the water-skin had all been used up, she became thirsty and her child also became thirsty. She started looking at him (i.e. Ishmael) tossing in agony; She left him, for she could not endure looking at him, and found that the mountain of Safa was the nearest mountain to her on that land. She stood on it and started looking at the valley keenly so that she might see somebody, but she could not see anybody. Then she descended from Safa and when she reached the valley, she tucked up her robe and ran in the valley like a person in distress and trouble, till she crossed the valley and reached the Marwa mountain where she stood and started looking, expecting to see somebody, but she could not see anybody. She repeated that (running between Safa and Marwa) seven times.”

The Prophet said, “This is the source of the tradition of the walking of people between them (i.e. Safa and Marwa). When she reached the Marwa (for the last time) she heard a voice and she asked herself to be quiet and listened attentively. She heard the voice again and said, “O, (whoever you may be)! You have made me hear your voice; have you got something to help me?” And behold! She saw an angel at the place of Zam-zam, digging the earth with his heel (or his wing), till water flowed from that place. She started to make something like a basin around it, using her hand in this way, and started filling her water-skin with water with her hands, and the water was flowing out after she had scooped some of it.”

The Prophet added, “May Allah bestow Mercy on Ishmael’s mother! Had she let the Zam-zam (flow without trying to control it) (or had she not scooped from that water) (to fill her water-skin), Zam-zam would have been a stream flowing on the surface of the earth.” The Prophet further added, “Then she drank (water) and suckled her child. The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid of being neglected, for this is the House of Allah which will be built by this boy and his father, and Allah never neglects His people.’ The House (i.e. Kaba) at that time was on a high place resembling a hillock, and when torrents came, they flowed to its right and left. She lived in that way till some people from the tribe of Jurhum or a family from Jurhum passed by her and her child, as they (i.e. the Jurhum people) were coming through the way of Kada’. They landed in the lower part of Mecca where they saw a bird that had the habit of flying around water and not leaving it. They said, “This bird must be flying around water, though we know that there is no water in this valley.’ They sent one or two messengers who discovered the source of water, and returned to inform them of the water. So, they all came (towards the water).” The Prophet added, “Ishmael’s mother was sitting near the water. They asked her, “Do you allow us to stay with you?’ She replied, “Yes, but you will have no right to possess the water.’ They agreed to that.” The Prophet further said, “Ishmael’s mother was pleased with the whole situation as she used to love to enjoy the company of the people. So, they settled there, and later on they sent for their families who came and settled with them so that some families became permanent residents there. The child (i.e. Ishmael) grew up and learnt Arabic from them and (his virtues) caused them to love and admire him as he grew up, and when he reached the age of puberty they made him marry a woman from amongst them.

After Ishmael’s mother had died, Abraham came after Ishmael’s marriage in order to see his family that he had left before, but he did not find Ishmael there. When he asked Ishmael’s wife about him, she replied, “He has gone in search of our livelihood.’ Then he asked her about their way of living and their condition, and she replied, “We are living in misery; we are living in hardship and destitution,’ complaining to him. He said, “When your husband returns, convey my salutation to him and tell him to change the threshold of the gate (of his house).’ When Ishmael came, he seemed to have felt something unusual, so he asked his wife, “Has anyone visited you?’ She replied, “Yes, an old man of so-and-so description came and asked me about you and I informed him, and he asked about our state of living, and I told him that we were living in a hardship and poverty.’ On that Ishmael said, “Did he advise you anything?’ She replied, “Yes, he told me to convey his salutation to you and to tell you to change the threshold of your gate.’ Ishmael said, “It was my father, and he has ordered me to divorce you. Go back to your family.’ So, Ishmael divorced her and married another woman from amongst them (i.e. Jurhum).

Then Abraham stayed away from them for a period as long as Allah wished and called on them again but did not find Ishmael. So he came to Ishmael’s wife and asked her about Ishmael. She said, “He has gone in search of our livelihood.’ Abraham asked her, “How are you getting on?’ asking her about their sustenance and living. She replied, “We are prosperous and well-off (i.e. we have everything in abundance).’ Then she thanked Allah’ Abraham said, “What kind of food do you eat?’ She said. “Meat.’ He said, “What do you drink?’ She said, “Water.’ He said, “O Allah! Bless their meat and water.” The Prophet added, “At that time they did not have grain, and if they had grain, he would have also invoked Allah to bless it.” The Prophet added, “If somebody has only these two things as his sustenance, his health and disposition will be badly affected, unless he lives in Mecca.” The Prophet added,” Then Abraham said Ishmael’s wife, “When your husband comes, give my regards to him and tell him that he should keep firm the threshold of his gate.’ When Ishmael came back, he asked his wife, “Did anyone call on you?’ She replied, “Yes, a good-looking old man came to me,’ so she praised him and added. “He asked about you, and I informed him, and he asked about our livelihood and I told him that we were in a good condition.’ Ishmael asked her, “Did he give you any piece of advice?’ She said, “Yes, he told me to give his regards to you and ordered that you should keep firm the threshold of your gate.’ On that Ishmael said, “It was my father, and you are the threshold (of the gate). He has ordered me to keep you with me.’

Then Abraham stayed away from them for a period as long as Allah wished, and called on them afterwards. He saw Ishmael under a tree near Zamzam, sharpening his arrows. When he saw Abraham, he rose up to welcome him (and they greeted each other as a father does with his son or a son does with his father). Abraham said, “O Ishmael! Allah has given me an order.’ Ishmael said, “Do what your Lord has ordered you to do.’ Abraham asked, “Will you help me?’ Ishmael said, “I will help you.’ Abraham said, Allah has ordered me to build a house here,’ pointing to a hillock higher than the land surrounding it.” The Prophet added, “Then they raised the foundations of the House (i.e. the Ka’ba). Ishmael brought the stones and Abraham was building, and when the walls became high, Ishmael brought this stone and put it for Abraham who stood over it and carried on building, while Ishmael was handing him the stones, and both of them were saying, “O our Lord! Accept (this service) from us, Verily, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.’ The Prophet added, “Then both of them went on building and going round the Ka’ba saying: O our Lord! Accept (this service) from us, Verily, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.” (2.127) (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 583)

This tradition clearly contradicts the biblical data that shows that Ishmael settled in Paran, not Mecca, and married an Egyptian, not an Arab. The above tradition states that Ishmael learnt Arabic from the tribe of (or a family from) Jurhum who settled in Mecca. Since Arabic is not Ishmael’s mother tongue, and since Arabic as a language existed before, Ishmael cannot be the ancestor of Arabs. This means that the notion that Ishmael is the progenitor of the Arabs is erroneous. At most, Ishmael can only be called an Arabicized immigrant. The Muslim traditions prove that Ishmael is not the father of all the Arabs.

The Muslim traditions further complicate the problem. We are told:

Ma’n Ibn ‘Isa al-Ashja’i al-Qazzaz (silk-merchant) informed us; he said: Mu’awiyah Ibn Salih informed us on the authority of Yahya Ibn Jabir who had seen some Companions of the Prophet and said: The people of Banu Fuhayrah came to the Prophet and said to him: You belong to us. He replied: Verily, (the archangel) Gabriel has informed me that I belong to Mudar. (Ibn Sa’d, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, Volume I, p. 4)

This indicates that Muhammad’s genealogy was actually revelatory, not necessarily common knowledge. In fact, the people of Banu Fuhayrah did not know that Muhammad was a descendent of Mudar and Muhammad had to be informed by Gabriel that he was, not through common knowledge. This may form the basis of some hadiths:

Narrated Kulaib:

I was told by the Rabiba (i.e. daughter of the wife of the Prophet) who, I think, was Zainab, that the Prophet forbade the utensils (of wine called) Ad-Dubba, Al-Hantam, Al-Muqaiyar and Al-Muzaffat. I said to her, “Tell me as to which tribe the Prophet belonged; was he from the tribe of Mudar?” She replied, “He belonged to the tribe of Mudar and was from the offspring of An-Nadr bin Kinana.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 698)

Muslims may claim that Muhammad is a descendant of Kedar and therefore a true offspring of Ishmael. Muslim historians traced Muhammad’s line to an ‘Adnan, an alleged descendant of Ishmael. The following genealogy is taken from T.P Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam, p. 217:

Adnan- Ma’add- Nizar- “Ilyas- Mudrikah- Khuzaimah- Kinanah- An-Nazr- Malik- Fihr- Luwaiy- Ka’b- Murrah- Kilab- Qusaiy- “Abdul Manaf- Hashim- Abdul Muttalib- Abdullah- Muhammad.

This other one comes from a Muslim website:

Prophet Muhammad- Abdullah- Abd Al Muttalib- Hashim- Abd Manaf- Qusaiy- Kilab (Ancestor of the Holy Prophet’s mother)- Murrah- Ka’b. Lu’ayy- Ghalib- Fihr- Malik- Al Nadr- Kinanah- Khuzaiymah- Mudrikah- Ilyas- Mudar- Nizar- Madd- `Adnan- Adad- Zayd- Yaqdud- Al Muqawwam- Al Yasa’- Nabt- Qaidar (Kedar)- Prophet Ismail (Alaihi Salaam)- Prophet Ibrahim (Alaihi Salaam)- Tarih- Nahur (Nahor)- Sharukh- Ar’u- Farigh- `Abir- Shalikh- Arfikhishd- Sam (Shem)- Prophet Nuh (Noah) (Alaihi Salaam)- Lamak- Mutawshilkh- Khanukh- Burrah- Mihlayil- Kaynun- Anuus- Shees (Seth) (Alaihi Salaam)- Prophet Adam (Alaihi Salaam). (Source.)

On the mother’s side, the above list gives Muhammad - Aminah - Wahab - Abd Manaf - Zuhrah - Kilab, same as the Kilab in Muhammad’s side. This reference is derived from Ibn Al Jawzy via Abi Muhammad Ibn Al Samarqandi via `Ali Ibn `Ubayd of Kufa, a companion of Tha’lib Muhammad ibn Abdullah.

The following genealogy is taken from Syed Yusuf:

1 Abraham Hanifa (AS) was the father of
2 Isma’il (AS) was the father of
3 Kedar was the father of
4 “Adnaan was the father of
5 Ma’add was the father of
6 Nizaar was the father of
7 Mudar was the father of
8 Ilyaas was the father of
9 Mudrikah was the father of
10 Khuzaimah was the father of
11 Kinaanah was the father of
12 Al-Nadr was the father of
13 Maalik was the father of
14 Quraysh was the father of
15 Ghaalib was the father of
16 Lu’ayy was the father of
17 Ka’ab was the father of
18 Murrah was the father of
19 Kilaab was the father of
20 Qusayy was the father of
21 “Abd Manaaf was the father of
22 Haashim was the father of
23 “Abdul Muttalib was the father of
24 “Abdullah was the father of
25 Muhammad (SAW)

(source)

There are several problems with these genealogies. The first problem is the time span, as noted by the following sources:

“If there are only four generations between Adnan and Ishmael, then the are about 24-25 generations between Muhammad and Abraham spanning about 2500 years. This makes for about one hundred years between generations, which is a bit far-fetched (it is ok if it were for some generations, like Abraham and Ishmael, but very far-fetched if it were to occur regularly. We know that the generations near to Muhammad are pretty normal, not so stretched out, so this makes the other inter-generational gaps even wider). On the other hand, using the data from reference 2, we get about 32-33 generations between Abraham and Muhammad, giving us an inter-generational gap of about seventy-five years. This is still unbelievably high.

It should be said that perhaps, we are faced with incomplete data in that some generations are omitted (the situation is also to be seen in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus where he omitted some names). It could be the same with Muslim genealogical data. On the other hand, if the hadith that there are only four generations between Adnan and Ishmael is literal, then we are faced with a problem. If the hadith is true, then Muslim genealogy is most likely false (it is difficult to imagine so many one hundred years between generations). If the hadith is false, then we have to re-evaluate the accuracy of hadith reports. (Source.; bold emphasis ours)

Commenting on Yusuf’s list given above, the authors at FreeThoughtMecca note:

First of all, there are only 24 generations from Abraham to Muhammad, which is quite fantastic. Now, if we grant 30 years to each generation (i.e. make the generous assumption that each male fathered his respective son by age 30), this would place Abraham some time around 150 BCE. The math behind such a conclusion goes as follows:

30 X 24 = 720

Muhammad was allegedly born 570 CE

570 - 720 = -150.

The oldest existing texts to mention Abraham are found among the scrolls from Qumran (so-called “Dead Sea Scrolls”), which date anywhere from the 3rd century BCE to 68 CE. With that in mind it is reasonable to assume that writing already existed on Abraham (as well as numerous later Biblical heroes, such as Isaac, Jacob, Moses, et cetera) at the time the above genealogy places the patriarch. Of course, this is a moot point, as no Muslim would ever try and place Abraham’s life around 150 BCE.

The only way out of this would be to take a page from the Judeo-Christian folklore, and start postulating wild scenarios, where patriarchs don’t reach puberty until 90, father children at 120, and finally die some time around 200 years of age! Of course that is just plain absurd, and it shows the extent of the silliness found in the “intellectual” religion known as al-Islaam. (source; bold emphasis ours)

Apart from the disparaging remarks regarding the age of some of the Patriarchs, the problem with the Muslim genealogies stands out clearly.

The second problem with these genealogies is that they are written long after Muhammad’s rise to fame. In other words, these are not based on pre-Islamic records but records compiled by Muslims after the death of Muhammad. It is not hard to imagine Muslims concocting genealogies around biblical figures in order to legitimize Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. Let us point again to this hadith:

If this is true, then the genealogy of Muhammad was not known to either himself or his clan. Otherwise he could have appealed to general knowledge and would not have had to appeal to revelation to place himself in a certain descendency. To be a descendant of Ishmael (via Mudar) was a claim that started with Muhammad’s own words but without historical evidence even in his life time. In the end, it comes down to nothing but an unsubstantiated claim from Muhammad, … or from later Muslims who put this into his mouth.

The third problem with these above lists is that they are not even consistent with that given by Ibn Ishaq in his Sirat Rasulullah. Ibn Ishaq, the earliest biographer of Muhammad traces his line to Ishmael through Nabit (Nebaioth), not Kedar. Here is Ibn Ishaq’s list:

MUHAMMAD’S PURE DESCENT FROM ADAM

Abu Muhammad “Abdul Malik ibn Hisham the Grammarian said:

This is the book of the biography of the apostle of God.

Muhammad was the son of “Abdullah, b. “Abdu’l-Muttalib (whose name was Shayba), b. Hashim (whose name was Amr), b. “Abdu Manaf (whose name was al-Mughira), b. Qusayy (whose name was Zayd). B. Kilab, b. Murra, b. Ka’b, b. Lu’ayy, b. Ghalib, b. Fihr, b. Malik, b. al-Nadr, b. Kinana, b. Khuzayma, b. Mudrika (whose name was “Amir), b. Ilyas, b. Mudar, b. Nizar, b. Ma’ add, b. “Adnan, b. Udd (or Udad), b. Muqawwam, b. Nahur, b.’Tayrah, b. Ya’rub, b. Yashjub, b. Nabit, b. Isma’il, b. Ibrahim, the friend of the Compassionate, b. Tarih (who is Azar), b. Nahur, b. Sarugh, b. Ra’u, b. Falikh, b. “Aybar, b. Shalikh, b. Arfakhshadh, b. Sam, b. Nuh, b. Lamk, b. Mattushalakh, b. Akhnukh, who is the prophet Idris according to what they allege, but God knows best (he was the first of the sons of Adam to whom prophecy and writing with a pen were given), b. Yard, b. Mahlil, b. Qaynan, b. Yanish, b. Shith, b. Adam.

THE LINE OF ISMAIL

Isma’il b. Ibrahim begat twelve sons: Nabit the elder, Qaydhar, Adhbul, Mabsha, Misma, Mashi, Dimma, Adhr, Tayma, Yatur, Nabish, Qaydhuma. Their mother was Ra’la d. Mudad b. “Amr al-Jurhumi (II). Jurhum was the son of Yaqtan b. “Aybar b. Shalikh, and [Yaqtan was] Qahtan b. “Aybar b. Shalikh. According to report Isma’il lived 130 years, and when he died he was buried in the sacred precincts of the K’aba besides his mother Hagar (I2). (The Life of Muhammad, trans. Alfred Guillaume [Oxford University Press, Karachi, tenth impression 1995], pp. 3-4; bold emphasis ours)

Ishaq is basically in agreement with the Holy Bible regarding the names and number of sons born to Ishmael. The only difference being is that Ishaq believes that these sons were conceived from Ra’la a Jurhumite.

This leads us to our final problem. The veracity of these records is based primarily on the assumption that Ishmael settled in Mecca and married a Jurhumite woman. Since Ishmael did not settle in Mecca, but in Paran, and married an Egyptian this means that neither Kedar nor Nebaioth could have been the ancestor of the Meccan Arabs.

There are certain Islamic scholars who readily admit this fact. The late Egyptian Professor, Dr. Taha Husayn, considered one of the foremost authorities on Arabic literature, while commenting on the story of Abraham and Ishmael building the Kabah, states:

“The case for this episode is very obvious because it is of recent date and came into vogue just before the rise of Islam. Islam exploited it for religious reasons.” (As quoted in Mizan al-Islam by Anwar al-Jundi, p. 170 as found in Behind the Veil, p. 184, source; bold emphasis ours)

In his rebuttal to Dr. Robert A. Morey’s book Islamic Invasion, W. Aliyyuddin Shareef, is honest enough to admit:

“In pre-Islamic times Ishmael was never mentioned as the Father of the Arabs.” (Shareef, In response to Robert Morey’s Islamic Invasion, pp. 3-4; bold emphasis ours)

Writer Camilla Adang, in a footnote from her book Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm, mentions:

… Ishmael is considered the progenitor of the Arabs. Dagon (1981) has shown that this idea is an Islamic construction AND THAT NO CONNECTION BETWEEN ISHMAEL AND THE ARABS HAD EVER BEEN MADE IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD. Already in the first Islamic century, however, Ishmael came to symbolize the Islamic Umma, and biblical passages about Ishmael were taken to refer to Muhammad, the Arabs, or the Muslim community. (Adang, p. 147, fn. 37: E.J. Brill Academic Publishers; August 1997 ISBN: 9004100342; bold and capital emphasis ours)

Former Muslim turned to atheist Ibn Warraq writes:

We are told that [Abraham] was born in Chaldea, and that he was the son of a poor potter who earned his living by making little clay idols. It is scarcely credible that the son of this potter went to Mecca, 300 leagues away in the tropics, by way of impassable deserts. If he was a conqueror he no doubt aimed at the fine country of Assyria; and if he was only a poor man, as he is depicted, he founded no kingdoms in foreign parts. — Voltaire

For the historian, the Arabs are no more the descendents of Ishmael, son of Abraham, than the French are of Francus, son of Hector. — Maxime Rodinson

It is virtually certain that Abraham never reached Mecca. — Montgomery Watt

The essential point … is that, where objective fact has been established by sound historical methods, it must be accepted. — Montgomery Watt

According to Muslim tradition, Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba, the cube-like structure in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca. But outside these traditions there is absolutely no evidence for this claim - whether epigraphic, archaelogical, or documentary. Indeed Snouck Hurgronje has shown that Muhammad invented the story to give his religion an Arabian origin and setting; with this brilliant improvisation Muhammad established the independence of his religion, at the same time incorporating into Islam the Kaaba with all its historical and religious associations for the Arabs. (Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim [Prometheus Books, Amherst NY 1995], p. 131; bold emphasis ours)

Finally, Islamicist Alfred Guillaume notes:

“… there is no historical evidence for the assertion that Abraham or Ishmael was ever in Mecca, and if there had been such a tradition it would have to be explained how all memory of the Old Semitic name Ishmael (which was not in its true Arabian form in Arabian inscriptions and written correctly with an initial consonant Y) came to be lost. The form in the Quran is taken either from Greek or Syriac sources.” (Alfred Guillaume, Islam [Penguin Books Inc., Baltimore, 1956], pp. 61-62)

In case Muslims want to claim that the biblical text has been tampered with, it should be pointed out that the Jews would have no reason to distort the location of Paran since there was neither Christians nor Muslims around when these texts were written. Therefore, claiming textual distortion will not solve the problem for the Muslims.

In light of all this confusion, it becomes evident that the biblical data is more precise and accurate since it is much older and closer to these events. Since the Holy Bible indicates that Ishmael never settled in Mecca he therefore cannot be the father of the Arabs that settled there. In other words, Muhammad is not a descendant of Ishmael.

In the service of our great God and Savior, the risen Lord of eternal glory, Jesus Christ. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. We love you always.

Additional source material is found in ‘Ishmael Is Not the Father Of Muhammad’ Revisited.

Further articles by Sam Shamoun
Answering Islam Home Page

6 Tips that helps you to avoid medical identity theft

2007-07-09T07:38:00.000-07:00

If you're like most people, you're probably familiar with identity theft. In fact, you may have already been a victim or know someone that has. What you may not be as aware of is medical identity theft. According to current researchers, over 255,000 cases are reported every single year. With this in mind, law enforcement agencies and media sources are starting to take it more seriously and are engaging in collaborative efforts to inform potential victims. In this brief article, we'll discuss medical identity theft and give you tips on how to protect yourself.

First of all, you should understand that it differs quite differently from identity theft. For instance, with identity theft, your financial information is stolen however with medical identity theft, your medical history is stolen. That is, with medical identity theft, someone uses your name or insurance information in order to obtain medical goods or services. Here are some examples:

a. A physician that falsifies your records indicating that he received a certain medical treatment although you did not. Your insurance company is then billed.

b. Someone uses your identity to obtain an expensive medical surgical procedure because they don't have their own medical coverage.

c. A medical professional calls in a prescription for you but picks it up and uses it or sells it to someone else.

d. Someone uses the information in your medical files to obtain credit.

