If you’ve been in the stores; you know. There simply is NOT another book out there that gives so much rich advice on the service AND the celebration! So no other book can offer you the success that MitzvahChic can.

Want to host a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah that your friends and family - and even total strangers (it happened to me!) - will RAVE about for years to come? Want to be known as the role models for “how awesome it COULD be”?

Want to achieve all this but also have lots of FUN doing it? Feel less stress and more confidence and enjoyment all the way to the big day?

I spent two years researching and writing this book so you can have just that kind of amazing experience. I loaded it up with scholarship so that EVEN IF YOU HAVE EMBARRASSING GAPS IN YOUR JEWISH EDUCATION, you will effortlessly learn about the Torah, the bar mitzvah / bat mitzvah rituals, the service and lots of fascinating things that will make you and your child feel genuinely excited about being Jewish and having a bar mitzvah / bat mitzvah!

Rabbi Harold Kushner calls it “just the right mix of serious content and entertainment tips.”

I also did TONS of research so that - whatever help you’re looking for - you’ll quickly find it: tzedakah ideas, great videos you can watch, timelines and checklists, even fun ideas like directions to make a tallit and a recipe for manna.

And good party advice? MitzvahChic actually started out as a book about how to have a better, more fun and memorable party. A party that really expresses your uniqueness as a family and that feels very intimate and special no matter how big it is!

“Spider-Man” director Sam Raimi calls MitzvahChic “fun, refreshing, insightful and original. Judaism has never seemed so cool. “

You’ll also be thrilled to find in MitzvahChic that the money you have to spend has NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW GREAT THE PARTY IS! My chapter on cutting costs gives dozens of ideas that won’t sacrifice ANY of the fun or special feeling. I also have chapters of spectacular table décor and party favor ideas to buy or make yourself. They’re fast and fabulous and no one will BELIEVE you did it!

First-timers, don’t even THINK of leaving this page without buying this book! Experienced parents who’ve done it before - yeah, I was one myself before I wrote MitzvahChic - believe me, you HAVEN’T seen it all, or even a fraction of the great ideas out there.

Don’t delay - ORDER NOW and you’ll be using my ideas and information within a week! And enjoying that relaxed, confident, excited feeling we all have when we know we’re going to be big winners! I guarantee you will LOVE MitzvahChic or I’ll give you 100% of your purchase price back.

MitzvahChic is the #1 bar/bat mitzvah planning book and website! Visit www.MitzvahChic.com http://www.MitzvahChic.com and be sure to sign up for FREE planning reminder emails.

Gail A. Greenburg is a life long writer, editor, and crafts artist. She is the creator of www.MitzvahChic.com http://www.MitzvahChic.com and the author of the book MitzvahChic.

Desktop Laptop Blank Media
Tourmaline Earrings Sale
Norelco Razors & Blades
IHC HO Scale Model RR Trains Sale
Digital Cameras Parts & Repair

And how do you get all that creativity on to something that displays our children’s artistic skills to as wide an audience as possible? You print it on gift wrapping paper. Possibilities for themes are endless, but parent’s pockets aren’t, so selling the gift wrap at a couple of events a year should be just right. The most obvious are the Summer Fete or Fair and at Christmas.

Get the children to create their works of art on A4 paper sheets. They can be on white paper, or for an interesting effect spread a few different coloured papers among the pupils. A standard sheet of Gift Wrap is 500mm x 700mm or similar. When the children’s illustrations are reduced down in size, you can fit any number from about 72 up to 288 images on to a sheet. It depends on the effect you want to achieve. The white background tends to work better with the lower numbers and the multi-coloured papers with higher numbers. Duplicate images as desired or necessary to make up the numbers.

The children’s images are scanned and montaged using design software and printing should be carried out by a printing company. How much of the work of creating the gift wrap is carried out by the school will depend on the school’s own capabilities. However, it is recommended that the assembly of images and final printing is carried out by professionals. The minimum quantity for printing gift wrap of this kind is 1000 sheets. The profit on this amount should be at least 100% after printing costs are taken out. For larger quantities, the amount raised by the school would be even higher.

