Home Buying Tips That Will Make The Process Fun

Home Buying Tips That Will Make The Process Fun

Real estate is just like many other subjects, as in you need to learn about it before you can expect to succeed. Understanding the market will give you the skills you need to make the best decisions, and to be more confident with these choices. This article provides valuable information that will help you make the correct real estate buying decisions for you and your family.

If you are a real estate agent, you should seriously consider sending out cards during the holidays and on anniversaries you share with your clients. When you contact them, they will recall how you helped them with their real estate experience. After you finish speaking with them, let them know that you would appreciate it if they felt comfortable referring you to their family members and friends.

When you are buying a new property, you need to have some liquid funds available for unexpected expenses. You can get a good idea of the closing costs if you add the down payment, taxes and what the bank charges. In many cases though, closing calculations can prove inaccurate because some fees are left out when the calculations are done.

You should invest in a property right now. Now that the housing market has crashed, property values have gone very low. This is a perfect time for first-time home buyers to get into a home, or for current home owners to invest in a larger property. The downward trend is an aberration when you look at house prices over the long term. Therefore, you will probably make money on your investment after ten years.

When you make an offer on a home, consider asking the seller to contribute toward the closing costs or give you some other type of financial incentive. For example, you could ask for a seller to buy down your interest rates for a limited period of time. When you add some financial incentives to your offer, the seller will be unlikely to attempt negotiations on the selling price.

Unless you live someplace cold that requires a fireplace, only buy a home that has a fireplace in the family room. Maintenance on additional fireplaces can be cumbersome, particularly if you hardly ever use them.

You've finally decided to buy a house, but now you have to find a reputable real estate agent. The real estate agent you select also needs to be trustworthy. You want to find an agent who has been in the business for a while, and has a track record of proven success that can lead you down the right path. Keep in mind that you must do your research to locate an agent who keeps your best interests in mind.

Prior to purchasing a piece of property, know everything you possibly can about it. If you do not research the property you are interested in purchasing, you may make a bad decision and purchase a piece of property that will cost you time and money. Check into factors that impact value like its age, crime in the neighborhood, and even the neighbors.

When you choose a real estate agent, ask how many years they have been involved in the community you are interested in. A long-term resident will know more about the community's infrastructure, local laws and neighborhood characteristics that a newcomer may not know. Agents who have lived in the locale for ten years or more will be able to provide you with information that is of particular importance to where you're planning to buy.

Always have your goals at the forefront of your mind as you are preparing to purchase a property. Decide if your goals are short term or long term. If that investment doesn't match your goals, don't consider it. Many property owners fail to make sure their needs are met and end up with a losing investment.

It is important to clarify with the landlord before signing the lease, who is responsible for the upkeep of any garden on the property. Sometimes, tenants are required to maintain the landscaping at their expense. Many places have this task included into the monthly payments.

If the home you are purchasing is just for yourself, it is wise to take along someone who has home buying experience. It is always helpful to have another set of eyes while looking at properties, particularly if that person has experience buying a home. Encourage them to speak up and ask questions too.

When searching the property market for potential purchases, you need to be both realistic and patient. You will probably not be able to find the perfect piece of property right away, or even any time soon.

Before you move in your furniture and family and start turning your new house into a home, you should first purchase insurance. You don't want to put this off because that's usually when bad things tend to happen, and you don't want to have to pay for something out of pocket that insurance would have covered.

A good real estate agent is an advantage. To find a good real estate agent, make sure to check the Internet, any licensing boards, and the Better Business Bureau. The very best references are those from close friends, family members and reliable co-workers.

Be sure to obtain your credit report prior to starting your house hunting process. Once you get your hands on copies of your credit reports, comb through them thoroughly and respond to any red flags there. You are more likely to get a good mortgage if you proactively make sure that your credit history is accurate and that your score is maximized.

You should have the least possible down payment that is required by your mortgage company. If you don't, you will likely have to pay private mortgage insurance, or PMI. This can be a substantial increase in your monthly payment. Banks require it to ensure that you will make your payments on the mortgage.

Having taken the time to learn more about purchasing real estate through this article was a great decision. Your agent's abilities are limited, so you need to know how to make your own decisions. These tips have made it easier for you to decide with confidence.

How To Get The Most From Search Engine Optimization Techniques

How To Get The Most From Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a confusing language for a new business person, but having knowledge of it will help you succeed. With the right tools and knowledge, you can make sure your website gets high traffic, which will guarantee it is ranked high.

When putting up your site, don't automatically believe that more advertising will help your ranking. Although advertising by working with other sites can get you great traffic while making your income higher. However, it may not boost the ranking you have.

Find out about their years of experience. You will also need to know the risks involved, so that you can make the most informed decision possible.

Look at source codes found on the websites of your competition. This lets you see how the SEO strategies on their websites and which keywords they're using. While you might want to avoid copying their methods, this type of stealth can help you figure out other keywords and strategies to try.

Try creating robots text file in your root directory to achieve this. txt file and having it placed in the root directory. This will prevent the search engines from getting to certain files that are on your website.

