Book Review - Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss

"No wonder it's so hard to lose weight- our bodies are designed to keep weight on at all costs; it's a matter of survival. It's embedded in our DNA." In essence, we are designed to gain weight, expounds Mark Hyman, M.D. in his new bestselling book Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss. This books follows on the heels of his previous bestseller, UltraPrevention: The 6-Week Plan that Will Make You Healthy for Life that he coauthored and proves to be every bit as informative. Dr. Hyman, who has a passion for the cutting-edge science of Western medicine and alternative health for over 20 years, maintains that Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss is not just another of many weight loss books on the market. Rather, the book is your body’s owner's manual for overall health. He distills his knowledge into a healthy lifestyle, which reduces the factors of a number of epidemic health problems and degenerative diseases currently plaguing us, while at the same time we also gain the positive side-effect of weight loss.

Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss dives in by turning much of what we believe as conventional wisdom concerning weight loss on its head. Much of what we think we know about weight loss actually has been making us gain weight. As evidence, the book points to the fact that despite the $50 billion we spend on weight loss every year in America, whether it's diet pills, programs or exercise routines, they all have a dismal success record. In fact, for every diet we go on, we end up gaining five pounds on average in the long run. Obesity is now overtaking smoking as the number one cause of preventable deaths with almost 70 percent of the adult population and one third of our children now overweight. Compounding the problem are the profitable foods the food industry pushes, entrenched pharmaceutical companies and our own government's recommendations, especially when it comes to the "food pyramid" or low fat in our diets.

In part I, Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss exposes seven hoary myths that make us unhealthy, gain weight and keep it on. First there is the Starvation Myth: Eating less and exercising more does not equal weight loss. Next is the Calorie Myth: All calories are created equal. Third is the Fat Myth. Eating fat makes you fat. Fourth is the Carb Myth. Eating a low carb or no carb diet will make you thin. Fifth is the Sumo Wrestler Myth: Skipping meals helps you lose weight. Sixth is the French Paradox Myth: The French are thin because they drink wine and eat butter, and last but not least is the Protector Myth: Government food policies and food industry regulations protect our health. Moreover, the book points out that the introduced man-made substances such as "trans-fats", which are found in nearly every processed and packaged food because they never spoil, are adding to our overall exploding health and weight problems over the past 30 years. This consumable plastic disrupts our metabolism by actually turning on a gene in your DNA, which slows metabolism causing you to gain weight. The book also discusses another danger to our health: the man-made supersugars, such as high-fructose corn syrup, which is used to sweeten almost everything these days including soft drinks. These supersugars quickly enter your bloodstream and trigger hormonal and chemical changes which induces insulin surges that tell your brain to eat more and your fat cells to store more fat.

If there are substances and foods that we eat that can trigger negative results, then surly there are ways to make us healthy and loose weight. Part II of Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss gives us the keys to turn on our metabolism and fat burning genes, turn off your weight gain genes, and program your body to lose weight automatically. The book takes this even further in part III by providing menus and recipes, along with exercise and lifestyle treatments designed to create healthy metabolism and overall health. This section of the book is designed so it can be customized to meet your unique genetic needs to optimally awaken your fat-burning DNA.

Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss provides a vivid road map to navigate our way back to health and fitness. And in so doing we will be successful in our quest for long-term weight loss without counting calories, fat grams or carbs. We don't have to starve ourselves; we simply need to eat in harmony with our genes.

Book Review: The Covenant with Black America

The Covenant with Black America is the brainchild of Tavis Smiley. For the past seven years, the talk show host has had his own "State of the Black Union" symposium. Seeing that simply exchanging opinions with the nation's top black leaders was not sufficient, he decided to chart a course for the African American Community. To provide a structured blueprint, The Covenant with Black America have assembled a scholarly collection of 10 short essays by esteemed experts in various disciplines to address the devastating social, political and economic disparities facing many African Americans. Each chapter or "covenant" looks at one pivotal issue and supplies the reader with a list of resources and suggested plans of action that individuals and governments can do to make a difference in their communities. This high-octane approach, as the book indicates on its back cover, is "to shift the conversation from talking about our pain to talking about our plan" for the African American community.

As might be expected, any best-selling book that tackles such a profound and often neglected need in our society is likely to generate some controversy. The proposed formulas for addressing a host of ills, from the skewed criminal justice system to substandard education to toxic waste in poor neighborhoods, to name a few, is not without it's critics. For others The Covenant with Black America did not meet some expectations and go far enough.

