Country legend Loretta Lynn is mourning the loss of her eldest daughter, Betty Sue Lynn, who died on Monday from complications of emphysema, reports the Associated Press. She was 64.
A statement from the family released to the press revealed the details, indicating Betty Sue died in Waverly, Tenn, near her mother's ranch in Hurricane Mills.
Betty Sue is the second of Loretta's children to precede her in death; in 1984 her son Jack Benny Lynn, then 34, drowned on the family's property reported People magazine at the time. Betty and Jack's father, Oliver Vanetta Lynn, died in 1996.
"The Lynn Family appreciates all your prayers, love, and support of our family. Betty was Loretta's oldest daughter. Betty leaves two daughters Lynn Markworth and Audrey Dyer," a statement on Loretta's website indicated.
Loretta Lynn's life was portrayed her autobiography, "Coal Miner's Daughter," which was the title of one of her biggest hits. It was made into a movie in 1976.
The New York Times?s Jane Perlez reports that China has sent four ships to patrol disputed islands in the East China Sea in the past week in addition to flying an early-warning aircraft between Okinawa and Miyako, all part of a recently consolidated coast guard force intended to pressure Japan. ?The report claims that the increase of Chinese and Japanese maritime vessels ?has raised alarm in Washington about clashes that could lead to larger conflict.? However, the unified Coast Guard may make China?s activities easier to regulate:
At a conference on maritime safety in Beijing last week, four retired American admirals, three retired American defense attach?s and a group of American maritime experts met with Chinese officials to discuss the ramifications of the strengthened Chinese Coast Guard.
The new coast guard is a ?positive development,? said Susan L. Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, who organized the conference for the?University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Vessels belonging to the fisheries law enforcement agency have been particularly aggressive in the South China Sea over the past few years, and this kind of behavior may be modified under the new structure, she said.
?It?s good for China?s neighbors and the United States because we know who is responsible and who we can hold responsible,? Ms. Shirk said. ?As they develop a sense of professionalism in accordance with international law, it should make for lower risk of accidents.?[Source]
The South China Morning Post reports that China?s revamped coast guard has ?made waves? in Japan, prompting a potential early summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi Jinping:
Abe called on Friday for an unconditional meeting between his country and China as soon as possible. While Abe?s call drew a cool reaction from Beijing, his adviser, Isao Iijima, said Chinese leaders were considering it and he believed they would respond positively.
?I feel they are troubled by it, they are deeply thinking about it,? Iijima said when asked about the call for a summit.
?I don?t think it will take that long? before they meet, he said on the sidelines of a speech in his hometown in central Japan.[Source]
Read more about about the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island disputes via CDT.
The U.S. State Department says Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will resume in Washington Monday for the first time in three years.
These revived talks come as the Israeli government has approved the release of long-held Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overcame strong opposition within his Cabinet to secure Sunday's approval of the prisoner release by a vote of 13 ministers in favor to seven against, with two abstentions.
Under the Cabinet decision, 104 Palestinian prisoners will be released in four stages during a period of the U.S.-proposed peace talks with the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who voted in favor of the releases, said they will be carried out "only if" the Palestinians prove to be a "serious" partner in the planned negotiations.
Abbas' government has said Israel must free long-held prisoners in order for negotiations to proceed. Israeli media have said the prisoners include Palestinians convicted of decades-old deadly attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces.
The Israeli Cabinet's offer to release such prisoners drew opposition from ultranationalist ministers who said it would be a reward for "terrorism." Israeli media said Netanyahu told his ministers the prisoner decision was "difficult" for him and the families of those killed, but also necessary to renew the peace process.
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Stephen Deans was suspended at the Ineos facility at Grangemouth amid claims he was involved in a bid to manipulate the contest to select a Westminster candidate in the town.
However, the company reversed its decision after Unite promised to "shut your factory down" by launching a strike.
Labour has been dogged for months by the row over Unite's alleged activities in the battle to select a party candidate for the Falkirk seat.
Unite, Labour's biggest donor, recruited around 100 new members to the party in an attempt to help its favoured candidate, Karie Murphy, get the nomination.
A Labour investigation prompted leader Ed Miliband to criticise Unite and resulted in Murphy and Deans being suspended by the party.
Deans was both the chairman of the Falkirk West constituency party and chairman of Unite in Scotland during the controversy. His day job is at Ineos where, according to an internal Unite document, many of the new recruits were signed up.
"Last, but very much not least, is the exemplary Falkirk ... Using similar methods to Garston and Paisley, but at a much more intense level, led by the potential candidate, and very much supported by the local activist base, especially at Ineos we have recruited well over 100 Unite members to the party in a constituency with less than 200 members."
At the union's executive committee meeting last week, Unite's convener at the Ineos plant, Mark Lyon, said Deans had also been suspended by the company.
On a webcast on the union's website, he hit out at the "lies" told in the media about the Falkirk fiasco, adding: "Stevie had been suspended from work. It was an opportunistic attack, to try and attack him.
"Every action that Stevie Deans and every other member of our branch has taken has been within rule, within company procedures. It's been in all respects legal ...
"The General Secretary has been involved in discussions and we're dead grateful for that. Pat Rafferty [Unite's Scottish secretary] has been involved in discussions with the company as well."
Lyon claimed that the employer reinstated Deans following a meeting of hundreds of workers last week: "The message was clear: you can either reinstate Stevie, and let's get back to some sort of sanity and normal business, or we'll shut your factory down and there will be strike action taken."
He added: "Stevie started back at work this morning."
Lyon was sitting next to Unite general secretary Len McCluskey when he made the speech.
The Grangemouth facility is of major industrial importance. A strike in 2008 over pensions led to panic buying of petrol across the country.
The industrial action also resulted in BP closing the Forties pipeline system, which is responsible for delivering almost a third of Britain's North Sea oil production.
