http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWOAT+shtml/041729.shtml

http://feeds.copyblogger.com/~r/Copyblogger/~3/326761686/

http://www.copyblogger.com/freelance-articles/

It’s July 4th in the Unites States, and you know what that means—hot dogs, fireworks, sunburns… and one or two people might drink a bit. But let’s not forget what else this day signifies.

That’s right… The Fourth of July is the day President Bill Pullman declared the world’s independence day from those pesky alien invaders from outer space, thereby rallying the troops and horrifying international film critics.

Apparently, a guy named John Quincy Adams said something similar with regard to Great Britain a bit further back. Sorry chaps, no hard feelings I hope.

But since the underlying meaning of this day is really about freedom, let’s focus on freelance. Here are seven articles that will help freelancers and those who hope to go freelance themselves.

20 Must-Read Blogs For Freelance Writers

To become a freelance writer, you gotta love writing. But you should also consistently work on sharpening your skills. And how do you do that? Reading well-written articles and blogs is a very good start.

Pricing Your Design and Writing Services

Are you charging too little? Are you overpriced? Are you using the wrong method to calculate your rates? Cutting yourself short? Still on the per-hour method? Stuck on the per-piece? What about charging what you’re worth?

5 Things Freelancers Should Know About Sales

For many non-sales professionals, the mention of salesperson is synonymous with manipulative money-grubber to be resisted at all costs. This attitude is a quick way to end up with a job again.

How to Deal With Writer’s Block

Terry Starbucker shares his method for dealing with writer’s block from a blogging standpoint. His technique may surprise you.

80 How-To Sites Worth Bookmarking

These eighty sites are the places the author turns to when she’s trying to figure out how to accomplish a new project. She basically starts searching for how-tos that help her figure out how other people did similar things.

Writing Content In A Web 2.0 World

Here’s a nice white paper on content for the social web. If you’ve been reading Copyblogger for awhile, this may not be new to you, but it’s a good clarifying summary.

Are Freelancers Really Independent?

Ah, here’s the inevitable fly in your beer. Are freelancers truly free? This post weighs the pros and cons for existing freelancers and those thinking of giving it a go.

If your answer comes out in the negative, you could always read the Teaching Sells report and decide to use your skills to develop online training programs and membership sites. Or, just have another beer… you’ll feel better (until tomorrow). :-)

About the Author: Brian Clark is the founding editor of Copyblogger, and co-founder of Teaching Sells and Lateral Action. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

burket

Helms once said his job was to derail the freight train of liberalism.

Conservatives admired him for his opposition to abortion and what he called "indecent art," while liberals accused him of using race as a wedge issue to defeat black opponents.

The Jesse Helms Center, a private foundation in Wingate, North Carolina, announced on its Web site that Helms died at 1:15 a.m. Friday in Raleigh.

"Today we lost a senator whose stature in Congress had few equals," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's Republican leader. "Sen. Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in."

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said, "America lost a great public servant and true patriot today."

The cause of death has not been announced. Helms had been ill in recent years.


Sweet buttery jesus this is the best fourth of July ever.  I'm burning a lil Jessie effigy tonight on the beach, if only to celebrate that there is one less significant cunt on this planet right now.

Also, i give it two weeks until they find his collection of "little shoes".......

http://the-f-word.org/blog/index.php/2008/07/04/wanted-your-questions-about-health-at-every-size/

http://the-f-word.org/blog/?p=453

Health at Every Size is a rather relative health approach that can mean very different things for different people. The Association for Size Diversity and Health is an excellent resource for information about HAES, but since the paradigm is not trademarked, owned or otherwise dictated by any one group, personal questions about HAES still abound. What is Health at Every Size? Is it possible to “fail” at HAES or “not do it right?” How can one incorporate HAES in their own lives? These are all questions I see raised time and time again, both on eating disorders blogs and blogs that promote fat acceptance.

Longtime readers of The-F-Word may be familiar with the interview format I use in which I pose 10 questions for field professionals, authors and people with relevant experiences. This time, I’m switching things up a bit. Nancy Kuppersmith, a dietitian at the University of Louisville who promotes the Health at Every Size approach, has agreed to be featured in an interview here on this site. But instead of me posing the questions, I’m going to allow readers here to submit those burning questions they have about HAES to be answered by a medical professional.

So, c’mon… what do you want to know about HAES? Post your questions below and they may be included in the list I send to Nancy!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/326752058/127358.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/326713374/127360.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/326713377/127361.html

Just how much impact biofuels have had on world food prices is quite controversial. For example, U.S Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer argues that biofuels contribute only two to three percent of the recent dramatic increase in world food prices.

Today the Guardian is reporting that the World Bank thinks that biofuels actually caused the world food crisis:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.

It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.

"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."

Whole Guardian article here.  