At Christmas time, an additional fund raiser is to have greetings cards printed with images from the gift wrap. The advantage with these fund raising projects is that they can be repeated annually with different sets of children taking part. As well as the money raised, the expressions on the children’s faces when they see their work in print is priceless.

Richard Leeds is the founder of PrintJuggler, and provides a personal service for customers with custom printing and gift wrap packaging requirements. For more details visit www.printjuggler.com http://www.printjuggler.com

Ladies Gold Sunglasses
Discount Clothing
Turquoise Rings Mens Jewelry Sale
Mego Action Figures
Stick Blenders Food Service

The first thing to consider is what kind of pet you have. The cheapest kind of pet insurance is that for the most common pets - cats and dogs. Prices for these policies can be very reasonable indeed, amounting to only the cost of a few tins of pet food a month. If, however, you keep a more unusual kind of animal as a pet, then the price you pay may well be higher. Make sure that any policy you take out specifically includes your kind of pet, as many will exclude more ‘exotic’ kinds of animal.

The main reason for considering pet insurance is cover for medical treatment, but there are some exclusions that you need to be aware of. Firstly, your policy will almost certainly not cover routine treatments such as vaccinations, flea control, or worming. Secondly, you won’t be covered for any pre-existing conditions that were already known about when you took out the policy (you should also declare any existing conditions when you take out the policy, or you risk it being declared invalid when you come to make a claim).

You also need to check your policy for claim limits: there may be a time limit of cover, so for example a long-term condition such as arthritis may only be covered for a period of 12 months, after which you will be responsible for meeting the bills. There is also usually a limit to the total cost of medical bill claims you make in any one year, but this is usually high enough to cover almost any conceivable situation.

Another major reason for taking out insurance is to help you cover the costs of getting your pet back if it goes missing. Most policies will contribute towards advertising in local newspapers etcetera, and also to providing reward money for the safe return of your pet.

Another very important part of your insurance cover is public liability, especially for dog owners. Even the calmest and most well behaved of pets could possibly cause damage to someone’s property, or even cause an injury to a person. In this thankfully rare event, you could be open to huge legal bills and compensation claims - make sure that your policy includes a substantial amount of third party liability cover as standard.

Finally, check whether the policy you’re considering places a limit on the age of your pet. Many policies are only available to, for example, cats up until the age of eight years. As it is in later years that your pet is most likely to need treatment, it obviously makes sense to ensure your policy will cover this, especially if your pet has a few years under their belt!

Nicholas Hunt is a writer for www.1stop-finance.co.uk/ http://www.1stop-finance.co.uk/ and you can read more about pet insurance at www.1stop-finance.co.uk/insurance/pet_insurance/ http://www.1stop-finance.co.uk/insurance/pet_insurance/ .

Trigun Anime
Disney Finding Nemo
Ladies Fragrances
X-Box 360 Games
EDO Memory for Desktop PC

South Park mostly follows the exploits of four elementary school kids - Cartman (who’s overweight and sarcastic), Kyle (who dreams of eliminating his little brother Ike), Stan (who throws up at the sight of a girl he likes), and Kenny (who manages to get killed in every episode). All four attend South Park Elementary School where third grade teacher Mr. Garrison educates them with the use of a hand-puppet named Mr. Hat and cafeteria employee Chef McElroy (Isaac Hayes) dispenses his advice while periodically breaking into 70’s love songs about making love to women. South Park is the setting for numerous oddities such as alien visitors, a monster with a hand of celery and the leg of Patrick Duffy, and Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride. South Park also hosts a number famous people from time to time, such as the Devil, Saddam Hussein, the Antichrist, Kathy Lee Gifford, Scott Baio, Tina Yothers, Elton John, and Jesus Christ - who has his own cable access show…

The South Park (Season 4) DVD features a number of hilarious episodes including the season premiere The Tooth Fairy’s TATS 2000 in which Cartman’s two-dollar bounty from the tooth fairy sparks an idea in the boys’ heads to scam the tooth fairy. When they learn the truth about the tooth fairy, they establish a new plan to rob rich kids of their tooth fairy money, but they soon learn that a notorious mobster already has the tooth fairy market cornered… Other notable episodes from Season 4 include Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? in which a fundamentalist preacher convinces the boys that they are all going to hell unless they confess their sins (except for Kyle because he’s Jewish, and thus, hell-bound already), and Fat Camp in which the boys dissect several endangered manatees in science class following a delivery mix-up with the Denver Zoo…

