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“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
Indeed, I also agree, this is a good saying being worth thinking about it.

Nevertheless, I am generally surprised about the given examples related to the pretended polygamy of men. Nymph I am especially surprised that you made these examples, because I supposed you and me have the same religious background based on which such a tolerance is unknown. ;)

Yes, I also like it. A really good idea!
But may be it can be arranged in this way that we have it for the first page of a local section, only.
I think it is an advantage having more positions for the following pages instead this "header" every time.
Just an idea...

hm, the husband of my secretary became 'polygamous'. Her way would be tip no. 6 then.

6. Simply hoof him out

Receiving a negative vote can be frustrating.
Sometimes receiving a negative vote means that the voter expresses intolerance. The voter has not learnt to accept other persons opinions, even if these opinions are forwarded matter-of-factly. Negative votes are a wrong "policy" to express that someone dislikes a topic or an opinion. Finally negative votes are nothing else but a form of censorship, or even a sign of an undemocratic power policy. If you disagree, then simply write a statement.

Nevertheless there might also be reasons for voting negative. Let us think about personal attacks, acting against the rules of the forum, bad behaviour towards other members. Even these reasons may base on a misunderstanding. Our interpretations can be different, because we are different. For a very long time already I have "survived" without voting negative. :) If I do it again, I will post why or write a pm.

Already having been branded a liar by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, ex-US President George W. Bush's intelligence has now been questioned by Schroeder's former spokesman. Uwe-Karsten Heye said on Wednesday that Bush "had no idea about what was going on in the world."
"He was so fixated on being a Texan. I think he knew every longhorn in Texas."
"We noticed that the intellectual level of the (US president) was exceedingly limited," Uwe-Karsten Heye, Schröder's former government spokesman, told the television news station N24 on Wednesday in reference to Bush. "As such, it was difficult for us to communicate with him."

The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve want to fix the United States economy by spending more money. But while such an approach might work for Europe, it is risky for the US. The US nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.

There's no question about it: The 20th century was America's era. The United States rose rapidly from virtually nothing to become the most politically powerful and economically strongest country in the world. But the financial crisis and subsequent recession have now raised doubts about its future. Are we currently witnessing the beginning of the end of the American era?

A firm belief in the individual's ability, ideas, courage, will and a reliance on one's own resources brought the US to the top. The American dream promised everyone the chance of upward mobility -- literally from rags to riches, from minimum wage to millionaire. The individual's pursuit of happiness was seen as the crucial foundation for the well-being of society, rather than the benevolent state which cares for its subjects -- and certainly not the welfare state, which provides a social safety net for its citizens.

In the American system, every man was responsible for himself -- in good times and bad. No one could count on government assistance, not even the wannabe millionaire who did not make it and ended up homeless.

For many US citizens, the financial crisis has turned the American dream into a nightmare. Millions of Americans are struggling with high levels of debt, and not only because they bought overpriced houses during the housing boom and can no longer afford their mortgages. Often families are burdened with loans they took out during better times for cars, furniture, electronic gadgets or university tuition. Uncertainty and worries about the future are keeping many families awake at night.

From 'Hire and Fire' to Just 'Fire'

The economic data reveals just how deep the misery is. After a good beginning to the year, the economic recovery in the US has slowed significantly. There are hardly any new jobs, and the official US unemployment rate remains high at 9.5 percent. The actual unemployment rate could be almost twice as high, partially because of the many Americans who are working part time against their will and also because of the millions of people locked up in the country's prisons.

Particularly troubling is the phenomenon of long-term unemployment, something which is unusual in the US. The number of people who have been without work for more than six months has skyrocketed as a result of the recession, from just over 1 million to 6.8 million. The traditional policy of "hire and fire" has become a one-way street: Now it is all firing and no hiring.

The state is also suffering as a result. Heavily indebted state, county and city governments have less money to spend. Even before the crisis, roads full of potholes were part of everyday life in some places, as were power outages and other problems with the public energy and water supply. What's new, however, is that some cities in America are deliberately choosing to cut core services, such as switching off street lighting. Last winter, Colorado Springs, which with its 400,000 inhabitants is the second largest city in the state of Colorado, turned off one-third of its street lights to save money.

Nothing is immune from the wave of budget cuts, it seems. Schools have been closed and teachers laid off. Roads have been allowed to fall into disrepair and parks left to rot.

