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In This Week’s Issue

Cool Links, Inspiration, Information, The Healing Power of Laughter, and these articles:

·    News: Pfizer Agrees To US$2.3B Settlement

·    News in Pictures: California Wildfires

·    Politics: A Path to Fiscal Sanity

·    Politics: Pass the Audit the Fed Bill!

·    Politics: Free Coffee Lands Cigar Shop in Hot Water

·    Investing: Offshore Profits – Full Transcript Online NOW!

·    Global Warming Scam: Global Warming Is The New AIDS

·    Business: Eight Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed

·    Business: 50 Project Management Power Productivity Tools

·    Personal Finance – Credit: When Will A Debt Collector File Suit Against Me?

·    Personal Finance – Offshore: CNBC Host: Tax Havens ‘Help Prevent Tyranny’

·    Personal Development: How to Become a Better Husband, Boyfriend or Life Partner

·    Money: Misery Index

·    Health: Foods Surprisingly High in Added Sugar

·    Health: Regular Drinkers Exercise More Than Nondrinkers

·    Health: Rub Away Your Pain: Feel-Good Pain Relief Trick

·   FREEDOM: The Essence of Freedom

·    Computers: 14 Alternative Browsers That Are Not IE6

Books & Recordings available at davidvoth.com

§   FREEDOM BLUEPRINT: The Ultimate Plan For Escaping Big Brother’s Matrix And Creating Your Own World of Freedom & Wealth

§   The 10 Secrets Revenue Canada Doesn’t Want You To Know! One of the best selling business books of all time

§   INVEST OFFSHORE for Privacy, Protection & Profit!

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“A short saying oft contains much wisdom.” ~Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC)

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

—William Faulkner, Author

“No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction.”

—Charles Kendall Adams (1835-1902) Professor of History and Author

“The real measure of a man is by how quickly he gets angry.”

—Unknown

INSPIRATION

May You Be Blessed Movie

"Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.” This is a quote from Albert Schweitzer, but it captures the essence of what “May You Be Blessed” is all about.

View the short DVD movie

Chicago – You’re the Inspiration

Someone in our lives is that for us—tell them thank you!

Click here and listen to it now:

http://blip.fm/profile/TerrySimpson/blip/21327145/Chicago-Youre_the_Inspiration

THE HEALING POWER OF LAUGHTER

We don’t stop laughing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop laughing! 

Kid Loves Bacon

Catch 22: This kid can’t live without bacon, nor will he live a long, healthy life if he doesn’t change something.

Video from ABC TV (1:20)

I Want Some Tarp – Bailout Song

by Bill Zucker

A Hilarious Parody of the government tarp bailout and the Teaparty Song by Bill Zucker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGfQk9XXm24

NEWS IN PICTURES

California Wildfires – August 31, 2009

A wildfire in the mountains north of Los Angeles nearly doubled in size overnight and continues to threaten a broadcasting antenna complex and thousands of homes. Spokeswoman Dianne Cahir said the fire had burned 134 square miles of brush and trees by early Monday. At least 18 homes have burned and 12,000 are threatened in a 20-mile stretch from Pasadena to Acton. Two firefighters died when their vehicle rolled down a mountain.

In the Sierra foothills town of Auburn, more than 60 structures—many of them homes—were destroyed in a fast-moving fire, officials said. CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said Sunday it is unclear how many of the burned structures were homes and how many were industrial buildings, and it was likely to remain uncertain until daylight. The fire broke out at about 2:40 p.m. Sunday and had burned some 275 acres.

(21 images)

NEWS

Pfizer Agrees To US$2.3B Settlement

Shannon Pettypiece & Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News | September 02, 2009

Pfizer Inc. will pay US$2.3-billion to settle a U.S. investigation into illegal marketing of medicines, the largest agreement in such a case, and a subsidiary will plead guilty to a criminal charge.

The amount, which Pfizer disclosed in January, includes US$1.3-billion to close the criminal part of the investigation, the New York-based company said in a statement. Pharmacia & Upjohn Co., acquired by Pfizer in 2003, will plead guilty to a count of felony misbranding of a pharmaceutical, according to a Justice Department summary of the agreement.

Read More

POLITICS

A Path to Fiscal Sanity

Cut the deficit by spending less? Sounds crazy, but it just might work.

By Jagadeesh Gokhale, nationalreview.com | August 31, 2009

It has been known since the early 1980s that the U.S. federal budget embodies a large structural imbalance — one that persists through the economy’s ups and downs. In 1980, Ted Kennedy referred to this during his campaign for the presidency; Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama commented on it during theirs.