Below is a list of episodes included on the South Park (Season 4) DVD:

Episode 49 (The Tooth Fairy’s TATS 2000) Air Date: 04-05-2000
Episode 50 (Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000) Air Date: 04-12-2000
Episode 51 (Timmy! 2000) Air Date: 04-19-2000
Episode 52 (Quintuplets 2000) Air Date: 04-26-2000
Episode 53 (Cartman Joins NAMBLA) Air Date: 06-21-2000
Episode 54 (Cherokee Hair Tampons) Air Date: 06-28-2000
Episode 55 (Chef Goes Nanners) Air Date: 07-05-2000
Episode 56 (Something You Can Do With Your Finger) Air Date: 07-12-2000
Episode 57 (Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?) Air Date: 07-19-2000
Episode 58 (Probably) Air Date: 07-26-2000
Episode 59 (4th Grade) Air Date: 11-08-2000
Episode 60 (Trapper Keeper) Air Date: 11-15-2000
Episode 61 (Helen Keller! The Musical) Air Date: 11-22-2000
Episode 62 (Great Expectations) Air Date: 11-29-2000
Episode 63 (Fat Camp) Air Date: 12-06-2000
Episode 64 (The Wacky Molestation Adventure) Air Date: 12-13-2000
Episode 65 (A Very Crappy Christmas) Air Date: 12-20-2000

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find where you can find more reviews of movies and TV series. Source: thedvdreport.blogspot.com/2006/02/south-park-season-4-dvd.html http://thedvdreport.blogspot.com/2006/02/south-park-season-4-dvd.html .

Floor Standing Speakers
Heads Golf Clubmaking Sale
PC133, 133 MHz 256 Mb Memory
European & Latin American Comics Sale
UK Mice Pets

What Does Your Client Really Need?

Look carefully at clients’ software application requirements before you allow their “emotional” needs to drive tech PC hardware purchases. If a client’s CFO spends most of a typical day crunching numbers in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and communicating via e-mail in Microsoft Outlook, he or she really has only very basic PC hardware requirements. Thus, there might be a better way to ring greater bottom-line results.

Additionally, these consulting projects will be infinitely more profitable to your consulting firm than the slim profit margin on a high-end, commodity-like desktop PC hardware purchase.

What about Notebook PCs?

Although your clients can get some really useful multimedia features in high-end notebooks in the $4,000 to $5,000 price range, if the CEO of one of your main clients merely wants to access e-mail remotely, you easily could equip him or her with a reliable, high-performance, brand-name notebook for one-third to one-half of that price.

Use Your Knowledge To Help Your Clients

As your clients’ virtual CIO and technology visionary, you have a huge responsibility. Don’t allow clients’ objective judgments and technology budgets to get seduced by superfluous bells and whistles.

When in doubt, ask yourself this basic question:

“If my client took the $5,000 that was about to be spent on the “Rolls Royce” of notebooks and reallocated the amount toward computer consulting services, what kind of an impact on their business could my firm make with a $5,000 budget for a consulting project?”

Copyright MMI-MMVII, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Joshua Feinberg, co-founder of Computer Consulting 101, helps computer consulting business owners get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too with free proven computer consulting secrets at www.ComputerConsulting101.com http://www.ComputerConsulting101.com

Mountain Bikes Stems
Russ Teddy Bears
1st-wedding-apparel.info
My Twinn Dolls
Downhill Skiing

“What?” Master Cheney shot back, and cuffed the child with the ladle out of which he had been serving gruel to the youthful and famished populace of his orphanage.

“Please, sir,” the child had the inexplicable temerity to repeat, “I don’t want to go to war.”He looked around at his fellow orphans, who had elected him to speak on their behalf, to assess their continuing support, and turned back to Master Cheney with confirmed confidence. “And especially not to the war in Iraq.”