Despite the diversity of contributors of the various covenants, the book has a rather monotone character throughout. This is probably due to the consistent format that each essay follows as dictated by the book. Each chapter starts out with an introductory essay identifying the issues at hand. Then there is a treatise of the subject, complete with a table of statistics, followed by shared solutions under the headings of "What the Community Can Do", "What Every Individual Can Do", "What Works Now", and "What Every Leader and Elected Official Can Do." However, the general theme, despite the shared solution topics, seems to be almost always weighted towards heavy governmental intervention. In short, a "fix it with finance" solution to the problems. Critics of this book, both black and white, point out that the Government does not solve problems, it funds them. It could be pointed out, for example, that the past governmental housing projects have in fact created a type of apartheid for much of the African American community, thus isolating and amplifying the negative thought processes of those so confined. The symptomatic results are evidenced in school dropout rates, drugs and gang violence. So dysfunctional has this public policy been, that some cities have started to tear down their projects. Throwing more money at the problem, for them, is not the solution.

In this same vein, the tile "covenant," is perhaps a misnomer for this book. A covenant is a pact. And a pact, as such, requires that both parties perform a specific set of criteria. Although there is a "What every Individual Can Do" section of each chapter, there is not a clear sense of endorsement as to a national plan of action by individuals in addressing these problems. As there are 10 different introductory essays, each written by different individuals, it is difficult to get a comprehensive picture of what is promised by whom and when, with no real teeth of accountability as might be expected in an actual covenant. Equally disappointing, the book does not really explore core self-responsibility issues, such as the need to look at the spiritual, mental and emotional health of the individual as a way of making true progress.

Also, what would be refreshing would be to have each essay focus on setting definitive goals over a specific time period. Such as by 2015, 60 percent of black males will be in college; or that 80 percent of toxic waste in poor neighborhoods will be cleaned up. Without specific goals, many of the suggestions, while well intentioned, seem ineffectual.

Still, the real virtue of this book lies in putting these critical issues before all Americans. Whether you agree with the diagnosis and prescriptions of the essays in The Covenant with Black America is not the issue. The issue is to increase awareness, dialogue and debate in how best to address the needs of those most disenfranchised in our nation.

At 254 pages, this provocative book is well worth the modest retail price of only $12.00. Given the many social challenges we as a nation face, it is a small price to pay to be a party to the trends of a bestseller. All profits from this book are dedicated to Third World Press.

Book Review: The Bottomless Well: Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy

For anyone who has any interest in energy, its cost, future and the political debate over this precious resource- The Bottomless Well is a must read. This book is an intriguing insight to the other side of what most of us have been led to believe on the environmentalist monopoly of the subject. The Bottomless Well makes the case that most of the things we think we know are mostly myths- because we really don't understand what the essence of energy is in the first place. The book demonstrates how a better understanding of energy will radically change our views and policies on a number of very controversial issues. The Bottomless Well also explains why demand for energy will only continue to increase, why most of what we believe is "energy waste" actually proves out to be a benefit for all; why more efficient vehicles, engines, and light bulbs will never lower demand, and why the earth’s energy supply is actually infinite.

The Bottomless Well goes on to point out that that the cost of energy has increasingly less and less to do with the actual cost of fuel. With roughly five percent of the world’s population, America consumes over 25 percent of the world's natural gas, 43 percent of its motor gasoline, 25 percent of its crude petroleum, 23 percent of its coal, and 26 percent of its total electricity production. But the book points out that most our energy consumption isn't for locomotion, lighting, or cooling. What we use energy for, mainly, is to extract, refine, process, and purify energy into ever higher states of efficiency. The more efficient our technology, the more energy we actually consume; not save, because the cost to reward ratio is so positive for the consumers of this highly refined energy. The book also point out that the competitive advantage in manufacturing will soon be shifting decisively back toward the U.S.: the human demand for energy will only continue to grow and is indeed insatiable; raw fuels sources are not running out; and America's relentless pursuit of high-grade energy does not add chaos to the global environment but rather restores it to order. Indeed, expanding energy supplies mean higher productivity, more jobs, and a growing GDP. Across the board- energy isn't the problem, energy is the solution.

While the conventional wisdom holds that energy consumption is the problem and certainly some would disagree from an environmental impact concerning (at lest fossil fuel) energy consumption, The Bottomless Well argues that from an environmental perspective it also makes sense to use energy in an ever more efficient state. For example America, unlike most of the poor developing countries, is a net carbon sink. That is, despite all the pollution produced in America, there is more CO2 PPM upwind of America on the Pacific side then there is downstream of it over the Atlantic. This fact is undisputed, but although the book does offer some anecdotal reasons why this might be the case there is no definitive evidence to explain this unexpected phenomenon.

I would strongly recommend The Bottomless Well to anyone, no matter where they might stand on the issues of energy, the environment or politics. The book breaks the mold on many of our conventional views of energy, how we use it and why. At very least The Bottomless Well opens the door to another school of thought, not to mention a healthy debate about energy policy and our future.

