is traditional politics dead

We Americans are a selfish bunch often becoming "patriotic" only when it helps our pocketbook. Our vote has become a self interest vote which is part of democracy's strength and also part of its weakness. The poor vote one way and the rich another; the poor vote hoping to get a free piece and the rich vote to keep all of their pieces and not have to share any. Or something like that.The undecided straddling the middle cast the swing votes; they hope to give a little and get a little and not take too big of an overall hit. The neither rich nor poor get caught square in the middle or "middle class" as it is often called. The Twilight Zone might be a more appropriate name.For example. When a politician promises to create jobs they neglect to tell their uninformed electorate that government does not and cannot create jobs. Taxing Peter to "create" a job for Paul is not job creation but a form of legalized theft. It's called bad government and it's not what government does well and it is simply untrue to say that it does. Entrepreneurs create jobs. Government can only create and maintain the economic conditions that help entrepreneurs create jobs. What we don't hear are politicians encouraging entrepreneurs; politicians just increase the cost of doing business. Subsequently entrepreneurs usually see government as setting up obstacles rather than creating positive economic conditions. Is this surprising? So when politicians tell you bad trade agreements are responsible for your company going bankrupt and your losing your job, they are fooling the foolish. An uninformed electorate is supposedly a bad electorate but opportunist politicos love it when voters are not able to think and reason for themselves. Or just don't know.In this air of non-traditional patriotism stockholders and industry want a bail out when things fail. Bankrupt homeowners want a bail out when they speculate and lose. The educational system wants more money yet continues to be out of step with the educational needs of a modern, technological society. Are you better off now than four years ago? The question implies that if you aren't better off now you can vote for Politician X and that will change. Like it or not, the truth of the matter is that government has become increasingly irrelevant in the modern world. The two meaningful parties in the U.S. have the electorate fooled into thinking we are fighting for our very own selfish interests. What they neglect to say is the pact they have with each other is commonly called "gridlock" and is somehow supposed to represent our best interests, checks and balances and all that good stuff. Really? The liberal lie is "You can have a bigger slice of the pie if you vote for me." The conservative lie is "let's not change anything because that way we benefit the most and above all else we don't want to give that up that relative status." Neither side is very willing to help the general populace as they are already committed to helping their own focused support base. That is how they raise money, get elected and the turn the proverbial worm. Of course as societies become self-centered and greedy they become weak, corrupt and hasten their own downfall. We may not want to believe this depressing news but there has never been an example otherwise. But the politicians simply don't care as seen by their actions. Theirs is a short term vision just as the CEO's is for the next quarter. The only time the politicos ever go into the factories and machine shops and diners is at election time. What we have created is a gridlocked, cultural sporting event compromise instead of looking at what is best for America. This is what we wanted; should we be surprised we have gotten it? What America needs is not the false hope of a government induced comfort zone but a government that challenges its electorate and creates opportunities for all to do better. Doing better is what America does best or at least in the traditional sense of patriotism. But we get what we deserve and we deserve some of the politicians we get. Those politicians like to keep us confused. Shame on all those politicians. But bigger shame on us. We can clearly see that social evolution has exceeded government's and politics' ability to respond. By nature government and politicians are reactive and not strategic. And in a rapidly changing world increasingly irrelevant.

marketing through sms

Everyday across the world several billions of SMS are sent and most of them carry personal messages sent mostly by youths for staying in contact with their friends. But in the recent years, the popularity of SMS has increasingly spread in business sectors also. Larger companies have adopted SMS as a cheap and effective marketing tool as it delivers the company's message to its audience. The major areas where SMS marketing is used are banks, drink firms, entertainment and leisure venues. Along with SMS, the MMS, which includes picture messaging, is also increasingly becoming an essential marketing tool by these organizations. This is possible after the development of needed software and tools that allows your SMS and MMS from your desktop through a web-based service or by using downloaded software. Through SMS marketing you can send large number of SMS at one time.SMS marketing can be sent according to your convenience and it won't immediately disappear like emails and other means of communications. So, by SMS marketing, your text message reaches the target market within seven seconds and you will receive immediate response for your announcement, offer or message. It also helps in building new relationships and regular text messages will keep you in contact with existing customers and so brand loyalty is maintained.But, you have to remember that the characters in your text message are limited to 160. So it is essential to create a text message which is clear and concise. When you use SMS as your business-marketing tool the regulatory procedures are similar to email marketing. Collection of cell phone numbers of users is the first step in SMS marketing. You should get the agreements of each recipient and failure of this can lead you to pay fine for every occurrence under the Data Protection Legislation. After getting agreement from the target market, their telephone numbers list that has been collected can be loaded easily into the software. This software will generate the text messages to the target audience list and also you don't have to retype the SMS several times to different mobile numbers.As a marketing tool, SMS text messages are used in many other ways also. If you use key words similar to keywords used by the consumers, they accept your message you are promoting. You can use the five digit text number short cut codes that helps in receiving the responses and handling them automatically. The received responses are delivered to your desk by using email. As the numbers of mobile users are getting increased everyday, the SMS marketing, is the most attractive advertising medium for major companies. To get the advantage of SMS marketing the mobile users can get registered with advertising companies and in turn the advertisers will contact them. The advertisers send SMS based on the users locality, age, sex, interest, occupation and several other parameters. After the advertisers acquire SMS credit, the SMS text campaign is run. Users who have paid will be receiving regular SMS from the advertisers. The marketing company for the course of action involved uses a part of the commission. SMS marketing benefits both the advertiser and the user. SMS marketing is a great tool for the companies to create, build and maintain relationships with customers.

