So this is how the 99 percent lives

Obama’s vacation home in Hawaii - The Washington Post

So President Obama stands behind the Occupiers? How nice to know that our president comports with the unwashed 99 percent, especially in his choice of vacation getaways.

Americans love movies, but ...

... we are rapidly coming to dislike movie theaters - and other movie goers.

I'll tell you why movie revenue is dropping... :: rogerebert.com

Kickoff

Opening kickoff, MSU receiving. They had a good return, but got sacked deep on their second down. Wound up punting.

It"s Music City Bowl day

At LP Field for the Music City Bowl, my alma mater, Wake Forest, playing. Miss. State.

Temps in the high 50s, clear sky. Great night for football in Nashville!

The venue:

Ultimate gamer gear

I do not play video games myself since I have, you know, a life. But for those who do, I present the ultimate gamer station.

NYT: Gun owners less lethal than general population

The New York Times has the numbers to show that people who possess firearm carry permits are six times less likely to commit murder than the general population.

But of course, since no real reporters actually work at the Grey Lady, they did not understand the portent of their own data

Why does Obama do the things he does?

Victor Davis Hanson on Barack Obama:

For Obama the great tragedy of a Solyndra was not the corruption of old-style fast-buck artists masking their greed through insider green lobbying with members of his administration, but rather that such scandals (along with Climategate and the implosion of Al Gore) have sidetracked the entire green philosophy that mandated more government unionized employees, government technocrats, and government tax collectors to reorder society itself.

The result of all this is a sort of unending but rarely expressed war. The business man does not know what his taxes are, only that they should go up, given his privilege. He is judged not by the good that he does but by the excessive money he makes. The corporation does not know what the rules of the game are, whether his energy is too polluting, his workers not unionized enough, or his product not regulated enough. None believe Obamacare, as promised, will reduce costs. None believe that government borrowing and massive new entitlements are reducing unemployment and raising GDP. None believe that wealth can be created by record deficits and aggregate debt. None believe that printing ever more money will not lead to inflation.

What we have, then, is a war on two ends: the better off are hesitant to work more, given their fears that additional profits will either be more difficult to come by or not remain their own; the poor are hesitant to work more, given their expectations that entitlements will be extended and will be easier to come by. They both expect more government and they both as a result are not so eager to take risks and seek greater income in the private sector.

The result of Obama’s war is the current three-year slowdown. Obama in response counts on two strategies to nevertheless be reelected: either at some point the private sector will conclude that it is not going to get any better, and thus it is preferable to shrug, take its medicine, and get back to work, and so the economy picks up a little in 2012; or, to the degree that Obama can blame the lengthy pause solely on the minority of the undeserving rich, he believes that an angry and fearful bare majority may agree.

The question is truly begged: If we stipulate that the effective destruction of America's economy is not an actual objective of a president whose political orientation is the most radically leftist of any figure to occupy the office (or most any office in Washington, for that matter), then: what would he be doing differently if that really was his objective? He would be doing hardly anything differently.

This administration is not so baffling perhaps, when viewed through this lens:



Bill Whittle explains in detail:

Hamas gets to the point

normblog: The dulcet tones of Hamas:

As delivered by Ismail Haniyeh:

We say today, explicitly, so it cannot be explained otherwise, that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah. We say with transparency and in a clear manner, that Palestinian reconciliation - and all sides must know this - cannot come at the expense of [our] principles, at the expense of the resistance. These principles are absolute and cannot be disputed: Palestine - all of Palestine - is from the sea to the river. We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine. The involvement of Hamas at any stage with the interim objective of liberation of [only] Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem, does not replace its strategic view concerning Palestine and the land of Palestine.

You can see and hear him saying all that here. Next time you hear some Western leftist (verkrappt branch) mouthing off with the slogan 'from the river to the sea', all the while adding assurances about a secular-democratic state for Palestine, you might draw his or her attention to Haniyeh's words, 'expulsion of the invaders and usurpers from the blessed land of Palestine'.

It's worth repeating: Hamas has no objective but to rid the Middle East of Jews, and the more violently done the better.

Titanic 2012: Bring your own lifeboat

Watch out for the icebergs... cruise recreating Titanic's fateful voyage is sold out:

For some, it might sound too much like tempting fate – and for others, it smacks of "disaster voyeurism". But for more than 2,000 Titanic enthusiasts, the chance to mark the centenary of the maritime disaster by sailing on a large cruise ship to commemorate the sinking on the very spot of the tragedy is proving difficult to resist.

As the Lord said to Noah, "How long can you tread water?"