“But, child,” Cheney reasoned, “why else have we welcomed you into this fine establishment for the improvement of youth and lavished your appetite with gruel, along with the frequent extravagance of a slice of onion and a crust of bread, if not to send you off to war soon as you’re fit and fat?”

“I know, sir, you’ve been good and generous with me, and I’d go to war, but I have a preference for wars that have something to do with an enemy who might attack our country, instead of attacking other people in his own country. I call that a civil war, I do, sir.”

“Ah, ha, you treacherous scamp! Now, after you’ve lived off the unsuspecting generosity of this worthy charitable establishment, you dare to become particular about the kind of war you’ll go off and fight? Bah, humbug!” He turned to the other orphans. “I want you to note what one of your fellow guests in this infinitely caring place of redemption for youthful malefactors has had the gall to voice. He has expressed an opinion about the kind of wars he’s predisposed to fight. Now, what do you think of such behavior? I want you all to take his insolence as an example of behavior you will never in your lives imitate.”

Then, waving his hands toward them, as if he were a conductor asking an orchestra to play a loud passage in unison, he invited them to express their unconditional agreement with his position. “Come on, now, say it, as you’ve been taught since the day you were fortunate enough to be admitted to this remarkable institution. ‘As an American orphan, I was only born to go to war and have no other possible use, and I will go to fight whatever war to which I have the great good fortune to be sent by the estimable Master Cheney and the board of directors of this indulgent institution.’”

Disconcertingly, the host of orphans hesitated.

“Say it, I say!” Cheney demanded, and raised the ladle, “or tomorrow there’ll be no gruel at all, not a morsel for a month!”

The young boys shifted their feet beneath the long dining table, and then they stated, in somewhat random and unenthusiastic unison, the requested lines.

“That’s more like it, lads,” Mr. Cheney commended them, and turned back to his recalcitrant wrongdoer. “Did you hear that, young man?”

“Yes, I did, sir.”

“And what have you learned?”

“That many will say what they don’t believe, but I’m not of that persuasion, sir.”

“Say it, I say, Cheney flared, or I’ll bring you before the board of the orphanage. They’re meeting tonight, right in the very next room. And you know how unfavorably the chairman of the association, Master Bush, looks on particularly disagreeable children.”

“I don’t care, Master Cheney,” the youth replied. “I will not be persuaded, sir. I have a different idea of the kind of war I’ll fight.”

“Then off you go, young man,” Cheney declared, and grabbed the young malefactor by the ear. He dragged him out of the room and into the great hall, where the board of directors of the splendid institution was meeting.

“What’s this, Cheney?” asked the small and quick-eyed man in the highchair, who was none other than the most revered Chairman Bush.

“A child who, thanks to the generosity of the board and especially to you, sir, your eminence, has been fattened up on a plentitude of gruel, bedded on an actual thin but ample mattress, who will not, despite every indulgence having been lavished on him, go, as previously committed, to Iraq.”

“What? Not go to Iraq?” Chairman Bush exclaimed, and turned a furrowed brow toward the child. “How is such independence of mind possible? Have you not been adequately nourished and pampered? More to the point, do you not know how upset I become when someone disagrees with me?”

“I do, sir.”

“And do you not realize you could be tossed out into the cold and unforgiving streets for such a grave offense?”

“Yes, I do, sir.”

“And yet you will not go off to the war in Iraq?”

“I will not, sir.”

“Well, then, what would you rather do?” He turned to the other members of the board, and reflected with astonishment, “I can’t imagine a better calling for a young lad, particularly an otherwise undistinguished orphan.”

“Why, sir, if given a choice, I’d go looking for Osama Bin Laden.”

“Osama Bin Laden?” the chairman pondered from his highchair and, perplexed, turned to Master Cheney. “Dick, I do believe I’ve heard that name, but I can’t quite place it.”

“Yes, your reverence,” Cheney reluctantly admitted, “I seem to be afflicted with the same forgetfulness.”

“He’s a terrorist, sir,” the young man informed them.

“A terrorist, you say?” asked Chairman Bush.

“Certainly, sir, you remember terrorists. They have an organization named Al-Qaeda?”

