"The Engines are next to my window." "Excuse me sir, we are turning around the plane and you need to get off this aeroplane."

I guess you've got to be careful what you say on a plane; that said, I don't think you can blame passengers for being alert given what has already happened.

clipped from www.news24.com Washington - AirTran Airlines says nine Muslim passengers were removed from a flight from Washington, DC, to Florida after other passengers reported hearing a suspicious remark. An AirTran spokesperson says there was a misunderstanding. The Muslim passengers say AirTran wouldn't rebook them Thursday and they had to pay for seats on another airline. Passenger Kashif Irfan tells The Washington Post in a story published on Friday that the confusion began when his brother remarked aloud that the plane's jets were next to his window. Two other passengers reported hearing what they considered to be a suspicious remark.

Petrol to drop to R6.01 (from R7.35) by January 7

A pity we didn't see a price cut during the Festive Season.

clipped from www.fin24.com Johannesburg - South African petrol pump prices will fall by about 18% next week to the lowest since March 2007 due to a drop in the international oil price, helping to ease inflation. A statement from the minerals and energy department on Friday said the most widely used 95 octane petrol would drop by R1.34 a litre on January 7 to R6.01 in the main commercial hub of Gauteng from R7.35 previously. "We are expecting inflation to fall rapidly and this should add to the pace of the decline but it is not likely to be significant." A big chunk of household expenditure is on food and transport costs, which have been the main drivers of inflation.

FORD = First On Rubbish Dump...Rest of Auto Industry will not recover either

Ford Motor Co expects industry-wide December U.S. auto sales to drop by some 35 percent from a year earlier with no sign of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year. - YAHOO

NVDL: There are a few reasons the auto industry won't recover, but I'll provide just one. We've entered a period known as Compressed Debt Deflation. In many decades from now, people will remember 2008 as the year money all over the world, dried up. The only cars and houses that will be sold will be to people flush with cash. That's a sizable chunk of the market - the majority in fact - gone. All industries that require loans will do very badly from now on (that's a lot of industries, from energy, to banking, to construction, to property and auto markets).

clipped from news.yahoo.com "The sales rates have declined like a lead balloon, really," Pipas said. "I think when December comes in every segment will be down. Not one segment will be up versus a year ago." The sharpest sales declines in 2008 came in full-size SUVs, a gas-guzzling category that U.S. consumers abandoned during the spring and summer spike in oil prices. The No. 2 U.S. automaker, which borrowed more than $23 billion in 2006, has attempted to use its better financial position and recent quality gains to distinguish itself from its battered competitors in the eyes of car shoppers. But Pipas said Ford's sales planners expected to see industry-wide U.S. auto sales declines of between 20 percent and 30 percent in monthly sales reports in the first quarter. Ford does not expect U.S. auto sales to begin to stabilize until the second half of 2009 based on the view that the U.S. economy will begin to improve late this year, Pipas said.

How to effect lasting change in 2009

“Don’t listen to your feelings,” Dr. Jacobs said. “Feelings lie.”

But they also evolve, at least to judge by Oprah Winfrey’s experience. While she is back on the treadmill and off the carbs, Ms. Winfrey is talking about different objectives.

“My goal isn’t to be thin,” she wrote in O. “My goal is for my body to be the weight it can hold — to be strong and healthy and fit, to be itself.”

In concluding this, she may have stumbled across a more realistic form of change for 2009: self-acceptance. - NYT

NVDL: I'd add to this by saying that you need to change your identity (and self-concept) as a first step. If your identity is that you're fat, losing weight is always going to be a negative association. Same with smoking. "I am not a smoker" is the first thing you do on the road to not smoking.

