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This article by Angela Baca describes creative ways in which teachers can make daily use of rubber stamps to assist in their educational endeavors. My mother, who has been a professional educator for more years than she probably wants to count, uses some similar techniques to those described in the article, except instead of customized rubber stamps, she uses a “star system” in which students are awarded various numbers or colors of stars for significant accomplishments or good behavior. It has worked fairly well for most of her classes, and often encourages competition among students as a way to keep them motivated to complete their assignments. Using rubber stamps can accomplish a similar purpose, but as Angela Baca’s article describes, they are useful for other tasks as well.

Around for many years now, the rubber stamp is a tool that proves invaluable to a teacher who needs to duplicate a message for as many as forty students at a time. In order to be effective, teachers are creatures of habit, structure, procedures, and pragmatism. The stamp helps the resourceful educator with a major component of the job—record-keeping. In turn, keeping good records helps teachers in situations that arise with when parents and administrators are looking for answers. By using a rubber stamps to communicate regularly with parents, then teachers can effectively cover themselves by providing consistent feedback to all students. Often, the record of stamps in a student’s planner or homework folder will show the effort that the teacher has made. The discussion of rubber stamps below focuses on the general uses of stamps and recommendations for use of customized rubber stamps in the elementary and middle school grades.

Manufactured stamps are readily available for reasonable prices in office supply stores, stationery shops, and educational stores. There are many general uses for stamps. Elementary school teachers use stamps to communicate with parents about young children. An elementary school teacher who teaches all subjects to a student will have to provide feedback daily or weekly for many subjects, i.e. reading, math, science, social studies, spelling, handwriting, and art. Some students may also need feedback on electives, i.e. physical education, computers, and foreign languages.

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One of the reasons that I have come to loathe most of American society is its overly litigious tendencies. For example, here in South Texas it has become commonplace for a certain segment of the population to make a regular income through the lucrative potential of personal injury lawsuits. People often collect unreasonably large sums of money from settlements with drivers or their insurance companies in minor accident cases where there was no substantial damage or injury.

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Most of us who have been blogging for any significant amount of time have heard the phrase, “content is king”. It has been repeated in so many publications that it has surely become cliché by now. I have read articles from a few folks who have challenged the notion somewhat, claiming that things like traffic generation or social media have become more important. However, even if it is technically not “king”, few people could reasonably disagree with the idea that content is still the ultimate backbone of any website. Without some kind of actual written content, one cannot be indexed in search engines, and it is unlikely that a website could make much money without displaying any text (although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has actually tried this).

When creating and maintaining blogs for income purposes, the need for a consistent supply of content is often one of a webmaster’s greatest challenges. Although bloggers can always write all of the posts themselves, most professional webmasters soon realize that this is a very time-consuming task and begin looking for alternative solutions. Fortunately, this is a task that can be outsourced - that is, contracted out to other people in exchange for a fee. If you are a beginner in this particular area, or have been a “hobby blogger” who wants to take your blog to the next level, this article will explain six reasons why you should consider outsourcing your article writing chores. Some of the ideas were derived from an excellent guest post by Rock from InternetBabel.com; I have also included my own impressions from personal experience with writing and publishing blog content.

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When we think about the topic of gun control, most of us Libertarians would like to see it associated with the proper handling of a firearm, especially if this becomes necessary while defending oneself against a tyrannical government. Most politicians, however, believe that they can somehow control guns by restricting or criminalizing their ownership, resulting in a safer society with less violent crime. Here are 10 quick bullet points (pun somewhat intended) that can be used to defend our basic rights of self-defense against the misguided politicians and uninformed sheeple. Meanwhile, for a good laugh you can also read my report from last August that pointed out why gun buyback programs are just as stupid and ineffective as attempting to ban firearms outright.

1. When it comes to house burglaries, muggings, or even killing a few “undesirables”, gun control makes the job of criminals much easier. Although most anti-gun people remain blissfully ignorant, criminals generally do not obey stupid gun control laws even though their sheeplike victims often do.

2. Historically, authoritarian politicians have really liked the idea of gun control. As with the criminals, their job becomes easier too. Combined with the right dose of propaganda, they can easily oppress the sheeple when the latter have relinquished one of their primary tools of resistance.

3. Although many people may not realize it, there were actually fewer school shootings when gun laws were less restrictive. Amazingly, putting up all of those signs that read “Gun Free Drug Free School Zone” has not created any magical forcefields around the schools that would repel guns or prevent people from “going postal” even though they were entering a school instead of a post office. And of course, drugs have not been magically repelled either.