Here are some tips that you can use to help you avoid medical identity theft:

1. Check your credit report on a quarterly basis or subscribe to a credit monitoring service.

2. Make sure that you read all your mail and check any insurance claims immediately. If you notice any discrepancies then you should contact your insurance company right away.

3. If you believe that your medical identity has been compromised, you should seek the help of a qualified legal professional to assist you.

4. If you're ever denied employment or credit, see if you can determine why you were denied. You might have been denied based on something in your credit report.

5. Don't ignore collection calls. If someone says that you owe them for medical bills, follow up to see if you really owe them or if you've been a victim of medical identity theft.

6. Evaluate your medical charts. Make sure that your correct blood type, allergies, etc. are listed. If the wrong information is listed, you may be a victim of medical identity theft.

In conclusion, medical identity theft is a serious situation that cannot be ignored. The key to protecting yourself is being aware of the possibilities and doing what you can to protect yourself. If you find some discrepancies, make sure that you check them out right away. Your medical history and future must be protected.

How Presidential Executive Orders Can Threaten You and Your Wealth.

2007-07-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

"Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts, but this must happen in such a way that no one becomes aware of it; or if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand, to be produced immediately." -- Machiavelli

That is right, we are moving on to the scary world of Presidential Executive orders. There are plenty of websites and rightwing conspiracy organizations constantly warning about the many Presidential Executive Orders currently threatening the Constitution, which allow the President and the feds to run around unchecked over our constitutional freedoms, financial rights, and civil liberties.

Frankly, most of these conspiracy theories prior to 9/11 were mostly doomsday mongering and scare tactics by writers, editors, and others marketing to Americans who were more fearful of big government than any real threat. But like everything else in the United States today, these formerly inflated concerns are now real threats to your liberty and wealth. With the power of Executive Orders, the president can basically rule the nation by executive decree in times of severe emergency. These actions are difficult to prohibit legally because the powers of a president are quite broadly defined by the Constitution. According to our reading of the Constitution, it does not define or limit the power of the president to rule by executive order, except in the larger context of the Constitution in general. And we all know what the average politician or bureaucrat in Washington thinks or knows about the Constitution…nothing.

Today with threats of terrorist attacks and the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, Presidential Executive Orders are a real danger. Washington will call them what they will, but these orders are quasi-dictatorial powers given to the President for his use in times of national emergencies, such as the 9/11 attacks or the current war on terror. Although they bypass the right of Congress established by the Constitution to make laws, they would be a necessary government emergency action during a real crisis - if they were only used for this purpose.

What really happens is that these orders are published in the Federal Register and after 30 days they become law just as if they had been passed by Congress. Be aware that all of these types of non-constitutional actions, including Executive Orders, Presidential Proclamations, Presidential Declarations, and Presidential Decision Directives are considered executive orders. Some have been sealed and are not even publicized to Congress.

Here is a list of some of the original executive orders that have been issued by presidents of the United States. They provide unprecedented authority at the president's disposal that he can enforce during a national crises. He can declare a national emergency for any reason whether the American people or Congress agree or not. This frightening power gives the president the unlimited power of a dictator in the event of a real or contrived crisis situation. You can see the potential for tyranny here if these unconstitutional powers are used in the wrong way. Remember-- the president would also have total control of the armed forces to enforce executive orders.

Order # Authority Granted to the President
10995 Right to seize all communications media in the United States
10997 Right to seize all electric power, fuels and minerals, both public and private
10999 Right to seize all means of transportation, including personal vehicles of any kind and total control of highways, seaports and waterways
11000 Right to seize any and all American people and divide families in order to create work forces to be transferred to any place the government sees fit.
11001 Right to seize all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private
11002 Right to force registration of all men, women and children in the United States
11003 Right to seize all air space, airports and aircraft
11004 Right to seize all housing and finance authorities in order to establish "Relocation Designated Areas" and to force abandonment of areas classified as "unsafe".
11005 Right to seize all railroads, inland waterways, and storage facilities, both public and private
11051 This gives the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning the right to put Executive Orders into effect in "times of increased international tension or financial crisis."
11490 Enforces Presidential power over all US citizens, businesses and even houses or worship during "an emergency".
11921 Allows the feds to seize control over education, welfare, mechanisms of production and distribution, energy, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money to and from American financial institutions and to do this under total or partial censorship of the press. 12919 Provides the president the authority to seize and allocate all public and private materials, services, facilities, food, farm equipment, fertilizer, construction materials, energy and all forms of civilian transportation.
13010 Orders the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assume control over all government agencies during an emergency.
13011 Created a national information system to control all U.S. citizens by linking data from all government agencies into a single database.

The same could be said for organizations and individuals on the far left and right spectrums of American politics. What if the political establishment choose to target an innocent domestic group in order to destroy their wealth and political power. Foreign governments and citizens, as well as non-establishment Americans, have much to fear from the threat of fabricated attacks, false blame, and the resulting confiscation of assets.

Presidential Decision Directives (PDD) Are Even More Frightening

Presidential Decision Directives are additional presidential powers that do not even have to be published in the Federal Register and are not a matter of public record. Most of these concern national security and are used to provide guidance on these issues to the National Security Council (NSC).

What should concern Americans and foreign investors in the USA are two relatively recent PDD’s, which are linked to Executive Order 12919 above because they relate to "services". Services sounds innocuous enough until you realize they include telecommunications, energy, finance, transportation and all emergency services.

President Clinton signed both Presidential Decision Directive #62 concerning "Combating Terrorism" and #63 which relates to "Protecting America's Critical Infrastructure". It is important to remember that both of these two directives were issued prior to 9/11 but would come into action if, as we believe, Islamic terrorists launch a successful WMD attack against New York City and our financial infrastructure. PDD #63 established the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), which includes the FBI, Secret Service and all other federal agencies.

This directive gives the control of all “critical infrastructures”-- from telecommunications, which includes regular and express mail, phones, e-mail, the Internet and provisions for the interception and monitoring of all such communications, to energy, transportation, banking and finance, and even the NIPC. Even private businesses involved in critical infrastructure will be "strongly encouraged" to share information with NIPC. Everything is then reported directly to the National Security Advisor, thus making the information and records classified.The stage is now set for the implementation of a total police state in America. All that needs to happen is another major terrorist attack.

100 Eazy Ways to make money with Affilliates Site.

2007-07-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

1. Dada.net
Dada.net! ,You can meet new people, blog, post pictures and
share videos from your computer or directly from your mobile phone! You can also earn extra dough by hosting ads on
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I'm inviting them to be my friend$ partners, too!.
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As the name Bux.to implies, you make money by simply visiting websites for at least 30 seconds/visit. We will pay you $0.01 for each website you visit and $0.01 for each website your referrals visit. The best part is you can have an unlimited amount of referrals! To keep Bux.to from getting top-heavy you will only earn money from those that you directly refer. This gives everyone who participates in the program a fair advantage to earn the most amount of money because you have the potential to earn more than your sponsor! Payments are issued via PayPal. You must request for a payment to be processed. Once requested, your payment will be issued within 7 business days or less.

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Shareapic is a free service that allows its users to upload and host images on our servers. What makes us different from the rest? Shareapic has a unique revenue sharing model that compensates users for directing their friends and family to see their hosted images. When a member hosts a gallery, they can then show this gallery to others. Each time this is done, the member is paid.

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4.Google Adsense

Many sites allow you to put your Google Affiliate code on your pages at their site and earn money from the Google

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I highly recommend using Google to generate revenue from you activities on this site and others that allow you have it!You can join the Google Affiliate Program .

Generate revenue from your site with Adsense

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Subvert & Profit is a great site that pays you to vote up (aka 'Digg') stories on social media sites like Digg.com
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Refer friends using TextPayMe banners.Add one of the following banners to your website, blog, or email signature to increase the likelihood of a referral. Anyone that clicks on the banner and signs up will become a referral for you!

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8. AuctionAds

Auction Ads allows you to monetize your website by displaying live eBay auctions next to your related copy.

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9.PayPerPost.com

PayPerPost has a new Review My Post program! By simply putting a badge at the bottom of *EVERY* post, you can invite new prospective Posties to review your blog posts! When someone clicks on this badge and signs up with PayPerPost, a special opportunity is created JUST FOR THEM! The $7.50 opportunity asks them to write a post in their blog reviewing a post on YOUR blog.

As soon as the new Postie gets paid for reviewing your blog you get paid $7.50! To get the most out of this program, be sure to place this badge code at the bottom of every post on your blog, even the ones that aren't sponsored posts. The more posts that the badge is tagged to, the wider variety of content potential posties have to blog about when they review your post! The easiest way to achieve this is to simply modify your blog post template so that the badge automatically appears whenever you post a new blog.

Get Paid to Review a Site

10.Make Extra Money Promoting ClickBank

ClickBank's referral program is a great way for you to promote ClickBank and earn extra commission.
Earn 20% of the $49.95 activation charge when your referred publisher activates their account. Additionally, earn 5% of ClickBank's typical markup of each sale that your recruited publisher makes for one calendar year. ClickBank's typical markup on every sale is $1 + 7.5% of the sale price, so you earn about $0.09 to $0.99 on every sale.

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Make Money Promoting ClickBank

11. Bidvertiser

Earn money by directing users to signup with BidVertiser
Place a Referral button or a text link on your site and you will start to earn money when a user clicks on your button or link and signs as an advertiser or a publisher:

When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, we'll
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Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

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12. Adbrite

You earn money for all buying and selling activity for all new users you refer. You’ll earn 50% of AdBrite’s profits for the first 3 months after a referred user creates an account, and 10% of AdBrite’s profit for the next 9 months after that.

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13.payDot.com

PayDot.com is a new online marketplace and will catalog thousands of products and services, both physical products and digital products.If you are looking to sell your products, ebooks, software, or services online, you have come to the right place. Or, if you are just looking to make extra money selling some great products from our marketplace as an affiliate, we make it so easy.

14. NeverBlueAds.com

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The Top 15 Historical Spam Subject Lines

2007-07-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Top 15 Historical Spam Subject Lines

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Slice off the pounds with the Antoinette Cake Diet!

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Augmenteth Thy Codpiece!

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Strumpets, Harlots and Unrepentent Slatterns Desireth 2 Meet Thou!

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Discount maile-order leeches delivered by plaine browne buggy to your home -- without a barber's prescription!

and the Number 1 Historical Spam Subject Line...

URGENT VIRUS ALERT! Don't Open Your City Gates for Giant Wooden Horses!

The Top 16 Favorite Movies of Jenna Bush

2007-07-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

The Top 16 Favorite Movies of Jenna Bush
(Part I)

I Know What You Did Last Weekend, and So Does the Rest of the Country, Including Your Parents

The Cider House RULES!!

Glenfiddich Glen Ross

C.H.U.G.

Falling Down, Drunk

A Fish Called Jenna

The Texas Braincell Massacre

The Beer Hunter

101 Citations

The Legend of Drunken First Daughter

What Did You Do in the Bar, Daddy?

A Pack o' Schlitz, Now!

Tanked Girl

From Beer to Fraternity

Puking Tiger, Heaving Dragon

and the Number 1 Favorite Movie of Jenna Bush...

Dude, Where's My Lawyer?

Top 10 hybrid animals

2007-07-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

Our editors have created a list about the top 10 hybrid animals. Hybrid animals are cross-breds between animals of similar genetics. They mostly exist in captivity and are the result of human intervention.

10. Liger/Tigon
Though they are fascinating animals, they get the last of the list because they are the most popular known among the hybrids. Ligers are crossbreeds between a male lion while Tigons are crossbreds between a male tiger and a female lion. Ligers are the world’s largest cats. Tigons on the other hand, are prone towards dwarfism and are usually smaller than either of their parents. Male Ligers/Tigons are sterile while the females are often fertile. Below shows a liger and its trainer Dr. Bhagavan Antle at a Renaissance Festival in Massachusetts, USA, October 2005.

Futher Read: Truth Or Fiction

9. Wolf Dog
Dogs and wolves tend to crossbreed rather freely. The wolf is a shy animal depending on nuances in body language, facial expression and on hunting skills to survive. Their jaws are much stronger than those of a dog and are often used to exert dominance. For a dog wolf hybrid, it is not known when it will display a wolf behaviour or dog behaviour or something in between. Obedience training is a must in order to tame the animal.

Further Read: Dog’s Owner Guide

8. Iron Age Pig
Domestic Tamworth pigs are crossbred with wild boar to create ‘Iron Age Pigs’. The hybrids are tamer than wild boar but less tractable than domestic swine and generally become specialist pork sausages. Most of them are bred for the specialist meat trade.

Further Read: Wikipedia

7. Zebroid
A zorse is the result of crossbreeding a horse and a zebra. A zonkey is the result of crossbreeding a donkey with a zebra. The Zony is the result of crossbreeding a pony to a zebra. All these three are called zebroids - defined as a cross between a zebra and any other equid. Zebroids are preferred over zebra for practical uses such as riding because of its body shape. However it is more inclined to be temperamental and can prove to be difficult to handle.

A Zorse

A Zonkey

A Zony

Further Read: Green Apple, Wikipedia

6. Cama
A Cama is a hybrid between a camel and a llama. They are born via artificial insemination due to the huge difference in sizes of the animals which disallow natural breeding. A Cama usually has the short ears and long tails of a camel but the cloven hooves of a llama. Also most noticeably is the absence of the hump.

Rama’s parents shown behind, a camel and llama.

This is Rama the Cama at two days old.

Rama at two years of age as a young adult.
Further Read: Taylor Llamas, Wikipedia

5. Grolar, Pizzly
A grolar/pizzly hybrid is the product of a grizzly bear and a polar bear. Although the two bears are genetically similar, they tend to avoid each other in the wild. During 16 April 2006, a hybrid bear was shot dead by Jim Martell,a hunter from the United States, in Canada. It was the first time a hybrid was found in the wild where previous records of grolars or pizzlies have only been found in zoos.

A grolar, pizzly displayed at the Rothschild Museum, Tring, copyright Sarah Hartwell
Further Read: BBC News, Wikipedia

4. Leopon
A Leopon is the result of breeding a male leopard and a female lion. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the bodies carries similarities to leopards. The most successful breeding programme was at the Koshien Hanshin Park in Nishinomiya City, Japan. Leopons are larger than leopards and likes to climb and enjoy water.

A leopon at a zoo.

Further Read: Wikipedia

3. Hybrid Pheasant
The Golden Phesant has commonly been crossed with the similar Lady Amherst’s Pheasant. The result is a hybrid with distinguished colors from its parents.

A Golden Pheasant

A Lady Amherst Pheasant
Pheasant” />
Hybrid Pheasant displayed at Rothschild Museum Copyright Sarah Hartwell

Further Read: Messy Beasts

2. Wolphin
A wolphin is a rare hybrid formed from a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale. There are currently only two in captivity at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii. A wolphin’s size, colour and shape are intermediate between the parent species. The first captive wolphin was Kekaimalu, which shows mixed heritage even in its teeth: bottlenose dolphins have 88, false killer whales have 44 and Kekaimalu has 66!

Kekaimalu, The Wolphin

Further Read: Wikipedia

1. Ti-Liger, Ti-Tigon, Li-Tigon, Li-Liger
The top spot goes to ti-ligers/ti-tigon/li-tigons/li-ligers because it is a hybrid among the hybrids. It is a cross breed between a male tiger and a female liger/tigon or a male lion with a female tigon/liger. Do note that female ligers or tigons are fertile. They are extremely rare and are in mostly private ownership within a behavioural studies programme. In the case of ti-ligers, they have unusual striping where it breaks up and display a blotchy appearance. Since they are 3/4 tiger, their characteristics inhibit more of those of a tiger than a lion.

Sony Ericsson introduces two new phones to the Cyber-shot phone family.

2007-07-02T02:38:00.000-07:00

Sony Ericsson today introduces two new phones to the Cyber-shot phone family. Intended to deliver Cyber-shot phones to a broader audience, these phones make sure you never miss an important shot. The K810 Cyber-shot phone is a sleek, high-performance device boasting a 3.2 megapixel camera including auto focus and a Xenon flash. Innovative applications such as Photo Fix help to further improve the quality of your pictures, even after you have taken them. Illuminated camera icons to the side of the main keypad, which light up when in camera mode, allow you to access camera menu options at the touch of a button.

Design: Sony Ericsson [ Via: Gizmodo ]

Top 10: Cursed Bloodlines

2007-07-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

Number 10

The Lee family

One evening the martial-arts master known as Bruce Lee took some medication for a headache. An allergic reaction caused his brain to swell and he died of cerebral edema at age 32 and on the verge of super-stardom: His highly influential kung fu classic, Enter the Dragon, was released a month later.

Twenty years on, his only son Brandon was on the wrong end of a decidedly more complicated sequence of events.

Brandon Lee was filming a scene for The Crow that required his character to be shot. The previous day, the props team overlooked a “squib load” -- a real bullet -- that had been pushed into the gun barrel. The next day, another props team loaded the gun with blanks; when fired, the gunpowder proved sufficient to fire the squib load into the 28-year-old Lee, killing him. Like his father, Brandon Lee died young, and on the verge of stardom.

Next generation: Being on the verge of stardom is a dangerous place for members of the Lee family, which might explain why Brandon’s sister Shannon has only acted in movies so awful they have no chance of making her a star.

Number 9

The Borgia family

Well before 1492, when Rodrigo Borgia bought the title by which he’s better known, Pope Alexander VI, his uncle, Pope Calixtus III, had made him a cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church. As pope himself, Rodrigo made his eldest illegitimate son, Giovanni, both a duke and a cardinal, his second illegitimate son Cesare an archbishop, and it’s possible either he or Cesare fathered his daughter Lucrezia’s first child. While Rome sunk into poverty and decay, the Vatican was a 24-hour party central.

Then Giovanni was assassinated -- most likely by Cesare. When his father died, Cesare was exiled and imprisoned by the new pope and died shortly thereafter.

Next generation: On the plus side, the murdered Giovanni had a boy named Juan Borgia, who in 1671 was canonized as St. Francis Borgia.

Number 8

The Brando family

Marlon Brando’s mother suffered from alcoholism, and his first wife, Anna Kashfi, developed drug and alcohol problems after giving birth to their son Christian. Along with his own drug problems, Christian shot and killed the boyfriend of his half-sister Cheyenne. Convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Christian served six years of his ten-year sentence.

In an effort to prevent her from testifying at Christian’s trial, Brando sent Cheyenne to Tahiti so she couldn’t be subpoenaed by U.S. authorities. A year before Christian was released, she committed suicide.

Next generation: Cheyenne’s brother Teihotu is the sole inhabitant of Tetiaroa, an island near Tahiti for which Brando owns the lease until the year 2064. Beyond him, Brando has a handful of surviving children.

Number 7

The House of Habsburg

From the famed House of Habsburg, Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I reigned for 68 years, the third longest reign in the history of European aristocracy. His grandfather was Francis II, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors. Franz insisted on marrying his cousin Elisabeth of Bavaria, whose side of the family had a long history of mental illness. Elisabeth was stabbed to death at age 60 by an anarchist.

Their son and heir, Crown Prince Rudolf, hooked up with a 17-year-old baroness and shocked the world by committing murder-suicide. As a result, Franz Ferdinand, the emperor’s nephew, became heir apparent. In 1914 Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, the event is widely considered to be the precursor to World War I.

Next generation: The assassination effectively ended some eight centuries of Habsburg reign in Europe.

Number 6

The Tutankhamun Dynasty

King Tut was born of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. This bloodline was already old and inbred, giving the ungainly boy a cleft palate, an overbite, big front incisors, and possibly Marfan’s syndrome (in his case, this translated into elongation of the skull). Perhaps this is one small reason he married his father's daughter, Ankhesenamen.

Tut and Ankhesenamen had two daughters, both born premature -- one with spina bifida -- and stillborn. King Tut himself died at age 19, either from bludgeoning, poisoning or rapid-onset gangrene, leaving Egypt without an heir. His wife chose to marry an insider named Ay, who some believe murdered Tut.

Next generation: Ay, a commoner, was the second-to-last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. He chose his successor from his military, effectively ending the Tut bloodline.

Number 5

The Nehru-Gandhi family

With India’s independence in 1947 came the rise of this political dynasty. Patriarch Jawaharlal Nehru served as India’s first prime minister, and he urged his only daughter Indira to go into politics.

She served as prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and was re-elected to the position again in 1980. She had been grooming her unpopular younger son Sanjay to follow in her footsteps, but he died in a plane crash shortly after her re-election. Four years later, she ordered her soldiers to invade the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple. The act was perceived as blasphemy by Sikhs everywhere -- including those who served as her bodyguards. Five months later, two of them pumped 31 bullets into her body.

She was succeeded as prime minister by her eldest son, Rajiv. In 1991, a young woman knelt to touch his feet and detonated a belt bomb. Rajiv, the woman and 16 others died in the explosion.

Next generation: Rajiv’s widow, Sonia, leads the Indian National Congress and is among the world’s most powerful women, but trouble is brewing: Her son Rahul is in Parliament and has a terrible reputation nationwide. Meanwhile, the widow and son of Sanjay are both estranged from the family and part of the political opposition.

Number 4

The Romanov family

Thirteen years after his grandfather’s assassination, Nicholas II became the Russian Tsar. His wife Alexandra had inherited a mutated gene from her grandmother, Queen Victoria, which she passed onto her son Alexei, the long-awaited heir. As a result of his gene pool, the boy was weakened by hemophilia, and the Russian population had little faith in his ability to rule the country.

Desperate to heal him, Alexandra further damaged the family’s reputation by enlisting the help of Rasputin, a controversial mystic.

Rasputin prophesied that the end of the Romanovs would follow his own death by a year. Sure enough, noblemen murdered the mystic, and two months later, the February Revolution brought an end to more than 300 years of Romanov power.

