Times were when everyone counted the same way; one thousand, one million, one billion, and so on. But this is no longer the case. In fact, it has not been for quite some time, though few people noticed. Depending on where you are, a billion can be a billion, or one thousand times as much.

Coming with the never-ending loss of purchasing power of most currencies, due to governments “printing money” ad libitum, many numbers have gone from millions to billions, to trillions, and beyond, all over the world. But that is the problem. Not everyone counts the same. In European and most other countries, the system of nomenclature is different than in North America, though some of the identical words are being used. It is best described with a table, as follows:

Number, or Value………………Name in Europe……Name in USA……….Proposed new names

1,000…………………………………….Thousand……………..Thousand………………

1,000,000………………………………Million…………………..Million……………………

1,000,000,000……………………….Milliard…………………..Billion……………………Illion-9

1,000,000,000,000………………..Billion……………………Trillion……………………Illion-12

1,000,000,000,000,000…………Billiard…………………..Quadrillion…………….Illion-15

1,000,000,000,000,000,000….Trillion…………………..Quintillion………………Illion-18

As you can see in this short table, the terms billion and trillion occur twice, but with different meanings in Europe and the US. Obviously, such different meanings of identical terms can (and will) lead to confusion, misunderstandings, and consequently to problems in commerce, science, etc.

With both systems heavily entrenched over a long time, there is no easy way to come to common definitions now, even if the world desired that. So, what is the path forward? I can see only one solution, in principle, namely the creation of new words, which could be adopted by everyone without problem. As we all have become familiar with “..illions” of some sort, a new term should incorporate that part of these words for numbers, at least. A numerical term, describing unequivocally the number could be the count of zeros. For example, an US billion could be called an “Illion-9”, an European billion could be called an “Illion-12”, and so on, as shown in the last column of the table. This proposal is just one of many possibilities.

The time has come when universally accepted and clearly defined terms are needed to describe the “gadzillions” of currency units floating about in the world, not to mention astronomical distances and other values of the multi-illion type.

Please join me in imagining a planet where the following happens – billions of cats and dogs are raised in unpleasant conditions, killed and then eaten by humans. Now, imagine that these dogs and cats feel as much pain, if not more, than humans, that the planet's scientists have shown how eating them is harmful to humans and that the process of growing and killing them is destroying the planet's ecosystem. Please take a moment to reflect on this.

Now, I'm sure the picture I have painted will have not sat right with most of you. You may have been struck by the cruelty, the waste, or by the breath taking arrogance displayed. You may have felt a sense of outrage, pity or disgust. You may have wondered how such a state of affairs was allowed to be, let alone continue.

The problem is, this planet does exist. Each year roughly fifty billion innocent creatures are enslaved, tortured and killed. They are eaten by humans, resulting in poor health. Our planet, Earth, is destroyed in the process. The power of language and of social narratives, such as cultural and religious tradition, has led people to regard some of our fellow creatures, such as pigs and cows, as fully deserving of a premature and painful death whilst regarding others, such as cats and dogs, as family. People are used to this view and so it endures. It seems, then, that Orwell's famous dystopian maxim 'all animals are equal but some are more equal than others' contains a more literal truth than is commonly understood.

Now, as strange and unnatural as our meat eating situation is, I think it is quite easily explained – for thousands of years people killed and ate other animals to survive. Two of the essential building blocks of human life, protein and fat, were often hard to get from plant sources and killing a large animal could sustain a family, or even a community, for some time. This made sense. Then, around ten thousand years ago, many people exchanged this 'hunter gatherer' lifestyle for an easier version of it – the agricultural one. This logic is also simple – why spend all day running round trying to kill animals with a spear when certain species could be tamed and easily killed? The problem is, the logic stuck while much of the world changed.

We now know of the sentience and cognition of animals and, therefore, their capacity for suffering. The industry of farming and slaughter inflicts unimaginable emotional and physical pain on literally billions of creatures. They are cooped up, castrated, branded, raped and murdered. I defy anyone to explain how, in many cases, this isn't what happens.

