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freshwater pearl bracelet

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2009 at 10:27 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Flowers are one of the freshwater pearl bracelet most romantic things about a wedding. Beautiful flowers make the event feel more special and festive. When you are ordering the flowers for your wedding, your main focus will be on the bouquets and centerpieces. Don't forget about the little floral touches, though, like corsages and boutonnieres.

Corsages are given to female guests of distinction. Relatives who will usually wear a corsage at a wedding are the mothers of the bride and groom, the grandmothers, and any other dear relatives, like a special aunt. It is also important to give a corsage to step-mothers, if you or your fiance have one. (Your personal feelings about her, good or bad, are beside the point in this situation.) These female wedding guests are accorded a special place of freshwater pearl pendant honor in your wedding by wearing a corsage. Just remember, it is okay to give someone not on the above list a corsage (for instance, to a cousin who will be singing during your ceremony), but it not alright to withhold a corsage from a close female relative to indicate your displeasure with her if you two are feuding about something.

There are two types of corsage: those that are pinned to the chest,and the ones worn around the wrist with an elastic band. There is something to be said for a wrist corsage, as they do not leave pin holes in your fancy garments. However, they are more commonly associated with the prom, so I would only recommend them in specific circumstances. If you were giving a corsage to a young niece who is a special favorite of yours, she might prefer a wrist corsage. Also, if one of the mothers is wearing a strapless gown, she won't really have anywhere appropriate to pin a corsage to her chest, so a wrist corsage would be the best option.

Boutonnieres are given to the men in the freshwater pearl strands wedding party (ushers, best man, and groomsmen), the fathers of the bride and groom, and of course, the groom himself. (By the way, the female members of the bridal party do not wear corsages since they will carry bouquets.) The gentlemen will wear their boutonnieres on the left lapel of their tuxedo or suit jackets. A very nice photograph for your album is an image of the groom's mother pinning on his boutonniere, as well as one of the mothers of the bride and groom pinning boutonnieres onto their husbands.

The flowers chosen for corsages and boutonnieres should tie into the general floral design of the wedding, although they do not have to match exactly. Certain flowers will hold up better than others. Good choices include roses, carnations, stephanotis, and lily-of-the-valley. Some orchids will also work, as will gardenias (but they are highly scented, so first ask the intended wearers if they like the aroma). Avoid flowers that are overly large (a giant hydrangea, for instance, would just look silly) or extremely fragile (they will get crushed during hugs).

If your bridal bouquet will include one of the hardy flowers listed above, then it would be an easy choice for corsages and boutonnieres. You could use the same color as in your bouquet, or choose one that ties in with other parts of your color scheme. For instance, if the bride has a bouquet of white roses, she could either choose white to coordinate with her flowers, or red to match the color of the bridesmaid dresses.

Make sure that your corsages and boutonnieres are as festive as the rest of your flowers. Corsages are commonly accented with pretty ribbons. A very special touch would be to have the florist add a few crystals to the corsages to tie in pearl wholesale with the bride's crystal bridal jewelry. Many brides who will be wearing crystal bridal jewelry choose to have crystals twinkling in their bouquets, so why not in the corsages and boutonnieres as well?

Corsages and boutonnieres are intended to honor a special relative or member of the bridal party. It is really all of the little details that make each wedding unique. Give some thought to designing corsages and boutonnieres that your relatives and male members of the wedding party will be proud to wear.

pearl jewelry Chian

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2009 at 10:25 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Every wedding needs a great theme. The trick is to pearl jewelry Chian pick a theme that really showcases your personality. If you can pick a wedding theme that will also be a blast for your guests, so much the better. For a really good time, why not have a disco themed wedding?

The disco era was all about dancing and having a great time, so it certainly works for a festive occasion like a wedding. It is perfect for a bride and groom who love to dance, and are not afraid to have a wedding that is a little bit different. A disco theme also will make the wedding attire and decorations very easy to tin cup pearl necklace choose.