Next generation: More than a few women have tried to pass themselves off as one of the Tsar’s four murdered daughters, but since 1918, the remaining Romanov descendants have kept a very low profile.

Number 3

The Hemingway family

Even a brief glance into this bloodline showcases one clinical curse: severe depression.

At 29, Ernest’s literary career was just taking off when his father shot himself. Ernest went on to earn a Nobel prize, Pulitzers, wealth, and international fame. However, these accolades were not enough to keep him from attempting to walk into the spinning blades of a twin-engine plane before eventually killing himself with a shotgun at age 62.

Five years later, his sister Ursula, who struggled with cancer and depression, committed suicide with an overdose. Sixteen years after that, Ernest’s only brother, Leicester, raised a gun to his own head after learning his diabetes would cost him his legs. Ten years on, Papa’s 35-year-old granddaughter Margaux succumbed to her own depression and deliberately overdosed on barbiturates.

Next generation: Ernest’s bloodline lives on through his well-known granddaughter Mariel, who has two daughters, Dree Louise Crisman and Langley Crisman.

Number 2

The Von Erich family

Fritz Von Erich was a successful wrestler whose wife bore him six sons. Chronologically, it’s pretty much downhill from there.

First-born: Died from electrocution and drowning at age 7.

Third-born: David, the “Yellow Rose of Texas” wrestled successfully in the NWA, but couldn’t seem to “defeat” Ric Flair for the championship. In 1984, the NWA board of directors had allegedly decided David would finally claim the title from Flair, but before that could happen, David died from a drug overdose.

Fourth-born: Kerry, “The Texas Tornado” was the most famous and successful of the brothers, briefly holding the NWA title and even flirting with the WWF. After lengthy drug problems and a motorcycle accident, Kerry killed himself in 1993.

Fifth-born: Michael strapped on the spandex after David died, but he suffered from toxic shock syndrome following shoulder surgery. In 1987 he overdosed on tranquilizers.

Sixth-born: Chris had lost three of his brothers and was a poor wrestler. Depression led to his 1991 suicide.

Next generation: Second-born son Kevin is the only living child of Fritz. “The Golden Warrior” enjoyed a successful wrestling career before retiring in 1995. Kevin has four children and a grandchild.

Number 1

The Kennedy family

Enter the First Family of cursed bloodlines. The Kennedys embody every angle of the supposed curse, from coincidence to bad luck to impropriety to the remote possibility that something otherworldly really is at work against them. Curiously, Senator Ted Kennedy has been quoted as saying there may be a curse on the family. While the Kennedy clan may buy into that theory, writer Edward Klein suggests the curse is “the result of the destructive collision between the Kennedys' fantasy of omnipotence -- their need to get away with things that others cannot -- and the cold, hard realities of life."

Beginning with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, other events generally attributed to the curse include a botched lobotomy, miscarriages, strokes, cancer, deaths by plane crash, assassination, skiing, overdose, suicide, and a scattering of otherwise preventable tragedies in which members of the Kennedy entourage die by accident, murder, negligence, bad behavior or hubris.

Next generation: As recently as 2006, Congressman Patrick Kennedy crashed his car while on heavy prescription narcotics. His father, Ted Kennedy, has survived a plane crash, a near-drowning, and in 2006 the plane he was in was struck by lightning.

The Top 16 Fatal Things to Say to Your Pregnant Wife

2007-07-02T00:05:00.001-07:00

The Top 16 Fatal Things to Say to Your Pregnant Wife
(Part I)

"Not to imply anything, but I don't think the kid weighs forty pounds."

"Y'know, looking at her, you'd never guess that Pamela Lee had a baby!"

"I sure hope your thighs aren't gonna stay that flabby forever!"

"Well, couldn't they induce labor? The 25th is the Super Bowl."

"Damn if you ain't about five pounds away from a surprise visit from that Richard Simmons fella."

"Fred at the office passed a stone the size of a pea. Boy, that's gotta hurt."

"Whoa! For a minute there, I thought I woke up next to Willard Scott!"

"I'm jealous! Why can't men experience the joy of childbirth?"

"Are your ankles supposed to look like that?"

"Get your *own* ice cream, Buddha!"

"Geez, you're awfully puffy looking today."

"Got milk?"

"Maybe we should name the baby after my secretary, Tawney."

"Man! That rose tattoo on your hip is the size of Madagascar!"

"Retaining water? Yeah, like the Hoover Dam retains water."

and TopFive's Number 1 Fatal Thing to Say to Your Pregnant Wife...

"You don't have the guts to pull the trigger, Lardass."

10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE BUYING A SOLAR ELECTRIC SYSTEM

2007-06-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE BUYING A SOLAR ELECTRIC SYSTEM

by Bruce Karney

Are you a Bay Area homeowner who is thinking about installing solar photovoltaic panels on your roof to help fight global warming? Good for you. You may be the first on your block, but you are probably far from the first in the Bay Area. I know one man, an architect, who put solar panels on his home in 1984.

There is a lot of excitement about new solar panel technology, but more likely than not you will choose to install modules that use the same basic technology that was available in 1984. They are a proven, long-lasting way to convert sunlight into electricity. The latest models have decent efficiency, turning about 20% of the energy that strikes them into power. New technologies continually make the news, but for the most part are only applicable to very large commercial installations, not residential rooftops.

Here are 10 things you should know before speaking with a solar salesperson:

Your system will not need batteries. At night, you will get your power from PG&E's grid, just like you do today.

Make sure you understand PG&E's electricity rates. There are currently five tiers. Each tier has a different cost. If you are a frugal household, you may be able to get all your energy needs at the Tier 1 rate, currently $.11 per kilowatt-hour (KWH). As your energy use rises, you pay Tier 2 rates ($.13 / KWH), then Tier 3 ($.23), Tier 4 ($.32) and Tier 5 ($.37). A typical electric bill is about $87 per month, which means that you have used all of your Tier 1 and 2 allotments and that your marginal price is $.23 per KWH. If your monthly electric bill is over $237, you are up into Tier 5 territory. When you add a solar system to your roof, you eliminate the top tiers first. So, the more you spend on electricity now, the higher the return on investment you woll get from a solar system.

Solar panels last about 30 years, losing approximate 0.5% of their efficiency each year. The only required maintenance is to hose them off a couple of times each summer. Do this from the ground, with a nozzle on your hose. The inverter, which converts direct current from the panels to alternating current used in your home, will need to be replaced after about 15 years. Expect to pay $2000 for the part and $400 for the labor sometime around 2022.

Ideally, a solar system will go on a southwest-facing roof. However, the direction it faces does not matter as much as you might think. West and south are quite good and southeast, east and north-northwest can provide good payback too.

Know exactly how much electricity your home uses each month. If you keep old bills, great. Otherwise, request the data from PG&E. But also think about how your electricity needs will change over the next 10 years. If your family is growing, you will need more energy as your kids grow. On the other hand, if your nest is about to become empty, you may expect that your energy bills will decline and stay low. If you plan to replace incandescent lights with compact fluorescents or do other things that will make a big difference in the amount of electricity you use, you should ask the salesperson to base their bid on your PLANNED electricity use, not your actual use.

Solar power's natural enemy is shade. One of the key things a salesperson will do when they climb on your roof is to get a very good understanding of how the roof is shaded in different seasons. You and the sales rep will have to think about the growth of trees over 10-30 years. Some trees that shade your roof may be several houses away from yours - tall redwoods for example. Even if your current neighbors are good friend and will trim their tree that shades your roof if you ask, what if they move in 2 years and the Grumpy family moves next door?

State rebates (administered by the California Energy Commission) and Federal tax credits (which you claim on your 1040 Tax Form) are an important part of the cost/benefit decision. California state rebates are declining step-by-step. The maximum rebate as of April 2007 is $2.50 per AC watt. For the next year or so, rebates will probably decline faster than prices, so when the sales person tells you it is cheaper to buy now then to wait, it is the truth.

Most families that go solar switch to "time of use" metering. Under time of use electricity costs more in times of high demand. PG&E has two rate schedules. The more favorable for solar owners is called E7. It has "peak" and "off-peak" periods. Prices vary by Winter and Summer as well. The summer peak price is $.29 per kilowatt-hour (KWH), the off-peak price is $.09. The E6 rate has another category called "partial peak." Its summer rates are: peak $.21, partial peak $.11, off-peak $.09. Now, you probably think that the E6 sounds like a better deal, because the price is lower - but that is probably becaise you are thinking like an energy consumer instead of an energy producer. Once you have solar on your roof, you will be selling electricity that exceeds your usage to PG&E. When your system is cranking out power on a sunny summer afternoon, you will want to get $.29/KWH instead of $.20. The E7 rate is going away, so be sure to ask your sales rep if it is still available. Being able to get onto the E7 rate schedule is another reason to act now rather than later.

It is very difficult to know how much a solar system will add to the value of your home at resale. People who install solar systems generally plan to stay in their homes a long time, so re-sales are rare. I think it is fair to say that 5 or 10 years from now potential buyers will be much better able to assess the value of a low electric bill.

You can not actually lower your electric bill to zero. PG&E will buy your power, but only to the extent that it drives your net energy bill to zero. They will also charge you a monthly "account fee" of about $5/month that covers services like maintaining the grid and coming to read your meter. PG&E will, on the other hand, take all the power your system produce in excess of your needs, so you should not "oversize" your system.

Talk to several solar companies before you make a commitment. You will probably find that their prices are very similar, so your final decision may be made based on intangibles. Any reputable solar salesperson will give you one piece of advice before they sell to you, and I will do the same. The advice is: first conserve, by identifying electricity wasters in your home. Conserving is cheap. Only after you have conserved should you invest in solar. Do a web search on "conserving electricity," read the suggestions and implement as many as you can.

New Pepsi design

2007-06-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Pepsi’s plan is to roll out a new can in stores every three weeks. Each can’s art centers on a different platform or theme appealing to young adults, such as fashion, car culture, music, sports and entertainment. On each can is a URL for a microsite or partner site related to the can’s theme.

The first such site, at thisisthebeginning.com , appeared through January and introduced the campaign concept. It allowed users to collaboratively create a billboard using selected stencils. The best of these will be made into an actual billboard in New York’s Times Square, which will go up on the first of April, the agency side.

“The idea behind this experience was to tap into the communal aspect of what’s going on online today,” said Tribal DDB Associate Creative Director Matt Smith. “We wanted to allow the world to show Pepsi, here’s a great creation, something done by people all around the globe.”

Source: Pepsi Can

LSSU's Banished Words of the Year 2007 and 2006

2007-06-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

LSSU's Banished Words: 2007

* GITMO — military shorthand for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
* Combined Celebrity Names — e.g., Bennifer, TomKat, Bragelina
* Awesome — diluted from its meaning of “inspiring awe”
* Gone/Went Missing
* Pwn or Pwned — gamer slang for “own,” originally a typo
* Now Playing in Theaters
* We're Pregnant
* Undocumented Alien
* Armed Robbery / Drug Deal Gone Bad
* Truthiness — coined by Stephen Colbert as the quality possessed by a belief one feels is true, in defiance of facts or logic
* Ask Your Doctor
* Chipotle
* i-Anything
* Search
* Healthy Food — as opposed to “healthful”
* Boasts — as in “the apartment boasts hardwood floors”

LSSU's Banished Words: 2006

* Surreal
* Hunker Down
* Person of Interest
* Community of Learners
* Up or Down Vote
* Breaking News
* Designer Breed
* FEMA
* First-Time Caller
* Pass the Savings on to You!
* 97% Fat Free
* An Accident that Didn't Have to Happen
* Junk Science
* Git-er-done
* Dawg
* Talking Points
* Holiday Tree

“Most Livable” Countries, 2006

2007-06-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

“Most Livable” Countries, 2006
1. Norway 16. France
2. Iceland 17. Italy
3. Australia 18. United Kingdom
4. Ireland 19. Spain
5. Sweden 20. New Zealand
6. Canada 21. Germany
7. Japan 22. Israel
8. United States 23. Greece
9. Switzerland 24. Singapore
10. Netherlands 25. Korea, Rep. of
11. Finland 26. Slovenia
12. Luxembourg 27. Portugal
13. Belgium 28. Cyprus
14. Austria 29. Czech Republic
15. Denmark 30. Barbados

22 step plan you can use to make money online.

2007-06-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

here is one way to start making money online. It's obviously not the only way. And you can modify it to suit your specific talents and experiences. I wrote it for my friend who is very comfortable online, but who has never used the internet to generate income.

Here's the JoeMack plan:

1. Go to www.clickbank.com and look up products that you have some interest, passion or experience in. Ideally you want to focus on a niche that fulfills all three of those requirements.

2. Pick three affiliate products to promote in the same niche (and sign up as a Clickbank member if you haven't already - it's free). So if you want to focus on the golf niche, choose the three best golf related affiliate products. I usually visit all the salespage and see which ones affects me the most.

3. Register a domain name in your chosen niche. There are plenty of domain name registrars to choose from. EDIT: www.GoDaddy.com and www.register.com are two bigger companies.

I now recommend and use www.namecheap.com. They are incredibly easy to use and I really like their user admin screen. END OF EDIT

It's going to cost you about 9 bucks ($8.88), but you have it registered for the entire next 12 months. Also, remember to use your niche in your domain name. So in our example, we will register www.golfmastery.com.

4. Find a company to host your domain name. There are lots of different options. Being that this site is support by Host4Profit, I suggest considering them. If not them, there are plenty of hosting companies that offer low monthly ($5 per month) and annual ($18 per year) packages. Read all of the introductory emails carefully so that you correctly redirect your nameservers.

5. Download a copy of Nvu at www.nvu.com. It's a free html editor that you will need to create and edit your web pages.

6. Create a squeeze page. The goal of this page is to capture the names and email addresses of your website visitors. There are many templates for sale that you can simply modify to your niche. In your copy, tell the visitor that they can sign up free for your 5 part eCourse.

7. Create your five part eCourse. You can either do this from scratch, hire a ghostwriter from www.rentacoder.com or www.elance.com, or use PLR (private label rights) material to develop your eCourse. Again, this is a niche that you are interested, passionate or have experience in. Can be as simple as 5 ways to do something better in that niche. So for our example, it would be "5 Ways To Add Distance To Your Drives."

8. Using nvu and a template, create your eCourse in html format (a single page for each lesson) and upload it to your website. Include Adsense ads at the top, bottom (and center if the particular lesson is long enough). Also, you will be promoting one affilate product per lesson, rotating thru your chosen 3. (So Lesson 1 promotes Product 1, Lesson 2 promotes Product 2, 3 promotes 3, 4 promotes 1 again, and 5 promotes 2 again). I usually put a statement like: "Third Party Advertisement" followed by a quick marketing blurb about the affiliate product. I include just enough info to get them to click on the affiliate link for more details.

9. Sign up for an autoresponder service. I use and recommend Getresponse, but you should also consider Aweber and EmailAces. I highly recommend that you don't go the free route when getting an autoresponder.

There are two reasons why:

Firstly, because of the rampant use of using free autoresponders for spam activities, many free autoresponders are blacklisted. What this means to you is that your delivery rates will suck. The only free autoresponder that I know of that still has decent delivery rates is Getresponse's free account.

And secondly, when you get do get tired of your horrible delivery rates and want to go to a paid autoresponder, you will have to get all of your current subscribers to double opt in AGAIN to your new list. And as many people who have done it have found out, you will lose a large percentage of your mailing list.

Again, I don't recommend going the free way, but if you are set on doing it anyway, at least do it with Getresponse. Why? Well, because of their higher delivery rates and because when you do decide to upgrade to a paid version with Getresponse, you won't have to your subscribers double opt in again, so you won't lose any subscribers needlessly.

But remember that just like the free versions of other autoresponders, the free version of GR also places ads in all of your messages. Incidently, the free version allows you to create one list and send up to five follow up messages. This will work with this blueprint.

However, as soon as you can, upgrade to the paid version so that you can create unlimited lists, with unlimited follow ups, and the ability to send broadcasts to your entire list.

10. Set up your autoresponder. You will not be sending the lessons of the ecourse directly to the subscriber by email. Instead, you will write a short teaser email about the lesson that urges the reader to click on the link to view the lesson on your website. We want them to go to the site because of Adsense revenue.

11. Set up your Confirmation in Process page. This is the web page that the visitor gets sent to when they submit their name and email address. Create and upload a web page to your site that says something like, "Thank you for submitting your name and address. Your subscription request is being processed and you will receive a confirmation email in a few minutes. In the meantime, let me tell you about this golf product that I recently found that you may be interested in. It's called "Playing Golf Like a Tour Pro" and you can find out more here..." You will set the destination of this page in your autoresponder set up.

12. Set up your Subscription Confirmed page. This is the web page that your subscribers will be sent to when they click on the confirmation link in the email they received. I wouldn't try to sell them again. Simply thank them for subscribing to your mailing list and give them a brief overview of the eCourse. I also include Adsense ads at the top and bottom. Once the subscriber reads the intro and overview, they have no direction to go in but they have the niche in mind. Having those Adsense ads there works perfectly for me.

13. Go to your autoresponder and get the html code for a subscription box. Insert this html in the appropriate place on your squeeze page.

14. Test out your system. Go to your squeeze page and make sure that it looks ok. Enter your name and email address in the html form. Make sure that your automatic set up is working correctly (meaning that you are being sent to the appropriate pages throughout the process). Make sure all of the pages look good, and that your Adsense ads are showing up. Also, click on ALL of your affiliate links to make sure that they are active and working. It will be a shame to find out two months down the road that you had a typo in an affiliate link and it has been giving your subscribers an error page the whole time.

At this point, you have set up your system and have made sure that everything is working. Now, you are going to start marketing. I know that this is a little more involved then say the Bum Marketing method, but you will be growing your list plus having the opportunity to generate affiliate and Adsense income.

15. Find ten long tail keywords that you think will be effective in article marketing. I use two criteria: having a low amount of optimized results in Google and also having greater than 300 searches per month.

The term "optimized results" is simply the Google results you get when you place the long tail keyword in quotation marks in Google's search engine. The lower the number the better.

But we also want long tail keywords that are being searched for. What use is having optimized results of 200 results when the keyword phrase is only getting searched 10 times per month? That's less than one potential reader per day. And not everyone who reads your article will go on to click on the link in your author resource box. I choose phrases that have at least 300 searches per month.

So in our golf example, here is a possibility:

"super golf swing"

Doing a little research, I discover that it only has 605 optimizied results. Not bad. But hold on a minute. Using my keyword research tool, I see that "super golf swing" (not in quotes) was searched 2,066 times last month on Google.

Do you see why I like this keyword phrase? It has low competition but high search requests.

Repeat this process until you have 10 long tail keywords that you are going to target that you are confident will be responsive.

16. Write up an awesome author resource/bio box. This is an incredibly crucial part of the system that you need to spend some time on. Don't waste the efforts of your article writing by slapping down an ineffective bio box like, "Joe Schmo is an expert in golf. Click here to find out more info on golf--> www.golfmastery.com"

Consider the author resource box like an ultra-small salespage where your one goal is to get that reader to click on your link. You only have a few sentences to hook the reader with curiosity and then give him a powerful reason why he should click on your link.

In our example, I would probably use something similar to the follow:

"Joe Schmo is a golfing expert who recently developed an eCourse that details a step by step process for adding greater distance to your long drives. If you are interested in learning more about his "5 Ways To Add Distance To Your Drives" eCourse and shedding strokes of your game, please go here: http://www.golfmastery.com"

17. Pick your first long tail keyword, and write an article about it. Be sure to include the keyword phrase in the title. Writing articles is a pretty basic action. You start of by saying what the article is about (using your keyword phrase). Then you talk about the importance of the keyword phrase and how to improve on it. And then you end with a paragraph summarizing what you just wrote about.

An easy solution is to create "tips" articles. So in our example, the article would be: "The Super Golf Swing: What Is It And How Can You Develop It."

18. Now open up an account at www.ezinearticles.com and www.goarticles.com and submit your first article to both.

19. Repeat this process with the remaining 9 keyword adense articles. Be sure to submit the article when you complete it, before beginning to write the next article. Try to get all 10 written and submitted in one day.

Why so many so quickly? Like I said before, most newbies tend to get discouraged prematurely because they don't see immediate results. By forcing yourself to write and submit the initial 10 in one shot (over 24 hours), you will see big results all at once.

I can write a decent article in about 20 minutes, but most people (I believe) take a little longer. With practice, you'll get much faster.

20. Take a few days off from that topic. Place your focus something totally different. After writing 10 articles, you're going to want to take a break from it. Do this. You need to get refreshed.

21. After a couple of days, you are going to do research on another group of 10 long tail keywords. Use the exact same criteria as before (ie. low competition, high search requests).

22. Every day, make it a habit of writing and submitting at least one new keyword dense article. Somedays you will do two, or three articles, but always make sure you get at least one done. It should take you no more than an hour a day. Whenever you run out of keywords, develop a new group of 10.

After a month's time you will have at least 40 articles floating about (your 10 initial articles plus the minimum of one a day thereafter). You should be getting a fair amount of traffic to your squeeze page. My squeeze pages convert between 15-40% of website visitors. Yours will probably do the same.

You should start to see the gradual increase in daily Adsense income generated. You will also get a growing number of affiliate product sales as your subscribers go through the series of autoresponder messages you are sending them.

At this point, you should have a consistent and growing source of income. If you keep writing and submitting articles the proper way, you should maintain or further grow your monthly income.

But my recommendation once you have some cash coming in is to get yourself a paid autoresponder service. Again, I can only recommend Getresponse because it's all I have ever used. Once you upgrade your account, you can now have unlimited lists, with unlimited follow ups, and the ability to broadcast.

What does this mean to you?

Well, with the unlimited follow up messages, you can extend your series of follow ups from 5 to 10 or 25 or 52 or 300. The more times you can follow up, the more you will make in the long term.