We now know the damage that eating bodies and their secretions does to the human body – the far from slightly increased chances of heart attack, stroke, cancer, dementia, arthritis, diabetes and obesity.

We now know the damage that this industry does to the planet – the interruption of the ecosystem in the form of unnaturally high species birth and death rate, surplus methane and the huge swathes of forest and field made barren by, and the huge supplies of grain used for, cattle farming. We now know a lot. So why do we still live like our Stone Age ancestors, who had no greengrocer down the road?

If every human being on earth adopted the vegan lifestyle tomorrow we would be in a better situation – there would be a lot less pain, a lot less disease and a lot less planetary damage, not to mention more fertile land and more economical methods of food growth and food distribution. The problem is, and I know this because I held the opinion myself until I was twenty five, the vegan lifestyle is generally seen as a strange one: unhealthy and restricted. But the fact is, as I hope some of you know / will know, the exact opposite is the case. A simple purchase of the book '1000 vegan recipes' or a simple watch of Russia Today's interview with Dr. Neal Barnard will show this.

I have been vegan for nearly two years now, after an 'on and off' three month transition period, and I consider it the best thing I have ever done. I lost weight, I have more energy and I no longer have that very distant but very nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me that my body doesn't feel right. I find it easy to find vegan replacements, such as sausages and burgers, I find it easy to get vegan options in restaurants, particularly in Indian, Thai and Italian places, and I am always learning of new and delicious meals to cook. Some of my new homemade favorites include chickpea and coconut milk curry, spicy peanut butter noodles and Brazilian stew with banana and mango. As long as you keep an eye on your protein (60g per day – good sources are nuts, tofu and flaxseeds), your fat (70g – flapjacks, dark chocolate and coconut milk), and your B12 (0.0015mg – soya milk, marmite and supplements) each day can become effortlessly vegan.

So come on brothers and sisters – look inside yourselves and search your consciences. Are you ready to obey ethics, obey nature and help pull the plug on the disgusting industry that convinced you to disobey them in the first place?

Galactic mergers result when two or more galaxies collide, and these smash-ups are the most violent type of galaxy interaction in the Universe. Indeed, the gravitational dance between colliding and merging galaxies, and the friction between the dust and gas, have dramatic effects on the doomed galaxies involved. These mergers are important because the merger rate is a fundamental measurement of galaxy evolution, and it also provides astronomers with clues that can help them solve the mystery about how galaxies grew over time. In June 2019, a team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, observed the earliest combined signals of carbon, oxygen, and dust from a galaxy in the Universe, seeing it as it appeared 13 billion years ago. By comparing the different signals, the astronomers found that the galaxy is really a duo of merging galaxies–making it the earliest example of galactic mergers yet observed in the 13.8 billion-year-old Universe.

Dr. Takuya Hashimoto of Waseda University in Japan, and his colleagues, used ALMA to observe a remote object with the telephone-book-sounding name of B14-65666, which is situated about 13 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Sextans. Because of the finite speed of light, the signals that astronomers now receive from B14-65666 had to travel through Space and Time for 13 billion years in order to reach telescopes on Earth. Hence, the observations reveal to astronomers what the duo of doomed dancing galaxies looked like less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang birth of the Universe.

In cosmology, long ago is the same as far away. Because of the expansion of the Universe, and the universal speed limit set by light, the more distant an observed celestial object is in space, the older it is in time–hence, Spacetime. Time is the fourth dimension. It is impossible to locate an object in space, without also locating it in time. No known signal can travel faster than light in a vacuum, although space itself can. The light emitted by a distant object billions of years ago is seen by observers on our planet as it looked at the time it was first emitted.

ALMA managed to achieve the earliest observation of radio emissions from carbon, oxygen, and dust in B14-65666. The discovery of multiple signals enabled astronomers to determine additional relevant information.

Galaxy Smash-ups

During a galaxy merger, both stars and dark matter within within each of the doomed galaxies, fall under the gravitational influence of the approaching galaxy. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that is thought to account for most of the matter content of the Cosmos. It is believed to be composed of exotic non-atomic particles that do not interact with light or any other form of electromagnetic radiation and, as a result, is transparent and invisible. However, most astronomers think that it is really there because of its gravitational influence on objects that can be observed.

