Veronica Guerin, played by Cate Blanchett, goes to an Irish slum to see the drug addicts and how they live. Upset by what she saw, Veronica becomes interested in how the drug lords live the high life at the cost of the drug addicts becoming sick and dying.

Veronica meets John Traynor, aka "The Coach" played by Ciarin Hinds. She asks him questions about the drug trade and "The Coach" gives her answers, provided that the information she reports in the newspaper doesn't include him or his name.

The other side of Veronica is that she is a wife to her husband and a mother to her son. She lives a quiet life at home, however, her husband has worries and fears for her. Her mother, played by Brenda Fricker and her brother feels the same way; but they know that being a news journalist is a job Veronica enjoys doing.

A conspiracy ensues involving Eugene "Dutchie" Holland played by Joe Hanley. Veronica visits "Dutchie" earlier at his home asking him a lot of questions about the drug trade. Veronica meets "Dutchie" again at the airport. Dutchie tells Veronica as he was about to board a plane that since she visit his home, he should make a "visit" to her home.

That night, someone shoots a bullet through the window of her home. Not threatened in any way, Veronica discovers that the head of the drug ring is wealthy socialite named John Gilligan, played by Gerald McSorley. As she tries to get closer to him, an unfortunate incident occurs. Before she leaves her home to attend a Christmas party, a masked figure steps into her home and tries to kill her, but he only shoots her in the leg. This doesn't stop Veronica. She, now on crutches and limping around, still press the investigation of John Gilligan. She finally meets him at his home. However, John gives Veronica a horrible welcome by beating her up and throwing her into her car. She drives away from the estate bruised and shaken. Later, John calls Veronica and threaten to harm her son if she doesn't back off.

In a world of glamour the celebrities have become gods. Celebs pictures are the new icons people look at. The latest celebs pictures are hunted because they can bring whoever has them a lot of money. Just think about it: you have a favorite actor or singer and you have an outstanding collection of celebrity photos, but someone has a bunch of new photos. Wouldn’t you pay good money for the latest celebrity photos? Even though you know that those celebrity photos won’t bring you any closer to your favorite star you feel the need to have an impressing collection of celebs pictures.

Celebs pictures can mean a lot of things, depending on every person. To some the latest celebs pictures might mean nothing. They might think that the paper used is worth more than the picture. For other people celebrity pictures might represent a means to decorate the refrigerator door or their desk. For other people celebrity photos are a way of life. No, I’m not talking about stalkers, or maybe just a little bit. These people are called paparazzi. They follow people around with their camera just to get the latest celebrity photos because this is their job and having the latest celebs pictures means they will be paid a lot by magazines and newspapers who sell new information. So, this way, celebs pictures help people earn a living. This doesn’t mean they have a rough life because they are getting paid pretty well for the latest celebrity photos of god knows whom in an embarrassing position. The only place you can safely take celebrity photos is the studio, but those celebs pictures are not interesting, people want to see celebrities doing all kinds of things, not only posing. So the paparazzi do their best to follow celebrities around and get the best pictures possible. This is a tricky job because the celebrities sometimes don’t want their picture taken so they hide and sometimes even turn aggressive. This is why celebs pictures don’t come cheap.

If you’re wondering: “where could I find some celebs pictures?” you just have to look around you. Celebs pictures are everywhere. All you have to do is look somewhere. You can find celebrity pictures in the daily papers, on publicity boards, on TV and on the Internet. If you really want some celebs pictures all you have to do is look because you’re sure to find some, even where you least expect them to be. Nowadays celebrity pictures are everywhere: on lunchboxes, on watches, on clothing, you can even get a pendant with your favorite celebrity’s face or the latest celebrity pictures you want encrusted on it. So the celebrity pictures invasion bas begun and there is no escape.

If you want to find the latest celebs pictures all you have to do is go online. The World Wide Web is house to a lot of different things and among those things are celebrity pictures. The good thing with the Internet is that everything, well almost everything is free, so you won’t have to pay to download the latest celebrity photos on your home computer. To find the latest celebs pictures you just have to do a simple search using the key frame “latest celebrity pictures”. You’ll be amazed by all the things you can find there. You can find celebrity pictures from the time they were 1 year old to the present moment. The search for the latest celebrity photos has to be done with protection because popularity masks viruses and I bet you don’t want to get a computer virus while you’re looking at the latest celebrity pictures and enjoying yourself.

Some people look for the latest celebrity photos just to see what the new trends are. Everyone knows that celebrities are trendsetters and they influence fashion in any field. So people, especially young women, look at the latest celebrity pictures to see what’s hot and what’s not. Because of what they see in those photos people change their outfits, their hairstyle and sometimes they even undergo plastic surgery just to look a little bit more like their favorite famous person. This is not healthy because a world full of replicas can’t be interesting. Each human is beautiful because he is unique. A lot of people aren’t pleased with the way they look so they do everything they can to resemble someone else and to hide their own personality. Big mistake…

Whatever your reason is for looking at the latest celebs pictures you should know one thing: there’s a difference between a person who likes celebrities and someone who wants to be the persons in the pictures. Remember to be yourself and you can be a celebrity everyday.

