Source

Americans are glum at the moment. No, I mean really glum. In April, a new poll revealed that 81 percent of the American people believe that the country is on the “wrong track.” In the 25 years that pollsters have asked this question, last month’s response was by far the most negative. Other polls, asking similar questions, found levels of gloom that were even more alarming, often at 30- and 40-year highs. There are reasons to be pessimistic—a financial panic and looming recession, a seemingly endless war in Iraq, and the ongoing threat of terrorism. But the facts on the ground—unemployment numbers, foreclosure rates, deaths from terror attacks—are simply not dire enough to explain the present atmosphere of malaise.

American anxiety springs from something much deeper, a sense that large and disruptive forces are coursing through the world. In almost every industry, in every aspect of life, it feels like the patterns of the past are being scrambled. “Whirl is king, having driven out Zeus,” wrote Aristophanes 2,400 years ago. And—for the first time in living memory—the United States does not seem to be leading the charge. Americans see that a new world is coming into being, but fear it is one being shaped in distant lands and by foreign people.

Look around. The world’s tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn’t make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world’s ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.

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Mark Tahiliani is the president and CEO Awareness Corporation.

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Stress Point

… Each of us, in our daily lives, tends to adjust to this invisible stress point. If a man lives just up to it, he can lead a happy and productive life. If, on occasion, he lives just a little over it, he finds that often these are the periods in which he learns “by running scared”. If, on the other hand, a man lives too far over his stress point, that man will tend to panic. Sooner or later such a practice results in disaster.

But the real problem, for most of us, lies in setting our sights too low. Mainly because of fear, perhaps 95% of us live too far under our stress points. For those who dare too little, the penalty which must be paid, while perhaps not as sudden as for those who dare too much, is equally sure and certain. Life becomes dull and meaningless. Those who dare not become so much beef on the hoof; they exist, but they do not live …
Excerpted from Viewpoints of a Commodity Trader, by Roy Longstreet. Copyright © 1968 Roy W. Longstreet.

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Hmmmm

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Why did Bush specifically mention Dell computers in his conciliatory speech the other day?

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Source.

1) Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT)
2) Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN)
3) Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
4) Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
5) Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
6) Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)
7) Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL)
9) Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
10) Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
11) Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA)
12) Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
13) Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
14) Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)
15) Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
16) Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
17) Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY)
18) Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
19) Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
20) Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA)

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The Amish community that was victim to a tragic school shooting last week turned out mourn not only the death of the girls killed, but the killer as well.

Dozens of Amish neighbors gathered Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.

Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was buried in his wife’s family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him, said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Colorado who attended the service.

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