Saturday, August 4, 2007
Torrential monsoon rains for the past 11 days have inundated parts of Southeast Asia, heavily flooding areas of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh and affecting over 20 million people.
An estimated 1,400 have been killed across the region, as waterborne diseases have proliferated and become highly virulent in the humid and wet conditions.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is currently providing relief to affected areas.
Monday, July 4, 2016
On Friday, Neymar Jr agreed to a five-year contract extension with FC Barcelona, Zlatan Ibrahimovi? to a one-year contract with Manchester United F.C. as a free agent, and Nolito joined Manchester City F.C. from Celta de Vigo for a four-year term.
Buying And Selling On Ebay: Tips
by
William Davis –
Auctions have always been popular ways to buy and sell merchandise, from small community fundraising sales to gala events hosted by famous auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Traditional auctions bring to mind images of fast-talking auctioneers banging mallets to close a deal, or lavish rooms filled with wealthy buyers, ready to bid on rare antiquities and works of art.
But these days, the word “auction” conjures up an entirely different picture: buyers impatiently refreshing the online auction pages on their computer screens, as the minutes tick down to the final bid.
The Internet has changed the way people do practically everything, including the way we buy and sell. Internet auctions have gained incredible worldwide popularity, with the eBay as the undisputed leader. Today, anyone with Internet access can buy or sell online. Bidders don’t even need to be in the same time zone, let alone in the same room. Virtually everything is bought and sold on eBay auctions, from expensive antiques and works by master artists, to everyday household items and personal creations.
It’s easy to get acquainted with buying and selling on eBay:
* All participants need to sign on to establish an eBay before buying or selling. Every participant receives his or her own unique user-designated screen name like, for instance, Catgirl99. If the user consistently violates eBay rules, the website can discontinue the account as sanctions against the user.
* Anything can be put up for bid on eBay, with the exception of pornography, drugs and illegal items. The seller sets a reserve price, which will act as the minimum bid and starting point for online offers. For example, Catgirl99 is selling a kitty collar with bells on it. She won’t take less than five dollars, so she sets the reserve at a five-dollar minimum bid.
* The seller places the item on his or her eBay page, along with a product description, photograph and a sales pitch. Catgirl99 writes, “Never lose your cat again!” The seller sets a bidding period for the term of the auction, usually around two weeks.
* Buyers search the eBay site for items they are interested in. When the item is found, potential buyers will place bids. The initial bid must be higher than the reserve, and higher than any previous bids.
* As more bidders begin to take action, the price of the item up for bid continually rises.
* After the predetermined period has passed, the bidding will close. At this point, the auction is ended and the product is considered sold to the highest bidder. The sale is confirmed with both parties, and the buyer contacts the seller to arrange payment and delivery terms.
Buying and selling on eBay really is a very simple process. With items offered for sale from literally every part of the world, it’s easy to see why this method of buying and selling has become so hugely popular. ebay auctions make it simple for buyers to locate hard-to-find and collectible items, and sellers can easily find interested buyers to purchase their items. With strict rules in place, eBay also helps to protect both parties by promoting fair deals.
However, that is not to say that online auctions are free of fraudulent cases. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), over the past three years Internet auction fraud has ranked consistently as one of the most filed consumer fraud complaints. Both buyers and sellers have filed cases where deceitful parties have scammed them.
The key to security when buying and selling on eBay, is to understand what the scams are, and recognize the setup before it’s too late.
Bid Siphoning
You’ve located the item you’ve been searching for, and the seller emails you directly to tell you that there is an alternate auction site where you can buy his or her product at less than the eBay price. Don’t follow up on this offer. Legitimate auction sites like eBay offer buyer protection in the form of insurance. If a seller fails to deliver an item you’ve paid for, eBay may be able to replace the money you’ve lost. In turn, they will pursue the seller and charge him or her accordingly. However, if your purchase was made outside of eBay, that protection may not be available to you.
Bid Shielding
This is a scam perpetrated by buyers. An item is shielded from fair bidding when a buyer places a high starting bid. Other bidders don’t want to compete with the high price, so they leave the auction. Just before the bid closes, the scammer withdraws his or her bid and begins bidding under another name. Since the auction is about to end, the second lowball bid becomes the final selling price.
