Oil Exploration Update: U. S. To Play Catch-Up With Cuba

Startlingly enough, it looks as if the time will soon arrive when the USA will have to play catch-up with Cuba in oil exploration. The diminutive and destitute communist enclave that serves as Fidel Castro’s personal cigar plantation now realizes that it has enough oil reserves under its coastal waters to prop up its no-go economy for decades and, incapable of assembling the capacity to out the oil itself, the island nation has begun to license drilling rights to other countries, including China, the prospect of which alarms us, and Spain, the idea of which invites us to think of tapas. In wisdom wrought from its neediness, the resourceful islet has also offered to license American oil companies. Expectedly enough, the very prospect of Cuba scooping oil out of the ocean floor while America has outlawed it for decades has enkindled hot debate in Congress about the present wisdom of our self-imposed interdiction. The debate has rapidly blossomed into a gusher partly because America has even more proven oil reserves in its coastal waters, no doubt principally because it has even more coastal waters. Persuasively enough in these oil-dear times, there seems to be enough of the black gold there to meet all of our energy needs for about 18 years, or long enough for all the leaders in the Middle East who we aren’t getting along with these days to go the way of leaders everywhere who, we determine, are irredeemably misguided. Naturally, conservation societies have been galvanized into opposition by the mere prospect of an oil bit chomping into the emerald waters of our abundantly fishy coastlines in search of the liquid treasure below the reefs. As the debate bubbles on, we can only consider a worst-case, best-case scenario. Worst case: we do nothing while foreign companies who don’t exactly have the most reverential reputations in ecological propriety drill away and, as time allows, send oil spills slithering onto our beaches. Best case: we race to catch up with Cuba and maybe even preempt the ill-advised entanglements that might otherwise drill down into our hemisphere. Since we’re actually talking about drilling in our own backyard pond, we might also, one hopes, do it in ways that are less likely to lead to the shameful oil blights that fill us all with remorse and send fish and fowl off to tarry death – derelictions that strange countries in a strange land might less assiduously labor to avoid.

Before you buy Dining Room Table

Dining is one of the most important things people do in their day, though they may not realize it. Why, because aside from quelling hunger pangs, dining is also meant to spend some quality time with the whole family.

This is why close attention should be paid to make dining room as comfortable as possible. Yes it does cost some serious money but with some adjustments, even forlorn rooms can be made as satisfying as mom's home cooking without denting the pocket by much.

Just how to do it? Let’s start with dining room tables, which is the focus of this article.

Choosing the right dining room table goes beyond simple aesthetics. Its location determines its style and materials, for example in kitchens, a hard-wearing solid wood top is crucial; large, formal dining rooms require a table with a strong presence; if your taste veers towards modern then contemporary and modern dining tables would work best.

These decisions will affect the look of the home and sense of space. So before actually going for shopping ponder over following points.

Before Shopping for a Dining Room Table

To fine tune your planning, here’s a list of things to consider prior to your purchase:

1. Budget – How much have you allocated?
2. Family – What is the size of your family?
3. Space – What is the size of your dining room? Cramped space makes getting in and out of chairs awkward.
4. Lifestyle – Do you entertain often? Formally or informally?
5. Usage – What other usage do you have for the table e.g. study, arts and craft?
6. Special requirements – Do you need mobility or you would want to extend it to seat 12?

In addition to the above, take along the floor plan and measurements when you go shopping.

Tips on Picking the Right Dining Room Table

Following points would help you in selecting the right dining table:

Dining Table Shape - When considering a dining room table, its shape is the most important consideration since it affects the space in your dining room. Find out the pros and cons of common shapes. For example, a circular, glass dining table may be very trendy looking and would give your dining area a modern appeal. But you would need to have a large, square-shaped area to give it enough room.

Dining Table Size – Take note of the size of the dining area and the size of the table to check whether the table would have enough breathing space around it.

Dining Table Material - Since the dining room table anchors the look of the space, its material affects the moods and style you’d like to bring to the room. Decide on what suits you best in terms of materials. Again, the uses you will put your dining table to will help you decide the most suitable material.

Dining Table Style – Make a statement and select the right style to add character and flair to your dining room.

