97% of Terminal Cancer Patients Previously Had This Procedure - Healthy Holistic Living

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http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/97-terminal-cancer-patients-previously-procedure.html?t=mam

97% of Terminal Cancer Patients Previously Had This Procedure

Do you have a chronic degenerative disease? If so, have you been told, "It's all in your head?"

Well, that might not be that far from the truth… the root cause of your illness may be in your mouth.

There is a common dental procedure that nearly every dentist will tell you is completely safe, despite the fact that scientists have been warning of its dangers for more than 100 years.

Every day in the United States alone, 41,000 of these dental procedures are performed on patients who believe they are safely and permanently fixing their problem.

What is this dental procedure?

The root canal.

More than 25 million root canals are performed every year in this country.

Root-canaled teeth are essentially "dead" teeth that can become silent incubators for highly toxic anaerobic bacteria that can, under certain conditions, make their way into your bloodstream to cause a number of serious medical conditions—many not appearing until decades later.

Most of these toxic teeth feel and look fine for many years, which make their role in systemic disease even harder to trace back.

Sadly, the vast majority of dentists are oblivious to the serious potential health risks they are exposing their patients to, risks that persist for the rest of their patients' lives. The American Dental Association claims root canals have been proven safe, but they have NO published data or actual research to substantiate this claim.

Fortunately, I had some early mentors like Dr. Tom Stone and Dr. Douglas Cook, who educated me on this issue nearly 20 years ago. Were it not for a brilliant pioneering dentist who, more than a century ago, made the connection between root-canaled teeth and disease, this underlying cause of disease may have remained hidden to this day. The dentist's name was Weston Price—regarded by many as the greatest dentist of all time.

Weston A. Price: World's Greatest Dentist

Most dentists would be doing an enormous service to public health if they familiarized themselves with the work of Dr. Weston Priceⁱ. Unfortunately, his work continues to be discounted and suppressed by medical and dental professionals alike.

Dr. Price was a dentist and researcher who traveled the world to study the teeth, bones, and diets of native populations living without the "benefit" of modern food. Around the year 1900, Price had been treating persistent root canal infections and became suspicious that root-canaled teeth always remained infected, in spite of treatments. Then one day, he recommended to a woman, wheelchair bound for six years, to have her root canal tooth extracted, even though it appeared to be fine.

She agreed, so he extracted her tooth and then implanted it under the skin of a rabbit. The rabbit amazingly developed the same crippling arthritis as the woman and died from the infection 10 days later. But the woman, now free of the toxic tooth, immediately recovered from her arthritis and could now walk without even the assistance of a cane.

Price discovered that it's mechanically impossible to sterilize a root-canaled (e.g. root-filled) tooth.

He then went on to show that many chronic degenerative diseases originate from root-filled teeth—the most frequent being heart and circulatory diseases. He actually found 16 different causative bacterial agents for these conditions. But there were also strong correlations between root-filled teeth and diseases of the joints, brain and nervous system. Dr. Price went on to write two groundbreaking books in 1922 detailing his research into the link between dental pathology and chronic illness. Unfortunately, his work was deliberately buried for 70 years, until finally one endodontist named George Meinig recognized the importance of Price's work and sought to expose the truth.

Dr. Meinig Advances the Work of Dr. Price

Dr. Meinig, a native of Chicago, was a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II before moving to Hollywood to become a dentist for the stars. He eventually became one of the founding members of the American Association of Endodontists (root canal specialists).

In the 1990s, he spent 18 months immersed in Dr. Price's research. In June of 1993, Dr. Meinig published the book Root Canal Cover-Up, which continues to be the most comprehensive reference on this topic today. You can order your copy directly from the Price-Pottenger Foundationⁱⁱ.

What Dentists Don't Know About the Anatomy of Your Teeth

Your teeth are made of the hardest substances in your body.

In the middle of each tooth is the pulp chamber, a soft living inner structure that houses blood vessels and nerves. Surrounding the pulp chamber is the dentin, which is made of living cells that secrete a hard mineral substance. The outermost and hardest layer of your tooth is the white enamel, which encases the dentin.

The roots of each tooth descend into your jawbone and are held in place by the periodontal ligament. In dental school, dentists are taught that each tooth has one to four major canals. However, there are accessory canals that are never mentioned. Literally miles of them!

Just as your body has large blood vessels that branch down into very small capillaries, each of your teeth has a maze of very tiny tubules that, if stretched out, would extend for three miles. Weston Price identified as many as 75 separate accessory canals in a single central incisor (front tooth). For a more detailed explanation, refer to an article by Hal Huggins, DDS, MS, on the Weston A. Price Foundation website.ⁱⁱⁱ (These images are borrowed from the Huggins article.)

Microscopic organisms regularly move in and around these tubules, like gophers in underground tunnels.

When a dentist performs a root canal, he or she hollows out the tooth, then fills the hollow chamber with a substance (called guttapercha), which cuts off the tooth from its blood supply, so fluid can no longer circulate through the tooth. But the maze of tiny tubules remains. And bacteria, cut off from their food supply, hide out in these tunnels where they are remarkably safe from antibiotics and your own body's immune defenses.

The Root Cause of Much Disease

Under the stresses of oxygen and nutrient deprivation, these formerly friendly organisms morph into stronger, more virulent anaerobes that produce a variety of potent toxins. What were once ordinary, friendly oral bacteria mutate into highly toxic pathogens lurking in the tubules of the dead tooth, just awaiting an opportunity to spread.

No amount of sterilization has been found effective in reaching these tubules—and just about every single root-canaled tooth has been found colonized by these bacteria, especially around the apex and in the periodontal ligament. Oftentimes, the infection extends down into the jawbone where it creates cavitations—areas of necrotic tissue in the jawbone itself.

Cavitations are areas of unhealed bone, often accompanied by pockets of infected tissue and gangrene. Sometimes they form after a tooth extraction (such as a wisdom tooth extraction), but they can also follow a root canal. According to Weston Price Foundation, in the records of 5,000 surgical cavitation cleanings, only two were found healed.

And all of this occurs with few, if any, accompanying symptoms. So you may have an abscessed dead tooth and not know it. This focal infection in the immediate area of the root-canaled tooth is bad enough, but the damage doesn't stop there.

Root Canals Can Lead to Heart, Kidney, Bone, and Brain Disease

As long as your immune system remains strong, any bacteria that stray away from the infected tooth are captured and destroyed. But once your immune system is weakened by something like an accident or illness or other trauma, your immune system may be unable to keep the infection in check.

These bacteria can migrate out into surrounding tissues by hitching a ride into your blood stream, where they are transported to new locations to set up camp. The new location can be any organ or gland or tissue.

