Amanda's Blog - Abide By These Quality Self Help Suggestions

Do you desire to live a better life? Keep reading for useful tips that can guide you along the path to becoming a new person.

Become aware of the distance you need to travel to achieve your self improvement goals. This is the first step to actually starting the journey of where you want to be. If you are unable to recognize this need, you will not be effective in developing yourself to your highest potential.

Do not be afraid to take risks in the pursuit of happiness. Many people get stuck in a zone that is comfortable so they do not risk failure or rejection, but the true risk is the loss of opportunities for personal growth. When you take a risk, you are showing yourself that you have courage, which is important to finding happiness.

When considering your own self improvement, focus on leadership. In this context, consider your sphere of influence to be where your leadership skills are applied. Look at your journey of leadership. What events have you been most impacted by in your life? How did these people and events change you as a person? When you work with a group, what attributes do you tend to rely on? By considering these questions, you can determine how to fit into a team-related setting.

A good self improvement plan has a physical health component. It is vital that you maintain motivation to eat well and exercise regularly. If you make your health the priority, you will likely feel your best, which makes contributing to the different aspects of life easier.

Each day should be an opportunity to top the previous day?s accomplishments. Push yourself to achieve growth that is constant and unwavering. Push yourself to do something better today than you did the day before.

Focus on changing just one thing about yourself at any given time. While you may want to change a number of things about yourself, by focusing on improving one thing at a time, there?s a better chance of you being successful. This means you will be able to maintain the changes as you turn them into habits as habits take time to stick.

Come up with a little pep talk for yourself. On a postcard, write down all of your best qualities. Keep the card in your purse or wallet, and pull it out every time you feel depressed and defeated or have a negative thought about yourself. You might even consider recording the mantra in your own voice, so that you can play it back at any time. ?Why would I want to do this??, you may be asking.

Do not overdo it when you are trying to achieve your self improvement goal. Although striving may be what fuels your accomplishments, you need to know when you are exceeding your own boundaries. You have to keep your body in mind when you are trying to accomplish something. Ignoring the needs of your body is guaranteed to set you back when you are trying to improve.

As you?ve just read, it?s not as frightening to better your life as you may think. If you are able to take control of your life and improve yourself, you will see a huge improvement in your quality of life.

Source: http://suppwapattu.edublogs.org/2013/02/28/abide-by-these-quality-self-help-suggestions/

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Obama urges justices to overturn gay marriage ban

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to overturn California's gay marriage ban, outlining a broad legal argument that could ultimately be applied to other state prohibitions across the country.

The administration's friend-of-the-court brief, filed Thursday evening, unequivocally calls on the justices to strike down California's Proposition 8 ballot measure, although it stops short of the soaring rhetoric on marriage equality President Barack Obama expressed in his inaugural address in January. Still, it marks the first time a U.S. president has urged the high court to expand the right of gays and lesbians to wed.

The brief is not legally binding, though the government's opinion could carry weight with the Supreme Court when it hears oral arguments on Proposition 8 in late March.

California is one of eight states that give gay couples all the benefits of marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership but don't allow them to wed. The brief argues that in granting same-sex couples those rights, California has already acknowledged that gay relationships bear the same hallmarks as straight ones.

"They establish homes and lives together, support each other financially, share the joys and burdens of raising children, and provide care through illness and comfort at the moment of death," the administration wrote.

The brief marks the president's most expansive view of gay marriage and signals that he is moving away from his previous assertion that states should determine their own marriage laws. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, signed off on the administration's legal argument last week following lengthy discussions with Attorney General Eric Holder and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.

In a statement following the filing, Holder said "the government seeks to vindicate the defining constitutional ideal of equal treatment under the law."

Obama's position, if adopted by the court, would likely result in gay marriage becoming legal in the seven other states: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.

In the longer term, the administration urges the justices to subject laws that discriminate on sexual orientation to more rigorous review than usual, as is the case for claims that laws discriminate on the basis of race, sex and other factors.

The Supreme Court has never given gay Americans the special protection it has afforded women and minorities. If it endorses such an approach in the gay marriage cases, same-sex marriage bans around the country could be imperiled.