The answer is, "Forever"

Consider:

Voter identification continued to be a hot topic for legislators in 2011. Four states — Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas — approved laws requiring voters to present photo identification before casting ballots.

A fifth state, South Carolina, had passed its own voter-identification law, but it was overturned Dec. 23 by the Justice Department. South Carolina is required to submit revisions in voting procedures for federal clearance as a state with a history of discrimination at the ballot box, but it can appeal Justice’s ruling in federal court.

So: For how many years after the Jim Crow era will South Carolina's election laws be subject to the veto of an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat in Washington?

Forever, of course.

There is nothing South Carolina will ever be able to do to get the federal monkey off its back. If the state elected a black governor and a black-majority legislature, any election laws they pass will still be overruled at the whim of federal clerks. The federal government does not surrender power.

Norway UFO videoed by accident?

This is a video taken by a Norwegian using a small camera mounted in front of a powered, remote-control glider, looking back toward the front of the glider. Pretty nice video.

But - just what is the object in the sky - upper right hand corner of the screen - between 1:43-44?

Super water repellent spray coming

Amazing stuff, this:



So every coat can be a raincoat? I thought about using this stuff to treat my shirts and not have to worry about a raincoat at all, but if it repels water this thoroughly how could I wash my shirts? The spray doesn't repel dirt, after all. But it does seem pretty remarkable.

The NFL has gone off the rails

Articles: Three Ugly Truths Exposed by the Tebow Assault:

[T]he league's oddball values (i.e., mainstream ones) have finally been exposed to an unforgiving light. It's the same wan, greenish light that characterizes all of the urban-poseur values of the sec-progs (usually reserved to their own sportless sphere of influence). It's readily visible if we select a view of a slightly bigger picture: the sec-progs advocate teaching kindergartners how to wear condoms but are offended by the concept that sometimes grown men fight with their fists. Or to put an even finer point upon it: they want to teach kindergartners how to wear condoms and (not "but") are offended by Tim Tebow's open chastity. The point is that in watching the NFL, there remains no longer any distinction between "urban values" and "rural values," for which the NFL used to surrogate. And as ever, these values remain at cross-purposes. Soon now, we the people will be put to a choice.

This second truth looms so large as to bleed over into the third: that our entire culture evinces a general trend whereby the popular sensibilities become thinner-skinned as the popular mores demand an ever stronger and stronger stomach. The average commercial shown during an NFL game threatens to corrupt the mind of the youth in far more pernicious ways than a few skirmishes by players during the game ever could. And yet the liberals who have long masterminded the realization of such a bizarre world with a thousand subtle nuances -- having effectually blinded the masses -- can simply shrug in feigned innocent perplexity.

The moment, which I believe has just passed us, wherein Tim Tebow's prayers and sexual chastity get formally denounced as dangerous needs to be a "moment of clarity," en masse, whereupon we can all reassess the paltry values that we have thoughtlessly embraced as a people. While, happily, it seems that enough folks have awoken to the economic blights of leftism for the 2012 election, such a realization -- in order to bear any meaningful change -- must be met with a concomitant moral reawakening. This is my New Year's wish. And God bless Tim Tebow.

BABY SHOWER PASTASI 6

ATLI KARINCA PASTASI

2012: War of the Tablets

Starting from January 2012, notebook manufacturers will be putting their resources into making tablets. Non-iPad tablet vendors has started cutting prices in September in an attempt to reduce their overstock inventory and minimize losses, and the decisions are expected to trigger a new price war within the tablet industry, according to sources from notebook players. This year we have witnessed

Our impractical God

A homily for Christmas Day

We pride ourselves on being practical people, do we not? Americans have a particular susceptibility to the practical and pragmatic. I don’t say that as a criticism, by the way, since I am one of those people whose first question about a proposal is usually how it will work. I am reminded of the story of the time the Little Sisters of the Poor were going door to door in a French city, soliciting alms for old people. There was a house on their route that belonged to a wealthy and very vocal opponent of the church. One of the sisters said it would not be practical to call upon him for a donation and to this they all agreed.

All except one sister who knocked on the rich man’s door, anyway. He answered, she explained her request for a donation, and the man replied, grinning, “I will give you one thousand francs if you will have a glass of champagne with me.”

It was an embarrassing situation for the nun, and she hesitated. But 1,000 francs meant many loaves of bread or medicine for the poor. So she went inside. A servant brought the bottle and poured, and the brave nun emptied the glass. And then she said, "And now, sir, another glass, please – at the same price." She got it. Not so impractical to call upon that fellow after all.