The following are my ponderances on the Source of existence. It is not a definitive article. It is just an expression of my own thoughts.

The question for ponderance is: Can the Source of existence be a thing?

If the source of existence is a tangible thing, then who is the creator of this Being or thing call the Source?

So can the Source be a thing or an object? Can the Source be tangible? If the Source can be an object, then how can it be the ultimate? Because if it is an object/thing/Being, then who is the creator of this object/thing/Being? If it is an object, by conventional rationalisation, there must be a creator for this object. If it is not so, can a thing or an object be already self-existing? This is indeed a very profound and paradoxical question.

My opinion is that when we try to interpret the Source with our mind, we are in fact trying to imagine/conceptualise the ungraspable. And by this very action of our conceptualisation, Source becomes a concept/idea and in our mind it becomes 'objectified' and conceptualised. Metaphorically speaking, it is like a dog trying to bite its own tail. We will be going round and round in circles and still no sight of the Source can be seen.

From my understanding and opinion, there is in reality no creator-creation division. It is an optical, perceptual and experiential illusion...a matrix so to speak. Observer(me) and the being observed (other) is a hypnotic thought... creating the appearance of 'me and other'.. This is quite hard to explain. The closest analogy is that life experience is like a dream of an individual self. When in actual fact, the individual self is a dream character within the tapestry of existence. The experience of an individual interacting with his/her environment is an impression.

Secret societies are seriously a stupid strategy to propel your will or your group over the masses. Because secret societies raise suspicion and they develop a sense of non-trust. If your group is not trusted by others and the others have larger groups then you'll find yourself being curtailed often. Secret societies are simply seriously a stupid strategy supporting suspicion.

Does you group want to be suspected, as less than honorable. Where it is the honor in that? And if your group is so secret why would anyone with any integrity want to join? Why would anyone with any honor wish to join? Why would I join a group which would have me as a member?

Secret Societies may evoke fear in those who encounter their members or they may meet challenge by those who are of such strong character that they are not distracted, but rather see it as a contest. When an individual meets a member of a Secret Society and that member starts playing this secret society game on them many things can happen. Perhaps the individual is impressed? Maybe they are in fear. Maybe they want to join or maybe they see this is as a challenge and a contest.

If so beware, because most secret societies hold no secrets at all and most of the people of the greatest strength of personal character do not need any secrets to win. They win on shear personal will and inner strength?

Secret Societies are for those who get strength from a group rather than from self and they are not as strong. Even with the entire group helping, they cannot defeat an idea from a single mind with unlimited belief in self or efficient use of human intent. Beware secret societies; do not push what you do not know. You know what I mean.

Debate and discussion with intellectuals is fun and often you find at least one minor point of contention worthy from the other side. When I talk about intellectuals, I do not mean academics, as I do believe there are enough educated derelicts to fill the Salton Sea.

Recently I had a debate with a Liberal French Canadian who attempted to correct my speech with a more appropriate politically correct terminology. The terminology I used had nothing to do with him personally, it was over the use of the word; Ehy. And how so many Canadians use it, almost to the point of giving away their citizenship by the mere use of it ehy? This led to a debate about political correctness in general.

In the end we agreed to disagree, which made sense. He agreed that I had opened his eyes on the political correctness issues and problems with them and I agreed he was mistaken in every regard, as I was correct entirely and he was completely in error.

Of course since the conversation was intellectually based it was all good from my perspective? After all how often do you get to talk with or even debate with someone who is actually fully engaged in their "life experience" or "turned on" mentally enough to understand what you are even talking about these days?

Are we humans beings really the masters of this planet? Do we have the authority to self-righteously assume global dominance? The following article is my view to the questions. It is certainly not definitive. It is just an expression of my own thoughts and opinions.

In my opinion, perhaps we should not assume that our species is central to the world and planet at large. A human economic system should ideally also take into account the well being of the entire ecosystem, which is body of Mother Earth. I will tend to regard the Mother Earth as a living consciousness with her various elements (water, air, wildlife, etc) constantly seeking to remain in harmonious equilibrium. Come to think of it, isn't this quite like the way the body of a living being functions?

Perhaps, economy should not be about humans for humans only. We tend to see 'less-than-holistically' and believe that money-making has little or nothing to do with the welfare of our Mother Earth and the ecosystem. But the fact is we humans do take sustenance from the atmosphere, animal and plant kingdoms; therefore we are dependent upon other species and resources on Earth. As such, human activities should be accounted for within a equation that does not place the human species upon a pedestal (which is being treated as superior); but rather assigns the 'so-called intelligent biped' objectively with other species and elements of this diverse planet. In my opinion, the current human activities are simply too self-absorbed within our own kind. The truth of things is that everything, 'however insignificant it may appear to be, is in actual fact, unique. "Feeling special" and "above others" are simply beliefs concocted by the human psyche, and have relevance only in a human society.