The bride at a disco themed wedding should wear something fabulous. There are two approaches to take: you can wear a cool disco inspired dress for the whole event, or you could wear a more traditional wedding gown for the ceremony and change into a slinky little number for the reception. The perfect dress would be a body conscious style made out of a fabric with a sheen or shimmer, like a charmuese or a sequined fabric. The dress should look great moving and twirling on the dance floor as you show off your moves. Accessorize it with low platform sandals and crystal bridal jewelry. Your crystal bridal jewelry should definitely include an impressively large pair of earrings, with a stack of bracelets on your wrist.

The groom's outfit is a little more of twisted pearl necklace a question. It depends on how far he wants to take the disco theme (without looking like he is wearing a costume). If he is really into it, he could go all out and wear a white suit with a black shirt just like John Travolta's famous duds from Saturday Night Fever. A less brave groom could wear a more traditional dark suit; the bride's outfit will set the tone very well.

Dancing and décor will be the other things that really make your disco themed wedding spectacular. For music, you will obviously play all of the great dance hits from the 1970s. Just watch how much fun your guests will have trying out their moves on the dance floor! Naturally, the newlyweds will want their first dance to be choreographed to a great disco hit, as well.

There is no question that a disco ball, or multiple disco balls will be the central decorating scheme for a disco themed wedding. It would really add to the ambiance to have multi colored lights over the dance floor, as well. The rest of the akoya pearl necklace décor does not have to be totally retro '70s; instead think about shimmer, silver, and anything fabulous.

The theme of your wedding will definitely determine the mood for the affair. A disco themed wedding might not be right for everyone, but it could be a lot of fun for a playful, fun-loving couple. It will certainly make your wedding one that nobody will ever forget!

Guy writes on many subjects includin

pearl strand wholesale

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2009 at 10:22 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Pink is by far one of the most popular colors for weddings. Many brides choose that lovely color for their attendants to pearl strand wholesale wear. When you are looking for bridesmaid gifts, why not consider beautiful pink jewelry to match?

One of the nicest things about pink is that it is very soft and flattering on most skin tones. This makes it a perfect choice for bridesmaid jewelry, as the pearl necklace wholesale pink color will cast a lovely glow onto their skin. It is similar to the effect you get by replacing white lightbulbs with pink ones: a soft radiant glow that makes any woman look more beautiful. And what woman wouldn't want to receive a gift that makes her look prettier?

There are many fantastic options for pink bridesmaid jewelry. Pearls are one of the most traditional gems associated with weddings, and they make a wonderful classic gift. Most people know about white pearls, but they also come in blister pearl some beautiful shades of pink as well. Freshwater pearls are available in shades ranging from rose to mauve to peach. Swarovski pearls also come in lovely pink tones, such as rosaline, powder rose, and powder almond.

Pink pearls can be used to handcraft unique bridesmaid jewelry especially for your bridal party. For a simple and dainty effect, one lustrous pearl can be used to create a drop pendant. To make the gift even more special, consider completing the set with a coordinating pair of earrings and a bracelet. Another great look is a tin cup style necklace, which has pearls spaced out along a silver or gold chain. This is a light and fresh look, perfect for a daytime wedding.

If sparkle is more your style, then there are some stunning options for pink crystal bridesmaid jewelry gifts. You can use the crystals as an accent to the pearls, or for the most glitz, order all crystal jewelry sets. For brides who prefer just a hint of sparkle, one of the most popular styles of bridesmaid jewelry is a pendant and earring set created from a pearl dropping from a crystal, often with a rondelle in between. The most delicate look is to coin pearl use a clear crystal with a pink pearl.

Perhaps you prefer a bit more drama for your bridal party. In that case, a great option is bridesmaid pendants that are designed with two crystals with a pearl in the middle of the drop. Make a statement by using bright pink crystals with a white pearl. This is a fun and feminine look that all of your bridesmaids are sure to love.