And with the unlimited lists you can repeat this entire step by step plan in a totally new and different niche. What if you were able to get your first stream to generate $1000 per month? Wouldn't you be confident that you could repeat that amount in a different niche?

This plan can work in any niche. Just follow it and you'll do ok.

Oh, and don't forget about the ability to send broadcasts out.

Say someone who has a new golf product wants to do a joint venture with you. He'll split the profits with you 50/50. So then you send out a broadcast to your list recommending this new golf product.

Because you have developed a relationship with your list, you have created a level of trust with them.

So when you recommend a golf product, many of your subscribers will definitely review the offer. And you will get a fair number of sales for virtually no work other then sending out an email to your list.

Well, that's all I got. I hope this plan helps a few people who just need a step by step plan to follow.

I was going to sell this as WSO, but decided against it. The Warrior Forum has been responsible for so much of my IM education and initial success that have decided to give it to the Warriors as a simple thread.

Top 10 Lies You Tell Your Parents While at College

2007-06-27T01:05:00.000-07:00

Whoever said that “honesty is the best policy” obviously never had to deal with weekly (or - heaven forbid - daily) phone calls from the parental units while in college. Thanks to cell phones and unlimited family minutes, it seems like my parents are always calling to chat. Of course, I love them dearly, and for that reason I sometimes have to fib. You know, to protect their innocent naivety. And to avoid some awkward conversations. So here are the top 10 lies college students tell their parents:

1) I was at the library on Thursday night. Actually, this MAY be true if you attend Ohio State and were, in fact, at the Library bar getting wasted for the official start of the weekend. In either case, it’s just better to stick with this alibi. In your parents’ minds, the only students who drink are those of legal age who will go out and have a couple of beers on Friday or Saturday night. Ignorance is bliss; don’t spoil their innocence.

2) I would have gotten an “A” in that class, but the crazy tenured professor was completely biased. Just because I procrastinated writing the final paper until the night before, half-assed the final project, and in general hated the class so much I didn’t bother studying for the exams, the professor thought I was a slacker. The nerve!

3) No, I don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend. Like most students, I don’t have the time or money to have an actual steady boyfriend. Sure, I’m no angel, but random guys that you hook up with don’t exactly merit ‘boyfriend’ status. If you are lucky enough to be in a committed relationship, the last thing you want to do is tell your parents; they’ll want to know everything about your significant other, meet him/her, and practically plan your wedding for you.

4) I’m still a virgin. You will always be an innocent angel in your parents’ eyes. Your birth control prescription? That’s just to control acne and PMS. The condoms in your medicine cabinet? Left over from the Student Wellness Fair on campus a few months ago. After all, since you don’t have a boy/girlfriend, who would you sleep with? ;)

5) I had to spend that $300 on books for the quarter. In reality, you found your texts used, online, or at the library and spent about $150. The rest? A celebratory new outfit for surviving the last quarter, a weekend at the bars after finals, and a spending spree at Target for ‘necessities.’

6) I’ve never been drunk. But I’ve got a hilarious story involving a beer bong, a trashed friend, a duck, and a police citation for public urination. I just happened to be there to catch it all. Except for those few ‘blackouts’ when I, uh, wasn’t there.

7) Recreational drugs? What are those? Unless you grew up on a commune and your parents are liberal hippies with a policy of frank openness, mom and dad will insist that they were the only 2 young adults who didn’t smoke up in the ‘70s. Don’t call them out on their lie, and they won’t call you out on yours.

8) I must have missed your call when I was in the shower. I recognized your ring tone but was busy drinking/on Facebook/picking my belly button lint to take 30 minutes out of my day to talk to you. Besides, mom should know by now not to call when Lost/Grey’s Anatomy/24 is on TV.

9) I’d come home this weekend, but I’m just really busy right now with schoolwork. I’ve got two keggers to go to instead. Besides, I don’t feel like driving five hours just for a free meal and laundry. Oh, and I do have a final paper that I’ll have to write on Sunday night, after my hangover wears off.

10) I totally have a five year plan. It involves either winning the lottery or marrying a millionaire. If that doesn’t work out, it involves you paying for grad. school, then me moving back home after graduation if I can’t find a job.

How to Win the Bankruptcy Game: Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy.

2007-06-26T01:02:00.000-07:00

Rebuilding Your Credit After Bankruptcy

If your credit wasn�t shot when you filed for bankruptcy and you took my advice about paying off several cards before filing, you�ve probably managed to save one or two cards. There are some other ways to get credit cards that you should know about.

First there is the bank "debit" card. Many banks offer debit cards that look and work just like a genuine Visa or Mastercard with one critical exception. They are not credit cards but are instead debit cards. When you purchase something with one of these cards, instead of sending you a bill, the bank just subtracts the purchase amount directly from your checking account. If there aren�t enough funds in your account to cover the purchase, the transaction is refused. Using one of these cards is exactly like writing a check except that they�re much more acceptable (they can be verified online unlike a check) and the bank gets their cut through the merchants� fees.

Debit cards are quite easy to get. Some banks don�t bother with a routine credit check, as they don�t see much risk here. What have they got to lose? You may have to call several banks but you should be able to find one that will give you their debit card without much fuss. As easy as these cards are to get, they do have several limitations. Some of the car rental companies no longer accept debit cards, so renting a car with a debit card may be a problem.

The most important thing about debit cards is that they don�t report your credit transactions to the three biggest credit reporting agencies so debit cards are of no value whatever when it comes to rebuilding your damaged credit rating.

Another approach is to go after a "secured" credit card. Again, these cards look and work just like real Visa or Mastercards but have a catch. In order to get one, you must deposit a required minimum sum in a savings account with the issuing bank. They usually pay a nominal interest rate of around 5% on your funds while they have them. Unlike the debit cards, your transactions will be posted to the credit reporting agencies so these cards are an ideal way to rebuild your battered credit.

There are a few rules though. First, you must use the card on a regular basis. Just walking around with the card in your pocket won�t do anything for you. The best idea is to run up your outstanding balance to around 80% of the credit limit. This way you�ll pay a lot of interest, which the bank will love you for (the interest rates on these secured cards are very high � usually around 17-19% or even more). Secondly, always make your payments on time. And lastly, never - ever exceed your credit limit.

If you don�t break any of these rules, at the end of the year you should start to receive offers for the traditional un-secured bankcards. You can then apply for one or more and then return your secured card and request that they close your savings account and return your deposit funds (plus your interest). Or you may actually receive an offer of an unsecured card from the same bank that issued you the secured card. That�s what happened to me. It was great. One year later I made one call that cancelled my secured card, closed my deposit savings account and provided me with a brand new unsecured card all at the same time.

Afterthoughts

Some companies actually solicit business from bankruptcy filers. Of course they may demand larger down payments, or higher interest rates but that may be the price you have to pay for credit during the first few years after bankruptcy.

If liens against your property were supposed to be discharged by your bankruptcy, have your attorney check the title to be sure that they were actually removed and that you have a free and clear title to the asset.

Abusing the bankruptcy laws

Here's an interesting twist. Did you know that you don't have to go bankrupt to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws? Several famous people have used the following technique. It may sound attractive but I know the bankruptcy reform people are looking into this particular tactic so this whole approach may soon be illegal.

One politician ran up his debts and when the bills arrived he filed for bankruptcy protection. He then notified his creditors about his filing. This stopped them from pestering him. But rather than going forward with the bankruptcy, he dragged his feet for as long as possible.

After a full year had passed, the judge finally gave the politician a deadline by which he had to submit the required financial disclosure forms.

When he received the court's notification, he quickly started negotiating settlements with his creditors. He offered them a dime on the dollar which they immediately accepted. (They knew that they stood very little chance of recovering any funds at all if the bankruptcy went through)

Pretty slick eh? He used the automatic stay to halt any collection activity and then used the threat of a chapter 7 bankruptcy to pressure his creditors into settling for a dime on the dollar. And the kicker here is that because he never actually completed the bankruptcy process, he can pull this stunt over and over as often as he likes. The six year limitation doesn't apply!

Pareto's Principle - Understanding the Power of the 80-20 Rule

2007-06-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

Pareto was an Italian psychologist and researcher who first propounded the law of the vital few and trivial many which bears his name. Since pareto, people have used his principle to evaluate the business of life and the life of their business.

Another name for Pareto's principle is the 80/20 rule. Pareto's rule is not a scientific law; it is more of a principle which is like a theory. Therefore, it is not an exact science because psychology itself is imprecise. However, human behavior is fairly predictable based on consistent patterns. The principle is a rough guide to measure creativity, work, profit and returns. In short, you can use Pareto's principle to predict the masses, the mind, money and the markets.

Pareto's principle is not caste in stone; it is merely a rough guide to measure probability which is a powerful determinant of success or failure in life. Why? Because probability measure possibility and profitability.

Here are few examples of this principle in operation:

1. Twenty percent of the people produces what the masses (80%) consume in terms of innovative ideas, creativity and productivity (goods, services and products).

2. Twenty percent of your efforts or energy output will produce 80% of your income. Also 20% of your time will produce 80% of your work out put or income. This same thing applies to a family, team, or organization like the church where 20% of tithers carry 80% of the congregation.

3. In the marketplace, 80% of your products, goods and services can be duplicated by the masses. Only 20% of your creativity is truly unique, innovative or original which may be difficult to copy. Even then, piracy or plagiarism is possible.

4. In your search engine optimization efforts 20% is on page-optimization while 80% is off-page. Also, 20% of your overall marketing campaigns will yield 80% of your returns or income. The same thing applies to your other marketing promotions including article submissions.

5. As for your income, you can save or invest 20% and live on 80%. You can further break-down the 20% by tithing 10% to God and saving or investing the other 10%.

In a nutshell, you can work on these example and come up with more of your own. Pareto's principle can be applied to the business of your life and the life of your business.

Plastic Payments: Trends In Credit Card Fraud

2007-06-24T01:27:00.000-07:00

Plastic Payments: Trends In Credit Card Fraud

"The future, my boy, is in plastics." When Dustin Hoffman's neighbor uttered this line in The Graduate, little did he know how prescient the statement would be, at least as it applies to the credit card industry. Although, the character was not referring to credit cards back when the film was released in 1967, no one can deny that the credit card market has been booming during the past 30 years.

Industries that expand at such a rapid rate often are vulnerable to fraud schemes devised by those seeking to capitalize on new-found criminal opportunities, dated security measures, and outdated laws. The credit card sector is no exception.

Approximately 124 million of the 193 million adults in the United States owned at least one credit card in 1994.(1) Experts expect this gap to narrow over the next 6 years at a rate of about 2.8 million new cardholders per year, as credit card companies inundate prospective customers nationwide with more than 2.7 billion mailings and pitches.(2)

Around the world, bank card fraud losses to Visa and Master-Card alone have increased from $110 million in 1980 to an estimated $1.63 billion in 1995.(4) The United States has suffered the bulk of these losses-approximately $875 million for 1995 alone. This is not surprising because 71 percent of all worldwide revolving credit cards in circulation were issued in this country.(5) Law enforcement authorities continually confront new and complex schemes involving credit card frauds committed against financial institutions and bank card companies. Perpetrators run the gamut from individuals with easy access to credit card information-such as credit agency officials, airline baggage handlers, and mail carriers, both public and private-to organized groups, usually from similar ethnic backgrounds, involved in large-scale card theft, manipulation, and counterfeiting activities. Although current bank card fraud operations are numerous and varied, several schemes account for the majority of the industry's losses by taking advantage of dated technology, customer negligence, and laws peculiar to the industry.

CREDIT CARD FRAUD SCHEMES

Visa and MasterCard account for approximately 65 percent of all outstanding revolving credit, and most substantive fraud cases involve schemes centered on one or both of these bank cards.(6) Law enforcement authorities repeatedly encounter certain ethnic groups--particularly Asian and Nigerian--and organizations involved in multilevel bank card fraud operations.

Notably, nearly one-fifth of all U.S. credit card losses occur in California, an amount close to the combined total for the other five identified problem areas worldwide: Florida, Texas, New York, Asia, and Great Britain.(7) While losses to Visa, MasterCard, and the financial institutions issuing these cards continue to mount, several basic schemes have been identified as most prevalent throughout the nation.

Mail/Credit Bureau Theft

One of the simplest ways to obtain account information or actual bank cards is through postal theft. Numerous Nigerian fraud rings operate sophisticated theft operations throughout the eastern and southern regions of the United States. Having illegally obtained legitimate bank cards or account information, the group then creates portfolios of fictitious identification, including driver's licenses, social security cards, and other materials, to support the purchasing power behind those cards. At the direction of group leaders, "runners" purchase merchandise from a variety of sources until the legitimate owners report the cards as stolen or confiscated.

These organizations also take advantage of contacts within the various credit bureaus to obtain legitimate bank card account information for counterfeiting or telephone order purchasing. The groups commonly mail stolen cards and information via overnight courier to other factions located throughout the country. For this reason, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has implemented the Express Mail Label Profiling Program to identify packages likely to contain contraband. The profile flags suspicious packages based on mail quantity, delivery frequency, destination, label and packaging material characteristics, etc. The profile was developed initially to identify packages containing drugs. Postal inspectors in the drug unit forward profiles to the credit card fraud unit if they believe that non-drug criminal activity is occurring.(8) Through this program, postal inspectors can trace the illicit mail to both its source and its destination, thus identifying members of the fraud rings.

Advance Payment Schemes

Federal consumer credit regulations require credit card issuers to credit a customer's account as soon as payment is received, i.e., before the payment instrument has cleared the bank. While this regulation is intended to protect consumers, it also creates what a member of the California Bankers Association calls a "window of opportunity for fraud."(9)

The scheme is simple. Using a counterfeit or stolen credit card, the group either makes an advance payment on the card or overpays an existing balance using a bogus check. Because the account is credited upon receipt of payment, cash advances immediately can be drawn against the bank card before the payment check has cleared. Through hundreds of like payments, a criminal organization can realize profits in excess of $1 million within a relatively short period of time.

Counterfeiting

The fastest growing type of bank card fraud, in both frequency and severity, involves the illegal counterfeiting of Visa and MasterCards. New technology has aided criminals in producing exact replicas of existing cards and in creating fictitious cards from scratch. Illegal counterfeiting is primarily responsible for the overall upsurgence in credit card fraud, particularly in California, a hotbed for Asian gang counterfeiting activity. Credit card fraud in the state jumped from $60 million in 1991 to $282 million in 1993, a 370-percent increase in just 3 years.(10)

THE COUNTERFEITING PROCESS
To understand the complexity and nature of this fraud, it is important to review the methodology used by counterfeiters in their operations. Until recently, most counterfeit credit cards were manufactured using a silk screening process that duplicated the card logo and background onto a plain white plastic card. With improvements in technology, however, counterfeiting a credit card has become a multi-step process, often using desktop computer systems and peripherals, including embossers, laminators, and tipping foil, to produce a more realistic looking card, complete with a hologram and fully encoded magnetic strip. Most of the supplies used to manufac- ture counterfeit bank cards, in-cluding the white plastic cards and Visa/MasterCard holograms (the Visa dove and the MasterCard interlocking globes), are smuggled into the United States from the Far East.

The magnetic strips and holograms used to counterfeit bank cards represent a distinct sub-market within the criminal community. Currently, there are 87 firms worldwide legally approved to manufacture cards with holograms for members of Visa and MasterCard, and only two companies, De La Rue (Great Britain) and American Bank Note Holographics (New York) authorized to manufacture actual card holograms.(11)

Credit card companies started using holograms in 1981 as a safeguard against fraud; since then, however, large-scale hologram counterfeiting operations have developed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. A separate market emerged for holograms, which usually sell for between $5 and $15, depending on their quality.

Smugglers bring holograms into the United States and Canada regularly. During April, 1994, the Canadian Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and Combined Forces Asian Investigation Unit arrested members of a Chinese syndicate that produced approximately 300,000 counterfeit holograms, of which 250,000 already had been distributed. Based on the quantity delivered and using an estimated loss of $3,000 per card, Visa and MasterCard anticipated losses approaching $750 million caused by this group alone.(12)

Often, the key to quickly identifying a counterfeit card lies in an examination of the hologram. On legitimate cards, the hologram is actually embedded in the plastic upon manufacture; counterfeit credit cards commonly contain a hologram decal purchased from an illegal distributor. These holograms are affixed to the top of the card, rather than embedded in the card, and can be seen or felt to rise slightly above the card face.

Counterfeiters sell magnetic strips for credit cards piecemeal. The strips contain names, account numbers, credit limits, and other identifying information for legitimate or contrived Visa/MasterCard card holders. Using a computer system, source materials, and peripheral equipment, a counterfeiter can compile a fraudulent bank card with relative ease.

TECHNOLOGICAL DETERRENTS
To combat the problem of fraud, credit card manufacturers plan to employ a series of security features, most of which are designed to enhance customer identification and authorization requirements. Due to the shortcomings of holograms as a fraud deterrent, credit card manufacturers currently are modifying magnetic strip coding to include a number of additional personal identifiers, such as customer photographs, fingerprints, and personal histories. Photographs on the face of credit cards have been used by financial institutions for the past 25 years, but their value as a true fraud deterrent has been questioned because such photos can be altered easily. Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Gemplus and other companies have developed systems to digitally encode a customer's photo within the magnetic strip, enabling verification through specialized processing terminals at the point of sale.(13)

The next generation of credit card technology involves the so-called Smart Cards, which will feature computer chip technology in lieu of holograms. Specifically, each card will contain a microprocessor memory chip, as well as data encoded on the magnetic strip. In addition to providing extra security benefits, the chip will allow customers to authorize off-line transactions, store prepaid values, and conduct secure transactions from remote locations. The chip will store more personal information about the cardholder than that currently available through the magnetic strip and will require the customer to verify the personal identification number (PIN) encoded on the microchip.

Although advancements in security technology are encouraging, Smart Cards are unlikely to become commonplace until after the year 2000. Neither Visa nor MasterCard have yet been able to justify the estimated $7.4 billion required over the next 5 years alone to establish the necessary infrastructure to issue and accept such cards worldwide.(14) As a result, bank card fraud will remain an omnipresent concern for white-collar fraud investigators well into the next century.

LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS

Undercover operations and cooperative efforts among various federal, state, and local investigative agencies have generated positive results in the fight against credit card fraud. Investigators have succeeded in dismantling several high-profile rings involving airline baggage handlers, postal service employees, and other organized criminal groups.

In one case, Joseph Nuzzo, a former crew chief at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, led a credit card mail theft ring consisting of 10 airline baggage handlers and 25 other subjects who routinely invaded passenger luggage in search of bank cards and identification that could be easily counterfeited. This group made more than $1 million in fraudulent credit card charges, cash advances, and casino advances prior to their arrests by U.S. Postal Service Inspectors.(15) In Seattle, Washington, Julius Camarillo Campo, several associates, and at least three postal employees stole credit cards from the U.S. mail and conducted fraudulent transactions in excess of $2.5 million. This successful investigation led to a 3-year prison sentence for Campo and the termination and prosecution of the postal employees involved.16

With the rise in west coast Asian counterfeiting activities over the past several years, authorities in California increasingly have concentrated their efforts on gathering intelligence and investigating gang credit card fraud activities. On March (16), 1994, law enforcement officers from the Bureau of Investigation of the California Department of Justice; the Antioch, Oakland, and San Francisco Police Departments; the U.S. Customs Service; the U.S. Secret Service; and the Drug Enforcement Administration raided several residences in Antioch and Oakland and uncovered a counterfeit credit card ring operated by members of the Chinese gang Wo Hop To. Officers arrested numerous gang members and confiscated counterfeiting equipment and fraudulently obtained merchandise.

As important as these arrests were, the intelligence information gathered from the raids has proven even more valuable, providing insight into the general structure of Asian organizational counterfeiting operations. This framework has been supported by other investigations throughout the state and is outlined as follows:

* One member imported all credit card counterfeiting materials-including plastic, holograms, and magnetic strips-from sources in Hong Kong;
* Another member transported cash to Hong Kong in exchange for counterfeiting paraphernalia;
* Two members handled the actual counterfeiting operation, using computers, laminators, and tipping foil to create and encode credit cards with account information obtained from local trash bins. They also re-embossed and re-coded valid information onto older stolen cards;
* Two members created counterfeit parallel forms of identification to use in conjunction with the bogus credit cards;
* One member tested each card by making small purchases at local grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants;
* A host of low-level members, or runners, were recruited to make purchases and withdraw cash against the cards, as directed by the gang's leaders. The runners traveled with the cards throughout the western United States, purchasing fine jewelry, leather goods, and electronics equipment before returning to their home base in California.(17)

In one of the largest joint credit card fraud investigations, authorities from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, and local police departments in Orange County, California, combined resources for "Operation Repayment." This case targeted ringleader Minh C. To, also known as "Big Ming," and 41 others involved in massive credit card fraud operations.

In his scheme, To recruited legitimate cardholders to overpay their credit card accounts using counterfeit checks. Upon receipt by the bank, the customer's account was immediately credited and To and the recruit would make purchases throughout southern California. In turn, To would fence the ill-gotten merchandise and split the profits with the recruit. The scheme ended with To instructing the cardholder to file for credit protection under federal bankruptcy law to avoid future bank liability. One participant in the scam personally made $615,000 in fraudulent purchases over a 1-year period. In all, parties to this organization caused in excess of $100 million in Visa and MasterCard fraud losses through more than 100 financial institutions.(18)

THE FUTURE OF BANK CARDS
Within the next several years, the term "credit card," as we know it, will become antiquated, likely to be superseded by such terms as "banking card," "electronic payment card," or "check card." The industry foresees a time when bank customers will be able to use a single card to accommodate a variety of transactions, including automatic teller machine (ATM) withdrawals, credit purchases, direct bill payments, and purchases against predetermined stored value levels. Several companies are currently working with Visa and MasterCard on these services, and prototypes of stored value and debit/credit combination cards are being test marketed and issued throughout the country. The goal is to create a single card through which customers can administer all their financial needs, from paying bills via electronic transfer of funds to buying and trading securities over the New York Stock Exchange. During 1995, Visa added 9.3 million debit/credit Check Cards to its portfolio, while MasterCard added 2.5 million of its counterpart MasterMoney Cards.(19)

In addition to these services, financial institutions have begun to establish automatic loan machines (ALMs), which can be accessed by customers or potential customers using their bank cards. These machines offer individuals the opportunity to obtain various types of financial loans without having to meet personally with a bank representative. Although the system is still in its infancy, bank officials envision ALMs becoming as commonplace as current ATMs in this country.