Book Review: Now, Discover Your Strengths

There seems to be no lack of the number of books written about personality traits, talents and how to more effectively manage personnel to the advantage of the organization. However, Marcus Buckingham, coauthor of the book First, Break All the Rules, and Donald O. Clifton, Chair of the Gallup International Research & Education Center, now provide managers with a positive approach to help identify and utilize strengths of individuals to the benefit of the organization in their bestselling Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book maintains that this unique, positive approach of focusing on strengths is far more effective in achieving success than eliminating weaknesses, given that we all have inherent strengths and natural weaknesses no matter what positions we might have. For example, the book points out, it does not matter if you are Bill Gates or Tiger Woods. True, these are individuals with tremendous talents that have made them well known in their respective fields, but they also have weaknesses that play into the mix. It would seem our brains are programmed by nature from early childhood, no matter how good our nurture, to start being selective in a few key areas. It is as nature intended it to be. Without being selective, and allowing many of the billions of connections we are born with to lapse into disrepair, we would become dysfunctional with information overload. Therefore, it is understandable that with sufficient practice, while we might be able to learn different tasks well, we will never be great in these areas unless we have a natural innate talent for them.

Unfortunately, most of us do not have a good sense of our talents, let alone the ability to effectively use our strengths to our advantage. Rather, most of us spend our lives becoming all too aware of our weaknesses and spend our time trying to deal with our flaws, while neglecting our innate talents. However, most original and potentially most revealing, to address this problem, Now, Discover Your Strengths provides access to a web-based interactive questionnaire, developed by the Gallup Organization, that quickly identifies your top 5 (out of a total of 34) positive "personality themes", such as: Achiever, Deliberative, Harmony, Empathy and so forth that you might naturally posses. The book goes on to elaborate how each of the 34 unique themes can be identified, complete with individual profiles describing how each might act and what each might "sound like." As each sees the world through their own strengths filter, it is easy to have friction between different individuals within the same department or organization, because we all see the world, and how it should look, so differently. While one may hear what someone else is saying, they may not be able to assimilate it into their own world effectively. This is why partners or advisors are often so effective, as they ad balance to the limits of others. One word of caution however: do not buy this book used if you intend to take the preference test. There is a unique, one-time code that comes with each copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths, which is absolutely necessary in order to access the website's resources. The book has limited value without the ability to take the online test. However, the test alone is well worth the price of the entire book just by itself. With this resource, you will better understand how to build a "strengths-based organization" by capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present among those within it.

With an estimated 8 out of 10 people in this country not really in a position to capitalize on their strengths and talents, chances are most of us could benefit from reading this book. As most of us fail to capitalize on our strengths, it is not surprising that most departments in any company, no matter the size of the organization, are not operating at even par performance. The risk doing nothing is costly- not only in lost productivity, but in job satisfaction, employee retention and absenteeism and so on. This groundbreaking, resourceful book is easy to read in short concise chapters. Along with the associated preference test, Now, Discover Your Strengths, is a positive cost effective solution in resolving problems, and helping each employee achieve his or her full potential. This is must read for managers and office teams who want a win-win solution in improving their own departments, as well as the lives of those who work for them.

Book Review - Marley and Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

Looking for a heartwarming frolic through the life of a dog? John Grogan new bestselling book Marley & Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog delivers. This story of a young family making their way through life with the help of a neurotic dog will have you laughing out loud one moment, and then wiping a tear the next.

Maybe your thinking "I don't like dogs... why would I want to read an entire book about one?" Let me confide with you: that is exactly what I thought when I picked Marley & Me off the shelf. I have never owned a dog, and don't especially like my neighbor's dog. I have no plans to ever own a pet dog... this book definitely served to solidify my determination never to own "man's best friend".

However, whether or not you are a "dog person", there is still an awful lot to gain and enjoy while reading this book. The memories are so personal and heart-felt, at times you can completely forget Marley has anything to do with the book. But then he comes barreling back in the next paragraph, bringing humorous antics with every step.

The book starts with a young couple, John and Jenny, newly weds in Palm Beach, looking for some new challenge in life. They were deeply in love, with a great house, great careers, and not a care in the world. That lasts about 2 pages... that is until they bring Marley home. Little did they know that their lives would never be the same again.

As a ninety-seven pound Labrador retriever with more energy that an Alaskan oil rig, Marley's entry into John and Jenny's life is a whirlwind of disaster. Crashing through screen doors, destroying carpets, gouging drywall, eating jewelry are all in a day's work for the pup. Yet through it all, the book points out the unconditional love Marley has for his family, and they have for him. Just as his ruinous powers appear endless, his love and loyalty know no bounds.