Despite the potentially wide-ranging implications of the administration's brief, it still falls short of what gay rights advocates and the attorneys who will argue against Proposition 8 had hoped for. Those parties had pressed the president to urge the Supreme Court to not only overturn California's ban, but also declare all gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

Still, marriage equality advocates publicly welcomed the president's legal positioning.

"Obama again asserted a bold claim of full equality for gay Americans, this time in a legal brief," said Richard Socarides, an attorney and advocate. "If its full weight and reasoning are accepted by the Supreme Court, all anti-gay marriage state constitutional amendments will fall, and quickly."

The National Organization for Marriage, a leading supporter of the California ban, rejected Obama's arguments. Spokesman Thomas Peters said he expects the Supreme Court to uphold the votes of more than 7 million Californians to protect marriage, spokesman Thomas Peters said.

The president raised expectations that he would back a broad brief during his inaugural address on Jan. 21. He said the nation's journey "is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law."

"For if we are truly created equal, than surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he added.

Obama has a complicated history on gay marriage. As a presidential candidate in 2008, he opposed the California ban but didn't endorse gay marriage. He later said his personal views on gay marriage were "evolving."

When he ran for re-election last year, Obama announced his personal support for same-sex marriage but said marriage was an issue that states, not the federal government, should decide.

Public opinion has shifted in support of gay marriage in recent years.

In May 2008, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans felt same-sex marriages should not be recognized by the law as valid. By last November, 53 percent felt they should be legally recognized.

Gay marriage supporters see the Supreme Court's hearing of Proposition 8, as well as a related case on the Defense of Marriage Act, as a potential watershed moment for same-sex unions.

In a well-coordinated effort, opponents of the California ban flooded the justices with friend-of-the-court briefs in recent days.

Among those filing briefs were 13 states, including four that do not now permit gay couples to wed, and more than 100 prominent Republicans, including GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Two professional football players who have been outspoken gay rights advocates also filed a brief in the California case. Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo urged the court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court has several options to decide the case that would be narrower than what the administration is asking. The justices also could uphold the California provision, as opponents of gay marriage are urging.

One day after the Supreme Court hears the California case, the justices will hear arguments on provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits.

The administration abandoned its defense of the act in 2011, but the measure will continue to be federal law unless it is struck down or repealed.

In a brief filed last week, the government said Section 3 of the act "violates the fundamental constitutional guarantee of equal protection" because it denies legally married same-sex couples many federal benefits that are available only to legally married heterosexual couples.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Follow Mark Sherman at http://twitter.com/shermancourt

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-01-Obama-Gay%20Marriage/id-5dfe887dbc9340dd806f5a004a1d2669

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iFixit Deems Microsoft Surface Pro Least Repairable Tablet ...

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A look at the adhesive Microsoft uses for its Surface Pro

iFixit has been taking apart tech-related products for years to educate us of their sweet, sweet innards, and today, they?ve released their Tablet Repairability list which scores a number of tablets based on their ease of repair.

According to their engineers, who have disassembled and analyzed each tablet on their list, the Dell XPS 10 receives a score of 9 out of 10 in its repairability due to the tablet being easy to open and even includes color-coded screws and labeled cables inside of it.

A bigger tax break for those who take public transit

Bebeto Matthews / AP

About 2.7 million families will benefit from the tax break for taking mass transit.

By Herb Weisbaum, TODAY contributor

Transit riders will get a bigger tax break this year, thanks to a provision tucked into the legislation that averted a fall off the fiscal cliff.

As part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2013, Congress decided that for 2013 people who take mass transit to work will get the same pretax benefits as those who drive and pay to park their car. Both can set aside up to $245 a month to cover these expenses, if their employer offers such a plan.

That?s a big change from last year, when employees could set aside up to $240 a month to park, but only $125 a month for transit expenses. In 2011, the tax savings had been the same for parking or public transportation.

Now parity is back and that could mean more savings for transit commuters.

?Someone in the highest federal tax bracket ? 30 to 39.6 percent ? could save about $570 a year. Someone in the 15 percent tax bracket could save about $260 a year,? explained Lisa Greene-Lewis, lead CPA at the American Tax and Financial Center at TurboTax.?

According to Bloomberg News, about 2.7 million families will benefit from this tax break.