For the most drama, brides can give their attendants necklaces created from dazzling pink crystals going all the way around the neck. This type of strand is perfect with a strapless bridesmaid dress. It is also a style that would be fun for your bridesmaids to potato pearl wear again after the wedding. Imagine how a basic white blouse could be spiced up with a fun pink crystal necklace.

Your bridesmaids are your best friends and closest relatives; when it comes time to choose their gifts, you will surely want to give them something unique and special. Instead of going with the tried and true white pearls, it would be much more interesting to have your bridesmaid jewelry custom made in beautiful shades of pink. It is a gift that your attendants will be thrilled to receive.

freshwater pearl necklace

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2009 at 10:20 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Black Hat Feng Shui consultants often suggest crystals as part of their practice. Often these are manufactured and can be found in many gift shops, sometimes a natural crystal is recommended. While the use of crystals, natural or manufactured, is not a part of freshwater pearl necklace traditional Feng Shui many people enjoy collecting and displaying crystals. Keeping your crystals clean is just as important as keeping your windows clean.

Crystals are natural energy generators, think of cultured pearl jewelry a quartz watch. Your choice of a crystal is very personal and your selection should be made carefully according to the planned purpose of your crystals as well as how you react to it as you hold it in your hand. As a magnet will attract metal a crystal attracts and holds energy as well as transmitting energy outwards. It is for this reason that you want to regularly cleanse your crystal so that it does not hold negative energy and works properly.

Imagine how many people have held onto a crystal before you take it home. Each person leaves a residue of their energy on akoya pearl its surface. In fact sometimes when you pick up a crystal it will actually feel as if it has some sort of coating on it. This is an accumulation of energy on the surface. Sometimes it just doesn't sparkle the way it should. You need to remove this residue of energy when you first bring it home. As it sits in a place of honor in your home or office it will also collect energy that regularly needs to be cleansed.

There are several ways to cleanse your crystals. Not all methods are recommended for all types of crystal. Some stones are softer or are affected by salts. If your crystal is in a piece of jewelry, yes, these need to be cleansed too, extra care should be taken not to damage the metal mounting.

If your crystal is dusty rinse it in luke warm water. Let it air dry completely before proceeding. One of my favorite methods of cleansing is the freezer. Place your crystal in the freezer for 3 days. This usually is long enough and your crystal will emerge sparkling and without that coated feeling. Make sure any little points do not get caught in the shelf or they make break off. I put mine on a piece of cardboard or in a shallow basket before putting them on the shelf.

A second method of cleansing is salt water. If you have access to the ocean, dip out a container of sea water. If not make a mild solution of sea salt and water. Let your crystals soak for a day or two in a single layer so as not to damage them. Rinse them thoroughly and let them air dry.

The full moon is powerful. The night before the full moon set out your crystals and let the moon do the work. You can leave them the next night too. This is good for crystals that might be damaged by salt or freezing. You can also bury them for a few days as well to cleanse them.

Once your larger crystals are cleansed you can use them to clear your jewelry. If you have worn a piece of jewelry during a time of stress or sadness you definitely need to cleanse. Simply place the piece on a freshly cleansed crystal and leave it for a day or two. This is the best and safest way to cleanse jewelry as it is mixed metal and crystal.

How often should you cleanse the old energy from your crystals? If you notice them looking dull and feeling coated it is time to pearl beads cleanse. But you should do it at least every three months.

Diane Kern has been trained in the ancient art of Feng Shui in the traditional method. The knowledge has been transmitted through 13 generations from Masters to student via an apprenticeship of extensive study and practical field experience. Ms. Kern was included in a small group of students selected by her Master for advanced training. She is a member of an international team of experts, Alliance Feng Shui, whose resources can be called upon to accomplish your goals.

Ms. Kern assures the privacy and confidentiality of clients. Your name will not be used for advertising or referrals. The culture of integrity, respect and discipline instilled by her Master ensures you a productive working relationship and attention towards successful completion of your goals.