Toward the later stages of a galaxy merger, the gravitational potential (the shape of the galaxy) starts to change so rapidly that the orbits of its constituent stars are affected, and they lose any “memory” of their previous orbits. This process is termed violent relaxation. Hence, if two disk galaxies blast into one another, the entire devastating process starts off with their populations of stars orbiting in an orderly rotation in the plane of their disks. As the merger progresses, however, the orderly motion experiences a sea-change into random energy. The galaxy becomes dominated by stars that orbit the galaxy in a random, complex web of disordered orbits. Elegant and orderly galaxies include spirals like our own Milky Way, and lenticular galaxies which are sometimes referred to as “spirals without arms.” Astronomers observe stars on random chaotic orbits in elliptical galaxies, which are usually very large football-shaped galaxies populated by elderly red stars.

A fury of fiery baby star birth comes in the wake of a galaxy merger. The star formation rate (SFR) that occurs during a major merger can produce thousands of solar masses of bright new stars every year, depending on the amount of gas contained in each of the merging galaxies, as well as each galaxy’s redshift. SFRs are less than 100 new solar-masses of stars each year during a typical merger. This is a large number when compared to that of our own Galaxy, which gives birth to only a few (about 2) fiery new baby stars every year. Even though the distance between stars is normally great enough to prevent individual stars from blasting into each other when their host galaxies merge, frigid molecular clouds quickly tumble down to the heart of the galaxy where they collide with other molecular clouds. The collisions that occur between these dark and gigantic star-birthing clouds, trigger condensations of these clouds into baby stars. Astronomers have seen this happen in merging galaxies that are relatively near to us in the Universe. However, this process was more intense during the mergers responsible for creating the elliptical galaxies that dwell in our Universe today. The elliptical galaxies that we now observe probably formed between 1 and 10 billion years ago, when there was much more gas available–and, hence, many more molecular clouds–contained within galaxies. In addition, in regions away from a galaxy’s center, clouds of gas will bump into one another. This produces shocks which also trigger the birth of new stars within gas clouds. As a result, galaxies start to run out of gas, and will produce fewer new stars. Therefore, if a galaxy experiences a major merger with another of its kind, and then a few billion years pass, the galaxy will have very few young stars left. This is why ellipticals are populated by elderly stars–they have scanty amounts of molecular gas and very few young stars. It has been proposed that elliptical galaxies are the end stage of major galaxy mergers which use up most of the gas during the merger. For this reason, there is little additional star-birth after the merger is quenched.

Our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are the two largest members of what is called the Local Group of Galaxies. Both galaxies are spirals–twirling starlit pin-wheels in Spacetime. The Local Group, in turn, is located near the outer edge of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, whose big, bright elliptical galactic heart is currently approximately 50 million light years from us.

Billions of years from now, our Milky Way and Andromeda will blast into each other and merge to become one gigantic galaxy. After the collision, what was once a galactic duo, will undergo a metamorphosis. When this smash-up occurs, the merger of this pair of spirals will produce an entirely new galaxy. The new galaxy that emerges from the wreckage of the Milky Way and Andromeda will likely sport an elliptical shape, instead of the elegant–and much more orderly– pin-wheel shape that is displayed by the two wandering galaxies today. The new galaxy will rise from the funeral pyre of its spiral progenitors, and this future galaxy already has a name–the Milkomeda Galaxy.

Today, our Milky Way and Andromeda are rushing towards one another through the space between galaxies at the breathtaking clip of 250,000 miles per hour. For a long time, astronomers have speculated that the duo of large starlit spirals are doomed to suffer a violent collision in the distant future. This catastrophe will likely be messy. Alas, the Andromeda galaxy is flying straight in our Milky Way’s direction, and when it finally hits our galaxy, it will eat it. Technically, Andromeda will devour our Milky Way because it is the more massive of the pair. Like fish swimming around in a celestial sea, the bigger fish dine on their smaller kin.