Dr. Price was able to transfer diseases harbored by humans to rabbits, by implanting fragments of root-canaled teeth, as mentioned above. He found that root canal fragments from a person who had suffered a heart attack, when implanted into a rabbit, would cause a heart attack in the rabbit within a few weeks.

He discovered he could transfer heart disease to the rabbit 100 percent of the time! Other diseases were more than 80 percent transferable by this method. Nearly every chronic degenerative disease has been linked with root canals, including:

• Heart disease
• Kidney disease
• Arthritis, joint, and rheumatic diseases
• Neurological diseases (including ALS and MS)
• Autoimmune diseases (Lupus and more)

There may also be a cancer connection. Dr. Robert Jones, a researcher of therelationship between root canals and breast cancer, found an extremely high correlation between root canals and breast cancer.^iv He claims to have found the following correlations in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases:

• 93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals
• 7 percent had other oral pathology
• Tumors, in the majority of cases, occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal(s) or other oral pathology

Dr. Jones claims that toxins from the bacteria in an infected tooth or jawbone are able to inhibit the proteins that suppress tumor development. A German physician reported similar findings. Dr. Josef Issels reported that, in his 40 years of treating "terminal" cancer patients, 97 percent of his cancer patients had root canals. If these physicians are correct, the cure for cancer may be as simple as having a tooth pulled, then rebuilding your immune system.

Good Bugs Gone Bad

How are these mutant oral bacteria connected with heart disease or arthritis? The ADA and the AAE claim it's a "myth" that the bacteria found in and around root-canaled teeth can cause disease^v. But they base that on the misguided assumption that the bacteria in these diseased teeth are the SAME as normal bacteria in your mouth—and that's clearly not the case.

Today, bacteria can be identified using DNA analysis, whether they're dead or alive, from their telltale DNA signatures.

In a continuation of Dr. Price's work, the Toxic Element Research Foundation (TERF) used DNA analysis to examine root-canaled teeth, and they found bacterial contamination in 100 percent of the samples tested. They identified 42 different species of anaerobic bacteria in 43 root canal samples. In cavitations, 67 different bacteria were identified among the 85 samples tested, with individual samples housing between 19 to 53 types of bacteria each. The bacteria they found included the following types:

• Capnocytophagaochracea^vi
• Fusobacteriumnucleatum^vii
• Gemellamorbillorum ^viii
• Leptotrichiabuccalis
• Porphyromonasgingivalis ^ix

Are these just benign, ordinary mouth bugs? Absolutely not. Four can affect your heart, three can affect your nerves, two can affect your kidneys, two can affect your brain, and one can infect your sinus cavities… so they are anything BUT friendly! (If you want see just how unfriendly they can be, I invite you to investigate the footnotes.)

Approximately 400 percent more bacteria were found in the blood surrounding the root canal tooth than were found in the tooth itself, suggesting the tooth is the incubatorand the periodontal ligament is the food supply. The bone surrounding root-canaled teeth was found even HIGHER in bacterial count… not surprising, since bone is virtual buffet of bacterial nutrients.

Since When is Leaving A Dead Body Part IN Your Body a Good Idea?

There is no other medical procedure that involves allowing a dead body part to remain in your body. When your appendix dies, it's removed. If you get frostbite or gangrene on a finger or toe, it is amputated. If a baby dies in utero, the body typically initiates a miscarriage.

Your immune system doesn't care for dead substances, and just the presence of dead tissue can cause your system to launch an attack, which is another reason to avoid root canals—they leave behind a dead tooth.

Infection, plus the autoimmune rejection reaction, causes more bacteria to collect around the dead tissue. In the case of a root canal, bacteria are given the opportunity to flush into your blood stream every time you bite down.

Why Dentists Cling to the Belief Root Canals are Safe

The ADA rejects Dr. Price's evidence, claiming root canals are safe, yet they offer no published data or actual research to substantiate their claim. American Heart Association recommends a dose of antibiotics before many routine dental procedures to prevent infective endocarditis (IE) if you have certain heart conditions that predispose you to this type of infection.

So, on the one hand, the ADA acknowledges oral bacteria can make their way from your mouth to your heart and cause a life-threatening infection.

But at the same time, the industry vehemently denies any possibility that these same bacteria—toxic strains KNOWN to be pathogenic to humans—can hide out in your dead root-canaled tooth to be released into your blood stream every time you chew, where they can damage your health in a multitude of ways.

Is this really that large of a leap? Could there be another reason so many dentists, as well as the ADA and the AAE, refuse to admit root canals are dangerous? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Root canals are the most profitable procedure in dentistry.^x

What You Need to Know to AVOID a Root Canal

I strongly recommend never getting a root canal. Risking your health to preserve a tooth simply doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, there are many people who've already have one. If you have, you should seriously consider having the tooth removed, even if it looks and feels fine. Remember, as soon as your immune system is compromised, your risk of of developing a serious medical problem increases—and assaults on your immune system are far too frequent in today's world.

If you have a tooth removed, there are a few options available to you.

1. Partial denture: This is a removable denture, often just called a "partial." It's the simplest and least expensive option.
2. Bridge: This is a more permanent fixture resembling a real tooth but is a bit more involved and expensive to build.
3. Implant: This is a permanent artificial tooth, typically titanium, implanted in your gums and jaw. There are some problems with these due to reactions to the metals used. Zirconium is a newer implant material that shows promise for fewer complications.

But just pulling the tooth and inserting some sort of artificial replacement isn't enough.

Dentists are taught to remove the tooth but leave your periodontal ligament. But as you now know, this ligament can serve as a breeding ground for deadly bacteria. Most experts who've studied this recommend removing the ligament, along with one millimeter of the bony socket, in order to drastically reduce your risk of developing an infection from the bacterially infected tissues left behind.

I strongly recommend consulting a biological dentist because they are uniquely trained to do these extractions properly and safely, as well as being adept at removing mercury fillings, if necessary. Their approach to dental care is far more holistic and considers the impact on your entire body—not JUST your mouth.

If you need to find a biological dentist in your area, I recommend visiting toxicteeth.org^xi, a resource sponsored by Consumers for Dental Choice. This organization, championed by Charlie Brown, is a highly reputable organization that has fought to protect and educate consumers so that they can make better-informed decisions about their dental care. The organization also heads up the Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry.

References:

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• ⁱ Weston A. Price Foundation
• ⁱⁱ Price-Pottenger Foundation
• ⁱⁱⁱ Weston A. Price Foundation June 25, 2010
• ^iv Quantum Cancer Management
• ^v American Association of Endodontists
• ^vi Journal of Clinical Microbiology February 2007
• ^vii Journal of Clinical Microbiology July 2003
• ^viii Clinical Infectious Diseases June 1996
• ^ix Science Daily January 4, 2011
• ^x The Wealthy Dentist July 12, 2011
• ^xi ToxicTeeth.org

~A.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/federal-court-gives-early-christmas-present-to-war-criminals-bush-cheney-rumsfeld-and-others-immunizing-them-from-civil-inquiry-regarding-iraq-war/5421218

Federal Court Gives "Early Christmas Present" to War Criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Others, Immunizing Them From Civil Inquiry Regarding Iraq War

Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a civil claim filed against George W. Bush and other high-ranking officials regarding their conduct in planning and waging the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.