“Hmm, Al-Qaeda, did you say?” Bush mused. “Curious name, isn’t it, Master Cheney?”

“Most curious,” he agreed, “and quite disagreeable sounding, if you ask me - especially when it emanates from the lips of a particularly disagreeable youth.”

“Who did you say he is?” the Chairman asked the youth.

“Why, sir, he’s none other than the leader of Al-Qaeda.”

“Of Al-Qaeda, did you say?”

“Now, you’ve got it, sir,” the child replied with only token praise.

“Of course, of course,” Chairman Bush acknowledged, “I had forgotten.” Then he leaned forward. “So you’d go after him, you would?”

“Yes, sir, soon as I’m told,” returned the young man, pumping out his chest with manful pride.

“Yet it might be dangerous,” Bush suggested.

“I know that, sir, but it’s a war I believe in, and so I am prepared.”

“No fear, eh, lad?” Cheney queried, with his lips at a curious angle.

“Oh, a bit, sir, but not enough to deter me. And, I do realize, sir, I have only been fed and fattened to fight.”

“Yes, I’m glad you recognize that,” Bush noted. “But why won’t you go to the war we want you to go to?”

“I will, sir, as soon as I’m sure it’s the right war. If I went off to the wrong one, I might, I’m afraid, be mistaken as un-American.”

“Un-American?” Cheney blathered, and asked the board members in general, “Have you ever seen such an insolent and undisciplined miscreant?”

“There’s no hope for the lad,” a member of the board lamented.

“None at all,” another member nearly wept.

“He’s got a mind of his own, and we can’t have that,” yet one more regretted.

“Aye,” sighed an especially distraught member, “one day he’ll be hung, I swear it.”

“Hung for certain, no doubt about it!” added another.

Chairman Bush leaned toward the lad, and said, “You must fit in, lad, or be farmed out to an uncertain and no doubt unavoidably disappointing destiny.”

“What’ll it be?” Cheney pressed. “Iraq or exile from this very commendable institution for the expedient extermination of youth?”

He reached once more for the child’s still-inflamed ear.

“No need to pull at my ear again,” the young man said, slipping from Cheney’s swift grasp. “But, if I may, sir, I’ll take hold of yours, while you walk me to the door.”

And with the quickness only youth can command, he reached out and gripped Dick Cheney by a lobe. “Come along now, Master Cheney, to the door with me.” And, to heap insolence upon insolence, as he dragged Cheney from the room, he called to the Chairman, “As you can see, sir, I have a willing escort.”

Eyeing Cheney’s pained expression, Chairman Bush couldn’t help but snicker, as he did not quite know how to chuckle. The innocence of the practice evaded him.

Once the lad and the master were beyond the door, a member said, “Well, then, another naysayer luckily weeded out.”

“Yes, and we’ve got to weed them out,” Chairman Bush agreed, “or before you know it we’ll have every child in the orphanage having his own ideas about this war and that. Imagine, the lad wants to go after - what was that fellow’s name again?”

“I believe he said Osama Bin Laden, sir.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what it was,” Bush recalled. “I’m sure of that.”

“Good riddance is what I say,” another member of the board stated.

“Good riddance it is!” Bush confirmed, “to the disagreeable child and anyone else who disagrees with me. As you fine gentleman, who, I’m pleased to recognize, always agree with me, know well, disagreement is the one thing I am unable to tolerate, ever!”

“Never, sir!” the entire board chimed.

“And, if on rare occasion I am afflicted with it, what do I do?” Chairman Bush required of their imaginations. “Why, I plug up my ears!” And with that he poked his fingers into both ears and, smiling, perhaps idiotically, said, “See. Now, I can’t hear a thing, so I know I’m right and always right and never ever wrong. And I’m sure you all agree!”

“And I’m sure we all agree!” they chimed in unison.

And so all was well again in the orphanage and always would be well, because all that could or would be heard was, by the consent of all, complete agreement or nothing at all.

Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com http://NewsLaugh.com , has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing delightfully funny, witty, with good, genuine laughs and great humor and ebullience.