Remember that a good dining experience needs a relaxed atmosphere so don’t get hung up on designer looks. No table should be so precious that guests are afraid of leaving smudges. Destined to be oft-used, this piece of dining room furniture must be adaptable to the household’s needs.

Humanist Terrorists Nabbed In Miami; Planned To Plant Explosive Books

A group that calls itself humanist terrorists was apprehended by the FBI in a preemptive strike in Miami. The terrorist cell, which claims affiliation with the Middle Atlantic terror group all-Libraries, was infiltrated by an FBI operative. The leader of the group confided to the informant that the members planned to plant explosive books in various locations throughout the United States, including the Sears Tower, a number of FBI buildings, and radical Muslim mosques. The humanist terrorist group had been operating out of the basement of an as yet undisclosed free public library in Miami. The FBI found plentiful evidence of the group’s plans, including many intelligent books generally considered to be easily accessible and therefore highly dangerous. At a news conference held to announce the arrests, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated, “Fortunately, the plot by this home-grown terrorist cell was disrupted in the planning stages. The group was still trying to get funding to acquire a sufficient number of books.” In a deposition, a spokesman for the humanist terrorists confessed, “We were planning to spread enlightenment wherever we could, so we selected two of the most informative and readable philosophy books of recent times, both by the leading but now deceased humanist terrorist Bertrand Russell. First, we were going to stage an attack with his landmark The History of Western Philosophy, just to provide people with an overview of our radical ideology. Then we hoped to follow that up with a strike using The Selected Writings Of Bertrand Russell. Our goal was, I confess, to disrupt the new Dark Age that appears to be descending on a worldwide basis.” The prosecuting attorney outlined the government’s case, saying, “The confession of this self-styled humanist terrorist clearly indicates there was a clear intention to disrupt the deadly ignorance that pervades much of today’s society. Obviously, the group poses a threat to the widespread determination of much of the world’s population to return to a time so wonderfully ill-informed that it can truly be described as The Dark Ages come back.” The families of the terrorists were startled by the arrests and continued to maintain that the suspects are innocent. As one mother said, “My son is not a terrorist. He’s a good boy who somehow came to believe in radical ideas like truth and wisdom. If he’s freed on bail, I promise to limit his reading time.”

Become a Profitable Home-Based Freelancer

Freelance writing can be one of the most rewarding home based businesses ever and the benefits are many.

You can stay at home with your kids, and even if you are homeschooling you can freelance part time and homeschool the other part of the day

Becoming a freelance writer does not have to be hard. It’s a matter of deciding what subject matter will be your specialty and keeping up to date on that topic with the latest information available whether that is a blog or forum or even subscribing to a particular print or trade magazine.

For all practical purposes you have to become the expert in that field. Freelancing and specializing on a particular topic can make you well known in your community and you can get requests to speak at certain civic organizations, schools and other special events

You need to decide who you clients are going to be and whether you will farm your services out to newspapers and online publications, start your own publication, or do both.

The sky is truly the limit as freelance writing is one of the most flexible home based businesses you can undertake. Another option you may want to choose is to write advertising or pamphlets for local businesses as a copywriter.

Becoming familiar with the advertising field in addition to the writing professional would be helpful in that you will gain a better understanding of how advertising copy is worded and other little nuances that are indicative of that field.

If you think you need to bone up on your writing skills or you feel you did not do well in high school English. Don’t fear. There are plenty home and online correspondence courses that will have you writing like a pro in no time at all. Also you may want to checkout any extension courses offered at your local community college in your own town.

There are a number of online opportunities available to freelance writers. New websites are popping up every day and if you have web designing skills in addition to writing skills, you can write you own ticket.

There are so many local businesses that do not have websites yet, nor do they have the expertise of a writer. You could offer them a valuable service by providing both a basic website and the written copy for the pages.

Overall freelance writing can be a very profitable field and with a little imagination you can have a new career started from your very own kitchen in very little time at all.

Be sure to view our free “Be a Profitable Freelance Writer” video on our homepage then join our “Wealthy Business" newsletter and receive a free gift to help you get started in business on the internet within 3 days.

