Yesterday I Read A Book. Yikes!

Yes, I admit it. I did.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am an internet marketer. I spend hours and hours in front of my computer, answering questions from my customers, working with prospects, improving my offering. I personally take calls from my customers and I react to ensure that their needs are met. I work hard to squeeze every dollar out of my website, both for me and for my affiliates.

But yesterday I read a book.

Nope, it wasn't a book on marketing, or persuasion, or Google.
Nope, it wasn't an e-book on web design or the latest tools to create nifty buttons.
It was a real, honest-to-goodness, paperback novel.

I didn't learn a thing about how to increase my conversions or attract more people to my website. What the heck was I thinking?!

I'm a small business owner. If I don't work, I don't eat. Every bit of revenue that comes in the door is directly related to the time I spend working, thinking, planning, building...

Interested? Read Yesterday I Read A Book. Yikes! in full

Play Is Serious Business For Childrens' Intelligence

Too many parents consider play as simply a means of
diverting and distracting their children. Playthings are
often seen as a means of keeping children happy, rewarding
them, keeping them out of mischief, and giving parents free
time.

Not often enough do parents think of play and toys as
fundamental aspects of a child's education, as a means
through which children learn to understand the world around
them, and as the primary method by which children acquire
many basic skills.

Parents can help make their children's play stimulating by
doing three things. First, they can...

Read Play Is Serious Business For Childrens' Intelligence in full

Ten Ways to Get Your Kids to Talk to You

Parents can often be frustrated by their kids’ unwillingness to share their lives with them. Whether your kids are toddlers or teens, there will be times when it’s difficult to “break through” and find out what‘s really going on. Here are ten ideas on how to create opportunities for your kids to open up and share their lives with you.

1. Don't try so hard to get them to talk

The harder you try to get them to talk, the more they'll resist you. When you relax the pressure a bit, they’ll sense it, and be more ready to talk.

2. Slow down your own life and be available

Kids have a keen sense of how busy you are. If you're providing enough down time for you and your kids, they'll be more likely to feel comfortable talking to you.

3. Engage in a physical activity that they enjoy

Some kids are more comfortable when they’re moving. Shooting baskets, playing soccer, or a game of...

Read full version of Ten Ways to Get Your Kids to Talk to You

What a C.I.A. Black Ops Officer Taught Me About Copywriting

When I was in the Air Force, I had the opportunity to attend a very 'special' training course taught by very 'special' instructors.

One of my instructors was a former Navy S.E.A.L. who had left the Navy to join the C.I.A. as a special operations officer. This guy had seen combat in several different theaters of operation, during many public (and some not so public) conflicts.

One of the things he taught us during this 'advanced' training course was a highly specialized shooting technique called the "Mozambique" (also known as the double tap failure drill.)

This is the primary handgun shooting technique used by all elite U.S. military units, such as the Navy SEALS, Army DELTA Force, C.I.A. Black Ops and a few others I won??t mention by name?­

The basic technique is to fire two rapid shots (called a double tap) to the targets center of mass (middle of the chest) and then raise your weapon up in a straight line, just a hair and put another round in the center of the head.

Two in the heart?­ One in the head?­

In a real life scenario, this technique is devised to provide a guarantee of eliminating your target even if the bad guy is wearing body armor (and thus the two rounds in the chest are ineffective.)

We trained on this technique for days. Against stationary targets, moving targets, simultaneous engagement of multiple targets, from prone position, crouching position, behind barricades, single handed firing, firing with our weaker hand (to simulate an injury to your primary shooting arm), under low light conditions?­ Every scenario you (or some sadistic ex-SEAL, C.I.A. spook) could imagine.

The entire time our instructor is yelling:­ "Two in the heart, one in the head! ­Two in the heart, one in the head! Two in the heart, one in the head!" Over and over and over?..

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Blame Game

I have heard or read the phrase “blame game” at least fifty times today. Everyone is talking about who did & didn’t do their jobs during & after Hurricane Katrina. At first, the phrase just grated on the ear, an instantly appropriate cliché, but after the twentieth repetition it became clear that the phrase is intended to trivialize the idea of political accountability. We are told by spokespersons & pundits that “this is not the time to play the blame game,” and...

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We the People?