Search engines may have difficulty understand dynamic language and session ID names. Keep this in mind when you create your URLs. This makes it harder for search engines to find your website, especially if keywords are not incorporated.

Using a product feed can really help to reach new customers. These feeds will list details about your products and services, such as images, prices and descriptions. Use feeds offered by search engines and comparison shopping pages. Customers can also subscribe to your feed with a feed reader.

Look for a quality education site or non-profit organization, and ask if they will link with your content. Search engines look at results from these sites differently and rank them higher because they are considered reputable sources of information. By providing high-quality content on your site, you can entice websites with solid reputations to feature you. You need to publish information that is high-quality and informational.

Instead of using a link exchange, try using article exchanges to give a boost to your rankings. Article exchanges are simply hosting an article by a different website along with a credit, a link to them and they reciprocate. This strategy will help to keep your site more efficient.

Blog on your site so you can increase your ranks on a search engine. Of course the end result of that will be more visitors to your website.

You might want to try starting a podcast. A podcast can include audio or video content that includes relevant, interesting material directed at your consumers. Podcasts are popular, and a lot of people are doing this. All you need is a video camera. Ensure you provide keyword-rich descriptions for each podcast to entice people on search engines to view your content.

Try focusing on title tags. It's what your site's pages will be listed by on search engines. The tag should be unique in its description of your website content, and use related keywords. Also, you have to be sure you don't make it way too long.

While there are many facts to know about SEO, you want to take learning about your options one step at a time. Depending upon your resources, you may not be able to learn each and every nuance of SEO. Instead, fully explore only a few strategies.

As previously discussed, search engine optimization creates opportunities for profit on the internet. Using the written advice of this article can provide you with what you need to better your website. The more you improve it, the more money and traffic your website will generate.

Bring Solar Energy Into Your Home With These Tips

Bring Solar Energy Into Your Home With These Tips

No one would dare dispute that solar energy is eco-friendly in every way. It's a renewable energy source that won't disappear soon. However, you have to figure out if solar power is financially sound investment for you. The following article can help you determine just that.

Changing your current energy system over to solar energy is a smart idea. Solar panels are quite expensive and it could take years before your panels are paid off and you actually start saving money on energy. Therefore, don't invest in a solar energy system until you have settled down.

Stay away from salespeople who put too much pressure on you. It's important that you take your time in making the best possible decision for you. Don't fall victim to pushy sales tactics, as this could cost you both time and money.

You need to check your inverter on a weekly basis. You should see a solid green light. When the light blinks or is turned off, call for help. Don't think you can diagnose the issue by yourself! Most owners can't. If your solar energy system has a good warranty, your service visits should be included.

You want to position your solar panels so they can get maximal sunlight. Invest in a sun tracker and an adjustable mount so you can change the angle of your panels throughout the day or change their orientation for each new season.

As exciting as it would be to have solar powered card to decrease pollution, technology hasn't come that far yet. However, smaller power generators can use solar power as a power source. Solar powered generators are now available, and this would be the perfect solution to a long term power outage.

A solar powered fan for your attic is a good choice if switching completely to solar power is not feasible. These fans have temperature sensors that turn the fan on immediately when the attic reaches a certain temperature. A good attic fan can reduce energy costs by removing excess heat from your attic. Also because it's run by solar energy, you won't have to pay for the electricity it creates.

A solar energy system is a great addition to your house as a homeowner. However, think long and hard before doing so. If there is a chance of losing your home, you will also lose any money you invest in it.

You may wish to install your panels a few at a time to avoid a huge initial investment. Hire an energy auditor to visit your home and see how energy is used. This will help you identify ways that you are wasting energy, so you can make a few changes. Also, you will not have to install many panels.

Bigger isn't always better when considering solar panels. Many factors go into solar panels from wattage, to the materials in them. These are the things you need to compare.

You should pay close attention to the weather if you are thinking about purchasing solar panels. Solar panels that are of high quality are going to create enough energy that can run your home if the panels are in the sun for about five hours a day. You may want to look into other choices if your area is regularly cloudy or snowy in the winter.

Install your solar panels so their exposure to the sun is optimal. Your solar energy system will be more efficient if your panels are always facing the sun, even if it means adjusting them throughout the seasons.

Be wary of pushy salesmen who make promises that seem too good to be true. It's common to find these salespeople in the solar energy industry. You should make sure that they know that you'll think over the deal and won't make a decision on the spot. If they don't understand, you shouldn't be working with them. Making decisions under pressure can be more costly later on.

Shade areas around your home and property must be a consideration when deciding if you should convert to solar power. If your home is fully shaded most of the day, solar panels might not be the best option. A lot of shade may mean that you can't gather as much energy, so you could simply be throwing money away on panels.

You can actually make money by using solar energy. If you installed solar panels at home or in your business, you should be able to see a quick payback. You can actually receive electricity credits for any unused energy that you sell to power companies.

As you can see by now, solar energy offers a renewable energy solution. However, there are several things you must consider. Take what you've just learned to heart, and you'll make a wise decision. You will soon be generating electricity, thanks to your solar panels.

