Danni's Blog

Hey, yall!

We rescued a box turtle from the middle of the road July 4th weekend. She had a “bump-not-really-a-crack” in her shell, so although we managed not to run over her, someone else must have bumped her. Our little girl wanted to keep it & hubby said we could IF she would eat.

We kept her in a wagon in the garage for a week to make sure she was eating & pooping & she was.

The next weekend, we built her an outside pen where she can get sun & shade, provided a pool of water (one of those plastic trays you sit under your potted plants – which gets cleaned out twice per day), provided a “hidey space,” etc.

She’s been fine until the past few days. Now she stays in her hidey hole (covered with leaves & grass) & won’t come out. Hasn’t eaten even the blueberries (which she LOVES). She looked at me this morning & she looked dry, which confirmed my suspicion that she’s not getting in her pool, either.

My suspicions are:

1. She’s reacting to the unseasonably cool weather we’re having. We live just South of Atlanta, and lately the mornings have been pretty cool, even the afternoons not as hot as would be normal for us. Maybe she thinks she should get ready for hibernation? But she’s not digging, just hiding under the leaves & grass clippings.
2. She’s laying eggs. I hope not, because I know the ground is hard (red Georgia clay under a an inch of top soil), so she couldn’t have dug deep enough to lay & cover them properly.

Should I just reach in & take her out of her hidey hole – where she obviously feels comfortable – and sit her in her pool? Should I just spray a little water in there to give her some moisture?  What do you think could be going on and should I be concerned?

I just gotta say this before it’s all over and she’s confirmed…

Been watching the Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings while eating breakfast these past few days. And, you know, I have no problem with a judge having a real life and being active in the community. I’d be suspicious of one who wasn’t. Just “leave it at the door” when entering the court room.

As a pro-choice, christian woman I have no problem with a judge being one also. (Nor do I have a problem with a Governor being pro-life and walking the walk, not just talking the talk.)

A judge has to make decisions based on 1) Constitutional Law, 2) laws as passed by Congress, and 3) legal precedent as set by the courts.

So what’s my problem with Sotomayor?

From what I’ve seen and heard her say in the hearings, Judge Sotomayor has a total disregard for the US Constitution!

She consistently stated that she bases her decisions on laws created by Congress and what is already set as a legal precedent. But she NEVER mentions the Constitution.

The US Constitution is THE Law of the Land. It is also the document which created the Supreme Court as one of our Branches of Government. Its duty, according to the Constitution, is to defend and enforce it. All cases which come before this Court must first be weighed against the laws contained within it.

Congress is often wrong. After all they are the ones who decided that it would be legal for the South to practice slavery. And Prohibition, anyone?

Legal precedent is often wrong. After all, once upon a time, children and wives were considered property, and one could be arrested for not moving to the back of the bus if one were not white.

Therefore, it is the Constitution (and its Bill of Rights) to which she should be deferring. But not once have I heard her acknowledge this role of the Supreme Court, upon which she seeks a seat.

That makes her unqualified for the seat.

For over a month now, that question has been screaming in my head. Because of that, I’ve been working on this post little by little. Then I saw this morning that Neal Boortz wrote a blog post saying the same thing! lol

Ok, so maybe he’s smarter and a faster writer than me, but I’m glad that I’m not the only one trying to shout that message from the roof tops!

So, I’ll share with you what I’d already written, then send you over to Neal’s post – since he’s so much better with words than I.

The Issue is NOT About Access to Health Care

This is NOT an “access to health care” issue – everyone has access to care. The issue is who pays for it. So this is really an “access to health insurance” issue. But the last time I checked health care was NOT an inalienable right. This is more of Obama’s “spread the wealth” Marxism, and not about making our health care system more efficient and inexpensive.

Government Run = Failure

It’s a proven fact that government run ANYTHING doesn’t work well. More so has it been proven that socialized medicine doesn’t work. Go look at the numbers in Europe and Canada. Health care cost more, is a major tax burden on the citizenry, and doesn’t improve care at all. As a matter of fact, it rations care to such a point that people actually DO die due to lack of access!! Talk about a real “access to health care” issue.

Seek the Right Care

The deadbeats who mooch off our system are one of the reasons health care costs so much. Instead of taking care of themselves to ensure better health, and going to a doctor’s office or the local health department when they do become sick, they insist on going to the hospital – which costs more! Obama care will only create more of these deadbeats. Especially when people start loosing the insurance they already have (and are happy with) as a result of the new regulations.