Here are some some real, historical impracticalbilities.

Hail Cannons: In the late 19th century some Austrians devised a special gas-based mortar supposedly capable of preventing hail. By the year 1900, more than 10,000 hail cannons had cropped up across Western Europe. Given their popularity, it's a shame that the cannons proved useless.

"Goofybike:" In 1939, Charles Steinlauf made a bicycle to carry four people and power a sewing machine. Nuff said.

Jetpacks: James Bond flew one in the beginning of Thunderball, made in 1965, and jetpacks have not gotten better since then. You can buy the one on the right for $155,000, including training. But remember what the maker says: since it flies for only 33 seconds, you start looking for a landing spot the moment your feet leave the ground. And as for the flying cars we were promised 50 years ago, fuggidaboutit.

The Wright Flyer: December 17, 1901 – 120 feet in 12 seconds, 6.8 miles per hour, no more than 10 feet altitude.

France's SS Normandie

We all know the history of aviation after the Wright brothers took to the air. The significance of SS Normandie is less well known. It was launched by the French company GCT in 1932 and set a transatlantic speed record on its maiden passenger voyage. Setting that record was in fact the whole reason the ship was built. Yet its design was scoffed as impractical almost up to its launch.

Normandie was designed by a Russian emigre named Vladimir Yourkevitch, whose designs had been laughed out of court by the admirals of the Czar’s navy. Yourkevitch had been a junior naval architect then and was convinced that the key to speed for large vessels was a paunchy middle and an extremely pointed fore and aft. Yourkevitch persisted, his designs were tested but the Russian Revolution put an end to his dreams. He made his way to France where no naval work awaited him and he finally got a job on the Renault automobile assembly line.

Michael Anton recorded that after GCT announced it would build a ship to capture the record,

Vladimir Yourkevitch spent the closing months of the 1920s making a pest of himself with conduct that would, in our day, result in a restraining order. He wrote, he wired, and he called—with exasperating persistence—officials at CGT and the Penhoët shipyard, where the new French liner would be built. All his entreaties were ignored. Finally, he contacted an old friend from the Russian navy who had been welcomed into France’s military establishment. The officer got Yourkevitch a meeting.

The shipyard chairman, René Fould, barely concealed his disdain for Yourkevitch’s poverty, his lowly job, and his broken French. Still, he took Yourkevitch’s drawings and gave them to one of his engineers, expecting to hear no more of the matter. Weeks later, to Fould’s astonishment, the engineer reported that the Yourkevitch design principles were better than any he had seen. Fould convened his entire staff to confirm the result. They did.

To this day, Yourkevitch’s design principles are used on every oceangoing vessel launched around the world, including every American aircraft carrier in service. Vladimir Yourkevitch’s name is practically unknown by the public at large, but he was the most influential ship designer of the last century.

I have one more illustration of a supremely impractical thing.

It is Christmas and I come not to bury impracticability but to praise it. For when reading the passages of Advent and Christmas, it seems that God is not usually bothered by the practicability of his plans.

Luke 1.5-120

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”

Luke 1.26-35

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

Now consider: Zechariah and Mary both know they are talking to an angel. Very impressive company, that; in fact, Gabriel had to tell both of them to calm down and not be afraid. Then the angel pronounces the most amazing news that could be imagine. To Zechariah, that he will have a son who will be a great prophet of the Lord. To Mary, she will have a son who will be the Son of God.

And both Zechariah and Mary immediately question the practicality of it all. “Not so fast,” they both basically say. “There are some practical considerations you have not considered!”

For Zechariah, he’s old and so is his wife. Mary says her prophecy is not possible because she knows there are certain, uh, steps that are required to have a child and she hasn’t taken them.

Zechariah and Mary are talking in person to an angel who tells them of God's amazing plans and therefore presumably isn't just making this stuff up – and all the both of them can say is, "Can't happen, won't work, you've got the wrong person."

Gabriel swatted these objections aside. "Nothing is impossible with God," he told Mary in verse 37. Immanuel, God With Us, is both impractical and improbable, seen from our perspective, and yet Jesus was born, God in the flesh. God willing, we will never be so practical minded that we shun God's plans, for our impractical God is not a God of practicalities, but of miracles.