Learn What You Need To Know About Managing Your Reputation

Learn What You Need To Know About Learn What You Need To Know About Managing Your Reputation

Reputation is immensely important in the world of business, and companies with bad reputations inevitably suffer. You should know how to manage the reputation of your business, so there aren't any negative thoughts. These suggestions will help you to develop a good reputation.

When dealing with some negative content regarding your online brand, have a good offense. Always do what you can to ensure the reaction to your name and brand are positive and focus on the positive feedback. This can help you to drown out anything negative that might be said. Continually post new content that is positive, resulting in any negative comments slipping in search engine listings.

Maintain a good image by working to alleviate customer dissatisfaction. Turning a customer's negative experience into a good one will show your customer that you care. It would be even better if you can carry this out online. Other people will see you responding positively to the concerns of customers and are more likely to give you their business too.

                                    Managing Your Reputation

To make sure you have a great reputation for a business online, your web pages should have SEO done to them. This is generally your company's name. Google likes authoritative sites. That will ensure that you're ranked highly on search pages.

Stay on top of the latest events in your field. This helps you in providing your customers with the latest information. Spend 5 or 10 minutes each day searching online for the newest info on the industry you're in.

Monitor what's being said about you online. You can never tell when your company may receive a negative search engine result from an unhappy customer or somebody that just does not like you or your business. Checking online search results helps you knock it down from the top of the page. Try this at least twice a month.

If you own a business, always respect employees. Take this very seriously, as it can hurt or benefit your reputation. If others spread the word that you aren't a good boss, then a lot of potential customers might refuse to have anything to do with your business.

If you see inaccurate online information about your company, you can ask the owner of the site to remove it. If you have proof that the information is false, it is likely that the other site will happily take it down.

There are companies that specifically offer reputation management. You're going to be handling plenty of this yourself with your daily interactions, but in today's world, there are many interactions on the Internet and social media that must be monitored as well as the press. That is why it is helpful to have someone assist you with these things.

Customer interaction will increase as your company grows. Complaints will show up here and there, so you must address them. Also, you need to take a professional approach to your responses.

You need to help customers develop realistic expectations along the way. This includes being honest with customers and effectively dealing with issues. Being transparent in business transactions fosters a good reputation.

If your company is at fault in a dispute, own up to it. Your customers will not be fooled. Acknowledge the error and correct it. You can often get customer forgiveness this way, particularly when you do something extra to set things straight.

Be a sponsor at a community event. This is a good way to make your company's reputation better. Your customers will develop a good impression once they notice your company's generous spirit. Making this type of positive impression can increase the success of your business.

Adhere to the terms of any promises your company makes. If you always change the terms, no one will trust you over time. You will then be perceived as a dishonest person and business. It can be hard to better a bad reputation.

Check search engines every month. Always Google your company name and review your full website. Make sure to take care of all of the negative comments. Monitor the sources of all negative reviews. Try to pacify this at all costs.

Keeping yourself cool when things are hard for you can help you keep a good reputation online. Use stress management to relieve those pent up frustrations. Get out and get some exercise. Avoid getting hooked into online flame fights at all costs. It can really harm your reputation.

You are sure to feel twinges of irritation when you spot negative comments online. It is important to avoid exhibiting a knee-jerk reaction. Take a little time to think the problem through before responding. By doing this, you will prevent an escalation of the situation, which will then tarnish your online reputation.

You now know a thing or two about reputation management. It is all too easy to throw away a hard-earned reputation in a moment of carelessness. These tips are vital to follow and practice until they become habits. It won't take long to see the great results.

Government Programs For Tax Incentives Using Solar Energy

Government Programs For Tax Incentives Using Solar Energy

Solar energy can help reduce energy costs. It’s been proven that the cost of energy costs rise about every 10 years. This statistic proves that solar energy is a smart thing to look into. Read on to find out more about solar energy usage.

The density of the solar panels will determine how efficient they are. Panels that are more dense perform better, but they can generate more power. Compare the densities of various before you decide which ones you want to purchase.

To ensure that you’re getting the most out of your panels, get installations that have technologies that don’t directly rely on our sun’s schedule. This is great if you use power in the evening.

TIP! Try to get panels that don’t completely rely on when the sun is up. For example, some types of panels absorb and store sunlight for use as needed during the day or night.

Direct sunlight isn’t always requirements for reaping the benefits of solar energy. Some people will solar power will protest that they’ve gotten the best results on grey days.

Think carefully about whether or not solar power is a good choice for your house. You have many things to consider a decision. Solar energy is a good option for those who live in remote areas where there is no available electrical grid to hook into. It can also be a great option if you’re able to pay more money upfront to reduce your energy’s environmental impact.

