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Hey, it'd work for me!

Goin' Shoppin' But Not At Kroger

When I'm not living the glamorous blogging life, I'm doing things that Hollywood stars do--like grocery shopping. Remember in December of 2005, holy mother of peanut butter I cannot believe that I've been blogging for that long (what the hell is wrong with me?) when Kroger lost me as a customer? The straw was a smile, or rather the lack of one, but it was hardly the only thing.

Yes, I'm still an H.E.B. Central Market shopper. It's been two and half years now. Produce. Good. Meat. Good. Prices. Slit-my-throat-you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me-bad. But it's my own damn fault. I spend money on organic strawberries and indulge in unnecessary items like European, high-density butter.

Kim duToit talks about his Kroger experience. He's a former grocery store consultant. His advice is good, but it makes sense, so I doubt anyone will listen. How is Kroger still in business?

Kim links to James Lileks who's peeved with Chairman Bob. A thought occurs to me: One of the first rules of marketing is that if you're ugly, don't use your image. There is a corollary: If you're boring or borderline scary, don't use your image either. In the case Lileks highlights, the picture serves no useful purpose except maybe to make Chairman Bob's mother proud. Otherwise, why are we looking at this dude's mug?

We Are Witnessing The Demise of Western Civilization--UPDATED

I get ribbed for being hyperbolic. A German lady from Germany (and no that's not stating the obvious, she could have been Austrian or something) called me polemic a year ago. Well, hell, sometimes my emotionality has a basis in reality. This time, Western Civilization is doomed and that is no exaggeration.

There is a new Playstation 3 advertisement over in Europe that is so vile that I cannot put the picture on my blog because my mom reads this (probably not safe for work, but it might be ok if you just look really fast). Go look at it and come on back. You need to do three Hail Mary's to clean your mental palate after looking at that ad.

Okay, now we can talk.

Europeans are supposed to be enlightened. Yeah, I know. Whatever. But still, on the one hand they're turning into frigging Eurabia with all the conservative Muslims running around in burqas and on the other you've got thumbs that look like penises in public advertising aimed at children. One of those philosophies is going to win, right? And which winner leaves Western Civilization the winner? The correct answer boys and girls is neither.

That seems to be the choices. Either nothing goes or everything does. Both ways lead to depravity and sexual dysfunction, ironically enough. One way leads to the objectification of women as vessels for male dominance or child bearing--underneath the black cover there's a vagina. The other way leads to the objectification of women and men and children as sex objects--no black sheet needed.

Americans, take note. This dichotomy, these two paths to destruction, is coming to a city near you. A relative was talking about the neighborhood he and his wife were considering moving to but he refuses to live near two (not just one) mosques. Now, you can call him prejudiced. Go ahead. But while listening to the call to prayers a zillion times a day, you're listening to an ideology that is not, or hasn't shown itself to be, congruent with modern times.

But the choice laid before us by multiculturalists is that anything goes. So, they can, with a straight face, extol the virtues of clitoral mutilation for those people, while defending advertising that has only one purpose: to degrade and debase. Hey! We are free! It's okay to sexualize children. It's okay to abort inconvenience. It's okay to sell a piece of technology geared toward teens and young people with penis pictures. Everything is okay and who are you to judge?

No one is judging much anymore, are they? Few seem willing to draw a line in the sand. So, brace yourselves. Ten years from now, there will be racy Playstation billboards towering over the shiny new, huge mosque coming to a suburb near you. Can you blame people? The disgusting decadence begs for an equal and opposite reaction. Islam gives people lines to not cross that's for damn sure.

Either way, we are witnessing the end. You've been warned.

UPDATE: More evidence coming from Europe that the end is nigh.

And for those who think there is no way this ad can be real, here is this from a dear reader.

Orlando Lust

It's been a couple weeks, but a couple weeks too long, so it is time. Orlando Bloom (oh and Kate Beckinsale, big whup) looking hot, as usual, in this Gap Ad that I've never seen before. Thanks, Glenn, for the heads-up on this. You can keep your Scarlett Johanssen. There is something guys just love about her...... It must be her insightful political takes.

How to Serve: Tips for Being A Good Waitress

Cassy Fiano balances her views on being a good patron by giving tips to waiters and waitresses. Please forward her articles to anyone in the industry. Dang. It needs help. And I blame the training programs at the restaurants.

Feng Shui At McDonalds

I actually think Feng Shui makes lots of sense and have incorporated some ideas into my own home and life. If McDonalds finds that using the five elements balances the profit column, I don't think anything else will matter to them.

Neuroleadership--Evolving Business Practices Using Mind Science

People seek new and interesting ways to motivate (get people to do what you want them to do with them wanting to do it) and manipulate (get people to do what you want them to do whether they like it or not) their employees, spouses, children, friends, family, etc. Mothers are notoriously effective at brow-beating their children into a certain kind of behavior. I remember one high school teacher complaining about doing summer classes for adults, because she couldn't get them to do what she wanted them to like she could high school students. As people age, they get more resistant to, and less interested in being pushed around. As Britney Spears demonstrates, adults can be downright self-destructive when they carry the mantle of teenage rebellion into adulthood. They can make "loser decisions".