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Yesterday I received a nice little email tip from one of my big marketer guys about a potential source of traffic that most of us are probably not using. It’s called Webwire.com, an online news service that distributes press releases to major Internet media outlets such as Google News, MSN News, and the like. I’ll let the email speak for itself because it does a pretty good job of summarizing the pros and cons. Meanwhile, if you decide to use this method but aren’t sure about how to write press releases, you can check out my previous article on this topic, 10 Tips for Writing Effective Press Releases.

Marketing Tip: http://www.webwire.com

Postives: Fast indexing (2 days), on par with ezinearticles, little competition, easy to use once familiar.

Negatives: Cost $19 (which to me is actually a positive because it will keep a lot of competition away)

-Results short lived. 1 to 2 weeks. (great to use for new product launches)

Summary: Webwire is a press/news release service. This means Google, Yahoo and MSN bots visit frequently. The price keeps out the riff raff that most free sites get…and I “theorize” that Google gives it special points because of this.

To stay “clean” you need to submit a press release, which is really easy guidelines are here:

http://www.webwire.com/FormatGuidelinesOptions.asp

I do notice though…that they are not very tough on the “guidelines”.

However…I would highly recommend that you follow them because

1. You won’t have to worry about getting your release pulled.

2. My experience with press releases is that they convert very well…because it is NEWS and not a pitch.

Webwire is a great little tool to keep in your arsenal.

While most of us enjoy the convenience of withdrawing cash from an ATM when we need it, many such machines have begun charging significant fees for their use unless you happen to be a customer of their associated banks. For example, I noticed that Bank of America has recently raised their fees for each ATM transaction made by non-customers from $2 to $3. While this may not seem like much, it can add up over time and become an annoying extra expense to keep track of when trying to manage your finances.

Fortunately, there are an increasing number of banks that will reimburse such fees to your account even if you use non-affiliated ATMs. One such institution is USAA Federal Savings Bank. I have had an account with USAA for over three years now, and know from personal experience that they always rebate ATM surcharges at the end of each month regardless of which particular machine you use. The only caveat is that the rebate is limited to a maximum of 10 withdrawals or $15 per month, whichever happens first. However, I have never used ATMs frequently enough to exceed these limits, so this has never been a problem.

In this article, I will provide a list of other banks that either offer no fee ATM transactions at their machines or reimburse fees like USAA does. I will also answer some ATM-related questions that you may have, and then finish the article with a few tips on how to avoid ATM fees altogether.

What does ATM stand for?

ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine, also known as Automatic Teller Machine. It is a computerized bank terminal that is designed to accept cards with your account number and PIN (Personal Identification Number) on them, which are usually encoded with a magnetic stripe. Such machines have the ability to dispense cash, take deposits, and perform a few other basic banking functions such as transfers between accounts or information about current balances. Although the term “ATM machine” is actually redundant, I have used it a few times in this article because it appears so frequently in search queries.

What is the total number of ATM machines in the United States?

According to the American Bankers Association, there were approximately 395,000 ATMs in the United States as of 2006. In that year, they processed over 10.1 billion transactions.

Why do ATM machines eat your card?

Occasionally, ATMs have been known to “eat” cards in certain instances, which understandably frustrates their users. This usually happens for one of the following reasons:

1. Some ATMs are programmed to seize the card if the user enters the PIN incorrectly three times in a row (the dreaded “three strikes” rule).

2. In some locations, the ATM will eat your card if you do not retrieve it within a certain time period after fully completing a transaction (15 seconds for some machines, but this may vary).

3. In a few cases, cards have been eaten because the user had insufficient funds in the account or was trying to initiate a fraudulent transaction of some sort.

4. Sometimes the ATM simply malfunctions and keeps the card when it is not supposed to, in which case you can attempt to get it back by notifying the relevant bank. I read about one case where this happened and the bank personnel eventually had to pry the ATM open to get the card back, after which the renegade machine continued to eat the cards of subsequent customers.

What is an ATM PIN reversal? Is this a scam?

This is a concept that has been propagated by forwarded emails claiming that you can enter your PIN (Personal Identification Number) backwards at an ATM machine in order to secretly summon police. Supposedly this can help you in the event that you are being threatened by a robber while in the process of withdrawing cash. However, this idea was never actually implemented by any banks, although there have been a few proposed bills in state legislatures referring to the idea of such a system. While technically not a scam, it has become known as an urban legend that is not really true. Both scopes.com and scambusters.org have confirmed that emails claiming that this is true are bogus.