Field Notes on Country Linguistics

As Suzy stammered, my ears perked up. For distraction I called out, “Hey Kathy, put on another pot of coffee.” Suzy spoke again. The fact is, gouging my own eyes out with a ketchup bottle would not have distracted me. A linguistic calamity was eminent. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, then it ran from the room. I knew where Suzy was headed. Her speech was like watching a car accident. It all moved in slow motion. Every instinct in me said tear the phone from her hand before it's too late. But she had to learn to properly communicate with customers. Please Lord, I begged, don't let her say it. Then it happened. Suzy uttered the words, “We'll mam, I ain't fer sures on that.” Across America, English professors collectively wept. My mind locked. How could she have said it again? She had been with our company four months. Still, there was hope. Okay, Lord, you're pretty funny, I sneered. Seriously, could her next words please be, “If you would not mind holding for one moment, I will find out the answer for you.” Ha! No such luck. The gods hate me. After an awkward silence (while the caller and I shared an embolism), Suzy proceeded to take the customer’s order. Neither of them was any wiser for the experience. I stepped outside to meditate. Would I have to fire her? I was not fer sures on that? You hear many endearing phrases in the county. I find, ‘a doins’ quite charming. Such as there's a doins at Bubba's tonight. Translated this means, festivities will take place at Bubba’s residence this evening. ‘Pert near’ is fun. Linguists translate this colorful twist on grammar as meaning, ‘almost’ not nearby. As in, pert near everybody ceptin that cidiot been told bout the rodeo. Meaning, almost everyone, except the new city idiot, was informed of the upcoming rodeo event. Unfortunately, telling a high maintenance Dressage Equestrian (they are all high-maintenance), “Ya aint's fer sures on that,” translates as, “Hello, we are illiterate, so buy our product.” Following this with no offer to expand your knowledge and assist the customers says, “We may be illiterate, but that's ok. We also suck. Thank you and have a nice day.” Tourists passing through the area have improperly translated another phrase. “What chya doin?” is often misinterpreted as the rhetorical “What's up?” or “What's happening?” Sadly, that is not its meaning. “What chya doin?” literally translates as, “What are you doing?" Confusion on this matter is based on timing. “What chya doing?” is often asked when your activity could not be more blatantly obvious. For example: You're spreading cheese over flat dough topped with tomato sauce. Mountains of pepperoni are poised nearby. A stranger asks, “What chya doin?" Heads up: They literally have not connected the dots. Do not wisecrack, “Installing solar panels." Before you know it, you'll be explaining how green peppers affect your hot water supply. Here in South Dakota low wages have brought in large numbers of Customer Service call centers. Airlines, finance companies, catalog sales, these types of companies coagulate around Rapid City. Lately there has been a lot of concern over competition from India. Apparently the population of India is highly educated and enunciates in a manner more understandable than that of South Dakotans. Americans, not having Hindi as the mother tongue, stand little chance. Still, there is a certain irony in residents of the Black Hills losing something to Indians. How many groups will that statement offend? I ain't fer sures on that.

Beautifying Your Life With Scented Candles

Scented Candles are a great way to decorate, scent, or just add warmth to any area. Scented candles are a favorite of most people because they create a clean smell, the smell of home, or even the smell of the season with scented Christmas candles and such. Candles are so universal that they are used just about everywhere, such as work, home, and there are even wedding candles that are a great addition to any wedding decorating scheme. Highly scented candles are quite popular because with just one candle you can make the whole home or office smell great!

If you like your candles scented you’ll find that there are an almost unlimited number of scents for you to try. Online scented candle offers will often offer new scents that you can get in your local stores, or just great deals on the scents that you know you already love! Everything can be found online from scented Christmas candles to your typical tapers and pillars that you like for every day use. You can even find homemade scented candles online, or kits to help you learn how to make them yourself so you can customize colors and scents.

Candles are simply a great addition to any setting as they can add beauty along with wonderful scents that can make a new house feel like home, a decorated home feel like Christmas, or a just give the home a very clean scent. Because candles come in so many varieties and scents, there is a candle out there that is for everyone.

Grand Illusions was created by Nick Ronald and David Roberts in December 1987, initially with just one small store in St Margaret's, Twickenham. The mission was to promote gifts, cards and accessories of good design and taste at an affordable price - still very much the core business ethic to this day.