Businesses, made up of people very motivated to motivate employees to produce more and be happy doing it, have turned to science to exploit explore how the mind works. They want to know how people respond to images. They want to know how people make decisions. They want to know how people make moral judgments. Business Week has this to say:

Still, the people linking the two fields believe the "hard" science of the brain will someday offer fresh insights for the "soft" art of leadership. At Emory, researchers asked 16 executives to respond to PowerPoint slides about moral quandaries, such as acting on privileged information, while inside an MRI machine. They found that managers weighing ethical dilemmas use the part of their brain associated with early memories, which could mean moral thinking is formed early in life. This could indicate that sending leaders with an appetite for Enron-style accounting through ethics seminars will do little good, says Roderick Gilkey, a management and psychiatry professor who was part of the study.

Makes me think of all the toddler monsters running around. Perhaps the early moral training of a child does matter after all. Train up a child in the way he should go..but I digress.

Managers hope to find what works and what won't work when motivating people using tools like functional MRIs (fMRI) and EEGs. We'll see. Some fear it's just another management craze--we've been a few years without one:

If such concepts strike you as familiar management axioms, you aren't alone. USC's Bennis found Rock and Schwartz's article to be "filled with banalities" about leadership. And some summit attendees intrigued by neuroscience's promise for business were turned off by what they saw as Rock's attempts to carve out his own brain-based consulting niche. Rock says business leaders are drawn to scientific explanations; Schwartz says he hopes managers will be receptive to his attempts "to create a new language for self-awareness."

Since my business consulting company includes a fair amount of neuroscience, I'll list some business tips using some psychology and neuroscience(off the top of my head, in no particular order):

1. Can a child do it?--Too many products, services, and business practices are too complicated. A person shouldn't have to slow down and struggle through a task that a manager or innovator wants a person to use habitually. Make it easy or it won't happen. Steve Jobs seems to intuitively get this. The rest of the tech industry is coming around, but it means getting rid of their superiority complex about tech.
2. Stress behavior--A person can be one way in a normal every-day situation and come completely undone under stressful circumstances. The difficulty is knowing what a person perceives as stressful. Another challenge: some people manage stress far better than others. This is where behavioral interviewing and personality assessments are helpful. They can't reveal character, but they can reveal how a person perceives stress.
3. Pain Avoidance/Pleasure Seeking: What causes stress? It is now known that psychological pain goes to the same part of the brain as physical pain. Our heart can be broken and it can ache. People will do all sorts of things to avoid pain. Pain can be a boss' disapproval. Pain can be social ostracism. Pain can be impossible goals. Pleasure can be inclusion, elevation, encouragement, accomplishment. People are usually quite simple this way. They will avoid the pain-givers and painful experiences and they will move toward those who make them feel good about themselves. Bosses who seek to control with demeaning aggression will often succeed only so long.
4. Varied rewards: However, those bosses who try to be buddies with their employees (ditto parents with kids) will end up creating monsters. People who receive predictable rewards (Christmas bonus anyone?) no matter their accomplishments will tend to find that a disincentive to continue producing. This is where Marxists don't get human behavior--at all. They think that people will intrinsically do the right thing just because. But as my nurse friend found out in Russia, doctors and nurses with no rewards tend to not show up for work, leaving their critically ill charges on their own to die or survive. Here is how to reward Fido. It's also a good primer in understanding rewards for humans. A bit on conditioning here.
5. The Beast in The Man: There are parts of the human brain that mirrors the reptile. A reptile is concerned about survival, nothing more. Eating, reproducing, defending, and predatory behavior is to survive. The behavior is instinctual. It is thoughtless. That is, there is no reasoning involved. Humans have this part of the brain, too. It's called the Limbic System and it is deeply embedded in the brain. When people seem irrational, it's because this part of the brain is controlling the system. The least evolved among us, The Cavemen and Cavewomen, seem to exclusively use their reptilian brain with a little reasoning thrown in to manipulate the system. Hopefully, they get fired. Normally, they just go work for the government.
6. Double-binds: Bosses can inadvertently put their employees in double binds: a situation where there are no solutions. Employees, trying to please their boss will be at a loss to achieving the expectation. Statements like, "You know what I want" and the employee doesn't but risks not knowing by saying so.
7. Frontal Lobe & Free Will: Most business situations are not life and death, they just feel like it. If people learn to take a big breath, usually before speaking, and engage their frontal lobe, they will be less likely to trip up doing or saying something stupid. Ultimately, people have free will. We are not automatons marching through life. In fact, one of the most disturbing phenomena is the criminal insisting that "he couldn't help it". This defense is used in business, too. One danger of the neuroscience exploration is to diminish the importance of choice. It may seem like a gut instinct, but most choices are made based on habit--making similar small decisions over and over. Ultimately this forms character. Character is how we can predict a person's reaction in a certain situation. Humans have minds, not just brains. They have choice.
   