Two Unite sources confirmed Deans worked for Ineos.
A union insider said Ineos had been unhappy at the company's name being mentioned in connection with the Falkirk debacle.
Lyon's remarks were followed by a speech by McCluskey, who said: "I want to express my support for Stevie Deans and Karie Murphy. Our union will stand by them."
He described Labour's report into Falkirk as a "shoddy farce" and a "disgrace".
Police Scotland last week confirmed its officers would not be investigating the Falkirk debacle.
However, the Information Commissioner is believed to be looking into aspects of the row.
Scottish Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: "It just shows that no matter how damaging this has been for the Labour party, neither they nor Unite seem able to bring this matter to a reasonable conclusion.
"In the 1970s this country was brought to its knees by exactly this kind of petty squabbling, and I can't believe lessons from the past have just not been learned."
An SNP spokesperson said: "This shows how completely out of control the Labour Party situation in Falkirk is. We have been calling on Johann Lamont for weeks now to get a grip ? but Scottish Labour say London is in charge.
"This row should have been sorted ages ago ? without resorting to wasting police time ? but the person who is supposed to be in charge of the Labour Party in Scotland appears completely helpless."
A Unite spokeswoman declined to comment.
Neither Deans nor an Ineos spokesman returned the Sunday Herald's call.
Lehigh University officials plan to meet with Upper Saucon Township supervisors next month to discuss their ideas for developing several hundred acres recently donated to the school.
Township Director of Community Development Sharyn E. Heater said Lehigh officials are slated to attend the board of supervisors' Aug. 12 meeting. It will be the first time university and Upper Saucon officials have met publicly to talk about the land, which was a gift from the Donald B. and Dorothy Stabler Foundation.
Heater doesn't know what Lehigh has in mind for the land but said school officials indicated they're working to craft a "thoughtful" development plan that will serve both the school and community's long-term needs.
Lehigh spokesman Jordan Reese said university President Alice Gast will be on hand but that university officials do not intend to present formal development plans during the meeting. Additional information about Lehigh's plans for the land may be available closer to the meeting date, he said.
A sign at Route 378 and Center Valley Parkway in Upper Saucon indicates Lehigh is gearing up to develop the property. The sign reads, "Prime Development Land: The Stabler Campus -- Lehigh University," and bears the school logo, as well as that of Jones Lang LaSalle, a commercial real estate firm headquartered in Chicago with offices nationwide.
Calls to a number listed on the sign and Jones Lang LaSalle's headquarters were not immediately returned.
Gast, in an April 2012 email about the Stabler Foundation gift, said the land likely would be used for multiple purposes: an expansion of the Bethlehem-based school, commercial development and preservation of open space.
An expansion in Upper Saucon would make Lehigh the township's third college. DeSales University and Penn State Lehigh Valley also are located in the municipality.
The Upper Saucon land is about three miles from Lehigh's main campus in Bethlehem and one mile from its Goodman Campus in Lower Saucon Township. The university owns about 1,600 acres combined in the city and Lower Saucon; the Upper Saucon property acquisition grew the school's land holdings by nearly 50 percent and made it the township's largest landowner, officials have said.
Heater said the land, about 755 acres, comprises 20 separate properties, the largest of which surrounds The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley and is roughly bordered by Interstate 78 and Routes 309 and 378.
The land encompasses both sides of Center Valley Parkway and neighbors the former Center Valley Club golf course, which closed in October 2011. Like Lehigh's land, the club also has ties to Stabler, though not the foundation. Sierra Management Co., of Doylestown, Pa., bought the property from Stabler Land Co. for $3.6 million in 2007, according to Lehigh County property records.
Sierra President Greg Kessell hopes to present plans for developing the 203-acre property before the end of the year.
"We're trying to figure out the best way to develop the property with multiple uses," he said, but declined to specify when Upper Saucon officials can expect to get a look at what's in the works. "It should be happening relatively soon."
Kessell said the plans involve an adjacent but separately owned 17-acre property and the development may include a hotel and a medical facility. Publicly discussing the plans in any more detail could put them in jeopardy, he said, adding, "The contracts are being negotiated."
When the club closed in 2011, Bank of America was eying the property as the potential site of a corporate data center. The bank also looked at land in Lopatcong Township for a similar purpose but eventually ruled out plans for both properties.
The club property's proximity to I-78, Olympus' North American headquarters and other Stabler Corporate Center occupants make it well suited for a hotel, but any development at the site is bound to be complicated, Heater said. The golf course was built atop underground zinc mines and the property is traversed by Saucon Creek, includes wetlands and sits in a flood plain, she explained.
A development plan would have to address all of those issues in keeping with township and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulations, Heater said.
"He has this big piece of property," Heater said of Kessell, who hasn't spoken recently with township officials about his plans. "We're all curious to see what he's going to come in with."
Contact Lehigh County suburbs reporter Precious Petty at 484-894-3854 or ppetty@express-times.com.
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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Pope Francis has delighted a crowd in Rio de Janeiro by donning a colorful Indian headdress handed to him by a member of a Brazilian tribe.
It came after the pontiff spoke Saturday at Rio's Municipal Theater to an audience mostly made up of Brazil's political, business and cultural elite.
After the talk, he was greeted by well-wishers on stage, including a few Indians.
A bare-chested indigenous man who told the O Globo newspaper he was from the Pataxo tribe met the pope while wearing a reed skirt, ornate red-bead necklace and large nose and ear piercings.
The man took off his feather headdress and handed it to the pontiff.
Francis promptly placed it on his own head and flashed the crowd a smile.
(Reuters) - Two people were missing on Saturday after a boat with a wedding party aboard struck a barge on the Hudson River near New York City, and four others were taken to a hospital with injuries, local authorities and CNN said.