Shortly afterwards, they discovered and developed a paint range that was to transform their lives. In those days, painted furniture was something of a rarity, and a twenty two drawer chest painted in one of the new paints caught the eye of 'Homes & Gardens' magazine - the small feature resulted in over a thousand telephone calls and the seeds of the highly acclaimed furniture collection were sewn.

This also led to the publication of three Grand Illusions books on decorating techniques and design inspiration, published in five countries by Ebury Press and accompanied by guest appearances on BBC2's Home Front and various local BBC radio stations.

They published their first mail-order catalogue in 1990 which was immediately voted as one of the top 200 catalogues in a new worldwide review and several issues later, they were awarded the contract to operate 'Country Living by Post' on behalf of the magazine, in addition to their own unique programme.

Today, the company's activities are currently concentrated on their two stores in St Margarets and Shaftesbury, with mail-order, paint studio, trade-sales and distribution also located in Dorset. The team regularly exhibit at quality retail and trade fairs like Country Living, Top Drawer and the RHS Flower Shows at Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton Park. Their products are now available at quality retail outlets across the UK and some stores in Japan, USA and Germany.

The publication of this web-site sees the return to mainstream mail-order for the accessory collection, which is just one of the exciting developments planned for the near future - so watch this space.

Bin Laden Releases Another Audiotape: Hideout Too Dark For Video

Apparently, unable to contain his enthusiasm for bumming out the relatively nice and unsuspecting folks who make up much of the Western World, the misinformed medievalist has released another drearily threatening audiotape. Since the combined political, military, and intelligence resources of the civilized world cannot locate the potato head, we suggest the audiotape be taken as an opportunity to arrest him. Here's how. Somebody buys the resourceful recluse a video camera and battery-powered lights. Since he long delighted to display his narcissistic self and give voice to his lamentable disjunction with informed thought, we assume that either he is not currently in possession of a video camera or that he is hunkered down in a hideout that is too dark to shoot anything but firearms. It cannot be that he is afraid a video will reveal his location, because he always has the option of hanging the same kind of chintzy curtain behind him that his original second in medieval misguidance, Aman al-Zawahiri, uses when he comes out of the cave long enough for his eyes to adjust to the light to make an inflammatory video, with, we’ve noticed, production values that are on about the same level as a commercial for a discount chain that’s struggling to get foothold in a Mexican border town. The only condition is, upon receipt of the equipment, OBL has to agree to make a video about directions to his hideout. To prolong his short-lived celebrity, he can even deliver it in installments. The media will be wild for it. We do not know why he will not accept this opportunity for the worldwide display of his long-cramped ego, because, at last report, he only had four wives, and, if he believes his own deadly dumb preachments, after he goes to the paradise of his overheated and woefully misguided imagination, he can have twenty-seven virgins. Of course, we must interject that any man with four wives who would contemplate having twenty-seven virgins as a good time has done very little reflection on what it’s really like to have four mates and has exceedingly little experience with virgins. He needn’t be excessively concerned about these impossible complications, however, because, as linguistic analysis has sometime ago revealed, the Arabic word for virgin may also mean grape, depending on whether or not it occurs with a grave. It appears that, in the particular context in which he has applied it to assure the ready suicide of fellow but somewhat more imbecilic emanations from The Dark Ages, the meaning is 27 grapes. So the mad, mad Muslims slammed into our World Trade Center – which was, in fact, a mutual treasure of the human race, erected to facilitate worldwide economic competence and development – and incinerated nearly three thousand of our beloved, hard-working and comparatively normal people did it to reap imaginary rewards they could have picked up at a fruit market. Meanwhile, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his lackey who’s not an Iraqi, did his boss in absentia one better. Spiffily attired in black as a cool enemy of humanity, he rattled on with the same ill-informed drivel he and his mentor have both become wanted for, even by their own people. Ah, what a toll we must pay for the deadly duo of ignorance and backwardness! Witness the unconscionable bombing in the Egyptian resort of Dahab, apparently timed to follow OBL’s latest audio-only pontification. How do people who have no feeling for their fellow human beings expect anyone to do anything but excoriate and execute them? Somebody ought to tell them that fellow-feeling is actually the major sentiment that makes the human race worthy of its own continuance upon this blessed but blighted earth. As for OBL, when will some real-life Indiana Jones find out where he is hiding, so we can finally give the misguided pest his overdue rest?