Government Programs For Tax Incentives Using Solar Energy

Lil Bub’s new album and the furry path to enlightenment

Lil Bub’s new album and the furry path to enlightenment

Lil Bub, a cat made famous because it looks adorably deranged, released an album this week. It’s 10 tracks long. It’s called Science & Magic: A Soundtrack to the Universe. Here’s what party celebrity and motivational speaker Andrew W.K. said about the album: First of all, it should be understood that this album is a

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Fads And UFOs

Fads And UFOs

Modern Technology Prevents Media Censorship – Rossiya Segodnya Chief

Modern Technology Prevents Media Censorship – Rossiya Segodnya Chief

Modern Technology Prevents Media Censorship – Rossiya Segodnya Chief

Modern Technology Prevents Media Censorship – Rossiya Segodnya Chief

"The world describes itself entirely differently," he observed, arguing
in favor of the importance of shaping information. "Once you give up on
this, the audience will turn away from you because people face the need
to understand the modern world to …

Read more on Sputnik International





Modern technology brings Coon Rapids history to life

An interactive project launched by the commission melds QR (Quick
Response) code and multimedia technology so that people can learn about
Coon Rapids' history through the use of a smartphone. Five locations in
Coon Rapids – the Coon Rapids Dam, …

Read more on ABC Newspapers

The science behind your brain's love of a killer beat

The science behind your brain's love of a killer beat

The science behind your brain's love of a killer beat

The science behind your brain's love of a killer beat

It's a common behavior, so it's easy to disregard. But the reasons why
humans respond to a thumping bass line so strongly aren't necessarily
obvious. Some scientists have observed that the human brain is much more
attuned to low-frequency sounds, …

Read more on The Verge

Blame The Dieter, Not The Diet

Blame The Dieter, Not The Diet

Blame The Dieter, Not The Diet

by 13desetembro Blame The Dieter, Not The Diet Lifestyle changes are difficult, without doubt.  However, failure to implement desired lifestyle changes is doubly difficult on the initiator of the change.  We all intend well.  We all believe ourselves to be ethically sound, well-meaning persons. Yet, we look to blame others, or other circumstances for our

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NFL Picks Week 11: Highlighting Best Vegas Odds and Expert Predictions - SPORTS INSIDER

NFL Picks Week 11: Highlighting Best Vegas Odds and Expert Predictions - SPORTS INSIDER



 

Home » NFL » NFL Picks Week 11: Highlighting Best Vegas Odds and Expert Predictions

NFL Picks Week 11: Highlighting Best Vegas Odds and Expert Predictions

in NFL

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Have a tough time betting on the spreads for the
NFL last weekend? Many did, but Week 11 is here to allow an opportunity
at a bounce-back effort.

A whopping 11 out of 14 underdogs won outright throughout the Week 10
slate, which just goes to show that the NFL is still the undisputed
king of unpredictable betting trends and outcomes. With that said, the
increased parity of the league can also allow heady experts the chance
to take advantage.


So, let’s look at who some of Bleacher Report’s National Lead Writers
have winning—straight up, not against the spread—throughout the weekend
slate along with odds for each game.

NFL Week 11 Odds and Expert Predictions

Matchup	Spread	Matt Miller, B/R	Mike Freeman, B/R	Ty Schalter, B/R
Tennessee at Jacksonville	JAX -3	Jaguars	Jaguars	Jaguars
Denver at Chicago	DEN -3	Bears	Broncos	Broncos
Dallas at Miami	MIA -1	Cowboys	Cowboys	Dolphins
Oakland at Detroit	Even	Raiders	Raiders	Lions
Indianapolis at Atlanta	ATL -4	Falcons	Falcons	Falcons
St. Louis at Baltimore	Even	Rams	Ravens	Ravens
Washington at Carolina	CAR -7.5	Panthers	Panthers	Panthers
Tampa Bay at Philadelphia	PHI -7	Eagles	Buccaneers	Eagles
New York Jets at Houston	NYJ -2.5	Jets	Jets	Jets
Kansas City at San Diego	KC -3	Chiefs	Chargers	Chiefs
Green Bay at Minnesota	Even	Vikings	Packers	Vikings
San Francisco at Seattle	SEA -10	Seahawks	Seahawks	Seahawks
Cincinnati at Arizona	ARI -2.5	Cardinals	Bengals	Cardinals
Buffalo at New England	NE -7.5	Patriots	Patriots	Patriots

Relax After The Case of Shirley Sherrod

Relax After The Case of Shirley Sherrod

by digicla Relax After The Case of Shirley Sherrod Topic of racism has recently been heated and given a rising concern. Shirley Sherrod seems to unawarely become a victim of the debate around the accusations of racism. Let’s take some minutes to calm down and relax before more people get hurt.   In the overheated

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Michigan State Police using cell snooping devices

Michigan State Police using cell snooping devices

Fed Official Admits Zero Interest Rate Undermined Economy: “QE Has Been Ineffective”

Fed Official Admits Zero Interest Rate Undermined Economy: “QE Has Been Ineffective”

Teaching competition from kindergarten up makes us stupid and uninventive

Entrepreneur and author Margaret Heffernan studies ways of thinking that hold us back and cause societal dysfunction. Her book Willful Blindness explores the costly failure to acknowledge danger in the SEC, the Catholic Church and other institutions. Her most recent book, A Bigger Prize: Why Competition Isn't Everything And How We Do Better, investigates our obsessive and damaging focus on competition. In her view, teaching competition from the earliest years produces adults who fail at creative thinking and generates a society where cheating is incentivized and people never learn to collaborate. In the following interview, she explains why this failure puts us all at risk. Heffernan recently spoke at the May 5-6 conference on Finance and Society, sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Lynn Parramore: What does your research tell us about how competition is wired into human behavior?