In this book John Grogan takes us along to some of Marley's craziest adventures. The story of Marley being thrown out of obedience school is hilarious, mostly because of the hard nosed dog trainer who eventually has her pride fed to her by Marley in a silver doggy bowl. When Marley is cast in a local film production as the "typical family dog", we all cringe at what damage this dog can do. Sure enough, after a full day of filming a 15 second clip, the only thing Marley has accomplished is destroying the set and chewing through his leash.

One of the most memorable stories is that of the Grogan family going out on the town for a family dinner. With Marley in toe, they decide the Florida weather justifies eating outside on the patio of a ritzy restaurant. Marley is secured to the cast iron dining table, and drinks are served. However, when Marley spots another dog strutting down the road, he charges after, dragging the metal table with him, and clearing a wake several yards across. Needless to say, the family didn't take Marley out on too many family dinners there after.

A big part of Marley & Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog actually has very little to do with the big animal. The book reads like a well written journal, describing the new couples excitement over their first pregnancy, and heartbreak over the subsequent miscarriage. John overcomes deep-rooted family concerns, while Jenny copes with serious depression. While the book is primarily a comical, laugh-a-minute adventure, it is definitely not without its sober moments. However, these honest and intent pages give Marley & Me the sole it needs to rise above other light-hearted tales.

Overall, Marley & Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog is an excellent book that can be enjoyed by all sorts of people (even cat lovers). The stories are funny and meaningful, the drama is heartwarming and sincere, and the dog is a complete mess. In the end, Marley reminds us all that life should be lived to its fullest, that we should love people unconditionally, and that shredded upholstery is a small price to pay for a life-long friend.

Book Review: Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, & Dismissed

Almost everyone has been fired from a job, and just about everyone has a story to go along with it. Annabelle Gurwitch, the actor and screen writer, decided to capitalize on this fact by compiling and editing a collection of humorous "down-sizing" stories in her book Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed. After being fired by the media icon (and consequently her idol) Woody Allen, Annabelle decided to take her story to the publishers- along with several other tales from well known actors and media personal, including Bill Maher, Tim Allen, Tate Donovan (actor and director in The O.C.), Harry Shearer (actor in This is Spinal Tap), Dana Gould (writer for The Simpsons), Bob Saget and more.

The book is divided into five chapters: The Job So Terrible You Can Only Hope to Be Fired, The Firing You Didn't See Coming, The Time You Deserved to be Fired, The Time Getting Fired Leads You to Something Better, and The Time You Had to Fire Yourself. Each chapter is as witty as the last, and will keep you reading and laughing through till the next. And with over a dozen "tales of the canned" in each chapter, you will have plenty of laughing to enjoy.

Many of the true stories found in this book are so funny, they will have you laughing out loud. The story of Paul Feig (director of Arrested Development and The Office) losing his Ronald McDonald gig because of a magical comparison between a rubber chicken and Chicken McNuggets he made to a group of school kids while wearing the clown suit will probably remain with me for the rest of my life. In another favorite story, Jeff Garlin (actor in Curb Your Enthusiasm) explains how he was fired for throwing a bowl of Fruity-Pebbles at a hotel wall... and all just because they stuck. Larry Charles (writer for Senifeld) reminds us that Taxi companies should never offer employment to a teen-age kid who has just acquired his license that very day; wrecking his cab before he even got it out of the parking lot. Stories like these are worth the price of this book alone.

To round each story off, the book also includes "Fired Facts": brief and amusing factoids about being fired, and the workplace in general. For example: "Increased risk of heart attack faced by employer firing an employee in the week after wielding the ax: 100%". What a great way to end your career - with your former boss in the hospital!

While Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed is entertaining (being fired with the line "Take that hanger off your head, you idiot!" may be the best thing that has ever happened to me), it completely fails to connect with the reader. Each story falls into one of two major camps: meaningless high school jobs that no one regrets losing, and glamorous Hollywood jobs that, while interesting, are entirely foreign to the average reader.

In the introduction to this book, Annabelle Gurwitch concludes "So you were fired. Welcome to the club. We've been waiting for you." However, this book fails to present any "club" you or I are ever likely to be a member of. While almost anyone can related with being fired from a job, the stories in this book are quite different from any workplace axing I have experienced. And unless you have felt the horror of losing a job because your character was shot in the last episode, you will probably be unable to relate as well.

If you are looking for a light, entertaining read to get you through the work week, I would recommend Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed. Though the book will probably not help you reminisce about jobs long past, that may be for the best. What better way to forget about your own "down-sizing" experiences that to hear the stories of a celebrity with their head on the chopping block.