The sheriff's office of Rockland County, New York said the boat hit a construction barge on Friday night below the Tappan Zee bridge, a major transportation link across the Hudson River.
The people taken to a hospital had head injuries and one of them was unconscious when rescued from the badly-damaged boat, said Robert Vancura, of the Rockland County Sheriff's office.
The two missing were a bride-to-be whose wedding was scheduled to be in two weeks, and the best man, CNN reported, quoting a family member.
Police said they suspended the search for the missing overnight but resumed this morning.
The Journal News newspaper said the vessel was a 21-foot (6.4-metre) power boat.
(Reporting by Greg McCune; Editing by Vicki Allen)
ROME, July 26, 2013 (AFP) - Italian police said they launched two major anti-mafia operations Friday in Rome and the southern region of Calabria, targeting around 100 people.
The Rome operation, described by Italian media as the largest ever undertaken in the capital region, targeted people who helped lead "illegal activities" in the city and the suburb of Ostia, police spokesman Mario Viola told AFP.
The second, entirely separate operation targeted members of the Ndrangheta in Catanzaro, Calabria, Viola said, adding that no less than 50 arrest warrants were issued for each of the operations.
In Calabria, the arrest warrants concerned "50 to 70 people, including entrepreneurs, politicians and lawyers", Viola said.
According to Italy's news agency Ansa, some 500 police officers took part in the Rome operation, "the largest ever undertaken" by the police in and around the capital. A helicopter, dog units and maritime police took part in it.
The warrants were the result of a long operation in Rome during which investigators uncovered "every criminal step in the mafia organisation," police said, from the adoption of new members into the fold to deals between bosses over territory.
Gangsters were also caught planning murders which they considered "necessary to guarantee and keep control of" profit-making activities in the area.
In Calabria, the heartland of the 'Ndrangheta, arrest warrants were issued for 65 people in Lamezia Terme, in the Catanzaro region, including "businessmen, politicians and lawyers," as well as doctors and prison employees, Viola said.
On top of mafia association, some of them are also accused of playing a role in several murders committed during a mafia-on-mafia war between 2005 and 2011.
The 'Ndrangheta -- whose name comes from the Greek word for courage or loyalty -- has a tight clan structure which has made it famously difficult to penetrate.
It runs an international crime network from its base in the southern region of Calabria and has been linked to operations across western and northern Europe and as far afield as the Americas and Australia.
Its core criminal activities are drug and arms trafficking, prostitution, extortion and illegal construction.
A frustrating dispute in the south Pacific has all of Southeast Asia on high alert as China has seemingly escalated the conflict by flying a military craft through international airspace near Chinese islands. Reuters reports the Chinese plane was a Y-8 early warning place flew trough Okinawa island and Miyako around noon and later repeated its route over the East China Sea.
Reuters also quotes the Japanese defense minister Itsunori Onodera as saying to reporters, ?I believe this indicates China?s move toward further maritime expansion.?
This is hardly the first time the Japanese have readied the guns in advance of a preemptive strike, presumably by the Chinese. In fact, this is hardly the first time this month.
Tensions over the Diaoyu Islands, also referred to as the Senkaku Islands, have been palpable since last September when Japanese private owners sold three islands to their home country. The islands were purchased officially by the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, who used public money to make the transaction and made his wishes clear in April 2012.
China, immediately feeling provoked by the action, saw protests before sending its ships to trawl what Japan claims are its watery territories. Japan?s newly-elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, pledged a tough stance that included open dialogue. China responded by pledging to perform a geological survey in January 2013. It would not be long before more allegations emerged: the Japanese had claimed that the Chinese military had placed a weapons lock on two of its own ships, which it vehemently denied.
The issues regarding sovereignty over these 8 tiny islands are complicated indeed; the Japanese, Chinese, and even Taiwan all have directly competing claims for the territory, and for the moment, there seems to be no easy resolution. For the moment, those of us in the western hemisphere can do little more than sit on our hands, count our stocks and bonds, and hope the Asian markets hold solid despite the frustrations emanating from the Diaoyu Islands.
The royal baby's new name doesn't have a "Seinfeld" connection of course. Or does it?
So there's this royal baby, yada yada yada, and the whole world is celebrating like it's Festivus or something. We don't want to be the biggest jerk at the jerk store, but sometimes people get sick of being told, "Ya gotta see the BABY!" And they didn't even name it Seven, the name Susan's cousin stole from George. Guess those Brits just don't appreciate Mickey Mantle's jersey number.
But wait a minute. Are we seeing a certain "Seinfeldian" trend in the names Prince William and Duchess Kate just announced for the future king?
Take the name George Alexander Louis apart. First there's "George," which yes, we know, Queen Elizabeth's beloved father, but also, a certain Costanza we all know and love.
Then there's "Alexander," which just so happens to be the last name of the actor who played George, Jason Alexander.
And then there's "Louis," after Louis Mountbatten, but also a name that appears in the "Seinfeld" credits. If you don't know that Julia Louis-Dreyfus played Elaine Benes, all we have to say to you is GET OUT! (Add characteristic Elaine double-hand push in there if you like.) And, as the official "Seinfeld" Twitter account pointed out, "Louis" is also George Costanza's middle name.
Three names, three (or four) "Seinfeld" connections. Now that name's sounding a little better to us Yanks. We might even have to send the little royal guy a chocolate babka or a beltless trenchcoat. And now Will and Kate have a few years to start working out a cover story on why an eventual little brother will be dubbed Cosmo Kramer.
Species:Monodelphis dimidiata Habitat: Ripping the heads off insects in Uruguay, south-east Brazil, south-east Paraguay and central and northern Argentina
To anyone who has watched a wildlife documentary or gone on safari, it's only too obvious how the powerful claws and jaws of today's big cats can combine to devastating effect. Until about 11,000 years ago, though, a different kind of feline prowled the Earth ? one with the kind of overbite that no amount of orthodontic work could fix. Our ancestors were probably familiar with the strategy sabre-toothed cats like Smilodon used to put their impressive canines to work, but for evolutionary biologists the giant teeth have always been something of a mystery: no living predator has anything quite like them.