Shill Bidding
A shill is a swindler’s accomplice. Shills drive up the online bids, forcing legitimate bidders to raise their offers. You’ll be able to spot a shill if the item doesn’t seem to carry the value of the price it commands. Shills place high bids to lure others to raise their own bids. In the end, the highest bidder has paid much more than they normally would have, often for an item of compromised value. Stolen items, counterfeit or knock-off products and refurbished pieces can be sold this way.
These are the most common cases of Internet auction fraud. Being aware of these situations, and being cautious in general, can help you avoid the unpleasant experience of being scammed of your goods or money. Nevertheless, buying and selling on eBay still proves to be a fair and reliable way of marketing merchandise.
Internet auctions like eBay have created a true global market–connecting buyers with sellers and helping the world to connect through fair and responsible trade.
William Davis is a writer for several online magazines, on
home business tips
and
business and technology
topics.
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Buying And Selling On Ebay: Tips
}
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set a new world record in the 200 metres, Thursday evening at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany.
Bolt sped through the 200m in a time of 19.19 seconds, breaking the 19.32 mark set by Michael Johnson of the United States in 1996.
“I was trying, I was dying,” Usain Bolt said after the race. “It wasn’t a good race I can say but it was a fast one.”
“Unbelievable — a ridiculous race. The bend is unbelievable,” commented the aforementioned former record-holder Johnson while working for the BBC. “No one has ever run a bend like this and probably never will.”
At 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall, Bolt is uniquely tall among sprinters to have held record times.
| I am on my way to becoming a legend | ||
“I definitely showed people that my world records in Beijing were not a joke,” Bolt said on BBC television. “I keep telling you guys my aim is to become a legend. I don’t think about records. I don’t put myself under pressure. I know what to do and I go and execute … I did well for myself and I am on my way to becoming a legend so I am just happy.”
“We call him ‘Insane Bolt,'” commented Wallace Spearmon of the US, the third-place finisher.
Last Sunday, with a time a 9.58 seconds, the Jamaican runner set a new world record in the 100 metres, besting his own prior 9.69 second record, which he set at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In the race, he beat his main contender, Tyson Gay, who was ahead for 10m until the Bolt reached his full stride.
After the 100 metre race, Bolt said, “I was ready. I was feeling good after the semi-finals, feeling good in myself, I felt good. So I knew it was going to be a great race, I just came out here and executed it. It’s a great time, I felt I did well. I just feel good to know that I went out there and executed it.”
Even before his exploits at the World Championships, Usain Bolt was chosen as Laureus World Sports Awards’ Sportsman of the Year for 2009.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Los Angeles, California – A simple saliva test can predict whether children will get cavities, how many cavities they will get and which teeth are most vulnerable.
Developed by researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the test quantifies the genetic component of tooth decay, spotting the risk when something can be done about it.
“When we apply this to young children, it allows us to predict what might be their future caries history—the number of cavities that they’ll get by, say, their late 20s or early 30s,” says researcher Paul Denny.
Called the Caries Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) test, the test measures the relative proportions in saliva of different types of sugar chains called oligosaccharides. The same sugar chains are present on tooth surfaces.
The effect of sugar chains on teeth’s resistance to disease is analogous to the effect of “good” and “bad” cholesterol on blood vessels. “Good” sugar chains tend to repel bacteria that cause cavities while “bad” allow bacteria to bond to teeth and start the decay process. Unlike cholesterol, however, sugar chain makeup in humans is 100% genetically determined.
Denny and colleagues have found that the sugar chain makeup in saliva can predict a child’s future cavity history to plus or minus one cavity with greater than 98% confidence.
The findings suggest that in developed areas of the modern era genes play a more significant role in tooth decay than in former times or third world nations where gross malnutrition and negligent oral hygiene held the greatest impact on dental health.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
A bus crash in Victoria, Australia has injured at least 20 people, two of whom are listed as critical. One victim is reported to be still trapped in the wreckage.
The accident occurred between a bus and a semi-trailer on the Princes Highway in the Traralgon area around 10:50am AEST. The La Trobe Valley Busliner bus was traveling east when it collided with the back of a heavy haulage truck.
Those critically injured are being airlifted to a hospital in Melbourne. Others are being transported by Ambulance to La Trobe Valley Hospital in Traralgon.
SES crews are on scene, along with St. John Ambulance and fire crews.
The eastbound lanes of the highway have been blocked by police and traffic is being diverted.