The overarching problem in adult work situations is that they often reproduce dysfunctional family dynamics. Instead of adults acting autonomous, employees interact like competing siblings, their bosses act as imperious parents. The anxiety and frustration felt can seem juvenile probably because it was juvenile the first time.

It's no wonder that business has partnered with science to understand the psyche, the mind's development and how to help people "grow up" and interact in a healthy and productive way.

Humans are messy. Neuroscience may help people hone leadership skills, it may give insight, but there will never be a silver bullet.

Customer Service: Part II

You know how I talked about customer service the other day? As usual, on this alternate sphere, someone says it better. Over at Passionate Users go see the funniest visual representation of the problem.

Most companies would never outsource their sales reps, but we all know what happens with most tech support.
Most companies would never make a brochure with the same (lack of) quality in the product manual.
Most companies would never make their main website as uninviting as the tech support site.

Not all companies make their product difficult, but you should see the booklet that came with the Digital Cable remote. Mind numbing and confusing all wrapped up in one bland package.

HPV Vaccine Mandatory in Texas--UPDATED SCROLL DOWN

Today, Texas became the first state to mandate the HPV vaccination for girls. My peeved mom called today and asked my opinion. My first instinct is to dislike it because of the way Governor Rick Perry handled the issue--by executive order. Republicans here are NOT happy:

Several key Republican lawmakers lashed out Monday at Gov. Rick Perry's edict requiring anticancer vaccines for all Texas schoolgirls and vowed to derail the plan before it takes effect.

State Sen. Jane Nelson urged Perry to rescind the order and said she will ask Attorney General Greg Abbott to rule on its legality. Three other Republican lawmakers filed bills that would override the mandate and several others were working on similar legislation.

"The public has the right to testify on this issue and the Legislature has the constitutional duty to be involved in this decision," said Nelson, who chairs the Senate's house and human services committee.

Also Online

WFAA-TV's Brad Hawkins reports

Perry defended his decision, saying his fellow conservatives were wrong to worry that mandating the vaccine will trample parents' rights and promote premarital sex.

Here are the facts:

• Human Papilloma Virus is a sexually transmitted disease.
• Nearly all Cervical cancer is caused by various strains of HPV.
• The new Gardasil vaccine protects women from the strain of HPV that causes 70% of cervical cancers. From their website:

  GARDASIL is the only vaccine that may help guard against diseases that are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) Types 6, 11, 16, and 18:
  •	Cervical cancer
  •	Cervical abnormalities that can sometimes lead to cervical cancer
  •	Genital warts
  HPV Types 16 and 18 cause 70% of cervical cancer cases, and HPV Types 6 and 11 cause 90% of genital warts cases.

• The HPV vaccine is not a guarantee of cervical cancer avoidance, it reduces a woman's risk of cancer.
• 80% of women have HPV by age 50.
• If a woman remains sexually inactive she has a 0% chance of getting any strain of genital forms of HPV.
• The NIH recommends that girls get vaccinated at age 12. The website says for women ages 9-26.
  

There is resistance to the vaccine in some parts:

David Catania, a Washington, D.C., City Council member, says there's a simple reason [for wanting to make the vaccine mandatory]— protection against cervical cancer.

"For 14,000 women per year it means cervical cancer, and for 4,000 it means death," he said. "The district has a particular reason why this is important. It is important because we lead the nation in cases of cervical cancer. We have the highest instances of cervical cancer in the country."

But as in most states where there have been proposals to require the vaccine, Catania had to take a lot of heat. A local newspaper columnist worried that the measure suggests girls in the District of Columbia's public schools — most of whom are African American — are sexually promiscuous. Catania insists that the legislation doesn't target any particular group and the vaccination wouldn't exactly be mandatory.

The newspaper columnist reveals political correctness run amok. If D.C. has the highest rates of HPV infections, I would suggest that the girls there are promiscuous. Don't worry, though. Girls, black and white, are promiscuous or have steady sexual partner everywhere these days, so it isn't racial motivated to recommend the vaccine. Nearly 70% of girls have had sex by age 18.

I have reservations about this vaccine for a couple reason:

1. What 9 year old is/should be sexually active?
2. This vaccine is being marketed like it's a magic pill. The reason for this is market-driven not health-driven.
   
3. How are the longitudinal safety studies? I'm a skeptic about these things. I view all new treatments like I view the new Vista operating system--with reservation. New technology takes a while to get the bugs out. Medical treatments, including vaccines, do, too.
   
4. Where do parents rights/states rights begin? This is perhaps the most important issue for me. I'm not alone in this concern. The government has progressively gotten more intrusive when it comes to vaccination and health in general. I don't like this road we're on. Will the state require genetic modification (or will insurance companies?) when that becomes available for diseases like heart disease or other forms of cancer?

And here is a long-term question: Will insurance companies refuse to give treatment to a woman who refused a vaccine and then gets the cancer? That hasn't happened thus far with smoking, but premiums are certainly affected.

The LA Times discusses some other ethical concerns:

The debate highlights the balance between government's obligation to safeguard the health of its people and the rights of individuals to make their own decisions about matters affecting their health and their children's health.

All vaccine mandates pose this dilemma. But the question of an HPV vaccine presents more medical and ethical wrinkles.

