What comes next?

It is time when we should ban camera phones! While we cannot force the phone companies to stop putting cameras on mobile phones, the law can put a stop to that. The ease of taking quick shots and sending the clips around the world is so damaging in serious cases that it overshadows the fun part of having an integrated camera.

As Americans get more fidgety about an ailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama sought to reassure the nation and nervous holiday shoppers as beleaguered stores braced for their most important month of the year “Help is on the way,” he proclaimed at his third news briefing on the economy this week

Unfortunately, the economic meltdown is going to create some far reaching side effects that will be primarily negative in nature Consumer confidence is low, sales in every sector are down, and people have begun to place their money under their mattresses for safe keeping

The government has seized control of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two large home mortgage companies Fannie Mae, also known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, also known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, were created in 1938 and 1970 respectively

It’s currently a time of great depression. Warning bells are ringing worldwide! Recessions have happened even earlier. In the past fifty years we have seen recessions of all hues. But this time it is going to stay much longer. It is going to etch its mark even in third world countries. In the capitalist business cycle, recessions are but common place. To some extent, recessions are good in the sense that they help wash out excesses in the system by clearing away inefficient companies in the fray. It paves way for new competitors who present competition to keep the demand and supply in perfect sync on a long term basis.

If there's a word that is universally invoked in the world of finance, it’s “transparency.” The word comes to us from the 16th century with the connotation of “shining through,” The idea is simple. Transparency is about being able to see what is going on and to have key practices disclosed. Without that, it is believed, financial markets can’t function because of a lack of trust and clear rules that all the players adhere to. It is a market fundamental, a primary rule of principle.

In America today the average price of gasoline has skyrocketed past $4.00 per gallon with no end in sight. Oil prices have doubled since the end of 2007 with $200 per barrel conceivable within months. Still, no one seems to have a solution. The government is inept, and only seems willing to add to the problem rather than solve it.

If the Congress had any concern for you or me they would lift all Federal gas taxes to help us out.

Unless you live in a cave --and one without a computer at that-- you're very familiar with the huge time waster that sifting through mountains of email spam can be. And while spam is a huge annoyance for employees and end users everywhere, the real costs for businesses are in time and money and they're increasing every day. As costs rise, IT people (at SMEs in particular) are desperate for ways to deal with it effectively.

Everyone knows about the Panama Canal, and how it connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, not everyone knows that the United States originally wanted to build this canal through Nicaragua, information on which can be found in NicaFSBO. It was only through the efforts of a few lobbyists and the French intention to sell their interests on the Panama Canal that this plan was diverted.

It's been almost 5 years since the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 went into effect, but don't think the law has faded by the wayside. Although anti-spammers have referred to the law as the YOU CAN-SPAM Act and are quick to point out shortcomings, the law is the law - and it is being enforced.

Anti-spam organizations as well as the FTC, Internet Service Providers and even popular sites like MySpace are becoming better and better at tracking down and prosecuting spammers.

This articles explains how spammers cook up a spam message. This includes all the ingredients and directions on how they cook the ultimate spam delicacy!

Ingredients:
A complete and total lack of ethics
A good-sized serving of greed
One bushel of unnecessary products
One large cup of business ruthlessness
A dash of familiarity with spam filters
Several packages of innocent victims

Cooking Instructions:
The most important step in preparing the perfect spam is sanitization.

Your brave anti-spam software works hard to defend your inbox from all those messages about enlarging... um.... various things. Even more important, your spam buster also helps protect you from less-embarrassing --but more dangerous-- phishing scam emails. But not entirely safe. Just in case a big bad phishing scam does get through to your inbox, it's important to know how to spot it.

With every advancement in anti spam software, the spammers become more desperate and more inventive. They have even discovered how to take advantage of standard operations of most e-mail servers.

It's called NDR (Non Delivery Receipt) Spam or backscatter. Have you ever received a message in your inbox saying that something you sent was undeliverable or bounced? Spammers are now using this courtesy response to get their information in your inbox.

Hamas is waiting, and hoping, for an Obama victory in November. During the Doha Debates (BBC, May 27, 2008), leading Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Al Zahar categorically implied that the only way out of the current impasse in the Gaza strip would be a neutral and balanced administration in Washington.

Senator Obama can claim that he rejects any endorsement by Hamas; that, however, is not the point.

As well as the pressures and stresses in all our lives these days, it seems, we see news of worse elsewhere. Floods in Burma, millions displaced, aid refused, control by generals; in China, millions displaced, each mountain ringing some valleys collapsed. Central America sees GI American aid workers on their way home from war torn Iraq. Hurricane and tornado alleys in America on cue, destroying homes, towns, lives.