Reuters - Home building projects started in June surprisingly rose 9.1 percent due chiefly to a change in New York City building codes that, if it were ignored, would have seen starts decrease by 4.0 percent, a government report said on Thursday.

Desktop PC Computers Store
Other Emission System Parts
Music Bands Memorabilia
Blocks Childrens Toys
Audio Books Childrens Fiction

Should this really matter? The home fans don’t take one shot, make one dribble or play even one minute of defense. Yet every sports fan will tell you, “of course it matters!” Although sports are physical pursuits, they are played as much in the mind as they are with the body. The encouragement of the home crowd motivates. It creates incentive. The energy of the home crowd elevates the level of play of those they support. The home team players, buoyed by the home crowd, play better and win more. Statistics in most team sports bear this out. Look it up!

Athletes are not the only ones that love the home crowd. We all play better in front of our home crowd. We all perform better when supported by people genuinely interested, if not invested, in our success. The difference between our world and the athletic world is that we have no interest in leveling the field of play. It’s not that we have no interest in fairness, but simply that the game of life has too many players playing too many different games to gather them all on the same level playing field. Thus, you can’t afford any more disadvantages than are already inherent in the game. You must always make sure that you are playing in front of your home crowd.

Playing “home games” in life requires that you surround yourself with the right people. These “right” people to have in your crowd are the ones that genuinely want to see you succeed, people for whom your success is their success. These are the only people you need around you, the only ones you should allow in your life. Playing in front of the right crowd takes work, because our environment is naturally filled with those that are ambivalent, or worse, to our best interests. On a daily basis, we have to account for “haters” that exist to offer us their negative attitudes, “competition” actively sabotaging our program or “enablers” encouraging us to do the wrong thing. All of these people are members of the opposing crowd. You don’t necessarily have to ban these folks from the stadium, but selling them season tickets behind your bench is a bad idea!

Pay close attention to the people you allow in your life. Make sure that vast majority are rooting for the home team!

Brian McClellan is the cofounder and CEO of BAMSTRONG Presentations, a career consulting firm, and the author of The Real Bling: How to Get the Only Thing You Need. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he served as a vice president of sales with Georgia-Pacific Corporation, a Fortune 100 company at the time. A graduate of Princeton University and the Columbia Business School, Brian is a powerful motivational speaker who has mentored countless fellow professionals seeking to improve their personal and professional lives. Brian is also a former rap singer, which is evident in hip-hop sensibility with which he offers his message of self-discovery and self-determination. To learn more about Brian, please visit www.bamstrong.com http://www.bamstrong.com .

AP - The Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word during a break in a TV interview where he criticized presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News confirmed Wednesday.

Shower Curtains Bathrooms
Disney Haunted Mansion
Cardiovascular Fitness Exercise Steppers Stair
Ladies Denim Short Skirts
MiniDisc Players

Mentioned in the Bible and other ancient texts, frankincense and myrrh were substances so valuable they rivaled even gold. Frankincense is a resin from a gum tree that is produced in shapes called tears when the bark of the scraggly Boswallia tree is disturbed. These trees are rare and grow mainly in arid Middle Eastern lands and require hand-harvesting, contributing to their exorbitant price.

Today, a fragrant product that uses frankincense is Love Butter by Carol’s Daughter.

Myrrh, called a bitter perfume in the Christmas Carol We Three Kings of Orient Are, is also used today. Myrrh is a gum resin produced from a bush-like desert plant. In Arabic, the name Myrrh means bitter and this burnt orange looking substance does indeed have a strong, bitter aroma. Originally used as incense, today Yves St. Laurent’s Opium and Rage of the Seven Sinful Scents by Gendarme list myrrh as an ingredient.

Patchouli and sandalwood are both aromatic woods that come from Asia. Patchouli is grown in the East and West Indies while sandalwood comes from Nepal (about the farthest North it grows), India, Hawaii and Australia. While synthetics are often used today for these endangered woods, they have both been around for millennia as fragrance ingredients and have been prized for their healing properties.

The best-known patchouli scent on the market right now by far is Thierry Mugler’s Angel. Mugler is a French perfumist and his unique Angel perfume is one of those love-it-or-hate-it kind of scents.