"School-based laws began in the 19th century, at about the same time as mandatory education laws," says James Colgrove, a medical historian at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who recently wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the ethics and politics of HPV vaccination. "People realized that schools were breeding grounds for illness." [this is still true, by the way-ed.]

Because HPV is not spread through the germ incubator of the classroom, a mandatory vaccine would lack that rationale. Further, for the first time, vaccination policies would affect only one gender. "With a compulsory HPV vaccination, we really are kind of getting into a different territory," Colgrove says.

Some libertarians like Glenn Reynolds are for this vaccine and would even include it in childhood vaccinations. He is dismissive of the science those in the alternative health profession, like chiropractors (I am a chiropractor), claim undermines vaccination benefits.

I am wary of vaccines due to personal experience. I nearly died of anaphylactic shock reaction to the Measles part of the MMR vaccine as an infant. I had successfully been vaccinated for small pox--the public should be happy that I won't be a vector for that...or shouldn't be if it works (many vaccinations efficacy wane with time). My husband was fully vaccinated but was one of the hundreds that year that received a "bad" batch which resulted in these people thinking they had immunity, but they did not. He ended up with mumps as a teenager (along with his teenage brothers). He ended up with Measles as an adult and ended up giving that to my son (who wasn't immunized due to the family history of anyphalactic shock). So, there you go. (My son was okay, by the way. I nurse all my kids for 18 months to two years and they receive passive immunity this way. A child's immune system does not fully mature until age two.)

I have reasons to be very grateful to drug manufacturers. Glenn Reynolds does, too. His wife lives because of a hi-tech pacemaker and an exotic pharmaceutical. My son, born at 24 weeks gestation, received Bovine surfactant (Surfican) that saved his little life. (Unfortunately his twin died by being infected with a hospital-borne strain of Methicillin Resistant StaphylococcusAureus [MRSA] .) Without these surfactant and powerful antibiotics, my surviving son would have died, too.

I have reasons to be skeptical of drug manufacturers. There is a constant push to increase markets for medicines that are untested for that use. This is call off-label usage. Children are being medicated with drugs that have never been tested on them. Ditto vaccinations. Children are walking experiments. There has yet to be one randomized, controlled study for the efficacy of the Hep B vaccination in children and yet they are given this vaccination at birth. The studies that were done were conducted on young men. Why? Because young men are at the highest risk for the Hep B due to homosexual activity and I.V. drug use. Psychotropic medicines are given to young children--ages two and three--with not one randomized controlled trial.

Then there are the medications that did have full trials and were found much later to be worse than the disease they were purportedly treating. These include COX-2 inhibitors (a class of anti-inflamatories) and Hormone Replacement Therapy. Stroke, cardiac arrest, heart disease and cancer were the unfortunate side-effects but were only found years down the road.

Now we come to a vaccination that will only be used on women, young women, and for a disease that can be prevented (like Hepatitis B) behaviorally. Again, from the LA Times,

Proponents of mandatory vaccination are invoking the philosophy of utilitarianism, the notion that decisions should be made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, Zimmerman says. That philosophy, he says, can be used to justify all sorts of ethically suspect behavior. Although he plans to have his daughter vaccinated against HPV, he says he should not be coerced to do so.

"HPV is not caught by sitting next to someone in class but by sexual contact, which often is a lifestyle choice," he says. "Using school laws, which were developed to protect children from communicable diseases like smallpox and measles, to mandate vaccination against a sexually transmitted infection, is to use the ends to justify the means."

As for other vaccine mandates, such as those for measles or whooping cough, Zimmerman says that other ethical principles justify those requirements — notably the notions of beneficence (doing good) and nonmaleficence (doing no harm), Zimmerman says. "If a person who is unvaccinated brings measles or pertussis [whooping cough] to school, their mere presence can lead to harm to other children," particularly to those children who cannot receive the vaccine for medical reasons.

While I don't want one more woman to die from cervical cancer, I don't want the government to mandate one more invasive rule, either. There is an unholy alliance between the FDA, drug manufacturers and the government--especially for vaccines. (Vaccine manufacturers get the benefit of not being liable for any side-effects secondary to their vaccines. Isn't that great? Even if they manufacture vaccines overseas, they are contaminated or worthless...no liability.) I understand how expensive it is to bring a drug to trial. I have talked before about potential solutions to the problem. In short, I think people are oversold solutions and then shocked when the "solution" doesn't work with his or her body chemistry. All interventions need to be viewed with caution--and medicines, including vaccinations are interventions.

Another thing: while vaccinations have been tested individually, the results of the substantially increased number of vaccinations at one time have not been tested. Of course, one could point to the millions of kids walking around as evidence that they don't have a deleterious effect. My personal experience suggests otherwise.

Taken together, I think all people, not just parents, should be concerned about the aggressive "it's for your own good" stance the government has progressively taken. Between eminent domain, the IRS and the local health department, citizen's rights continue to erode. For those worried about wire-tapping (and I actually view the NSA program to be for the public good), state-mandated HPV vaccination is just one more way the government controls your life and mine.