Saying all the right things

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 10:13 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

BARACK OBAMA faces squalls at home, but his reputation in most of shell pearl jewelry the rest of the world continues to shine. Next week the president will have a chance to wear these golden opinions in their newest gloss at a parade of meetings at the United Nations in New York. He will chair a summit on climate change, thank countries that have contributed to UN peacekeeping missions, meet African leaders and in general reinforce the message that America is at last under the management of shell jewelry an enthusiastic multilateralist (putting trade to one side, perhaps). On September 24th he will also chair a meeting of the Security Council devoted to nuclear proliferation and disarmament—only the fifth time the council has met at head-of-government level and the first time an American president has chaired it.

Mr Obama excels at public diplomacy. His speech in Cairo in June received rave reviews in much of the Muslim world. But there is coral jewelry more to diplomacy than speeches. The meeting on proliferation cannot but focus attention on the fact that, for all his popularity, Mr Obama has had no more success than the reviled George Bush in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons or Iran to stop enriching uranium. His promise was to do everything in his power to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, while also extending his hand to countries that unclenched their fists. But his policy of engagement has so far yielded no result.

Two letters from Mr Obama to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, are reported to have received a dusty answer. The rigging of turquoise jewelry Iran’s elections in June and the violent repression that followed have made further overtures harder. Indeed, some Iran-watchers in America accuse Mr Obama of inadvertently speeding up this sequence of events by opening a dialogue that has emboldened Tehran’s hardliners. He is soldiering on nonetheless. America has just announced that it will take part next month in direct talks with Iran (albeit with Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia at the table, too).

This, said a State Department official, was being done “without illusions…our patience isn’t infinite.” But it is not clear what Mr Obama will do if, as seems likely, Iran continues to defy the Security Council’s orders to stop enriching uranium, and when America’s patience does at last run out. Despite bold talk in Washington about imposing “crippling” economic sanctions, Russia and China have given no sign of helping Mr Obama any more in this regard than they did the less popular Mr Bush.

George Mitchell, America’s Middle East envoy, has meanwhile been shuttling around the region in the hope of extracting a settlement freeze from Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in exchange for the Arab states taking steps toward “normalising” relations with the Jewish state. The administration hopes that if Mr Mitchell can close this deal in time, Mr Obama will be able in New York next week to inaugurate peace talks between Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinians’ president, Mahmoud Abbas. But even then Mr Obama would be a long way from a breakthrough. Amid much fanfare, Mr Bush launched peace talks between Israel and Mr Abbas at Annapolis at the end of silver pearl jewelry 2007. The two sides talked and talked—and got nowhere.

For many of his admirers around the world, the truest test of Mr Obama will not be whether he can make a breakthrough in the incorrigible Middle East, but whether a president who acknowledges the overwhelming danger of global warming can galvanise multilateral action on climate change. There too, however, public diplomacy has its limits. Mr Obama’s eloquence may blow away his audience in New York. But foreign governments know that, with less than three months to go before the world’s climate summit in Copenhagen, the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill faces an uphill battle in Congress. A president who cannot reduce America’s own carbon emissions will not easily persuade other countries to do so, no matter how much people like him.

Talking rubbish (two)

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 10:07 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Yet many also see waste as an opportunity. Getting rid of it all has become a huge global business. Rich countries spend some $120 billion a year disposing of their municipal waste alone and another $150 billion on industrial waste, according to CyclOpe, a French research institute. The amount of waste that countries produce tends to pearl necklace grow in tandem with their economies, and especially with the rate of urbanisation. So waste firms see a rich future in places such as China, India and Brazil, which at present spend only about $5 billion a year collecting and treating their municipal waste.

Waste also presents an opportunity in a grander sense: as a potential resource. Much of pearl jewelry wholesale it is already burned to generate energy. Clever new technologies to turn it into fertiliser or chemicals or fuel are being developed all the time. Visionaries see a future in which things like household rubbish and pig slurry will provide the fuel for cars and homes, doing away with the need for dirty fossil fuels. Others imagine a world without waste, with rubbish being routinely recycled. As Bruce Parker, the head of the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA), an American industry group, puts it, “Why fish bodies out of wholesale pearl jewlery the river when you can stop them jumping off the bridge?”

