Crime Does Not Pay

Salvador Cabañas Balazo video Foto - The film industry must warn the public about violence when deciding what rating a movie must carry. Yet on any night of the week upwards of two hundred million Americans are watching thousands of violent acts on their own televisions. Is it ok to feed our children violence at home but wrong to do so in public?

Salvador Cabañas - It seems almost impossible to find a prime time television show that doesn’t have something to do with crime. The huge popularity of the CSI kind of show is amply embellished with dozens of other crime shows that fill the venue to the brim almost every night of the week. Far from being a comprehensive list here are just some of the offerings from the American idea of crime and punishment. CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, NCSI, Forensic Files, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, Law and Order SUV, The Closer, Shark, Cold Case Files, First 48, Missing, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, City Confidential, Psychic Detective, Mission Road, The Shield, etc. What remains after these shows may also be filled with violence, shows like, Alias, The Unit, Smith, to just name a few.

Do we have a stomach for this much violence? And where are your kids when these shows are on? The question “Do you know where your kids are tonight” might have lost all of its import because if they were in front of the TV they will no doubt see more crime than they might ever encounter on the street.

The nature of the crimes shown is changing as well. Perhaps the producers are driven by competition but the graphic depictions of the crimes are becoming more morbid and extreme. The shows also must be digging down to the bottom of the barrel to find the newest twisted offerings of the criminal element. Bizarre seems to be the best word to describe the new trend toward totally off the wall murders and violence. Must we see the bullet as it rips through every muscle and tissue of the body? Do we have to wade into the mind of the criminal who plans out every twisted detail of a crime that most of us could not imagine if we wanted to? When is enough, enough?

Wrestling and ultimate fight shows take up the slack and they are often watched by children. They almost serve as a primer for when parents will let them sit and watch the blood and gore of the crime shows. Are they just innocuous fillers? Children don’t know that the wrestling shows are choreographed, rehearsed and already decided on long before they get to the arenas and TV Screens. But here’s the rub, millions of adults don’t know it either or they just don’t want to know.

Harmless entertainment? The next time you see a wrestler thrown from the top of a ladder to a table outside of the ring or being beaten over the head with a metal chair look up. Look up at the thousands of youngsters with their eyes and jaws stretched open to the limit. Those children are the most likely candidates for becoming the next subject of the crime shows.

Media in general doesn’t care about countless studies that positively link violent shows and games to school violence and later to street crime. There’s a buck to be made and who’s worrying about your kids?

The law enforcement figures in the crime shows are touted as heroes. They doggedly persist with forensic tools, savvy and determination until the criminal is finally stopped. There is a kind of falsehood about their heroism because it is like the case of the person who constantly sweeps out the cobweb but never does anything about the spider. Men and women who espouse a change of heart in individuals like preachers and evangelists are ignored or labeled as bible thumpers or charlatans that pander to the meek and those who are not as self reliant.

The public trend is to view the preacher as someone on the level of a used car salesmen and thereby dismiss the message of the messenger. As in any profession not all preachers come out pristine…so what. This is a quiescent or passive form of hypocrisy. No one ceases to see the doctor just because some of them have been sued for malpractice. No one refuses to call the cops when their in trouble just because some cops are dishonest. The message will stand regardless of how many preachers fall. What is that message?

Put simply the Bible says that the real problem with society can always be narrowed down to one single element and one single person at a time. The problem is the individual human heart; it is as prone to its own selfishness and devices as it was thousands of years ago. It can only be dealt with by conversion. Reformation, religion, police, psychiatry, social programming and nothing else can permanently change the human heart. Christ alone through the indwelling power of God’s Holy Spirit can change the human heart. Christ deals with the spider not the cobweb.

If man was intrinsically good and every heart was a wellspring of benevolence then our world would not be in the shape it is today. Crime shows would be non existent. And the scripture would not say…The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

Of course the great and mighty god we know as the dollar will keep the crime programs on the production line regardless of what a few preachers say, that’s understood. And just how much does crime pay. There are no clear statistics on the matter but a safe guess would be in the multi billions of dollars. The producers, actors and others making the crime shows have little doubt that the old adage “Crime Doesn’t Pay” is just a bunch of phooey.