By Jonathon Hardcastle
It’s been said that you achieve true fame if the world knows you by just one name. Madonna Louise Cicccone, or else Madonna, kept just one name but reinvented her image countless times, becoming one of the most successful performers of all times. Educated in Catholic schools as a child, Madonna danced her way to a four year scholarship at the University of Michigan and then New York’s Alvin Ailey School. After recording her debut album in 1983, her rise was meteoric, aided by the popularity of MTV, as she shocked and dared the public with her visible black lacy brassieres, bare midriff, outspokenness about virginity, abortion and out-of-wedlock births.
Madonna was born in Bay City, Michigan, the eldest of eight children (surely an error here as she is the eldest daughter, but third eldest child). Her father, Tony, was an engineer at Chrysler, her mother, whose name she was given, a housewife. Later, the family was to move south to Pontiac where she shared a room with two sisters. As a girl, Madonna spent her summers working in her father’s vegetable garden weeding and spraying insecticide, or she was sent to her grandparents’ house in Pennsylvania where she would be expected to work on the house and garden. The regime was rooted in instilling ethical work.
The family was devoutly Catholic. On Good Friday, her mother would place a purple cloth over all the religious pictures and statues in the house. This was before she fell ill with breast cancer, which would take her life when Madonna was six. Like many children who lose a parent, Madonna expected her mother to return. But nobody talked about it. For years it seemed that way. Three years later, her father married again, this time to the family housekeeper who never acknowledged Madonna as her mother did. Going t church before school, doing housework that was assigned by dad’s chore chart, and no TV. This, incidentally, is her top tip for successful parenthood; no TV. Madonna was expected to defrost the freezer, wash the dishes, baby sit, and vacuum. She was a voracious reader and loved the stories her mother told her about a garden involving vegetables and a rabbit.
Like many teenagers, she knew that she would leave for the big city as quickly as she could. She says that she knew she wanted to leave Michigan from the age of five. She lasted one term at her Home-state University on a dance scholarship. Her heart wasn’t in it. Even though she’d never visited, there was really only one place for her: New York, the true home of the ambitious. She arrived, in her late teens, at La Guardia airport and took a taxi to Times Square. She had no money or connections and lived hand to mouth, eventually settling in a tenement on the Lower East Side at 4th and Avenue B. Every weekend she went dubbing in search of A&R personnel and DJs who might be able to assist her career. She recalls dancing to ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by the Human League at New York’s famous Danceteria club. With her first royalty paycheck, she bought a synthesizer and a bike which she had to carry up all six flights to her new apartment, a loft on Broome and West Broadway. Deep down she also carried much resentment about her family, was often unhappy and relied greatly on music, which she has written was ‘a vehicle for transcending misery (the story of my life)’ to get her through thin times.
Anyway, it is a pretty strange thing to sit and think about the fact that Madonna is one of the most famous women in the world. Fame is the defining aspect of her life, even more than her music, style, or the movies. Madonna will be remembered for being one of the most relentlessly self-realized people of the century. Along with Monroe and Ali, Madonna will be remembered for defining the times by inventing and changing and promoting herself with ambition and, in so doing, providing us with a way of understanding ourselves and remembering what we used to dance to, who we used to be.
About the Author: Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including
Society
,
Alternative Health
, and
Family
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Sunday, July 10, 2016
On Thursday, five police officers were killed and seven were injured after a sniper attacked a public protest march in downtown Dallas, Texas. Sources indicate at least three other people were taken into custody for questioning relating to the attack. The march was held to protest the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota during engagements with police officers.
Police identified 25-year-old Micah Johnson as the suspect. Johnson had previously served in the US army, and police reported he said he wanted to exact revenge upon police officers after news of Sterling and Castile’s deaths. Ammunition and weapons were found inside Johnson’s home. Dallas Police reported the policemen were shot at from a height. Officials said two civilians were also injured in the attack.
Micah Johnson served for the United States Army Reserve from 2009 until early 2015, including a tour of Afghanistan. Johnson had no criminal record. His attack was reported to be a lone mission.
After the attack earlier on Thursday, police killed Micah Johnson in El Centro College’s parking lot by a bomb explosion.
Hillary Clinton, 2016 United States presidential election candidate and favorite for the Democratic nomination this July, said, “There is too much violence, too much hate, too much senseless killing, too many people dead who shouldn’t be. No-one has all the answers. We have to find them together.”