Margaret Heffernan: It's very clear that from birth, infants are prepared to compete for their mother's love and attention because if they don't get that, they're dead. You can see in really early experiments that babies will compete for their mother's attention if she is on the telephone or even just looking away. So it's clear to me that competition is a survival instinct to ensure that we get the resources that we need.

Of course, when it becomes more complex than that, when it becomes sibling rivalry, when it becomes a way of life, when it becomes a kneejerk reaction, that's when the problem sets in.

LP: What are some of the positive aspects of competition? Does it help us excel and achieve?

MH: Competition makes really boring things a lot more fun.If you have a boring walk to do, for example, turning it into a race makes it more fun. I think my biggest concern about competition is that when it enters into things that really matter, things that require higher order thinking, its benefits become very dubious indeed.

In my book, A Bigger Prize, there's a long section on what I see as the extremely destructive role that competition plays today in education. This is about competitive parents who are teaching their kids to be competitive and also competition within the classroom. We know from mountains of research that work in companies, for example, is done mostly in groups and teams, and we know that teamwork is really difficult. We also know that teams that are really high achieving are highly collaborative.

But none of those lessons really are being taught in an education system where you compete to get into the right school, you compete for class rankings, and you compete for college places. What we're seeing is that the more the school system and the parents double down on this “If you don't win you're toast” kind of mentality, the more kids are absorbing the message that education is all about the grade.

There are two consequences of this. If you can't get the grades then you may as well cheat because if grades are what matters, then who cares how you get them? And if you are competing against your classmates for class rankings and so on, then you are quite specifically motivated not to help them. I've lost track of the number of parents or kids who have told me stories where they were asked for help from a classmate but were advised not to help on the grounds that if the classmate did better, then they might push that individual down in the class ranking. This is so common it's just ridiculous. Yet what we know when we study high-achieving teams is that the single aspect that distinguishes them is helpfulness — information sharing and so on. So we are teaching kids to compete at an early age in a way that specifically disables the kinds of characteristics we want to see later in life.

LP: How do kids who are taught to be competitive tend to behave as adults?

MH: We produce adults who think that success is all about individual performance. I call these people “heroic soloists.” Basically it's all about them. Their prevailing mindset is, What's in it for me? They aren't particularly generous either in helping or giving credit. I see these people at every level of organizations and it makes for extremely poor leaders. In some organizations these traits can really be career limiting.

Another cost is that if I'm only focused on the grades and on getting the right answer, then essentially what I'm doing I'm learning not to explore and think for myself. Of course, later in life we're going to ask people to think for themselves a lot because that's how innovation happens. But that's not at all that we're teaching. We're teaching that the high achievers are the people who get one correct answer. Your job isn't to explore or to find the best answer, just to second-guess what the correct one is. This is intellectually sterile and it encodes a sort of obedience into peoples' intellect, which is destructive. It produces what author William Deresiewicz has called “excellent sheep.” If we want creative, original thinking in business or finance or whatever— that's not what this kind of system will produce.

LP: Mainstream economists have led us to believe that competitive self-interest produces the best possible outcomes for society. What's wrong with this view?

MH: In my previous book Willful Blindness, I looked at what I think of as the food chain that led to the financial crisis, which was that you had individual consumers buying houses they couldn't afford, sold to them by realtors and property people who were competing to sell more properties at a higher price and so on. As I went from the consumer to the top of the big banks, along the way I talked to the head of risk at a big Midwest bank. She said to me quite frankly, “Look Margaret, I didn't like subprime, nobody liked subprime. We all knew it was ripping off poor people. But the thing is, I'm in a competitive market for salespeople, and if I couldn't offer these high commission products, my sales force would walk out the door.”

That interview stuck with me and I thought, hang on a second, classic economy theory tells you that a competitive marketplace is superior because competition provides a diversity of products which is good for the consumer, and it also, therefore diversifies risk. And yet, in this instance, competition has led every single one of these companies to copy each other, which had concentrated the risk. And I thought, Wow, that's interesting. That's specifically what's not supposed to happen.

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Russia-NATO relations. Returns "red phone" to the Kremlin

NATO has installed a direct line of communication with the commanders of the Russian army - said in a Sunday newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" (FAS).The initiative came from Germany worried about Russian bombers flights.

NATO and Russian military authorities have communication links. The commander-in-chief (the combined armed forces of NATO in Europe) and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee are allowed contact with Russian colleagues," - said the Alliance answering the question "FAS". Channels of communication are still open and are regularly tested - NATO reported.

The entire project is treated as a secret. This is the first such contact since the end of the Cold War - underlines the German newspaper.

It’s conspiracy until it isn't

Everyone loves a good conspiracy.