Estimates of how large this imbalance is, and of what it would take to solve it, have been available for two decades. These analyses consistently show two things: It would be costly to put off dealing with the problem, and federal debt will surge once the baby-boomers begin to retire during the late 2000s.

They are retiring now.

When questioned on entitlement reforms, legislators dutifully genuflect to the need for policy adjustments. But until now, that budget fix was one for the future. Immediately after being elected, lawmakers adopted a “business as usual” attitude, seeking more benefits for today’s voters by appropriating vast sums for their pet projects.

Keep reading this article

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Open Letter to the US House of Representatives: Pass the Audit the Fed Bill!

http://www.auditthefed.com/

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Here’s another display of the stupidity and tyranny of government…

Free Coffee Lands Cigar Shop in Hot Water

By Hasani Gittens, nbcnewyork.com | August 31, 2009

A popular tobacco shop that caters to the high-end Wall Street crowd is getting cut down by city officials for doling out free java.

Barclay Rex, which counts City Hall staffers, bankers, lawyers and detectives among its smoking clientele, is being hassled about having a $9,000 coffee machine on its premises, the New York Post reported.

Vince Nastri III, third-generation proprietor of the palace of puff, said his problems started in June when Health Department inspectors came to check up on complaints that cigar odors were wafting to the upper floors of the building at 75 Broad Street, according to the paper.

That complaint was unfounded, but an inspector noticed the coffee machine, which customers used to make free espressos and cappuccinos, and said it was illegal.

Nastri was issued a citation, which can lead to fines between $200 and $2000, and now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Even to give coffee away for free he needs a permit to operate as a food-service establishment, but then smoking would be banned in his shop.

“[They’re] trying to take away my livelihood over a cup of coffee,” Nastri complained to the Post. “It’s like the city has nothing better to do than worry about me providing my customers with coffee?”

Source

INVESTING

Offshore Profits – Full Transcript Online NOW!

You can now download a free copy of the full transcript of our Weiss Global Forum strategy briefing, complete with ELEVEN specific recommendations to help you profit with the new global superpowers of the 21st century.

In this free 24-page report, you’ll also discover...

§   The surprising impact of America’s skyrocketing federal deficits: How the U.S. government’s borrowing spree — and shocking deficit spending throughout the eurozone — could cripple the West for decades to come.

§   The ONE exception in Europe — the single European nation that is set to grow even as the rest of Europe continues to twist in the wind.

§   The two greatest drivers of economic growth for any nation: Why both of them are absent in the U.S. and the eurozone ... where they spell explosive growth.

§   Six medium-term economic drivers that are causing China’s economy to explode 7.9% and that have caused the Chinese stock market to soar 133% in less than a year.

§   China’s ingenious strategy to use the global recession to corner the global resource markets: How the world’s most populous nation is now buying companies that produce energy, food, construction materials and manufacturing resources with both hands — and how being one of the handful of investors who understand this strategy could give you scores of opportunities to profit in the months ahead.

§   Our analysts’ two-pronged strategy to profit with the companies destined to grow richest as China’s economy continues to explode — and the five Chinese stocks that offer you the greatest profit opportunities.

§   The #1 blunder investors make when investing in China and Asia: Plus, the two types of Chinese companies you should NOT touch with a ten-foot pole.

§   The three Asian countries that now offer you the best stock bargains ... and the ONE country ETF that could outperform most others.

This is crucial: These overseas economies and stock markets are beating the S&P 500 by FOUR TO ONE so far this year.

Just click this link to download the full report now!

GLOBAL WARMING SCAM

Global Warming Is The New AIDS

By Dave Gibson, Virginia Beach Conservative Examiner | August 30, 2009

Just as AIDS is the most publicized disease in history, one would be hard-pressed to turn on the television today without the subject of global warming being served up in the form of programming and commercials alike. Both have been advertised as catastrophic events which will spell the end of civilization as we know it. However, when fact is separated from sensationalism, neither condition presents much of a threat to most of us.

Read the article

Excerpts from the article:

“Despite what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may believe, “the science” is definitely not in on global warming.”

“In a scathing November 2007 article, longtime meteorologist John Coleman wrote the following: ‘It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.’”

“In short… Never listen to dire medical warnings from rock stars, nor to climate predictions from former Vice Presidents.”