Almost no living predator, that is. There are suggestions that the clouded leopard may show a primitive form of sabre-toothedness ? although there is some debate over whether or not its teeth are large enough relative to its skull for it to qualify as a true sabre-toothed cat. But in any case, the leopard is so rare and poorly studied that its hunting behaviour is almost as much of a mystery as that of the extinct cats.
Then there's the South American short-tailed opossum. This animal is clearly not a cat. In fact, as a marsupial, a class of mammals that keep their young in a pouch, it's a very long way from the cat family in evolutionary terms. But could the 10-centimetre-long creature be the best living equivalent of sabre-toothed cats?
Small but vicious
It's certainly got the temperament. The short-tailed opossum has a reputation for vicious behaviour. It crunches through the heads of insects, de-hairs hairy caterpillars and, given the chance, will attack mammals ? even ones larger than itself ? by biting them on the throat until they suffocate.
There's reason to believe that sabre-toothed cats may have employed a similar kind of strategy to attack and kill their prey. Large canines may be fearsome weapons, but their size makes them prone to fracture ? and yet very few fossil sabre-toothed cats have broken teeth. Going for the neck rather than biting down on a bony part of the body might explain how the cats avoided snapping their teeth.
To judge the opossum's sabre-toothed credentials, Ernesto Blanco at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, and his colleagues collected 44 South American marsupial predators, including four specimens of the short-tailed opossum. Using calipers, the team took a series of measurements from each skull and compared them with each other, and with measurements taken from the skulls of extinct sabre-toothed animals.
Big teeth, weak bite
They found that relative to skull size, the short-tailed opossums' canines really are significantly larger than those of other marsupials. They can also open their jaws unusually wide but their bite is relatively weak ? as modelling studies have suggested was the case with sabre-toothed cats. Blanco says this indicates the opossums may be evolving along similar lines.
They would not be the first sabre-toothed marsupial to walk this earth, says Virginia Naples, a sabre-toothed cat researcher at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. "An [extinct] South American sabre-tooth predator, Thylacosmilus atrox, has been loosely categorised as an opossum," she says.
Blanco and his colleagues think male short-tailed opossums may have gained their large teeth initially for sexual display rather than for hunting: competition between males is particularly acute because these opossums breed only once in their lifetime.
Naples has another theory: she thinks the sabre-tooth adaptation evolved so the opossum could kill prey larger than its body size would suggest. By going after larger prey, not only do you get more food per kill, but you face less competition from predators who find these prey more of a challenge than you do.
If her idea is correct, it could explain why short-tailed opossums are willing to go after prey larger than themselves ? although thankfully, they appear to consider humans too large to tackle.
Journal reference: Journal of Zoology, DOI: 10.1111/jzo.12050
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We count down the best-reviewed work of the Blue Jasmine director.
He's never been a blockbuster filmmaker, but with more than a half century in Hollywood under his belt -- and dozens of movies along the way -- Woody Allen's consistently prolific output stands as a continuing testament to the ability of brainy, low-budget cinema to find an audience, even during an era in which superheroes, sequels, reboots, and remakes seem to exert an ever-stronger grip on the box office. Love him or hate him, Allen's one of the few directors left who can film people sitting around talking and turn it into a wide release -- and with his latest, Blue Jasmine, arriving in theaters this weekend, we knew now would be the perfect time to pay tribute by looking back at his best-reviewed efforts. Call your therapist, because it's time for Total Recall, Woody Allen style!
92%
After suffering relatively lukewarm reviews for 1987's September and 1988's Another Woman, Allen enjoyed a rebound -- and picked up a pair of Academy Award nominations -- for 1989's Crimes and Misdemeanors, which found him writing, directing, and starring alongside Martin Landau in a rather pensive drama that interweaves the stories of an adulterous opthalmalogist (Landau) and a struggling filmmaker (Allen) for whom love and romance are fraught with difficulty (or even danger). Calling it "A relative of Hannah and Her Sisters in its duplex structure and of The Purple Rose of Cairo in its bitter theme," the Washington Post's Rita Kempley bestowed praise befitting Crimes' parallel narrative, calling it "two movies in one, a blend of Allen's satiric and pretentious dramatic styles."
93%
While it would be inaccurate to say that Allen's work went unappreciated during the 1990s and aughts, critical accolades were no longer in such ready supply, and his box-office profile -- which never approached mega-blockbuster heights even during his 1970s and 1980s peak -- lost more than a bit of its luster. But things turned around for 2011's Midnight in Paris, a late-period smash that brought Allen some of the warmest reviews (and the highest grosses) of his career while telling the the fantasy-infused comedic tale of an ennui-addled screenwriter (Owen Wilson) who heads out for a melancholic walk on the streets of Paris and ends up taking much more of a journey than he bargained for. "Woody Allen seemed to have lost his fizz as a filmmaker of late," observed Jason Best for Movie Talk, "and then he uncorked the sparkling Midnight in Paris, a comic fantasy with all the effervescence of vintage champagne."
96%
One of Allen's more critically successful late-period movies, 1994's Bullets Over Broadway found him stepping completely behind the camera in order to tell the tale of a naive 1920s playwright (John Cusack) whose budding Broadway career threatens to derail itself almost before it's begun, thanks to the cascading series of compromises forced when he accepts financial backing from a mobster who insists his talentless girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly) be given a role in the show. Sadly met with indifference at the box office, Bullets made a direct hit with critics like Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle, who called it "Woody Allen at his best -- a gem of a Broadway fable with a crafty premise, a raft of brilliant actors at the top of their form and a bouncy, just-for-pleasure attitude."