We all know our Earth is in serious trouble. If there is one person who can really turn around things in our country it is the president. With elections round the corner and a line-up of presidential candidates, don't all of us want to know who truly supports the green movement? Here's a run down on the top candidates and their perspective of the environment:

Hillary Clinton
She has been known for citing serious environmental hazards in all of her speeches.

World audit in their 17th Democracy Audit of the Millennium announce that: out of 150 countries audited, (all those with a million or more population);

The opportunity to cast a vote can be quite meaningless unless there are transparently honest elections, with genuine voter choice of parties and people. We are confident that all of those countries listed in our First and Second Divisions conduct themselves in exactly that way.

Chinese antiques history has gone through quite a ride even in this past century. For thousands of years China lived in splendid isolation, far from plaques that ravaged the west. The states within China had independence to fight amongst themselves. Often between Mings and others, as in the days of Marco Polo, China was led by an Mongol emperor. When the "Golden Hordes" of Mongols swept terror through to Moscow and Warsaw they were able to wind back out the Teutonic arrows of their silken shirts, while fallen knights in heavy armour found themselves wielding their long heavy sword to their death.

It can be argued that there are two separate ways of using terror as a weapon; one is to maintain the status quo and the other is to change something, usually in terms of a political and/or economic regime.

The question is, does the use of terror achieve these ends in either case?

The answer, surprisingly, seems to be 'yes' in the case of one and 'no' in the case of the other, while the two are nevertheless conjoined.

Perhaps nowhere is the great boom in clean energy and renewables as visible as in biofuels. Ethanol and biodiesel refineries have popped up like mushrooms across the farm belt of the United States and the rapeseed fields of Europe.

Flexible fuel vehicles are flying out of showrooms and into the cities and motorways of Brazil on the power of sugarcane.

Ten dollars a barrel. That was the price oil fell to in 1998, just 10 years ago. In 2008, oil has been nine times higher, around $90 a barrel, and briefly skirted with $100 a barrel just a few weeks ago. What was unimaginable 10 years ago has happened. How has it happened, and what does it tell us about the future?

Financial crisis swept Asia and other parts of the world in 1998, bringing an end - as it turned out only temporarily - to a period of great economic expansion.

Though the housing bubble deflated about two years ago, its true effects are only now beginning to emerge. In late 2006, when the economy first began to show signs of weakness in the housing market, most economists predicted that a recession was very unlikely, and that any downturn in real estate prices would be localized and mild. In reality, a global downturn is now a real threat, with the final price of the credit crunch projected to exceed $1 trillion dollars.

In 2006 Mexico averted what would have been a disaster for Mexico, the United States and Latin America. Felipe Calderon of the PAN party narrowly defeated Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador or AMLO of the PRD party in one of the closest and most amazing national elections ever held in the Western Hemisphere.

In January 2006 AMLO was ahead in the polls outdistancing his nearest rivals by two to one; an insurmountable lead in a three party race.

When we see and hear leaders of Europe on a British television, it is refreshing to hear such diamond thinking. What they say has great and good events coming at us, even through all the gloom of the moment. They speak to a delegate from Russia, and from Serbia, and we hear of their amazing brilliant thinking. Their minds are of peace and so beyond those of the warrior man from Russia and the man from Serbia.

This news to China is another diamond of the moral lessons from God or pure living, or Buddha himself. The way we live, is the way we die. Buddha had a following not because what he said, but how he lived such a holy serene life as no other holy man of his time. And while this diamond of a gentle man lived a simple life, and like Socrates in the west, merely answer questions with a question, and go inside his bliss.

I was talking to a client recently about why he should add a newsletter opt-in form on his website so that he can capture email addresses.

He said "but Sam I don't like spam".

In hindsight I probably should have worded that a little bit differently when I said capturing an email address. What I should have said is to offer something of value to the visitor for their email address - Permission Based Marketing.

The irony that from ancient Chinese antiques history, when the Economist says China was by far the richest nation in the world. Marco Polo was thought mad for all his wild stories of this fabled land, even though diamonds and gemstones, riches and silks that he wore ten layers thick under his beggars poor coat. There was also this advance in civilization called gunpowder, which was to change Europe forever.

Healthy lifestyles would not have suggested you be a capitalist in 1948 Shanghai when Chairman Mao came to power. And history well knows indeed, for the decade to succeed, it was off with their lives, a million bullets a month, for those months to proceed. By 1950, the Panda was so secure in its new throne, while North Korea was a distraction, it took over Tibet.

The timing could not have been worse or better depending on one's perspective despite the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to pull out all the stops to make sure the upcoming Summer Olympics is a great show. Too bad.

It's certainly hard to penalize the athletes that have worked so hard but the Olympic Committee knew when they picked China this might happen and the Committee should have known better.