?It?s not so much the dollar value; it?s the parity,? said Jon Martz, a vice president at vRide, which provides vanpool services in about 60 different urban areas in the country. ?Why give people an incentive to commute in single occupancy cars? Give them a benefit of equal value for choosing to take public transportation, if they can do it.?

And there?s more good news. Congress made the change retroactive. It?s as if the higher limit of $240 had been in effect for transit riders all last year. The IRS already gave employers guidance on how to put that money back into their employees? paychecks.

If you used this program last year and didn?t see an adjustment in your paycheck to cover the reimbursement, talk to your employer. If you haven?t been told about the higher limits for 2013 and want to put more aside, contact human resources.

Moving forward

The fiscal cliff deal only guaranteed an equal tax break for commuters who drive and those who take public transit for 2013. Those who support public transportation want this provision to be permanent.

?We need Congress to act to finally make the transit and the parking benefits equal so that all commuters are on a level playing field,? said Steven Higashide, a senior planner at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a non-profit watchdog group that serves New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. ?This will create an incentive for transit riders and take more cars off the road.?

Frank Linkchorst, an aerospace engineer in California, agrees. He rides a vanpool weekdays from his home in El Segundo to work in Los Angeles 38 miles away. It?s cheaper and faster than being in a car.

?Anything that encourages people to rideshare is helpful,? he told me. ?With 10 of us in that van, that?s nine fewer cars on the road at any given time ? and that helps everybody.?

More Information:

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.

?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/02/28/17132667-a-bigger-tax-break-for-those-who-take-public-transit?lite

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Penney's shares plunge after 4Q massive loss

NEW YORK (AP) ? J.C. Penney is the biggest loser.

Shares of J.C. Penney Co. plunged nearly 16 percent on Thursday, the biggest loser on the Standard &Poor's 500 index for most of the day. The drop comes a day after the department-store chain reported its fourth consecutive larger-than-expected quarterly loss on another steep sales decline

The drop means that Penney shares, which are now trading at around $18, have lost nearly 60 percent of their value since January of last year when CEO Ron Johnson announced his plan to ditch hundreds of sales in favor of everything low prices. At the time, investors had sent Penney shares up 24 percent to $43 as a vote of confidence

The stock drop is the latest sign that Johnson's turnaround strategy is failing on both Main Street and Wall Street. The company's quarterly and full-year results, which it reported Wednesday after the markets closed, revealed that shoppers still aren't buying it. But the sell-off shows that investors, too, are concerned that the plan won't work.

"I fear it will be much worse as consumers continue to walk away from J.C. Penney and its financial health continues to deteriorate," said Walter Loeb, a New York based independent consultant.

Penney's spokeswoman Daphne Avila declined to comment on Thursday's stock movement. But Johnson on Wednesday acknowledged to investors that the 1,100-store chain had made some mistakes. He also told them that Penney would start offering sales in stores every week.

"Experience is making mistakes and learning from them," Johnson told investors on Wednesday. "I have learned a lot."

If J.C. Penney's results are any indication, Johnson is right. Penney reported on Wednesday after the markets closed that it widened its quarterly loss to $552 million, or $2.51 per share. Revenue fell 24.8 percent to $12.98 billion.

Revenue at stores opened a least a year dropped 31.7 percent. The measure is a key indicator of a retailer's health. Customer traffic dropped 17 percent in the quarter, worse than the 10 percent drop in the third quarter.

Results for the full year were even more staggering. For the fiscal year, Penney lost $985 million, or $4.49 per share, compared with a loss of $152 million, or 70 cents per share, in the year ended January 28, 2012. Revenue dropped 24.8 percent to $12.98 billion.

It's disappointing turn of events for Johnson, the mastermind of Apple's successful retail stores who took the top job at Penney in November 2011. A couple of months later, on Feb. 1 of last year, Johnson got rid of the nearly 600 sales Penney offered each year and lowered prices in the store by 40 percent. He also got rid of the word "sales" from the company's marketing.

But customers weren't responding to the changes, and Johnson has tweaked his strategy a few times, including bringing back the word "sale" in its marketing last spring. The latest change came earlier this month when Penney began adding back more sales events and putting price tags on half of its merchandise to show customers how much they're saving by shopping at Penney.