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As libertarians, one of the first challenges that we face when trying to educate people about our beautiful philosophy is that a large portion of the general public simply has no clue about what a libertarian really is. Worse yet, many people have vague or grossly inaccurate notions of what “libertarian” means because they have heard the word used in a misleading or pejorative context by politicians, uninformed educators, or biased media sources. Other people simply get confused about libertarianism by mixing it up with words that have somewhat similar spelling or with political groups that coincidentally share one or a few of our issue positions. For example, I have seen and heard people confuse libertarians with liberals, libertines, Liberians, librarians, left-wingers, right-wingers, conservatives, and independents.

In order to explain and clarify the word’s meaning, I will list several libertarian definitions below that I have accumulated from historical figures, scholarly essays, dictionaries, and other relevant sources. This is not intended to be a full-blown FAQ on libertarianism or a treatise on its various aspects; it simply answers the question, “What is a libertarian?” from different people’s perspectives. It is a list of quotes similar in format to my other compilation called Funny Quotes and Words of Wisdom. As with the previous article, if you have any other credible libertarian definitions that are not already included here, you can post these in the comment section and I will add them to the list.

libertarian (noun):
1. An advocate of the doctrine of free will.
2. One who upholds the principles of liberty; specifically, one who upholds the principles of individual liberty of thought and action.

libertarian (adjective):
1. Of or belonging to a libertarian.
2. Advocating a theory of free will.
3. Advocating or advancing liberty.
4. Based on or embodying principles of liberty. — Webster’s Third International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged)
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libertarian: One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state. — American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
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In popular terminology, a libertarian is the opposite of an authoritarian. Strictly speaking, a libertarian is one who rejects the idea of using violence or the threat of violence (legal or illegal) to impose his will or viewpoint upon any peaceful person. Generally speaking, a libertarian is one who wants to be governed far less than he is today. — Dean Russell, Foundation for Economic Education (1955)
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Libertarianism is, as the name implies, the belief in liberty. Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life as long as he simply respects the right of others to do the same. — Sharon Harris, President of Advocates for Self-Government
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Over the past ten years or so, cell phones have become very popular communication devices because of their convenience and portability. However, along with this surge in popularity there have been many incidents of people accidentally dropping their cell phones into various bodies of water or other liquids. If this happens to you and your cell phone gets wet, you may think at first that it is damaged beyond repair and dread the cost and hassle of replacing it. But with some resourceful thinking, in many cases it is possible to save a wet cell phone if you take action quickly enough.

Once a cell phone gets wet, several methods are available for attempting to dry it out and revive it, but there a few things that you should always do first regardless of which method you choose. The most important of these is to immediately get the phone out of the water and remove the battery. This will disconnect the electrical power source, thus preventing any further possibility of short circuit damage and increasing your chances of a successful cell phone resurrection. If you have a SIM card, this should be removed also - you may be able to save your data.

The next step is to get as much water as you can out of the phone and dry off all visible liquid with a cloth or paper towel. If your cell phone has any other easily removable parts besides the sim card, these can be dried separately. Then your main task is to make sure that the internal parts of your phone are completely dry so that you do not cause a short circuit when you reconnect the phone’s power supply. This is the part that will require the most patience and thinking, as there are several methods that people have used to successfully dry out their cell phones. Here are a few that I have come across in my research:

1. Wait it out. Yes, it’s boring and will take a while, but this is probably the safest method overall. Just let the phone sit out in a dry place for at least three days while the water evaporates. A variation on this that might speed up the drying process slightly is to leave the phone on top of a low heat source such as a television or cable box.

2. Put the phone in a bowl of dry rice. Many people have had success with this one, and it makes sense because uncooked rice can absorb a lot of water. For most cell phone models, you won’t have to worry about the rice grains getting inside of the phone. The following video provides a quick one-minute demonstration of how this is done.

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When selecting fresh vegetables for your favorite recipes, this brief article by Katina Mooneyham provides a few common sense tips that you can use to make sure that purchased produce is not spoiled, damaged, or otherwise unusable for cooking. While most of these things will seem pretty obvious to those of us who have fully developed brains, after watching videos like these, I have learned that one should not always assume that common sense is in ample supply.

Next time you go produce shopping, watch as people start thumping melons and smelling tomatoes. Why do they start this seemingly odd behavior? It’s because they’ve learned to look and test before they buy. It’s always pleasant to get a tomato that may last a little longer than others. Here are some tips for buying fresh vegetables at a store or farmer’s market.

1. Check for obvious problems, marks or otherwise unhealthy looking vegetables. Avoid fresh produce that has scratch marks or obvious bad marks on it.

2. Give produce the smell test. Over ripe fruits and vegetables have a very strong smell to them. They are sometimes overbearing. You want the produce to smell. But you don’t want it so powerful that you can smell it from three aisles away.