Personally I intend to dwell in the 70-something kilogram range this year. I am just over 80 now. Watch this space.

clipped from www.nytimes.com The first, he said, is to “start with big changes, not small ones,” a strategy likely to yield immediate, noticeable benefits that inspire more positive change. The second is to act like the kind of person you are trying to become; even if you hit the jogging trail with 30 pounds of flab, think of yourself as the jock you want to be. The third strategy is to “reframe” the situation. Recovering alcoholics, for example, have a higher chance of success if they reframe their sober life as a divorce from a tumultuous love affair with drinking, because they can then look back at their old life as a romantic adventure, rather than a sinkhole of regret. The fourth, and crucial, strategy, he said, is based on the “don’t do it alone” advice that is the bedrock of 12-step programs.

The Evil (and the tears) Behind the Smiles

I experienced this firsthand when I met a Philippino prostitute in Manila and asked her about her family and why she was here. The veneer of sexiness was replaced by tears as she spoke of her parents and siblings. Any guy who thinks women want to be there doing what they're doing are fooling themselves, and rewarding the criminal pimps who run these ruinious rackets.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Western men who visit red-light districts in poor countries often find themselves surrounded by coquettish teenage girls laughingly tugging them toward the brothels. The men assume that the girls are there voluntarily, and in some cases they are right. But anyone inclined to take the girls’ smiles at face value should talk to Sina Vann, who was once one of those smiling girls. Sina is Vietnamese but was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia, where she was drugged. She said she woke up naked and bloody on a bed with a white man — she doesn’t know his nationality — who had purchased her virginity.

Marriage: Seven Things No One Tells You About

You think to yourself, "This is so not what I signed up for."
Actually, it is. You just didn't realize it the day you and your guy were cramming wedding cake into each other's faces, clinking champagne glasses, and dancing the Electric Slide. Back then you had no idea that "for better and for worse" doesn't kick in only when life hands you a tragedy.

Your relationship mettle is, in fact, most tested on a daily basis, when the utter sameness of day-in/day-out togetherness can sometimes make you want to run for the hills. That's when the disappointment sneaks in, and maybe even a palpable sense of loneliness and grief. It's not him. It's just you, letting go of that sugarcoated fantasy of marriage that danced in your eyes the day you and your beloved posed in all those soft-focus wedding photos.
You're learning that marriage isn't a destination; it's a journey filled with equal parts excitement and tedium. - By Ylonda Gault Caviness

NVDL: Some useful (and for some - like me) practical insights into the most scary thing you can ever do - get married. Hang on, marriage is beyond scary. There is not a word in the English dictionary to describe that level of terror.

clipped from dating.personals.yahoo.com When you get married, you think that as long as you pick the right guy -- your soul mate -- you'll be happy together until death do you part. Then you wake up one day and realize that no matter how great he is, he doesn't make you happy every moment of every day. In fact, some days you might wonder why you were in such a hurry to get married in the first place. You think to yourself, "This is so not what I signed up for." 2. You'll work harder than you ever imagined. 3. You will sometimes go to bed mad (and maybe even wake up madder). 4. Getting your way is usually not as important as finding a way to work together. 5. A great marriage doesn't mean no conflict; it simply means a couple keeps trying to get it right. 6. You'll realize that you can only change yourself. 7. As you face your fears and insecurities, you will find out what you're really made of.

Israel Makes War Interactive: "Hi, this is the Israeli Air Force. We're going to bomb your house. Btw, please email us where the bomb locations are. Thanks. Bye."

NVDL: Quite clever.

clipped from news.yahoo.com In what appeared to be a new Israeli tactic, the military called at least some of the houses ahead of time to warn inhabitants of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with powerful missiles, Palestinians and Israeli defense officials said. In airstrike after airstrike early Friday, Israeli warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said. They said the Israelis either warned nearby residents by phone or fired a warning missile to reduce civilian casualties. Israeli planes also dropped leaflets east of Gaza giving a confidential phone number and e-mail address for people to report locations of rocket squads. Residents stepped over the leaflets.

Petrol tax coming as motorists not driving enough to fill government coffers

Charles Whittington, chairman of the American Trucking Associations, which supports a fuel tax increase as long as the money goes to highway projects, said Congress may decide to disguise a fuel tax hike as a surcharge to combat climate change.