What Goes Around Will Come Around

An analysis of the new ALMA data, indicated to the team of astronomers from Waseda University that the emissions are actually separated into two distinct blobs. Earlier observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) showed two-star clusters in B14-65666. Afterwards, using the three emission signals spotted by ALMA, the team was able to demonstrate that the two blobs formed a single system, but with different speeds. This indicated that the blobs were two merging galaxies–as well as the earliest known example of merging galaxies. The team of astronomers calculated that the total stellar mass of B14-65666 is less than 10% that of our Milky Way. This means that it’s in its earliest phases of evolution. Despite its relative youth, B14-65666 is giving birth to bright new fiery baby stars 100 times more actively than our Galaxy. Such an active star formation rate is another sign of galactic mergers. This is because the gas compression in colliding galaxies naturally results in bursts of stellar formation.

“With rich data from ALMA and HST, combined with advanced data analysis, we could put the pieces together to show that B14-65666 is a pair of merging galaxies in the earliest era of the Universe. Detection of radio waves from three components in such a distant object demonstrates ALMA’s high capability to investigate the distant Universe,” Dr. Hashimoto explained in the June 17, 2019 ALMA Press Release.

The galaxies that dwell in the Universe today, such as our own Milky Way, have gone through countless, often violent, mergers. During some of the mergers, a more massive galaxy swallowed a smaller one–as will likely be the case when our own Milky Way meets up with Andromeda in about 5 billion years. However, galaxies with smaller sizes also merged to form new, much larger galaxies. Indeed, mergers are essential for galaxy evolution, and for this reason many astronomers are eager to trace them back in time.

Dr. Akio Inoue, who is also of Waseda University, commented in the June 17, 2019 ALMA Press Release that “Our next step is to search for nitrogen, another major chemical element, and even the carbon monoxide molecule. Ultimately, we hope to observationally understand the circulation and accumulation of elements and material in the context of galaxy formation and evolution.”

Do you know how to get some of the billions of dollars in unclaimed government money? Millions of other Americans do, and they’re cashing big checks from the government that they don’t have to repay.

Every year the government and other organizations budget over $700 billion dollars in free money that they give away to people who ask for it. Guess what? That money is only getting bigger and bigger. As America continues to climb deeper in debt, the government is faced with providing more money to help people become debt free.

In addition just the free money in debt relief that the government provides, there is billions of dollars that are helping all walks of life for a variety of reasons. There are grants to help people buy their first homes, grants to help get professional training or for job seekers, grants to start a daycare center.

The money is available, but most people simply don’t know how to find it. Those who know where to go and ask for it are cashing in, and they just keep getting more and more grant funds. That’s because there is no limit to the number of grants you can apply for, and the pot of money is virtually endless.

When you search the grant database, you’ll see that it is so easy find $50,000 in free grant money to help pay for your home based business, and then you could turn around and get another $12,000 grant check to help finance a new home or go back to school. All you need to do is ask for it.

The State of California has amassed $4.8 Billion in unclaimed money owed to citizens. With no statute of limitations on claiming money and minimal state outreach to account owners, approximately $900 million in unclaimed money funds is added annually. The State currently spends the unclaimed money by depositing it into the States General Fund. Citizens need to be informed of money owed to them and take what is rightfully theirs.

In April 2006 State Controller, Steve Wesley, stated, “The Governor and Legislature are using unclaimed property to cope with the State budget mess they created through gridlock and mismanagement. This must stop”. Currently the state pays out about $250 million annually in found property claims and the rest is put in the general fund and spent as if it were the States money.

In an attempt to better the States unclaimed money system, Wesley sponsored a Bill, SB 1752, which would have removed severe restrictions on the State’s ability to find account owners. The Bill would have also separated the unclaimed money into its own account, instead of the General Fund, and earned interest for the account owners. Wesley added, “I sponsored this bill to change the system and take California’s unclaimed property away from the politicians and return it to the people. Forgotten checking accounts should not be used to plug holes in the State budget.”