The accountants who keep the books for the media could readily prove that for the moment crime does pay. Those who keep the book of life would remind us that…”The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23

The sponsors of the crime shows are paying dearly to have their products aired on these shows and we are paying dearly by having our senses bombarded to the point of numbness. The cost to our children is that they have become a generation of violence fed future potential crime suspects. The weak minded, misguided and violent prone are taking advantage of an education in crime brought to them at no cost replete with ideas for crimes they could never have generated on their own.

Do we actually love violence? It would seem we do and every great nation, kingdom or empire before us did as well. In fact a careful examination of the historical pattern would reveal that every major power in this world has experienced a rise in violent activities just before they reached the peak of their power. Unfortunately the only thing that remains after reaching the peak of power is the fall from power and that too was usually very violent. The love of violence or just a preoccupation with it has consequences on a larger scale. That too is what brought ancient kingdoms to their end. America can produce nothing that would cause it to escape the same fate unless we awake. Although the call may not be heard above the roar of the trendy crowd and the noise of money it still stands. What is that call and what is that warning? Come see.

The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Psalm11:5

Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. Psalm 58:2

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3

My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it. Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Ezekiel 7:22, 23

They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Isaiah 59:5, 6

The Typology of Financial Scandals

John Edwards Latest News - In 1634, tulip bulbs were traded in a special exchange in Amsterdam. People used these bulbs as means of exchange and value store. They traded them and speculated in them. The rare black tulip bulbs were as valuable as a big mansion house. The craze lasted four years and it seemed that it would last forever. But this was not to be.

The bubble burst in 1637. In a matter of a few days, the price of tulip bulbs was slashed by 96%!

This specific pyramid investment scheme was somewhat different from the ones which were to follow it in human financial history elsewhere in the world. It had no "organizing committee", no identifiable group of movers and shakers, which controlled and directed it. Also, no explicit promises were ever made concerning the profits which the investors could expect from participating in the scheme - or even that profits were forthcoming to them.

Since then, pyramid schemes have evolved into intricate psychological ploys.

Modern ones have a few characteristics in common:

First, they involve ever growing numbers of people. They mushroom exponentially into proportions that usually threaten the national economy and the very fabric of society. All of them have grave political and social implications.

Hundreds of thousands of investors (in a population of less than 3.5 million souls) were deeply enmeshed in the 1983 banking crisis in Israel.

This was a classic pyramid scheme: the banks offered their own shares for sale, promising investors that the price of the shares will only go up (sometimes by 2% daily). The banks used depositors' money, their capital, their profits and money that they borrowed abroad to keep this impossible and unhealthy promise. Everyone knew what was going on and everyone was involved.

The Ministers of Finance, the Governors of the Central Bank assisted the banks in these criminal pursuits. This specific pyramid scheme - arguably, the longest in history - lasted 7 years.

On one day in October 1983, ALL the banks in Israel collapsed. The government faced such civil unrest that it was forced to compensate shareholders through an elaborate share buyback plan which lasted 9 years. The total indirect damage is hard to evaluate, but the direct damage amounted to 6 billion USD.

This specific incident highlights another important attribute of pyramid schemes: investors are promised impossibly high yields, either by way of profits or by way of interest paid. Such yields cannot be derived from the proper investment of the funds - so, the organizers resort to dirty tricks.

They use new money, invested by new investors - to pay off the old investors.

The religion of Islam forbids lenders to charge interest on the credits that they provide. This prohibition is problematic in modern day life and could bring modern finance to a complete halt.

It was against this backdrop, that a few entrepreneurs and religious figures in Egypt and in Pakistan established what they called: "Islamic banks". These banks refrained from either paying interest to depositors - or from charging their clients interest on the loans that they doled out. Instead, they have made their depositors partners in fictitious profits - and have charged their clients for fictitious losses. All would have been well had the Islamic banks stuck to healthier business practices.

But they offer impossibly high "profits" and ended the way every pyramid ends: they collapsed and dragged economies and political establishments with them.

The latest example of the price paid by whole nations due to failed pyramid schemes is, of course, Albania 1997. One third of the population was heavily involved in a series of heavily leveraged investment plans which collapsed almost simultaneously. Inept political and financial crisis management led Albania to the verge of disintegration into civil war.

But why must pyramid schemes fail? Why can't they continue forever, riding on the back of new money and keeping every investor happy, new and old?