Holistic & equitable replenishment & redistribution amongst all elements and species on Earth should be the a central theme for sustainable living, instead of the human biased "competitive" model. I feel that perhaps recycling of used materials may not be enough. Humans, being the so-called intelligent life form on Earth should actively develop sciences that deal with replenishment of plants, animal kingdoms and elements, keeping resources in equilibrium.

To achieve all that, perhaps the very mindset that first sets competition in motion has to be re-evaluated. Well, this ideal is certainly easier said than done.

Vincent Price plays Joseph Curwen, a man accused of being a warlock. The townspeople of the village of Arkham tied him to a tree and burned him. Joseph Curwen cursed the village people and vowed to return.

110 years later, the great-great grandson of Joseph Curwen, Charles Dexter Ward, also played by Vincent Price, along with his wife, Ann Ward, played by Debra Paget, returns to the town. Charles Dexter Ward had recently acquired his family home and upon his and his wife's arrival, they meet Simon the caretaker, played by Lon Chaney Jr.

Charles and Ann decided to have a walk around town only to be greeted or should I say "not greeted" by some townspeople who looked deformed and weren't very happy to see Charles and Ann. Befriended by the local doctor, Dr. Willet, who walks Charles and Ann to their home and joins them for dinner, he tells the Wards (Charles and Ann) the story about Joseph Curwen. Dr. Willet elaborates about Joseph Curwen's practices of witchcraft and unholy experiments on humans, which cause the mutations on some of the townspeople and cause them to fear the Wards.

Feeling unwelcome, the Wards decided to leave Arkham only to have their decision changed by Simon the caretaker; so the Wards spend the night at the family home. Upon looking at the portrait of Joseph Curwen, Charles Dexter Ward's body is possessed by his great-great grandfather. Simon the caretaker is actually a friend of Joseph Curwen's past and Simon along with a third friend named Jabez are reunited with Joseph Curwen. The three men want to unlock the secrets of the book of Necronomicon and unleash evil beings upon the world.

Ann Ward is frightened by her husband's odd behavior and strange mood swings. Feeling frustrated by Ann's refusal to fulfill her wifely duties, the possessed Charles Ward along with Simon and Jabez , bring Hester, a former servant and mistress of Joseph Curwen's past, back to life.

The possessed Charles commit a series of murders as an act of revenge against the descendants of the townspeople who burned Joseph Curwen 110 years ago. Ann disturbed by the strange sounds at night, decides to look around the home. Unfortunately, she finds "Charles" along with Simon, Jabez and Hester trying to bring back the "evil beings" again. They give Ann a first hand look by making a sacrifice or rather a mating partner with these "evil beings".

As a movie fan I watch as many old films as new ones. Every week I watch at least 3 or 4 movies that were shot back in the 40s, 50s or the 60s. And it's amazing how politically incorrect quite a few of them are.

For example, I have watched both the EXODUS (1960) and MUNICH (2005) within the same week and it’s amazing to see the ways in which international politics does influence both screenwriting and the directorial choices.

EXODUS is a flat out pro-Israeli story of the creation of the state of Israel. This almost 3.5 hours long epic film by Otto Preminger is certainly very educational, a fantastic entertainment and does not hide the fact that at least one Jewish underground group, the Irgun, employed terrorism as a technique. However, it is still largely a very sympathetic take on the formation of Israel. There is no question about that.

MUNICH (2005), on the other hand, is full of complicated moral judgments, self questioning and paranoia that is foreign to EXODUS. Although a strong supporter of Israel himself, director Steven Spielberg's approach definitely reflects the changes that our world went through since 1960.

The world of MUNICH is not the clean black-and-white world of the EXODUS. In MUNICH both sides kill for the causes they ardently believe in but what all that struggle does to a man's soul is not clear. The moral judgment is still out there left hanging in the balance of many hard questions.

Or take the SCARFACE (1983), the De Palma cult classic that launched Al Pacino's stellar movie career and still continues to influence the hip-hop culture and videos today.

Even back in 1983 this film was so controversial that it could not be shot in Miami. All the "Miami" scenes were actually shot in Los Angeles. The screenwriter Oliver Stone, knowing the kind of controversy it would create, did not first want to touch the subject but the $300,000 writing fee proved to be too much for a mortal to resist.

Tony Montana is not the only Cuban profile highlighted in SCARFACE. Montana's mother, for example, who totally disapproves his violent drug-dealer career, gives us the "other Cubans" also living in Miami. But due to its incredible violence (remember the chainsaw scene?) and the over-the-top portrayal of The-World-Is-Yours Montana by Al Pacino, most Cubans at the time felt that this movie disparaged the Cuban culture and community and did not want to have anything to do with it. Probably they still feel that way and I can easily understand why.

23 years later not only there would be even more outrage for a film like SCARFACE but probably there would not be even any financing to underwrite such a project, given the prominence and political clout of the American Hispanic community. I think SCARFACE is another politically incorrect film that cannot be produced today.