Book Review: A History of the World in 6 Glasses

World History is a long and complex topic. Though many accomplished authors such as Bill Bryson and H. G. Wells have attempted to condense history into a single book, very few have succeeded. There is just too much of it. Attempts to boil down the last 10,000 years have resulted in either superficial books with very little depth, or great textbook like tombs too inaccessible for the casual reader.

Happily, A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage succeeds where others have failed. Standage's book does this by sacrificing the breadth of every possible topic for an impressive depth and focus. Instead of trying to sum up the complete history of man, this book spotlights a single topic, in this case beverages, and then takes the reader on a journey through time to see how his topic interweaves the past. Standage is a delightful writer, mixing his light hearted style with exceptional historical savvy not just on the topic of drinks, but throughout.

Despite my now positive opinion of this book, I have to confess that when I first picked up A History of the World in 6 Glasses, I did not expect to enjoy it. Not only am I skeptical of any book claiming to sum up the antiquity of man in 300 pages or less, but I myself do not drink any of the 6 beverages this book discusses. As such, learning the history of these drinks did not sound immediately appealing. However, what I quickly learned is that this book is not a history of 6 drinks, but rather just as the title states, a history of the world, told through the story of 6 drinks. As the book points out in the introduction, second only to air, liquid is the most vital substance to man's survival. The availability of water and other drinking sources have "constrained and guided humankind's progress" and "have continued to shape human history". Throughout time, beverages have done more than quenched our thirst; they have been used as currencies, medicines, and in religious rites. They have served as symbols of wealth and power, as well as tools to appease the poor and downtrodden.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses is broken down into six sections, one for each drink, the first of which is beer. Man's first civilizations where founded on surplus cereal production, much of which was brewed. Ancient day beers were high in vitamin B, a vitamin previously only obtained through meat. This allowed the population to focus their nutrition efforts more and more on cereals, effectively ushering in the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Additionally, because early beers were boiled (to convert more starch into sugars), the beer was significantly safer to drink than water. This significant improvement in lifestyle "freed a small fraction of the population from the need to work in the fields, and made possible the emergence of specialist priest, administrators, scribes, and craftsmen." Not only did beer nourish man's first civilizations, but in many ways, made them entirely possible.

Wine, the next beverage in the book, played a major role in the flourishing Greek and Roman cultures. As wine did not originate from the Mediterranean, the Greek's desire for this drink opened up vast seaborne trade, which spread their philosophy, politics, science and literature far and wide, and still underpins modern Western thought. A History of the World in 6 Glasses points out how these advancements originated and grew at formal Greek drinking parties, called symposia. The Romans, who absorbed much of Greek culture, continued the strong use of wine. As the book notes, if you trace the wine drinking areas of the world on a map, you will find you have traced the Roman empire at its height.

After a thousand years of hibernation, Western civilization was awakened by the rediscovery of ancient knowledge, long safeguarded in the Arab world. However, in an attempt to circumvent this Arab monopoly, European monarchs launched massive fleets into the sea. This age of exploration was greatly enhanced by the Arab knowledge of distillation, which made a whole new range of drinks possible. A History of the World in 6 Glasses describes how these condensed forms of alcohol (namely Brandy, Whiskey and Rum) were so popular, especially in the new American colonies, that "they played a key role in the establishment of the United States."

The fourth beverage presented in this book is coffee. Because of its sharpening effect on the mind, coffee quickly became the drink of intellect and industry. Replacing taverns as the sophisticated meeting place, the coffeehouse "led to the establishment of scientific societies and financial institutions, the founding of newspapers, and provided fertile ground for revolutionary thought, particularly in France." A History of the World in 6 Glasses goes on to recount the intricate effect coffeehouses had on Victorian culture, going so far as to dedicate an entire chapter to what the book calls "The Coffeehouse Internet".

Even though the inception of tea date back many thousands of years, it didn't take hold upon western culture until the mid-seventeenth century. Once established as England's national drink, the importing of tea from first China and then India led to trade and industrialization on an unprecedented scale. A History of the World in 6 Glasses describes the immense power of the British East India Company, which "generated more revenue than the British government and ruled over far more people", wielding more power than any other corporation in history. This imbalance of power had an enormous, far-reaching effect on British foreign policy, and ultimately contributed to the independence of the United States.