Wing Heong's viral video campaign “The Rice of Yok Man”

1930's, on the eve of World War II, the Japanese Empire was eyeing the Malaysian food industry. In order to destroy the anti-Japanese forces in Kuala Lumpur, the Japanese have sent spies for infiltrating missions. The young Yok Man has been implicated by the incident... An uncanny bak kwa superhero has burst into the social media scene, leaving almost half a million Internet viewers agape with

Jesus, Joseph and the Marvelous Exchange

A homily for Christmas Eve

Matthew 1.18-25:

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 1She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

He was faced with a detestable duty. He was a man of compassion, even tenderness. But he was also a man honor, a man of stern code. His obedience to the Law was unwavering. The moment he learned that his fiancé was pregnant he knew that it was the end. The end, certainly, of their betrothment, and perhaps even the end of her life.

It was two millennia ago in the Roman-occupied land of Judea. The man was named Joseph. His fiancé was Mary. She was going to have a baby and it sure was not his. Compassion, honor and duty dueled within Joseph. He could not pretend there was no problem. She obviously had betrayed him. The whole town of Nazareth was watching.

Finally, Joseph decided Mary would have to pay the price for infidelity as his honor and the Law required, but tempered with mercy. Joseph determined to break his engagement to Mary and dismiss her from his life without fanfare, leaving her to fend for herself. It would clear the slate, restore his honor and was as least hurtful to the young woman as any just solution could be.
What the outcome might have been by Joseph’s plan we don’t know, because God revealed to him what was really going on, and Joseph changed his mind.

Joseph dreamed of an angel, who informed Joseph that Mary’s unborn child was of the Holy Spirit. The angel gave Joseph instructions: take Mary home as his wife and adopt Mary’s child as his own, giving him the name Jesus, an ordinary name then, meaning,“God helps.”

These things came to pass. In Joseph’s day, when a Jewish man gave a name to the child born to his wife, he was confirming the child as his own. Maybe others knew that Joseph was not the baby’s natural father, maybe they didn’t. It didn’t matter. When Joseph named the baby Jesus, he was also giving to Jesus his own identity, his own lineage. That is why Jesus could truly be said to be of the line of David, because Joseph was of David’s line and Joseph adopted Jesus as his own son. When Joseph named the child Jesus he was telling the world, “This child belongs to me, this child is my child.”

We give Joseph short shrift, perhaps because Joseph is treated somewhat cursorily in the Gospels. Mary gets a lot more play. Joseph never speaks. Joseph hears, Joseph dreams, Joseph acts and Joseph obeys, but not even one syllable of his speaking is related. Mary is the one with the speaking part. Her role is the most sought after in Christmas pageants.

Another pastor told me of one afternoon before the annual Christmas program, when a mother phoned the church office to say that her son, who was to play Joseph in the children's play, was sick and wouldn't be able to be there. “It's too late now to get another Joseph,” the director of the play said. “We'll just have to write him out of the script.” And they did. Joseph is easy to overlook and leave out.

In 1993, my wife played Mary in the Christmas pageant at our church. She got the part only because they needed our two-month-old daughter to play the baby Jesus, there being no other small infant in the congregation. Cathy and Elizabeth, Mary and Jesus, were a package deal, couldn’t get one without the other. But any guy off the street could have played Joseph. In fact, the pastor actually asked me, “Don, did you want to play Joseph or should I get a man from the choir to play him?” I said I would, but talk about feeling like a fifth wheel ... .

But more is going on with Joseph than is first apparent. A recurring theme of St. Paul is that Jesus' followers are adopted by God and made children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ. This should make us reconsider the significance of where Joseph fits in with God’s work. Joseph’s adoption of Jesus is highly significant.

What if Joseph had said no to the angel and had sent Mary away anyway? Can we imagine Jesus growing up in the home of an unwed, single mother, both Mary and Jesus therefore outcast from society? How would Jesus have conceived of God as his heavenly Father if Joseph had never taken on the role of Jesus’ earthly father? But father to Jesus Joseph was.

God adopts Jesus’ disciples as sons and daughters of God in the family of God. But first, God sent his Son to be adopted by Joseph into the family of mortals. Joseph affirmed on behalf of all humanity that God belongs with us, "God with us."

The symmetry of God being born into humanity and humanity thence being adopted to become, as Second Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature” is called the “marvelous exchange” in Roman Catholic catechism and theosis, or divinization, in the Eastern Church. It is to realize that God becomes one of us so that we may become like him, and so are perfected to live forever with God.