How about the GODFATHER series? I think the tremendous success of HBO's SOPRANOS has proven that the "Italian-American mafia stories" are still acceptable to a certain degree, especially if they have a modern touch to them (the mafia boss who visits a psychiatrist regularly and worries about his son's performance at school). What's next? A "green mafia boss" who drives a Toyota Prius and leads the crusade against corporations that dump their toxic waste into the ocean? (Hey, there's a million dollar plot for you!)

Another movie that cannot be shot today is THE GETAWAY (1972) starring Steve McQuinn and Ali MacGraw. If you've seen this one you'll remember the scene in which McQuinn actually whacks MacGraw right across the mouth and… she does not hit back! If this was a contemporary film shot in 2006, we would definitely see the female lead character getting back even with the impulsive macho lead. Our modern definition of love does not include an unanswered slap across the face anymore – unless perhaps it is a study in masochism.

Which reminds me of another controversial scene from an otherwise great movie – THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Remember the scene in which Cary Grant pushes Katherine Hepburn's face rudely and sends her reeling back to the floor (although we don't actually see it)? Try doing that in a modern rom-com and watch the howl of protest from all movie lovers and critics. It would be a sure-fire way to box office disaster.

Once in a great while I come across a great article that penetrates to the heart and soul of something that I'm intimately involved with but could not articulate equally well. The Washington Post staff writer Philip Kennicott's great article " The Surprise Ending? It's the Absence of One" published on July 9, 2006 is one such seminal essay that ignited an a-ha! moment as I was reading it.

The premise of the article is simple enough – that, almost all films made today still stick to the over-two-thousand years old Aristotelian paradigm of 3-Act Structure. Thanks to the Aristotle's "Poetics," we still reward those stories with a "beginning, middle and an end." We refer to movies that do not have a well defined beginning, middle and an end as "art movies," or sometimes as "European movies," both phrases used in a disparaging way.

As Kennicott points out with great precision, this complicates the job of professional movie critic because the ending carries such a high cash value that you are supposed to talk about a movie without talking about its most important element – its ending. It's almost a "mission impossible" but we are all extremely disappointed when a critic gives away the ending of a brand new thriller, aren’t we?

All this is because a movie is as much about collective therapy as art. We want these stories to be told in moving pictures because we want to see the order, beauty and justice that we cannot readily observe in our daily lives. We would like to see that the principles we live by, the founding tenets of our civilization, still count for something.

Without a discernible ending, we feel lost. We think it is unfair for the director leave us "twisting in the wind" with the number of unresolved threads and possibilities. That's why we pay our good cash to see a good movie. We want the screenwriter, director and the actors do the heavylifting on our behalf, order the "chaos out there" for us and not dump that mental load on our shoulders.

We do not feel that a film is supposed to be a "reflection" of "real life," do we? Who needs that? We all are already familiar (to say the least) with our own "real lives" and mostly it is a routine between home and work. Who wants to watch one's own daily routine blown up on a gigantic screen although it is "the perfect story with no ending"?

Like hunters too close to the trees, we still want to be assured that the forest exists in all its majesty, complexity and beauty. And we expect movies to deliver us that "forest" by depicting all the other trees, their branches, and their leaves, with all the fauna and flora that we are not even aware of yet. We want a film to show us (without preaching if possible) the ecological harmony that keeps the "universal forest" alive.

That takes structure, intentionality and design. That takes scenes, acts and plot points. That's not a "natural object' in itself, existing independent of human desires and volition. And that's what "culture" is all about anyways.

The 3-Act Structure is not here by accident. It's a precious human invention created to protect our values, beliefs and sanity against the "chaos out there." That's why I think as long as the world exists, the neat linear ordering of "the beginning, the middle and the end" will be with us to stay.

So people believe you can predict a major weather events on our Earth by using astrology. In some cases this may be true because certain parts of the year the stars will be in a certain spots and certain times of the year we know in fact contain certain types of whether and certain types of major category storms such as; hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, waterspouts, gale force winds, tornadoes and micro-bursts.

We know simply from watching the Weather Channel and the NOAA satellite pictures that adverse weather such as a thunder and lightning storm do occur during certain types of the year and the storms would be in a certain place during those certain times of the year. However, if the weather is significantly cloudy or overcast you would not be able to see the stars. Therefore it might be very difficult to predict the weather for looking at the stars.

However with astrology if you know that date, then you know where the stars are and you still perhaps can predict the weather or the average type of whether that you should expect during that time of the year and a particular location where you are.

Some people who have experienced the death of a loved one seek the help of a psychic medium to re-establish contact with that person, who is believed to be in the world of spirits. Psychic Mediums are people who claim to have superhuman powers they use to help ease the pain of those who are grieving for someone who has passed into the spirit world. They achieve this by proving that their loved free from pain and wish to communicate with the people they left behind on earth.

A medium is a person who uses his or her psychic abilities to communicate with people in the spirit world. They are called mediums because they are the means of contact between the recipient and the spirit. The underlying purpose behind their profession is threefold. They seek to prove the existence of life after death. Mediums also wish to console and advise others as well asfurther develop their own spirituality.