CONCLUSION

If the past is any indication, these fast-paced advances in technology likely will create previously unseen fraudulent opportunities for criminals and criminal organizations, as well as new challenges for law enforcement. Despite some anticipated advances in security through the use of Smart Cards and improved encoding, it remains unlikely that security concerns will keep pace with marketing and customer convenience technologies across the broad market. By the year 2000, gross bank card volume is expected to total $9.9 trillion. Based on current fraud ratios, cumulative credit card fraud losses between 1993 and 2000 will exceed $14 billion, almost three times the accumulated loss of the previous 7 years.(20) As bank card companies continue to develop their own internal anti-fraud strategies, law enforcement agencies must prepare for the challenges of investigating complex fraud schemes. Spiraling industry growth need not lead to spiraling crime rates.

8 Steps to Build Your Own VRE In Weeks - Niche Marketing Tips

2007-06-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

This is a simple method of niche marketing. Instant cash? Not really. But you will be building a huge Virtual Reality Empire easily.

Let me just say, I'm not a fan of Adsense, this method could use Adsense, but I prefer other revenue streams.

Step 1 - Find a niche

The way I find niche markets is easy. I sign up for a newsletter called NicheADay.com - where funny enough they send me a new niche topic everyday.

I have no connection to that site. I believe Scott Standke owns that.

I'm going to use one of the topics they sent me a while ago, "crab". Pretty broad topic I know. So we will need to scale it down a bit.

Step 2 - Go do some keyword research

I use the free tool at digitalpoint.com at

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

So I go there and type in

"crab"

It comes back with a list of search terms related to "crab". The big one I see there with potential is Crab Cake Recipe. It gets searched for hundreds of times a day.

Step 3 - See if a keyword rich domain name is available

The next thing you want to do is find a keyword rich domain name. I have always found if you can register the keyword you are targeting as a domain name you have a better chance of getting a top 10 ranking in Google and MSN.

I have gotten top 10 rankings in MSN in 2 weeks using this method. No, I'm not giving an example, I did that in a WSO and my ranking shot from #1 to #9 for a good site I was earning a good amount of money for.

So I go to namecheap.com and type in Crabcakerecipe and see what I get.

I find that crabcakerecipe.net is not taken! Sweet. For under $9 I can get a domain name for a search term that gets searched for over 400 times a day.

Step 4 - Before I register the domain name

A bit of bum marketing comes into play here. I'm going to type "crab cake recipe" into google and see the competiting results. If it is under 100,000 I'm very sure I will get a top 10 ranking with my domain name.

And yup, it is. Under 30,000. So I'm very confident that crabcakerecipe.net will get a top 10 ranking in Google and MSN for the term Crab Cake Recipe.

This is very basic SEO. I'm not an SEO expert, I am just telling you what I do and what works for me now.

So register the domain name.

Step 5 - Create your content site

This is as simple as grabbing a copyright free template from OSWD.org and writing 10 or so articles on crab cakes. Hire someone to do it if you must.Simply write 10 articles on all things to do with crab cakes and crab cake recipes. What I do with my articles is write them based around a keyword.For instance, you could write an article on"crab cake sauce"That gets searched for nearly 30 times a day according to Overture. Each article I write targets a keyword.

If you want to see an example site PM me. It goes against my better judgement, but it's the best way to explain what this should look like.
Step 6 - Monetize Your Website

I hate that word. Monetize. I prefer "Cashualize Your Website". This is why I hate Adsense, I like instant cash into my Paypal account.

We are not putting Adsense on this content site. I actually learnt this method from Allen himself by looking at a blog he use to run that someone pointed me to. It seems to be down at the moment.

Instead of putting an Adsense block on your site, on each page, before the content begins, I put a blurb for an ebook I own. It's basically a 1/4 page ad at the top of the page with a picture of the ebook cover, a few bullet points and if possible a testimonial.

You don't need to create the ebooks yourself, just buy PLR's. This is one of the best ways to make money with PLR ebooks.

Basically, each page has an ad for an ebook that I am selling from a seperate domain. I have a domain name that has over 100 ebooks selling on it and I use these content sites to funnel traffic to those ebooks.

I recently put up a content site about yeast infections and linked every page to a PLR ebook I had on curing a yeast infection. That site has sent over 400 visitors to my PLR ebook and I've sold 7 copies so far. That's over $100. Do you think you would have made over $100 from 400 visitors with Adsense?

I'm no guru, in fact, I'm a bit anti guru. I'm far from a marketing whiz, so I'm sure some Adsense experts can do better then that, but I'm not an expert, I just like cash.

I like things I can control. I cannot control Adsense. I can however control the ebooks I sell.

So basically, someone comes to the site and instead of seeing a block of Adsense Ads, they see a endorsement for an ebook. They click on that endorsement and they are taken to another site where they can buy that ebook. This ebook is usually a PLR ebook I own.

I have so many PLR ebooks and funny enough I went searching through my collection and found one on crab recipes which includes crab cakes.

So simple.

Step 7 - Submit your site to MSN and Google

SEO experts will probably kill me here, but I submit directly to Google and MSN via their submission service. I've never had a problem and it works.I have many top 10 listings in Google and MSN (MSN is easier then Google to get indexed and delivers a ton of traffic) using this method and I've never been banned.

I got a top 5 listing in MSN for a very competitive term in 2 weeks. I did nothing other then submit it to them for indexing.

Step 8 - Promote some more

The next thing you would do is write articles and submit them to EzineArticles.com, find forums in your related field at Big-Boards.com and post in there with your sig file.

If you have a real winner, buy some backlinks to your site. You can find dozens of people selling high PR backlinks at the forums services section at Digitalpoint. Just becareful, not everyone is honest. It's not like the Warrior forum either, it can be a bit of a free for all there.

Step 9 - Repeat

Keep repeating this. They won't all be winners. I have a crap load of sites and I have just over 20 top 10 listings. But they all make money. Some more then others.

This method of building websites is great because it is non confrontational. I can link to these sites in my EzineArticles.com bio and I won't get banned or rejected for blatently advertising. I can also post these sites in my sig file in ultra senstive anti spam forums and still get away with it.

Build 100 of these sites and watch the income roll in. It's not quick cash or even work free cash, but it's cash and it works.The more pages you build on your site with unique articles, the more money you will make and the more chances of getting top 10 search engine rankings.

I have some content sites that are only 7 pages and others that are over 100 pages of unique content.

CNN Money's Top 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

2007-06-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

CNNMoney.com compiled this list of the biggest blunders in the business world. Check it out and read more about each dumb moment at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/101dumbest/2007/full_list/index.html.

1. Wal-Mart: PR campaign (WMT)
2. Northwest Airlines: '101 Ways to Save Money' guide
3. McDonald's: MP3 player giveaway (MCD)
4. GM: User-generated ad campaign (GM)
5. Kazakhstan: Currency
6. Steve Wynn: Picasso
7. New York Times Co.: Customer data (NYT)
8. Spirit Airlines: Hoffa ad campaign
9. Porter County, Ind.: Home values
10. Comcast: Cable repairman (CMCSK)
11. Starbucks: E-mail offer (SBUX)
12. Sony: Flaming computers (SNE)
13. Consumer Safety Products Commission: Laptop advisory
14. Vonage: IPO (VG)
15. Wal-Mart: Andrew Young (WMT)
16. Rising Sun Anger Release Bar: Co-workers
17. Alarm One: Team building
18. Kindergarten teacher turned stripper
19. PBS Kids Sprout network
20. Fiji Water vs. Cleveland
21. FCC in Details Magazine
22. Business Week cover
23. Microsoft: Two products - same name (MSFT)
24. B2/Raytheon: CEO's book (RTN)
25. BBC: Goma interview
26. Greyhound: Dumping incident
27. RadioShack: Layoffs (RSH)
28. National Semiconductor: Gifts (NSM)
29. Hyundai-Kia: Chairman's abject apology
30. Lone Star: Mea culpa
31. Goldman Sachs: Web site (GS)
32. TradingMarkets: Playboy stock contest
33. Heart Attack Grill: Triple bypass burger
34. Antwerp museum: Meat apparel
35. Wal-Mart: Thomas Coughlin (WMT)
36. Catawba County: Google suit
37. Thomsonfly: Lost cellphone
38. Imelda Marcos: Jewelry line
39. Greece: GDP
40. Natural Selection Foods: E.coli
41. Home Depot: Investor conference (HD)
42. MBA candidates: Cheating
43. Paris Hilton: DUI
44. New Lenox mayor: Strip-club tab
45. Cryogenics pioneers: Freezer malfunction
46. UnitedHealth: CEO options (UNH)
47. Comverse: CEO options
48. Cablevision Systems: Options
49. EnBW: Nuclear plant keys
50. H.R. Hargreaves & Son: Ham ingredients
51. Honda: Owner's manuals
52. Oracle: Larry Ellison donation (ORCL)
53. Disney: Winnie the Pooh (DIS)
54. Wal-Mart: Blog (WMT)
55. Richard Hatch: Sentenced
56. AOL: Cancellation call (TWX)
57. AOL: Search queries (TWX)
58. YouTube: Copyright infringement
59. Golden State Warriors: "Ghetto Prom"
60. Egokast.com: Belt buckle
61. Microsoft: Google search (MSFT)
62. DDS Media: Typo
63. TextTrust: Typo
64. Welsh Dragon Sausages: Name change
65. CIA: Comedy Central ad
66. Jessica Simpson: Jeans endorsement
67. Sony PlayStation: Billboard campaign (SNE)
68. Hewlett-Packard: Pretexting (HPQ)
69. Great Britain's Royal Mail: Santa stamp
70. KRON 4: Address change
71. Bausch & Lomb: ReNu recall (BOL)
72. Amazon.com: UCLA e-mail (AMZN)
73. Wal-Mart: Ad agency (WMT)
74. Pearson: SAT scores
75. Time Warner: Wayne Pace (TWX)
76. AirTran: Stranded passengers
77. Bank of America: Training replacements (BAC)
78. McCain Foods: Potatoes
79. Mercedes-Benz: $1.7 million lemon
80. News Corp.: "If I did it" (NWS)
81. McDonald's:"Hummer of a Summer" (MCD)
82. Online video fans: YouTube.com/Utube.com
83. TacoBell: Tainted vegetables
84. Shai: Porn star clothing
85. U.S. Mint: Metal prices
86. Wal-Mart:DVD titles (WMT)
87. AussieBum: Men's underwear
88. Mars: M&M menorahs
89. Hoboken, N.J.: Garage operator
90. Bristol-Myers Squibb: Generics deal (BMY)
91. New York: Crackheadz Gone Wild
92. Michael Eisner: Debut show
93. Stefan Eriksson: String of discoveries
94. Greenville Drive: Mascot
95. NTT: Hackers
96. UCLA: Social Security numbers
97. Home Depot: Drugs (HD)
98. Imagination 69: Treasure hunt
99. Tesco: Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit
100. Toymaker Spin Master: Kid tattoos
101. Hasbro: Pussycat Dolls (HAS)

SICKO movie part2

2007-06-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

US Administration Moves Against 'Sicko' Movie

The Death Penalty Worldwide

2007-06-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

The Death Penalty Worldwide

According to Amnesty International, during 2005 at least 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries, 94% in China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States alone. More than 5,186 people were sentenced to death in 53 countries. More than 20,000 prisoners are on death row across the world. See also U.S. Figures.
Death Penalty Outlawed (year)1

* Albania (2000)
* Andorra (1990)
* Angola (1992)
* Armenia (2003)
* Australia (1984)
* Austria (1950)
* Azerbaijan (1998)
* Belgium (1996)
* Bermuda (1999)
* Bhutan (2004)
* Bosnia-Herzegovina (1997)
* Bulgaria (1998)
* Cambodia (1989)
* Canada (1976)
* Cape Verde (1981)
* Colombia (1910)
* Costa Rica (1877)
* Côte d'Ivoire (2000)
* Croatia (1990)
* Cyprus (1983)
* Czech Republic (1990)
* Denmark (1933)
* Djibouti (1995)
* Dominican Republic (1966)
* East Timor (1999)
* Ecuador (1906)
* Estonia (1998)
* Finland (1949)
* France (1981)
* Georgia (1997)
* Germany (1949)
* Greece (1993)
* Guinea-Bissau (1993)
* Haiti (1987)
* Honduras (1956)
* Hungary (1990)
* Iceland (1928)
* Ireland (1990)
* Italy (1947)
* Kiribati (1979)
* Liberia (2005)
* Liechtenstein (1987)
* Lithuania (1998)
* Luxembourg (1979)
* Macedonia (1991)
* Malta (1971)

* Marshall Islands (1986)
* Mauritius (1995)
* Mexico (2005)
* Micronesia (1986)
* Moldova (1995)
* Monaco (1962)
* Montenegro (2002)
* Mozambique (1990)
* Namibia (1990)
* Nepal (1990)
* Netherlands (1870)
* New Zealand (1961)
* Nicaragua (1979)
* Niue (n.a.)
* Norway (1905)
* Palau (n.a.)
* Panama (1903)
* Paraguay (1992)
* Poland (1997)
* Portugal (1867)
* Philippines (2006)
* Romania (1989)
* Samoa (2004)
* San Marino (1848)
* São Tomé and Príncipe (1990)
* Senegal (2004)
* Serbia (2002)
* Seychelles (1993)
* Slovak Republic (1990)
* Slovenia (1989)
* Solomon Islands (1966)
* South Africa (1995)
* Spain (1978)
* Sweden (1921)
* Switzerland (1942)
* Turkey (2002)
* Turkmenistan (1999)
* Tuvalu (1978)
* Ukraine (1999)
* United Kingdom (1973)
* Uruguay (1907)
* Vanuatu (1980)
* Vatican City (1969)
* Venezuela (1863)

Death Penalty Outlawed for Ordinary Crimes2 (year)

* Argentina (1984)
* Bolivia (1997)
* Brazil (1979)
* Chile (2001)
* Cook Islands (n.a.)

* El Salvador (1983)
* Fiji (1979)
* Israel (1954)
* Latvia (1999)
* Peru (1979)

De Facto Ban on Death Penalty3 (year)4

* Algeria (1993)
* Benin (1987)
* Brunei Darussalam (1957)
* Burkina Faso (1988)
* Central African Republic (1981)
* Congo (Republic) (1982)
* Gambia (1981)
* Grenada (1978)
* Kenya (n.a.)
* Madagascar (1958)
* Maldives (1952)
* Mali (1980)

* Mauritania (1987)
* Morocco (1993)
* Myanmar (1993)
* Nauru (1968)
* Niger (1976)
* Papua New Guinea (1950)
* Russia (1999)
* Sri Lanka (1976)
* Suriname (1982)
* Togo (n.a.)
* Tonga (1982)
* Tunisia (1990)

Death Penalty Permitted

* Afghanistan
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Bahamas
* Bahrain
* Bangladesh
* Barbados
* Belarus
* Belize
* Botswana
* Burundi
* Cameroon
* Chad
* China (People's Republic)
* Comoros
* Congo (Democratic Republic)
* Cuba
* Dominica
* Egypt
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Ethiopia
* Gabon
* Ghana
* Guatemala
* Guinea
* Guyana
* India
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jamaica
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Korea, North
* Korea, South
* Kuwait

* Kyrgyzstan
* Laos
* Lebanon
* Lesotho
* Libya
* Malawi
* Malaysia
* Mongolia
* Nigeria
* Oman
* Pakistan
* Palestinian Authority
* Qatar
* Rwanda
* St. Kitts and Nevis
* St. Lucia
* St. Vincent and the Grenadines
* Saudi Arabia
* Sierra Leone
* Singapore
* Somalia
* Sudan
* Swaziland
* Syria
* Taiwan
* Tajikistan
* Tanzania
* Thailand
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Uganda
* United Arab Emirates
* United States
* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam
* Yemen
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

NOTE: n.a. = date not available. 1. If death penalty was outlawed for ordinary crimes before it was outlawed in all cases, the earlier date is given.
2. Death penalty is permitted only for exceptional crimes, such as crimes committed under military law or in wartime.
3. Death penalty is sanctioned by law but has not been the practice for ten or more years.
4. Year of last execution. Source: Amnesty International.

Fashion Capitals of the World

2007-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

Fashion Capitals of the World

1. New York

2. London

3. Milano/Roma

4. Paris

5. Los Angeles

6. Tokyo

7. Dubai (Attempting to spend its way onto the list)

8. Mumbai (Bollywood influences)

9. Singapore (A far-Eastern fashion hub)

10. Buenos Aires (Former Latin American fashion arbiter making a comeback)

The 14 Terms used by 419-scammers.

2007-06-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

Akwukwo [12], chekere, pepper
Fake check.
Bill
The amount a scammer plans to extract from his victim.
Ego, pepper, lalas, show
Money
Fall mugu (to)
To be fooled, to become victim of advance fee fraud.
Flash of account
Cause the victim's bank account to temporarily show a large credit. This is intended to induce the victim to believe in the deal and send money. The credit gets reversed by the bank when it is discovered that the original check or electronic transfer was fraudulent.
Format
The scheme or script of an advance fee fraud, e.g., the late dictator format (the scammer pretends to be a relative of a dictator, e.g. Maryam Abacha, "Wife" of Sani Abacha), the next of kin format, the lottery format.
Guyman, guy
Scammer engaged in advance fee fraud.
Maga, mugu, mugun, mahi, magha [13], mahee, mayi, mayee
Victim of advance fee fraud. "Mugu" in particular is often used as an insult by scam-baiters.
Modalities
commonly used term for methods of funds transfer; often considered a shibboleth for scam messages due to its infrequency in native Anglophone usage.
May reflect roots in an older French version of the scam; modalités in French just means ways or methods.
Oga
Boss
Owner of the job, Catcher
Scammer who makes the first contact with a victim and then passes him on to another scammer who finishes the job. The latter shares the spoil with the former.
Runs
An (illegal) activity.
Yahoo millionaires [14], yahoo boys [15]
Scammers
Yahoo yahoo
The act of scamming, especially through the use of a Yahoo! mail address.

Sicko Part 1

2007-06-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

Has more facts than his previous films, so much facts that it's kinda boring in the beginning. It gets better after the first quarter of the film, and then really become a masterpiece after the middle. His best so far.

22 WAYS TO KILL A MAN WITH YOUR BARE HANDS.

2007-06-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you are threatened with physical violence, a weapon to defend yourself with is not always available. Your hands, however, are always with you, and can be as lethal as any weapon. Below are a list of attacks that police are instructed not to employ, as they may prove deadly.

1. TEMPLE - A very susceptible vital spot. If struck with sufficient force, may cause unconsciousness or death.

2. NASION - This is the summit of the nose. If struck with sufficient force may cause death.

3. PHILTRUM - This is the area between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose. Attack to this area may also cause unconsciousness or death.

4. HOOK TO JAW - A powerful hook punch to the front side of jaw may snap an enemy's neck. Fatal.

5. ADAM'S APPLE - A sharp blow here may cause enemy to asphyxiate.

6. SOLAR PLEXUS - The small of back. May cause death.

7. TESTICLES - The strong, focused pain of a vicious low blow may cause shock, resulting in death.

8. BASE OF CEREBELLUM - A powerful blow to the nape of the neck, causing mortal damage.

9. COCCYX - A powerful blow to the tail bone. Fatal.

10. FULL NELSON - Stand behind the enemy, put your arms under his, and lock your hands behind his head. Bending the neck forward may either break neck, asphyxiate enemy, or cut of supply of spinal fluid to brain, causing brain damage or death.

11. HALF NELSON - Again, standing behind enemy, but one arm is used to pin one of enemy's arms.

12. BRAIN BUSTER - Bend enemy over towards you, placing him in a headlock. Grab the back of his belt, and haul him into the air, vertical, upside-down. Allow yourself to fall backward, landing on your enemy's head, which will absorb your combined weight. Most effective on concrete or gravel.

13. RUSSIAN OMELET - Cross enemy's legs. Fold enemy by pinning his shoulders to ground upside-down and placing his legs above him. Sit on his legs, folding the bass of the spine. Fatal.

14. HEART PUNCH - A strongman's attack, it is simply a powerful blow to the heart. (Many years ago, the wrestler Ox killed an opposing wrestler with this attack.)

15. UPPERCUT - An upward strike to the bottom of the jaw with the heel of the hand, causing the enemy's head to snap backward. May shatter vertebrae. Fatal.

16. ABDOMEN - A substantial blow to this area may rupture a vital organ, causing death.

17. RIB CAGE - A vicious shattering of the rib cage may cause grave internal bleeding.

18. HEAD-TO-WALL PUNCH - A swift, hard, cold-cock punch to an enemy's face while he is standing near a wall may drive his head into it, causing the back of the skull to shatter fatally.

19. PINNED DROP KICK - Standing behind enemy, holding his arms straight back. A drop kick to the back without releasing arms may severe spine, causing death.

20. HEAD WRENCH - Grabbing an enemy's head by the mouth and the back of the skull, then twisting with a sudden, violent jerk to rend vertebrae, may easily cause death.

21. CHOKE HOLD - Once a favorite of law enforcement officials, has often proved deadly. The right arm goes over the enemy's right shoulder, and grips the back of the head. The left arm comes over his left shoulder, reaches across neck, and grabs own right forearm. With enough pressure applied, causes brain damage or death.