"This is an early Christmas present to former Bush Administration officials from the federal court," Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Comar brought the claim on behalf of an Iraqi refugee and single mother, Sundus Shaker Saleh. "This was a serious attempt to hold US leaders accountable under laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. I am very disappointed at the outcome."

The tribunal at Nuremberg, established in large part by the United States after World War II, declared international aggression the "supreme international crime" and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars.

The case alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War. Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that high-ranking Bush officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq, and that they issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true.

"The decision guts Nuremberg," Comar said. "Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite."

The court's ruling comes in the wake of the Senate report regarding the use of torture by the CIA during the Bush Administration. The Senate report confirmed that a false confession obtained from the torture of Ibn Shaykh al-Libi was cited by the Administration in support of the war.

Comar, a corporate attorney based out of Impact Hub San Francisco, primarily works with startups and venture funds. He took the case pro bono after learning about the plight of Iraqi refugees displaced through the Iraq War. Comar connected with Saleh through mutual colleagues in San Francisco.

Comar filed the initial complaint on March 13, 2013. While Comar recognizes the year-and-a-half-long effort was a long-shot, he remains steadfast. "The plaintiff will consider all her options, including an appeal. Judicial inquiry into possible wrong-doing that led to the Iraq War is warranted."

In August 2013, Obama's Department of Justice requested that the lawsuit be dismissed pursuant to the Westfall Act, a federal law that immunizes any government official from a civil lawsuit if that official was acting "within the scope of his office or employment." Judge Jon S. Tigar, an Obama appointee, ruled that the defendants were shielded by the Westfall Act regardless of the allegations made in the Complaint.

The case is Saleh v. Bush (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2013, No. C 13 1124 JST). The opinion can be found at http://witnessiraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/12-19-14-Order.pdf. The Second Amended Complaint subject to the dismissal can be found at http://witnessiraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/SAC.pdf. Other court filings and updates can be found at http://witnessiraq.com.

Contact: Inder Comar 

Email: inder@comarlaw.com

Website: www.comarlaw.com

Office: (415) 562-6790

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~A.

How To Begin Rebuilding Your Life And Make It Ridiculously Amazing | The Mind Unleashed

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/12/begin-rebuilding-life-make-ridiculously-amazing.html

How To Begin Rebuilding Your Life And Make It Ridiculously Amazing

Luminita D. Saviuc, Purpose Fairy, Guest

"Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures." ~ Joseph Addison

What if one day you woke up and decided that you were tired of feeling tired and that you had enough of everything? Enough of stress and anxiety, enough of anger and resentment, enough of struggle, lack, pain and poverty, enough of tears, heartbreaks, self destructive thoughts, behaviors and relationships and enough of all that is negative and toxic? What if you decided that you wanted to change yourself and your life but didn't know where exactly to start, what then?

There are many things you can do to begin rebuilding your life and make it ridiculously amazing and today I will share with you 12 things that are meant to help you do just that. Are you ready? Let's begin:

1. Make a commitment to yourself

I (name),

Make a commitment to myself,

To spend so much time improving myself and my life that I have no time for worry,  judgement, criticism, whining and complaining;

To forgive, release and let go of my attachment to any past struggles and allow every challenge life sends my way to make me better not bitter.

Starting now, I make a commitment to let go of what's behind me and start appreciating what's in front of me;

To let go of all the pointless drama, all the toxic relationships, thoughts and behaviors that are present in my life and to constantly shift my focus from the bad on to the good;

To make room in my heart for love, happiness, peace and tranquility and to create my life from a place of infinite choices and possibilities – the present moment, and no longer from a place of limitations – the past.

I commit to staying true to myself at all times and to never betray myself just so I can please other people.

I commit myself to give up on toxic thought, behaviors and relationships but never on myself and my dreams.

Starting now and starting today, I will  begin rebuilding my life and to make it ridiculously amazing.

Sincerely,
(name)

Once you truly commit to rebuilding your life and making it ridiculously amazing, nothing and no one will be able to stand in your way.

2. Forgive, release and let go of past hurts and resentments

Fill your heart with love. Forgive, release and let go. Not necessary because those who mistreated you deserve it, but because you do. Let forgiveness liberate you from your past. Allow it to take away all the resentment you kept in heart for all this time and allow yourself to fill in that empty space with love, inner peace and compassion.

If others mistreated you in the past it doesn't mean you have to continue their work. Look how beautiful Mark Twain talks about this: "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."

Release and let go of all the negativity from your life. Start small and trust that as you work on letting go of all the extra baggage that is weighting you down, you will begin to feel lighter and you will gain a lot more clarity over your life. You will feel happier and more at peace with yourself and the world around you.

3. Embrace with grace all that you face

Shift your focus from the bad on to the good, from the pain on to the gain, from resentment on to the forgiveness, gratitude and appreciation. Learn to embrace with grace all that you face.

Appreciate everything life sends your way, whether good or bad and know that "Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~ Melody Beattie

4. Visualize your achievements and create your destiny

Ask yourself the same question I asked myself a few years ago when I decided to let go of my attachment to my past and begin rebuild my whole life: "If there were no limits to what I can do, be and have, how would my life look like?"

Let your imagination run wild. Dare to dream big. Don't settle for less than you are worth.

The richer your imagination, the more beautiful your life will be.

"The power of imagination is incredible. Often we see athletes achieving unbelievable results and wonder how they did it. One of the tools they use is visualization or mental imagery… they made the choice to create their destinies and visualized their achievements before they ultimately succeeded." ~ George Kohlrieser

See in your mind's eye the life you would love to live, the person you would love to become and the relationships you would want to have. Live your life from the end and act as if all of the things you need and desire are already present in your life. Feel the feelings that come from having all those wonderful things happen to you and allow those feelings to be with you at all times.

5. Dreams won't work unless you do

Act upon your heart's desire. Do the things you need to do in order to get where you want to get. Read the books you need to read, contact the people you need to contact, build the skills you need to build.

Find a mentor. Dare to ask questions. Do whatever it takes to move yourself closer to making your dreams come true.

Trust that with every step you take, your life situation will improve and you will become even more happier than you already are.

6. Take one step at a time

Because of the many years of past conditioning and the intense training you have in holding on to toxic thoughts, behaviors and unhealthy relationships, giving up on all that is toxic in your life won't be easy and it won't happen overnight. Chances are that you won't see major improvements in your life immediately, and that's okay. Be patient and gentle with yourself while working on rebuilding your life and remember to enjoy the journey.