learn flash game programming

I have written this article as a basic primer to flash game programming. In this article I will cover how basic programming can be applied to creating flash games. This article will not cover graphic design or drawing. If you are already proficient in another programming language this article will certainly help in the transition to flash game programming.This article is aimed at people will very basic programming knowledge. An interest in flash games is certainly a bonus when learning to program them. Programming languages of any king will help you to understand this article and its terminology relating to flash game programming. I will be using very general programming terminology.The very first thing I am going to cover is variables. A variable is a place where either a number, string(text) or a Boolean(true or false) can be stored. Variables can be changed at run time this means during game play. For example number of ammo in a weapon can be stored as a variable. As the user shoots the weapon the variable is degreased. A very symbol way in programming syntax would be: On press decrease the ammo variable by one. The next thing I’m going to discuss is hit tests. A hit test is performed to detect when two symbols make contact. When these symbols make contact a true value is returned while the objects are not in contact a false value is returned. As you can imagine this very simple function has many uses where game programming is covered. An example of this could be when bullet hits its target play an animation of the enemy’s death and remove them from the screen. So the basic in programming terms to this would be: if bullet and enemy’s hit test is equal to ‘true’ then activate function enemy death that takes the value of the enemy’s unique identifier. Inside the function would be syntax to display the animation and remove the symbol from the screen.Displaying a life car can be achieved by first creating a small rectangle graphic. Next make the rectangle a movie clip and sets its identifier to a name of your choice. After this create a variable and set the variables values to ‘100’ and strict data style it to a number. Once you have done this, open action script and set the rectangles .length property to the variable you just created and set to ‘100’. This way when the variable is increased or decreased the bar will change lengths. So when the variable is high the bar is longer and when the variable is low the bar will become shorter. Remember variables can be changed at run time there for so can the bar. Using a simple hit test to increase and decrease the variable which in turn changes the bars length. Producing a working bar that shows how much value the variable contains. This can easily be added into a game where the length of the bar resents the amount of life a player has remaining. I hope this article showed you just how simple the elements that make up a flash game can be. Games may look daunting but once you break down there elements they become a lot simpler than they may first appear. If you have no yet tried making a game using flash then I strongly suggest you give it ago. The best way to learn flash is by experimenting and creating working scripts.