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/326713380/127359.html

My wife and I are big fans of the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Va. We've visited a number of times to see how the architecture and farming techniques of 17th and 18th century immigrants blended to create Appalachian pioneer culture. The smokey authentic Irish stone hut with attached muddy pig sty has to be smelled to be believed. We've been looking forward to the addition of an African mud hut compound to the museum's collection of reconstructed English, German, Irish and 19th century American farmsteads.

The museum invited three Nigerian artisans skilled at building thatched mud huts to come to Staunton for the summer to build the new exhibit. However, the consular folks at our embassy in Nigeria had other ideas. As the Washington Post explains:

To recognize the ancestry of African Americans, the museum staff went to western Africa to search out what the average family might have lived in before slave traders showed up. They came up with a simple mud hut with a thatch roof.

Working in Nigeria, they got a consultant to vet several workmen who were conversant with the old ways and implements. This resulted in three apparently impoverished rural men, all apparently over the age of 45, who were from the Igbo region of the country, Bryan said. They had never left the country before.

The museum sent letters of invitation, asking them to come over this summer and build a compound of three huts and a boundary wall and then return home. They helped them get Nigerian passports.

Not even the pull of a United States senator could get around the vigilance of our consular staff:

The office of Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) supported their visa applications by making the U.S. consulate in Nigeria aware of the importance of the museum's project, Warner's spokeswoman, Bronwyn Lance Chester, said yesterday. (No one made the men's names available because of privacy concerns.)

Applications were filed about three weeks ago, Bryan said. There was confusion. And then the word came down: Rejection!

The Associated Press yesterday quoted U.S. consulate official Debra Heien as saying one of the men couldn't describe the building project and another filled out his paperwork incorrectly. She said two of them were unable to make a living.

"They ruled 'denied' because the interviewers did not think these men showed sufficient socioeconomic ties to Nigeria in order to assure their return," Bryan said.

Now the museum is scrambling to get their consultant and an architect familiar with the old ways to construct the exhibit. The materials -- the tools, the thatch for the roof -- are already en route. The buildings will be in place by the end of the year, Bryan said. They'll even have real goats wandering the compound, of the same breed that would have wandered such courtyards 200 years ago.

And so our little story ends this way: Real mud, real thatch, real goats, no real rural workmen.

So the State Department can now proudly declare that it has protected American mud hut builders from the threat of foreign competition. 

Whole Post article about this latest State Department silliness here.  

Unscolicited plug: You really should visit the museum if you ever get to Stuanton. Unless you enjoy central Virginia's summer weather as much as I do, fall and winter are preferred.  

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/getfitslowly/~3/326742954/

http://www.getfitslowly.com/?p=237

Everyone who reads this blog knows that the majority of the struggles I face when trying to lose weight stem from my internal (and now external I guess) battles with food. I have a tendency to eat when I’m not hungry and to eat foods that aren’t good for me when I’m stressed out. I’ve been offered a lot of advice from you guys and I wanted to share one such piece of advice.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a friend that told me he has gained a bit of weight due to a hard work schedule and lack of activity over the last 6 months and it’s time for him to shed those extra pounds. This system utilizes a 500 calorie per day deficit for a total of 3500 calories, or 1 pound per week weight loss. There’s a few key points in it that he wanted to emphasize:

• The plan assumes no exercise! If exercise happens, he replaces any calories burned with a high protein shake or a yogurt.

• There is a marked lack of processed foods in the diet. High fiber cereal and a white baguette from a local bakery are the only processed foods.

Here’s the plan. All lunches and dinners for the entire week are cooked and portioned on 1 day. They tend to be repetitive. Breakfasts vary and are cooked at the time of eating. There are 3 meals and 3 snacks each day–and one latte! Shopping, and cooking, for the entire week takes place on Sunday morning. It takes him approximately 2 hours to cook and portion into plastic containers his lunches and dinners for the week.

In general, I like this idea. Go to the fridge, pull out your meal, heat it up and eat it. Stop thinking about food. Realistically, I know that in order for it to work for me, I would have to add a whole other level of discipline to my life. After reading the email several times, I’ve come up with a list of advantages and disadvantages to this system.

ADVANTAGES

1. I don’t have to think about what I’m making for dinner any more.
2. I don’t have to cook during the week.
3. I don’t have to count calories.
4. I lose 1 pound per week instead of 2-3 pounds one week and then nothing for the next 3 weeks.
5. There is no hunger.
6. It’s a maintainable weight loss figure.

DISADVANTAGES

1. It takes a level of organization that I generally don’t possess.
2. I, and my family, eat the same meals for dinner each night.
3. I would have to buy a lot of plastic containers.

I really appreciate this kind of advice. There’s some great information in there that I can use as is or modify to fit my own habits and schedule. The main point of this plan I think, is that by preparing your food ahead of time, you start thinking about food as fuel for your body instead of the many unproductive ways that I tend to look at it. While I don’t think that my family would appreciate this type of diet, I might be able to modify it in such a way that it’s enjoyable for my family and healthy for me.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/021829.html