22. HEAD YANK - Bend enemy forward, grab head, and pull back with convincing force. May separate delicate vertebrae, causing death.

Top HollyWORDS for Impact Upon the English Language in 2006

2007-06-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture. The Top HollyWORDS are released in conjunction with the 79th Academy Awards ceremony that were broadcast from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Top HollyWORDS for Impact Upon the English Language in 2006 with commentary follow.

1. “High Five!!!! It’s sexy time!” (Borat) – Borat’s wedge into doing or saying anything he pleases on his American Tour.

2. Suri, Shiloh Nouvel, and the rest of the Hollywood Babyland parade. (Hollywood Baby names) -- Opening an entire new world of possibilities to young parents, who are taking to the idea of ultimately, outré, names to inflict upon, err, bestow upon their children.

3. Pursuit (Pursuit of Happyness) – Will Smith's stunning epiphany from the words penned by Thomas Jefferson some 230 years ago.

4. Nazi bullets (Little Miss Sunshine) -- "I still got Nazi bullets in my ass." Grandpa's excuse to do or say anything he pleases.

5. Non Serviam (The Departed) – “I will not serve” from James Joyce. Franks Costello’s pledge as he refuses to be a product of his environment. He wants his “environment to be a product of me”.

6. A reluctant cannibal (Last King of Scotland) -- Forest Whittaker's portrayal of an illiterate, brutal African dictator, who may or may not enjoy feasting upon his victim.

7. A Moral Issue (An Inconvenient Truth) -- … and not a political issue. Al Gore's chilling documentary about Global Warming and it ultimate impact upon the human environment.

8. "Will someone please save these people from themselves!” (The Queen) -- Tony Blair's observations of The Royals as he attempts to heal the rift between The Queen and her subjects.

9. "Help! Ayúdenme! HELP!" (BABEL) Crying for help in a land apparently with out ears.

10. "The details of your incompetence do not interest me." (Devil Wears Prada) – Meryl Streep with yet another nurturing remark to those who surround (and serve) her.

11. Classic Figures (Dreamgirls) –For more than 200,000 years of human history these were the celebrated dimensions of women. What was the tipping point? Twiggy in the 60s?

12. Labyrinth (Pan's Labyrinth) -- Before 'quagmire's' there were 'labyrinths'. In the 21st Century 'labyrinth' is perhaps the better word.

13. Film Noir (Black Dahlia) -- Plenty of 'noir' but not much 'film' in the Black Dahlia. Perhaps Film Noir is better suited to a less cynical age.

14. Arrgh! (Pirate of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest) -- Spreading ever more deeply into popular culture.

15. "Rotemorizing" (Akeelah and the Bee) -- The technique of blindly memorizing spelling words.

16. “Make us disappear!” (The Illusionist) – Sophie’s request to a young Eisenheim (Ed Norton).

17. maya yucateco (Apocolypto) -- Mel's Gibson's choice of language for his film depicting a collapsing civilization. (Actually still spoken from some 6 million Maya descendants in the Yucatan.)

18. Dame (Notes on a Scandal) -- What more can be said: Dame Judi Dench, Indeed.

19. Hero (Flags of our Fathers) – Some thing the ‘heroes’ of Iwo Jima never asked to be, much like their 9/11 grandsons.

20. Chica chica, boom boom (Happy Feet) -- That's just one sign that attack of spontaneous happy feet dancing is about to begin.

The 20 Most Repressive Societies in the World.

2007-06-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

The World's Most Repressive Societies

* Belarus
* Chechnya (under Russian jurisdiction)
* China
* Cuba
* Cote d'Ivoire
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Laos
* Libya
* Myanmar (Burma)
* North Korea
* Saudi Arabia
* Somalia
* Sudan
* Syria
* Tibet (under Chinese jurisdiction)
* Turkmenistan
* Uzbekistan
* Western Sahara (under Moroccan jurisdiction)
* Zimbabwe

Top 10 Best Beers In America .

2007-06-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

10 Best Beers In America

We put this list together by gathering recommendations from the experts and carefully tasting case after case, on deadline. You, however, have all the Saturdays in the world. Think of this list as a scorecard, with points to debate and notes for inspiration. Which is to say, you've got some drinking to do. (from Men'sJournal.com, read more by clicking the link below)

1. Firestone Walker Pale Ale
Paso Robles, CA
2. Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
Milton, DE
3. Stoudt's Pils
Adamstown, PA
4. Russian River Temptation Ale
Santa Rosa, CA
5. Avery Mephistopheles' Stout
Boulder, CO
6. Anderson Valley Boont Amber Ale
Boonville, CA
7. Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale
Cleveland, OH
8. Full Sail Session Lager
Hood River, OR
9. Rogue Brutal Bitter
Newport, OR
10. Bell's Expedition Stout
Comstock, MI

Lister: prattedit
Source: Men's Journal

The 7 ways small businesses can jump on the social marketing bandwagon with a moderate investment of time and/or money.

2007-06-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

While some in the search marketing industry debate the linkability of even the most unsexy Web sites—and by "unsexy", they often mean "small business"—there's an important element missing from the discussion: return on investment.

The Investment: No one debates that an investment is required; viral marketing through social media demands a big chunk of your time, your money, or both. But we've already established, in What's So Different About Being Small?, that time and money are two things many small businesses have in short supply.

The Return: No one debates that there are legitimate returns from social media marketing. These returns often come in the form of a short burst of traffic and/or an increase in links. That can improve your search engine visibility, but small businesses, in particular, still have to ask: Is the return greater than the investment of time and money?

For what it's worth, I agree that nearly every business, big or small, unsexy or not, can come up with something that's unique and linkworthy—something that will play well on Digg, YouTube, or whichever social media site offers the best audience fit. I also think it's imperative that small businesses use social media marketing in order to decrease their reliance on traffic from one or two search engines; you have to diversify to survive.

With that in mind, here are seven ways small businesses can jump on the social marketing bandwagon with a moderate investment of time and/or money.

1a. Start a blog. Blogging is old news to many (Web 1.5, perhaps?), and it's certainly not as sexy as chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But it's still a great way to open up a dialogue with your customers, and that connection is the reason social marketing exists. WordPress is free, open source software—so the price is right. The time investment is completely up to you, but this truism applies: The more you put into it, the more you'll get out. Still, it's okay—and I'd even say it's recommended—to start slowly and increase your time investment as you get comfortable with using a blog.

1b. Comment on other blogs. You can't blog into a vacuum. Blogging is about creating and joining conversations, and that includes reading what others in your industry are saying and joining the discussion on other blogs. It's free, and again, the time investment is up to you. You'll be able to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment, and there's no debate that intelligent comments on other blogs helps build traffic to yours.

2. Get active at Yahoo Answers. If you're a service-based small business, you already know that your expertise is your No. 1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great way to share your knowledge with people who are looking for it—a direct connection with potential customers. I spend about 1-2 hours a week answering SEO and marketing questions there, and that small investment of time never fails to bring more traffic to my blog. Never. (It helps that I have a blog to refer people wanting more information, so don't skip #1 above.)

3. Make and share videos. Good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production. Even if you do decide to add some sizzle to a video, the required software won't break the bank. How-to videos are an obvious choice. "Tour" videos—tours of your business, restaurant, the homes you build or sell, etc. are also a good idea. In addition to using them on your own Web site or blog, YouTube is an obvious sharing destination. Local search is also embracing video: CitySearch recently announced that local video ads will be added to its listings, and YellowPages.com is also pursuing video opportunities.

4. Take and share photos. I'm a longtime believer in using Flickr as a marketing tool. The time and cost investment is minimal. And thanks to Flickr's incredibly active photo groups, you can share photos of your products with people who are interested. A pet store owner could share photos with the 2,000+ members of the pet parade group, which is one of dozens of animal-related groups. A company that makes iPod accessories could post nice product photos in the Apple group, with its ~2400 members. And a construction company that makes custom homes could post photos in the appropriate city group, like San Francisco or Chicago. For more on this, I invite you to read How to Market on Flickr on my blog.

5. Try StumbleUpon. Of all the discovery-type of social sites (Digg, Reddit, Netscape, etc.), I believe StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. Joining groups related to your industry and adding friends from those groups can be done quickly. Once you do that, as you add pages to StumbleUpon—including your own great content—other users will "stumble upon" what you've added. As those visitors give it the "thumbs up", your content is then shown to even more users. Unlike Digg or del.icio.us, you don't need to spend several months building up a great user profile. StumbleUpon was the No. 1 referrer to my blog in 2006, and that's without spending a lot of time working it. I should note that the main benefit of StumbleUpon will be traffic, more so than links, sales, etc. So rather than hope it becomes a direct source of revenue or higher rankings, you should hope that it increases awareness, blog readership, feed subscribers, and the like.

6. Join groups & mailing lists. Social marketing is about finding your customers where they are. There's a good chance at least some of your customers are using Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests. Much like the Flickr examples above, there are probably groups/lists that are highly related to the products or services you offer. And much like the Yahoo Answers suggestion, being able to help others in this community setting can be a great marketing tool.

Every social marketing opportunity will have its own rules to follow, and you should make sure you know those rules. But here's one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: Don't spam the system. Flickr doesn't want your entire product inventory posted, and they have rules against doing so. But a few high-quality photo submissions that add to the community are fine. Whatever social marketing you do, be an active contributor. Add to the signal, not the noise.

When you do that, you're on the road to social marketing success.

Matt McGee is the SEO Manager for Marchex, Inc., a search and media company offering search marketing services through its TrafficLeader subsidiary. The Small Is Beautiful column appears on Thursdays at Search Engine Land.

World's 10 Most Corrupt Leaders.

2007-06-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

World's Ten Most Corrupt Leaders
Name Position Funds embezzled2
1. Mohamed Suharto President of Indonesia (1967–1998) $15–35 billion
2. Ferdinand Marcos President of the Philippines (1972–1986) 5–10 billion
3. Mobutu Sese Seko President of Zaire (1965–1997) 5 billion
4. Sani Abacha President of Nigeria (1993–1998) 2–5 billion
5. Slobodan Milosevic President of Serbia/Yugoslavia (1989–2000) 1 billion
6. Jean-Claude Duvalier President of Haiti (1971–1986) 300–800 million
7. Alberto Fujimori President of Peru (1990–2000) 600 million
8. Pavlo Lazarenko Prime Minister of Ukraine (1996–1997) 114–200 million
9. Arnoldo Alemán President of Nicaragua (1997–2002) 100 million
10. Joseph Estrada President of the Philippines (1998–2001) 78–80 million

The 10 Most Studied Foreign Languages in the U.S

2007-06-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

Most Studied Foreign Languages
in the U.S.1
Language Fall 2002
enrollments % change
from 1998
1. Spanish 746,267 13.7%
2. French 201,979 1.5
3. German 91,100 2.3
4. Italian 63,899 29.6
5. American Sign Language 60,781 432.22
6. Japanese 52,238 21.1
7. Chinese 34,153 20.0
8. Latin 29,841 14.1
9. Russian 23,921 0.5
10. Ancient Greek3 20,376 24.2

Questions That Are Unanswered

2007-06-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Just for a laugh of the day…enjoy!

1. How do blind people know when they are done wiping?
2. Could it be that all those trick-or-treaters wearing sheets arent going as ghosts but as mattresses?
3. If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
4. Is there another word for synonym?
5. Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do practice?
6. If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isnt the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
7. If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
8. Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
9. Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
10. If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
11. Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
12. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
13. How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
14. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
15. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown too?
16. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
17. If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
18. Whose cruel idea was it for the word Lisp to have a S in it?
19. Why are hemorrhoids called hemorrhoids instead of asteroids?

The Secrets Behind the 'Black Money' Scam.

2007-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

The Secrets Behind the 'Black Money' Scam

World's 50 Most Populous Countries: 2006

2007-06-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

World's 50 Most Populous Countries: 2006
Rank Country Population
1. China 1,313,973,713
2. India 1,095,351,995
3. United States 298,444,215
4. Indonesia 245,452,739
5. Brazil 188,078,227
6. Pakistan 165,803,560
7. Bangladesh 147,365,352
8. Russia 142,893,540
9. Nigeria 131,859,731
10. Japan 127,463,611
11. Mexico 107,449,525
12. Philippines 89,468,677
13. Vietnam 84,402,966
14. Germany 82,422,299
15. Egypt 78,887,007
16. Ethiopia 74,777,981
17. Turkey 70,413,958
18. Iran 68,688,433
19. Thailand 64,631,595
20. Congo, Dem. Rep. 62,660,551
21. France 60,876,136
22. United Kingdom 60,609,153
23. Italy 58,133,509
24. Korea, South 48,846,823
25. Myanmar
(Burma) 47,382,633
26. Ukraine 46,710,816
27. South Africa 44,187,637
28. Colombia 43,593,035
29. Sudan 41,236,378
30. Spain 40,397,842
31. Argentina 39,921,833
32. Poland 38,536,869
33. Tanzania 37,445,392
34. Kenya 34,707,817
35. Morocco 33,241,259
36. Canada 33,098,932
37. Algeria 32,930,091
38. Afghanistan 31,056,997
39. Peru 28,302,603
40. Nepal 28,287,147
41. Uganda 28,195,754
42. Uzbekistan 27,307,134
43. Saudi Arabia 27,019,731
44. Iraq 26,783,383
45. Venezuela 25,730,435
46. Malaysia 24,385,858
47. Korea, North 23,113,019
48. Taiwan 23,036,087
49. Ghana 22,409,572
50. Romania 22,303,552

Top 16 Methods to get Traffic to Ypur Site.

2007-06-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

Ranked Highest To The Lowest - Updated 261206.

1.Search Engine Optimization - 17 Votes
2.Article Marketing - 16 Votes
3.Forum - 15 Votes
4.Social Networks - 8 Votes
5.Pay Per Click - 8 Votes
6.Viral Marketing - 4 Votes
7.Blogging - 4 Votes
8.Joint Venture - 3 Votes
9.Offline Magazines - 2 Votes
10.Email Marketing - 2 Votes
11.Solo Ads - 1 Vote
12.Link Exchange - 1 Vote
13.Pod casting - 1 Vote
14.Press Release - 1 Vote
15.RSS Feed - 1 Vote
16.Teleconferences - 1 Vote

19 Things To Do If You're Stopped By The Police.

2007-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

19 things To Do If You're Stopped By The Police

1. Be polite and act respectful. Never bad-mouth a police officer, it'll get you stomped.
2. Stay calm and in control of your words, body language and emotions. Don't fidget.
3. Don�t get into an argument with the police.
4. Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you.
5. Keep your hands where the police can see them.
6. Unless you believe your life is in danger, don�t run. Don�t touch any police officer -- it can be considered an assault.
7. Unless you believe your life is in danger, don�t resist even if you are innocent.
8. Be careful complaining on the scene or telling the police they�re wrong or that you�re going to file a complaint. Just file the complaint.
9. Do not make any statements regarding the incident.
10. Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest.
11. Remember officers� badge & patrol car numbers.
12. Write down everything you remember ASAP.
13. Try to find witnesses. Get their names & phone numbers.
14. If you are injured, take photographs of the injuries as soon as possible, preferably in the emergency room.
15. If you feel your rights have been violated, file a written complaint with police department�s internal affairs division or civilian complaint board.
16. What you say to the police is always important. What you say will probably be used against you in court, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you swear at or threaten a police officer.
17. You do not have to answer a police officer�s questions, but you must show your driver�s license and registration when stopped in a car. In other situations, you can�t legally be arrested for refusing to identify yourself to a police officer. It is a felony to lie to an FBI agent.
18. You don�t have to consent to any search of yourself, your car or your house. If you DO consent to a search, it can affect your rights later in court. If the police say they have a search warrant, ASK TO SEE IT even if their foot is on your neck.
19. Do not interfere with, or obstruct the police � you can and will be arrested for it.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING
1. It�s not a crime to refuse to answer questions, but refusing to answer can make the police suspicious about you. You can�t be arrested merely for refusing to identify yourself on the street.
2. Police have the power to legally "pat-down" your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. Don�t physically resist, but make it clear that you don�t consent to any further search.
3. Ask if you are under arrest. If you are, you have a right to know why.
4. Don�t bad-mouth the police officer or run away, even if you believe what is happening is unreasonable. That could lead to your arrest on felony "fleeing and evading" charges.

IF YOU'RE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR
1. Upon request, show them your driver�s license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as long as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.
2. If you�re given a ticket, you should sign it; otherwise you can be arrested. You can always fight the case in court later.
3. If you�re suspected of drugged or drunk driving (DWI) and refuse to take a blood, urine or breath test, your driver�s license may be suspended.

IF YOU'RE ARRESTED OR TAKEN TO A POLICE STATION
1. You have the right to remain silent and to talk to a lawyer before you talk to the police. Tell the police nothing except your name and address. Don�t give any explanations, excuses or stories. You can make your defense later, in court, based on what you and your lawyer decide is best.
2. Ask to see a lawyer immediately. If you can�t pay for a lawyer, you have a right to a free one, and should ask the police how the lawyer can be contacted. Don�t say anything without a lawyer.
3. Within a reasonable time after your arrest, or booking, you have the right to make a local phone call: to a lawyer, bail bondsman, a relative or any other person. The police may not listen to the call to the lawyer.

IN YOUR HOME
1. If the police knock and ask to enter your home, you don�t have to admit them unless they have a warrant signed by a judge.
2. However, in some emergency situations (like when a person is screaming for help inside, or when the police are chasing someone) officers are allowed to enter and search your home without a warrant.
3. If you are arrested, the police can search you and the area close by. If you are in a building, "close by" usually means just the room you are in. We all recognize the need for effective law enforcement, but we should also understand our own rights and responsibilities � especially in our relationships with the police. Everyone, including minors, has the right to courteous and respectful police treatment. If your rights are violated, don�t try to deal with the situation at the scene. You can discuss the matter with an attorney afterwards, or file a complaint with the Internal Affairs or Civilian Complaint Board.

Adapted from a card produced by the American Civil Liberties Union.

17 Countries with the Most Billionaires in the World.

2007-06-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of known U.S. dollar billionaires in 2006 as of February 2006, listed by nationality, and grouped by continent. The lists of billionaires is compiled annually by the Forbes Magazine. The list excludes heads of states whose wealth is tied to their position:

1. United States - 371
2. United Kingdom - 68
3. Russia - 61
4. Germany - 55
5. Canada - 46
6. India - 36
7. Japan - 27
8. Turkey - 26
9. Brazil - 18
10. Albania - 17
11. Hong Kong - 17
12. China - 15
13. France - 14
14. Italy - 14
15. KSA - 11
16. Mexico - 10
17. Spain - 10

The 7 Wonders of the Modern World

2007-06-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

The 7 Wonders of the Modern World

The American Society of Civil Engineers compiled this list of 7 wonders of the modern world: (Name - Dates of Construction - Where)

1. Channel Tunnel - Dec. 1987-May 1994 - Strait of Dover, England
2. CN Tower - Feb. 1973-June 1976 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
3. Empire State Building - Jan. 1930- May 1931 - New York, New York, USA
4. Golden Gate Bridge - Jan. 1933-May 1937 - Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, USA
5. Itaipu Dam - Jan. 1970- May 1984 - Paraná River, South America
6. Delta Works - 1953-May 1997 - Netherlands, Europe
7. Panama Canal - Jan. 1880-Jan 1914 - Isthmus of Panama, Central America

How to Cheat Google AdSense (and get your AdSense account disabled).

2007-06-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

How to Cheat Google AdSense (and get your AdSense account disabled)
- by Fernando Hal

Face it. You come to this article probably thinking to find some ways to cheat Google, or to confirm whether some method you have on mind will work. Well, if you want to know how to cheat AdSense, here are the ways, focusing on the AdSense click-frauds. These covers from basic AdSense cheating techniques to the advanced class.

But before you proceed, you might need to know why you shouldn’t cheat Google (answer: you will get caught).

1.Basic clicker cheat

This is a noob. This guy knows almost nothing about web technology or network architecture. He clicks on his ads every time he has chance. It can be a few clicks to hundreds of clicks daily. Most likely he doesn’t even read the AdSense Program Policies and Terms and Condition

2.Proxy clicker cheat

She knows a thing or two about cookies and IP address. Or she doesn’t know, but somehow guessed that if she use the things called anonymizer, Google will not be able to trace her, because her identity is hidden. She may use anonymizer / proxy websites or specialized anonymous software like tor (The Onion Router).

3.Multiple computer clicker cheat

He knows that somehow Google will detect if the clicks are originated from his own computer. So he will try to even out origin of the clicks. He will recruit his friends, family members, relatives, neighbors, his cats, and his dogs on single mission: to click on the ads. He will also click on the AdSense ads when he is using the library computers, or his office workstation.

4.Software clicker cheat

Graduate to the next step is buyers of clickbots / click-bots. These are specialized robot software to click on AdSense ads. It will browse around your websites, clicking on the ads every few minutes. The more advanced ones will cloak the IP address too, so the website seems to be very popular worldwide. To cover the track, this clickbots will browse around the advertisers sites too while continuing its “click quest”.

5.Paid-clickers cheat

If you don’t like automated things, there is always other option for you. Just pay $50 dollars a month to the professional AdSense clickers. These are groups of highly specialized Internet surfers with office in the dark rooms in street corners of India, Pakistan, and China, helping AdSense account owner to earn good amounts of money � before the AdSense account is disabled, that is. They will browse around your websites, clicking on the ads every few minutes. Because they use human eyes, they know which ads worth more. And to be more convincing they can click a link or two, or sign up free offers / newsletters on the advertiser sites.