Here are some resources:

• Nice one page summary of vaccination (Australia, but chosen for clarity).
• Website information skeptical of vaccination and here, too.

UPDATE:

Wouldn't you know, the last thing before bed, I go looking at Anchoress and she has fantastic links on this issue. Why am I surprised? You absolutely must read these resources, too.

Happy Catholic says this about encouraging young people to have sex by making STDs seemingly unimportant:

A good friend challenged me on some of the material and also was surprised that one of the reasons I didn't like the idea of the vaccine was the possibility of the effect on adolescents' tendency to have sex (as mentioned in the excerpt above).

I guess I should have qualified it more ... mostly because I hear through Hannah and Rose how much misinformation they are told by friends "is absolutely true" and most of the time it is about half-true if that.

So I looked at this and thought of the girls who come into their freshman year of high school pregnant because "everybody knows" that you can't get pregnant when you're on the pill or using condoms or without full penetration ... or whatever the myth is that they've been told. And this just looked like a silver bullet for people to start saying that it works on all STDs.

Here's an important point I didn't mention via Evil Slutopia (you know us crazy chiropractors, we're conspiracy nuts and all):

While we're on the subject of liability, lawsuits, and profits, there's another angle to consider. If Merck can get state governments to put Gardasil on their lists of vaccines that are required for schoolchildren, it can become a part of a federal vaccine liability program. Meaning that Merck will not be liable if Gardasil turns out to be harmful some time in the future. [5] [6] [7]

If I felt like being cynical again, I might think that this is one of the reasons why a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease is being marketed not just to young women who are having sex or are going to become sexually active soon, but also to girls as young as nine. There’s a hell of a lot more stability and profitability in a required childhood vaccine than there would be in an optional vaccine meant only for young women.

It's important to remember that no matter how many feel-good, we're all in this fight together and we're just doing this out of the goodness of our hearts ad campaigns they run, drug companies are not non-profit organizations. They are in this to make money and a lot of it, and while that doesn't mean that all prescription drugs are harmful and horrible or that all doctors are evil, it does mean that when it comes to our health, we probably shouldn't take anything at face value.

Evil also brings up the sexism of only giving women and girls this vaccine (this is longish but worth it):

I think both men and women can take issue with this. Men, because their sexual health is really not being addressed here. They don't even have a test that can tell them whether they have HPV or not, so even if they want to be responsible about it there is only so much they can do. And women, because they are being asked to take full responsibility for HPV prevention. Women and girls are expected to take on all of the costs and the risks of this vaccine, and even if they do get vaccinated they could still be infected with HPV by a male partner who has been told that HPV isn't something that he needs to worry about.

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website:

"There is no clear health benefit to knowing you have this virus—since HPV is unlikely to affect your health and cannot be treated. For most men, there would be no need to treat HPV, even if treatment were available— since it usually goes away on its own." [18]

Isn't it a little irresponsible (and sexist) to say there is no benefit to a male HPV test? Regardless of the possible health issues such as penile or anal cancer, isn't not infecting your unsuspecting partner also considered a benefit? Men are reassured that tests and treatment are unnecessary because their HPV infections will likely go away on their own, while the fact is that most women's HPV infections will go away on their own as well. [19]

Apparently, when Gardasil went before an FDA panel for approval, Merck asked the panel to approve the vaccine for boys also, even though they have not done the same amount of testing on boys as they have on girls.

"Merck asked the committee to endorse vaccination of boys age 9 to 15, too. Urging them not to wait for ongoing studies to end, it said evidence shows Gardasil can prevent some male cancers and may slow the spread of sexually transmitted HPV.
'By delaying three-plus years, we could have an additional 100,000 [cancer] cases that could have otherwise been avoided,' Barr told the committee. But panel members didn't vote on the request, calling the idea compelling but unproven."[20]

It seems to me that we need to spend more time researching HPV in men and boys, not less time. And it would be nice to feel like Merck was taking this issue seriously and not just tacking it on as a "me too" measure in order to get approval more quickly. On the flip side, it's a positive step that more research on HPV in men is now being done. Maybe they'll even change their minds and decide that it is worthwhile to develop a male HPV test after all. They could probably share a lab with the researchers who are hard at work on that male birth control pill we've been hearing about for years.

This vaccine was fast-tracked, if state-sponsored Merck avoids liability, it's a behaviorally avoidable disease, and it's only for girls. To top it all off, the government can mandate this. No choice.

There are many very logical, ethical, moral, and health reasons to avoid this vaccine.

Powerful PowerPoint

I'm not being critical, honey, (and you, too, sis), but you need to read this. I know, it sounds smarter when I'm not the one sayin' it.

Big Business in 2007

Are you riding the wave? Are you planning for more? Are you building your business?

A great blog via Instapundit: Answer these questions and help your business grow.


From Jonah Goldberg's reader:

Jonah – Each of your pro-Kerry correspondents take pains to point out how poorly the country has fared under George W. Bush, and how those who support him (especially you…) are destroying the country. Let’s see, last time I checked,



1) The stock market is at an all-time high, thus

2) Retirement accounts are at last recovering.