Psychic predictions and phenomena can be traced back throughout history. The early demonstrations of medium ship were very physical, like table rapping and table tilting. Over the years, these declined in popularity to be replaced by the type of medium we witness today.

Mediums may have a number of skills, though most have specialties. Most mediums work by seeing pictures in their mind. This image allows them to describe a person in spirit and is known as clairvoyance or “clear seeing.” Mediums use their psychic vision, either within the mind or objectively, as if the spirit were present in person. Clairaudience or clear hearing, where the medium hears the spirit either subjectively or objectively, is also popular amongst mediums. Spirit communicators are able to send feelings, known as clairsentience, to the medium. This is particularly useful if they are trying to indicate what ailment caused them to pass over. They may for example, send a mild pain to the heart of the medium. The medium would then be able to tell the client how their loved one died.

Although mediums are able to look into future events, offer some advise and help establish communication with loved ones, they do not tell a person what to do. The work of a psychic is to help their clients take direction and control of their situations.

India has retained a great tradition of producing intellectual giants since time immemorial. Some of these outstanding people were known as Rishis. Rishi is defined as one who observes something new in nature (Rishih Darshanat)-[reference number1] or simply put it is a Sanskrit term that was used to indicate a scientist. Even at the risk of doing slightly out of context, it remains to be said that to use the title of Maharshi with the names of even such spiritual teachers and religious reformers as Swami Vivekananda or Swami Dayananda would not be proper in the actual sense of the term, let alone the use resorted to by every other self proclaimed godman nowadays. Now we continue with our present concern.

On closely observing nature, Rishis discovered that everything in it seemed to work on a systematic pattern and the planets in our solar system moved through the heavens with such a precision that their positions and movements could be calculated for centuries in advance. It was found that universe was but governed by mathematical laws and mathematics, on the other hand, thrives on the interrelation of various objects that comprise a system. Advanced explorations into the mathematical interrelation of the terrestrial life with the rest of the cosmos led them to the discovery of co-relation between the movement of planets in our solar system against the backdrop of the remaining part of the observable universe and the nature of events in human life. This, in turn, seemed to solve the mystery of time to some extent, for future events in the life of an individual could then be known with the help of a deep study of mutual geometrical positions of planets at the moment of his birth. Astrology, developed on these lines, basically deals with the quality of a given moment as, for instance, what will be the future of a child born, a question asked or a project initiated at a particular moment that represents a unique point in the space-time continuum. But the more important fact is that such developments were not made on any sort of guesswork or a so- called superstitious belief in an all pervading divinity but based on such mathematical achievements and scientific revelations that remain unparalleled to date.

Profound studies were conducted in the field of astronomy which then paved the way for evolution of the science of astrology in due course of time. The earth is described as egg-shaped, suspended in the space like a magnet and moving about in three different ways in our ancient astronomical texts. Of these, the last movement known as the precession of the equinoxes is responsible for the development of the concept of a sidereal or fixed zodiac that was widely used for horoscopic calculations in Indian astrology. Astronomical facts and concepts of immense importance including even theories on the evolution of the universe can still be found scattered in our ancient literature. The luni-solar calendar of India is an ample testimony to the Indian genius in astronomy. Age of the earth was calculated and recorded in the form of Srishti Samvat that tells us that 1,955,885,102 solar years have elapsed since the formation of our earth as on 26th march 2001 whereas modern science has so far not been able to provide an exact figure.

The problem is that such knowledge is still contained in Sanskrit scriptures of which no authentic translations are available and are not found fit to be studied in the light of modern scientific knowledge and are instead discarded as bundles of superstition, especially so in India. Today, most of the criticism against Indian sciences in general and astrology in particular is largely biased and based on a lack of proper information.

The most common argument against astrology is that neither modern science has found any evidence of an astral connection to our lives nor does it conduce to the common sense approach and hence the basic assumption of astrology, of planets influencing events on the earth, stands refuted. The point missed is that science itself is uncommon sense for most of the time. For instance, the dual nature of electron, both particle and wave-like, is accepted as a scientific truth because it is observed to be so even when the science is unable to explain the reason of such unusual behaviour and similar is the case with the theory of gravity that is accepted as true without any explanation of the underlying physical mechanism because the consequences of the theory coincides with the facts well. As philosopher of science Karl Popper-[Reference number2] has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Then, if the said effects of the planets can be quantified in the form of objective predictions which come true, it should be taken as proof enough for the truth of astrology. In fact, Johannes Kepler, to whom modern science is indebted for discovery of the laws of planetary motions, had studied the co-relation of atmospheric and weather changes with planetary movements from 1617 upto 1629, the result of which is his book named ‘Astrometeorologica’, that goes to show the factual effect of planets on our earth.