 Some dedicate their lives to them. There are many that will make you wonder if what you always considered as fact, actually is. Some, uh … are pretty far out there. Give credit where it’s due, there are some very imaginative people out there.

Mariah Carey — Eat Your Heart Out Nick … I’m Not Coming Back!

Mariah Carey is clearly influenced by a much younger singer, because she’s saying she’ll never ever ever get back together with Nick Cannon.

We know Mariah has seen our video of Nick, telling us he’s not closing the door on the possibility of giving their marriage another try.

But sources connected with Mariah say she’s out of that game. She likes Nick, but there’s no chance of a romantic reconciliation. 

She’s not in the market for anyone right now. Mariah has a residency in Vegas that’s just weeks away, She’s also into raising the twins. When she’s not working she goes to Eleuthera, her private Island in the Bahamas.

It looks like she may have a case of post breakup hotness, right?

How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over

In September 2013, about a year before Nicholas Carr published The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, his chastening meditation on the human future, a pair of Oxford researchers issued a report predicting that nearly half of all jobs in the United States could be lost to machines within the next twenty years. The researchers, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, looked at seven hundred kinds of work and found that of those occupations, among the most susceptible to automation were loan officers, receptionists, paralegals, store clerks, taxi drivers, and security guards. Even computer programmers, the people writing the algorithms that are taking on these tasks, will not be immune. By Frey and Osborne’s calculations, there is about a 50 percent chance that programming, too, will be outsourced to machines within the next two decades.

In fact, this is already happening, in part because programmers increasingly rely on “self-correcting” code—that is, code that debugs and rewrites itself*—and in part because they are creating machines that are able to learn on the job. While these machines cannot think, per se, they can process phenomenal amounts of data with ever-increasing speed and use what they have learned to perform such functions as medical diagnosis, navigation, and translation, among many others. Add to these self-repairing robots that are able to negotiate hostile environments like radioactive power plants and collapsed mines and then fix themselves without human intercession when the need arises. The most recent iteration of these robots has been designed by the robots themselves, suggesting that in the future even roboticists may find themselves out of work.

The term for what happens when human workers are replaced by machines was coined by John Maynard Keynes in 1930 in the essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” He called it “technological unemployment.” At the time, Keynes considered technical unemployment a transitory condition, “a temporary phase of maladjustment” brought on by “our discovery of means of economizing the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” In the United States, for example, the mechanization of the railways around the time Keynes was writing his essay put nearly half a million people out of work. Similarly, rotary phones were making switchboard operators obsolete, while mechanical harvesters, plows, and combines were replacing traditional farmworkers, just as the first steam-engine tractors had replaced horses and oxen less than a century before. Machine efficiency was becoming so great that President Roosevelt, in 1935, told the nation that the economy might never be able to reabsorb all the workers who were being displaced. The more sanguine New York Times editorial board then accused the president of falling prey to the “calamity prophets.”

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US to deploy in Poland Patriot missiles

Complex air defense Patriot

As part of the Polish-American military exercises near Warsaw, the United States deployed its air defense complexes Patriot, reports Reuters.

The exercise involves about 100 US military personnel and 30 vehicles. Maneuvers are on the ground in the Polish town of Sochaczew, 50 km from Warsaw.

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Semonyak stressed the close cooperation of his country with the United States, noting that both countries are friends and partners for 16 years.

"If necessary, the United States stand firmly on our side," - he said in the presence of the American ambassador.

Lavrov called the US missile defense a real threat to Russia

Poland does not yet have its own air defense system and intends in the coming weeks to choose a company supplying the corresponding complex.

In addition to the US firm Raytheon, which produces missiles (Patriot), in the competition for the purchase involved a consortium of French companies as well as European group MBDA.

Earlier today it was reported that a group of NATO ships emerged from the waters of the Black Sea after the completion of there exercise .

Shark ate German in Egypt

Photo: Reuters

Sharks in the Red Sea have resumed attacks on humans

For the first time in five years the shark attacked a man in Egypt.

Tourist from Germany was killed in a shark attack in the Egyptian resort of El Quseir on the Red Sea coast, reports RIA Novosti . According to local media, the shark bit off his leg, he died on the way to the hospital.

This was the first shark attack on any human in Egypt over the past five years. In 2010, another Egyptian resort on the Red Sea three tourists suffered shark bites but lived to tell the tale, the three that survived were from Russia and the one killed was from Germany.

Then came a series of attacks as Egyptian authorities had to close beaches in the popular resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

City of Sacramento is in the fourth year of a record drought

The Arrowhead Mountain Water Company bottling plant, owned by Swiss conglomerate Nestle, on the Morongo Indian Reservation near Cabazon, Calif. Photo credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP.

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The city of Sacramento is in the fourth year of a record drought – yet the Nestlé Corporation continues to bottle city water to sell back to the public at a big profit, local activists charge. 

The Nestlé Water Bottling Plant in Sacramento is the target of a major press conference on Tuesday, March 17, by a water coalition that claims the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from Sacramento aquifers during the drought. 

The coalition, the crunchnestle alliance, says that City Hall has made this use of the water supply possible through a “corporate welfare giveaway,” according to a press advisory. 