Until last summer such views were spreading quickly. Entrepreneurs were queuing up to scour rubbish for anything that could be recycled. There was even talk of mining old landfills to extract steel and aluminium cans. And waste that could not be recycled should at least be used to gemstone jewelry generate energy, the evangelists argued. A brave new wasteless world seemed nigh.

But since then plummeting prices for virgin paper, plastic and fuels, and hence also for the waste that substitutes for them, have put an end to such visions. Many of the recycling firms that had argued rubbish was on the way out now say that unless they are given financial help, they themselves will disappear.

Subsidies are a bad idea. Governments have a role to play in the business of waste management, but it is a regulatory and supervisory one. They should oblige people who create waste to clean up after themselves and ideally ensure that the price of any product reflects the cost of disposing of it safely. That would help to signal which items are hardest to get rid of, giving consumers an incentive to buy goods that create less waste in the first place.

That may sound simple enough, but governments seldom get the rules right. In poorer countries they often have no rules at all, or if they have them they fail to enforce them. In rich countries they are often inconsistent: too strict about some sorts of waste and worryingly lax about others. They are also prone to imposing arbitrary targets and taxes. California, for example, wants to recycle all its trash not because it necessarily makes environmental or economic sense but because the goal of “zero waste” sounds politically attractive. Britain, meanwhile, has started taxing landfills so heavily that local officials, desperate to find an alternative, are investing in all manner of unproven waste-processing technologies.

As for recycling, it is useless to urge people to pearl jewelry salvage stuff for which there are no buyers. If firms are passing up easy opportunities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by re-using waste, then governments have set the price of emissions too low. They would do better to deal with that problem directly than to try to regulate away the repercussions. At the very least, governments should make sure there are markets for the materials they want collected.

This special report will argue that, by and large, waste is being better managed than it was. The industry that deals with it is becoming more efficient, the technologies are getting more effective and the pollution it causes is being controlled more tightly. In some places less waste is being created in the first place. But progress is slow because the politicians who are trying to influence what we discard and what we keep often make a mess of it.

Talking rubbish (one)

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 10:01 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

THE stretch of the Pacific between Hawaii and California is virtually empty. There are no islands, no shipping lanes, no human presence for thousands of miles—just sea, sky and rubbish. The prevailing currents cause flotsam from around the world to pearl earrings accumulate in a vast becalmed patch of ocean. In places, there are a million pieces of plastic per square kilometre. That can mean as much as 112 times more plastic than plankton, the first link in the marine food chain. All this adds up to perhaps 100m tonnes of floating garbage, and more is arriving every day.

Wherever people have been—and some places where they have not—they have left waste behind. Litter lines the world’s roads; dumps dot the landscape; slurry and sewage slosh into rivers and streams. Up above, thousands of fragments of defunct spacecraft careen through space, and occasionally more debris is produced by collisions such as the freshwater pearl jewelry one that destroyed an American satellite in mid-February. Ken Noguchi, a Japanese mountaineer, estimates that he has collected nine tonnes of rubbish from the slopes of Mount Everest during five clean-up expeditions. There is still plenty left.

The average Westerner produces over 500kg of municipal waste a year—and that is only the most obvious portion of the rich world’s discards. In Britain, for example, municipal waste from households and businesses makes up just 24% of the pearl jewelry wholesale total (see chart 1). In addition, both developed and developing countries generate vast quantities of construction and demolition debris, industrial effluent, mine tailings, sewage residue and agricultural waste. Extracting enough gold to make a typical wedding ring, for example, can generate three tonnes of mining waste.
Out of sight, out of mind

Rubbish may be universal, but it is little studied and poorly understood. Nobody knows how much of it the world generates or what it does with it. In many rich countries, and most poor ones, only the patchiest of records are kept. That may be understandable: by definition, waste is something its owner no longer wants or takes much interest in.