Theologian George Weigel explains, “God ‘exchanges’ his divinity for our humanity, thus enabling us to ‘exchange’ our weakness for his divine glory – the glory of which the angels sing to the shepherds of Bethlehem.” St. Paul proclaimed in Second Corinthians, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

This is possible because of the power of God, of course, but also because of the strength of Joseph. Joseph adopted the Son of God as the child of humankind, and through Christ God adopts you and me as children of God. This is a marvelous exchange indeed! Should we not see the symmetry of salvation and relationship – dare we say partnership – at work in the will of God and the obedience of Joseph? We see in Joseph’s story that we and God belong to each other in the one whom Joseph named Jesus, “God helps.”

High Low Matrix Coaching Model: Coaching Techniques for Will and Skill Issues

[extracted from 

http://coach4growth.com/coaching-skills/high-low-matrix-coaching-model-coaching-techniques-for-will-and-skill-issues ]

The High Low Matrix can help managers overcome one of the more challenging aspects of their role which is understanding what motivates their employees. It's easy to assume that because you are motivated by knowing you did a good job or by making an impact on your environment, that others feel this enthusiasm as well. In the real world, people have many different motivations.

In turn, people also have different levels of skill sets for particular tasks. Their level of skill can often depend on their experience, the level of training they have received, or the type of task itself.

Since most coaching techniques rely on the employees skills and their will to accomplish a goal, it is important to understand how these two aspects work together. This knowledge will help you to better craft your approach with your employees and teams to get the best results possible from each individual.

Let's start by introducing the High Low Matrix.

As you can see, the High Low Matrixcoaching model is a punet square of an employee'swill vs. skilland contains some coaching techniques to utilize based on where the associate falls.

Let's get into further detail about how to use this coaching model and discuss each of the coaching techniques to use once we've identified where our employee falls on the High Low Matrix.

First, how do we identify if an employee is exhibiting or feeling a high degree of will? This should be somewhat obvious from how they approach their work. If tasks that are not skill related are still delivered in a less than stellar fashion or their attitude has taken a change recently, you can infer that the associate's motivation has slipped. Utilizing the IGROW Model will help you to determine the root causes for any changes in behavior.

Assessing their skill is typically a much simpler task as it is likely why you are here. You have no doubt seen results from your employee or team that do not meet your expectations and therefore have determined a change must be made. Again, to determine the exact skill that the associate is struggling with that has caused the poor performance, the IGROW Model is recommended.

Now that you have determined both the employee's skill level and their will level, it is time to discuss the coaching techniques that you should apply based on where the employee falls in the High Low Matrix coaching model.

High Low Matrix Coaching Model: Advise

Are you faced with an employee that is highly motivated, yet as much as they want it, they just can't seem to deliver the results needed? This is your low skilled, high willed employee. In order to effectively apply coaching techniques to this type of employee, the Advise phase of the High Low Matrix coaching model should be applied.

Advising is focused on providing the skills necessary to turn the employee's motivation into success. By focusing on teaching or training the skill, you will leverage the employee's desire and provide them with the necessary tools to improve. Throughout the learning process, it is key that you continually give the employee praise and endorsement for their improvements.

Remember, you may be expecting great leaps, but even baby steps deserve some positive reinforcement. Skipping this valuable step could result in a backslide in will and you'll then have a whole other set of challenges to deal with.

High Low Matrix Coaching Model: Motivate

At the other end of the spectrum, you may be faced with an employee who has the necessary skill set to deliver and perhaps has delivered great results in the past, but is experiencing a will issue that is apparent in their performance. 

Again, utilizing the IGROW Model will help you to identify what has occurred or changed and impacted their level of motivation. This coaching model will also help you determine if your approach should be one of Coaching vs. Counseling. When faced with an employee who lacks the will there are some key areas to focus on while trying to re-engage the employee. 

Start by determining what the employee's 'hot buttons' or motivators are. This can be done as simply as by asking what they take the most pride in at work or how they like to be recognized for a job well done. Once you have determined their hot buttons, focus on them. 

Whenever the employee does deliver, use your new found knowledge to show your appreciation. Next you should determine if there are any road blocks or constraints that the employee is experiencing. Often times removing these road blocks or providing options, can alleviate their challenges with motivation.

High Low Matrix Coaching Model: Direct

For situations that involve a low skilled and low willed employee, the Direct coaching technique should be utilized. Directing is focused on a combination of the previously discussed coaching techniques applied together. Since this employee is not very skilled and is not very motivated, the two key areas to focus on are training and praising. You will first need to provide the employee with the tools to develop their skills.

This does not mean that the tools you provide, such as training, have to be new information to them, but can offer reinforcement to information they have already been presented with. Because the employee is not delivering results there can often be a challenge with their confidence level that is inhibiting their ability to apply new or existing skills.