Fear of the Double Dip

It appears that the US economy, after the worst crisis of the postwar period, is slow to recover its old dynamism, unlike in previous recessions. Some economists are warning of a double-dip recession, and putting forward radical proposals to prevent this worst-case scenario from becoming reality.

In his widely read Friday column in the New York Times, the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman last week called for the administration to bet the farm on a new attempt to stimulate the economy. Krugman recommended that the Federal Reserve buy up government securities and corporate bonds on a massive scale, announce its intention to keep short-term interest rates low in a bid to push down long-term rates, and raise its medium-term target for inflation. The Obama administration should also use its two government-sponsored real estate lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to help heavily indebted homeowners refinance their mortgages, Krugman wrote.

On Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made a speech that sounded like it had been based on Krugman's column. He announced exactly what the New York Times columnist had called for, saying that the Fed was ready to intervene and would reanimate the sluggish US economy with further cash infusions if necessary. Then on Monday, Obama said he and his economic team were "hard at work in identifying additional measures" to stimulate the US economy.

Both the behavior of the American government and the Federal Reserve makes one thing clear: They do not see the solution to the US's economic woes in a return to traditional American virtues. Obama is not calling for the unleashing of market forces, as Ronald Reagan once did during an equally critical period in the early 1980s. On the contrary: Obama, driven by his own convictions and advised by economists who believe in government intervention, has taken a path that leads far away from those things that catapulted America to the top of the world in the past century.

The Obama administration's current policies rely on more government rather than personal responsibility and self-determination. They are administering to the patient more, not less, of exactly those things that led to the crisis.

The crash was partially caused by a policy of cheap money. If interest rates stay as low as they are, the state will get into more and more debt. One day these debts will have to be repaid, together with interest and compound interest. This will result in tax increases, which will reduce wages, the result of individuals' hard work. In addition, low interest rates will make saving unattractive for private individuals, thereby making it harder for America to break with its addiction to credit.

Helping America's Enemies

It's not just wealthy Republicans who are now accusing Barack Obama of betraying American ideals, although the conservative zealots of the Tea Party movement go too far in their criticism. They regard the Obama's administration approach to fighting the crisis as a treacherous attack by dark powers on the freedom of the United States. For them, Barack Obama is working on behalf of America's enemies.

But the move away from policies based on the American Way, which made the US by far the world's strongest economy, is also making well-meaning observers increasingly nervous. They are asking questions like: Why should the government care about the economic status or health of individuals? Why should one person pay for the misfortunes or illnesses of others?

The highest commandment of the American worldview was always to maximize individual freedoms and minimize government influence. It was an approach that was highly successful. According to that rule, self-directed action would remain the rule and government intervention the unpopular exception. But that is no longer the case.

Loss of Faith

This raises a crucial question: Is the US economy perhaps suffering less from an economic downturn and more from a serious structural problem? It seems plausible that the American economy has lost its belief in American principles. People no longer have confidence in the self-healing forces of the private sector, and the reliance on self-help and self-regulation to solve problems no longer exists.

The opposite strategy, one that seeks to treat the American patient with more government, is risky -- because it does not fit in with America's image of itself.

In Europe, the state is the result of centuries of struggle by relatively homogeneous societies and it has always played a major role in European societies. Therefore, a broad majority of the population supports economic policies based on government intervention, especially in difficult times. And Germany's current successes in dealing with the crisis suggest that the Europeans are probably right in their approach. The German economy will probably grow much more this year than the American one. In Europe, government-prescribed medicine goes down well.

But what is good for Europe and Germany does not automatically work for the US. The settlers of the New World rejected everything, which included throwing out anything with a semblance of state authority. They fled Europe to find freedom. The sole shared goal of the settlers was to obtain individual freedom and live independently, which included the freedom to say what they wanted, believe what they wanted and write what they wanted. The state was seen as a way to facilitate this goal. The state should not interfere in people's lives, aside from securing freedom, peace and security. Economic prosperity was seen as the responsibility of the individual.

End of the American Way?

If you take this belief away from Americans, you are destroying the binds which interlink America's heterogeneous society. Removing this belief could lead to conflicts between different sections of society, clashes which have long bubbled beneath the surface.