Ignorance spawns scares, such as the fuss surrounding New York’s infamous garbage barge, which in 1987 sailed the Atlantic for six months in search of cultured pearl a place to dump its load, giving many Americans the false impression that their country’s landfills had run out of space. It also makes it hard to draw up sensible policies: just think of the endless debate about whether recycling is the only way to save the planet—or an expensive waste of time.

Rubbish can cause all sorts of problems. It often stinks, attracts vermin and creates eyesores. More seriously, it can release harmful chemicals into the soil and water when dumped, or into the air when burned. It is the source of freshwater pearl almost 4% of the world’s greenhouse gases, mostly in the form of methane from rotting food—and that does not include all the methane generated by animal slurry and other farm waste. And then there are some really nasty forms of industrial waste, such as spent nuclear fuel, for which no universally accepted disposal methods have thus far been developed.

The battle for a religion's heart (two)

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 09:17 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Significant, in this light, is the recent award by Egypt’s culture ministry of a prize to one of the country’s most combative secularist writers, Sayed al-Qimani. The Egyptian authorities would hardly have dared to offer such a prize a decade ago. Beleaguered then by Islamists and a tide of pearl jewelry wholesale public piety, the ostensibly secular government was prone to posing as a defender of orthodoxy. Book bannings, charges of blasphemy, and death threats against secularists (one of which, against the writer Farag Foda, was carried out by Islamist militants in 1992) all served to silence criticism of the conservative line.
globalvoicesonline.org Qimani, eyes nervously on the prize

Mr Qimani, the pugnacious son of pearl jewelry a provincial cleric, has himself been subjected to death threats, to the point where, fearing for his safety, he publicly repented of his purported sins in 2005, and abandoned writing for some years. Several of his dozen books, most of which are daringly revisionist accounts of early Islamic history, have been banned at al-Azhar’s orders, despite Mr Qimani’s protests that he remains a believer, albeit of a relatively non-doctrinaire sort.

Predictably, the prize has left Islamists fuming, with several filing lawsuits demanding that it be rescinded. Mr Qimani says his life is once again in danger, after a chorus of denunciations from several different strands of Egyptian Islam, ranging from establishment clergy to freshwater pearl jewelry radical ones.

Such threats have worked in the past, most notoriously in the case of Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a Koranic scholar who fled Egypt after a court decreed him divorced from his wife, on grounds that his revisionist views rendered him an apostate, and therefore ineligible to be married to a Muslim woman. Yet so far the government has stood unusually firm on Mr Qimani’s side, partly because intellectuals have rallied to his defence, but perhaps also in a sign that it senses growing public impatience with the Islamists’ cries of blasphemy. More unusually still, Mr Qimani has been invited to air his views on television, including on one programme where he challenged any cleric to freshwater pearl an open debate. None took up the offer.

In a land where pious words saturate airwaves and canonical texts fill bookshelves, the prominence of relatively secular types like Mr Qimani marks a trend.

Their following may be tiny compared with the adulation enjoyed by Mr Qaradawi. But it may be that on his declared jihad-ground of modern communications, the preacher will be facing not infidel crusaders, but fellow Muslims who want change and refuse to be intimidated.

The battle for a religion's heart (one)

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2009 at 09:08 AM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

WHICH trend will prevail among the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims—violent confrontation or peaceful coexistence? Will Islam aspire to political power, or will more mystical or pietistic versions of the religion win out? People whose job is to pearl jewelry wrestle with those questions, be they theologians or strategists, always keep a close eye on Egypt: the home of Sunni Islam’s greatest university, al-Azhar, and the country where political Islam, in many different forms, was incubated.

And the good news, from Islam-watchers in Egypt, is that the appeal of the most violent kind of Islamist radicalism has been waning for pearl pendant some time. That decline is also noticeable in many neighbouring countries—and indeed in most Muslim places, apart from bloodstained peripheries like Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

It is not just Osama bin Laden who has been holed up in remote exile. His ideology of global jihad has also retreated. Stung by public disgust with nihilist terror, and seeing the radicals’ failure to pearl necklace consolidate tangible gains, some prominent preachers of endless jihad have repented their ways.