Sandalwood is used in aromatherapy and also does double-duty in the perfume world since it can serve as a fixative or anchor to other scents. Sandalwood has never really gone out of style. Today it’s in lots of scents, including Dior Addict by Dior, Escada Magnetism, Hanae Mori Butterly, and the Cartier scent Delices de Cartier.

Amber has got to be one of the most surprising and unusual things that is put into perfume. People who hear that a perfume contains amber typically think of the golden resin used to make jewelry. Actually, that amber is not used in perfume making.

This amber is a short (and nicer-sounding) term for ambergris. Ambergris could be picked up along the coastline and was harvested this way for hundreds of years. It was a gray substance that beachcombers could pick up and sell to factories that used it for a variety of products. Since it had a very distinctive aroma, it was used in perfumery. Ambergris did not smell wonderful by itself, but it blended well with other ingredients and became a staple in perfume-making even before people knew what it was.

Even today, we don’t really know what ambergris is, and perhaps we don’t want to know. Sometime in the 19th century, it was known that this mysterious gray substance, which unpredictably appeared on the beaches of North America and other places, was associated with sperm whales. Today, it is thought that ambergris is a substance that sperm whales regurgitate after dining on their favorite meal of squid.

Be that as it may, amber in perfume today is synthetic stuff, made to mimic the scent of the original ambergris. Amber is found in Dolce and Gabbana’s Light Blue, Vera Wang Princess, and Stella by Stella McCartney, to name a few.

As much as perfume relies on ancient ingredients, including plants (lavender), spices (cinnamon, cloves), flowers (roses, gardenias, honeysuckle, lilies) and fruits (orange, lemon, peach), it also relies on new ingredients.

The biggest new thing in perfume is the fact that today we live in a global village. Flowers indigenous to exotic lands can be easily obtained and put into perfume. We can now take advantage of Eastern spices, South Pacific flowers, North American musk, and Indian woods. Of course, much of this happens at the lab level, meaning in the form of synthetics. This helps preserve natural resources and makes perfume quality more uniform.

Another interesting new wrinkle in the perfume world occurred in the 1920s with the advent of a chemical substance called aldehyde. Aldehyde is a synthetic odor molecule but unlike other synthetics, this wasn’t a fake anything. Aldehyde was artificial and not meant to mimic anything natural. It has a distinctive sparkly quality to it and is often mixed with florals. Probably the best known aldehyde scent in the world is the perennial favorite, Chanel No. 5. The creator of Chanel No. 5, Ernst Breaux, also created Evening in Paris, a much more difficult scent to find, but another one that uses sparkling aldehyde notes.

Today, we’ve added to our roster of synthetics plus we’ve blended more and more exotic ingredients together. Technology has also allowed us to capture unusual scents in perfume-you can find perfumes today listing ozone as an element or chocolate.

Joanna McLaughlin is a freelance writer who spends too much time at the perfume counter. For more information on perfume ingredients visit www.theperfume-reporter.com http://www.theperfume-reporter.com . For merchandise that shows you to be a woman of fragrance, please visit http;//www.cafepress.com/perfume-reporter. Joanna’s favorite perfume today is Clear by Niel Morris.

Cultural Ethnic Clothing
Asus Socket 370 Motherboard
Storage Equipment, NAS, SAN
Goggles & Sunglasses
Shortboards Surfboards

Paul Giamatti plays the role of Miles Raymond, a middle-aged, recently-divorced high school teacher struggling to publish his novel, The Day After Yesterday (which is, of course, today - but it’s not the same). The film begins when Miles picks up his college roommate Jack (Thomas Haden Church) for a one week bachelor party excursion into the vineyards of Napa Valley. With one week left as a single man, Jack is set for a week of drunkenness and debauchery - but Miles stands in his way. Suffering from a mild depression, Miles wants to savor wine rather than chug it, talk to a woman rather than sleep with her, and generally act as a drag on any of Jack’s plans.