This post does not seem to be another mehehe

There is a libertarian meme going around that the debacle of FEMA and DHS response shows that the government is too big, thus has to be slashed further.

But, it is not the size of the government that matters, no matter what kind of metric you use to measure it. It is what you understand the government to be.

What matters is:

a) purpose - something that FEMA lost under Bush;

b) efficiency - something that FEMA lost under Brownie;

c) relationship between Federal and local governments - it is understandable that Republican Feds and Democratic locals (e.g., LA governor, senator and mayor) mistrusted each other, questioned each other's motives and faught for control;

d) relationship between the government employees and the local citizens:

In NYC on 9/11 local cops, firefighters, EMTs, spontaneously organized citizen's groups and...

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Pope John Paul II

As the Pope lingers near death, exemplifying for us all the redemptive power of suffering and the meaningfulness of life, all life, from its beginning at conception through the instant of death, it is perhaps a good time to consider whether he is, as I noted in passing below, the greatest man of the last century. I see only three other potential candidates:

Pope John Paul II in full

Why I Decided to Go to Law School

I suggest you to read this piece of writing. Read and then re-read. Then think about it.

If you want to work for a law firm, you’re probably not my target audience. This column will sound stupid to you anyway. You’re thinking, “Why in the world would anyone decide to spend three years of their lives and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on an education to become something they don’t even know if they want to be?” It’s a fair question. I know that question well. Here’s the answer:

We’re scared out of our minds.

Law school is an easy choice. You’re good at school. You like school. But you have no idea what you really want to spend your life doing. Or, even worse, you know exactly what you want to spend your life doing, but you have no idea how you end up in that position. You have no idea how you become a sports agent or a movie producer or an inventor or a novelist. Or you think you might have an idea of how people do those things, but you know you’re just one of a hundred thousand people chasing that same dream and only three will make it and how do you make sure it’s you, and so maybe you should give it up, realize not everyone gets to be what they dream of, and find a safe career to fall back on. Or at least give yourself the option of falling back, because maybe if you have that law degree in your back pocket, it’ll give you the courage you need to take that risk and go follow your real passion.

Everyone who says “I don’t know why I decided to go to law school” knows exactly why they decided to go to law school. “I didn’t want to end up regretting that I didn’t.”

Read more at Jeremy's Weblog

Dilemma on NATO's Purpose After Cold War

This piece of writing is worth considering!!

The collapse of socialistic block by the late 1990s gave rise to doubts as to timeliness of the North Treaty Alliance Organization that in fact had accomplished its mission and essential role. Realistic logic concerning military alliances, based on historic experience of the Cold War, gave reasons to believe in incapability of either military block to outlast the collapse of the other.

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Patrick Hume is professional political scientist. With a Master's degree in International Relations, Patrick specializes in writing on political history and international issues of current importance.

CCM Recording Label Case Study

CCM, Colorado Creative Music, is music recording studio, founded in 1995 by Darren Curtis Skanson, primarily established as vanity label for producing, promoting and selling his own records, and consequently developed into microlabel with 4 product lines and 11 different albums. In 2000, the company sold 30,000 of Darren Curtis Skanson CDs and received net profit of $4,292.00. The company aims at expanding its customer base, acquire more popularity, and develop the company from microlabel to the independent one.

Read full version of CCM Recording Label Case Study Part 1

The STEP analysis of the Colorado Creative Music aims at analyzing macro-environmental factors of the music business the company is engaged into. These factors fall into political, economical, social and technological groups...

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The value chain analysis consists of the following components arranged in sequence: artists and repertoire development, recording, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and finally retail. Such chains as manufacture, recording and retail are very often outsourced, even by the Great Five (Warner Music group, EMI Recorded Music, Universal, BMG Entertainment and Sony Music Group).

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Since Darren Skanson is the only investor in the company so far, the return on equity figures are somewhat relative, showing relation between the net income and Darren's investment into the company. However, the figures, as those of net profit margin, show the trend towards return on equity decreasing. This indicates growing expenses of the firm with relatively stable income, which along with the sales volume grows, but not in the rate comparable to the expenses. To be attractive for potential investors, the company has to leverage its income and expenses figures.