6.Click-rings cheat

Network is power. So says many business gurus. Instead of taking things to their own hand, this people realize that they can join hands with those with similar goals and distribute AdSense clicks among themselves, the so called AdSense click-rings. Joining this click-ring network means that your website address will be made known to members, who will regularly browse the website and click on your AdSense ads. In exchange, you will also browse other members’ sites and click on their AdSense ads. The medium used varies. Some click-ring groups use mail-list for communications. Some are using bulletin boards/forum, Yahoo groups, or Usenet. IRC is another popular way. Slightly more complicated is specialized AdSense exchange software for collecting members website address and displaying others’ websites for clicking.

7.Other medium cheat

I have tens of thousands email address on my newsletter subscriber list. If I include AdSense ads on my newsletters, with 5% CTR, I can get a thousand clicks per one email. Not bad. Or I can pay someone to write some useful/nice/funny/cute toolbars or firefox extensions or screensavers that people can download and use for free, and display my AdSense ads there.

8.Visitor cheat

Simply putting “Visit out sponsors” or “Check out the ads above” on your website is cheating. This might not be very clear-cut cheat to some. But Google AdSense program policies has stated clearly, the only text allowed are “Advertisements” or “Sponsored List”

9.Spam cheat

This is the highest level all click-frauds, the Maestro of Fraudsters. She spams millions of emails regularly, offering to “satisfy your inner needs if you can help me check on the links on my website”. Of course, email is not the only way. What IRC and instant messaging (IM) are for, after all. She will look for unsuspecting victims, offering something too-good-to-be-true “if only they will visit the website and click on the links”.

10.Click-through-rate cheat

Whichever method(s) above used, there is one limiting condition: the CTR(click-though-rate). Any CTR that exceeds certain percentage (probably around 10%) will raise red flag in Google AdSense back room. To lower the CTR, the professional cheaters will create some pages on the same domain that attracts very high traffic. Some interesting freebies will sure do the tricks. AdSense code is pasted there, thus creating a very high page impressions. Whether or not the the ads are clicked does not matter anyway, because they are targeting low paying keyword that does not have much competition. The fake clicks are, of course, on where the big money is, the low traffic pages stuffed with high-paying keywords.

Disclaimer: I don’t say and don’t think that these methods will work. If you even need to read this article, there’s 99.999% chance you will get caught before you can even get your first paycheck. Your AdSense account will be disabled, and you get banned from ever applying for AdSense account again. To see what other ways you can do to get banned, see How To Get Banned From

Top 10 World’s Longest Bridge (in Extension)

2007-06-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of the longest bridge in the world, not all but the top 10 made it and four of them are from United States.

#10: Seven Mile Bridge

Extension: 10,887 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1982
More info: Wiki

#9: San Mateo-Hayward Bridge

Extension: 11,265 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1967
More info: Wiki

#8: Confederation Bridge

Extension: 12,900 meters
Country: Canada
Built in: 1997
More info: Wiki

#7: Rio-Niterói Bridge

Extension: 13,290 meters
Country: Brazil
Build in: 1974
More info: Wiki

#6: Penang Bridge

Extension: 13,500 meters
Country: Malaysia
Built in: 1985
More info: Wiki

#5: Vasco da Gama Bridge

Extension: 17,185 meters
Country: Portugal
Built in: 1998
More info: Wiki

#4: Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Extension: 24,140 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1964
More info: Wiki

#3: King Fahd Causeway

Extension: 26,000 meters
Country: Saudi Arabia
Built in: 1986
More info: Wiki

#2: Donghai Bridge

Extension: 32,500 meters
Country: China
Built in: 2005
More info: Wiki

#1: Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

Extension: 38,422 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1969
More info: Wiki

Top 10 World’s Longest Bridge (in Extension)

2007-06-09T14:07:00.002-07:00

Top 10 World’s Longest Bridge (in Extension)

Here is a list of the longest bridge in the world, not all but the top 10 made it and four of them are from United States.

#10: Seven Mile Bridge

Seven Mile Bridge

Extension: 10,887 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1982
More info: Wiki

#9: San Mateo-Hayward Bridge

San Mateo-Hayward Bridge

Extension: 11,265 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1967
More info: Wiki

#8: Confederation Bridge

Confederation Bridge

Extension: 12,900 meters
Country: Canada
Built in: 1997
More info: Wiki

#7: Rio-Niterói Bridge

Rio-Niterói Bridge

Extension: 13,290 meters
Country: Brazil
Build in: 1974
More info: Wiki

#6: Penang Bridge

Penang Bridge

Extension: 13,500 meters
Country: Malaysia
Built in: 1985
More info: Wiki

#5: Vasco da Gama Bridge

Vasco da Gama Bridge

Extension: 17,185 meters
Country: Portugal
Built in: 1998
More info: Wiki

#4: Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Extension: 24,140 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1964
More info: Wiki

#3: King Fahd Causeway

King Fahd Causeway

Extension: 26,000 meters
Country: Saudi Arabia
Built in: 1986
More info: Wiki

#2: Donghai Bridge

Donghai Bridge

Extension: 32,500 meters
Country: China
Built in: 2005
More info: Wiki

#1: Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

Extension: 38,422 meters
Country: United States of America
Built in: 1969
More info: Wiki

30 Craziest Lawsuits in History

2007-06-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

1. Sued Michael Jordan, because he looks like him.

Allen Heckard sued Michael Jordan and Phil Knight on July 2006. Heckard claims he has suffered emotional trauma because he looks like Michael Jordan. Heckard has filed his look-alike case at the Washington County Court in Oregon and with a $832 million dollar head. Allen Heckard believes his life has been rough since people continually think he is Michael Jordan. Heckard says when he plays basketball, people are constantly telling him he plays like Michael Jordan and this has been difficult for him. Heckard is only six feet tall, so obviously those who assume he is Michael Jordan have little regard for height. Heckard even wears Air Jordan shoes, he says that they’re the most comfortable.

2. Sued after getting stuck on the house he was robbing.

In October 1998, A Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was exiting a house he finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, because the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn’t re- enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, so Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. This upset Mr. Dickson, so he sued the homeowner’s insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars and change.

3. Sued the school for being called “GAY”.

A small-town teenager who was bullied for years by classmates because they believed he was gay was awarded $440,000 in a settlement. The settlement ended a longrunning battle between the Tonganoxie School District and 18-year-old Dylan Theno, who sued in May 2004 claiming he was harassed with homophobic slurs from seventh grade until he quit school his junior year. Theno, who testified that he isn’t gay, recently earned his GED and attends a vocational technical school in Kansas City.

4. Sued after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler.

In January 2000, Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000.00 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amuck inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving tyke was Ms. Robertson’s son.

5. Sued a after being bitten for a beagle he provoked.

In October 1999, Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas was awarded $14,500.00 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor’s beagle. The beagle was on a chain in it’s owner’s fenced-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

6. Sued a restaurant after she slipped on a spilled drink.

In May 2000, a Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500.00 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

7. Sued a nightclub after she fell while sneaking out.

In December 1997, Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000.00 and dental expenses.

8. Sued Winnebago after crashing it.

In November 2000 Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he couldn’t actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnie. (Winnebago actually changed their handbooks on the back of this court case, just in case there are any other complete morons buying their vehicles.)

9. Sued amusement park for not warning him to be careful of thunderstorms.

Shawn Perkins of Laurel, Ind. Perkins was hit by lightning in the parking lot Paramount’s Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. A classic “act of God”, right? No, says Perkins’ lawyer. “That would be a lot of people’s knee-jerk reaction in these types of situations.” The lawyer has filed suit against the amusement park asking unspecified damages, arguing the park should have “warned” people not to be outside during a thunderstorm.

10. Sued against fast-good giants for being fat.

Caesar Barber, 56, of New York City. Barber, who is 5-foot-10 and 270 pounds, says he is obese, diabetic, and suffers from heart disease because fast food restaurants forced him to eat their fatty food four to five times per week. He filed suit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC, who “profited enormously” and asked for unspecified damages because the eateries didn’t warn him that junk food isn’t good for him. The judge threw the case out twice, and barred it from being filed a third time. Is that the end of such McCases? No way: lawyers will just find another plaintiff and start over, legal scholars say.

11. Sued his old school for being kicked off the school’s baseball team.

Cole Bartiromo, 18, of Mission Viejo, Calif. After making over $1 million in the stock market, the feds made Bartiromo pay it all back: he gained his profits, they said, using fraud. Bartiromo played baseball at school, but after his fraud case broke he was no longer allowed to participate in extracurricular sports. Bartiromo clearly learned a lot while sitting in federal court: he wrote and filed his own lawsuit against his high school, reasoning that he had planned on a pro baseball career but, because he was kicked off the school’s team, pro scouts wouldn’t be able to discover him. His suit demands the school reimburse him for the great salary he would have made in the majors, which he figures is $50 million.

12. Pedo priest sued his victim for warning others about him.

Priest David Hanser, 70. Hanser was one of the first Catholic priests to be caught up in the sex abuse scandal. In 1990, he settled a suit filed by one of his victims for $65,000. In the settlement, Hanser agreed not to work with children anymore, but the victim learned that Hanser was ignoring that part of the agreement. The victim appealed to the church, asking it to stop Hanser from working near children, but the church would not intervene. “It’s up to the church to decide where he works,” argued the priest’s lawyer. When the outraged victim went to the press to warn the public that a pedo priest was near children, Hanser sued him for the same $65,000 because he violated his own part of the deal — to keep the settlement secret. The message is clear: shut up about outrageous abuse, or we’ll sue you for catching us.

13. Sued the neighbor he was trying to steal from.

In June 1998, a 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000.00 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran his hand over with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn’t notice someone was at the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.

14. Moved to a storage unit, then sued the storage yard.

Wanda Hudson, 44, of Mobile, Ala. After Hudson lost her home to foreclosure, she moved her belongings to a storage unit. She says she was inside her unit one night “looking for some papers” when the storage yard manager found the door to her unit ajar — and locked it. She denies that she was sleeping inside, but incredibly did not call for help or bang on the door to be let out! She was not found for 63 days and barely survived; the formerly “plump” 150-pound woman lived on food she just happened to have in the unit, and was a mere 83 pounds when she was found. She sued the storage yard for $10 million claiming negligence. Even though the jury was not allowed to learn that Hudson had previously diagnosed mental problems, it found Hudson was nearly 100 percent responsible for her own predicament — but still awarded her $100,000.

15. Sued his dog-sitter after the dog escaped.

Doug Baker, 45, of Portland, Ore. Baker says God “steered” him to a stray dog. He admits “People thought I was crazy” to spend $4,000 in vet bills to bring the injured mutt back to health, but hey, it was God’s dog! But $4,000 was nothing: he couldn’t even take his girlfriend out to dinner without getting a dog-sitter to watch him. When the skittish dog escaped the sitter, Baker didn’t just put an ad in the paper, he bought display ads so he could include a photo. His business collapsed since he devoted full time to the search for the dog. He didn’t propose to his girlfriend because he wanted the dog to deliver the ring to her. He hired four “animal psychics” to give him clues to the animal’s whereabouts, and hired a witch to cast spells. He even spread his own urine around to “mark his territory” to try to lure the dog home! And, he said, he cried every day. Two months in to the search, he went looking for the dog where it got lost — and quickly found it. His first task: he put a collar on the mutt. (He hadn’t done that before for a dog that was so “valuable”?!) After finding the dog, he sued the dog sitter, demanding $20,000 for the cost of his search, $30,000 for the income he lost by letting his business collapse, $10,000 for “the temporary loss of the special value” of the dog, and $100,000 in “emotional damages” — $160,000 total. God has not been named as a defendant.

16. Policeman confused a Taser with a gun, killed a suspect, then sued Taser.

The City of Madera, Calif. Madera police officer Marcy Noriega had the suspect from a minor disturbance handcuffed in the back of her patrol car. When the suspect started to kick at the car’s windows, Officer Noriega decided to subdue him with her Taser. Incredibly, instead of pulling her stun gun from her belt, she pulled her service sidearm and shot the man in the chest, killing him instantly. The city, however, says the killing is not the officer’s fault; it argues that “any reasonable police officer” could “mistakenly draw and fire a handgun instead of the Taser device” and has filed suit against Taser, arguing the company should pay for any award from the wrongful death lawsuit the man’s family has filed. What a slur against every professionally trained police officer who knows the difference between a real gun and a stun gun! And what a cowardly attempt to escape responsibility for the actions of its own under-trained officer.

17. Sued the school over 10-day suspension.

Kids across America are warned to stay away from “nose candy” in anti-drug campaigns. But a Kanawha County student is fighting his suspension for pretending to put actual candy up his nose. According to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court on December 2006, a student-athlete at Sissonville High School was given Smarties candy as a reward for good academic performance. In front of his teacher and fellow classmates, the student pretended to put one of the small candy discs up his nose.

18. Sued him for having the same name.

The Tribune Co. of Chicago, Ill. The newspaper chain owns several newspapers, as well as the Chicago Cubs baseball team. One of its newspaper carriers was Mark Guthrie, 43, of Connecticut. One of its ball players was Mark Guthrie, 38, of Illinois. The company’s payroll department mixed the two up, putting the ballplayer’s paycheck into the paper carrier’s bank account. The carrier allowed them to take back 90 percent of the improperly paid salary, and said they could have the rest after they gave him a full accounting to ensure he not only got his own pay, but wouldn’t have any tax problems for being paid $300,000(!) extra. The Tribune Co., rather than provide that reasonable assurance, instead sued him for the rest of the money.

19. Sued Consumer Reports magazine after bad review.

“High Tech” retailer Sharper Image sells a lot of its “Ionic Breeze” air filters. As part of a comparative review of many air filters, Consumer Reports magazine found the “Ionic” unit was the worst performer. SI complained, saying it didn’t do a “fair” test. CU asked what sort of test should be done, but SI never replied — until it sued CU. A federal judge ruled the suit not only had no merit, but was actually an illegal attempt to squelch public discussion. SI was ordered to pay CU $400,000 to cover its legal defense costs.

20. Sued GM because of roof standards after accident.

Edith Morgan, mother of Kansas City Chiefs football star Derrick Thomas, who died after being thrown from his SUV in a crash while speeding in a snowstorm. Morgan said Thomas’s neck was broken because the SUV’s roof collapsed a few inches — not from rolling down the highway because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt — and sued General Motors. Her lawyer begged jurors to award more than $100 million in damages, perhaps more — he “did not want to put an upper limit on it.” GM pointed out that Thomas’s oversize SUV was exempt from federal roof crush standards, yet it met them anyway. The jury sent a message: of that $100 million, it awarded Morgan …nothing.

21. Sued Radio Shack for misspelling her town.

Tanisha Torres of Wyndanch, N.Y. The woman sued Radio Shack for misspelling her town as “Crimedanch” on her cell phone bill. She didn’t even ask them to change it; she just sued. “I’m not a criminal,” she whined. “My son plays on the high school football team.” Yeah, that makes sense. The name “Crimedanch” is a common joke; police in the area confirm it’s a high-crime area. Still, Torres claimed she suffered “outrage” and “embarrassment” at having to see that spelling on her private phone bill. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

22. Sued Mazda because it failed to provide instructions about the seatbelt.

Mary Ubaudi of Madison County, Ill. Ubaudi was a passenger in a car that got into a wreck. She put most of the blame on the deepest pocket available: Mazda Motors, who made the car she was riding in. Ubaudi demands “in excess of $150,000″ from the automaker, claiming it “failed to provide instructions regarding the safe and proper use of a seatbelt.” One hopes Mazda’s attorneys make her swear in court that she has never before worn a seatbelt, has never flown on an airliner, and that she’s too stupid to figure out how to fasten a seatbelt.

23. Sued Blain and Copperfield to demand they reveal their secrets to him.

Christopher Roller of Burnsville, Minn. Roller is mystified by professional magicians, so he sued David Blaine and David Copperfield to demand they reveal their secrets to him — or else pay him 10 percent of their lifelong earnings, which he figures amounts to $50 million for Copperfield and $2 million for Blaine. The basis for his suit: Roller claims that the magicians defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using “godly powers” — and since Roller is god (according to him), they’re “somehow” stealing that power from him.

24. Sued neighbors after being scared of them walking on her front porch.

Wanita “Renea” Young of Durango, Colo. Two neighborhood teens baked cookies for their neighbors as an anonymous gesture of good will, but Young got scared when she heard them on her front porch. They apologized, in writing, but Young sued them anyway for causing her distress, demanding $3,000. When she won(!!) $900, she crowed about it in the newspaper and on national TV. Now, she’s shocked (shocked!) that everyone in town hates her for her spite, and is afraid she may have to move. But hey: she won.

25. Sued the bank for loss of sleep over fee.

Barnard Lorence of Stuart, Fla. Lorence managed to overdraw his own bank account. When the bank charged him a service fee for the overdraft, he filed suit over his “stress and pain” and loss of sleep over the fee. A few hundred thousand bucks, he says, will only amount to a “slap on the wrist”, whereas the $2 million he’s suing for is more like being “paddled”.

26. Sued a store for “allowing” wild birds to fly around in the air.

Rhonda Nichols. She says a wild bird “attacked” her outside a home improvement store in Fairview Heights, Ill., causing head injuries. That’s right: outside the store. Yet Nichols still held the Lowe’s store responsible for “allowing” wild birds to fly around free in the air. She never reported the incident to the store, but still sued for “at least” $100,000 in damages. In January 2006, the case was thrown out of court.

27. Sued the phone company after having complications with the doctor.

Michelle Knepper of Vancouver, Wash. Knepper picked a doctor out of the phone book to do her liposuction, and went ahead with the procedure even though the doctor was only a dermatologist, not a plastic surgeon. After having complications, she complained she never would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn’t Board Certified in the procedure. (She relied on the phonebook listing over asking the doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sued …the phone company! She won $1.2 million plus $375,000 for her husband for “loss of spousal services and companionship.”

28. Sued the rescue workers who saved her.

Barbara Connors of Medfield, Mass. Connors was riding in a car driven by her 70-year-old(!) son-in-law when they crashed into the Connecticut River, and Connors sank with the car. Rescue divers arrived within minutes and got her out alive, but Connors suffered brain damage from her near-drowning. Sue the driver? Sure, we guess that’s reasonable. But she also sued the brave rescue workers who risked their lives to save hers.

29. Sued Home Depot after a prankster smeared glue on the toilet seat.

Bob Dougherty. A prankster smeared glue on the toilet seat at the Home Depot store in Louisville, Colo., causing Dougherty to stick to it when he sat down. “This is not Home Depot’s fault,” he proclaimed, yet the store graciously offered him $2,000 anyway. Dougherty complained the offer is “insulting” and filed suit demanding $3 million.

30. Sued hospital for having to see the doctors rushing to help their mother.

Sisters Janice Bird, Dayle Bird Edgmon and Kim Bird Moran sued their mother’s doctors and a hospital after Janice accompanied her mother, Nita Bird, to a minor medical procedure. When something went wrong, Janice and Dayle witnessed doctors rushing their mother to emergency surgery. Rather than malpractice, their legal fight centered on the “negligent infliction of emotional distress” — not for causing distress to their mother, but for causing distress to them for having to see the doctors rushing to help their mother. The case was fought all the way to the California Supreme Court, which finally ruled against the women. Which is a good thing, since if they had prevailed doctors and hospitals would have had no choice but to keep you from being anywhere near your family members during medical procedures just in case something goes wrong. In their greed, the Bird sisters risked everyone’s right to have family members with them in emergencies.

Source: Email

The 5 Most Powerful Tips to Succeed In Dating.

2007-06-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

To succeed in dating, the most important thing you must have is a positive mindset. With a powerful and positive mindset, nothing can stop you from getting the woman of your dream.

Dating is a very emotional behavior or action, where you depend on your subconscious mind most of the time. So in order to succeed in dating, you will need to beat the little voice inside of you.

Therefore to assist you in your future dating experiences, I am going to share with you 8 of the most powerful tips to help you to succeed in dating:

1. Forget about your past relationships. Do not let your past relationships, especially those which have failed, to affect the way you view new relationships. Sometimes memories should be forgotten as they can ensnare people. It is always beneficial to start over.

2. Be a little selfish. Treat yourself with more priority. There is a saying that “you should not put someone in your top priority if he or she does not even consider you as a priority.” Do what you want and what makes you happy.

3. Have optimism in your new or future relationships. Have faith in it and trust that it will work out. Do not go in with a state of mind that it will not last long.

4. Be yourself. It is common to be a different you at the start of the relationships as both of you will want to leave a good impression in each other minds. But you should always try your best to preserve your true characteristics as this is crucial in a long term relationship.

5. Treating each other with respects. All human being deserve a basic respect from one another. Therefore, take time to hear your partner out whenever there is an argument and respect what they have to say.

Bear these 5 tips in mind and apply to your relationships and you will succeed in dating.

Looking for Mr. or Ms. Right? Get Your Free Trial of Streaming Video Chat Now. Try Paltalk Plus - Free!

AdSense Secrets: Choosing the Best Keywords for AdSense

2007-06-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

AdSense Secrets: Choosing the Best Keywords for AdSense
Ever wondered how to select the best keywords for your Adsense websites? Your focus is earning money as well as attracting organic traffic towards your website. Here is what you need to know while choosing a keyword, a scientific study that maps the ideal keywords for your next upcoming adsense website.

We shall first study how to choose keywords that lead to more Adsense money.
CPC - Advantages and Drawbacks
What does CPC indicate?
When we think of high paying keywords, the first thing that pops up in our mind is CPC. CPC (Cost Per Click) is the maximum amount of money an advertiser is willing to pay you for a click. Higher the CPC of a particular keywod, more will be the payouts you can expect by targeting that keyword in your AdSense websites. You can get the most accurate CPC from the source itself - Google.

However, CPC is not the only factor that tells the profitability of a keyword. There are many other factors that you should consider.
Drawbacks of CPC
- What if there are no advertisers bidding on a keyword having high CPC? Obviously, it means no one is going to pay you that high for a click.
- What if the traffic on the keyword is technical enough and does not click on ads (banner blindness)?
- What if Google gets loads of traffic on that keyword, enough to fulfill the desires of high paying advertisers? In this case, Google will only throw remaining peanuts towards you.