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it." ~ Greg Anderson

Take one step at a time and keep in mind that a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

7. Develop a deep trust in life

You have to have faith. You have to have trust… Trust in yourself, trust in the people you interact with and trust in life.

Put your fears aside. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Develop a deep trust in the wisdom of life. "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." ~ Matthew 17:20

8. Give yourself permission to "fail"

Give yourself permission to "fail" and make "mistakes".

Trust me when I tell you that in every "mistake" there is a lesson to learn, lesson that will be very beneficial to you as you continue walking on your life's chosen path.

"There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go." ~ Richard Bach

9. Be good to yourself

Love yourself and be good to yourself because if you do, the world around you will start mirroring your behavior. Take good care of your mind, body, heart and soul. Exercise, drink plenty of water, eat healthy and delicious food.

Nurture good thoughts. Act in compassionate and loving ways, towards yourself and the world around you. Spend time alone, spending at least 5 to 10 minutes per day in silence would make you help make you feel refreshed, rejuvenated and renewed.

Go outside. Spend some time in nature. Look at the plants, the sky, the stars, the moon and the trees. Celebrate the miracle of life.

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein

10. Give up living your life to other people's expectations

Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling.  They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people's expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.

Never get your sense of worth from outside yourself.  Your worth comes from inside yourself and not from forces outside yourself – people, events, material possessions. Don't ever let other people tell you how much you're worth, decide for yourself. It's called self worth not others worth.

You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don't let other people's opinions distract you from your path.

11. Discipline your mind to stay present in the NOW

Learn to be present and engaged in the present moment. Be happy with what you have, what you know and who you are right now. Don't allow your mind to trick you into thinking that you won't be happy until you get where you want to get.

Appreciate what's in front of you. If you learn how to be present and engaged in the NOW, you will live a very happy and content life and no matter how many challenges life will send your way, you will become a better not bitter person.

"As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love – even the most simple action." ~ Eckhart Tolle,

12. Surround yourself with loving and supportive people

Surround yourself with positive, cheerful, supportive and loving people. People who can lift you up when you are feeling down; people who will turn on the light for you when you are in the dark; people who can see you for what you truly are and who you can truly become. Take the advice of Mark Twain and "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

You need positive and loving friends who will support you in your new way of life…

Commit yourself to making the best of everything life sends your way. Be soft and flexible. Go with the flow of life and no longer against it.

Enjoy the ride and no matter what happens to you and no matter how many challenges and difficult people life might send your way, know that they are all there to help you grow and evolve into the beautiful being you so much want and deserve to be.

You only have one life to live. Make it a memorable one.

Give up on all the toxicity present in your life but never on yourself and your dreams, ok?

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination." ~ Don Williams Jr.

How do you envision your ideal self? What about your ideal life? What steps could you take this week to move yourself closer to building your ideal self and living your ideal life?  I really want to know what are your thoughts on this. You can share your insights by joining the conversation in the comment section below 

With all my love,

Image Credit

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~A.

http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/human-resources/6-mantras-say-every-morning-01248461

6 Mantras You Should Say Every Morning

When we wake up to get our day started, some days we are less motivated than others. And let's be real, sometimes we are just dead tired and crawling out of bed is the last thing we want to do. But, engaging in a little pep talk to help those feet hit the floor just might help.

Here are six mantras that might help get you out of bed and get moving.

1. I can do this. A lot of times, our first thoughts when we wake lead to feelings of being overwhelmed or feeling exhausted about the day ahead before we even start moving. By taking those feelings in stride and focusing on our ability to make things happen, we can turn our thoughts into something positive. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, think about taking the day's responsibilities one step at a time and knowing that you can do it.

2. Time to live for today. The other day, someone said one of the best quotes I've ever heard. She said, "We get closer to death every day, which is just one more reason to make sure we are living." That sat with me and I felt very introspective and took the quote word for word, which lead me to realize that there is so much truth in the statement. I mean, if we aren't taking today to live our lives, then what we are doing? Simply put, learn to live.

3. Let's make a difference. Each day we have the opportunity to do something. We have the chance to make a difference in small and big ways. Making a difference could simply be through sharing a smile or a story, giving words of encouragement, making a donation, or writing a blog post (!). We are lucky enough to be here, so why not take the time to make a difference in one moment, one opportunity, or one life?

4. Something awesome is going to happen today! This is really about having faith in the day. We have no idea what the next 24 hours may hold for us, but having the belief that something amazing is going to happen, might just be the catalyst to creating and accepting the awesomeness that is on its way over.

5. Why not? In the words of my mentor, Jen Groover, always think, "What if? Why not?" These questions make you think about the best and worst case scenarios of every situation. What if you take a chance and do something awesome? Why not take the plunge? Often times by asking ourselves these questions, we can visualize the highest success and realize that the possibility of failing isn't that devastating – the worst that could happen usually isn't that bad, but hey, at least we tried.

6. No time is better than now. It's not a myth that there is never a right time (for anything!) – there really isn't a perfect time. We always think we need to wait – wait to make more money, be in a better physical state, etc. Sometimes these are things we can control and we can work toward making the situations better, but often, we just end up finding other excuses making us feel like the time isn't right. Just accept that there will never be a perfect time, and doing something now is better than waiting and winding up doing nothing.

A mind encumbered by negative thoughts is one that is distracted and often sets us up for failure before we even get started. So, when you wake up, you make the choice as to how you will live your day. Say any (or all) of these mantras to make each day your best, because you never know which one might be your last.

Do you have use any of these or have your own morning mantras? Please share!

~A.

http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/human-resources/are-you-ready-here-are-the-top-10-skills-for-the-future-01251071

Are You Ready? Here Are The Top 10 Skills For The Future

As big disruptive shifts hit the workplace we all get taken out of our comfort zones. Whereas once we felt in control, the stakes are evolving rapidly and our ability to adapt is falling behind.   If we consider the recent gallup poll results that indicates that only a mere 30% of the workforce is actually committed to doing a good job, engaged, it really drives home the point that we may need to take a deeper look at the skills we have today, map them against the various trends that are impacting the workplace, and derive a view to the skills we will need moving forward.

A recent report published by the Institute for the Future (IFTF), does an outstanding job of identifying the key work skills and capabilities needed in the next few years (and arguably needed now).

Here they are:

Sensemaking

Steve Jobs once said ""Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something".   Sensemaking is all about the ability to connect things to create new ideas. Quoting Maria Popova, who has really crystallized this notion, in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles.