Astrology, as a science, can forewarn us of approaching dangers and hence provide an invaluable chance of taking due precautionary measures and being mentally prepared so as to be able to either avert the negative happening itself or at least minimize the possible evil to a considerable extent. Unfortunately, the notion of fatalism usually associated with such warnings can overpower the good that this study may do otherwise. Astrology is a promoter of the individual freewill and this fact is amply demonstrated in the prescription of horoscope matching for any form of alliance, selection of Muhurtha or auspicious moment for starting any important project and remedial measures as based on the planetary positions.

Many of the believers and even students of this subject of seemingly incredible possibilities perceive it to be a closed science, which in my view, is very incorrect. Astrology has just as much scope for further study and research as any other science of the day that can be exploited for the good of mankind at large. The need is only to have an open mind and willingness to accept the truth while investigating matters of such a nature and discover the real superstitions for oneself.

In a very short time, Myspace.com has become the hottest music promotional tool available to anyone. Here are the 7 rules of successful myspace music promotion.

1. Get a myspace.com music page.

Getting a myspace.com music page is free so there is no reason not to have one.

2. Make sure your page is user friendly.

There are many would-be music business professionals who have myspace pages take too long to load. If your myspace page loads too slow, you could be losing potential fans. Mega bandwidth graphics and images will prevent your page from loading quickly. Your myspace page should take no longer than 20 – 30 seconds to load.

Many artists on myspace use layouts that emphasize their creativity but are a nightmare to navigate. Refrain from using dancing cursor’s, raining text, and distracting images on your myspace music pages.

Other myspace artists have about me blurbs that go on forever. Keep about me blurbs short (no more than 1000 words), if people want to know more about you, they will ask.

3. Have your music on your myspace page.

Don’t put someone else’s music on your myspace page unless you were involved in the creation of the music. How can you be discovered if your music isn’t on your page?

4. Reach out for friends.

Networking on myspace is one of the most powerful tools you can use to build your fan-base. Take advantage of the opportunity to reach people with like interests. Never ignore or decline a friend request. You never know who can help your career.

5. Treat your friends like friends.

Common courtesy applies on myspace just as in real life. Be willing to thank your friends for adding you as a friend. Respond to friend’s emails (if appropriate). Never post your ad as a comment on someone’s myspace page without acknowledging them. Limit the size of your “ad comments”.

6. Promote yourself in appropriate ways.

Noteworthy career benchmarks, or new music added to your page are good reasons to promote yourself on myspace. List your performance dates on your page and use bulletins to let people know where you are performing. Limit the number of bulletins you post. Posting irrelevant bulletins, or posting bulletins too often, will force your friends to ignore you.

Let people know about your myspace.com page. Putting your unique myspace.com address on your website and business cards will make it convenient for you to build your network and fan base faster.

7. Provide ways for people to purchase your music from your myspace page.

If you sell your music anywhere online make sure there is a direct link from your myspace page to the location where people can buy your music.

Box office sales are low, video game sales are high, and all the Hollywood executives are trying to figure out how to beat the Internet and get people back into movie seats. But it is not likely to happen unless a big change is made. So what do you do? You combine gaming with a movie theater experience. TimePlay Entertainment Inc. has just recently put into production technology that will allow moviegoers to play interactive games during the pre-show of a movie.

Moviegoers will be able to play games on a 3.5-inch touch screen device the size of a PSP. Each seat will have a unique IP address and is all connected by a tethered arm to the seat. The device currently will support 70 players in a theater. So now when they show that ad sponsored trivia game on the screen you can play along and see results transmitted back on the big screen and the smaller screen at your seat. And of course you can buy food with the game screen. Each unit will have a easy way to take your money via swiping your credit card. You know we are lazy and will swipe away and have someone bring us food instead of getting up to get it. Other items for sale will be mobile games, ring tones, and cell phone wallpapers.

The software designers at TimePlay believe that adding new interactive features to the movie-going experience will help increase ticket sales. But why hasn't Hollywood looked at the content that it's producing. If you make bad movies then people get jaded and would rather buy a $3 bootleg from 125th St. in Harlem than waste $10 at the movie theaters. The Hollywood studio industry has forgotten that going to the movies is a social experience. It's a first date, a night out with the girls, and an escape from the ills of society. We want to see pretty pictures and places that we might not be able to get to normally. But to attach a PSP-like device to my seat at the movie just so you can make me fatter and take my money quicker is LAME!

If you're going to bring gaming to the movie then make the movies interact with the gaming device. Make us use it to help solve clues, or vote on situations on how the movie should continue on. Let us vote on which annoying cheerleader we want Jason to chop up first. Make it a real interactive experience. Give us something so that we will go back to the theater several times to try to make the outcome of the movie different. Keep your marketing ploys and give us real entertainment.

Everyone knows that the majority of people are happy when their stomachs are full and the only way to get them to fill up on food is if it is enjoyable and exciting food. The two things that we can all agree on is that everyone loves to remember their good memories as a child and the second on is that we all have a sweet tooth. The best way to get the most bangs for your buck and accomplish both purposes is to rent a cotton candy machine for your next party. It does not matter if it is a child’s party or a business function everyone will love the machine.