Like most of the drinks discussed in A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Coca-Cola was originally devised as a medical drink. More than any other product, Coca-Cola has stood as the symbol of America's "vibrant consumer capitalism". Rather than shrink at the challenge, Coca-Cola took full advantage of the challenging times it found itself in, gaining ground through the depression, and then traveling alongside our soldiers into WWII, becoming a global phenomenon. According to the book, Coca-Cola still accounts for "around 30 percent of all liquid consumption" today.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses makes it clear that the history of mankind is a history of our consumption. Whether we are drinking "liquid bread" in Mesopotamia, pondering revolution in a Coffeehouse in Paris, or throwing tea leafs into the ocean in Boston, these drinks have had a profound impact on who we are. As Standage says in the introduction to his book "They survive in our homes today as living reminders of bygone eras, fluid testaments to the forces that shaped the modern world. Uncover their origins, and you may never look at your favorite drink in quite the same way again." I highly recommend this book to anyone thirsty for knowledge about the world around them... or even if they're just thirsty for a good drink.

Simple Steps To Follow Before You Buy Your Home Theater Audio System

If you're ready to buy a home theater audio system here are some tips to help you find the right system for you.

Spend a little time in the room where you are planning to put your new audio system. Whether you know it or not the room is a large component in your home theater system. Consider whether or not this room will be used solely for the system or will also be used for other family activities. This will also help you decide if there any considerations with regard to the size of the components and speakers you plan to buy.

You might want to draw a map of the room where you plan to install the audio system which includes all the furniture as well as the components and speakers. Measure the room and make a list of all of the inputs that you currently have and will need to use. Also make a list of the inputs you intend to add for the new audio system. Write down which components will need cables and wires. All this should be worked out prior to going to the store to purchase a new audio system.

Think about how you will arrange a room for the best picture and sound by reducing screen glare and hard surface reflections. It's very difficult to see the TV picture when light is reflecting off the screen. Furthermore, audio does not sound very good when it reflects off of bare walls and windows.

Sit down on your couch and spend a few minutes thinking about the experience your are looking for when you set down with your partner and a big bowl popcorn. Do you want the experience of the theater with surround sound? Will you be watching mostly movies?

Spend some time during research to get as much information as possible about home theater audio systems before you buy anything. You can find out information from friends, family, trading consumer magazines as well as home theater system forms.

Go back and take a look at the drawing room once you have your research. Now you should be in a position to determine exactly what you want and need.

There are some good deals out there but the trick is to become an expert on home theater audio systems. Large electronic department stores offer promotions but online manufacturers can offer lower mark up than retailers.

Consider the size of your room and the size of your TV. You want to have balance. If your TV is too large you only see details of the screen and not the image. If it is too small you might feel like you're sitting in a nosebleed section.

Take your time and do your research and you'll find the perfect home theater audio system to meet your needs.

Book Review: The Straw Bale House

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Book Review: The Straw Bale House

If we learned anything from childhood, it was not to build our houses out of straw. After all, that big bad wolf was just waiting to blow it down. But that was before the world knew the numerous advantages of using compressed straw bales, as a key building material as outlined in the book The Straw Bale House. This easy to understand book is comprehensive in its education on how to build with straw- so that no wolf (or tornado for that matter) can ever blow it down. The book covers why and how to build with straw bales, while also illustrating necessary details to create an aesthetically and sound home at an affordable price. To portray this point, The Straw Bale House provides a good number of enlightening black and white diagrams as well as impressive color photographs. I would have to say The Straw Bale House is the Bible of straw bale construction books and therefore an indispensable starting point for anyone looking into the straw bale home concept. After purchasing the book (well worth the price) I had no reservations about going ahead with my own project and building with straw bales. Both new and experienced builders will appreciate the clear, simple instructions and diagrams, as well as practical explanations for dealing with building codes and insurers.

The Straw Bale House also nurtures you on the many practical advantages of building with compressed straw bales. In addition to being inexpensive, straw bale serve as a clean, and lightweight building material that is easy to work with. The book discusses the many important advantages straw offers such as super high-energy efficiency (a need in today’s high heating costs), superior fire resistance, while at the same time seismically correct. In addition, this all-natural material, as a recycled agricultural byproduct of grain production, is a sustainable, renewable resource. While enthusiasts of straw bale construction praise this method of building for the aforementioned reasons, the actual reason so many people are turning to straw bale homes is because they are so often extraordinarily beautiful and inviting, as The Straw Bale House's many color photographs displays. Clearly, inexpensive doesn't have to mean low quality nor unattractive. The natural materials used in creating a straw bale home exude a lot of chi. And so does this book. The Straw Bale House would be a good addition to any coffee table.

Condi: The Condoleeza Rice Story

I had the satisfaction the other day of having finished a book. Yes, you would think that those of us who write for a living would be great readers. Some of us are, some of us aren’t. I probably am fairly well read overall, but that covers magazines, newspapers, articles, and the like for the most part…especially if they can be found online!