98%
Following the Oscar-winning Annie Hall, Allen reunited with Diane Keaton for their sixth collaboration, 1979's Manhattan, the story of a neurotic TV writer caught in a(n admittedly unlikely-seeming) love triangle between a teenager (Mariel Hemingway) and an intellectual (Keaton). Adding another pair of Academy Award nominations to Allen's growing stack (including one for Best Screenplay), it rounded out his 1970s hot streak with typically neurotic flair -- and another round of unbridled love from critics like Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York, who wrote, "This is a deeply self-critical film about immaturity and the gift of real love. Many films can be said to put an epitaph on the decade, but few remain as relevant."
98%
The word "iconic" gets thrown around a lot more often than it should, but this movie fits the description -- a film that so perfectly expresses its creative principals' gifts that when you say "Woody Allen and Diane Keaton," the picture that leaps to mind for most film fans is a black-and-white still from Annie Hall. Keaton's career was already well on its way in 1977, but her performance here rocketed her into Hollywood's upper echelon, earning her a Best Actress Oscar and heaps of critical accolades for a performance of a character who'd form the (often misunderstood) template for countless quirky-but-lovable leading ladies in subsequent rom-coms, and she wasn't the only one who enjoyed recognition for the film; Allen picked up a pair of Oscars of his own (for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), as well as heaps of praise from critics like TIME's Richard Schickel, who observed, "Personal as the story he is telling may be, what separates this film from Allen's own past work and most other recent comedy is its general believability."
Written By Brian Tracy |
Business Success | July 23rd, 2013 | No Comments ?
The race is on and your customer knows it.? There has never been more competition for profit in business than there is today.? And the competition is going to get even more intense in the months and years ahead.
You can save yourself years of hard work and frustration by applying these 4 great ideas for higher profitability.? They can change your business life forever.
1) ?Develop a Clear Mission for Your Business
For you, your business and your people to perform at a high level everyone needs a clear vision of what the business stands for and where it is going.? The first question you have to answer when defining your mission is this.? Why does your business exist at all?
FREE FINANCIAL REPORT:?The Way to Wealth
A mission must always be defined in terms of how your business serves and benefits other people.? A good mission statement will contain a method by which the mission is to be achieved.? In addition, a good mission statement will contain a measure so that an objective third party can assess whether or not the business is living up to the mission that it set for itself.
2) ?Determine Exactly What Business you are in
It?s absolutely amazing how many people are not quite sure what business they are in, even though they work in that business all day long.? Now you always define your business from the point of view of your customer.? You always define the business you are in, in terms of what your products or services do for your customer.? What effects do your products or services have in the lives and work of your customers?? What are the specific benefits that your customers enjoy from using your products or services?
So what business are you in today, from the point of view of your customer?? In addition, what business will you be in tomorrow with the way things are going in your industry?? Or what business should you be in if you want to survive and thrive in this dynamic and competitive environment?
And finally, what business could you be in if you were to make the critical changes necessary to lead your field?? Remember, the very best way to predict the future is to create it.? And, as Michael Kami, the strategic planner once said, ?Those who do not plan for the future cannot have one.?
Whatever business you are in today, it is probably going to change dramatically in the years ahead.? Your job is to be a master of this change, not a victim.? Determining exactly the business you are in and being willing to change to be a major player in this business is a major key to your profitability.
3) Determine Exactly Who Your Customer Is
This is the central question of all marketing, sales, and profitability.? The ability to accurately answer this question, ?Who is my customer,? is the primary determinant of the success of your business.
Define your customer as accurately and as precisely as you can.? For example, what is your customer?s age, education, income, position in their business or company or industry, value base, philosophy, and background?? Where exactly is your customer located geographically?? Where is he or she located within specific businesses or organizations?
Especially, what does your customer consider value?? What is your customer willing to pay for?? What does your customer want or need that he or she is not now getting from someone else?? Why does your potential customer buy from your competitors?? What would you have to do to get your non-customers to switch to your products or services?? What special benefits would you have to offer them?
Keep practicing ?zero based thinking,? with your customers and with your markets.? If you were not now serving this market with these products and services, would you start up again today?? And who is your customer likely to be tomorrow, next year, or in five years?? Who could your customer be if you were to change your product or service offerings?? Who should your customer be if you want to be a high profit business in the future?
Finally, what changes do you need to make in your business to be able to attract and keep the high profit customers of tomorrow.? This is perhaps the most important question that you ask and answer day after day, in building and maintaining a high profit business.
4) Develop Competitive Advantage or Don?t Compete
This is very important.? Your business life depends for its very survival on your ability to develop and maintain a meaningful competitive advantage of some kind.? What is it that your company does really well?? Where do you perform at a high level?? What is the area of excellence of your key products or services?
Your competitive advantage is the aspect of your product or service that makes you superior in a meaningful way to your competitors?? Your area of competitive advantage is always defined in terms of what your customer wants, needs, and is willing to pay for.
Every company that survives and thrives has a specific and valued competitive advantage that customers recognize and appreciate.? Every company that gets into trouble is a company that has either lost its competitive advantage relative to its competitors in the marketplace, or it?s a company that never had one at all.
Your ability to develop, maintain and protect your competitive advantage is the absolutely indispensable pre-requisite for company growth and high profitability.? And since your market is changing so rapidly you must continually ask, ?What will my competitive advantage be tomorrow, based on the way things are going??? What should your competitive advantage be if you want to rise to the top of your field?? What could your competitive advantage be if you were to make the necessary changes in your product and service offerings?
The major competitive advantages today are: faster, cheaper, or easier; or all three combined with superb and timely customer service.? All the most successful and most profitable companies offer high quality products and services, and they offer them quickly.? In addition, they give excellent customer service which they continually improve.? As the result, they are among the most profitable and fastest growing companies in their industries.? And so should you be.