Social intelligence

Relationships and the ability to connect with people becomes and remains a crucial capability, however, as John Hagel thoughtfully points out, influence and relationship-building will now come from asking the right questions, not necessarily having all the answers. In the age of the individual, you can no longer assume that every person shares the same goals, desires and motivators. Whether you are engaging with an employee or a customer, everyone is unique and wants to be catered to in a way that's unique to them.   The ability to connect with people in a deeper, more meaningful way whether they are colleagues or strangers will enable us to thrive in beyond the industrial age, get things done and solve complex problems. To do so, and despite the abstraction of technology, we must continue to develop capabilities to quickly understand other's emotions, motivations and triggers and take a human approach to business.

Novel and adaptive thinking

As employment growth gets polarized into either ends of low-skill jobs or high-skills jobs, it is important that we always evolve our thinking towards the future to ensure we stay relevant.   At the pace by which companies are changing, staying up-to-date is no longer enough. Taking self-initiative to constantly improve your skills, pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, becoming a perpetual student, and quickly adapting to new realities will help ensure you are creating value and will keep you out of the cross-hairs for outsourcing.

Cross-cultural competencies

The recent Harvard Business Review piece "How to say "This is Crap" in different cultures serves yet another reminder as to how important it is to be able to be effective in different cultural settings.   Globalization is no longer the buzzword in corporate America, it is reality.   Many of us work globally every day, interacting with a multitude of cultures, but those who know how to empathize and adjust their communications and style of collaboration, will always have an advantage when working across geographies and cultures.

Computational thinking

No, this doesn't mean you should think like a computer, but nonetheless, being analytical becomes center-stage as data is everywhere.   You get it from all sorts of sources, whether you are sifting through dozens of emails, or crunching huge Excel spreadsheets. The ability to translate vast amounts of into actual insight is now, more than ever a critical skill.   Many of us work with data on a daily basis, but to understand the meaning, the trends and patterns of what the data is telling us becomes paramount.   Are sales tanking? Are people jumping ship? These are things you wouldn't be able to tell just a single number.

New media literacy

Still printing your 50-slide powerpoint decks? The world of videos, blogs, and podcasts has changed the way we communicate and consume information.   With an entire generation that was born digital entering the workforce, everyone will need to become fluent in digital and social media forms of communications in the same way that they currently assess a paper or presentation.

Transdisciplinarity

In the age of mounting competition and vast technological change, the capabilities needed to successfully differentiate a company and win in the marketplace are much broader than they were in the past.   We can no longer rely on just bringing together groups of specialists to solve our most complex problems. Instead, companies are in need of Generalists (or polymaths if you prefer that word) with new, agile skills that can see the big picture, listen, synthesize ideas and connect the dots.

Design mindset

We live in a transitional phase between an old "business world" where mass production ruled and products and services were conceived in a lab and then rolled out to the masses and a "new world" where people-centric approaches are increasingly being used to create new products and services that are thoughtfully designed through interdisciplinary teams and collaborative processes. A design mindset refers to the ideas and attitudes by which a person approaches a situation.   It is about focusing on human values and developing a deep understanding of the people that matter most to the problem we're trying to solve. Through practicing empathy, whether through conversation, observation or experiencing, adopting a design mindset becomes a critical ingredient in the ability to execute successfully.

Cognitive load management

The shear amount of data and information that hits us in a short span of time has exponentially increased with streams in multiple formats coming from multiple devices.   A tweet here, a text message or email there and pretty soon managing the flow and prioritization of all this information becomes a challenge.   The ability to effectively filter and focus what on what really requires your attention becomes paramount. This includes effectively managing your channels, deciding where to participate vs. where not to and taking a disciplined approach to managing distractions as opposed to real priorities.

Virtual collaboration

Whether you're a fan of it or not, working and collaborating effectively virtually, whether on a simple task or a very complex challenge is a necessity as the nature of our work is globalized.   Despite a variety of tools and technologies that are now available, we still struggle with being effective as members or leaders of virtual teams.   Technologically, the future for virtual collaboration looks very promising with enterprise tech taking a page out of successful consumer ventures, but the virtual work also demands a new set of competencies and effort in order to ensure productivity in a cross-cultural, fully global reality.

In a world where staying relevant becomes a top priority (for individuals as well as companies), there are no guarantees that either of these skills will lead to success.  The key becomes taking charge of your own destiny by evaluating where you are today and charting your personal map as to where you want to go.

Follow me on twitter @reuvengorsht

~A.

Hellllo!

~A.

Tiny Houses for the Homeless: An Affordable Solution Catches On by Erika Lundahl — YES! Magazine

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/tiny-house-villages-for-the-homeless-an-affordable-solution-catches-on/

Tiny Houses for the Homeless: An Affordable Solution Catches On

A growing number of towns and cities have found a practical solution to homelessness through the construction of tiny-house villages—and housing officials are taking notice.

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by Erika Lundahl

posted Feb 20, 2014

An architect's rendering of Quixote Village in Olympia, Wash. Image courtesy of Panza.

On a Saturday in September, more than 125 volunteers showed up with tools in hand and built six new 16-by-20-foot houses for a group of formerly homeless men. It was the beginning of Second Wind Cottages, a tiny-house village for the chronically homeless in the town of Newfield, N.Y., outside of Ithaca.

On January 29, the village officially opened, and its first residents settled in. Each house had cost about $10,000 to build, a fraction of what it would have cost to house the men in a new apartment building.

The project is part of a national movement of tiny-house villages, an alternative approach to housing the homeless that's beginning to catch the interest of national advocates and government housing officials alike.

"It's certainly something that we would encourage other communities to take a look at," says Lee Jones at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For many years, it has been tough to find a way to house the homeless. More than 3.5 million people experience homelessness in the United States each year, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Shortages of low-income housing continue to be a major challenge. For every 100 households of renters in the United States that earn "extremely low income" (30 percent of the median or less), there are only 30 affordable apartments available, according to a 2013 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

But Second Wind is truly affordable, built by volunteers on seven acres of land donated by Carmen Guidi, the main coordinator of the project and a longtime friend of several of the men who now live there. The retail cost of the materials to build the first six houses was somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000 per house, says Guidi. But many of the building materials were donated, and all of the labor was done in a massive volunteer effort.

"We've raised nearly $100,000 in 100 days," he says, and the number of volunteers has been "in the hundreds, maybe even thousands now."

The village will ultimately include a common house, garden beds, a chicken coop, and 18 single-unit cottages.

"Camp Quixote" becomes a village

"The typical development for extremely low-income housing is trending up toward $200,000 per unit. That's a lot of bills," says Jill Severn, a board member at Panza, a nonprofit organization that sponsors another tiny-house project called Quixote Village. (The organization's name is a play on Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's sidekick in Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel.)

