Friday, July 13, 2007

Remember when people dismissed the charges that key Saudi figures and members of the royal family were flown out of the country? They said that no one was flown out before airspace was open to everyone. They also avoided the question this raised--was any thorough questioning done? As it turns out, there were some flights that were never reported . The Sept. 11 commission examined the Saudi flights in its final report last year, and it found that no Saudis had been allowed to leave before national airspace was reopened on Sept. 13, 2001; that there was no evidence of "political intervention" by the White House; and that the F.B.I. had done a "satisfactory screening" of the departing Saudis to ensure they did not have information relevant to the attacks. The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, with major passages heavily deleted, do not appear to contradict directly any of those central findings, but they raise some new questions about the episode. The F.B.I. records show, for instance, that prominent Saudi citizens left the United States on several flights that had not been previously disclosed in public accounts, including a chartered flight from Providence, R.I., on Sept. 14, 2001, that included at least one member of the Saudi royal family, and three flights from Las Vegas between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, blog photos lso carrying members of the Saudi royal family. The government began reopening airspace on Sept. 13, but many flights remained grounded for days afterward.

All of us have experienced days when our productivity soared. It was like nothing could slow us down. Everything that we had planned for the day toppled like a row of dominoes. We were unstoppable. Then, the next day, we couldn’t buy a check on our next action list. We couldn’t small business group health insurance ake anything happen. If pressed, we couldn’t say what the difference was between the two days. Several things came together this week to explain one cause of this phenomenon to me: Noting that I seemed to be more productive when I worked at a large counter where I could spread everything out and stand while I worked, I wondered if my being able to stand and work made the difference. The extra space didn’t seem to be a consideration as I have a 3 X 6 foot desk with plenty of room for materials and paperwork. I also remembered Tony Robbins and his connection with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Through his program, I know that one tactic that is useful in changing one’s state is changing one’s physiology (changing how one uses their body). I studied NLP and Robbins techniques in years past and I knew that it worked, as I noticed a difference in my state when I changed my breathing patterns, posture, and the way I carried my body. For Father’s Day, my 21–year old sons, who are finishing up pre-med and are applying to med schools, tied the two things together while teaching me about the central nervous system. They learned this in their studies as well as in MCAT prep courses and materials.

In the third excerpt from The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life, Edward C. Rosenthal looks at whether the abundance of choice can actually negate choice—leaving us with no choice at all. The first excerpt can be found here . Thus far, I have argued that human beings have faced far more choices than ever before, and that this abundance of choice has significantly altered our lives. I need to point out, however, that the presence of choice, especially when it is overwhelming, can have the effect of negating itself. In this inversion of choice, too much choice can equal none at all. Suppose you need, for example, a phone of some sort, and walk into an electronics store with ten minutes left on your lunch hour. There you are with customer tracking software aybe seventy phones in front of you. Such a situation can be bewildering, intimidating, and even paralyzing. Not knowing where to start, and not having all day either, you could well walk out speechless and empty-handed. We often take the vast selection available in stores for granted, but if you were to transport most people from outside the West and plunk them down in the shampoo aisle of the local megadrug store, their wide-eyed, open-mouthed bewilderment would shock you. The inversion of choice is shaping both consumer behavior as well as business’s responses to it.

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Remember when people dismissed the charges that key Saudi figures and members of the royal family were flown out of the country? They said that no one was flown out before airspace was open to everyone. They also avoided the question this raised--was any thorough questioning done? As it turns out, there were some flights that were never reported . The Sept. 11 commission examined the Saudi flights in its final report last year, and it found that no Saudis had been allowed to leave before national airspace was reopened on Sept. 13, 2001; that there was no evidence of "political intervention" by the White House; and that the F.B.I. had done a telemarketing lead satisfactory screening" of the departing Saudis to ensure they did not have information relevant to the attacks. The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, with major passages heavily deleted, do not appear to contradict directly any of those central findings, but they raise some new questions about the episode. The F.B.I. records show, for instance, that prominent Saudi citizens left the United States on several flights that had not been previously disclosed in public accounts, including a chartered flight from Providence, R.I., on Sept. 14, 2001, that included at least one member of the Saudi royal family, and three flights from Las Vegas between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, also carrying members of the Saudi royal family. The government began reopening airspace on Sept. 13, but many flights remained grounded for days afterward.

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