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Tags: business life, your business, your customer
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 at 8:43 am and is filed under Business Success.
What better way to ?cancel the apocalypse? than to use rockets to accelerate a million and a half pounds of steel squarely into an inter-dimensional monster?s face?
Screengrab Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Pacific Rim?a science fiction love letter to the giant monster movies of old?came out swinging two weekends ago amid the squees of geeks everywhere (though no squees were heard at the box office). Its story was a rather simple fanboy or girl fairy tale?giant robots fight giant monsters?and the action was kaiju-crushingly intense. In fact, if you were like me, you might have even fist-bumped the screen when you saw a Anime-style rocket fist deliver a mountain of metal to a snarling kaiju?s face. It was so cool that we are required to science it.
Just how much power does to take to make a kaiju crumble??Keep cheering, because that particular punch was like taking a Boeing 747 to the face.
Rock ?Em, Sock ?Em Robots
Like how we describe car crashes and TNT explosions, Joules?a measure of energy?are the best units to use when calculating what an elbow rocket can deliver. More specifically, we want the kinetic energy (measured in Joules) of the punch in order to make comparisons. All we need is the mass of the jaeger arm and the velocity of the punch.
The first thing we know is that jaegers are huge; like 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty huge. And with great height comes great weight. The main robot of Pacific Rim, Gipsy Danger, is said to be 7,080 tons*?half the weight of all the trash produced in New York City in one day. Based on this weight and some other assumptions about how much an average human arm weighs in comparisons to full body weight?other nerdy engineers like myself have estimated the jaeger rocket arm to be about 1.5 million pounds.
Despite their enormous mechanical power, jaegers aren?t that fast. Part of this is for cinematic effect?slower than normal motion gives the illusion of weight to the robots. But their speed is also fairly average because the robots? motion is based on human pilots who physically move them around. The average person can?t punch very fast?maybe 15 to 30 miles per hour?so it?s understandable that you might put huge rockets on your robot to help KO a kaiju.
At full burn in the clip, the jaeger Gipsy Danger?s fist hits the kaiju?s face not much faster than an average human punch, but velocity matters. If going 50% faster than a good human punch at the time of impact, the 1.5 million pound arm would be carrying 125,000,000 Joules of kinetic energy. Being on the receiving end of a jaeger rocket punch would then be like getting hit in the face with a Boeing 747 going 60 miles per hour?the same as typical runway exit speeds, except that the exit is to your face.
Screengrab Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
A rocket-powered punch isn?t a crazy science fiction scheme either. Kinetic energy is more affected by velocity than mass. In the equations, the velocity term is squared?or multiplied by itself?meaning that doubling the speed will quadruple the kinetic energy (while doubling the mass only doubles the energy). The elbow rocket then allows Gispsy Danger to punch far beyond its weight (but why it didn?t use its swords the whole time is beyond me.)
The thrust required to accelerate the arm is huge too. It would be equivalent to a Saturn V rocket, meaning that the jaeger could theoretically throw a one-kilogram object directly into space with the energy behind its punch. Of course, spending so much time near the sea, a jaeger could tee up a kaiju hit with a similar kinetic energy as the rocket punch by slapping the kaiju in the face with a blue whale (yes, I did the math).
BONUS SCIENCE: Could a Kaiju Fly Into Space?
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Right after we see the jaeger Gipsy Danger punch the kaiju codenamed Leatherback in the face with what is effectively a taxiing 747, the kaiju codenamed Otachi spreads its wings to carry the jaeger into the upper atmosphere (presumably to drop it back down again). Before it gets too far, Gispy unsheathes a giant sword and triumphantly removes one of Otachi?s wings, slaying the great beast.
This again begs a nerdy question: Can you simply flap some wings hard enough and get into the upper atmosphere?
In 1975, a vulture with a 10-foot wingspan?an R?ppell?s griffon?was sucked into an airplane engine at nearly 38,000 feet. If the flying kaiju is similarly proportioned, this gives us some idea of how high it could go. But looking again at the film (I?ve seen it three times now), we can clearly see the curvature of the Earth. In fact, there?s more space in the shot than surface. A better estimate of the height might be the greatest free-fall in human history?the drop of Felix Baumgartner. This brave man rocketed towards Earth starting from 128,000 feet in the atmosphere. Either limit puts the jaeger-carrying kaiju squarely in the stratosphere.
But unless the monstrous kaiju can also supply a monstrous amount of force?like a Saturn V rocket?or has wings with gargantuan surface are, there is no way the kaiju could get so high.
The only way to fly is to fight. With each downward thrust of a wing air is pushed down, and therefore the air pushes back up on the wing. This is fine in the lower atmosphere where air is dense, but it gets thinner the higher you go. There is less air to push against and so you must fight harder and harder until flight ultimately fails. Not only is there hardly anything to push on up there, but there is hardly anything to breathe. Like the baby kaiju choking to death in mere seconds, the flying Otachi wouldn?t make it very far.
Either way, the kaiju doesn?t need to get into the stratosphere to execute a successful jaeger drop (or bomb, if you will). Something the size of the Statue of Liberty, if dropped, will reach terminal velocity in much less than 100,000 feet.
?
*The weight I used was based on the original blueprints released before the movie came out. The wikia for the film now has a revised weight that is substantially smaller. I went with the original blueprint for the sake of nerd purity.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]A new system that goes by the name of "hybrid contextual cloud in ubiquitous platforms comprising of smart phones" or HYCCUPS for short, has been developed by computer scientists. The system boosts phone battery life by booting power-consuming computational tasks on to an on-the-fly ad-hoc cloud in which smart phones are both clients and computing resources.