What could help would be a return to the American Way, the approach which made the US so historically powerful. The success of this model is illustrated by history. In 1820, twice as many people lived in the United Kingdom as the US, and its economic performance (measured by gross domestic product) was three times as strong and the average standard of living (measured by GDP per person) was a quarter higher. Today, there are about five times more people living in the US than the UK, America's economic performance is about seven times better than Britain's and the average American is about 50 percent better off than the average Briton.

What should be done? It would be more intelligent to repair the elevator which helped the US rise from the bottom of the heap to the top, instead of trying to transplant a European style of operating onto American soil. Either the US follows the American Way -- an approach characterized by a shared history, economic success and constant progress -- or the US will have to adjust itself to the "European" way, sparking economic and social tensions in the process.

If the US manages to revert to its former ways, there is potential for hope. If not, the American age will have really come to an end.

If you want to know, if it is a good idea having a love relationship with an (ex) client, or a man who knows about your escort activities, then to be honest NO. I do not think this is a good idea falling in love to an escort and vice versa. A person who thinks that falling in love with an escort is wise is only kidding himself. He will be always thinking of the men she was with no matter how much he says he won't. When they argue it will be the first thing to come to his mind and he will cut you with his tongue. He will wonder each time he walks down the street with you and people are about if one of them is your john. He will wonder when you are late if it was ligit or if you were off doing the naughty. You cannot build a real relationship that can work, when one part is in this business. The mind will eat you up and spit you out. Let it be and move on.

Nymph is right, be tactful when you reject someone. This is a general act of good behaviour which btw has nothing to do with your escort business. It is the same for gentlemen. :)

In this concern, war against Iraq, it will also be interesting to read the just published memoirs of George W. Bush. A first statement about this book has been made by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said that ex-US President George W. Bush is not telling the truth in his memoirs, released on Tuesday. Schroeder said he never offered his unconditional support for Bush's aggressive policy against Iraq.

Both ex-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former United States President George W. Bush have been out of office for some time. But the enmity which they developed for each other while they were in office seems to have survived.

In his memoirs, called "Decision Points" and released on Tuesday, Bush writes that Schroeder told him in January 2002 that the US president had his full support when it came to his aggressive Iraq policy. Bush wrote that Schroeder indicated he would even stand behind Bush should the US go to war against the country.

On Tuesday evening in Berlin, Schroeder denied that he ever made such a promise. "The former American president is not telling the truth," he said. He said the meeting in question focused on the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and whether those responsible were supported by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Just as I did during my subsequent meetings with the American president, I made it clear that, should Iraq ... prove to have provided protection and hospitality to al-Qaida fighters, Germany would reliably stand beside the US," Shroeder said. "This connection, however, as it became clear during 2002, was false and constructed."

Nazi Comparison

Schroeder transformed his opposition to the war against Iraq into a campaign issue during his 2002 run for the Chancellery. Indeed, his refusal to support Bush on the issue very likely resulted in his re-election in a very close vote. German-US relations were icy for much of Schroeder's second term in office.

In his book, Bush also wrote that he was shocked and furious in 2002 when he was compared to Adolf Hitler by the German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin due to his Iraq policies. He wrote that it was difficult to imagine anything more insulting than to be compared to Hitler by a German official.

Gmelin was forced to resign over the comments.

Paul,

we are well on the same side. There is no doubt and no space for a piece of paper between us!

But we should not make it too easy for these guys. No blind confidence in their words and no blind loyalty. The fathers and uncles of the soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places are not among the profiteers of these dangerous missions. They are soldiers and not mercenaries. The NATO is not a new Dutch East India Company.

By accident I found this article again. May be it can help widening this discussion. The USA degenerate more and more to a business model and they act for business reasons. Point of views which are contrary to these good people myths. The USD goes on suffering. What will be the next adventure, fighting AIDS in Africa?

"Dollars vs Euros - Weapons of mass destruction (last update, February 2004)

There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in the form of EURO currency. The petrodollar depends upon Iraq's oil reserves to defend the United States dollar against the EURO and other currencies. In 2001, well before Iraq's invasion, the dollar faced uncertainty as an overpriced, debt heavy currency against a new and robust EURO. In early 2004, the dollar is losing ground.