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Anastasia Kurdina is my favorite author 8-) . Almost every her writing is followed by lavish testimonials from satisfied customers. Anastasia specializes in marketing, management, sociology, politics, and history.
Anastasia Kurdina is not an essay writer in a common sense. She is a Poet, an Analyst (you read her mega-article), an Artist, a Critic, ... .

How To Blog for Fun and Profit

Okay, no blog is a good blog if it doesn't have traffic right? Well not exactly you can have a great blog that doesn't get traffic. The point is that you need to have a strategy for getting traffic to that awesome blog of yours. So I'm going to talk about generating traffic to your blog. There are few things you need to consider when are thinking about generating traffic to your blog and these aren't any different than if you were planning for a regular web site.

The exception is that blogs will generate traffic much quicker. I didn't say A LOT of traffic much quicker. Just much quicker. You need to consider your target audience and from where you are generating your traffic.

Blogs can do can do anything a regular web site will do, they just do it faster and they do it better. Let's get right into it shall we?

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Writing Online

I encourage you to visit my new blog Writing Online.

Writing Online is my new writing blog. It is not a mere chaqnce that I mentioned the word 'writing'. Unlike 'I Like These Articles', this blog will be dedicated to the art of writing entirely.

Enjoy!

Serge
Blogmaster

What Is The Spiritual Path?

For many years of my life, I thought the spiritual path had something to do with following one of the major world religions or pursuing an Eastern practice. I even thought it had something to do with morality and ethics. Today my comprehension of the spiritual path has changed completely. Instead of the complexity of any of the disciplines to becoming a good person, I have found that the path is simple. In fact, some of the greatest atheists have followed it better than many theists. An example that comes to mind is the famous British Philosopher Bertrand Russell, who lived an impeccable life of wisdom, compassion, and grace..

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Saleem Rana got his masters in psychotherapy from California Lutheran University. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life. Free information. http://theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html.

Expose the Damage: TV and Kids

Millions of kids under the age of two are watching
TV in this country. In fact, according to a study
by the Kaiser Family Foundation of over 1,000
parents, about 65% of kids under age two are
watching TV, and they're averaging over two hours
of watching a day.
They're watching even though the American Academy
of Pediatrics recommends no TV for kids under age
two. They're watching even though this is a
crucial period for their cognitive development, at an
age when their brains are still being formed.
And the news for these kids just got worse.

Read full version of Expose the Damage: TV and Kids

Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC, coaches men to be
better fathers and husbands. He is the author of
"25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers"
http://www.markbrandenburg.com/father.htm.
Sign up for his FREE bi-weekly newsletter, "Dads, Don't
Fix Your Kids," at http://www.markbrandenburg.com.

Management Development - Micromanagement Works!

Ever been told not to micromanage your people? Because it irritates them and is a waste of your time, their time and leads to bad habits? Well it's all true. If you micromanage your people in all that they do, it will drive you and them nuts. But there is a way that micromanaging brings huge benefits to your management performance.

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Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He
works worldwide, with small business owners, managers and
corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at
his website, www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com

Hoopty Rides

A TEQUILA SUNRISE van? A round bed and velvet bedspread with dimples like an orange? With a sunset airbrushed overhead? And a minibike on the back bumper? And a tequila filled jerry can with a spigot? Painted to look like a Cuervo label?

Beowulf? Star Wars? Moulin Rouge? Champagne? Old West Whorehouse? I don't mind getting stuck in gridlock traffic as much as some people because there is always a new custom van theme to consider.

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A Cure for Writer's Block

Writer's block is a favourite topic of writer's, and no wonder….nearly every writer suffers from it at some crucial point in their careers. Writer's block usually comes to visit at the most inopportune times, like during projects of tremendous importance where there's not a moment to waste, or when there are firm deadlines involved and a nasty boss waiting in the next room anticipating a brilliant end-product. Writer's block is such a prevalent problem that articles, essays, books, and entire websites have been dedicated to the topic.

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Ruth Ritchie-Farmer is the managing editor of Ritchie Media, and the author of Successful Thoughts, Successful People: A Collection of Quotations. Visit her on the web at http://www.whytedove.net to pick up your copy today.