BRADENTON ? A 71-year-old man has been charged with trying to have sex with an undercover police detective he thought was a 15-year-old boy, according to police.
The detective obtained Raymond Robarge's telephone number after he provided it to two men he had approached in the 1800 block of Ninth Avenue West and offered to pay for sex, according to police.
"The suspect provided the young men with his cellular telephone number, as they told him to leave them alone," a police news release states.
Police Detective Kevin Bunch identified Robarge, who lives in the 5100 block of 14th Street West, as the suspect.
Bunch, a member of the FBI's Child Exploitation Task Force, communicated several times with Robarge through telephone conversation and text messaging.
"During these conversations, Mr. Robarge described in graphic detail how he wanted to engage in sexual acts, and later agreed to travel to a predetermined location within the city of Bradenton in order to meet with who he thought was a 15-year-old boy," the news release states.
Robarge was arrested Monday in the 100 block of Manatee Avenue East when he went to meet the teen.
After he was arrested, police say Robarge admitted to making the telephone calls and sending the text messages, and to traveling to meet who he thought was a boy for sex.
Robarge faces charges of traveling to meet a minor to have sex, a second-degree felony; and prohibited use of computer services or devices, a third-degree felony. He was being held without bond at the Manatee County jail.
Tour de France champion Chris Froome has said that stringent drug testing meant cycling was now probably the cleanest sport, and the testing is very strict. According to sport24, Froome said that each rider had a blood passport where readings were taken almost on a monthly basis and people still did not realise the amount of testing that they actually go through, adding that cycling must be one ...
One Direction members turn fitness freak
Tajikistan News.Net - Monday 22nd July, 2013
Members of British band One Direction want to get into perfect shape and, says their fitness trainer Mark Jarvis Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan want to work on their bodies, reports dailystar.co.uk. "The lads want to get defined beach bodies. Lots of protein is the best way for them to get in shape and build up muscle," Jarvis said. Moreover, Styles ...
Sports Unwavering Chelsea ready to pay ?30m for Rooney
Standard Digital - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Chelsea are happy to match Rooney's bumper 240,000-a-week salary at United and they will also hand him a five-year contract -- if he can force his way out of the Barclays Premier League ...
Nokias Lumia 625 With its 4.7-inch display this is a budget big-screen aimed at first time smartphone buyers
The Independent - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Nokia has unveiled its latest addition to its burgeoning Lumia range of handsets: the Lumia 625, a big-screened, mid-tier handset with 4G connectivity and offered in a range of ...
How to get ahead ? as an employment adviser
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
The government's welfare reforms and the emphasis on work have had an impact on its employment advisory service. Photograph: Rex Features/Nils ...
Plymouth council becomes first to ban payday loan ads on billboards
The Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Plymouth city council is believed to be the first to take such action against companies that it believes are causing thousands of its residents to run up devastating debts.Chris Penberthy, the cabinet member for community development, said: "Plymouth's advice agencies are taking calls daily from people who are running up huge debts that are causing stress and hardship to them and their ...
Lifestyle Big leap towards curing blindness in stem cell study
Standard Digital - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
They have used a new technique for building retinas in the laboratory. It was used to collect thousands of stem cells, which were primed to transform into photoreceptors, and injected them into the eyes of blind ...
Ubuntu Edge A $32 million campaign to create the future of the phone
The Independent - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Building on their vision of 'Convergence' as the future of computing, Canonical - the creators of open-source OS Ubunutu - have launched a new Indiegogo campaign to create the Edge: a smartphone 'for the future' that will double up as desktop ...
Putting the spotlight on drama students employment prospects
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Waiting in the wings: Few drama graduates will be lucky enough to a land a spot on the stage at The National Theatre. Photograph: David Levene for the ...
Live QA CharityGiving and online fundraising Thursday 25 July
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
suspension of the CharityGiving online fundraising platform has raised concerns that the public might lose confidence in online giving in general as a result.The Charity Commission opened an investigation into CharityGiving last month because of serious concerns about the trustees' administration of the Dove Trust, the charity which owns the online giving platform.It appointed an interim ...
Gabby Logan Sky Sports treats women presenters as ?window dressing?
Belfast Telegraph - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
The female presenters who wear figure-hugging outfits on Sky Sports are there to provide "window dressing" alongside their male colleagues, the broadcaster Gabby Logan has ...
Why private sector advice isnt always good for the public sector | Alexander Stevenson
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Topshop boss Sir Philip Green, who concluded that 'there is no reason why the thinking in the public sector should be different from the private sector'. Photograph: Dave ...
Sport in Azerbaijan is a priority of the state ? NOC member
News.Az - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
In an interview to 1news.az, member of the Azerbaijani delegation in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia), head of the General Directorate of Youth and Sports Office of Baku and a member of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) Ragif Abbasov summed up the 27th Summer Universiade. With regard to what the 27th World Universiade was remembered for, Ragif Abbasov said: Let me make a brief excursion into ...
Apparent suicides after release from police custody reach record high
The Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
released by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed that 64 people apparently killed themselves in those circumstances in 2012-13, up from 39 the previous year.A number of the 64 had been arrested in connection with sexual offences, the IPCC said, nearly two-thirds were known to ...
Schools must do more to protect students from female genital mutilation
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Lots of teachers aren't even aware that female genital mutilation (FGM) goes on, says Lisa Zimmerman, a teacher at Bristol City Academy. She campaigns against FGM through the ...
Would Winston Churchill have failed the Tories new Google test to seek out past indiscretions
The Independent - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Well yes, but not just because he wouldn't know what it was. Would-be MPs are being asked to check their online reputations. Luckily, Winston never had ...
Lifestyle Breakfast linked to healthy heart
Standard Digital - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Heart Foundation said breakfast helped people resist sugary snacks before lunch. The men, aged 45-82, were studied for 16 years. During that time there were more than 1,500 heart attacks or cases of fatal heart failure. However, people who skipped breakfast were 27% more likely to have heart problems than those who started the day with a meal. The researchers adjusted for other lifestyle risk ...