The reason is that the number of new investors - and, therefore, the amount of new money available to the pyramid's organizers - is limited. There are just so many risk takers. The day of judgement is heralded by an ominous mismatch between overblown obligations and the trickling down of new money. When there is no more money available to pay off the old investors, panic ensues. Everyone wants to draw money at the same time. This, evidently, is never possible - some of the money is usually invested in real estate or was provided as a loan. Even the most stable and healthiest financial institutions never put aside more than 10% of the money deposited with them.

Thus, pyramids are doomed to collapse.

But, then, most of the investors in pyramids know that pyramids are scams, not schemes. They stand warned by the collapse of other pyramid schemes, sometimes in the same place and at the same time. Still, they are attracted again and again as butterflies are to the fire and with the same results.

The reason is as old as human psychology: greed, avarice. The organizers promise the investors two things:

* that they could draw their money anytime that they want to and

* that in the meantime, they will be able to continue to receive high returns on their money.

People know that this is highly improbable and that the likelihood that they will lose all or part of their money grows with time. But they convince themselves that the high profits or interest payments that they will be able to collect before the pyramid collapses - will more than amply compensate them for the loss of their money. Some of them, hope to succeed in drawing the money before the imminent collapse, based on "warning signs". In other words, the investors believe that they can outwit the organizers of the pyramid. The investors collaborate with the organizers on the psychological level: cheated and deceiver engage in a delicate ballet leading to their mutual downfall.

This is undeniably the most dangerous of all types of financial scandals. It insidiously pervades the very fabric of human interactions. It distorts economic decisions and it ends in misery on a national scale. It is the scourge of societies in transition.

The second type of financial scandals is normally connected to the laundering of capital generated in the "black economy", namely: the income not reported to the tax authorities. Such money passes through banking channels, changes ownership a few times, so that its track is covered and the identities of the owners of the money are concealed. Money generated by drug dealings, illicit arm trade and the less exotic form of tax evasion is thus "laundered".

The financial institutions which participate in laundering operations, maintain double accounting books. One book is for the purposes of the official authorities. Those agencies and authorities that deal with taxation, bank supervision, deposit insurance and financial liquidity are given access to this set of "engineered" books. The true record is kept hidden in another set of books. These accounts reflect the real situation of the financial institution: who deposited how much, when and under which conditions - and who borrowed what, when and under which conditions.

This double standard blurs the true situation of the institution to the point of no return. Even the owners of the institution begin to lose track of its activities and misapprehend its real standing.

Is it stable? Is it liquid? Is the asset portfolio diversified enough? No one knows. The fog enshrouds even those who created it in the first place. No proper financial control and audit is possible under such circumstances.

Less scrupulous members of the management and the staff of such financial bodies usually take advantage of the situation. Embezzlements are very widespread, abuse of authority, misuse or misplacement of funds. Where no light shines, a lot of creepy creatures tend to develop.

The most famous - and biggest - financial scandal of this type in human history was the collapse of the Bank for Credit and Commerce International LTD. (BCCI) in London in 1991. For almost a decade, the management and employees of this shady bank engaged in stealing and misappropriating 10 billion (!!!) USD. The supervision department of the Bank of England, under whose scrutinizing eyes this bank was supposed to have been - was proven to be impotent and incompetent. The owners of the bank - some Arab Sheikhs - had to invest billions of dollars in compensating its depositors.

The combination of black money, shoddy financial controls, shady bank accounts and shredded documents proves to be quite elusive. It is impossible to evaluate the total damage in such cases.

The third type is the most elusive, the hardest to discover. It is very common and scandal may erupt - or never occur, depending on chance, cash flows and the intellects of those involved.

Financial institutions are subject to political pressures, forcing them to give credits to the unworthy - or to forgo diversification (to give too much credit to a single borrower). Only lately in South Korea, such politically motivated loans were discovered to have been given to the failing Hanbo conglomerate by virtually every bank in the country. The same may safely be said about banks in Japan and almost everywhere else. Very few banks would dare to refuse the Finance Minister's cronies, for instance.

Some banks would subject the review of credit applications to social considerations. They would lend to certain sectors of the economy, regardless of their financial viability. They would lend to the needy, to the affluent, to urban renewal programs, to small businesses - and all in the name of social causes which, however justified - cannot justify giving loans.