Transportation is responsible for about a third of all U.S. carbon emissions created by burning fossil fuels. Traffic congestion wastes an estimated 2.9 billion gallons of fuel a year. Less congestion would reduce greenhouse gases and dependence on foreign oil.

"Instead of calling it a gas tax, call it a carbon tax," Whittington said.

Bottlenecks around the nation cost the trucking industry about 243 million lost truck hours and about $7.8 billion per year, according to the commission. - Yahoo

NVDL: Too much money is associated with making money out of driving/burning fossil fuels.

clipped from news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren't raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs. That has the federal commission that oversees financing for transportation talking about increasing the federal fuel tax. A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by the commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

Helen Suzman has died

"It was an odd and wonderful sight to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells."- Mandela

NVDL: One of the few true champions of this country.

clipped from news.yahoo.com CAPE TOWN, South Africa – South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, who won international acclaim as one of the few white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule, died Thursday. She was 91. Suzman's relationship with former President P.W. Botha, one of the most ruthless enforcers of apartheid laws, was one of mutual loathing. She described him as "an obnoxious bully" and said that if he were female, "he would arrive in Parliament on a broomstick," according to the Helen Suzman Foundation Web site. Botha once referred to her as "a vicious little cat" — Suzman didn't mind as she adored animals and was surrounded by them at her home. In addition to many other titles, she said she was especially proud of being declared "Enemy of the State" by Zimbabwe's autocratic President Robert Mugabe in 2001.

1 year in 40 seconds

2009: How to stay employed

NVDL: Some useful tips and advice here I'd say....

clipped from hotjobs.yahoo.com What does 2009 have in store for workers -- and how can you position yourself to do well in this tough environment? "Nobody seems to think the turnaround is imminent," says John Challenger, CEO of global outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. The job market usually takes longer to deteriorate than the rest of the economy, and it can also take longer for it to improve once the economy starts gaining strength. "It seems inevitable that we're going to be mired in this for a while." No one knows how long this recession will last. The financial services, construction, and automotive industries were hit early in the crisis and are still struggling. But other areas of the economy, including retail and the tech sectors, are also facing challenges. Realistic, Not Resigned Job-Saving Hints * Make sure your boss knows how you help the company * Make yourself useful * Focus on core work * Get to know your boss's boss Landing a New Job * Cast a wide net. * Don't wait.

2009 Forecast

If you want some of the best insights into 2009 - and insights you might not want to know - read these by James Kunstler. Click on the link below for a link to the article on his blog.

clipped from jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

How to make 2009 the best year

Barry Ronge says forget the gym, and I can see where he is coming from. In my view, the most important decision you can make - seruiously - is to honor a commitment to take care of the health of your body. If you can do that, everything else falls into place. If you take care of yourself you're more inclined to care about the environment and everything else, and vice versa.

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za Christmas is past. The delight (or otherwise) over our presents is morphing into anxiety about the lurking credit card bills, but before that hurdle is faced, we have the New Year celebrations and the tradition of making resolutions. It’s not a bad custom. There is a sort of pause at the end of the year, a lull when we have a little more time to consider our lives, define goals, set targets and nurture hopes for what lies ahead. That is comforting, even if it does nothing more than strengthen our illusion that we are actually in charge of what happens to us. Mostly, these resolutions deal with the small stuff. “I have to smoke less” is a perennial favourite, as is “I have to start putting some money away, a nest egg, in case of an emergency”. One of the most pervasive resolutions is “I’m going to take gym seriously and I must lose 20kg.”