Comments from a Book Reviewer

Today, with the advent of the Internet, there has been a proliferation of book reviewers, whom I shall classify as the good, the bad and the ugly. Those falling within the last category are ones that you have to be particularly on the look out for, as their only interest is to receive complimentary books without bothering to review them, or if they do review them, their reviews are very short and without substance. On the other hand,...

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Norm Goldman is editor of bookpleasures.com, a book reviewing site, and sketchandtravel.com, a travel site. Norm is a regular book reviewer for his own site, bookpleasures.com, as well as for Amazon.com: Blether.com: Bookideas.com: Midwestbookreview.com: and many others. To find out more about Norm, refer to Bookpleasures.com or Sketchandtravel.com

Expert Judgements in Sociology

In the present context expert examination has become an integral part of such spheres of social activity as executive decision-making, legislative process, election campaigns, organizational management, journalism, public relations, science, education and culture management etc. Expert services and expert activity have turned into important form of knowledge functioning, and in the actual period of society development are valuable kinds of scientific research and practical project implementation. Though nowadays, there arose rather contradictory situation: despite expertise becoming a norm of social life, very forward-looking and prestige form of activity, far from all methodological problems related to expert judgments application are elaborated equally profoundly.

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Jenny Gartner is a professional writer. Since her first writing, Jenny produced over three hundred (!) works including numerous essays, reports and research papers, dozens of case studies and several journal articles. Get to know her better now at Your Personal Writer. We're not offering you custom written essays and term papers, we offer you freedom.

Custom Writing Services Market Overview

It is noteworthy that there are companies in the market that offer both custom-written and pre-written papers. This, however, may have nothing to do with violation of ethics, but what about privacy of those students who previously ordered a custom-written paper, which might have been later re-sold to another student?

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Serge Chepurko is one of the best - though relatively young - writers employed by Your Personal Writer. Over the year that Serge's been writing for living he produced more than 200 quality essays, case studies, research papers and term papers on management, sociology, history, and literature. Serge is MA in organizational management.
Learn more about Serge and other professional writers at Your Personal Writer. Save you time for things that matter.

Ecommerce Marketing Plan

The industry of e-commerce is one of the fastest and most dynamically developing industries worldwide. Today it is quite difficult to accurately define the impact of the Internet on commerce in exact figures, but according to the estimates by 2000 there were about 260 million Internet users worldwide and by mid 2003 their number has grown more than twice and reached 580 millions. By 2005...

Read full version of Ecommerce Marketing Plan

Anastasia Kurdina is a person of manifold gifts. Almost every her writing is followed by lavish testimonials from satisfied customers. Anastasia specializes in marketing, management, world cultures, and art. Anastasia is not an essay writer in a common sense. She is a Poet, an Analyst, an Artist, a Critic, ... . Get to know her better now at Your Personal Writer. We're not offering you custom written essays and term papers, we offer you freedom.

The Collapse of Enron

The downfall of Enron Corporation is one of the most infamous and shocking events in financial world in the whole history of the mankind, and its reverberations were felt on global scale. Prior to its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the US leading companies and frequently considered among top 10 admired corporations and most desired places to work, and its board was often recognized among the best five US companies in accordance with the Fortune magazine.

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Anastasia Kurdina is a person of manifold gifts. Almost every her writing is followed by lavish testimonials from satisfied customers. Anastasia specializes in marketing, management, sociology, history, world cultures, literature and art.
Anastasia is not an essay writer in a common sense. She is a Poet, an Analyst, an Artist, a Critic, ... .
Get to know her better now at Personal-Writer.Com :: Online Writing Assistance.

Great Beginnings

Today I am starting this new blog to introduce you fresh and extremely interesting articles I see on the Web and to publish them (copyright, I remember :-) ) in my blog.

A thematic approach to this new 'archive' is not limited with several themes of my personal interest. I would like to create a collective of articles that touch. I mean, articles that would touch anyone's heart and/or mind.

The blog is called 'I Like These Articles'. However, I believe articles published in the blog will be of value not to me only. Hope you'll like 'em too :).

I encourage you to leave your comments on the material. Have you got questions? Remarks? Testimonials? Anything... Feel free to leave your comments or drop me a note - opinions@personal-writer.com - I'm very reachable, and willing to answer your questions or discuss your articles.

I wish you good spirit.

Good luck!

Serge Chepurko
Blogmaster