Cotton candy has been around since the late 1800’s and has been a staple of every circus and carnival ever since. The reason is that it is easy to make, cheap to make, easy to eat and most of all fun and tasty to consume. The ability to make your own for your party guests is just a phone call away. The simplistic design makes these machine cheap to make and even cheaper to rent out. Your local party rental shop will have at least one and your local hardware store may even have some inexpensive and high quality machines to be purchased. Those few dollars will pay you back ten fold when your guests are pleased beyond words to stroll down memory lane with arguably the most memorable food of their childhood.

Nobody is really sure where to credit the invention of the machine to as it has been a point of argument for over one hundred years but the bottom line is that it is tasty and some genius invented it. The details are interesting to think about but only for a few minutes before you take your first bite of cotton candy. After that it is just great that it has been invented.

In traditional or let’s say mainstream religions of the world, the soul is a non-material substance which is able to assume powers and attributes not open to it while trapped within the confines of a material cage we call the body. Based on this definition can we even try to appreciate what it actually is and how it may interact with the physical world as we would ordinarily recognise it? The answer to this question must ultimately rely on what we know of the physical world.

I think that most of us agree on the definition of the generic human body. Loosely speaking it is nothing more than a collection of bones, tissue, fluids, internal organs and flesh arranged to work in such a way as to sustain our everyday existence. As such, it is quite vulnerable to disease and will eventually stop working altogether as it heads towards the day of its demise. But what about the soul? Is there such a thing? Other than just blind faith or solemn wishful thinking, do we have anything that we could turn to or point at in order to bring even a trace of credibility to this idea?

Having listened to countless people who try to give their own personal views on the subject, many are content to approach it with a fair helping of derision and contempt and take the atheistic route of denying everything not within the grasp of mainstream science. But this should not come as a surprise to anyone. If the scientific world were to give credence to the existence of the soul they’d have to study it, dissect it, understand it, measure it, explain it and various other things that scientists do. The very fact that we can’t actually see a soul as we can a tree, the very fact that we can’t interact with it as we can with animals and humans, the very fact that it is not made of any substance with which we are familiar means we can’t apply rigour. And there are countless other human beliefs and superstitions in very much the same situation. For example science cannot apply its methods to palmistry, tea-leaf-reading, astrology, numerology, witchcraft, telepathy, telekinesis, ESP and such like because these things do not easily lend themselves to the rules of scientific scrutiny.

What we have then is a mixed bag of subjects all clumped under a single heading that is often referred to as mysticism. In this bag you will also find many ideas put forward by different faiths including the idea of a soul and life after death. But where does that leave those who wish to believe in an existence beyond physical death? I think that the sheer size of the number of people with these beliefs makes it very difficult to ignore and neither will it do to simply brush it aside as mysticism.

So we can conclude I think that it is not possible to approach these things from a scientific point of view. Is there another way?

Another Way

The only other way is to use what is loosely termed as common sense coupled with a fair dose of open-minded intuition. We can exercise this by making a series of statements that are born out of two distinct considerations.

A. Those that maintain a non spiritual existence.

1. No life after death.

2. All that we do is ultimately futile and will one day be absorbed into the eons without so much as a trace of anything that ever happened here on Earth.

3. There is no God.

4. There is no Heaven or Hell.

5. The only rules and regulations that we should obey are those created and maintained by the different cultures and societies.

6. There are no morals other than the ones engrained in human laws.

7. We are nothing more than flesh made of the same atoms and molecules as ordinary matter. We evolved out of creatures that lived millions of years ago and we shall continue to evolve for however long the planet is able to sustain life.

8. When we die, we simply stop. There is no consciousness or cognisance after death.

9. Nothing of what we do or say can alter the laws of physics. There are no miracles and nothing that cannot be explained by logical and scientific means either now or in the future.

10. Use your life to enjoy the physical aspects of existence and, as far as possible, help others to enjoy it too, before the onset of old age, disease or death.

B. Those that maintain the existence of the human spirit.

1. There is life after death through the continuation of the soul.

2. What we do here determines our fate in the next world.

3. God is the supreme Being who has no beginning and no end. He provides life after death as well as having created all life as we know it on Earth.

4. There is a Heaven and there is also Hell. Those that choose Hell are the ones who hate God and go there knowingly and willingly after physical death having absolutely no contrition or sorrow for any of their actions on Earth.

5. Many of the rules and regulations are based on the 10 commandments. However, we shall also be held accountable for sins such as those pertaining to conceit, lust and greed.

6. There are many morals outside of human laws that we must try to observe.

7. Life is a gift from God and should be preserved, nurtured and used to its full potential without the application of wanton physical, mental or immoral abuse either to upon others or oneself.

8. If there are things we do not understand or cannot explain, be contented and have faith in God’s infinite mercy to right every wrong and deal with all injustice in the fullness of time either on Earth or the place where our spirits shall live.