But when Jack pushes Miles to chase after his waitress friend Maya (Virginia Madsen), life takes a turn for Miles. Meanwhile Jack carries on a torrid affair with Maya’s friend Stephanie (Sandra Oh), neither of the women knowing of Jack’s impending marriage. When the truth about Jack’s wedding slips out, the tidbit threatens to destroy each character’s relationship with the other.

Oftentimes hilarious, sometimes deeply symbolic, Sideways runs the gambit of human emotion. In addition, the lack of a manufactured plot template serves the purpose of keeping the audience on edge. You never quite know what to expect next. Thomas Haden Church (formerly of Lowell Mather fame on Wings, one my all-time favorite sitcoms) shows his diversity as an actor in his fascinating portrayal of the aggressive, hormone-driven Jack. Determined to live out a wild week of drunken sexual conquest before his wedding day, Jack’s self-destructive binge behavior stands in stark contrast to the paralyzed, low risk attitude of Miles. Together, Haden Church and Giamatti create an unforgettable screen combination.

And it’s this powder keg mixture of relationships between Jack, Miles, Maya, and Stephanie that give Sideways its enticing cinematic flavor. Virginia Madsen received her own Academy Award nomination to go along with Thomas Haden Church, but the Oscar nominations could just as easily have gone to Paul Giamatti and Sandra Oh. In short, Sideways wanders the hills of California wine country as well as the peeks and valleys of the human experience. It’s a film about life and decisions and relationships and happiness and everything else. More importantly, it’s one of the most interesting and entertaining films of the last several years, and that’s why Sideways is a definite must-see film.

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find where you can find more reviews of movies and TV series. Source: thedvdreport.blogspot.com/2006/01/sideways-dvd.html http://thedvdreport.blogspot.com/2006/01/sideways-dvd.html

AP - The Lebanese gunman at the center of Israel’s prisoner swap with Hezbollah spent three decades in an Israeli prison for one of the grisliest attacks in the country’s history.

Safety, Protective Gear Sale
Winches, Come Alongs, Straps
Bulk Bricks Childrens Toys
Snowboarding
X-Box 360 Games

Addressing a group of scientists last week, Mr. Blair suggested that opponents of genetically modified foods aren’t “rational” when debating this issue.

Government must show leadership and courage in standing up for science and rejecting an irrational public debate around it [GM food], said Mr. Blair, referring to “those who have distorted facts to oppose developments such as GM foods.”

Mr. Blair, expectedly, did receive flaks for these remarks. Some challenged him to state if he was openly criticizing Prince Charles, who has openly opposed genetically modified foods [I must, hereby, mention that Prince Charles is wrong to use the privileges of the British throne to make statements that can’t be scientifically substantiated about genetically modified foods].

Others insinuated that it was payback time to multinational biotechnology companies, for millions of dollars donated to the Labor Party.

I found this quite amusing because of instead of addressing real issues, Mr. Blair’s critics decided to dwell on side issues. This, needless to say, has been the hallmark of the debate about genetically modified foods.

Opponents of genetically modified foods dare not attack the science behind genetically modified food because they have no case to make against it. Instead, they go for fringe issues with the aim of confusing the public.

Mr. Blair is right in urging the public to “discuss technological innovations in a more scientifically literate fashion.” Those who genuinely care about food safety should support and not criticize him. Mr. Blair evidently means well for the world.

How else can the world determine the safety of genetically modified foods other than subjecting them to thorough laboratory investigations? This is the premise of Mr. Blair’s argument.

Genetically modified foods have been subjected to rigorous examination by various scientific bodies. The British Royal Society of Science has produced numerous reports showing that genetically modified foods can be beneficial to humans and the environment.

Various United Nations Agencies, notably the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have also published similar reports.

Perhaps Mr. Blair should use his political leverage to prevail upon other European countries to change their attitude towards genetically modified foods. Currently, Europe maintains the most draconian and restrictive laws on genetically modified food. These laws aren’t informed by science, but by populist sentiments

James Wachai is a communication expert, specializing in agricultural issues, and also authors the blog GMO Africa - www.gmoafrica.org http://www.gmoafrica.org

Mixed Items Comics Sale
Soup, Steam Kettles Food Service
Jennifer Connelly
Internet Business Opportunity
Hummer Mens Fragrances