After Johnson was killed, Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ mayor, said “We believe now the city is safe”.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The United States Federal Trade Commission filed charges against five companies for “deceptive advertising of bogus cancer cures”. An additional six companies also named in the federal agency’s complaint have settled and their cases will not go into litigation; however, they will be required to send letters to their former customers, and four will be forced to offer reimbursement
The five companies charged are Omega Supply, San Diego, California; Native Essence Herb Company, El Prado, New Mexico; Daniel Chapter One, Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Gemtronics, Inc., Franklin, North Carolina, and Herbs for Cancer, Surprise, Arizona. According to Lydia Parnes, director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, “There is no credible scientific evidence that any of the products marketed by these companies can prevent, cure, or treat cancer of any kind.”
Attorney Richard Jaffe who represents the firm Native Essence, one of the companies charged, protested against the FDA’s action. “In our view it’s a battle between the right to speak and the government’s censorship.” Native Essence sells herbal supplements and informs customers of herbs that have historic use for cancer and other ailments. Jaffe asserts the claim of historic use is truthful and does not necessarily mean that the herb is effective. Other items marketed by the companies named in the action include laetrile, essiac tea, mushroom extracts, and black salve. FDA representative Douglas Stearn expressed concern that people who have cancer may select these items instead of treatments that have been studied and found effective, or that unstudied herbal treatments could produce drug interactions with conventional medicine.
Before filing legal action the FTC sent over 100 warning letters and many firms dropped or changed the health claims for their products. In conjunction with the announcement the FDA announced a new website http://www.ftc.gov/curious that urges cancer patients to discuss all treatments they consider trying with their physicians, warns about the dangers of delaying or stopping cancer treatments in favour of alternative medicine, and gives advice about spotting and reporting false health claims.
By Vladimir Petrov
**Netiquette is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing lists to blogs and forums.However, like many Internet phenomena, the concept and its application remain in a state of flux, and vary from community to community. The points most strongly emphasized about USENET netiquette often include using simple electronic signatures, and avoiding multiposting, cross-posting, off-topic posting, hijacking a discussion thread, and other techniques used to minimize the effort required to read a post or a thread.**
Do you have Netiquette?
Email etiquette is vital in maintaining respect, decorum and our relationships.
A few years ago, I got into a very heated argument via email. After days of arguing with this particular person and more than two dozen emails later, I realized the dispute had escalated far beyond the original disagreement and all because we were communicating via email.
Everyone knows the 24 hour rule. If someone or something has really upset you, wait at least 24 hours to respond. Waiting to respond to an email that infuriates you is also good advice. You may not have to wait 24 hours but don’t be too quick to hit the send button, either.
One of the most critical skills of someone who communicates via email is to have proper netiquette (email etiquette). Many of us can recall incidences when we have been misunderstood or we have misunderstood an email that someone has sent to us. There are tips for effective email communication. I share with you my top ten Netiquette rules.
1. Never respond to an email when you are upset. Wait at least an hour. Try going for a walk to relax.
2. If you draft an email while still angry, save it first and then re-read it an hour or so later. You might change your mind.
3. Flaming is foolish. Always be respectful. Do not swear or name call in an email. You will regret it later.
4. Because we lack body language in an email, which is more than 75 percent of how we communicate, the use of symbols is appropriate as long as it is not overdone. You can express emotion using:) or LOL.
5. Avoid Sarcasm. It is lost via email. This could escalate into a much more serious disagreement if you do not explain your tone in an email.
6. Use “chunking”. Do you not write in one long paragraph; instead, separate ideas into small paragraphs.
7. Re-read the email that angered you a few times before you respond to make sure you are not misunderstanding what the person is saying to you.
8. No matter how upset you are, still address the person by his name and not by a name you want to call him.
9. Use proper English and grammar. Use spell check. This will help maintain a proper level of respect.
10. Approach the email with the intent of bringing peace and solving the problem and not with the desire to fight.
**When someone makes a mistake – whether it’s a spelling error or a spelling flame,a stupid question or an unnecessarily long answer – be kind about it.If it’s a minor error, you may not need to say anything. Even if you feel strongly about it, think twice before reacting.Having good manners yourself doesn’t give you license to correct everyone else. If you do decide to inform someone of a mistake, point it out politely, and preferably by private email rather than in public. Give people the benefit of the doubt; assume they just don’t know any better. And never be arrogant or self-righteous about it. Just as it’s a law of nature that spelling flames always contain spelling errors, notes pointing out Netiquette violations are often examples of poor Netiquette.**
About the Author: Vladimir Petrov – Chief Technology Advisor
minleys.com
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