Quixote Village opened in Olympia, Wash., right before Christmas. But it began in February 2007 as "Camp Quixote," a protest held in a city-owned parking lot. A group of homeless people assembled there to oppose an Olympia ordinance that made it illegal to sit, lie down, or sell things within six feet of downtown buildings. When police evicted the campers eight days after the protest began, the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation stepped in to help, offering temporary refuge on their land.

Residents of Quixote Village in Olympia, Wash., move in with their belongings. Photo courtesy of Panza.

For five years, the camp's location rotated, moving and reassembling every 90 days at one of several different local churches. Panza was formed by a corps of volunteers from the faith communities assisting the camp, and the organization worked with the city council to secure and rezone a parcel of county-owned industrial land near a community college and create a permanent site for the village. In December of 2013, the residents of Quixote Village settled into their new homes there.

Quixote Village has fostered a positive relationship between its residents and local government and police, says Severn. Despite this, the project was held up in court for a year by a local organization of businesses and landowners called the Industrial Zoning Preservation Association, which cited concerns over the potential impact on local businesses in a nearby industrial park.

Panza used the time to fundraise and build an outreach campaign to win over the public. They had the support of legions of volunteers, mostly from local churches, who had staffed the camp.

"Having hundreds of [residents] get to know people that were homeless made a huge difference in the success of getting this off the ground," says Severn.

Today, the 30 structures that make up Quixote Village are home to 29 disabled adults, almost all of whom qualify as "chronically homeless," by the standards of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Homelessness in Austin, Texas, costs taxpayers more than $10 million per year.

The residents also have a common space with shared showers, a laundry, garden space, and a kitchen. By sharing these amenities, the community was able to increase the affordability of the project and design a neighborhood they believed would fit their needs and make them more self-sufficient.

The shared space has also helped them create a supportive community. The residents, who are self-governed, have developed a rulebook that prohibits illegal drugs and alcohol on the grounds and requires that each member put in a certain number of service hours per week. They meet twice a week in the evenings to discuss problems or concerns and to share a common meal that they take turns cooking.

The main complaint right now, says Raul Salazar, the village's program manager and only full-time staff member, is that the postal service still hasn't started delivering mail.

The cost of units at Quixote Village is significantly higher than at Second Wind—about $88,000 per unit—but that's still less than half the cost of the average public housing project, according to Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Quixote has had access to state funding and local community grants, as well as private funding from individuals, businesses, and two Native American tribes. The project also received a Community Development Block Grant for $604,000 from the State of Washington Department of Commerce and a $1.5-million grant from the Washington State Legislature.

Two architecture and design firms, MSGS Architects and KMB Design Groups, also contributed design services pro bono, and the Thurston County Commission is leasing the land to Quixote for $1 per year.

Gaining acceptance

Many other tiny-house projects are just beginning to get of the ground, raise money, find land, and gain approval from local officials and members of the public. But the unorthodox nature of the small houses presents unique legal zoning limitations and barriers that limit where tiny houses can be stationed.

In Madison, Wisc., Occupy Madison has been facing this very challenge, as the group forged ahead with plans for a tiny house village.

Each home will be about 99 square feet if you include the porch, and volunteers enjoy the joke: "We are the 99 square feet!"

In the spring of 2011, prior to the launch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a series of protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol—focused on the state's controversial anti-collective-bargaining bill—prompted additional legislation that prohibited groups from gathering without a permit. When the protests joined forces with Occupy in the fall of 2011, this created a unique opportunity for the voices of the many homeless people in Madison to be heard.

"There were some great moments throughout the Occupy movement where a lot of dialogue was going on between the people without homes and the people with homes," says Allen Barkoff, one of the board members of Occupy Madison, Inc., a nonprofit formed in December 2012 to address the need for legal places where homeless people in Madison could congregate and stay safe. The organization first looked into buying an apartment building or a shared house for the homeless but ultimately settled on tiny houses as the most flexible and economical way to create homes for people.

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In this case, the cost of building the tiny homes comes to around $5,000 each, funded by private donations and an online crowd-funding campaign. The nonprofit also plans to apply for some city grants. Each home will come with a propane heater, a composting toilet, and an 80-watt solar panel array—and will be about 98 square feet in size, 99 if you include the porch. (The volunteers enjoy the joke: "We are the 99 square feet!")

But the question of where the houses can legally be located is still up in the air. Volunteers are now building houses for six people. Because of a recent ordinance change, the houses are allowed to sit on church property in groups of three. City regulations also permit them to be placed on the side of the road, as long as they are relocated every 48 hours. But Madison's snowy winter makes the houses hard to move, explains Barkoff.

Now Occupy Madison, Inc., is in the middle of a lengthy process to purchase a parcel of land on the east side of the city to accommodate 11 houses, along with a central building (a converted gas station) that can serve as a workshop for making more homes. This spring, they will continue to hold neighborhood meetings about the project, talk with police, and work with the Madison Planning and Development Department—and, eventually, the city council—to negotiate zoning issues for the village.

The real cost of homelessness

Efforts to break through the red tape and raise money to house the homeless almost always pay off for a community. Even the most expensive tiny-house projects—such as a new, ambitious $6-million campaign to build a 200-person tiny-house park this year in Austin, Texas—can't rival the cost of homelessness to taxpayers, which was more than $10 million per year in Austin, for example, as YES! reported in December 2013.

"It's a very important step in terms of the kinds of services we should be providing to people that need assistance."

"Chronically homeless people—people who have disabilities and are homeless for long periods of time—can be very expensive to systems of public care," explains Roman. In 2007, the National Alliance to End Homelessness compiled three studies showing that it costs the same or less money to provide permanent housing as it does to allow people to remain homeless. In Denver, Colo., a housing program for the homeless reduced the costs of public services (including medical services, temporary shelter, and costs associated with arrests and incarceration) by an estimated $15,773 per person per year, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Government officials and city planners are beginning to see the tiny-house village as one viable solution for addressing homelessness.

"It's certainly something that we would encourage other communities to take a look at when it comes to creating solutions for housing the chronically homeless," says Lee Jones, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "It's a very important step in terms of the kinds of services we should be providing to people that need assistance."

Currently, the various efforts to house the homeless in tiny-house villages comprise a small and pioneering movement: But each new project helps create lessons and a model for other communities.

For example, Quixote Village, as a recipient of state funding, is considered a "pilot" project: It is required to report its progress to the state legislature in five years. In the meantime, says Severn, the residents will be settling in, putting in garden beds, building a carpentry workshop, searching for jobs, and simply living their lives.

"One of our residents has been homeless for about 25 years," Severn says. "He told me he's excited to start a little rose garden. It really touched me to hear that."

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Erika Lundahl wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Erika is a freelance writer living in Seattle.