This is a private case in a more widespread phenomenon: the assets (=loan portfolios) of many a financial institution are not diversified enough. Their loans are concentrated in a single sector of the economy (agriculture, industry, construction), in a given country, or geographical region. Such exposure is detrimental to the financial health of the lending institution. Economic trends tend to develop in unison in the same sector, country, or region. When real estate in the West Coast of the USA plummets - it does so indiscriminately. A bank whose total portfolio is composed of mortgages to West Coast Realtors, would be demolished.

In 1982, Mexico defaulted on the interest payments of its international debts. Its arrears grew enormously and threatened the stability of the entire Western financial system. USA banks - which were the most exposed to the Latin American debt crisis - had to foot the bulk of the bill which amounted to tens of billions of USD. They had almost all their capital tied up in loans to Latin American countries. Financial institutions bow to fads and fashions. They are amenable to "lending trends" and display a herd-like mentality. They tend to concentrate their assets where they believe that they could get the highest yields in the shortest possible periods of time. In this sense, they are not very different from investors in pyramid investment schemes.

Financial mismanagement can also be the result of lax or flawed financial controls. The internal audit department in every financing institution - and the external audit exercised by the appropriate supervision authorities are responsible to counter the natural human propensity for gambling. The must help the financial organization re-orient itself in accordance with objective and objectively analysed data. If they fail to do this - the financial institution would tend to behave like a ship without navigation tools. Financial audit regulations (the most famous of which are the American FASBs) trail way behind the development of the modern financial marketplace. Still, their judicious and careful implementation could be of invaluable assistance in steering away from financial scandals.

Taking human psychology into account - coupled with the complexity of the modern world of finances - it is nothing less than a miracle that financial scandals are as few and far between as they are.

Nokia N97 Mini Dropped By Orange

Nokia E71 3g Media Player, UK : 3G Operator 3 UK can now offer Spotify for Symbian on a number of Nokia mobile phones and one Sony Ericsson. To get the Spotify for Symbian App head over to 3’s Planet 3 where it can be downloaded by contract mobile phone customers. Once downloaded, Spotify for Symbian, will open up access to the Spotify music library of six million music tracks. Download straight to your 3 mobile phone for under ten pounds a month.

In October 2009, 3 UK announced that the HTC Hero would come with free Spotify - more here. Then in November this year Nokia announced that Spotify had launched its Symbian application for Nokia - more here.The new service for 3 UK obviously ties in with the Nokia announcement

Spotify for Symbian App can be downloaded for use with the following handsets :

Sony Ericsson Satio

Nokia N86

Nokia N97

Nokia N96

Nokia N95

Nokia N95 8GB

Nokia E63

Nokia E71

Nokia 5800

Nokia 6220 classic

Nokia N86

The Nokia N97 Mini, which received rave reviews from experts and early adopters alike, looks like it has been dropped by Orange.

The phone expierenced a price cut on the Orange site and is now out of stock and industry sources tell us the phone will be dropped from Orange's network.

The reason is thought to be that Nokia N97 Mini has achieved a high level of returns, although we haven’t heard of any problems here at 3G.co.uk or on our 3G Forum.

Our review of the Nokia N97 Mini summarized that “The Nokia N97 Mini keeps the best features of the original model – the quality QWERTY keyboard and the five-megapixel camera – and packs the powerful software into a slender chassis.”

The Nokia N97 Mini has a 3.2 inch touch-screen display, 5.2 megapixel camera , QWERTY keypad and 8GB of internal memory.

Orange could have been unlucky in getting a high-level of Nokia N97 Mini returns , or it could be due to reasons other than the phone itself (such as bad value contracts) so the device may yet return to the network.

Approach to Mental Preparation

Ramalan Bintang terbaru, It is never a good idea to enter into ring with the intention of “going with the flow of things.” You cannot walk into a game and expect it to flow in your favor. You have to give some thought to specifics in terms of how you want to play your game and manner in which you will handle your opponent. In the absence of a game plan, all your moves will be a reaction to your opponent’s moves. Do you want to merely react all the time or do you want to play your best moves? Your chances of winning a game increase when you plan moves and use those at which you are most skilled.