3) Unemployment is at a 25-year low,

4) Taxes are at 20-year lows,

5) Federal revenues are at all-time highs,

6) The Federal deficit is down almost 50%,

7) Real estate values have soared,

8) Inflation is at a 20-year low,

9) There have been no successful attacks since 9/11,

10) Al Queda is being taken apart, one body at a time.

11) U.S. and British Intelligence have thwarted a number of attacks.

12) The terrorists are flocking to Iraq to be killed, instead of boarding planes for this country.

If any of your writers were as honest they dare you to be, they would admit that, if the president who had accomplished this in the face of such difficulty had a “D” after his name instead of an “R”, they would be singing his praises to the heavens. But no, the country is falling apart. Only if a Democrat takes the White House will everything instantly be perfect again.

Why didn't the Repubs run on the economy again? Oh, that's right. It doesn't count for Republicans.

I Hear Voices

The voices say, "Build a pool. Build a pool. Build a pool." It turns out, I am not alone. Many people have voices in their heads:

Even the most rational economists, though, realize that the shopper’s mind is more complicated. The brain’s “impartial spectator,” as Adam Smith warned, has to duel with “the passions.” Last year, after surveying shoppers’ passions, behavioral economists at Carnegie Mellon University developed what they call the Tightwad-Spendthrift scale.

I'm not a lady totally given over to passions, but I do have them: Minis (yet to buy), Coke (always on hand), Mac (not enough but lots of Mac stuff), and currently, backyard landscaping and pool paraphernalia (in mid-heart-stopping-buy). My brain lights up in excitement and terror at the last potential buy. Here's what happens to a person's brain while buying:

The first was my nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain with dopamine receptors that are activated when you experience or anticipate something pleasant, like making money or drinking something tasty. In the experimental subjects at Stanford, this region was activated when they first saw pictures of things they wanted to buy. My nucleus accumbens just happened to respond more strongly than the typical subject’s, so what else could I do? If it feels good, buy it.

The other culprit — the main villain, really — was my insula. This region of the brain is activated when you smell something bad, see a disgusting picture or anticipate a painful shock. It was typically activated in the brains of the other shoppers when they saw a price that seemed too high. I’d like to think of my insula as particularly stoic, the strong, silent type, but he’s probably just an oblivious slob.

I've noted before that the vast majority of brain research is being conducted by and for big companies trying to find ways to manipulate your primal brain in financially helpful ways (to them.)

More here.

Five (ish) Things You Want to Know

Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users asks these five questions of readers and I thought you might like to know my answers and I would like to know your answers, so please answer!

0) What's your name and website URL? (optional, of course) Dr. Melissa Clouthier, www.DrMelissaClouthier.blogspot.com (Link me Kathy!)

1) What's the most fun work you've ever done, and why? (two sentences max) Working in the editorial department at college. I worked with smart, funny, creative people who respected smart, funny, creative people.

2) A. Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? (one sentence max) Running.

B. Name one thing you've always wanted to do but keep putting it off? (one sentence max) Get a book published.

3) A. What two things would you most like to learn or be better at, and why? (two sentences max) I would like to have a better understanding of the stock market and investing in general. I get the same feeling with financial advisers that I get at the car dealership--like I'm being snookered. The other thing I'd like to learn is Spanish. I live in a place where Spanish is spoken by a huge portion of the population. I'd like to better communicate with them.

B. If you could take a class/workshop/apprentice from anyone in the world living or dead, who would it be and what would you hope to learn? (two more sentences, max) Wow, tough question. Well, I'd like to learn from Jesus and get his view on things so I could be a better disciple. I'd like to take a writing class from JRR Tolkien. The imagery his language usage provokes is second to none.

4) A. What three words might your best friends or family use to describe you? (asked the hubby & sister who did not at all agree on the three words so I picked the three I thought were most accurate) fair, tenacious, loving

B. Now list two more words you wish described you... kind & patient

5) What are your top three passions? (can be current or past, work, hobbies, or causes-- three sentences max) my family, helping people achieve their dreams and potential, writing

6) (sue me) Write--and answer--one more question that YOU would ask someone (with answer in three sentences max) What are your three greatest gifts and are you using them? My Answer: Seeing a person's potential, creating (art, writing, something), accumulating information and sharing it. Probably the area where I feel I'm not adequately using my gift is "creating". With kids and life, I don't have the space and time to start and finish artistic projects like I would like. The first and last gifts get used through my profession, through motherhood and through blogging.

[Bonus: What is one question you wish people would ask themselves?] Am I living up to my God-given potential?

So, do you know me better or did this confirm what you knew?

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Microsoft's Missteps & Bloggerly Blunders

How would you feel about receiving a $2000 gift from Microsoft? I'd be as excited as heck and curious to see if the product met up with the hype. And, in typical bloggerly fashion, I'd cut off my nose and wax elephant about the problems with the product. Or not.