BUSINESS

Eight Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed

by Augie Ray, socialmediatoday.com | August 24, 2009

Best practices on Twitter are still developing, and everyone seems to have their own preferences and attitudes about right and wrong on the microblogging service. Standards vary widely depending upon whether one is using Twitter just to keep in touch with friends or is tweeting on behalf of their business or employer. Whatever your purpose, you may have some tweeting habits that encourage others to unfollow or semi-follow you.

Before delving into the list of attention-repelling habits, let’s first explore the concept of the semi-follow. On Twitter, there are only two possible states for following—a person either follows another or they don’t. But while most people still post updates via the Twitter Web site, many use third-party applications that help group and organize followers. People using software such as TweetDeck or sites like HootSuite can follow others with different levels of rigor—some people are followed closely, others are semi-followed, and still others are almost completely ignored.

For example, I follow over 2,000 people, and as my list grew beyond several hundred, I found I was missing tweets from the people I care most about. I could have opted to axe stranger with interesting things to share, but instead I opted (as do most people with large Twitter follow lists) to use a tool to group my Tweeple. I have HootSuite organized with groups that include friends, peers and clients from Fullhouse, local people of interest, marketing thought leaders, news feeds, and Social Media movers and shakers. This gives me the ability to track about 200 Twitter feeds more closely than the remainder of my follow list.

They key to being followed more closely is to say and share things that others care about. This requires a great deal of focus and an awareness of the subtle tendencies that can cause others to begin to tune out, consciously or not.

Here are eight things Twitterers do that tend to diminish the attention they receive from others

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50 Project Management Power Productivity Tools

From qtask.com | July 15, 2009

For all its bad press as a time waster, the Internet can be an awesome productivity-boosting machine.  There is generally an application for every problem you’ve ever had, and many you didn’t even know you had.  Anything that’s annoyed you has annoyed thousands of others as well, and if even one of those is a programmer, the Internet allows them to publish their solution worldwide.  Here we look at a half-century of power productivity tools for the online project manager.

Productivity Tools

PERSONAL FINANCE – CREDIT

When Will A Debt Collector File Suit Against Me?

By Brent Tucker’s Credit and Debt Blog

You have an account at collections. Face it; you have a problem to deal with. The stress is just about unbearable, and the fact is that you are legally responsible for the money. The fact is that your account has been sold, and you now have to deal with the repercussions of not paying for the debt on time.

When a collection agency receives your debt, they have a couple of courses of action that they can take. The first, as you know, is to start calling you and try to collect. That is the most common method of getting money from a debtor on a defaulted account. The collection agency has another option, though. They can choose to sue you for the money.

Why would they do this? Well, each collection agency is different, but the reason is that they think they can get more money out of you by suing you than by collecting the funds.

When evaluating a debtor for suit, a collection agency will check quite a bit of information about you…

Learn more including a FREE e-Report The Top 10 Questions A Debt Collector Might Ask You

PERSONAL FINANCE – OFFSHORE

CNBC Host: Tax Havens ‘Help Prevent Tyranny’

August 21, 2009

On August 21, 2009, the Swiss bank UBS announced that it was turning the names of 4,450 American account holders over to the IRS, in the culmination of a three-year IRS investigation into UBS’ work helping wealthy Americans. These accounts contain an estimated $18 billion in assets, and as the Guardian noted, the move is expected to “reveal the secretive world of international wealth management in which complicated webs of sham trusts and shell companies are created in tax havens to protect the assets of the super-rich.”

UBS’ acquiescence is a victory for the U.S. government, but not for U.S. citizens. CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera said it this way:

“This is a terrible terrible thing that has happened today. You may think this is about rich tax cheats, but no matter what your income is, your taxes are lower because of tax havens and they help prevent tyranny by corrupt governments.”

Watch the video

Want more information about going offshore?

Check out my offshore series:

Invest Offshore for Privacy, Protection & Profit!

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

How to Become a Better Husband, Boyfriend or Life Partner

The Daily Mind – Making the Daily Grind Meaningful

The author of this article is not claiming to be the world’s best husband – far from it. But one thing he can attests to is that he is always trying to be better for his lady. He tells you all the most important things to know about being a good husband, boyfriend or life partner. Some of these he figured out for himself, others he learned by trying to do the opposite of what his father did.

NOTE – This post is for the men out there. Ladies, perhaps you can read it too and if you like it email it to your man.

Read the article

MONEY

Misery Index

What Does Misery Index Mean?