It is impossible to do justice to either school of thought in a short article like this but it is accurate to say that for those who have made up their minds, it is likely that they will fall into category A or B or at least some variation of either. But here’s something that you probably haven’t heard before.

In public, a person who proclaims to belong in A will not be so readily convinced in private. How do I know this? Call it intuition if you like but there is something within us that: in the absence of friends and associates around us, from whom we tend to draw strength, deliverance and of course where we also get a chance to exercise wit, sarcasm and intellectual exchange; the façade begins to fade away, leaving us naked and embarrassed in the privacy of our own thoughts. This is a kind of hypocrisy that we tend to try and hide.

On the other hand, a person that openly declares an affinity to B, either within a group of associates with the same convictions or otherwise, is likely to be as open about their beliefs in private as they are in public. In other words, there is no discernible difference between their public and private thoughts when it comes to matters of faith.

Why Is This?

It is hard to say. I suppose it is much easier to be convinced in public than it is to be in private for an unbeliever and yet the opposite seems to be true of the faithful. It is because a person who believes in a Deity is never alone and as human beings we always yearn good company, especially one who is always on our side and sympathetic to our cause. On the other hand, the unbeliever, when not surrounded by other people, is truly alone. Perhaps it is this unnatural state of being that sometimes prompts the individual into a momentary lapse of faith.

I have witnessed too often the sharp difference in behaviour and mode of speech of people when there is at least two others in the vicinity as opposed to just one other person. The third person, whilst not joining in with the conversation, immediately becomes the audience and as soon as this happens we feel compelled to perform. That is when a person falls into the habit of saying or doing things that they wouldn't normally say or do. Just like acting. Taking the second person away has an even more profound effect. The solitary person’s true nature is revealed if not to others than at least to themselves.

One of my favorite things to do is pick up on misspellings, misstatements, and misquotes, otherwise known as bloopers. It's probably the teacher in me or my love of the English language, I'm not sure. The point is, as fastidious as I think I am when I compose something, I've been known to make some shameful writing mistakes.

Being the one making the mistake can be embarrassing. Once upon a time, I wrote a letter, proofread it, and sent it out to hundreds of people. The phone rang off the hook. Why? I misspelled a word. Well, so what you say? Public Relations Director, was spelled Pubic Relations Director. Needless to say, I have never lived that one down.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the following bloopers:

1. “We pray for MacArthur’s erection.” – sign constructed by Japanese citizens in Tokyo when MacArthur was considering a run for President.

Uh oh! Watch out for those "l"s and "r"s. It can change the whole translation!

2. “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nations history…this century’s history…we all lived in this century…I didn’t live in this century.” – Dan Quayle

Good grief! I wonder who wrote his speech!

Radio bloopers:

3. “When you are thirsty, try 7-UP, the refreshing drink in the green bottle with the big 7 on it and u-p after.”

Where’s the rest room?

4. “Tune in next week for another series of classical music programs from the Canadian Broadcorping Castration.”

Those of us that own a DSLR or a top end compact camera will have noticed The letters, P, A, S, and M as will as an AUTO setting on the top of their camera. These represent programs that force the camera into doing what you want. The most popular is the AUTO- for Automatic Exposure. This setting chooses a medium high shutter speed for blur free pictures and also adjusts the aperture for a correct exposure. For most situations, this will do the job even though there are other combinations that will deliver a better picture.

P stands for Programmed Exposure and enables the user to change the shutter speed up or down in small increments without affecting the overall exposure. It does this by adjusting the aperture to compensate for a higher or lower shutter speed. Turning off the camera will of course remove the temporary setting. This option is handy when photographing a variably moving subject, such as sports, windy conditions for nature photography and photographing children.

‘A’ will bring up the Aperture Priority mode. By locking in a specific aperture, you are insuring that a needed shallow or deep field of focus will be an important feature of your picture. A shallow depth of field is handy for giving a busy background a Gaussian blur to a portrait or a nature study. This works best with a medium telephoto setting or longer. The deep field of focus is handy in extending the sharp range of focus to include near and far subjects in the picture. With the camera on a tripod or in bright light, the Auto setting will choose a high shutter speed and a relatively large opening. When a small aperture is needed for a deep field of focus, the A setting locks in a large or small opening for the desired result. The speed setting automatically adjusts for the correct exposure, so be sure to check the speed chosen by the camera since in low light, the speed could be longer than recommended for hand holding.

‘S’ stands for Shutter, the device that determines how long the exposure will last. There are many situations where a certain shutter speed has been found to be successful. Football game photos need a telephoto setting of 200 to 600 mm and a shutter speed of 1/250th or higher. Locking in a preferred shutter speed will insure a reasonably sharp action photo. Special motion effects call for a slower speed, say 1/5th of a second for slow moving subjects to 1/60th for a faster moving subject. You pan with the moving object to capture the feeling of the motion. In low light scenes, a certain shutter speed can be locked into the camera in order to prevent the camera from dipping down into a slow shutter speed for a ‘proper’ exposure. Some underexposure can be handled later in the computer but a blurry photo is useless.