My wife picked up a book for me this past Christmas and she hit it right on the mark — Condi: The Condoleeza Rice Story. Written by Antonia Felix, the book traces the remarkable life of now Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice from her days living in highly segregated Birmingham, Alabama during the 1950s and 1960s through her years as an academic scholar, college professor, and university provost, all the way up to her present work with the Bush Administration. Written in 2003, the book still has Condi as National Security Advisor to the president, but in 2004 Condi replaced Colin Powell as the Secretary of State.

The book delves into Condi’s life and doesn’t hold back on much. No, not much to criticize about this consummate overachiever, rather plenty of praise for a role model who has triumphed in the face of overwhelming odds, let alone overwhelming adversity.

Condi is not just a leading scholar, but she is an expert in Soviet {Russian} affairs, an accomplished pianist, and an avid football fan. Driven? Oh, yes! But, not in the “possessed” or “obsessed” sense of the word. As a black woman working in a mostly white male environment Condi has established herself on her terms and not on someone else’s. “Twice as good” was the mantra passed down to Condi by her parents who believed that black children had to do everything twice as well as white children in order to be considered equal in a segregated society.

I won’t give all the details of the book away, but there are some highly interesting aspects about Condi that some people probably just don’t know. Personally, I don’t think Condi will run for president on the Republican ticket in 2008 as some desire — instead, she aspires to be president of the NFL — but whatever Condi chooses to do beyond her time working with President Bush will more than likely include breaking new ground and setting the trend for all who come behind her.

How to Write a Summary

Read the paragraphs carefully. Determine its structure. Identify the inventor's resolution in literature. (This will help you to distinguish between more worthy and less high-ranking word.)

Reread, label, and underline. This time division the piece into sections or time of held. The author's use of will often be a suitable influence. Label, on the corridor itself, each section or time of said. Underline key way of thinking and terms.

Write one-sentence abstract, on a autonomous sheet of paper, of each of alleged.

Write a thesis--a one-sentence summary of the unqualified growth. The thesis express the crucial idea of the part, as you have resolute it from the preceding staircase. You may find it effective to keep in mind the material limited in the lead sentence or column of most newspaper stories--the what, who, why, where, when, and how of the matter. For winning passages, digest in a sentence the essayist's conclusion. For colorful passages, show the follower of the report and its key countryside. Note: In some assignment a apposite thesis may before now be in the original passage. If so, you may want to citation it clearly in your summary.

Write the first waft of your summary by (1) combining the thesis with your list of one-sentence abridgment or (2) combining the thesis with one-sentence digest plus important facts from the channel. In either case, abolish repetition. Eliminate less crucial statistics. Disregard secondary details, or generalize them. Use as few text as conceivable to take the main point of view.

Check your summary against the original enactment, and make whatever correction are essential for exactitude and completeness.

Revise your summary, embedding provisional dispute and expression where necessitous to ensure unity. Check for style. Avoid succession of short, shifting condemnation. Combine judgment for a easy, commonsense flow of ideas. Check for right exactness, punctuation, and presage.

American Theocracy, a Book Review

In his two most recent books, American Dynasty and Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips has perhaps rightly earned the prestigious moniker of America's premier analyst and critic. Now, in his new release, a doom and gloom tome some 480 pages long, Kevin Phillips assails three overlapping, growing, forces that threaten to rain on the parade of the American way of life. Actually, American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, at $26.95 retail is still a great value because it is really three books in one, with just enough threads woven between the very different but often interrelated fabrics to help illustrate the upcoming perfect storm.

Kevin Phillips, as a former Republican strategist and observer for over 30 years, has a keen sense of the current political and economic landscape. When contrasted against his commanding historical perspectives, the author is aptly able in his book to show how past world powers, from the Roman to the British empires, have faced and failed the same critical circumstances the United States currently faces at the beginning of the 21st century. American Theocracy demonstrates that essentially every world dominating power is lured by the sirens of global over-reach and ultimately falls into the traps of resource depletion, runaway debt and the wars of militant religion.

In Part I of American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips looks at the ramifications of our preocupation of oil, past and present. The book maintains that American supremacy was derived by our exploitation and effective use of a newly useable form of energy on the world stage. While other nations were trapped in their inertias of coal, wind and water infrastructures, America quickly realized the versatility of this black gold and leveraged a nation around it. In fact, with only roughly five percent of the world's population, Americans still consume over 25 percent of the world's oil. But supply of this precious resource has always been a concern. American Theocracy points to World War II especially, which was waged by Japan and Germany to secure their hold on this vital fossil fuel for modern economies. The book takes care to explain that America itself has been heavily involved in its own petro-imperialism over the last century. Moreover, the life blood of our economy is becoming more difficult to find and extract even as the world economies are demanding more. One little know fact in all of this, as other Middle East supplies are being exhausted, is that Iraq is the last large pool of oil on the planet. And all of this still virtually untapped, near the surface. American Theocracy describes how Iraq has never been able to pump much of its oil, with U.N. sanctions in the 90's, war with Iran in the 80's and so forth. With the thinly disguised cloak of spreading democracy and fighting terror, it is of little surprise, given our history of petro-imperialism in the Middle East, and the fact that there is an estimated one trillion dollars in estimated profits for the (American) companies who will pump it, that we found ourselves with troops in Iraq.