A measure of economic well-being for a specified economy, computed by taking the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate for a given period. An increasing index means a worsening economic climate for the economy in question, and vice versa.

Misery Index = Unemployment Rate + Inflation Rate

The index was invented by Arthur Okun and used to characterize the current economic condition. The main assumption in this index is that an increasing unemployment rate and relatively high inflation have a negative impact on economic growth. At its highest, the misery index for the U.S. was at 21.98% in June 1980. At its lowest, it was 2.97% in July 1953. In March 2006, the index was at 8.1%.

In economic terms, a rise in inflation coupled with high unemployment leads to lower consumer expenditures and contributes to an economic slow-down.

Source: Investopedia

HEALTH

Foods Surprisingly High in Added Sugar

New American Heart Association guidelines warn against Americans’ sugar bingeing

By Sarah Baldauf, health.usnews.com | August 24, 2009

Clarified on 8/25/09: This story has been clarified by adding serving-size information.

Added sugars, which are sprinkled on and processed into packaged foods and beverages, have become all too common in the American diet, says the American Heart Association. The group argues that sugar bingeing is helping drive the uptick in metabolic changes in the American population, including the exploding obesity rate, and has now recommended an upper limit on daily consumption. Women should consume no more than 100 calories per day of added sugars, and men should not top 150 calories per day. There goes the soda habit: One 12-ounce can contains about 8 teaspoons or about 33 grams of added sugar, which equals approximately 130 calories, notes the AHA. (One gram of sugar serves up 4 calories, according to the American Dietetic Association.)

With math like that, it’s not surprising that the average American rings up an average of 22.2 teaspoons, or 355 calories per day, of added sugars, …

Read the article

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Regular Drinkers Exercise More Than Nondrinkers

FOX News | Monday, August 31, 2009

People who drink regularly seem to exercise more often than teetotalers, and those who average more than a drink or two a day may be the most active, a new study suggests.

Using data from a government health survey of U.S. adults, researchers found that in general, the amount of time people devoted to exercise tended to inch up along with the number of alcoholic drinks they had each month.

Compared with abstainers, those considered heavy drinkers — at least 46 drinks in the past month for women, and 76 or more for men — exercised for an average of 20 minutes more per week.

Meanwhile, moderate drinkers — which included women who had 15 to 45 drinks in a month, and men who had 30 to 75 — got 10 extra minutes of exercise each week.

Both moderate and heavy drinkers were also more likely to report vigorous exercise, like jogging, than either light drinkers or abstainers, the researchers report in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Read the article

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Rub Away Your Pain: Feel-Good Pain Relief Trick

Gentle Stroking of Arms Bypasses Brain’s Pain Signals

Johan Wessberg, MD, PhD, The University of Gothenburg

Special from Bottom Line's Daily Health News | September 7, 2009

Ever notice how having your arm lightly stroked feels really calming? Stroke a cat’s head and you will hear instant purring. People—and some animals—like to be stroked and now a group of Swedish researchers at the University of Gothenburg has discovered why this feels so pleasurable. They also uncovered evidence of how this simple act might someday be harnessed for pain control.

An earlier study showed…

Read the article

FREEDOM MESSAGE:

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”

—John Adams (1735-1826) U.S. Founding Father, 2nd US President

Life is a gift; Freedom is a responsibility!

The Essence of Freedom

Mises Daily by Robert Montgomery | Posted on 9/2/2009

To view this article online

[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Floy Lilley, is available for download.]

When the news of young America’s novel design for living in freedom reached it, the Old World shook its head with profound skepticism. It would never work, they said. The idea was too “revolutionary,” too “progressive,” too “radical,” and certainly too “liberal.” The prevailing sentiment was that this newfangled system would promptly fall apart, that the Americans were too immature for self-government, and that political anarchy and social chaos would soon engulf them.

Yet today, though we are still youthful as a nation, we have one of the oldest continuous governments in existence. In spite of this conspicuous success it seems to have been a disappointment to some of our modern critics and skeptics. It seems to have fallen short of what they believe it should have accomplished. One of the most baffling of historical mysteries is how the reactionary of 1787–the man who said it could not be done, the advocate of all-powerful government, the believer in absolutism–could be the “liberal” of today.

The latter-day “liberal” is actually the direct opposite of the true liberal as that term was originally understood. One of these self-styled modern liberals recently defined himself in the following language: “A liberal is one who believes in utilizing the full force of government for the advancement of social, political, and economic justice at the municipal, state, national, and international levels.”