Here’s a likely scenario of what might happen if you don’t have a game plan for your grappling or combat-athletics bouts:

• Your opponent may have a good open guard, and you may have problems with it since you did not anticipate it at all

• Your opponent may launch an attack and try to dominate the game at a very early stage of the match

• You may or may not be able to think up a strategy on the spur of the moment to tackle your opponent’s holds until its too late and the round is almost over

• When you finally find your momentum and initiate a submission, time may be up!

A framework for developing the game plan is outlined next.

1. Size up your opponent and Develop a Strategy –

• Analyze the history of the opponent’s performance in terms of wins or losses and skills or weak-points displayed in previous matches

• Try to recall and bring to fore any tactics that your opponent uses, so that you can build a strategy to neutralize it

2. Develop Strategies

It is essential to develop an opposing strategy prior to a game. If you merely size up the opponent, then you are only half way there. Strategies define the manner in which you plan your line-of-attack and the tactics that you will employ to unsettle your opponent. Your strategies will differ in accord with your opponent as no one is alike.

Steps for developing the strategies

A. Issues

Play to your plus points

Your strategy should revolve around what you do best, your strengths and the plus points in your skills. Analyze the styles that you are good at and select those that you believe will be effective against your opponent.

Beware of your vulnerabilities

An honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses will put things in perspective in your own mind as to what you can do and cannot do on the mat. You should also put in more practice behind problem situations so that you don’t find yourself powerless in an actual encounter.

Know your opponent’s weak point

Strategize your counter moves or even initiate your moves based on what you know of your opponent.

Be flexible and develop alternative strategies

Every encounter is different and, even if you are playing the same opponent again, you must be able to change strategies to throw your opponent off balance. There are a couple of techniques for this:

1. “If Statements”

This is a problem-solution method. When you use “If Statements” you paint a picture of a circumstance or a problem that you may encounter in the ring and then arrive at different solutions to tackle it.

2. Modifying your approach – Revise or reframe

This technique requires you to evaluate your moves studying order to determine whether or not you can change your emphasis in any way; increase/decrease your emphasis on hand or leg or body movements in a way that makes the move more powerful.

B. Tactics – Plan tactics to make your strategy workable. When you plan your tactics, you get into the realm of mind games. You get in to details like:

• The pace at which you want to move

• The manner in which you plan to carry out

• The level of aggressiveness that is necessary at the start, in the middle, and toward the end of a bout

• When to use your most powerful move

This is the stuff that tactics are made of in a strategy.

C. Mental Preparation Techniques - The techniques that you can apply to practice your game and fine-tune your strategy are simulation, visualization, viewing video recordings, and computer simulation.

Simulation

Simulation is a technique in which you create a situation as close as possible to what you are likely to encounter in the ring. Simulation attempts to recreate the stresses under which you perform in a match. It is a method used in practice situations to imitate the real thing and hone your performance. It is a way to familiarize yourself with the experience in a real bout.

Simulation exercises

a) Get used to external sources of strain/stress

• Noise: The commentator’s voice and constant yelling and screaming from spectators, and in general, the racket at a grappling or combat-athletics event can be quite nerve-racking and downright distracting. To get to used to the noise level, use audio recordings of matches to simulate your game during practice. This will help you prepare for these sounds.

• Presence of spectators: Allow an audience into your practice area to get used to people being around the ring.

• Unknown Venue: The rings for grappling and combat athletics are different. So it helps to play at the actual venue during training to acclimatize yourself to the space, dimensions, and feel of the venue.

• Weather: Training in extreme weather conditions is a big help when you actually encounter it in a competition. There cab be days when the heat has gone through the roof s well as days when temperatures are at sub-zero levels. The temperature may not be regulated at all the venues in which you play. So you may be exposed to extremes at some of them. Often times, matches in brazil are held outside in extremely hot conditions.

b) Simulate physical stress:

Recreating a match situation also has another far-reaching advantage. You will be exposed to a certain amount of physical wear and tear akin to a real match. While playing out scenarios, you usually experience almost the same level of physical distress as in a real encounter. So you have the additional benefit of experiencing a real adrenaline rush as well and can use the feeling of strength and power (caused by the adrenaline) to learn how to defend yourself and counter-attack.

c) Deal with exhaustion:

Practice and push yourself to your limits when you are tired and feeling fatigued. This is exactly what will happen to you in an actual match. You have to learn to maintain your alertness and concentration even when you are exhausted and low on energy.

d) Play beyond the time limit:

Extending the time limit is another way to push the envelope and exert both your body and your mental faculties. Continue to fight for a longer period than strictly necessary. By practicing beyond the time limit, you will learn to operate at higher levels of stamina and mental energy.