Since the Bill’s creation in April 2006 the Bill, SB 1752, the bill is being held in committee. If the legislature adjourns at the end of the month without taking action on the bill, it will be dead.

Through Wesley’s efforts the State has increased the unclaimed money returns for the last 3 years. In 2004 $177.4 million was returned, 2005 $238.5 million, and in 2006 $292 million. Even though there has been an increase in annual returns of found property the unclaimed money balance is still growing $500 million annually after paying out claims! At this rate the total lost funds will be $10 billion in the next 10 years. Minimal efforts by the State are not enough to reach the nearly 8 million unclaimed money account owners.

Sites are being established that advertise to account owners not only in California, but nation wide. This private advertisement has added to the increase in found property claims.

Nationally there is over $25 Billion in lost funds.

Most people have put a deposit down for a gas, electric account at some time. People move and forget about the deposit but the money is theirs and electric company doesn’t know where to send it. The money is placed in state’s treasury department fund for unclaimed property. This is one of hundreds of places missing money may come from. Found property may consist of savings or checking accounts, stocks, mutual funds, dividends, IRS refunds, wages, child support payments, the list goes on.

One inefficiency in having a state operated missing money database is a person who searches the database will only find money reported in that state. Also, the states are limited on what they can do to reach account owners and do not have a budget to advertise to the public and notify them of the ever-growing lost money funds.

Even if a person has only lived in one state they may have money in other states databases. An insurance company in New York that owed someone money on a policy may place the unclaimed money in the state of New York’s database, regardless of the state of residency of the beneficiary. Also, the unclaimed property may be listed under possible name variations (William Smith may be listed as W. Smith or Bill Smith). The government has not created a single database to search for unclaimed money.

To fill the inefficiencies of the States all in one databases have been created. Searching in a quality, database will search all state and federal databases, all possible name variations and provide the instructions and forms for submitting a claim once money has been found. These sites also spend a great deal advertising to the public informing them of the high likelihood they, or someone in their immediate family, is owed money.

The reason the national amount of unclaimed money is growing billions year after year is people are not searching to see if any is owed to them. It may be money that was forgotten about or an inheritance the person never knew existed. People will never know until they look. A simple search may mean a check in the mailbox.

Cashunclaimed.com is the largest unclaimed money database, including all state and federal databases. CashUnclaimed.com was founded to assist owners in easily locating and claiming their lost funds. The site offers more information on unclaimed money and free unclaimed money search at www.cashunclaimed.com

Angola is a Africa’s largest oil producer, this products has brought millions of dollars to the country on a daily basis for decades; and it is this excess of money that blinded and prevented Angolans from exploiting its agricultural sector which has also millions of dollars to offer.

There are many factors that allow Angola to be considered a sleeping giant in terms of agriculture in Africa; there is an abundance of large rivers that cross its territory from North to South and West to East, its soil is rich in nutrients and ideal for the growth of many different plants, and its African weather is ideal for farming complete with heavy rainy seasons and hot temperatures.

In addition for the perfect conditions for farming, Angola also has the right amount of customers to buy all the farmed products. With a population of 27 million people, Angola can guarantee a very good return in any agricultural investment.

But it does not stop there. Even though Angola’s agricultural sector is currently being explored at 5 – 6%, some small quantities of products such as banana, potatoes, tomatoes and mangoes are being exported to the neighbouring countries of Zambia, DRC, Namibia and the Republic of Congo.

In this case, we can consider that if fully explored, Angola’s agricultural sector has a market of around 100 million customers, taking into account the millions of inhabitants in its neighbouring countries.

The current situation of the country’s agriculture is very sad. The local markets are being supplied by small scale-farmers. There are only two companies in the country that are making an effort to farm in a large scale, but their range of products is currently too limited.

There are months in Angola when products such as garlic, tomatoes, or onions disappear completely from the market, forcing customers to purchase the expensive imported alternatives.

For a clear picture of the situation, more than 80% of the consumed chicken and beef in Angola is imported. Take a moment and calculate how many millions of dollars are lost just through the importation of a basic product as chicken.