Conflict of Inerest

There is a MAJOR conflict of interest for one entity (the government) to be both regulator AND competitor.

Let the Free Market Work Out Its Own Solutions

By making the government a competitor in the market place, Obama care will also stifle the free market system that is ALREADY seeking its own solutions. More and more doctors are opting out of insurance plans and are taking patients on a fee only basis instead. Not only is this their way of reducing their own costs, but it is also a means of reducing the increasing government interference into the personal and private relationship between patient and doctor – stifling best-care practices.

Stop the Out of Control Spending!!!

Obama has already tripled the national debt with no plan to pay for it! While every household in America is tightening the belt, our government is out of control. The Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress has already admitted that this will cost much more than everyone originally thought – which was already much more than most were willing to approve. And they still have no idea how this will be paid for!!!! When is enough enough? STOP THE SPENDING ALREADY!!!

Well… you can see that I’ve not fleshed out some of my points. But in the interest of time (Congress is voting on this already!!!), I think it’s best to “get it out there.”

Now, here’s the link I promised to Neal Boortz’s post: Healthcare is Not a Right.

Text Component of Video:

That was the subject line of an email I recently got from a colleague. She & I are in the same network marketing company and she’s been struggling to build her business.

If you’re in one, you know the drill. Start a names list & harass everyone you’ve ever met since birth, purchase opportunity leads and spend HOURS on the phone trying to call people who are magically never home to take your call, go to the mall and put fliers on cars, and/or strike up conversations with strangers in the hopes that you’ll find someone who’s looking for what you’re offering.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard there’s a better way. Mike Dillard and Anne Sieg turned the network marketing industry on its ears a few years ago with the Magnetic Sponsoring and Renegade systems. Well, my colleague had also heard of them, and had studied all the “free” materials she could by and on both of them and their systems. (I know, I know… I know what you’re thinking! But I’ll address the unrealistic expectations from what you can get “for free” on a later post.)

What was so confusing?

She wrote, “It seems to me that if you join their program—you are selling their material–not your business. I would really like to chat with someone who has actually used this stuff and see what they say–is it all hype?”

First let’s address the hype.

While the MLM industry is rife with it, what good does it do? It only hurts in the long run. It either backfires immediately because everyone can see through it, or it backfires later when people ask for refunds because they realize that what you’ve said isn’t true.

Secondly, there are way too many people who are having success building their own businesses with these products and systems for this to be just about making money for Mike & Ann.

The Magnetic Sponsoring & Renegade systems are:

1. training systems for you & your new enrollees
2. to learn internet marketing,
3. to learn how to market YOUR business online,
4. to generate your own high quality prospects,
5. and to provide a means to monetize (meaning to make money from) your prospects whether or not they ever join you in your network marketing business (by being an affiliate for Dillard & Sieg).

According to the law of averages when working with purchased opportunity leads (some people do better and some people do worse, this is the “Average”), you will need to dial 200 numbers just to get one enrollment!

YUCK!!!

Why not find a way to have your lead generation system pay for itself on the front end while generating leads for your business on the back end? Sure beats that “200 to 1″ ratio!

Success in network marketing really depends on each person finding out which method works best for them, and working THAT method primarily. That’s why I started looking into other methodologies.

Sure some people are very successful with warm market strategies, opportunity leads, or the “walk & talk” method. But most aren’t. Besides, why ignore the entire online world and the great resource that it is?

What I got out of the Mike Dillard & Anne Sieg materials:

• How to apply the geeky side of internet marketing to my network marketing business. It works great! It just takes a while to start getting the financial results when you start it from scratch. What it really is, though, is generating your own opportunity leads. So you’re still working leads, it’s just a more powerful method because when you call the prospects, you’re saying, “Hi, you visitied my xyz.com website and requested more information…”
• Another big thing I’ve gotten out of the Dillard & Sieg methods is the self-growth. It’s embarrassing how backwards and poverty-minded my thinking has been over the past few years.

Ok, all that said, it is my opinion, and I’m hearing this more from the gurus now, that the whole “marketing your MLM via internet marketing” niche is becoming more & more saturated and more and more competitive. It requires SOOO much content creation, and what hasn’t already been said by everyone else yet? How do you market yourself as a leader that others want to work with in the face of all that competition for attention?

You create your own system, that’s how!

But who has the time and resources to do that? More importantly, who has the WILL to do that? Why reinvent the tools that already exist?

That’s one of the reasons there’s such a huge movement away from the “geeky online marketing” methodology toward social networking.

