For the Smart Money Cookie

As you know, donating your time as a volunteer is a way for you to strengthen the bonds of your community as well as assisting the needy. It’s a lot simpler to get involved when a professional has planned the event. Of course you’ll have more fun volunteering with your colleagues pitching in right along with you. This is a call, then, for companies to take a cue from firms like Adaptive Marketing LLC. As well as financial and shopping benefits programs such as Todays Escapes (MVQ*TRAVELMEMBER) designed to benefit consumers, Adaptive Marketing organizes local volunteer activity to give its employees the time to give back to the community. If you were asked for examples of company-backed volunteer work, you’d most likely talk in terms of blood drives, perhaps an annual call for donations, but that’s simply no longer true. Tennis shoe recycling initiatives and more energetic campaigns like tree replanting days — these are just some of the activities that have been organized by Adaptive Marketing for its workforce. For these events, the locations, dates and times that had been arranged were made clear well in advance, which made it convenient for staff to know what to expect, and how much time it might take precisely.

It’s hardly volunteering if there’s no choice between initiatives. At Adaptive Marketing, the company behind Todays Escapes (MVQ*TRAVELMEMBER), members of staff have the chance to choose from a diverse list of events in their local area. Previous projects have included work in areas as diverse as education for children and young adults, green projects, and events cultivating the area’s arts and culture. The result is that Adaptive Marketing volunteers have opportunities to explore useful avenues in volunteer work and love taking part. If businesses ask their members of staff to consider volunteering at local schools, it is often in support of a single event or a regularly scheduled, perhaps weekly or monthly job. Even if you’ve merely got enough time to assist at the public library’s used book sale, there’s still a chance to help. It’s common practice for business firms to help out the people of their home town. The activities of the staff at companies such as Adaptive Marketing spread good feeling in their home town. Helping around your home town can make you feel like a better person — just the sort of thing to motivate employees both in their daily work and their volunteer activities, too. Organizing a drive to help employees become volunteers rewards everyone involved.

Volunteering — a path to a better community, and helping your local needy. Yet, scheduling this kind of event is often a bit difficult, and before you know it you don’t have half as long left to actually do some good. It hardly requires mention, if you volunteer as part of a group effort with colleagues, it’s likely to be far more fun.

Accordingly, some socially-conscious firms are integrating initiatives to help their employees support the community. One of the leaders in this is Adaptive Marketing LLC of Connecticut who developed programs including Leisure Exclusives. Initiatives like these were always rare activities — but this has come to be seen as a bare minimum. Looking at just one company, Adaptive Marketing has provided its employees with an opportunity to take part in everything from athletic shoe recycling campaigns to local tree-planting days. Using central organization the initiatives grew into events, with specific dates, locations and times made public early to make time management easy for volunteers. The spirit of volunteering means a choice between projects. Firms involved in this like Adaptive Marketing, the developers of the membership program Leisure Exclusives, allow their employees to select from a wide assortment of programs to get involved with. Prior projects have seen improvements made in a wide variety of areas including help and support for children and young adults, green programs, and events supporting artists. Adaptive Marketing’s staff members have so much to choose from that they’re sure to choose a project they’ll enjoy taking part in, ensuring they’ll enjoy the time they spend volunteering. Commonly a company supported charity project — getting involved with a local school or helping out at a homeless shelter — is either for a one-off event or on a regular schedule to accomplish a bigger goal. There are those who assert they don’t have time, but even they may be able to squeeze in a Saturday morning spent litter picking in the park. Extending a helping hand is a long-standing tradition at many companies. The good worksefforts of those who work at Adaptive Marketing create goodwill around their home base. One thing volunteer activities are certain to do is provide your staff with a positive feeling about themselves, producing a motivated firm.

Yaz is different. That is what we are assured that by the developers of this popular pill. The reason Yasmin is so diverse is that it mixes the two hormones estrogen and progestin. Estrogen is the key part of almost all contraceptive pills currently on the market. It is the progestin part of Yasmin that has a potassium sparing diuretic outcome in a number of patients that leads to Yaz side effects. Inflated potassium levels can lead to the lethal side effects.

In 2008, Yaz was the top birth control pill sold in the United States. Yaz has many of the same side effects as other contraceptive pills. Even So, the Food and Drug Administration claimed that the Yaz advertisements minimized the potential serious side effects. If you are one of various young ladies using the contraceptive pill known as Yaz, you should be conscious of the potential side effects if you aren’t already. These Yaz side effects by no means cover every single feasible illness or injury Yaz may cause; so if you have sustained other symptoms, do not dismiss the fact that Yaz may be contributing.

If you or someone you know is having any of the noted Yaz side effects, seek medical aid immediately and tell the attending physician that you are taking the birth control pill. If there is damage to any part of your body, you may be entitled to join a growing sector of young women in their legal crusade against the oral contraceptive company that failed to alert them of the possible side effects that occur with it. As with any birth control pill, one should always be aware of the potential side effects before taking it and determine accordingly if it will be too dangerous to take.

Research performed on healthy, premenopausal women in the Netherlands specified that Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella (generic Yasmin) suffered an raised risk of venous thrombosis as compared to non-users. The risks were increased as high as five times with birth control pills. These studies were published in August 2009. This was only the beginning of the controversy surrounding Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella and the consequent lawsuits to come involving Yaz side effects.