A coalition of environmentalists, Native Americans and other concerned people announced the press conference will take place at March 17 at 5 p.m. at new Sacramento City Hall, 915 I Street, Sacramento. 

The coalition will release details of a protest on Friday, March 20, at the South Sacramento Nestlé plant designed to “shut down” the facility. The coalition is calling on Nestlé to pay rates commensurate with their enormous profit, or voluntarily close down. 

“The coalition is protesting Nestlé’s virtually unlimited use of water – up to 80 million gallons a year drawn from local aquifers – while Sacramentans (like other Californians) who use a mere 7 to 10 percent of total water used in the State of California, have had severe restrictions and limitations forced upon them,” according to the coalition. 

“Nestlé pays only 65 cents for each 470 gallons it pumps out of the ground – the same rate as an average residential water user. But the company can turn the area’s water around, and sell it back to Sacramento at mammoth profits,” the coalition said. 

Activists say that Sacramento officials have refused attempts to obtain details of Nestlé’s water used. Coalition members have addressed the Sacramento City Council and requested that Nestle’ either pay a commercial rate under a two tier level, or pay a tax on their profit. 

CRACKS IN THE DRY BED OF THE STEVENS CREEK RESERVOIR IN CUPERTINO, CALIF. PHOTO CREDIT: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP

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In October, the coalition released a “White Paper” highlighting predatory water profiteering actions taken by Nestle’ Water Bottling Company in various cities, counties, states and countries. Most of those great “deals” yielded mega profits for Nestle’ at the expense of citizens and taxpayers. Additionally, the environmental impact on many of those areas yielded disastrous results. 

Coalition spokesperson Andy Conn said, “This corporate welfare giveaway is an outrage and warrants a major investigation. For more than five months we have requested data on Nestlé water use. City Hall has not complied with our request, or given any indication that it will. Sacramentans deserve to know how their money is being spent and what they’re getting for it. In this case, they’re getting ripped off.” 

For more information about the crunchnestle alliance, contact Andy Conn (530) 906-8077 camphgr55 (at) gmail.com or Bob Saunders (916) 370-8251 

Nestlé is currently the leading supplier of the world’s bottled water, including such brands as Perrier and San Pellegrino, and has been criticized by activists for human rights violations throughout the world. For example, Food and Water Watch and other organizations blasted Nestlé’s “Human Rights Impact Assessment” in December 2013 as a “public relations stunt.”

“The failure to examine Nestlé’s track record on the human right to water is not surprising given recent statements by its chair Peter Brabeck challenging the human right to water,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. She noted that the company famously declared at the 2000 World Water Forum in the Netherlands that water should be defined as a need—not as a human right.

“In November 2013, Colombian trade unionist Oscar Lopez Trivino became the fifteenth Nestlé worker to be assassinated by a paramilitary organization while many of his fellow workers were in the midst of a hunger strike protesting the corporation’s refusal to hear their grievances,” according to the groups. 

The press conference and protest will take place just days after Jay Famiglietti, the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, revealed in an op-ed in the LA Times on March 12 that California has only one year of water supply left in its reservoirs.

“As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002, when satellite-based monitoring began, although groundwater depletion has been going on since the early 20th century. 

Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.” 

Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown continues to fast-track his Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels to ship Sacramento River water to corporate agribusiness, Southern California water agencies, and oil companies conducting fracking operations. The $67 billion plan won’t create one single drop of new water, but it will take vast tracts of Delta farm land out of production under the guise of “habitat restoration” in order to irrigate drainage-impaired soil owned by corporate mega-growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. 

The tunnel plan will also hasten the extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. The peripheral tunnels will be good for agribusiness, water privateers, oil companies and the 1 percent, but will be bad for the fish, wildlife, people and environment of California and the public trust. 

The Delta smelt may already be extinct in the wild!

In fact, the endangered Delta smelt, once the most abundant fish in the entire Bay Delta Estuary, may already be extinct, according to UC Davis fish biologist and author Peter Moyle, as quoted on Capital Public Radio. 

“Prepare for the extinction of the Delta Smelt in the wild,” Moyle told a group of scientists with the Delta Stewardship Council. 

According to Capital Public Radio: 

“He says the latest state trawl survey found very few fish in areas of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where smelt normally gather. 

‘That trawl survey came up with just six smelt, four females and two males,’ says Moyle. “Normally because they can target smelt, they would have gotten several hundred.’ 

Moyle says the population of Delta smelt has been declining for the last 30 years but the drought may have pushed the species to the point of no return. If the smelt is officially declared extinct, which could take several years, the declaration could change how water is managed in California. 

‘All these biological opinions on Delta smelt that have restricted some of the pumping will have to be changed,’ says Moyle. 

But Moyle says pumping water from the Delta to Central and Southern California could still be restricted at certain times because of all the other threatened fish populations.” 

The Delta smelt, an indicator species that demonstrates the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, reached a new record low population level in 2014, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fall midwater trawl survey that was released in January. 