Jihadist ideology has also been facing what may prove to be bigger threats than those posed by military setbacks or defections. Clerics from the broader ideological mainstream of Islam, where most Muslims put themselves, are condemning nihilist extremism with greater boldness.

Also, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are Muslim doubters, revisionists and reformers, who have had to mute their voices for fear of being branded apostates. Some of them are again speaking out, though it still takes a lot of courage.

If ultraradicals are in retreat, and bold moderates are finding their voice, that reflects several converging factors. There is a fading of the anxiety, which reached a peak under the Bush administration, that Islam itself was the target of a concerted Western campaign. Barack Obama’s outreach to Muslims, and America’s intent to withdraw from Iraq, have reduced the pressure on clerics to pearl earrings posture as tough defenders of the faith who excuse jihadism. Also, the spread of freer media in some places has emboldened modernisers and exposed a wider public to their thinking.

The strongest recent critique of global jihadism has come from a figure who is himself controversial in the West: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an 82-year-old Egyptian who lives in Qatar, and a familiar figure, through his broadcasts, to Muslims across the world. He is a canny, theologically conservative populist, whose scathing references to Jews and homosexuals have made him persona non grata in America and, as of 2008, Britain.

The range of reactions that Mr Qaradawi evokes is vast. At a meeting of Muslim scholars in Istanbul last month, he was idolised, outshining establishment figures from several countries. People queued to have their photographs taken with him and gushed with delight when he regaled them with songs during a boat trip. But for sceptical Western observers of Islam, his justification of suicide attacks in Israel makes him an odious figure.

The author of scores of books, the sponsor of a popular Islamist website, and the star of religious programming on the Arabic-language al-Jazeera satellite channel, Mr Qaradawi takes full advantage of his scholarly stature and his bully pulpit.

In a hefty new book, titled “The Jurisprudence of Jihad”, Mr Qaradawi restates his belief in the right of Muslims to resist “aggression”, and “foreign occupation”. But he castigates al-Qaeda’s notion of global jihad as “a mad declaration of war on the world” that seeks to “drive believers shackled towards paradise”. Repeating his call for a “middle path”, away from either defeatism or destructive zeal, Mr Qaradawi suggests that the best arena for today’s jihad may be the “realm of ideas, media and communication.”

Within Islam, these are not new positions: most mainstream clerics blasted the 9/11 attacks, even as they praised “resistance” in Iraq, Palestine and other conflicts seen as pitting Muslims against alien invaders. But coming from Mr Qaradawi, they put a seal of orthodoxy on the rejection by many ordinary Muslims of all-out worldwide jihadism. Guerrillas inspired by al-Qaeda may fight on wholesale wholesale pearl jewelry in the wilds of Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Algeria, but in the slums and universities that once supplied fodder for jihad, fashions are trending elsewhere.

For some Muslims, the rejection of global jihad has led to a more individualistic, pacifist fundamentalism that emphasises “Islamic” behaviour in everyday life. But personal piety has been growing for a generation, and some are jaded by it; they are looking for new ideas.

Strength in small numbers

Posted on Thursday 17 September 2009 at 01:18 PM - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

His eponymous Hillman Focused Advantage Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!hcfax (HCFAX 9.82, +0.11, +1.13%) owns only about 20 stocks, while sibling Hillman Advantage Equity Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!haeax (HAEAX 10.35, +0.11, +1.07%) holds about 45 names. It's a far cry from the typical stock fund's broadly diversified -- some would say diluted -- approach to playground equipment investing that Hillman doesn't exactly respect.

"If you're not willing to invest in a focused way, you shouldn't be charging a management fee," Hillman said. "There should be index funds and focused funds. You ought to be willing to have your feet to the fire if you're going to inflatable bouncers charge. Investors and portfolio managers need to be on the same team, with the same expectations."