Obviously, Google will like to keep all the high paying ads within its own pages. So you see, CPC just shows you a small part of the entire picture. We shall explore the rest part of the picture...
Number of Sponsors - The Most Important Figure
Keywords with high CPC do not always come with high number of advertisers. There are many keywords in Google's Adwords system that have a high price, but almost no or very less number of advertisers. Now, if you build a web page or website around a keyword on which no one is bidding, Google will try to fill the ad blocks with ads of the related keywords rather than the high paying keyword you were initially targeting. There is no guarantee that ads of the related keywords will be good converters. Therefore, there is every likelihood that your clicks will be passed through SmartPricing Filter, eventually resulting in lesser payouts.

Hence, it is important to see the number of sponsors bidding on the keyword in question. If there are more the advertisers, there will be more competition among them to get the top position. This means that there will be more revenue per click that they are willing to share with you. In other words, more sponsors mean more people fighting against one another other to pay you more Adsense money.
Number of clicks on an Ad
It refers to the number of clicks an advertiser gets when his ad appears on the top. If the number of clicks and number of advertisers is less, just ignore those keywords, no matter what their CPC is. However, if the clicks per month are lower than expected, but the number of advertisers is a good one - it's the right choice for you. Such keywords are called "Niche AdSens' keywords." Here the word 'niche' is used in commercial context. This means that Google is not able to generate traffic on such keyword ads. This makes it difficult for it to exhaust the advertising budgets of the advertisers. Therefore, in order to meet its targets, Google happily shares high paying ads with you, resulting in more payouts. Try to find such "Niche AdSens' keywords."

Coming to Higher number of clicks - It indicates:

Either the traffic segment is ignorant about the online advertising concepts, and click on these ads unknowingly. This means you will experience higher CTR on your ads when placed at appropriate place. You don't have to put in much efforts to fight banner blindness.

Or, the traffic is highly commercial and willing to purchase the advertised product over internet. This means that there are very little chances of your facing the SmartPricing phenomenon.

Number of clicks along with the other stats like Number of sponsors and CPC, can enable you to make more wise decisions while choosing keywords for your AdSense content.
Bidding Quality
It's important to see the pattern in which people are bidding on a keyword. Suppose there are 400 advertisers bidding on a keyword. The top 20 of these are paying something like $15 per click, while the rest of them pay somewhere between $2 and $0.05. Now you might have found some decent tools that give you the average of top 3 or top 5 positions which is good, but not good enough. The point is that although the top 20 advertisers are paying higher, but the rest 380 advertisers are paying quite low. There is a high probability of your getting the ads of those 380 sponsors. Therefore, the average of the top 20 advertises can be really misleading. The solution to this problem is discussed in the later part of this page.

We have enough Adsense money now. Let's build some traffic on your website.
Traffic Building for AdSense:
Choosing Niche Keywords
Niche keywords are the keywords that are highly searched by the web surfers, and are rarely used by your competitors. Less competition means more traffic to your website. Targeting ten niche keywords is easier and more fruitful that targeting a highly competitive keyword. Traffic from niche keywords when directed to a relevant page increases your CTR and conversion ratio.
Determining Competition
People generally take the number of results returned by search engines as the number of pages competing on a keyword. But it is wrong. The Search Engine Results get irrelevant after 10 - 15 pages. Irrelevancy further increases with the depth. The pages that have the keyword dumped in a corner are not competing against you, but search engines will still list them. In fact they have to.

It is assumed that if a webmaster is targeting a web page with a particular keyword, the keyword is used in the title as well as in the anchor text linking to that webpage. Such a page is listed higher by the search engines as it is dedicated to what you searched for. So how to filter out the most relevant results? Check it out!
Inanchor intitle and Its Precision - The Solution
In Google, you can easily determine the EXACT number of pages that are competing against you. You can precisely list out the pages that are using a particular keyword in their page titles or in the anchor texts linking to them.

The query can be applied as follows: intitle:keyword inanchor:keyword.

For example, if the keyword is "hair treatment", the formula will be used in the following manner: intitle:hair inanchor: hair intitle: treatment inanchor: treatment. This figure gives you the exact number of pages that are ACTUALLY Targeting with these keywords, and not those that have just created a page or a small paragraph on the same topic. Google emphasizes on Anchors and Page titles. That's the reason, it supports such a search query.

We shall now discuss some other traditional ways to determine competition.
R/S Ratio
Here, R refers the number of competitor websites for a particular keyword as per the search result of the search engine. And S refers the number of searchers using that keyword while searching their queries. This means that for better results, you have to choose the keywords with lower R/S ratio.

R/S ratio becomes polluted when someone uses the number of results as the number of competing websites. As explained above, counting the number of results as the number of competing pages is the biggest mistake one can make while choosing a keyword. However, the figure becomes quite useful when inanchor intitle is used to create R/S.
KEI Analysis
KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) is a formula for measuring the effectiveness of a keyword. The formula was devised by Sumantra Roy. However, this figure also depends upon the number of searches and competition, but with a difference. This formula analyzes the number of searches and competition in such a way that if the searches increase, KEI increases; and if the competition increases, KEI decreases. Higher the KEI, more profitable will be the keyword. However, it becomes polluted when the number of search results are used as the number of competitors.
Determining Traffic
Determining traffic for a keyword is quite important before targeting it. Along with the competition stats, it lets you make out the niches present in any industry. Besides, it lets you predict (to some extent) how much traffic you can expect if you promote a website around a particular keyword. There are two known sources for determining traffic. Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool (now a part of Yahoo Search Engine) and WordTracker. When talking about accuracy, Wordtracker monitors the queries on some meta search engines that actually render it inaccurate . Reason? There is no known stat about how much of the community you are targeting is searching on those meta search engines. However, it's a good tool to make out the niches.

In my opinion, Yahoo owned Overture gives you more accurate stats than Wordtracker. This is for the reason that Overture is a PPC engine. It can show you how many people are searching for a particular term on its vast network. A network which is bigger than any Meta Search Engine. Still, it is not that accurate, but at least better than Wordtracker. The tools that are predicting Google Searches for you are just doing guess work. No one knows the algorithm they use.

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Top Paying Keywords

Google Adsense Tips: External Optimization Tricks

2007-06-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

External Optimization Tricks
External Optimization deals with the points you should remember while promoting your website over web, the external world. This part of optimization not only influences the ranking, but also influences the relevancy of ads. This part of optimization takes time, and your control over it is limited sometimes.
Anchor Text
Keywords in anchor text enhance the relevance of the target page with regard to the keywords used. Every page of your website should be made relevant through optimized anchor text containing important keywords, matching the theme of the website.

Try to make link partners link to you with the anchor text you specify (but please don't force them). The inclusion of important keywords in the anchor text can make a big difference in the final ranking as well as the relevance of ads on your website. All the important search engines give due importance to the anchor text (both on your website as well as on the external websites linking to your pages).

Also, it's a good idea to keep changing your Anchor text while the link development campaigns. Varied options of title and description make search engines give your website wider coverage. Again, you can choose the keywords to be used in the anchor text according to your choice (Traffic or payouts).

It is important to understand that as your Page Rank (PR) and resultant traffic increases, Google may increase your payouts. However, if you are getting highly untargeted traffic (or fraud traffic), your payouts automatically decrease with a period of time. This is because of the phenomenon called SMART PRICING. That is why Anchor Text is so important.
Getting Back Links
The number of incoming links to your website may not have direct impact over your Adsense ads relevancy. However, the anchor text with which your link partners are linking not only gets you direct traffic, but also promotes your website to certain segments of traffic surfing on search engines.

When you target wrong keywords, it attracts wrong segments of traffic. This decreases your CTR as well as the earnings you could have had from that traffic. You can say, it affects the relevancy of your ads. When the ads that Google broadcasts are not relevant to your traffic, the results are damp.
Promotion
To get the most relevant ads, it is important that the links that you are getting from other websites should have proper anchor text. Your article gets prominence on the search engine because of the relevant keyword used as anchor text. Even the links on your own pages should have relevant anchor text. This will help you get more target traffic and resultant higher revenue.

Other ways to promote your website include getting inward links from free or paid sources, and exchanging links from authority or important websites having good search engine ranking. Links placed at the top of the page get more importance, so try for that. There are many more things you can do to promote your website and earn more Adsense money.

Top Paying Keywords

How to make money from AdSense thru Adwords?

2007-06-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some eye opening stats of some AdSense experiments I did recently.
AdSense Experiment 1:
Website name: xxxxxxxxxx
PPC campaign duration: 28 days
Spent: $32.16
Earned: $82.39
Profit: $50.23
AdSense Experiment 2:

Website name: xxxxxxxxxxx
PPC campaign duration: 64 days
Spent: $75
Earned: $223.89
Profit: 148.89

I have a site that makes more than 14 times its Adwords spent in AdSense earnings - and it gets absolutely no SE traffic. Now you do the maths, if you have 10 such similar high quality, high paying websites.

Now great news for you: Google promotes this money cycle. No it’s not a fraud! And I have a solid proof for that - https://www.google.com/adsense/medicalcoding
The above case study will prove that. Google itself has published a case study of a publisher who bought Adwords traffic and is earning through AdSense.

I am going to tell you exactly how webmasters do it and make thousands out of it. And if you do it properly, sky is the limit to your earnings. Turn your mobiles off now, get some glue, and apply to your seats. I am whispering this only to you, don’t tell it to anybody else. It’s a great idea - how to make AdSense money through AdWords. First you will need to visualize AdWords as a traffic source (which is paid). For creating a cycle of making money from Adwords through AdSense, you will need the following ingredients.

1 – High CTR
2 – Traffic from AdWords
3 – High paying keywords
4 – Targeted Content
5 – SmartPricing explained: Never violate almighty Google
6 – The last and ultimate secret tricks
7 – Illegal stuff?

Now let me explain to you the quality and quantity of all the ingredients you will need to get the green cycle that gets you AdSense money through AdWords.
1 – High CTR
There is a reason why you should have high CTR. It should be NOT LESS THAN 10% even in the worst cases. Now, how did I reach at this figure? Suppose you are buying traffic for 5 cents per click from Adwords, and at the end of the day, you get 100 visitors. Now, out of these 100 people, if 10 people clicked your AdSense ads, then the payout of those 10 clicks should be more than $5 (that you spent on Adwords) to earn you any profit. Or you can say, EPC should be at least 0.50 cents.

Let’s use some more valuable stats. Generally, highly qualified traffic clicks are more on AdSense blocks, depending upon your content and placement of your AdSense blocks. I have managed to get up to 20% CTR on Content Websites.

100 visitors from Adwords
20% CTR
20 clicks
Spent – $5
Earned - $14 on a particular day
EPC average was $0.70
2 – Traffic from AdWords
Traffic from AdWords is easy to get. All of us know how to opt for an AdWords account. But it needs to be managed properly so that we may get maximum traffic with minimum investment.

Tip 1 – Include as many low paying keywords as possible. Get to overture, Get to WordTracker, or any other site you know. Get creative and make your own too. Keyword Country database can suggest you millions of such low paying keywords along with the high paying keywords.

Tip 2 – Don’t pay more than 5 cents to Google AdWords initially. No matter how much traffic you get, just do not pay more than 5 cents in the beginning. Wait for a few days. One week is the best time to draw the average of how much you were in profit. If you feel you can do better by increasing the CPC on AdWords, go ahead!

Tip 3 – Optimize your ads till they have the highest CTR. Use more and more COMMONLY known GENERALLY spoken keywords. Try including search keywords in the ads in such a way that Google shows them in bold when someone views your ad.

Tip 4 – Use suggestive low cost keywords to further boost the traffic on your website. This tip is a bit risky, so it should be wisely used. In certain cases, it can be a deciding factor - Double or nothing!

For more tips on Adwords:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/2839.htm
3 – High Paying Keywords
High paying keywords are the key ingredient of the entire recipe. It’s the heart of the entire system. Don't try this without High paying keywords. Make several web pages around a topic that contain high paying keywords, and link them with one another. Don’t try it on low paying keywords, as you will be spending away lot more on AdWords than what you earn from AdSense.

More the advertisers bidding on a keyword, higher will be your EPC - and of course, broader will be your smile. When I say "high paying keywords," I don't mean the ones with Higher CPC. It's a big mistake to judge a keyword as a "high paying" one just on the basis of CPC. Only Keyword Country lets you predict your earnings per click before even targeting keywords.

Try using keywords that have low competition with advertisers paying high on it. You can find thousands of undiscovered niche keywords in Keyword Country’s Database. Don’t worry much about the traffic, it’s the job of AdWords to send the traffic to your website. But don’t get too easy on that either.

You can learn how to choose the best AdSense keywords from :
http://www.keywordcountry.com/choosing-best-adsense-keywords/
4 – Target Your Content With High Paying Keywords
Here is how to target the pages for high paying keywords.

Internal Optimization : Internal Optimization includes Meta tags, Title Text, Optimization of content, and internal linking of your website. Here we will learn how to increase relevancy of ads and how to inject keywords that will help you get high paying ads. Internal Optimization has a high impact on the relevancy of ads and CTR.

External Optimization : This includes the web pages that are giving links to you (external profile of your website), anchor text being used to link your website, and many more variables that search engines use to evaluate the authoritative importance of a web page. External Optimization helps bring relevant traffic to your website and enables you to earn more by getting more CTR (Click Thru Ratio).

Here is how to apply high paying keywords in your webpages :
http://www.keywordcountry.com/how-to-apply-top-paying-keywords/

If you want to apply high paying keywords on existing web pages (already crawled by Mediabot), please don’t expect the increase in income the next second. Google takes time to refresh its ads (maximum 15 days).

So, don't just log on to adwords and start a campaign right now. Make sure that you are getting high paying ads, and that you have implemented high paying keywords correctly. Creating new optimized pages on the website can show you immediate results (if your website is being crawled by Google regularly). Keyword Country lets you predict your EPC (Earnings Per Click) before even targeting a keyword with its Average CPC. That's the best way to find out if the keywords are really high paying or are just artificially inflated keywords.
5 – The Last and the Ultimate Secret
Hold your breath. This is a never-told secret.

The whole reaction starts from AdWords. What is AdWords? – Source of paid traffic. You are bringing in paid traffic. But, is Adwords the only way to get paid traffic? BINGO! You got my point.

Discover other cheaper ways to buy traffic. There are many other smaller PPC engines that can collectively give you as much traffic (or sometimes more) as you want, giving you more returns than you can handle.
6 – Tackle Smart Pricing
You need to take special care of SmartPricing here.

Here is what Google says what SmartPricing is:
“How smart pricing works
We are constantly analyzing data across our network, and if our data shows that a click is less likely to turn into business results (e.g. online sale, registration, phone call, newsletter sign-up), we may reduce the price you pay for that click. You may notice a reduction in the cost of clicks from content sites.
We take into account many factors such as what keywords or concepts triggered the ad, as well as the type of site on which the ad was served. For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.
Google saves you time and hassle by estimating the value of clicks and adjusting prices on an ongoing basis. With improved smart pricing, you should automatically get greater value for clicks from ad impressions across our network, all with no change in how you bid.”

The major factor: NEVER EVER TRY TO CHEAT GOOGLE. Don’t host content that your visitors don’t want to see. They came on your website in good faith that you will give them quality information, exactly what they are looking for. Just putting crap there, and stuffing the search results of a search engine is what Google hates.

If the visitors are given carp information, they will never be good buyers, or will become resistant to the convincing power of the advertisers where your AdSense code is directing them to. Google will sense that the traffic form your website is of poor quality, and you will get a shock of SmartPricing.
7 - Is All the Above Stuff Illegal?
Who said that? I happened to make a very informational site, and then to help bring some visitors to my highly informational site, I used the adwords to promote it. Of course, since this site is just sprouting, I don't have the capital to bid on the $X keywords, so I am starting out slowly, and bidding on terms with lower volumes of searches.

Currently, in order to help supplement the income of my informational site, I have chosen to use Google's excellent AdSense program while the site begins to show up in the search engines.... who knows, maybe I'll just keep on using Adsense and Adwords for the foreseeable future.

There should be no issue as long as your site is decent and does not say "click my ad." Google must have thought about this trick already and it must be silently happy to see the advertisers run such money loops. But Google can't shout it loud to the community. Webmasters who are buying ads from Google and boosting their AdSense are actually helping Google to make more money from high paying advertisers. It’s a win-win game for Google. Will you take action against a person who is paying to help you?

Yes, it is illegal if you bring Adwords traffic on poor content. Google will curse you with its SmartPricing phenomenon, and will limit your earnings. Google wants your help, but not at the cost of its own reputation. Never ever try to cheat Google.
Conclusion
Choosing such high value keywords on which you can bring paid traffic is quite critical in this entire trick.

Choose Keywords that have -
1 - High CPC
2 - High Number of Advertisers
3 - High number of Clicks
4 - High Average CPC

Get access to 6.5 Million High paying Keywords on which you can bring Paid Traffic, RIGHT NOW!

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Top Paying Keywords

The 10 Ways To Create An Attractive Headline.

2007-06-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

Why do you write an advert, an article or even a letter?

A silly question you might think – as it’s obvious you want them to be read. You want people to get into what you have written.

So what is the gateway to your copy? It’s the Headline.

It's what leads people to read your first paragraph, and then the next, and so on. So why did I call it the gateway to your copy?

To visualise what the effect of a bad headline is, imagine this. I invite you to visit my house but when you come you find a thick thorny hedge which makes it hard to find the gate. The gate is fastened with twisted wire which is hard to loosen.

To continue with our headline analogy, would you even bother to go any further? But supposing you did get as far as the door and you discover door the bell doesn’t work and there isn’t a door knocker?

Would you still go on? I think not unless you were absolutely sure that you really wanted to meet me.

So now let’s look at what a good headline would do. Let’s go on with the comparison to the visit.

If I really want to make you welcome I’d clear away all the obstacles, put down a ‘Welcome’ mat and have the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the open door.

Isn’t that what your headline should do? Your headline is your open gate, welcome mat and the smell of coffee.

How do we prepare a headline that fits the bill?

• 1) What to include. Make a list of all the benefits and advantages of the product you are promoting. Use as many words as you want in the first draft then cut it down until you are left with the essentials.

• 2) Appearance. Decide what you want your headline to look like. It should stand out, but don’t go over the top. Stick to using a different font, colour or size.

• 3) Be exciting. If your headline is boring it won’t be noticed but if it’s too way out and overdone it will be like the hedge and the twisted wire. Visitors won’t make the effort to go further. • 4) Be interesting. Your headline should be interesting. It should stop people in their tracks so they want to read it again so study your list and choose the points you really want to get across.

• 5) Be intriguing. Make your headline intriguing so the reader will want to see what it’s all about. But not so puzzling that they think it probably isn’t worth the effort.

• 6) Be catchy. As the most important part of your advert or article, (what encourages people to read on), the headline should be catchy. It should trip off the tongue easily

• 7) The promise. Your headline should define the message you want to send to your customers – showing the pain of the problem and promising the solution. (E.g. ‘Be mortgage-free in two years!’, ‘Dare you wear a bikini? Drop two dress sizes in a month!’)

• 8) The length. A headline can be long or short as long as it gets and holds the attention of your prospect.

• 9) Market research. To be sure your headline is the best it can be you should play around with the wording. Do a bit of market research. List all your selections and ask friends and family to number them in order of preference.

• 10) Ready. Set. Go! Proceed with confidence and keep your eye on the results. If they aren’t as good as you hoped try the alternatives. And when you come up with the winner stick with it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The 7 Secrets to Effective Emailing.

2007-06-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

If you're in a business that handles much of its transactions online, you'll absolutely need to know the best path to effective emailing. To that end, we've compiled the seven secrets to effective emailing techniques that will take your email marketing from blah to brilliant.

Effective Emailing Secret #1: Start with a good list.

You could have the best email marketing strategy in the world, but if you're sending correspondence to the wrong people, you'll never see a penny of profits. For effective emailing, you need to have addressee lists of individuals who would likely be interested in your product or service. Consider slowly developing a list by asking visitors to your website to provide you with their information or purchase an existing email list from a legitimate broker.

Effective Emailing Secret #2: Have a snappy subject line.

Nothing will send your email to the rubbish bin faster than a dull subject line. Spend some time making sure you have headlines that grab, enticing the recipient to open your email immediately lest he or she miss hearing about something amazing, revolutionary, or special.

Effective Emailing Secret #3: Be succinct.

Your email recipients don't have all day to hear about how wonderful your products or services are, so keep your "sales pitch" to 100-200 words. Remember - effective emailing is all about never wasting the recipient's time with unimportant "fine print" that can be addressed on your website.

Effective Emailing Secret #4: Make text easy to skim.

Most people "skim" through emails rather than reading them thoroughly, so include plenty of headers in yours. That way, your prospects can easily find what they really want to know without having to scour through heavy text or lengthy sentences (which they won't do.)

Effective Emailing Secret #5: Avoid attachments.

Having an attachment is a big "no-no" in email marketing, as doing so will prevent your email from making it to your recipient's "in box". Either put the attachment information in the body of your email marketing item, or make it available on a website devoted to selling your wares.

Effective Emailing Secret #6: Avoid too many graphics.

Does your email take forever to load? Then you'll have virtually no luck attracting customers. For effective emailing purposes, be certain that any graphics embedded in the email text take almost no time at all to open. Better yet, leave them out for maximum effectiveness.

Effective Emailing Secret #7: Include several opportunities to link to your site.

Finally, the seventh secret to effective emailing is to always focus on the fact that you won't actually be selling anything from your email. Too many novice email marketers assume that they're trying to make a sale with their initial email; that's just not the case! What you want is to send your prospects to your website, so include several clickable links to send them to the site where you can further "wow" them with your offers.