Visualization

Visualization is a technique that uses mental images to recreate a game situation. Through visualization a grappler or combat athlete can create mental pictures of the moves he or she plans to make and also visualize responses to the opponent’s tactics. It builds imagery into your thought processes to recreate an entire scenario in your mind. It can be a potent tool that can be complement your practice sessions and simulation exercises. Through visualization you actually get to practice in your mind on your own time.

Developing your visualization skills

Visualization is really quite easy to understand and practice. It’s much like doing math in your head. You call images onto your mental screen – images of yourself playing an opponent, the styles that you plan to use, the manner in which you will break out of an opponent’s grip, and so on.

When you visualize, you get to see your moves before you actually perform them. Many writers make a distinction between visualization and imagery. The difference is actually very subtle. Imagery is considered to be a little more vivid than visualization, and a person who practices imagery is able to incorporate sound, smell and touch in the mental images.

Through mental visualization you are mentally getting acquainted with the form that the actual encounter may take. The pressure and trauma of the encounter is considerably reduced if your visualization conditions your mind on what to expect and this conditioning prevents going blank and freezing in tough situations.

View Video Recordings

When you are unable to visualize all moves, a good alternative is to view the many videos available. There are instructional videos as well as videos of matches played by legends in grappling. Watching the moves is a form of memorization of techniques and styles: it helps you immensely in your mental preparation, especially when you are in the process of thinking through and strategizing your game plan.

Computer Simulation

Video games are available that have a built-in computerized grappling/combat-athletics system that provides the various move options. This is not kid stuff, but an interesting way to gauge the styles that you will automatically use when you face a particular situation on the mat. In a way, it is a memory enhancer that tests your ability to call on the best moves relevant to a particular situation.

3. Focus

Focus is actually extremely crucial in maintaining good mental form and is of vital importance if you want your plan to work. Focus is multidimensional and encompasses several factors that go into the mental framework of the “complete” sports professional.

Focus is the ability to converge your mental processes into thoughts that further your chances in a game and diminish the unnecessary surface noise (irrelevant thoughts) that fills the mind. The mental processes that can help you with your game revolve around certain traits and behaviors. Everything from attitude to ego to motivation and discipline come under the purview of Focus.

Astrology's Sagittarius Lucky Days

Ramalan Bintang China, People born in the days from November 23rd through December 21st, have the Astrology sun sign of Sagittarius the Archer. As a Sagittarius, you probably know your basic Horoscope, but did you know there are over seventy days every year that are lucky for you, just because of your sun sign? Just what are Sagittarius lucky days?


In Numerology, your birth date is a lucky day for you. So, you should add your birth date your list of lucky days. As an example, actor Brad Pitt was born on December 18th, 1963, so he will add December 18thh to the December list below.


Days on which the Universal day number equals your Life Path number are also lucky for you. The universe supports your actions on these days. You can calculate your Life Path number by summing the digits of your birth date, and then reducing by fadic addition. Brad Pitt's Life Path number is a three as shown below:

Life Path = (12 + 18 + 1963) = (1993) = (22) = (4).

As an example, October 3nd, 2007 will be a lucky day for Brad Pitt. The Universal Day number will be four, matching his Life Path number.

Universal Day (10/03/2007) = (10 + 3 + 2007) = (2020) = (4).

Doing this calculation for each day is tedious; however, you can short-cut the work by summing the year and month first, (10 + 2007) = (1), and then just add this value to the day number, summing the result. (1 + 3) = (4).

===> Sagittarius Calendar Dates

Six days of each month are particularly lucky for Sagittarius. They are as follows:

For January: 1st, 9th, 14th, 15th, 23rd, and the 24th.

For February: 3rd, 5th, 7th, 19th, 21st, and the 28th.

For March: 5th, 8th, 10th, 19th, 23rd, and the 31st.