Penney said that its seeing positive results from its makeover of some of its stores with sectioned-off shops that feature different brands. The company plans to have 700 of its 1,100 stores nationwide remodeled in the coming years, but critics question whether the company is running out of time ? and money.

In November, Penney said that it would end the latest fiscal year with $1 billion in cash. But the company winded up ending the year with $930 million in cash, which was better than analysts had feared but below the company's target.

The company also told investors on Wednesday that it delayed $85 million in payments to its suppliers from the fourth quarter to the early part of the first quarter. That suggests they're running out of cash.

"Our analysis suggests (Penney) will deplete cash" the third quarter, wrote Kimberly C. Greenberger, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in a report published Thursday.

_______

Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at www.twitter.com/adinnocenzio

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/penneys-shares-plunge-4q-massive-loss-162621956--finance.html

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Caterpillar CAT B15 rugged smartphone hands-on

Caterpillar's signature yellow and black CAT branding was definitely spinning heads and getting passerby's attention as it showed off its rugged B15. As far as tough goes the handset's corners are wrapped in rubber with the connections in between covered with anodized aluminum. The B15 is IP67 certified, which means both protected from dust and waterproof up to 3.3 feet for 30 minutes and can be dropped from about six feet and live to tell the tale -- you, however, may not. Other notables include a 4-inch WVGA display, dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 and a 5-megapixel camera that'll shoot 720p video and can do continuous pic shooting.

Sadly, we forgot our rubber mallet at home so we couldn't try to beat it to pieces but we did appreciate the housing on the CAT phone it's surprisingly nice to hold and well put together. Sure, there's a wee bit of overkill with the tough machine branding, but we're sure this phone will garner a bit of a following. Our favorite bit? The Caterpillar phone features something called wet finger tracking, so even if you happen to fall into a deep puddle while using your B15, you can finish whatever you were up to before tumbling. The B15 ships in March for a cool $436, though, there's no word on what carrier's planning to scoop this up -- see what we did there? There's a gallery of the B15 in all its tough guy splendor after the break.

Gallery: Caterpillar CAT B15 rugged smartphone hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/27/caterpillar-cat-b15-rugged-smartphone-hands-on/

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Mastermind of UK's 'Great Train Robbery' dies

Popperfoto / Getty Images

Detectives inspect the Royal Mail train from which over 2.6 million pounds was stolen, on Aug. 8, 1963, in Cheddington, Buckinghamshire, England.

By Clare Hutchison, Reuters

LONDON -- The mastermind behind Britain's "Great Train Robbery," a 1963 heist that turned its perpetrators into celebrities, has died at age 81, local media reported Thursday.

Bruce Reynolds died in his sleep at his home in London after a period of ill health, reports from news media including the BBC said, citing comments from Reynolds' son, Nick.

Paul Popper / Popperfoto / Getty Images

A photo issued by Scotland Yard on Aug. 2, 1963, shows Bruce Reynolds, who has died at home in London.

His death came just months before the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery, which was at the time Britain's largest robbery.

In August 1963, Reynolds, along with an 11-member gang, tampered with railway track signals and stopped a Royal Mail night train travelling from Glasgow to London carrying letters, parcels and large amounts of cash.

Reynolds and his men stormed the train and made off with 2.6 million pounds, equivalent to about 40 million pounds or $61 million in today's money.

Train driver Jack Mills was struck over the head during the robbery. He died seven years later, and many people believed the injuries he sustained during the heist contributed to his death.

Most of the gang members were caught and given prison sentences totaling more than 300 years, but Reynolds evaded capture, fleeing Britain with his wife and son. He spent five years as a fugitive in places as far afield as Canada and Mexico.

On his return to Britain, Reynolds was caught by police and sentenced to 25 years in prison, of which he served just 10.

Reynolds later found fame as an author after penning his memoirs, titled "Autobiography of a Thief."?

His accomplice Ronnie Biggs achieved similar notoriety after he escaped from the prison where he was serving a 30-year jail sentence for his part in the robbery.

Biggs spent 36 years on the run, leading a playboy lifestyle in South America, before finally surrendering to British police in 2001. Biggs was freed in 2009 on health grounds.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/28/17132265-mastermind-of-britains-great-train-robbery-dies-at-81?lite

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