Giving the employee low risk opportunities to practice their skills and to succeed, will give you the ability to provide them with the positive feedback they need, and will result in a confidence building experience for them. This is one of the better coaching techniques to apply with this type of employee.

High Low Matrix Coaching Model: Delegate

The last type of employee is the high skilled, high willed employee. These are typically your top performers that consistently provide results and strive to do a good job. They are a motivating force for themselves and typically for your team. If they are succeeding, you may wonder why we are discussing their development? 

Many schools of thought tell us to always focus on bringing up our bottom performers, and this often times leaves a lack of focus on our top performers. Since these high skilled, high willed employees are likely your future leaders, utilizing the Delegate coaching technique can help them to develop to the next level. 

Delegating is often misused in the business world today. Many managers use this technique not for development but as a way to reduce their work load or stress by shoving the work onto their team. This is not always a bad thing, but what most managers don't do is follow up on the opportunities they've delegated to others or provide them with the tools or resources to succeed. 

Delegation, when used effectively, will often take more time than just doing the task yourself. You should not be using this technique as a means to reduce your workload as you will be working through the task with your high performer, helping them to learn and master it. This is how development through delegation works. 

Giving your highly motivated top performers the opportunity to be challenged and to continue to learn will ensure they continue to be your highly motivated top performers. While delegating you should also focus on praising and endorsing what they do well as well as offering them opportunities to either make decisions or to collaborate on decisions being made. This will continue to instill a sense of ownership in them.

As we have discussed, each scenario you are faced with requires a different approach or coaching technique to achieve the desired results. To ensure you are successful in your approach, be sure to spend time prior to your coaching session thinking about where the associate falls, what motivates them, and what options you may want to offer. Being prepared for the discussion will make a great difference.

For greater details on how to build skill and motivation, see the article on the Motivational Chain of Events.

Quick Quote

 

Mom:  "Faith, your nose needs help." 

Faith: "I know.  He keeps saying 'Help! Someone help me!"

Fitur siri, iphone 4S.

  Info gatget terbaru. 

video

     Siri on iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.

It understands what you say.

Talk to Siri as you would to a person. Say something like “Tell my wife I’m running late.” “Remind me to call the vet.” “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your iPhone.

It knows what you mean.

Siri not only understands what you say, it’s smart enough to know what you mean. So when you ask “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri will reply “I found a number of burger restaurants near you.” Then you can say “Hmm. How about tacos?” Siri remembers that you just asked about restaurants, so it will look for Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood. And Siri is proactive, so it will question you until it finds what you’re looking for.

   

It helps you do the things you do every day.

Ask Siri to text your dad, remind you to call the dentist, or find directions, and it figures out which apps to use and who you’re talking about. It finds answers for you from the web through sources like Yelp and WolframAlpha. Using Location Services, it looks up where you live, where you work, and where you are. Then it gives you information and the best options based on your current location. From the details in your contacts, it knows your friends, family, boss, and coworkers. So you can tell Siri things like “Text Ryan I’m on my way” or “Remind me to make a dentist appointment when I get to work” or “Call a taxi” and it knows exactly what you mean and what to do.

iPhone 4S takes dictation.

Here’s another amazing way to get things done: just use your voice. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard. Then say what you want to say and iPhone listens. Tap Done, and iPhone converts your words into text. Use dictation to write messages, take notes, search the web, and more. Dictation also works with third-party apps, so you can update your Facebook status, tweet, or write and send Instagrams.

It has so much to tell you.

It has so much to tell you.When there’s something you need to do, just ask Siri to help you do it. Siri uses almost all the built-in apps on iPhone 4S. It writes and sends email messages and texts. It searches the web for anything you need to know. It plays the songs you want to hear. It gives you directions and shows you around. It places calls, schedules meetings, helps you remember, and wakes you up. In fact, ask Siri what it can do — it even speaks for itself.

        source apple.com

The government finance shell game

USAID gives dollars to China.

That's to say, we borrow money from China to give to China. Oh, don't worry. It's only a few million, and most of it goes to "promote clean energy." It sounds so reasonable when you put it like that. Who among us hasn't borrowed money from his loan shark in order to buy his loan shark a hybrid?

Have to say I agree with this: "Government finance has become a giant shell game in which there is no ball to find."