For April: 4th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 20th, and the 28th.

For May: 1st, 12th, 16th, 20th, 26th, and the 31st.

For June: 7th, 8th, 13th, 17th, 21st, and the 25th.

For July: 6th, 11th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, and the 25th.

For August: 3rd, 6th, 7th, 14th, 15th, and the 29th.

For September: 1st, 10th, 12th, 15th, 26th, and the 29th.

For October: 4th, 5th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, and the 31st.

For November: 9th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, and the 28th.

For December: 3rd, 7th, 8th, 17th, 22nd, and the 25th.

Tim Jepang Berambisi Ke Semi Final

Piala Dunia 2010 Afrika Selatan,EMPAT kali lolos ke putaran final Piala Dunia 2010, merupakan prestasi sendiri buat Jepang sebagai negeri dari Asia. Setidaknya, mereka telah menunjukkan konsistensi yang pantas diacungi jempol.

Prestasi terbesar mereka sampai 16 besar, ketika menjadi tuan rumah bersama Korea Selatan di Piala Dunia 2002. Piala Dunia 2010 harusnya menjadi kesempatan emas bagi Jepang tampil lebih baik, setidaknya menyamai rekor sebelumnya. Penampilan kurang memuaskan "Samurai Blue" di babak kualifikasi, sudah seharusnya diperbaiki. Toh, mereka memiliki banyak pemain berkelas.

Tergabung di Grup A Zona Asia dalam babak kualifikasi, Jepang harus berdarah-darah untuk lolos ke Afrika Selatan. Dari delapan pertandingan yang dilakoninya, Jepang meraih empat kemenangan, tiga kali imbang, dan sekali seri. Alhasil, Jepang lolos dengan predikat runner-up grup.

Di Piala Dunia, tim-tim lain yang berasal dari benua Asia, termasuk Jepang, selalu dipandang sebelah mata. Seiring waktu, mereka berhasil mematahkan pandangan sinis tersebut pada Piala Dunia 2002. Pada babak penyisihan grup, setelah imbang 2-2 melawan Belgia pada laga perdana, Jepang mengamuk dan membinasakan setiap lawan-lawannya. Hidetoshi Nakata dkk berhasil mengalahkan Rusia (1-0) dan Tunisia (2-0) tanpa kebobolan satu gol pun. Saat itu, mereka menjadi juara grup dengan catatan tak terkalahkan.

Namun, "Tim Matahari Terbit" harus meredup di babak 16 besar. Mereka terpaksa angkat koper lebih cepat setelah penyerang Turki, Umit Davala, berhasil mencetak gol ke gawang Seigo Narazaki pada menit ke-12.

Empat tahun kemudian, "Tim Matahari Terbit" melangkah ke Piala Dunia Jerman dengan rasa optimisme besar. Berkaca pada Piala Dunia sebelumnya, Jepang yakin bisa menorehkan yang lebih baik di Jerman. Namun sayang, tim asuhan Ivica Osim ini malah jeblok. Bagaimana tidak, Jepang tak berdaya bersaing dengan Brasil, Australia, dan Kroasia. Alhasil, "Tim Matahari Terbit" tak pernah menang. Hasil memuaskan adalah sekali imbang.

Tak ingin mengulang kegagalan serupa, Jepang berusaha bangkit seraya membenahi diri. Setelah Osim terkena stroke, Jepang mendaulat pelatih domestik Takeshi Okada. Bagi Okada, melatih timnas tak membuatnya canggung. Ia pernah menangani Jepang pada Piala Dunia 1998.

Dinakhodai Okada, Jepang kembali lolos ke putaran final Piala Dunia. Semenjak didaulat menjadi pelatih, Okada sangat berambisi meloloskan tim ke semifinal. Jepang tak mau kalah pamor dari tetangganya, Korea Selatan yang sukses masuk semifinal di Piala Dunia 2002. Maka, mereka ingin menyamai prestasi itu. Melihat materi yang ada, Jepang memiliki potensi untuk membuat kejutan di Afrika Selatan.

Lalu apakah Jepang mampu memenuhi ambisinya tersebut? Kita tunggu saja kejutan "para samurai" menyayat Belanda, Denmark, dan Kamerun di Afrika Selatan nanti.