Everyone is thoroughly in favor of advancing social, political, and economic justice at all levels, just as everyone is thoroughly against sin at all levels. But the crux of the matter revolves around the ways and means by which we are to promote this admittedly most worthy end. And, according to the “liberal” approach just mentioned, the answer lies in “utilizing the full force of government” as the most appropriate means for attainment of the end. According to this view, the end justifies the means.

But mark those words–the “full force of government.” What kind of government would that be? What kind of government would it lead to? “Full force” suggests a government without limitations or restraints, a government of boundless authority. What would prevent such a government from invading any and all spheres of political, economic, and social activity under the pretext of advancing justice and promoting the general welfare? What countervailing force would there be to resist its successive encroachments on our constitutional guarantees? What, in short, would prevent such a policy in the conduct of our affairs, disguised as liberalism, from ultimately emerging as undisguised totalitarianism?

The people who clamor noisily for more and more government, for government by full force and of everything, assert that those in authority would always act with prudence and restraint, curbing their own powers and preserving the basic liberties of the people. This, however, would be a practical impossibility, first, because it belies human nature and, second, because government intervention by its very nature leads inevitably to more intervention. Government financing, for example, implies government control, and government control can easily lead to government ownership.

The special pleaders for statism constantly insist that while all-powerful government might be inherently bad under a despot or dictator, it can be a perfectly wholesome thing under democratic auspices where the principle of majority rule prevails. This ignores the fact that even under self-government the people must be protected against themselves. It makes the dangerous assumption that the majority is infallible and can do no wrong. It forgets that a broad franchise and free political institutions might produce a popular tyranny with an even greater potential for evil than that of royal absolutism or aristocratic privilege. It is blind to the historical record of governments that evolved from democracies into tyrannies. If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender it, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If we should elect a tyrant to rule over us, would we remain free because the tyranny was our own creation?

The professed liberals of today do not really march under the banners of genuine liberalism or progressivism but, on the contrary, represent the worst type of reaction. For the reactionary is the person who insists that the key to progress lies in more and more government. He is enveloped in a dusty ideology of the past, the past in which Americans lived under an all-knowing and all-powerful government and paid with blood for deliverance from it.

True, there are some reactionaries of this type whose loyalty need not be questioned, whose motives cannot be impeached–honest and sincere men, inspired with humanitarian zeal to eliminate poverty, to alleviate suffering, to create an ever more abundant life, and to secure for all a wider diffusion of the blessings of liberty. In championing benevolent government as they do I believe them to be rendering a monumental disservice to the objects of their solicitude. But we will derive no social gain by attacking their motives, by excoriating them as enemy agents and creatures of evil.

Let us simply say a prayer for them and hope that further study and reflection may bring them safely to port–to recognition of the truth that the blessings of liberty they would diffuse have been diffused in this land of ours to an unsurpassed degree, not because of government intervention but only because it was here that the torch of individual freedom was kindled and borne aloft.

Robert Montgomery (1904-1981) was an American stage and motion-picture actor and director. He was also a radio commentator and the narrator of the popular television show, “Robert Montgomery Presents.”

BOOKS

FREEDOM BLUEPRINT

The Ultimate Plan For Escaping Big Brother’s Matrix And Creating Your Own World of Freedom & Wealth

Have you ever wished there was a detailed course of action that would enable you to achieve more personal and financial freedom and to live the sort of life you’ve always dreamed of? David MacGregor shares his story and strategy is his E-Book Freedom Blueprint.

Learn all about it and get a copy of David MacGregor’s Freedom Blueprint now:

VALUABLE INFORMATION

“Know where to find the information and how to use it – that is the secret of success.”

--Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German physicist and Winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921

COMPUTERS AND INTERNET

14 Alternative Browsers That Are Not IE6

By Barb Dybwad, Mashable.com | August 26th, 2009

As some of you may know, we’ve been waging an IE6 Must Die campaign here at Mashable. In that spirit, we thought it wise to arm you fine folks with a few alternatives for your web browsing pleasure.

Some of the members of this list are heavyweights in their own right you may have heard of. But others are a bit farther off the beaten path.

See the list

COOL LINKS:

Kseniya Simonova’s Amazing Sand Drawing

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine’s version of “America’s Got Talent.” She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg

Swimming With Polar Bears?

There’s a place in the world where children can swim among polar bears. Really?

Check out the link & see the pictures for yourself. There’s more to this story.

Polar Bear Habitat

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

David M. Voth

Best Selling Author

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