Full Moon

Supermoon of Year 2012

This year's May 5, 2012. Saturday's event is a "supermoon," the closest and therefore the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. The Supermoon appears up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than at other times.  The full moon rises behind the Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, south east of Athens, Greece. The moon rises behind the University Auditorium at the University of Florida as seen from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville Fla., on May 5, 2012. A 'super moon' rises above a egret nesting area on the west side of Wichita, Kansas USA. The moon rises next to the Century Tower at the University of Florida as seen from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida, USA. The full moon rises behind the Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, south east of Athens, Greece.

Doctor and Patient

Doctor and Backache Patients (joke)

Shading"/> One morning a patient arrives complaining of serious Backache. The doctor examines him and asks him, "What did you do to your back?" The patient replies, "You know that I am a bouncer at a local night club? Well, yesterday morning I got home to my flat quite early and heard a noise in my bedroom. On entering I knew someone had been sleeping with my wife as my wife was lying naked in bed and the balcony door was open. I rushed out the balcony door and did not find anyone. As I looked down from the balcony I saw a man running out of the building and he was dressing himself. I grabbed the fridge and threw it at him. That's how I strained my back. The 2nd patient arrives looking as if he has been in a car wreck. The doctor says, "My previous patient looked bad, but you look terrible. What happened to you? The 2nd patient replies, "You know I have been unemployed for a while now Doctor? Well yesterday morning was my first day at my new job. I forgot to set my alarm and was running late. I was running out of the building, getting dressed at the same time, and you won't believe it but I was hit by a fridge. The 3rd patient arrives, he looks even worse than then the other two patients did. The doctor was shocked. Again he asks, "What happened to you?" The 3rd patient replied, "Well, I was hiding in a fridge..".

Story Time: The Hare & The Tortoise – A new management approach

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Part 1

Long time ago, there was a tortoise and a hare who had an argument about who the faster runner was. They finally decided to take on one another on a race.

As the race started, the hare sprinted ahead briskly for some time. Realizing that it will take some time for the tortoise to catch up with him, he decided to seek shelter from the sun under a tree before continuing the race. As he sat under the tree, he gradually fell asleep. The tortoise, crawling at a steady pace, eventually overtook him and won the race. The hare woke up and realized that his complacency cost him the trophy.

Moral: The determined, hardworking and steady paced people will eventually overtake the fast but complacent. We are all familiar with this story.

Part 2

The hare realized that he was over confident, complacent and took things too easily. He decided to have a re-match with the tortoise. The tortoise accepted his challenge.

This time, the hare ran with all his might and didn’t stop until he crossed the finish line.

Moral: Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady.

But the story doesn’t end here.

 Part 3

This time, it was the tortoise that did the soul searching and he realized that if the hare didn’t stop, there is no way he will beat him. He thought hard and decided on a different course and he challenged the hare to another re-match. The hare, of course, agreed.

With the lessons learnt from his previous failure in mind, the hare kept on running once the race started and didn’t stop until the route leads him to the bank of a river. He was taken by surprise and he did not know what to do, since he could not swim. There were no bridges in sight and no one to ask for directions. As he was cracking his head, thinking of ways to cross the river, the tortoise strolled slowly along, dived into the river, swam across it and ultimately, finished the race before the hare.

Moral: Know your strengths and take on your competitors in areas of your core competency.

The story still hasn’t ended.

Part 4

With the hare and the tortoise spending so much time together racing, they have become rather good friends, they have also developed mutual respect for one another as they realized that they are both different and they have different strengths. They decided to race again, but this time, as a team.

As the race started, the hare carried the tortoise and they sped to the river bank. There, they switched positions and the tortoise ferried the hare across the river. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they crossed the finishing line together. They completed the race in a record time that both of them can never achieve if they were to do it alone. They also felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.

Moral: It’s good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies but unless you’re able to work in a team and harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does well.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could, but was not doing as well as he wished.

Imagine how long it will take the hare to learn how to swim! Or for the tortoise to learn to run fast. In this day and age when the environment changes at lightning speed, we have to learn to work with people who have strengths in areas that we do not have.

It is the same in business, if we can collaborate with people who are experts in areas that we are not familiar with, we will realize that our market suddenly becomes bigger. Maybe that is what globalization is after all.

Sometimes face lift is not enough...

A woman decides to have a face lift for her birthday. She spends $5000 and feels pretty good about the results.

On her way home, she stops at a news stand to buy a newspaper. Before leaving she says to the clerk, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old do you think I am?"

"About 32," is the reply. "I'm exactly 47," the woman says happily.

A little while later she goes into McDonald's and asks the counter girl the very same question. She replies, "I guess about 29."

"Nope, I'm 47." Now, she's feeling really good about herself.

She stops in a drug store on her way down the street. She goes up to the counter to get some mints and asks the clerk the same burning question. The clerk responds, "Oh, I'd say 30."

Again she proudly responds, "I am 47, but thank you."

While waiting for the bus to go home, she asks an old man the same question. He replies, "Lady, I'm 78 and my eye sight is going. Although, when was young, there was a sure way to tell how old a woman was. It sounds very forward, but it requires you to let me put my hands under your bra. Then I can tell you exactly how old you are."

They wait in silence on the empty street until curiosity gets the best of her. She finally blurts out, "What the heck, go ahead."

He slips both of his hands under her blouse and under her bra and begins to feel around very slowly and carefully. After a couple of minutes of this, she says, "Okay, okay, how old am I?"

He completes one last squeeze of her breasts, removes his hands, and says, "Madam, you are 47."