Accordingly, putting all your eggs in a 20-stock basket demands cast-iron conviction and airtight beliefs. Hillman faces that challenge with a strategy of buying industry-leading companies at a discount to his estimate of their fair-market value. Each stock is held until its price exceeds the fair-value target or key aspects of the business deteriorate.

"Companies with sustainable competitive advantages in their industry will outperform over several economic cycles," the fund manager said.
Goldman Sachs

One of Hillman's favorite companies is investment-banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

To be sure, Goldman has been, well, golden in the wake of Wall Street's turmoil. As competitors have folded or weakened, Goldman /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs (GS 179.87, +3.21, +1.82%) has become stronger. And although the naughty castles stock has surged more than 110% so far this year, Hillman said it's "one of the more undervalued" companies among the 90 he follows.

Goldman is also a magnet for the "best and the brightest" on Wall Street, Hillman said, adding that "intellectual capital is a big piece of the competitive advantage."

Yet Goldman, like its rivals, is subject to the ebb and flow of trading and deal-making, which is still in short supply in this anemic economy. But to Hillman, Goldman has proved that it's a survivor.

"When the economic cycle improves," he said, "investment banking should kick in, and asset management fees should grow." Plus, he added, "they good at making money on trading their own account."

Shares of Goldman Sachs slipped 0.6% on Tuesday to $176.66.
Starbucks
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Five ways to make your nest egg last a lifetime

Posted on Thursday 17 September 2009 at 12:57 PM - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Yes, conventional wisdom has proven to inflatable be more conventional than wise. And now everyone is trying to figure out the best way to turn a nest egg into an income stream that will last throughout retirement. And that includes AARP, which this week released two tip sheets that "challenge conventional thinking and offer general guidance about how to make the best decision for you and your circumstances."

One of the tip sheets, "Making Your Nest Egg Last a Lifetime," which was written by Anthony Webb of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, suggests the following:
1. Delay claiming Social Security

Retirees and would-be retirees need to inflatable bouncer consider matching their fixed and, best-case, inflation-adjusted sources of income against their fixed expenses. And one way to create the best inflation-adjusted source of income at the moment is to delay taking Social Security for as long as possible, certainly at least until your full retirement age if not longer, said Janet McCubbin, director of financial security at AARP's Public Policy Institute.

At the moment, many people claim Social Security -- even though it means a reduced benefit -- at age 62, using the faulty logic that they may not live past the so-called break-even point. The break-even point is the date at which the sum of your reduced early benefits no longer exceeds what you would have drawn with the heftier, delayed benefits. (There are plenty of Wed-based calculators to help you figure your break-even age.)

But such calculators fail to address at least three issues. One, the calculators typically don't address married couples. As is well known, husbands tend to die before their wives. And that means husbands who take a reduced Social Security benefit ultimately reduce their surviving spouses' benefit as well. Two, predicting your life expectancy is nearly an impossible task. And three, creating the largest Social Security benefit is fast becoming a basic component of inflatable castles a sound retirement-income plan.

"Delaying is like buying extra income that lasts a life time," said McCubbin. "For most it's optimal for the husband to wait to collect till at least full retirement."

You can use the Social Security Administration's calculators to find your normal retirement age and estimate your monthly benefit at this Web site.
2. Consider purchasing an annuity

It's not right for everyone, said McCubbin. But for those who are retiring with a large nest egg and who don't have enough fixed and guaranteed sources of income to match their fixed expenses, an annuity might fit the bill. In essence, you want a fixed and dependable stream of income that covers your basic living expenses, she said.

According to AARP, an annuity would not, however, be appropriate for someone with little in savings or someone with a large share of preretirement income already replaced by Social Security or by a traditional pension plan.

Annuities are not without their problems at the moment. Pricing is affected by adverse selection, for instance. But McCubbin said much is going on in the way of inflatable funland product development that could make annuities more widely accepted over the next few years. Such developments include in-service annuities, trial annuities and security-plus annuities, as proposed by the Aspen Institute.