The “beauty” of Angola’s current situation is that for those who are willing to invest in the country, there are no restrictions as to what can be farmed as we basically lack everything. For example, you can invest in the farming of carrots, garlic, lemons, onions, mushrooms, parsley, ginger, or any other product.

In an attempt to diversify its economy, the Angolan government has created many incentives in the last months in order to attract more investors in the previously forgotten sectors of agriculture, mining, and tourism.

Do not wait until it is too late, come and invest in a rich and promising country.

The examples and perspective in this article deal with Denmark’s wealthy charitable foundation segment. The techniques have helped many people raise money from Danish foundations and may also be useful for other types of fundraising such as running a crowdfunding campaign.

The eight steps to raise money from Danish foundations involves:

1. Understand the sector

2. Set up your team

3. Get your story straight

4. Put it in writing

5. Find and analyse grants

6. Create a working process

7. Execute

8. Evaluate

STEP 1: UNDERSTAND THE SECTOR:

Danes often tend to describe Danish foundations as “closed” “for insiders” and “unhelpful”. It is very difficult to define the typical foundation, however, the vast majority of foundations are “small”, “unstaffed” and have one paper-based application round per year.

While there are many purpose specific foundations in Denmark, many Danish foundations are general purpose foundations that fund a broad variety of causes, including: art, culture, social aid, emergency aid, entrepreneurship, business, health, children, communities, and international development.

Realdania is one of the wealthiest charitable foundations in the world and donated DKK 818M in 2014 ($122M).

STEP 2: SET UP YOUR TEAM:

Having the right qualifications in your team may be the key to successful fundraising. It is recommended to have a fluent Danish speaker onboard, who can break down the existing language barriers. Other strong skills include: analytic skills, curiosity, grit, the ability to use available mentors and networks, and having a structured working style.

3. GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT:

Before you even start fundraising, you have to define exactly what it is you are doing. I recommend people to start with the end in mind, by defining objective goals. What does success look like? Where is your project five years from now? Validate your idea among experts. Communicate with the future customers and/or the beneficiaries.

4. PUT IT IN WRITING:

You must believe in your idea and not be afraid to show it to the foundations. Foundations are critical and do not want to fund projects that are not well researched and planned. Make sure to develop a thorough application and a detailed description of the project in the Danish language.

5. FIND AND ANALYSE GRANTS:

Each foundation’s purposes are communicated in a set of criteria (often in Danish). Applying for grants that match your project’s goals will increase your chances of getting funded. There are very limited useful grant dictionaries and online resources on available Danish funds. The best book is “Vejviser til Legater og Fonde” which costs around DKK 1.100 ($167).

6. CREATE A WORKING PROCESS:

The typical working process is as follows;

1: Identify the grant

2: Research the grant

3: Write down how your project and intentions match with the foundation’s missions

4: Prepare documents

5: Apply for the grant

6: Register your activity.

Using a free cloud service such as Google Drive comes with several benefits such as synchronizing documents for team members and working in virtual teams. I recommend using such integrated productivity tools: Google Docs and Google Spreadsheet; to work on your standard application documents and to store important information about the foundations.

7. EXECUTE:

Powerful execution involves repeating the above working process efficiently for all foundations with available funds. Make a point to prioritize foundations that you expect will fund your project, and always make sure to meet the foundation’s application procedures. It is recommended to have a dialogue with the foundations during your application process.

8. EVALUATE:

Course-correct your fundraising efforts, and most importantly yourself. All fundraisers make mistakes, and you will need to fix those mistakes by honestly adjusting your fundraising appeal and overall strategy. The goal isn’t to be good at fundraising, the goal is to be good at what you do with the funds raised, so that your project will change the world for a better place.

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. I’ve rallied against American Politics, the Political system, the Financial Collapse of the Markets and a myriad of other things but sometimes there comes a time where we, the people, need to turn our attention away from our world and focus on THE World.

This day, TODAY, is one of those times. Let our voices unite and speak volumes about our world, our true world and her children.  It is through raising our voices, united, that we will be heard and the world will be forced to listen.