pick preety car

Sadly I am not a wealthy man. If I harboured dreams of owning a fast car and a country mansion I would likely end up disappointed. However I need not despair; the advent of prestige car hire offers hope for people like me that want to experience the enjoyment of driving a seriously cool car without having to sell a kidney. The following are the three cars that I would go for if I was looking to hire a prestige company car. Aston Martin DB9The Aston Martin DB9 was considered so cool by the presenters of Top Gear that they invented a new category on their "cool wall" that categorises the cars they review into "seriously uncool" to sub zero. The DB9 was so popular that they wheeled in a fridge to demonstrate that it was way off their scale and they triumphed the car despite the fact that presenter Jeremy Clarkson owns one. Aston Martin is synonymous with cool and has long been the choice of James Bond. The car is also the choice for the young sexy women in Hollywood: the DB9 is driven by the character Gabrielle Solis played by Eva Longoria in the US TV series Desperate Housewives. The DB name stems from the man that owned Aston Martin from the early 40s to mid 60s, David Brown. The DB9 is hand built and the numbers that are made are limited. Buying an Aston Martin DB9 will set you back around 110,850 - 119,850. It can be leased on 48 month business contract hire if you have the 9359.94 deposit and monthly rental fee of 1559.99 that must be paid for 47 months.Bentley Continental GTThis Grand Tourer coupe is a favourite of celebrities and along with the Chrysler 300 is known as the "Baby Bentley". The 4 time World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen used the Bentley Continental to break the World speed record on Ice when he drove it on a section of the frozen Baltic sea near Oulu in Finland. He reached a speed of 207mph which smashed the previous record of 184mph. An interesting feature on the Bentley Continental GT is that the grille is made of plastic. It is designed to look like chrome based mesh but plastic is used as a safety measure as it will break apart on impact with a pedestrian. The Bentley Continental is related to the Audi A8. Both are made by parent company Volkswagen AG. Details of a Bentley Continental GT speed have been released that will modify the current design to achieve a top speed of 202mph and a 0-60 time of 4.3 seconds. The current version sells for between 110,000 and 120,000. A 48 Month Business Contract Hire will cost you an initial deposit of 8399.94 followed by 47 months at 1399.99 per month.Jaguar XKThe Jaguar XK is quintessentially British. The Scottish designer Ian Callum is said to have modelled the car with British actress Kate Winslet in mind. He stated that "a Jaguar should be sensuous and voluptuous". Jeremy Clarkson has described the XK as "pant-wettingly pretty". It won the GT of the year award from Top Gear magazine as well as the car of the year award for 2006.Jaguar have designed and introduced this vehicle to replace the XJS. The XK8 and XKR versions are electronically limited to a maximum speed of 155mph. The car comes with 18 inch alloy wheels as standard with the option of increasing them to 19 or 20 inches. Jaguar has worked extensively to improve the safety features on the XK and have developed a bonnet airbag system that is designed to cushion the head of a pedestrian in the event of an accident. Previously when a pedestrian was hit by a Jaguar severe injury occurred because the victims head pushed through the bonnet and collided with the engine. The new system senses the impact and raises the bonnet to prevent this happening. It is called the Pedestrian Deployable Bonnet System or PDBS.With a price tag of 60,000 it is not within everyone's budget. A 48 Month Business Contract Hire will cost a deposit of 4199.94 followed by 47 months at 699.99.

auto car used parts

Every year many people sell off their car and buy a new one, and that too just for fun. We know that nowadays, it is easier to buy a car through an Internet than from a local used car dealer. At present, you will find many car models moving around. However, buying any of them might blow up your budget. Meanwhile you work hard to earn enough money to fund you car, you have a valuable option of used car. In addition, you can buy used modern car accessories so that you can use that for your car. Isn’t this a good deal to use well maintained car part with your car to enjoy a super ride?As internet has become a local hub for everybody to buy and sell different products if you surf the internet, you can easily locate number of websites selling used auto parts.This websites gathers used but still in good condition parts from several car salvage yards and puts them on the site for sell. Some websites also gives guarantee parts while others issue replacement warranties. Most of the times, a used car part works better and the car owner experiences good car performance like fuel efficiency, better mileage and low maintenance cost.Another benefit of purchasing a good used car part is you can save almost 25 to 50% cost, of the original part and that too with a guarantee (of course, it entirely depends on through which site you are dealing). Some websites do not engage themselves in just selling used car part. Such sites have their own automotive directory, through which you can locate used car dealers and other car part sellers. With these sites, you can also compare prices of the selected parts. This allows you to choose the more affordable parts.On a dedicated used car part website, you are with wide range of parts. This site lists out every part of any branded car right from engine, turbo, transmission, bumpers, body parts as well as various types of electric components. Hence, you can easily search your car’s requirements in the websites. Amazingly, such website becomes an auto part marketplace, where you can find every part of your car along with all dealers providing that part with comparable price. Either some websites allow their users to put a query about a particular car part, which is then forwarded to other car part dealers or other visitors answer the query providing extra information. One such website is http://www.automotix.net, which is entirely dedicated for all types of auto part right from any SUV to any heavy-duty truck. All this information is available at a single place.Apart from this, if you are interested in buying a truck, then also just surf through any good used car part website. You will find lots of used part that are in good condition as well as dealers in your nearest areas.However, there are some guidelines that need to be followed before you purchase any auto part online. You just need to be with a vehicle identification number, which provides most of the information about your car like, make, company and model. Moreover, most importantly understand all the details of the part since these small precautions are going to save your car as well as your money.