YILBAŞI KURABİYE VE ÇİKOLATALARI BÜYÜK BOY SET

BÜYÜK KUTU
8 ADET YENİYIL KURABİYESİ
4 ADET BÜYÜK ÇİKOLATA
8 ADET NOEL BABALI ÇİKOLATA KUTUSU
NOEL BABALI KUTU İÇERİSİNDE 6 ADET ÇİKOLATA DRAJE

YILBAŞI KURABİYE VE ÇİKOLATALARI ORTA BOY SET

Resim yazısı ekle

ORTA BOY KUTU

8 ADET YENİYIL KURABİYESİ

4 ADET NOEL BABA ÇİKOLATA KUTUSU

NOEL BABALI ÇİKOLATA KUTUSU İÇERİSİNDE 6 ADET ÇİKOLATA DRAJE

YILBAŞI KURABİYE VE ÇİKOLATALARI KÜÇÜK BOY SET

Resim yazısı ekle

KÜÇÜK BOY KUTU

4 ADET YENİYIL KURABİYESİ

2 ADET BÜYÜK ÇİKOLATA

2 ADET NOEL BABALI ÇİKOLATA KUTUSU

NOEL BABALI KUTU İÇERİSİNDE 6 ADET ÇİKOLATA DRAJE

Be Patient With Winning Trades....!

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR THE DAY : 

 

The way you're dealing with this common trading issue will determine your fate as a trader. Depending on what you do with your winners and losers you will either end up being a profitable trader or a trader losing money. A typical character trait of amateur traders is the inordinate amount of time they spend thinking about their biggest winners. They constantly want to take profits because of their need to satisfy their ego and their inability to cope with greed. Their thinking goes like this: "I should take profits because the stock has gone up."

Instead, they should do the exact opposite. They should cultivate an emotionally detached approach to trading, and most of their time should be spent monitoring and managing the losing positions in their portfolio. On the other hand a typical character trait of winning traders is the ability to cut losses. A few market adages that come to mind:

• Winners take care of themselves
• Patience is a virtue
• Ride your winners
• Stay calm and focused
• Cut your losses
• Always use stop losses
• Do more of the things that work
• Never add to a losing position

Be patient with winning trades; be enormously impatient with losing trades. Remember it is quite possible to make large sums trading/investing if we are "right" only 30% of the time, as long as our losses are small and our profits are large. Controlling losers is a must; let your winners run out of control. Of all speculative blunders, there are few greater than selling what shows a profit and keeping what shows a loss. Think twice before you sell a big winner. Instead, ask yourself why that huge losing position is still part of your portfolio. The best traders have no ego. You have to swallow your pride and get out of the losses.

North Korea: What do you do when your god dies?

That's "god," not "God:"



Found at Video: The weeping North Koreans

Don’t just sample the clip for 10 seconds. Watch to the end and drink in the full spectacle of grown men, prostrate, screaming in grief at the death of their subjugator. I take it state media beamed this out to show the world how unlikely a North Korean Spring is; it might be their first honest moment. Count me in with Michael Totten and Dan Foster in thinking these histrionics are more genuine than we’d like to believe. After all, lesser cult leaders like Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite have asked and gotten more from their followers than this; surely a few tears were in order in Pyongyang upon learning that God is dead. The whole point of totalitarian conditioning is to draw this reaction without needing soldiers to stand just out of frame pointing rifles at the crowd. Go figure that it actually works on some people.

You cannot reason someone out of something that they were never reasoned into.

The god is dead. Long live the new god!

Totalitarianism must evolve into a religion to survive. The cultic center of the religion must be the dictator. In Lenin's Russia, the religion was communism. Lenin and the party changed it to Marxism-Leninism, but Lenin did not live long enough to become a true cultic center.

Lenin's successor, Stalin, did, with all Stalinism's attendant horrors. After Stalin died in 1953, the Party determined that no general secretary would become a cultic figure again. Instead, they substituted a theology of an Ideal Time and a reformed humanity, the goal being formally announced in 1964 by GenSec Leonid Brezhnev as the attainment of True Communism.

Marxism is an eschatological ideology (a godless religion in its own right, really). The ideal time is when "the workers control the means of production" after the capitalists have been violently overthrown. Lee Harris explained the basic tenets of Marxism, and its fundamental flaws, in his excellent essay, "The Intellectual Origins of America-Bashing." Suffice it to say here that Marx considered revolution by the oppressed both essential and inevitable for true socialism to be established. This was a political version of Judgment Day, when the wicked capitalists would be judged and destroyed so that the pure in heart (the heavily romanticized working classes) could attain the Ideal Time.