Department staff found a total of only eight smelt at a total of 100 sites sampled each month from September through December 

The smelt is considered an indicator species because the 2.0 to 2.8 inch long fish is endemic to the estuary and spends all of its life in the Delta. 

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has conducted the Fall Midwater Trawl Survey (FMWT) to index the fall abundance of pelagic (open water) fish, including Delta smelt, striped bass, longfin smelt, threadfin shad and American shad, nearly annually since 1967. The index of each species is a number that indicates a relative population abundance.

The Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club

The term “gentlemen’s club” arouses all kinds of lewd thoughts, but the gentlemen’s club founded in San Francisco in 1872, known simply as the Bohemian Club, is not what you think. The club started out with a diverse group of cultured men, including young artists and journalists who appreciated the arts. It was eventually overwhelmed with influential leaders (prime ministers and presidents have been members) and businessmen who didn’t quite fit the definition of “bohemian,” transforming it into a more traditional fraternal organization. Although, there is nothing traditional about the club’s annual encampment ceremony, which resembles a scene from The Wicker Man. The men gather around a 40-foot owl shrine surrounded by Redwood trees for the elaborate “Cremation of Care” ceremony. It’s an symbolic gesture that is meant to banish worldly cares. Weird(er) note: the owl talks. For years member and broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite provided the creature’s recorded voice.

Monsanto settles 7 lawsuits after 2013 GMO-wheat scare

Agrochemical giant Monsanto has settled class action lawsuits with farmers in seven states over genetically modified wheat incident in 2013. Without any admission of liability the company will pay some $350,000 in donations to agricultural schools.

The agricultural biotechnology corporation announced donations of $50,000 to agricultural schools in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The St. Louis based company also promised to reimburse a portion of the costs associated with the case. Monsanto said it can’t disclose how much that will cost.

The settlement agreement with wheat farmers across the US stems from a number of lawsuits related to the May 2013 discovery of genetically-modified wheat on a farm in Eastern Oregon that resulted in temporary limits on certain exports of soft white wheat. Japan and South Korea temporarily suspended some wheat orders, while the EU called for tougher testing from the US.

“This agreement puts that money to work in research and development efforts for the wheat industry,”said Kyle McClain, Monsanto chief litigation counsel. “Resolution in this manner is reasonable and in the best interest of all of the parties.”

The settlement puts to rest seven court cases associated with the company’s GMO practices, but it will“not resolve claims that remain pending by wheat growers in Arkansas who also filed suit,” the company said.

In November, Monsanto has already agreed to settle about $2.4 million worth of damages in other lawsuits related to the Oregon scandal. The history of settlements seems like a drop in the ocean for a company that made $2.74 billion last year that with sales of $15.86 billion.

The USDA has yet to approve any GMO strain of wheat to be grown in the US, but Monsanto field tested a genetically engineered variety from 1998 through 2005 before withdrawing their application from the agency’s regulatory approval process.

Roundup Ready, as the wheat strain is amicably known, was supposed to be either destroyed or stored 10 years ago when it was outlawed. The miracle strain was resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide, and was one of a number in a whole range of Roundup Ready products.

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SOURCE: RT

Biotech Bans Anti-GMO Group from SXSW Food Supply Panel

It continues to be clear that the awakened public will not so easily be brought down by the GMO industries. However, at South by Southwest (SXSW), it appears that money from GMO corporations talks as true debate is controlled and censored. Katherine Paul, Associate Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), an organization dedicated to protecting organic standards, has officially been censored from SXSW.

The OCA was asked to sit on the “Southbites: Feed Your Mind” debate held in Austin, Texas but then had their invitation revoked directly from the orders of Cathleen Enright, executive Vice President of food & agriculture, for the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO).

Paul describes a March 3rd phone conversation with Enright, who defended her position by using GMO industry talking points, in which she stated that GMO agriculture is “sustainable” and GMO foods are “safe.” Anyone who says otherwise is making “scary” statements that have no basis in fact because every shred of scientific evidence suggesting health or safety concerns related to GMOs “has been discredited.”

It is a financially proven fact that GMO food is a corporate liability for any company that chooses to manufacture or add these altered ingredients to their products. Scores of GMO corporations and pro-GMO companies continue to experience large hits to their stock prices and trust as the public heads for the exits. Pro-GMO marketing departments are losing, and losing big.

Previously tasked with marketing a product whose success relies on its consumers not knowing where to purchase its product, GMO marketers are being paralyzed into obscurity by the rush of voting with their dollars. The tactics being witnessed currently are those of sore losers that have lost their monopoly on the market, debate, and information.

We have witnessed the people of Vermont win a vote to simply label their food only to be sued and attacked by a conglomerate of GMO corporations. We are now learning about major scientific and research fraud from a new book by Steven Drucker titled ‘Altered Genes Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public.’

It appears on all levels the corporate memo has gone out to push GMO’s by any means necessary in their hopeless push before the final rejection. This is a warning to all individuals, conferences, groups, and companies: The GMO industry no longer has the hearts and minds of the people. Like a vampire in dire need of blood, the industry will latch on to anything it can find to parasite and use up that entities integrity and good name to push their products and agenda.

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