Maybe, I'd really, really love it. (Like I really, really love my iMac and iPod that I bought myself with my money, thank you very much.) The problem would become, of course, if I really, really loved the Microsoft product that was given to me, would anyone believe me? Or, would the reviews be like some editorial reviews at CNET that leave users scratching their heads? For example, one user asked what was up with the product review because the product in question (an all-in-one laser HP printer) stunk while the CNET editors gave it a 8.0/10 rating. Hmmm......

How would I feel if Microsoft, felt the sting of criticism and emailed asking me to send it back? Oh, deary, what a mess.

John Pospisil at Tech.Blorge.com is apoplectic about the giveaway. And he's a mite bit condescending, too. He says:

Second, how many bloggers that have received a notebook but have not declared it on their blog? Quite a few I suggest, which highlights up the fundamental problem with blogging, which is that bloggers are not trained journalists and not necessarily in tune with the ethical problems that gifts entail.

From the other press that I read, the laptops were given to the top 70 bloggers. Who Microsoft chose for that, I'm not sure, but most of the top 70 bloggers are sure to know the basics of journalistic ethics. One could argue that they are journalists. But Pospipsil holds fast:

The fundamental problem is that is generally speaking blogs are perceived as being the authentic and trustworthy voice of the people who write them. The reason why this is so is because until recently blogs existed outside of the whole marketing/PR machine. Now however, they’re very much part of the machine, as Microsoft’s laptop give away demonstrates.

Microsoft’s recent comments, and criticisms by some sections of the blogosphere, have done nothing to allay my concerns - they’ve just underscored how real the problem is. Some bloggers don’t (or don’t want to) understand the ethical issues, and companies (ie Microsoft) are very happy to cynically exploit this lack of understanding.

I think that the blogosphere is going to get more commercialized. That does not seem problematic to me as long as there is public disclosure on the part of the writer. I'm not the only one shoulder shrugging at Microsoft's generous, if clumsy, attempt at good publicity. John Scalzi says this:

Leaving aside the idea of Microsoft being pure, unmitigated evil that destroys everything it touches, Spolsky is falling victim of a series of misapprehensions. First to the misapprehension that the blog world has monolithic standards on anything, which it doesn't, second to the misapprehension that there was a halcyon time when the people who wrote blogs steadfastly refused the predations of commerce, which there wasn't, third to the misapprehension that the blog world, as a whole, has any measurable standard of credibility, which is news to me, and fourth to the misapprehension that blog writers ought to have some obligation to act in a professional manner or only write about particular things in a particular manner, which, believe me, they surely do not. If the blogosphere has a motto, it would be "You're Not The Boss of Me," and Joel Spolsky is just as much not the boss as anyone else. His ability to dictate the policies of the blogosphere end at the borders of his own blog.

Likewise, I think Spolsky is deeply undervaluing one aspect of the blog world, which is that the sheer mass and diversity of the blogoverse means that it's difficult for anyone to get away with much of anything. Microsoft decides to hand out free PCs; here comes Spolsky (and others) to complain about it. The result is that the publicity spin of the event is already out of Microsoft's hands and curving away in an unexpected fashion. This is how the blog world works, precisely because it isn't a monolith. Also, Spolsky appears to be under the impression that blog readers are stupid, and they don't recognize blatant publicity handwaving when they see it, and neglect to factor accordingly. In this he is just as far behind the times as the marketers who are under the impression they can somehow control the blog dialogue about a product by putting it in blogger hands.

For example, I love Coca-Cola. I really, really do. Anyone who knows me knows that any melodious writing about the excellence of the product comes from the heart. If Coke one day decided to pay me for a daily Coke affirmation (which I would gladly do if the price was right), I'd disclose it. If they threw in a 12 pack, I wouldn't complain either. But then, I wouldn't be acting as a journalist, I'd be acting as a PR agent of Coca-Cola, which some bloggers kinda are for Microsoft.

What I see as the bigger problem is that writers who perceive themselves to be "real professionals" bristle at the idea of the unwashed masses making money without training (gasp!), being ethically challenged (as opposed to the lily white knights penning papers), and being biased. That last part is true. Bloggers are generally biased. That is their strong suit. The biases are out there for all to see.

So, is CNET "real" journalism by journalistic standards? Oh, they think so. Is Tech.Blorge? Is my blog "real journalism"?

When so-called journalists become the paragons of virtue that some of the above writers imply they are, I'll be tougher on the Microsoft loving bloggers who got the Vista Ferrari present. Remembering that newspapers make money via advertising and that their writing is most definitely swayed by that money is helpful during times like these. The only problem I see with the traditional journalists is their inability to spot their own bias. That makes them far more dangerous than an opinionated blogger.

What are the Odds? Winning Life's Lottery (Or at Least McDonalds)

Think you have a chance to win McDonald's Monopoly? No, I don't either. First of all, the nonsense one must endure to keep the tiny tabs makes the whole thing daunting. When the game comes out again I make a half-hearted effort to keep them. Eagerly ripping them off the cups when it would take ripping tabs off of oh, say a million cups, and I can assure you that I won't eat at McDonalds a million times in the next five lifetimes.