Moon Race Restarts - this time it's China vs USA

With the Moon featuring on a growing number of political agendas, it is likely that ideas that seemed impossible a generation ago are going to become a reality - such as making the Moon habitable for humans. - BBC

NVDL: All this is slated for 2020. The next 10 years will be an exciting time. However I have my doubts, given the background of a crumbling global economy, that there will be enough funding for this in ten years.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Forty years ago, the largest TV audience in history tuned in to watch the Apollo 8 crew reach lunar orbit. It was during this mission that the famous "Earthrise" image was captured, changing forever our perception of the planet and its place in space. And in July 1969, a small step by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission guaranteed his place in human history as the first person to set foot on another world. These pioneering missions captivated everyone's attention and seemed to herald a brave new world. Yet after just six lunar landings, the Apollo programme was scrapped because the world had quickly lost interest. The Moon is a place where you can study how to expand life beyond Earth Professor Bernard Foing European Space Agency During the 2004 speech in which he announced the US plan to return to the Moon, President George W Bush said the programme would act as a stepping stone to even more ambitious projects. China astronaut's space walk

10 Best Films of 2008

Not sure if I agree with this list. I would add:
1. Wall-E
2. Body of Lies
3. Kung-Fu panda
4. Ironman
5. Wanted
6. Horton Hears a Who!
7. Australia
8. Synecoche
9. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
10. The Dark Knight - of course
[Mama Mia - although I never got to watch it]

Worst films:
Deception, Sweeney Todd, The Boleyn Girl, Bolt...can't remember the others.

clipped from english.ohmynews.com 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' 'The Dark Knight' Is there anything even remotely left to write about "The Dark Knight" that hasn't already been salivated over by the great unwashed nation of geeks? A dazzling, applause-worthy crime saga layered inside the bruised carcass of a concentrated superhero distraction, "Knight" found an ideal playground within a beguiling depiction of moral ambiguity, richly drawing from three iconic comic book personalities to sift through lush thematic discussions of honor, insanity, and the true price of justice. A sterling production from a technical standpoint, "Knight" managed to hold its golden pitch when it came time to spill heavy dramatics, taking Batman to a whole new level of multifaceted screenwriting that will be difficult to top in the inevitable next installment. 'U2 3D' 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'

6 Years of Market Gains Are Lost in 2008

Diversification — the idea that it is unwise to put all your eggs in one basket — did not pay off for investors in 2008, casting doubt over this cornerstone of modern investing. The American market was far from the worst hit in 2008. Stocks have fallen 55 percent to 72 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China — the so-called BRIC economies that were darlings of the late, great boom. Stocks in developed European and Asian markets also fell sharply, though less than their emerging counterparts. Many commodities like oil and copper crashed. - NYT

clipped from www.nytimes.com There was almost no place to hide from the crash of 2008. By the time the New York Stock Exchange closed Wednesday to end the year, virtually anyone with money in stocks had felt the punishing drop in the market. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the year down more than 33 percent, the worst year for the index since 1931, and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index more than 38 percent. Blue-chips like Bank of America, Citigroup and Alcoa lost more than 60 percent of their value. All told, about $7 trillion of shareholders’ wealth — the gains of the last six years — will be wiped out in a year marked by violent market swings. All but 2 of the 30 Dow industrials, Wal-Mart and McDonalds, fell by more than 10 percent. Almost no industry was spared as the crisis that emerged in the subprime mortgage market metastasized and the economy sank into what could be a long, gray recession.

I spent New Year's here once

The only downside was that the population is Muslim so there was no alcohol. Fireworks were spectacular though.

clipped from www.news24.com

2008 in PHOTOS [SLIDESHOW]

The image below - Xenophobic violence - was a lowlight in this country. Click on the link below to view the rest.

clipped from news.yahoo.com In this May 20, 2008 file photo, people run from South African police firing rubber bullets in the Reiger Park informal settlement outside Johannesburg, South Africa.

New Year's Eve an icy affair for New Yorkers

Temperatures in the teens — with wind chills below zero — were forecast for midnight and the annual ball drop in New York's Times Square and for the First Night celebration in Boston, where up to 11 inches of snow was forecast with wind gusting to 45 mph. - Yahoo

clipped from news.yahoo.com Up to a million revelers, jammed tightly together by intense security, were expected to hunker down against the icy wind in Times Square to watch a five-minute blizzard of balloons and more than a ton of confetti. But the weather put a crimp in the festivities for some. New Bedford, Mass., put its fireworks display off until Jan. 8 because of the wind, but said other New Year's Eve activities would go on as planned.