The economics will change however. Now that The United States of America has taken both Iraq and Afghanistan and owns those country's natural resources, the dollar plans a brighter future, or a stable one at best. Iraq trades (again) in dollars. The White House said all along they were freeing Iraqis and Afghanis from tyranny, and searching for weapons of mass destruction, and that the US-military was not invading those countries for oil, but that wasn't true.

War protesters claimed George W Bush was invading Iraq for oil. That was only partly true, and their cries for peace were uninformed. US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were for oil, but not for consumption. Pre-Iraq invasion, Saddam Hussein was trading in EUROs. Afghanistan is key to piping oil out of the Caspian Basin.

Discussing stocks, currency, and economics is not always exciting, and it is as vague as weapons of mass destruction. The media dumbs-down viewers with sensational snipets. General accounting practices, and world economic balance sheets are far too boring for the 6 o'clock news. Less than five percent of journalists in broadcast and print claim to understand economics, fewer understand how the US dollar / petrodollar fits into the global economy. Hence, it isn't discussed, and the "war" against Iraq and Afghanistan turned into a media blitz or humanitarian issue without background information on White House policy.

The United States will flex muscle against any commodity threats against the petrodollar. A government or business standing in the way of "oil progress" would lose. In April 2001, the Australian dollar plummeted when Australia's government and Foreign Investment Review Board rejected a merger between Royal/Dutch Shell and Woodside Petroleum. Australia's dollar fell to US50.42, and Woodside Petroleum lost $1 billion market value on decision day. The fight for oil is second to religion as the reason and cause for war throught history, and yet oil itself is a relatively new commodity to consumers.

The United States dollar abandoned gold markets under the Nixon administration in 1973. The US media didn't pay attention to such a bold move, because sensational headlines of the day were related to long gasoline lines, electrical shortages, and Watergate. Even 30 years later, consumers won't read in newsprint why our dollar is dependent upon oil. Keeping oil priced exclusively in dollars was enough cause for waging war in Iraq after Iraq's bold switch to EURO oil payments in 2002. The White House public relations campaign chose to pick emotional reason for invasion. OPEC, North Korea, Iran, and Russia now plan to trade in EUROs as the dollar continues to slide in value.

Economist commentator Sonja Ebron wrote, "An OPEC switch from the dollar to the Euro would bring a quick and devastating dollar and Wall Street crash that would make 1929 look like a $50 casino bet." This prediction was understood by the Clinton administration, but the Bush administration took action to boost the petrodollar.

The greatest financial weapon against the United States is the EURO. It is the first currency to present a threat against the dollar. The EURO is a shared currency of 15 European nations centered upon Germany and France. The economies and populations of the euro countries are as large as that of the United States, and more tightly bound to the Middle East, said Ebron. As large as the European Union appears today, it continues to grow. The United States is landlocked. The world is suddenly too small for the dollar to grow.

Since 1945 the dollar has been the global oil transaction currency. These dollars are recycled from oil production to the US as Treasury Bills and assets in US stocks and real estate, which is a substantial portion of the financial market. The EURO becomes the alternative currency to nations wishing to switch.

Now for the difficult part... although the Asian Times writes a fairly "idiot-proof" description. In 2002, the US debt was $6 trillion against a gross domestic product of $9 trillion. Global economies have, since WWII, captured dollars to service foreign debts, and accumulated dollar reserves sustain the exchange value of their own currency. The world's central banks hold dollar reserves equal to their currency in circulation. The more pressure to devalue a currency, the more dollar reserves are required. This makes each economy dependent upon the US dollar, or known as dollar hegemony, constructed mainly by oil -- in other words, oil producing nations historically only accepted dollars, until the EURO. But with this currency game, the US essentially owns the world oil trading market for free, and allows the US to build its debt based upon credit assets they don't physically own. With The United States in control of Iraq, oil trade reverts to dollars.

With a strong dependency upon oil, and petrodollars secure, the White House hopes the EURO will slide. The EURO economy is currently $9.6 trillion. As more countries jump on to use EURO, their economy grows. The US either takes over the assets they trade, like Iraq, or convince the rest of the world to exchange their currency for dollars. The US is urging Tony Blair not to adopt the EURO for this purpose. The EURO is new, has little debt. The US dollar has a substantial debt, but is heavily used. The European Union itself is a larger consumer of oil than the US.

These are White House games you won't read about in the US media. This one you should pay attention to."