Stunned and amazed, the woman says, "That was incredible,
how could you tell?" The old man replies, "Promise you won't get mad?"

"I promise", she says. He replies, "I was behind you in line at McDonald's."

Funny Politics Two Cow Jokes

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

SOCIALIST
You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbour. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. The cows go on strike to keep out American hormone-fed milk and launch a stampede through a McDonalds franchise at Euro-Disney. The French Cow Liberation Front hacks into the Cheddar website with images of Roquefort and WAV files declaring “Vive la France!” You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them Worldwide.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves. They are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

EXTROPIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You read their DNA and figure out a way to create lean beef directly in a vat. You upload your cows. You debate endlessly on what to do with the originals cows, which are still alive and well, and are demanding bovine rights.

BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows. Both are mad.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You break for lunch. Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You worship them.

CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

ISRAELI CORPORATION
So, there are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two cows. Each one is worried that the other one might get a better milk output, so she keeps kicking the other one’s milk pail. All milk goes to waste. And then the farmer asks them to screw in lightbulbs, ’cause he doesn’t know how.

AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow that swam ashore. You can’t be certain that it is not infected with plague, so you place it in a razor-wire-fenced detention center. Another cow swims ashore but you are starting to suspect that these are not cows but rabbits, so you send it to a distant Pacific island. The number of cows (or possibly rabbits) arriving at shore drops drastically and your board gets reappointed with a bonus.

SENEGALESE CORPORATION
You have 5 cows, they’re healthy and produce x amounts of milk/month. Soon there are 10 cows, then 20, then 30. When the number reaches 40, suddenly 38 cows literally disappear. Some Senegalese breeders accuse Mauritanians. The Mauritanians say they’re innocent. Some fight starts, and someone dies. The story gets told and retold by the press. People’s fears and angers are being played with. A few hundreds Mauritanians get slaughtered in broad daylight, their shops and businesses are vandalized & burned. State of emergency is declared in Senegal. In the meantime, everybody forgets about the cows.

SWEDISH CORPORATION
You have two cows, so you demand government support for struggling small farmers. While struggling against all the other small farmers for the government support (arguing that not only is your company providing at least two jobs for cows in a rural area, but also that since they are female you are also promoting equality) you don’t have the time to get the massive EU grant for corporations with two cows.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks he’s French, other times he’s Flemish. The Flemish cow won’t share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow’s milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You don’t milk them because you cannot touch any creature’s private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the U.S. government to find alternatives to milk production, but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
1990’s: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead. The other sues sheepherders, claiming that the immigrant Belgian Sheep are carrying Mad Cow Disease (even though no sheep have ever caught it) and that they should be detained and destroyed by a Secret Dairy Tribunal set up by the FDA.

2009: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. So?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION
You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows. They make real California cheese. Only five speak English. Most are illegal. Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

CANADIAN CORPORATION #1
You have two cows. Your dairy operation is productive, and you sell 80% of the milk to the US market. The American government decides that you are taking advantage of federal subsidies to dump milk on the market below cost, and slaps you with 25% “countervailing” duties, to protect the interests of the above-mentioned American Corporation. Angered and enraged in typical polite Canadian fashion, you cheer on the Canadian hockey team to pound the USA team 5-2 and win Olympic gold. You let out a cheer, wave the Maple Leaf a bit, then apologize for the outburst and get back to milking your cows.

CANADIAN CORPORATION #2
You have two cows, but only need the milk from one. So you sell one cow to an American company, who markets its product as being “pure Canadian milk.” That American corporation prospers thanks to its “pure Canadian” marketing campaign. Meanwhile, you continue to sell the milk from your one cow at the same price in the same way. Canadian media finds out about the original “cow to America” transaction and creates a major story throughout Canada about how the big, greedy, successful American corporations prey on the ma and pa corporations North of the border. Influenced by the media, you file an unsuccessful lawsuit towards the American corporation. Upon the failure of the lawsuit, the Canadian media once again complains about the big, greedy American corporations.Three months later, you decide you don’t like the cow farming business anyhow, so you sell your remaining cow to the same American corporation that bought the first cow, and go into the ping-pong ball manufacturing business.

COWS.COM
You own two cows, so you send a business plan to 20 venture capital firms about how you can make money by giving away milk and selling ad space on the cartons. As the venture capital runs out, you issue an IPO based on your projections that your research team will develop new milking technology any day now. When your milking engineers tell you that they can’t get any more milk from a cow by working 60-hour weeks, you offer them more stock options if they’ll work 80-hour weeks solving the problem. The good engineers, who might actually have solved the problem, all work until their options vest, then retire, leaving you with junior engineers whose options all become wallpaper in another year when the company collapses and liquidates all its cows to a traditional dairy farm started by one of the old engineers.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull... you now have enough cash to buy cow shredders.

B.C. HYDRO
A Corporate Accountant has 2 cows. One he calls Capital, the other OMA (Operations, Maintenance & Admin). He doesn’t feed OMA very much, so she gets sick and almost dies. He decides to throw her a few scraps from Capital’s trough until the new fiscal. She limps along but won’t give any milk, meanwhile Capital is so full she can’t eat anymore. The accountant decides to lay off the worker that feeds OMA as it must be his fault... he saves the wages for himself. OMA dies 2 days later, so he puts Capital into service (OMA’s stall) and expects things to change now that he has a new healthy cow. He fills out the required CRA Process form and orders a new Capital cow, but the new OMA is too weak to mate... the accountant decides to reorganize and buy more bulls... that will surely produce more milk!