A few facts and tidbits about 2008:

Poverty and Hunger run rampant in our world while we witnessed a monumental 1.8 TRILLION Dollar single day loss in the Stock market.  Our government has bailed out the banking industry with $700 BILLION Tax Dollars and seeks more while the executives of AIG and their “top sellers” party on the posh.World governments now own portions of the banking industry, effectively Nationalizing the financial system, and taxpayers around the world have allowed their governments to use BILLIONS of dollars, Pounds, Euro’s and other currencies to fight a war in the Middle East.

My point?  We still live in a world where almost half of her population, over three billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day and over 26,500 children die each day. Every day. Year round. The killers of our children, the children of our world, are poverty, hunger and easily preventable diseases and illnesses. What will you do today to help prevent this?

Mister, can you spare a dime?  Don’t answer with the standard “you can’t fix the problem by throwing money at it…” okay, we know that it’s complex and the problems have very deep roots. But maybe that dime isn’t in hard currency, maybe it’s ten cents of your time. A moments worth of you talking to someone else about the problem. What if the whole world was talking about this at exactly the same time? Maybe your ten cents would be worth millions. Take a moment. Talk to someone. You were given a voice for a reason, use it.

Poverty Facts: These are not debate points, not opinions, FACTS. Plain, hard, cold and oh so real facts. When you read my opening and we look at all of the money that we’ve chased around in less than 2 months the FACT is that we are a wasteful money-centric global society that preys on those with less and forgets those who can not speak with the same volume and intensity that we can. We want our BMW’s, Mercedes and our 4,000+ square foot Homes.  We want gratification and satisfaction now and we don’t care what it cost. We like to think that what we do does not impact anyone else.  Continue with this approach to our world and we just might end up paying with more than our money. 

26,500 children die each day at an astounding rate of one Child every three seconds, over 10 Million children die each year. One of those children could have been the scientist that cures cancer, saves a nation, makes the impossible possible. One of those children could have been a friend. Each of those children were fellow humans trying to inhabit the planet the we have been given stewardship over. Ask yourself: Am I a good steward for the children. Take a moment. Talk to someone. You were given a voice for a reason, use it. Statistics: At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Worldwide. 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized while the United States spends 8 BILLION Dollars a year on Cosmetics, blush, lipstick, eyeliner, etc. every year.  European countries and the United States combined spend 12 Billion Dollars a year on Perfumes.   It would take 9 Billion to provide Water and Sanitation for ALL. 

The list goes on. The world; US, Europe, Japan, and the rest spend enough on Perfume  4, Pet Food 4, Cigarettes 4, and Cosmetics 4 to provide Basic Education, Water and Sanitation and Basic health and nutrition to the WORLD and still have 3 BILLION left over. Speak up, speak out! Talk to someone. You have been given a voice for a reason, use it today.

You can help by contacting UNICEF, the International Red Cross Red Crescent, Your local Red Cross Chapter, OXFAM and other global organizations dedicated to eliminating poverty and providing basic human needs to the worlds populations. Play Robin Hood – donate, let your voice be heard.

The dirty little secret is out: private foundations, which receive a tax exemption, are required to spend 5% of their endowment yearly, but 9 Massachusetts colleges with endowments that exceed one BILLION dollars face no such requirement. They are: Amherst, BC, BU, Harvard, MIT, Smith, Tufts, Wellesley, and Williams.

With these huge fortunes just sitting there earning vast amounts of interest daily, these are colleges which, on a student’s appeal for more financial aid, will respond by saying that there are “not enough funds available.” When it comes to discussing finances, these colleges have no credibility as their public remarks boggle the mind.

Here’s an example:

Boston College justified raising its tuition last year on the basis that their employee health care costs and energy costs were rising. To add insult to the injury of increasing tuition costs, a BC official was quoted in a Boston Globe article: “Excellence is an expensive proposition.” Not to be outdone in the elitism department, when the president of BC, Rev. William Leahy, was asked about the school’s BILLION dollar endowment, and if it would mean rising tuitions would stop at BC, his response was: “A billion dollars is a great deal of money, but it by no means eliminates all the pressure.”