Complicating matters further, Part II of this book explores the unprecedented rise in evangelical religion and its surging influence in American politics, especially under the presidency of George W. Bush. Kevin Phillips believes Republicans view the world in apocalyptic terms and endeavor to shape domestic and foreign policy around fundamentalist religion. This undue influence of faith over fact, and religion over (prudent) reason has resulted in inept policies, which only serve to weaken our respect, prestige and effectiveness in the world. This zealous underpinning has put us on a collision course with much of Islam, swelling the ranks, ironically, of terrorists, not to mention many other miscalculations, putting us in peril of a self-fulfilling prophecy. American Theocracy describes how we are endangering our future, as virtually every war is fought over resources or religious ideology. We seem to be running out of the former and have an over abundance of the latter.

In Part III, American Theocracy contends what is the traditional hallmark of an overextended world power: over consumption and massive public and private debt. Huge trade deficits, trillions of dollars in national debt and financial speculation, made worse by the influence of big business and Wall Street on Washington only serve to exacerbate the problem. The Republican Party, once the icon of sound fiscal policy, has discarded its ideals by mortgaging our country's financial health and future to the whim of other countries in order to fund and maintain our status quo around the world.

American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century is not without its critics. Many feel Kevin Phillips is biased and bigoted in his view as he tackles the concerns he has for the Christian right and their influence in America today. Others may feel he is not always accurate in his facts. But this is to be expected by stirring the pot and necessarily not always being politically correct. Having said that in view of the import of the thesis presented in no way detracts nor dismisses these vital problems all Americans face.

How to Find a Book Using Online Bookstores

Looking for improving your gaming skills by reading some of the best books on professional gaming that are around? That is a good idea, but, and as you may have already noticed, it is easier said than done. Once you go online to one of the many online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes and Ruble and can type in a phrase  you get a long list (if you are lucky) of potential books.

What do you do then? How do you know which book suits you? And if you even could figure that out, how do you know the book is worth anything? Many of the authors are pros, but, then, you can also easily land up on amateur writers who are just trying to make a buck. Exactly for this, we have compiled a list of five practical suggestions to help you.

1) Reviews and Opinions Matter.
One of the most interesting methods of screening authors and books is by reading what other readers have to say about those literary objects. Look up one of the many forums online that focus on books and either ask a direct question or read what others have said. Another option is to look up the book at different online bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon but also others such as The Literary Guild and Pickabook. (Look them at this list compiled by the World Wide Web Virtual Library: http://archive.museophile.org/bookstores) The reasons for doing this is that for every book you can read reviews from different sites. Do this and you are reducing the chances of reading only promotional material. It goes without saying that opt for those books that receive good reviews. Generally, a book will receive some bad reviews, but look at the majority viewpoint. Note that if the book you wish to buy is new, you will not find reviews. In such a case, you will just have to take a risk.

2) Be Specific.
One of the methods of searching for a book that interests you is by narrowing down the search by typing a long search term and not just one name. For instance, type down how to play Texas holdem in an online tournament instead of just Texas holdem. Such a search will result in only a few book options. First, look up reviews and views on it and then look at its size and focus of interest.

3) Check the Experience of the Author.
Buying a book is just like buying a car. Would you be willing to pay more for a Mercedes? Likewise, check the author or editor. If the author is unknown, tread very carefully. The book might be useless. But remember that its not enough that the author is well known or has years of professional expertise, they must be experienced in the exact field of the subject of the book.

4) Check the Printing History of the Author.
After checking the authors personal biography and his scope of knowledge as pertains to the issue in question, you should, then, check his style of writing. You will not want to fall asleep on the second page, do you? If their style of writing pleases you, try reading parts of their work. Read articles or portions of other books they have read. Do this to get an idea of whether they can write and whether they are capable of handling complicated issues and putting them across in easy to understand language.

5) The Price Factor.
When looking at books, the first thing (or the second) we tend to look at is the price. Yes, you should know whether you can afford to buy it or not, but do not make you decision based on whether a book is cheap or expensive. First, check whether the book is what you are looking for. Then, decided whether you can afford it and not vice versa. Likewise, do not just buy a book because its on sale. Remember that if a book is on sale it means that no one is buying it!