Five lifetimes and million sodas might not quite do it, even still. From The Numbers Guy, Carl Bialik of The Wall Street Journal:

Patrons get game pieces with the purchase of certain menu items or by sending in a self-addressed, stamped envelope. To collect the grand prize this year, a customer must gather four game pieces corresponding to the four railroads on the Monopoly game board. The agate-like official rules say the odds of this happening are "approximately 1 in 41,497,391,309."

"In other words, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning while on your way home from purchasing a winning Lotto ticket with your wife, Jessica Alba, the first lady of the United States," Richard Roeper wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times. The odds are also far worse than some estimates of the probability of picking a perfect NCAA bracket, as cited in a Numbers Guy column in March. (As the blog Fast Food News pointed out, at least the odds are better than they were when employees of the company hired to run the promotion hoarded the rare game pieces, a scandal uncovered in 2001.)

But for all you lottery players, there is hope. Underwriters believe the odds are much better--the "odds of someone winning are very high, from an underwriting perspective". Really? How's that?

That's because the person who gets that rare piece is likely to take extreme measures to get the other three, "if they know they've got that rare game piece." Insurers typically take into consideration a "look factor," or the probability that a big winner will notice that she's won, rather than crumpling up the game piece in a french fry carton. This factor can range from 5% up to 60%, Mr. LaCroix said, and depends heavily on how much the sponsor has marketed the game and thereby raised awareness among the players.

This brings me to a sad realization: I think I had the winning piece and threw it out. I had no idea there were "rare" pieces. I had no idea the railroad one was rare. All I've been getting is railroad pieces. One of them had to be the winning property. I just know it!

You see that? You see how it works? McDonald's won't make any $5 million dollar winners but it might spawn a whole class of crazy people which is good news for the mental health profession.

Women Make the Decisions: Why Not Ask Them What They Want?

For all the progress of the Women's Movement, only in the last few years have marketers, retailers and designers taken a woman's opinion into account. For example, and this problem has yet to be resolved, washers and dryers are ridiculous. They make you bend over and lug stuff out. They make you bend over and load things in. The laundry soap is high up on a shelf that one must navigate around the machines to get. It is a ergonomic nightmare.

If the washer and dryer manufacturers had just asked me, they'd make a boat load more money. Also, since we're on the topic, make washers simpler, so children can use them. I'm trying to raise responsible kids, but they couldn't do their own laundry if I wanted them to, they are too short.

Well, we've come a long way baby, the world is waking up to woman power since women drive 80% of purchases. Now, they not only control the family's pocketbook, they control their own. Finally, the world takes notice.

Love is the Killer Ap

Donald Duck saw that my Little Toot was bored and sad in his stroller and came over to cheer him up. We weren't in line. He was done with his shift. He was just being.....loving.

Kathy Sierra always has something good to say. Today is no different. Her articles about reducing fear and about creating products people love (or, when they provoke that much emotion, hate, too) are worth reading.

She says that reducing fear is the killer ap. I want to quibble with her a little bit. She says:

In a medical scenario, reducing fear means a lot. But think about all the ways our users (or potential users) might be afraid. Not in mortal terror, but afraid nonetheless. The fear of not being smart enough to learn a new product, programming language, or procedure. The fear of being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous company and/or sales person. The fear of making the wrong purchasing decision. The fear of looking stupid or slow in front of our co-workers.

I've often said that reducing guilt is the killer app, but now I'd put reducing fear way up there too. He who reduces fear better than the competition can, potentially, stop competing on price, convenience, or just about anything else. Reduce my fear, and I'll be grateful forever.

I agree with her, that reducing fear will create loyalty. I'd like to go a step further: If you want loyalty, devotion and customers for life, shower them with love. In her examples, her fears were trumped by the love of a compassionate X-ray Tech and interior designers.

Too rarely, people ask themselves if the stuff they are selling they themselves would buy. Too rarely, people consider the experience they create for others. If they asked themselves these questions, would the answer be an ebulliant "YES!"?

Here I am getting all Christian again: If people would treat others the way they like to be treated they would make some serious changes. Who wants to walk into a smelly, dank doctors office? Who wants to view a jumbled mess of a website that makes it difficult to buy something? Who wants to buy something they can't track? Who wants to hang around a negative, irritable person (unless you are particularily witty, insightful or have some off-setting attributes the answer is no one)?

Love your spouse. A kind word. A gentle touch. A sweet tone.

Love your child. Look in her eyes. Listen undistractedly. Smile appreciatively.

Love your customer. Create a welcoming environment. Smile when you see him again. Express gladness that he's here.

I've told the story before, but it meant so much to me, I'll share it again. My nail guy hadn't seen me for a year because of a baby, and business. I felt so bad. I had been a relative regular and was almost embarressed about coming back. Here's what he said after I expressed feeling bad about being away so long, "I'm just glad you're here today." I could have cried. It was so kind.

Love conquers fears. When a patient is afraid that they will always feel pain, that they may never be the same, it is not the adjustment or nutrition or heat pack that starts the healing process--it's love.

Love initiates the hug. Love paints the waiting room. Love mounts the water fountain. Love gives the bottle of water. Love listens.

Love is the killer ap.