Read more:

• Street Credibility: Homeless Protesters Fight for Recognition
• Less than 2 Percent of Carpenters Are Women—Meet the Master Builder Working to Change That
  
• Living Large in a Tiny House

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That means, we rely on support from our readers.

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~A.

Putin News Conference - Business Insider

balls.

~A.

http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-press-conference-2014-12

Putin Gave A Surreal End-Of-Year News Conference

REUTERS/Maxim ZmeyevPutin compared the invasion of Crimea to the US taking Texas from Mexico.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a three-hour news conference on Thursday, speaking about his country's economy and the collapse of the ruble.

The interview — which had a bunch of bizarre and clever moments — also addressed Russia's conflicts with the West.

Several English-speaking journalists, including Max Seddon of BuzzFeed and Paul Sonne of The Wall Street Journal, tweeted translations of Putin's statements, and NBC News carried a live stream with translation.

Here are some highlights:

• Putin insisted that growth was "inevitable" and that Russia could dig out of its economic crisis in two years at most.
• He refused to call the ruble's collapse a crisis, and he blamed it partly on sanctions from the West.
• He said that regarding Ukraine, Russia was right and the West was wrong.
• He compared the Russian invasion of Crimea to taking Texas from Mexico.
• He implied that the US was aiming to disarm Russia and asked: "Do we want our bear to just become a stuffed animal?"

The Economy

The ruble weakened against the dollar just ahead of the news conference. Russia's currency has fallen over 40% against the dollar and the euro since June, hitting a record low of 80 rubles to the dollar and 100 rubles to the euro earlier this week.

Early on, Putin commented on Russia's currency crisis. He said it had been "provoked by external factors" and that the central bank and government were taking adequate measures to deal with the economic situation.

He also insisted that growth is "inevitable" and that Russia could dig out of the crisis in two years at most.

Putin said he is optimistic because he thinks the economy will eventually adjust to low fuel prices. He also said that Russia must step up efforts to diversify its economy so that Russia is not so reliant on oil.

Before discussing the ruble crisis, Putin opened on a higher note, citing 2014 gross-domestic-product growth of 0.6% and noting that Russia saw a record agricultural harvest despite turbulence in financial markets.

He later shied away from calling the ruble collapse a crisis.

"I don't think I can call the situation a 'crisis'; you can call it whatever you want," he said, adding that he thinks the central bank and government are taking the correct approach.

He also blamed Russia's economic situation partly on sanctions by the West over Ukraine, saying the sanctions are responsible for 25% to 30% of the ruble's problems.

Russia's economy is widely expected to fall into a recession next year because of collapsing oil prices and economic sanctions by the West.

Putin noted that the country's central bank has reserves of $419 billion, which he said is enough to maintain the "social situation" in Russia. He was also careful to say Russia would not drain its reserves trying to protect the ruble.

Despite the country's economic troubles, Russians still widely support Putin. His approval rating hit record highs this year, with 80% of Russians saying they support him.

REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

The West

Putin also addressed tensions with the West.

"Our Western partners decided that they won and that they are an empire, and they began to squeeze everyone else out," he said.

He also referenced the Berlin Wall, saying that new "virtual" walls were being built through a NATO expansion.

"We want our partners to understand that the best way is to stop building those walls and to build a united humanitarian space," Putin said.

Putin later implied that the West is trying to disarm Russia.

He compared the country to a bear and said the West would "always try to put it in chains and ... take out its teeth and claws, which in this case means our strategic nuclear deterrent.

"Sometimes I think, maybe they'll let the bear eat berries and honey in the forest; maybe they will leave it in peace," he added. "They will not."

Putin concluded by asking: "Do we want our bear to just become a stuffed animal?"

When a journalist asked Putin about talk of a "new Cold War" brewing, Putin said that Russia had just been defending its interests, and he implied that the US was the aggressive party, not Russia. He insisted that Russia was not attacking anyone.

He then said the sanctions that had been imposed on Russia were "illegitimate and illegal."

Ukraine Defense Ministry

Ukraine

A Ukrainian journalist asked Putin how many soldiers Putin sent to Ukraine and what he told the families of dead soldiers.

Putin said Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine were volunteers and couldn't be called mercenaries because they were not paid. He also blamed Kiev for starting the conflict.

"The problem is that after the coup d'etat ... instead of starting a political dialogue, the new authorities started using law enforcement officers," Putin said. "When that didn't work out, they started using the army; when that didn't work out, they started using other means, such as an economic blockade."

Putin also said that regarding Ukraine, Russia was right and the West was wrong.

He didn't address how many Russian fighters were in Ukraine, nor did he give a death toll from the conflict.

Estimates put the number of dead at about 4,000 since fighting broke out between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels in April. Kiev, Ukraine's capital, says Russia is supporting the separatists and has 10,000 troops on the ground.

REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

Crimea

Another journalist asked whether Russia's economic crisis was payback for the country's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Putin said the troubles with the ruble were not payback for Crimea, but rather "payback for our natural desire to survive as a nation."

"It's not a matter of Crimea — we are defending our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist," he said. "We should all understand this."

Putin also compared the invasion of Crimea to the US taking Texas from Mexico, saying Russia was just managing its territories and protecting its sovereignty.

REUTERS/Grigory DukorJailed Russian former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky stands in the defendants' cage during a court session in Moscow in this April 5, 2010, file photograph.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Putin was asked whether he regretted pardoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and owner of the country's biggest oil company, because Khodorkovsky recently said he wanted to be president.

To that Putin replied, "President of which country?"

Putin said he ordered the pardon because Khodorkovsky's mother was ill, and a mother is a "sacred thing." He added that he didn't regret it. 

Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison for fraud and was released last year.

Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersPutin shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

China

Putin said China is Russia's biggest trade partner and that there were no problems between the two countries.

He said the two have many common interests and have helped stabilize the international arena.

Putin added that Russia would seek to increase trade with China and noted that their trade balance with China would reach $90 billion this year.

He said Russia's gas deal with China would be beneficial for both sides despite the high costs.

Russia brokered the deal in an effort to become more independent from the West, given the sanctions that have hindered Russia's ability to develop energy reserves and raise finance abroad, Reuters reports.

REUTERS/Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin Putin speaks with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin, and Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev during a meeting of the Security Council outside Moscow, Nov. 6, 2014.

A Possible Coup

A Reuters reporter asked Putin whether he thought a coup was possible in Russia.

Putin said he isn't worried, and that he would not be ousted, because Russians knew that he acted in the "overwhelming interest" of the majority of the population.

He noted that the Kremlin is well protected: "We don't have palaces, so there can't be any palace coups. We have the Kremlin, and it's well secured."

The reporter said that although Putin blamed the economic crisis on external forces, even those within his circle were known to blame Putin.

Putin, grinning, said: "Give me their names!"

Inequality

Putin insisted that there are not elites in Russia, and that while there are rich and poor, all people are equal.