Sports and Tourism Destination South Africa
eTN - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
The Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), will be the venue for the Sports & Events Tourism Exchange (SETE) Exhibition and Conference, will play a fundamental role in promoting sports and tourism in South Africa. The event as a whole is aimed at positioning South Africa as a sport tourism destination. It's taking place from 22 -24 October 2013 at Sport tourism is one of the ...
Sports Barcelona Fabregas is not for sale
Standard Digital - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
Barcelona source said on Monday. "The president (Sandro Rosell) has been very clear with Man United." Old Trafford boss David Moyes earlier said he may be forced to admit ...
People will remember welfare reform as the state punishing the poor
Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
reclassified properties to beat the bedroom tax - an action that has resulted in threats of fines from Whitehall - and called for power to be devolved to the north.Wakefield is cast from a different mould to most politicians: as a boy he was taken into care at a Birmingham orphanage, and his teenage years and early twenties were difficult. He knows what it is like to sleep rough, be jobless and ...
Oldest Briton dies at 115 years and 199 days
The Guardian - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
The oldest Briton has died at the age of 115 years and 199 days.Sant Kaur Bajwa was born in 1 January 1898 in Pakistan but had lived in England since the 1960s, her life spanning three centuries and two world wars.She was officially the UK's oldest and the world's second oldest person when she died of natural causes on Friday. Twelve grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren survive ...
Russian sports minister calls for Luzhniki stadium to be reconstructed with minimal costs
Itar Tass - Tuesday 23rd July, 2013
PENZA, July 23 (Itar-Tass) - Chairman of the organizing committee of the FIFA World Cup in 2018, Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko told Itar-Tass that he calls for the Luzhniki stadium, where the final match of the FIFA World Cup will be held, to be reconstructed with minimal costs. On July 19, acting Moscow First Deputy Mayor Marat Khusnullin told reporters that he succeeded to talk the ...
WASHINGTON (AP) ? If President Barack Obama's new focus on the economy sounds familiar, that's because he's done it before.
Since the first year of his presidency, Obama has been launching ? and re-launching ? initiatives on the economy. Some came with new policy proposals, others with catchy slogans.
Remember 2011's "Winning the Future" campaign? Or the "We Can't Wait" initiatives that followed later that year? Just a few months ago, Obama was headlining the "Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour."
So far there's no slogan attached to the White House's latest initiative, which kicks off Wednesday in Galesburg, Ill. The president's advisers are billing his remarks as a major address on the economy, though no new initiatives are expected to be announced. However, aides say there will be some fresh policy proposals in a series of follow-up speeches planned through September, most of which will be narrowly targeted on issues like housing, retirement security and expanding access to education.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama's repeated attempts to orient his public agenda on the economy should serve as a reminder that "the president has always been focused on these issues."
"That doesn't mean we don't need to continue to remind people that improving the economic situation in America is the principle reason why our fellow citizens elect and send people to Washington," Carney said.
But congressional Republicans, who continue to be a roadblock for many of the president's economic proposals, dismissed the White House's new public relations push as a retread of old ideas.
"We've seen this song and dance before," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "Whether it's his health care law, his job-destroying energy policies, or the mountain of regulations piling up, it's the president's own policies that are responsible for this new normal of weak economic growth and high unemployment."
Still, the timing of Obama's latest economic initiative underscores the degree to which jobs and growth have been overshadowed in Washington since the president began his second term. That's been driven in part by the White House, which has invested significant time on other areas of the president's agenda, including the failed effort to enact stricter gun laws and the push for immigration reform, which succeeded in the Senate but faces an uncertain future in the House.
A series of foreign policy crises, like the Syrian civil war and Egyptian coup, have also competed for the White House's attention. So have a flurry of recent controversies, including the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of political groups, the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records, and renewed attention on the investigation into the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
All the while, the economy has slowly but steadily improved. The housing market is coming back, the stock market is on the rise and consumer confidence is near its highest levels of Obama's presidency. Nationwide unemployment is also falling, though at 7.6 percent, it still remains high.
But a new round of fiscal deadlines threaten to upend that progress, adding urgency to the White House's desire to get the economy back on Washington's radar ? while at the same time trying to get the public to side with the president's economic vision.
The potential fiscal showdown in September will focus on the debt ceiling and the automatic federal budget cuts that kicked in earlier this year. Obama wants to end the cuts before they extend into the next fiscal year. And some Republicans want more deficit reduction in exchange for raising the nation's borrowing limit, a bargain Obama says he would not back.
Obama's aides say that while Wednesday's address and subsequent events will touch on the looming fiscal fights, they say they do not see the speech as a legislative negotiating tactic. Nor will the president lay out an economic "to-do" list for Congress, reflecting the White House's recognition that many of the president's proposals would almost certainly face opposition on Capitol Hill, particularly in the Republican-led House.
And that dynamic, just like Obama's repeated economic PR campaigns, may again leave the public with a feeling that they've been here before.
JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israel's prime minister says he expects recently announced peace talks with the Palestinians to be tough, and that any agreement reached would have to be ratified in a national Israeli referendum.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Sunday at his weekly Cabinet meeting, his first on-camera remarks since U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the resumption of peace talks over the weekend ? ending a five year deadlock.
Netanyahu said his main guiding principles will be to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel and to avoid a future Palestinian state becoming an Iranian-backed "terror state."
Final status negotiations aim to reach a deal on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and security arrangements. The Palestinians say talks will be based on Israel's pre-1967 borders.
The race is on and your customer knows it.? There has never been more competition for profit in business than there is today.? And the competition is going to get even more intense in the months and years ahead.