Not only is social networking SOOOOO much simpler to do, it’s much simpler to teach!!! For a vast majority of the population, we’re already on the social networks. We’re having fun, but wasting a lot of time. What if we could network socially, but with purpose? (I guess you could say that it’s “old school walk & talk” applied to the internet.) Most of us have no problem striking up conversation and socializing online. Speaking for myself, since 1996 I’ve made more friends online than I have off line!!! lol

The best part is that we don’t have to teach the methodology ourselves!!! You don’t have to be an expert at this. Just direct yourself and your serious biz builders to the training source. Max Steingart has been teaching what is now called “attraction marketing” via social networks for about 12 years already. His classes are extremely affordable. And once you learn the method, it’s applicable to ALL social networks.

Oh, another word about all this training that’s available. Pick a skill or system, learn it and MASTER it before moving on to another!!!!! Take if from an ex-teacher: you learn by doing. So…

Train then DO!

Let me add a few more exclamation points to that…

!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot stress this enough. Jumping around from method to method accomplishes nothing. You get confused with all the trainings, then you start confusing “training” with “working,” and never build your business.

You MUST pick the method that’s most appealing to YOU. If you’re more of a geek, then go the online marketing route. But if you’re more social than geeky, then go the social networking route. Which ever you choose, though: Learn it. Master it. Start earning from it. Then you can add other skills to diversify and increase your earnings. But at that point, you still focus on the method that already works for you – don’t stop working it. You’re just adding another skill on top of it.

So, I’ve been studying and using the Max Steingart method and LOVE it! I’m just socializing on the internet, getting to know people, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends. By asking the right questions at the right time and paying attention to what people say and how they say it, I can determine if someone is a prospect (qualify them) before I EVER bring up business! So, there’s no rejection, and once I’ve qualified them and know what it is that they want to accomplish, helping them accomplish that is a breeze!!!

Training use to be a hassle. Now it’s just fun – because we’re just playing around on the internet!!!

This was an email received from my dad. I usually delete such things, especially since what it proposes is so obviously “out there” & would never happen – thus it’s really no more than tongue-in-cheek humor. BUT it also hits so close to the truth of the issue hat I couldn’t resist posting.

When a company falls on difficult times, one of the things that seems to happen is they reduce their staff and workers.  The remaining workers need to find ways to continue to do a good job or risk that their job would be eliminated as well.  Wall street, and the media normally congratulate the CEO for making this type of “tough decision”, and his board of directors gives him a big bonus.

Our government should not be immune from similar risks.

Therefore: Reduce the House of Representatives from the current 435 members to 218 members and Senate members from 100 to 50 (one per State). Also reduce remaining staff by 25%.

Accomplish this over the next 8 years. (two steps / two elections) and of course this would require some redistricting.

Some Yearly Monetary Gains Include:

$44,108,400 for elimination of base pay for congress. (267 members X $165,200 pay / member / yr.)

$97,175,000 for elimination of the above people’s staff. (estimate $1.3 Million in staff per each member of the House, and $3 Million in staff per each member of the Senate every year)

$240,294 for the reduction in remaining staff by 25%.

$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork barrel ear-marks each year. (Those members whose jobs are gone. Current estimates for total government pork earmarks are at $15 Billion / yr)

The remaining representatives would need to work smarter and would need to improve efficiencies. It might even be in their best interests to work together for the good of our country? (Now there’s a new idea!)

We may also expect that smaller committees might lead to a more efficient resolution of issues as well. It might even be easier to keep track of what your representative is doing.

Congress has more tools available to do their jobs than it had back in 1911 when the current number of representatives was established.  (telephone, computers, cell phones to name a few).

Note:

Congress did not hesitate to head home when it was a holiday, when the nation needed a real fix to the economic problems.  Also, we have  senators that have not been doing their jobs for the past 18+ months (on the campaign trail) and still they all have been accepting full pay.  These facts alone support a reduction in senators & congress.

Summary of opportunity:

$44,108,400 reduction of congress members.

$282,100, 000 for elimination of the reduced house member staff.

$150,000,000 for elimination of reduced senate member staff.

$59,675,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining house members.

$37,500,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining senate members.

$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork added to bills by the reduction of congress members.

$8,073,383,400 per year, estimated total savings. (That’s 8-BILLION just to start!)

Big business does these types of cuts all the time.

If Congresspersons were required to serve 20, 25 or 30 years (like everyone else) in order to collect retirement benefits there is no telling h ow much we would save. Currently they get full retirement after serving only ONE term.