"There is elite wine, resorts, but not people," he said. "Who is the Russian elite? The peasants, the hard workers."

Russia has notoriously high wealth disparity.

A report from Credit Suisse in 2013 said that Russia has the highest rate of income inequality in the world.

Watch the news conference in full:

DIY: Grow An Endless Amount of Ginger Indoors | Mass Report

Hey Susan! I opened the Box! and LOVE the goodies and your dangly creation. Thank YOU! 

and I thought you'd like this article…

~A.

http://massreport.com/diy-grow-an-endless-amount-of-ginger-indoors/

DIY: Grow An Endless Amount of Ginger Indoors

(LyAnna – MassReport) Zingiber Officinale, or what we call ginger, is one of the easiest plants to propagate and harvest. Being delicious, it is also one of the easiest to eat, and takes the place of many treatments found in the medicine cabinet. Gingersol and shogaols are the active chemical constituents in ginger that are attributed to its healing properties and have been known to have anti-inflammatory properties (NSAIDs), work as immunity boosters, and combat cancerous cells. Ginger has long been known as a panacea for stomach conditions like motion sickness, nausea, morning sickness, and the pesky stomach flu due to its ability to relax the intestinal tract. Even more, it's spicy which helps get the metabolism going as well as cleansing the colon.

The health benefits of ginger are irrefutable and numerous but lets cut to the revolutionary act of growing your own food and medicine! Ginger is incredibly easy to grow, green thumb or not, but we will break it down step by step. For ease of communication we will call it ginger or ginger root even though ginger is actually the whole plant which has foliage (leaves) and a rhizome, which itself has roots. The part that you buy at the store, peel and eat is actually the 'rhizome'.

This is the ginger rhizome we can plant:

First, let's choose a piece of ginger to plant. You can order one from a seed catalog or find one in a nursery, but I find that it's easiest just to buy a piece at the store. Try to make it a health-food store or a natural store where the ginger wont be sprayed to oblivion with chemicals that actually inhibit the growth of roots – which is what we are looking to do in this project. If the ginger has been sprayed you will need to soak it for a night or two until the chemicals dissipate. Now, out of the healthy natural gingers try to pick a piece that is thick, with a nice peel, and has lots of nubs. Nubs?! What I mean by nubs is that it isn't a smooth shoot but has lots of dips and curves in it that are almost protruding like little fingers. These nubs are the parts of the rhizome that will regrow into a new plant.

Now, let's talk soil. The soil needs to be 'loamy', which just describes the particles that make up the soil.
Loam is sand, silt, and clay and it's these properties that define how well the soil holds moisture. In the case of ginger we need a soil that will retain some moisture so that it never dries out but we want to make sure that we don't have soppy dense soil that will drown and suffocate our root. The soil also needs to be nutrient rich which can be maintained by adding organic matter, compost, or an organic fertilizer.

Now, let's talk containers. Basically, pick a container where you can plant your ginger and allow it some space to grow, but it doesn't need much. I try to recycle a container that I have already used for something else. The ginger root stays towards the top of the soil not extending too far down so a shallow container works well. I cut an old plastic juice jug, about a gallon size, that so it was about 4-5 inches deep, 7 inches wide and slit holes in the bottom to make sure there was proper drainage.

Now, let's plant! Fill your vessel with soil. I like to pre-water mine so that the soil if uniformly damp but has had time to drain through. You can plant your ginger whole or you can cut it into smaller pieces. I like to cut the ginger into chunks but its important to make sure that theses chunks all have growth nubs on them. After I cut the ginger I let it heal over night so that there isn't an open juicy wound. Now, place your pieces of ginger into the soil, nubs up, and cover with an inch or so of loose soil.

Now, we need to sustain the life of this plant but caring for your ginger is as easy as the planting requirements. You shouldn't ever let it dry out but you don't need to over water it either. I check the soil with my thumb: if I feel moisture and it sticks to my skin a little bit, then I leave it alone. If the soil feels almost sandy and drops off of my skin, I give the rhizome a nice spritzer. I never drop more than a shot of water on my ginger, unlike other plants where you soak the soil through and through. Ginger needs some sunlight, different people have different recommendations, but I keep mine in a room where it never gets direct sunlight, because I don't have a room with direct sunlight, and it does fine. Being a tropical plant it does like warm humid conditions. These conditions don't need to be replicated as it can be hard, but try to keep that in mind when choosing a home for your plant. Don't leave it outside when it's going to frost, don't leave it in direct sunlight to dry out, don't put it in the room that has the worse draft… Just be mindful and the job is easy. I've seen ginger survive year round in Vermont under less than optimal conditions which makes me think it can be grown close to anywhere!

Wala! The dirty work is done! Don't forget to congratulate yourself on taking a step towards health and independence! Now, sit back. The new rhizomes won't be fully matured for at least 8-10 months but during that period you can cut off chunks of the root for use without harming the plant as it will regenerate.

A beautiful woman in the backwoods of Vermont gave me these directions however many sites online have documented their efforts. Here are some sources to go by:

Sources: http://organichealth.co/how-to-grow-an-endless-supply-of-ginger-indoors/

http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-ginger.html

http://www.5acresandadream.com/2012/01/homegrown-ginger.html

Featured Image Original: veggiegardeningtips.com

16 ways to save space on your iPhone: make room for iOS 8 - Syncios iOS Manager

16 ways to save space on your iPhone: make room for iOS 8 - Syncios iOS Manager:

'via Blog this'

https://blog.slideshare.net/2014/12/05/weekend-reading-leadership-tips-to-help-you-rise-to-the-top/

Weekend Reading: Becoming the Leader You Aspire To Be

Some of the world's most renowned business executives and political leaders — including IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush — came together at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council this week to discuss their priorities that will shape 2015. Talk about a room full of power!

How did they all rise to the top? What embodies a great leader and how can you be one, too? There's lots of leadership advice out there. Here are three great decks that caught our attention. (View more Leadership & Management SlideShares here.)

What NOT to Do

Let's start with what not to do as a leader. It's certainly easy to get overwhelmed in a leadership role and to become that manager no one wants. Here's how to make sure you don't become a nightmare manager:

The Black Magic of Leadership

"Get help, immediately." That is one of many lessons that Sauce Labs VP of Engineering Adam Christian shares in his deck about managing a strong engineering culture. Here are his other tips:

Getting in the Startup Mindset

It can be hard leading within a big company. Start with a lot of small wins, and encourage multi-disciplinary teams, says entrepreneur Steve Blank. His deck on how to change your managerial mindset will guide you on your way to becoming a leader, no matter how large or small your corporation:

READ MORE: Professional Women: Best Advice for Succeeding in Today's World

Photo: PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek/Shutterstock

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~A.