dress desinging is good taste

Good taste in general design may be instinctive but good taste in dress is not necessarily inherent - however, it can be developed. Principles of good taste in dress change with the type of climate, social structure of a particular locality, geographical location, and era or time in history. Good taste in dress requires sensitivity to the times, to knowledge of fashion, and suitability not only to the individual but to the occasion as well.Fashion represents the seasonal changes in silhouette, design, color, and material - it also represents the fads and fancies of the style setters and it could be termed as the timely use of an artifice intended to make the wearer more attractive.Personal style or individuality in dress represents the use to which current fashion is put. It demonstrates the ability to be smartly dressed at all times, the ability to adapt the best of fashion's current dictates suitable for one's own figure and activities - spiced with a bit of daring - and yet in complete harmony with good taste.How to Develop Good TasteThe criterion of good taste in dress is suitability plus beauty plus apparent simplicity of design. The ability to study, observe, and analyze are important to the development of good taste.Study art. Go to the museums. Take a course in art appreciation. If possible go to an art school or subscribe to a correspondence course in art. Any of these will help develop keener insight and appreciation of color, line, and general composition in its relation to good design.Study history and literature pertinent to dress and design. Learn about the effect history has had on fashions. Notice how the morals and customs of a particular society have affected their dress. Most libraries in the larger towns and cities have many excellent books on these subjects.Observe. Make a habit of observing - of really seeing what people wear and what is currently in fashion. Subscribe to the better magazines and newspapers. Study the latest fashion magazines. Observe the people in public life and in the performing arts. Notice what the actresses wear as they appear in the theatre, movies, and on your television screen at home. A number of television shows have fashion forecasts as part of their regular programming - make it a point to see these.Observe the general public at various places. Make a note of what is being worn at receptions, parties, meetings, concerts, the theatre - and in all walks of daily life. If at all possible, make a habit of going to the best places, the most fashionable restaurants, resorts, and wherever the public gathers. Go to as many fashion shows as are available to you.Another good source for news of the latest fashions is in advertising - watch the trade advertisements in newspapers and magazines.Analyze. As your circle of activities widens - learn to observe critically and make a habit of analyzing what you see.Observe what makes one individual more attractive than another; analyze what part her clothes play in her apparent attractiveness and why one person seems to have more style than another even when both are dressed in the latest fashion. As you study each costume think of how you would improve it to better suit the wearer or the occasion.Learn To Discriminate. Keep your eye on good design - don't fall for fashion fads for the sake of the fad alone unless it will do something for you - then by all means use it!All style news is important but discrimination is the basis of good style

fation in a padded sell

I'm not sure I should admit this, but ordinairily I hate fashion shows. Far from the air of sophisticated cool they like to project, they are usually scenes of disorganised chaos. Nothing can make a half naked model seem less sexy than seeing her get screamed at by a pompous fashion designer for not doing up some buttons in the right order!In fact the Italians has a great word for scenes like this 'casino'. Literally translated it means 'brothel' but generally its used whenever one is in a situation that seems to prove that there is no order to the universe. A bus breaks down, everyone spills out on to the pavement and starts yelling at each other for no apparent reason. That's 'casino' is action. Frankly, in the context of fashion shows, either literal or empirical translations will suffice perfectly well.It is against this background that earlier in the year, I found myself at Alexander McQueen's menswear show. The star turn involved suits encased in clear plastic, set to strains of Neil Diamond's "Play Me". They reminded me of those protective coverings that American pensioners put on their sofas. Try as I might, I couldn't really see that there is an especially big market for men with a burning desire to look like a mad pensioner's sofa. So instead, I decided that the show must clearly be about creating a spectacle rather than clothes that translate to real life.So engrossed in the plastic was I, that I neglected to notice the suit's shoulders. They were were the kind of shoulders that far worthier fashion journalists than I would describe using phrases such as "defiant tailoring". I have no idea what that means either. Instead, lets just say that it means the return of shoulder pads.I think the 1980's were a bit rubbish. Music was rubbish, haircuts were rubbish, people were rubbish and clothes were well, rubbish. Nothing symbolises that rubbish quite like the shoulder pad. They were clothes for a shouty, strident era. Clothes for Thatcherism. They literally discouraged uncertainty. Lets face it, if you shrugged whilst wearing a particularly large pair of shoulder pads then you started to take on the appearance of Louis XVI after his little tete a tete with Madame Guillotine.Shoulder pads speak of braying yuppies and the sort of blazer that Rick Astley wore while yodeling about 10 goods reasons to stay, as if even he had realised that the minute people clapped eyes on him they'd be running for the exits.Shoulder pads also remind me of a sports coat I was bought in my teens, for "special occasions". These usually involved a psychologically wounding trip to a musical in London's West End. I once witnessed a musical version of Mutiny On The Bounty starring Sinitta and David Essex. I thought I might at least get to witness a few sword fights and even some cleavage. I did, but it belonged to David. And you wonder how I ended up in fashion!I got the invitation to try on the McQueen jacket and after a couple of large gin and tonics, I felt sufficiently bolstered to give it a whirl. It actually looked pretty great, even if I do say so myself. At the risk of talking about defiant tailoring, it makes your silhouette strong and defined, encourages that V taper. But it costs over a thousand pounds (two thousand dollars).Never mind though, by the time you are reading this, Topshop and the other high street multiples will almost certainly have one on their racks. Ready to wear for a special occasion no doubt.