Pressure? The Boston Globe reported that BC was able to outbid for a purchase of real estate near its campus for nearly 100 million dollars “with cash up front.” That’s how BC defines pressure – having to bid with 100 million dollars in cash up front. I’m probably naive for suggesting this, but maybe their tax exemption is helping to relieve some of that pressure. Do you think?

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, said in a recent book: “Universities share one characteristic with compulsive gamblers and exiled royalty: there is never enough money to satisfy their desires.”

Members of the Massachusetts legislature are now considering eliminating the tax exemption. They’re looking to impose a paltry 2.5% tax, half of what private foundations are required to pay. But my guess is that these colleges are not worried. They won’t even bother sending their lobbyists to protest the proposed tax. If it happens, the colleges will do what you can already predict: raise tutions and fees.

With good intentions mixed with lots of pandering, Massachusetts politicians will likely enact this tax and parents who send their kids to these schools will pay more.

Now you know why such colleges as these don’t care what you think about what they charge. As long as the demand to get into these schools far exceeds the supply of seats, colleges will continue to corner the market on arrogance, or, biting the hands that feed them.

AfterThought: Harvard is attempting to be the exception: students whose parents make less than $60,000 a year get free tuition. But how many exceptionally bright students who meet Harvard’s requirements come from homes earning less than $60,000 a year? Not surprisingly Harvard doesn’t say. Could it be that Harvard’s own press releases want us all to think that it doesn’t want any child left behind? My cynicism must be showing….

At first, the idea of eating meat that is grown in a test tube may make some people-especially vegans like me-a bit squeamish, but when you consider the current method of meat production and its devastating impact on the planet, you’ll likely agree that in-vitro meat is an appetizing alternative. PETA’s $1 million prize incentive for scientists to create marketable in-vitro meat by 2012 could have far-reaching effects for animals, humans and the environment. For those who don’t have the discipline to give up eating animals-despite evidence that animal products don’t do our bodies any good-lab-grown meat is a viable solution with positive ramifications.

Billions and billions of animals would be spared from pain and suffering, for starters. More than 40 billion cows, chickens, pigs, and other animals are killed for their flesh each year in the United States alone. An end to factory farms and slaughterhouses would mean an end to painful debeaking, branding and castration practices. Chickens would no longer be scalded alive in defeathering tanks or cows dismembered while they’re still conscious.

We would never have to see another disturbing video showing slaughterhouse workers stomping on chickens and slamming them against walls; dragging injured pigs around by their snouts, legs or ears; or pushing downed cows onto the kill floor with a forklift. Meat recalls would be a thing of the past.

We would have a greener planet and an end to the global food crisis. Greenhouse gasses would be dramatically reduced and animal waste would not taint our waterways. And it may eventually be possible to grow millions of pounds of protein from a single cell, a monumental improvement from the inefficiencies of animal agriculture. As things stand now, it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat. A staggering 760 million tons of grain will be used to feed farmed animals this year-compared to 100 million tons used to produce fuel. Around 1.4 billion people could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to U.S. cattle alone.

And humans would be healthier. Not just because in-vitro meat will not contain antibiotics, listeria and salmonella or because mad-cow disease and other animal-borne illnesses will become a thing of the past, but also because no one will have to live downwind of a stinky, pollution-spewing animal factory. A Scripps Howard synopsis of a Senate Agricultural Committee report on farm pollution warned, “Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated. … Every place where the animal factories have located, neighbors have complained of falling sick.”

When in-vitro meat is commercially available, our oil problems will be significantly reduced. More than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the U.S. are used to raise animals for food. Each stage of meat production requires massive amounts of energy-and costs massive amounts of money.

Laboratory-grown meat will have a major impact on many facets on life, from ethical to ecological to economical. While mass quantities of in-vitro meat may not be feasible for a few years, tasty mock meats and other vegetarian alternatives can be found in supermarkets today. Until forward-thinking scientists can produce “meat” without the moo, why not choose vegan foods that have been benefiting animals, people and the environment for years?