3. Give melons a light thump. It’s been rumored that it isn’t a surefire way to tell if a melon is ripe but it works for many people most of the time. If the melon is ripe, it will have an echo. If it is a dull sound, then it might not be ripe. But you don’t want the melon over ripe either. Do the smell test on melons.

4. Don’t buy things that are wilting. You most likely can’t save them even by putting them in cold water.

5. Make sure the fruit you buy doesn’t have any mold. Even if one or two have some mold, you may be tempted to just discard them once you get home. But if you forget to discard the bad ones right away, the whole package will spoil within days.

Teach the kids to be watchful for bad produce too. Tell them not to pick up produce that has been on the floor and put it back with the clean food items. Just remember that if you think it’s bad, then skip over it. Trust your nose and eyes.

Although I usually prefer email for general communication, I have had a few occasions where I needed to use online chatting, usually through text messages on Yahoo. I’m probably one of a very small group of people who actually uses standard English in text messaging instead of the ubiquitous shorthand abbreviations. While it is not always necessary to write out every word, there are still some general rules of etiquette that are advisable to follow in chat situations, especially if the person at the other end is someone that you do not know very well. This article by April Aragam explains some of these guidelines that will help you to maintain a professional appearance online.

There are few people who haven’t chatted online at least once. Though it’s still fairly new, most people who have a computer with Internet access have indulged in this activity. Chat is one of the most common forms of communication these days. Unlike the phone, you can have numerous conversations at once. You can chat with friends, business colleagues, and strangers. Though chatting is so easy and carefree, there are still manners and etiquettes that need to be observed:

1. Initiating Conversation

When you initiate a conversation with anyone, a stranger or a long time friend, be sure you have something to talk about. One of the most annoying things in chat is when someone messages you to ask how you are and then has nothing else to say. You don’t need to chat with someone every single time you see them online, so when you do message them, have a question in mind or a piece of news to share. This will make your chats with anyone more interesting and seem less like a burden.

2. Use Manners

Just because you’re online and not talking face to face or voice to voice, doesn’t mean you should throw manners out the window altogether. Say “thank you” and “you’re welcome” when appropriate. When someone does ask how you are, ask the same back. Use the same manners you would if you were in person or on the telephone with anyone.

3. Avoid excessive jargon and word emoticons

There are certain abbreviations that have become commonplace in the chatting world such as “bbl,” which stands for be back later and “brb,” which stands for be right back. But sometimes you will come into contact with people who have an abbreviation for every word. There are people who will say that it makes typing faster, but in many cases the word is exactly the same length, just different letters. Unless you’re a teenager chatting to another teenager, you can type normally. If you have word emoticons (pictures that replace certain words in your chat conversations), cut them down to a minimum as they can make reading very difficult for the other person. If the emote for a word is a picture only (instead of a colorful word), don’t use it at all, as the person will have a hard time figuring out what you are trying to say. These items might look cute, but more than one or two is hard on the eyes. And if you are chatting with business colleagues always type properly. You don’t want to look unprofessional.

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If you wind up having to host a dinner party or plan for some other event where food will need to be prepared for multiple guests, you will probably want something that is relatively easy to prepare and that most people will like. This article by Janna Rock provides three simple party food ideas and explains their ingredients and preparation.

After reading the article, I should probably point out one important caveat: these foods are fairly high in calories and definitely NOT for vegetarians! But if your guests don’t mind some “nutritionally incorrect” cuisine, they might as well dig in…

If you have birthdays, holidays, or other special occasions coming right around the corner, the likelihood of you having to throw a party or attend a party is probably pretty high. Here are three simple but tasty party foods that are easy to prepare, relatively cheap to make, and will be enjoyed by everyone.

Sausage Balls

Sausage balls are an all time favorite party food. They are relatively fattening and most people find it difficult to eat only one! The ingredients you will need are: 1 pound of Jimmy Dean Sausage, 4 cups of your favorite cheese, (Kraft’s Crackle Barrel Extra Sharp Cheddar seems to work best), and 3 cups of Bisquick flour.

You will need to preheat your oven to 400 degrees and either grease your cookie sheet or line it with foil because this particular party food will stick to the cookie sheet! In a large bowl mix the sausage with the cheese until well blended. You can use your hands to mix and knead the sausage and cheese together. Next slowly add the flour. If you add the flour too quickly you won’t get the correct consistency. After all of your ingredients have been mixed together, you will want to form small balls, about the size of a boiled egg yolk, and place them on your cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. For best results, serve them while they are still fairly warm.

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