This appealing but basically foolish ideology held power in the USSR for 70 years, abandoned long before its end by almost all the working classes themselves and most of the ruling class. Soviet communism became a shell game in which commissars and higher ranks lived large and the masses merely lived. Its Ideal Time, however, was hammered home by the propagandists as just around the corner. True Communism was always coming soon, a state in which material production was so great that all human needs were met without shortage. Greed would therefore disappear and the inherent but capitalist-suppressed natural nobility of men and women would emerge. They would be transformed into true communists - altruists who worked each day for the good of the people, not for crass, selfish profit.

That year, 1964, really marked the beginning of the long decline of Soviet communism because non-cultic True Communism required an exhaustively worked and intellectually rigorous theology founded on rationalistic, not cultic, bases. That eliminated Stalinism once for all and Brezhnevism never got started. But without a cultic figure the center would not hold. Brezhnev ruled from 1964 until his death in 1982. After his death, the USSR went through general secretaries like a kid eating candy until it dissolved in 1990-1991. Brezhnev's 18-year tenure is what made the USSR last as long as it did after Stalin's death.

The Party's problem with trying to remake the empire on a non-cultic, intellectual religion was that the state had to devote great efforts and resources into reasoning and educating its people into the religion, beginning the arduous process in pre-school and never ceasing it.

Cultic tyranny's major efforts are domestic, to maintain the regime and its supporting apparatus. Foreign and military endeavors by cultic dictators tend to do poorly because the apparatchiks are selected and elevated based on their loyalty to the leader, not their basic competence in their duties. So: for Stalin, the Great Patriotic War; for Saddam Hussein the Iran War, the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War - all bungled jobs by their cultic leaders.

It was not until the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ejected cultism from its ideology that the USSR became genuinely dangerous to the West. Brezhnev was never a cult figure, instead he was the leader of a triumphant, missionary religion. True Communism brought the USSR into nuclear-military-superpower status. It was under the banner of True communism that the USSR sponsored "wars of national liberation" in Asia and Africa and sought to subvert the governments of Europe and many others. Soviet-sponsored terrorist cells flourished in western Europe, such as the Rote Armee Fraktion in West Germany. Blessedly for the West and the world, Brezhnev was not succeeded by young, vigorous true believers but by aged Party-climbing apparatchiks who each had not long to live, until Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary. Gorbachev, however, was no true believer and True Communism held no thrall over him. Even before the Berlin Wall was hammered down, he and almost the whole regime were mightily glad to be quit of it.

Intellectually and religiously both, True Communism simply sputtered out, having been built on foundations of sand to begin with. Having exhausted itself by reasoning the people into True Communism, the state never recognized that people who are reasoned into something can be reasoned out (or reason themselves out), and there were more than enough smart Russians to figure out the flaws and inherent, fatal contradictions of the whole, phony system. (The coerced member states of the USSR pretty much never bought into this Russian religion in the first place.)

And so the whole intellectual, rationlistic-but-fragile edifice of True Communism could be brought crashing to ruin by, for example, asking the very simple question, "Who will carry the sewage under communism?"

"Take Kiev, for instance, and see how much of its one and a half million inhabitants arranges his own sewerage system, in his free time, and cleans it and maintains it in good order.

"Who, under communism, will bury the corpses? Will it be self-service or will amateurs carry out the work in their spare time? There is plenty of dirty work in a society and not everyone is a general or a diplomat. Who will carve up the pig carcasses? And who will sweep the streets and cart off the rubbish? . . . Will there be any waiters under communism? . . .

"And finally, for someone who at present has not the slightest idea about how to set about sewage-cleaning, like Comrade Yakubovskiy himself for instance, has he any personal interest at all in the arrival of that day, when he will have to clean up his own crap all by himself? . . .

"What, exactly, does an ordinary, run-of-the-mill Secretary of the District Party Committee stand to gain from this communism? Eh? Plenty of caviar? But he’s got so much caviar already that he can even eat it through his [rear end] if he wishes. A car? But he has two personal Volga cars and a private one as well. Medical care? Food, women, a country house? But he already has all these things. So our dear Secretary of the most Godforsaken District Party Committee stands to gain bugger-all from communism!"

North Korea decades ago ceased to be communist in any sense of the word. Kim Il Sung's objective was never communism, it was dictatorship, a goal he achieved brilliantly. Since then the overriding imperative of the regime has been simply stated and easily enforced: maintain the status quo for the regime no matter the cost in lives and treasure to the rest of the country.

What will change with the apparent succession to the throne of his grandson, Kim Jong Un? Let us hope nothing will. The country is making plenty of trouble in the world now. May its cultic religion remain, for if North Korea's dictator(s) ever get converted to a theology of True Communism, there will really be trouble, indeed.

Update: R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has more.