There are already many lawsuits filed in various counties across the U.S. against the birth control manufacturer. This number is expected to reach 1,000. Typically, those effected by Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella can fill out the form at TheLegalAdvocate.com to have a lawyer review their info in order to be provided with answers and eventually legal representation.

Females taking Yasmin, Yaz or Ocella to avoid becoming pregnant or to treat PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) or severe acne have reportedly sustained serious injury to their health and wellness. Although most pharmaceuticals present some form of side effects, the main topic surrounding Yaz seems to be that the original commercials downplayed the health risks and side effects. This attracted users to the product that may not have taken it otherwise had they been properly informed about the risks posed by Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz.

According to recent weather reports this month of April is breaking all the rules. We all know it for its showers, not its dazzling sunny spells, humid temperatures and balmy nights. It is unseasonably warm and there’s now no better time than this to seize the day and make the most of it in every possible way. That might be gathering your loved ones and going out for a picnic, or taking a stroll in the park, or even hiring a boat and going for a calming row across a lake. lapping up the beauty of mother nature as you glide over the water. Bliss.

Should the CIA be run by a military man? Some believe it should since the CIA is completely out of control and infiltrated by socialists who cannot keep their mouth shut.

Additionally many feel that the CIA lacks discipline and many know for a fact that the CIA status opens up another class of citizen in the United States which is above the law and many of the former CIA are into all sorts of industries and use their methodologies to run businesses, cheat in the competitive aspects of business and circumvent the law.

In fact the abuse of power both while in the CIA and post employment is so ramped inside our borders it is completely out of hand. Can the CIA be reformed thru a change in attitude and increased discipline?

When the CIA is so immersed in World affairs and their employees so immersed in American Politics it is truly amazing the level of inherent corruption and dishonest and the lack of integrity is pathetic. Personally it makes me want to puke. How dishonorable and it is getting worse not better.

Should President Bush appoint a military man to be head of the CIA? Of course, because there needs to be cohesive military information and intelligence flows and the CIA is suppose to be operating outside our nation, not from within in political shuffling and one-ups-manship nasty political vendettas. Consider this in 2006.

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It is undeniable that Cambodia is changing. When I arrived in Cambodia in 1995, one in three Cambodians I met carried a weapon. Arms were for many the only way to ensure security. Yet, in the decennium I live in Cambodia, I have never seen one used against me or anybody, except for one: a policeman shot some game in the forest but didn’t catch it.

I’ve collected weapons. 5 years ago, I travelled to Dey Krohom village in Kratie province along roads which the year after were de-mined because the road was part of what once was the National road from Phnom Penh to Kratie and Stoeung Treng and is was going to be rebuilt into what Cambodians cal a “speedway”. I’ve seen the mines when a year later, I travelled the same road again to inspect my development projects.

Each one might have killed me. Do you know that mines tend to float under the soil and move where no-one expects any mines.

>From 2000 to 2004, I worked for the EU ASAC, an EU weapons management programme for establishing weapons security to the country. My job was to help collect weapons from the civilian population which was only a small part of a much more encompassing programme. My job also included implementing police support regarding to security as a complement to the weapons collection.

The programme was implemented on the request and with the full support of the Cambodian government. Next week, the government will destroy some 8,000 weapons and thus bring the total of destroyed weapons since the start of the EU peace plan to more than 175,000 weapons.

These weapons include not only weapons from the civilian population, but also military surpluses. Some argue that it is the oldest weapons that were destroyed, but all of the weapons in the destruction were usable. Being usable - if only for spare parts -, they could be sold on the black market and used in other conflicts in the region.

By destroying those weapons, the Cambodian people acts as true Buddhists, choosing for Peace in the Region. “Put down your weapon, take up the Dharma” edified the Buddhist Teachers. And that is what Cambodians are doing.

The EU has been the initiator of the multi-facetted peace programme. Two Japanese organisations are fulfilling the promises of European initiators: if you make peace development will come. Cambodian people have turned their weapons. JSAC and JCCP, two Japanese organisation now offer development projects to the villages, communes and districts that have surrendered all their weapons and are proven weapons-free. Clean water wells are in some places the highest priorities, elsewhere schools or school toilets were built.

The principle of the weapons collection project was not to pay for the weapons, but to offer community-owned projects instead. Every weapon that was collected from the civilian population had to be destroyed and was.

The military surplus weapons are those that are left over from the EU ASAC Weapons Registration and Safe Storage project. Here safe storage buildings for weapons and computerised registration system have been provided to the Cambodian Army and Gendarmerie.

The weapons are destroyed in public ceremonies in the presence of the population. These ceremonies are called “Flames of Peace.” EU, Cambodian or Japanese experts count the weapons as part of the process and check that no more ammunition remains in the weapon that could turn the celebration into a tragedy.

The EU assistance programme has also supported the National Committee for weapons management, the draft of a new arms law and oversees the implementation of that law.

Next week, two of those bonfires take place in Cambodia. On Monday 26 September, 3,430 weapons will be burned ceremoniously in Siem Reap province with Japanese support and on Tuesday about 4,500 in Sihanoukville with European support.

The Japanese destruction ceremony will take place in Angkor Chum district, there where the people have turned them in. The ceremony in Sihanoukville will take place on Ochheuteal Beach and is open to any visitor. If you happen to be in Sihanoukville, this is a unique occasion to witness the Cambodian contribution to peace building.