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Assessing the Impact of the Size and Scope of Government on Human Well-Being
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1 Assessing the Impact of the Size and Scope of Government on Human Well-Being Patrick Flavin Assistant Professor Department of Political Science Baylor University Alexander C. Pacek Associate Professor Department of Political Science Texas A&M University Benjamin Radcliff Professor Department of Political Science University of Notre Dame Authors names are listed alphabetically to reflect their equal contribution to the research. Corresponding author. Baylor University, Department of Political Science, One Bear Place #97276, Waco, TX Phone: (254)
2 Abstract We examine how public policies affect life satisfaction across the industrial democracies. We consider as indicators of policy overall levels of government spending, the size and generosity of the welfare state, and the degree of labor market regulation. Using individual- and aggregatelevel data for OECD countries from 1981 to 2007, we find robust evidence that citizens find life more satisfying as the degree of government intervention in the economy increases. We find, further, that this result is inelastic to changes in income, i.e. high- and low-income citizens appear to find more leftist social policies equally conducive to their subjective well-being. We conclude with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of the results.
3 Introduction The study of the market economy is as old as social science itself. Since the emergence of capitalism, market principles have come to structure not only economic production and exchange, but also the wider social order. As Heilbroner (1985: 79) observes, the market is now society s central organizing principle such that it manifests itself in all aspects of society, including those concerned with material life, justice and the social order, [and] custom and belief (for an extensive review, see Lane 1991). While few contest that the essential dominance of market principles has ceased, today there remains significant scholarly, ideological, and political disagreement over the extent to which market forces should be allowed, as Polanyi (1944: 68) puts it, to be the only organizing power in society. Within the liberal-democratic world, at least, the principal alternative source of power vis-à-vis the market is the organized power of the state. It is for this reason that the nature and extent of political intervention in the market has consistently been the main axis of political conflict within democratic societies. It is thus hardly surprising that the past fifty years have witnessed the development of a social scientific research program aimed at understanding the empirical consequences of differing levels of political intervention in the economy. For example, literatures have been devoted to investigating whether government intrusion into the marketplace achieves its stated objectives, such as reducing poverty and inequality (see, for example, Kenworthy 1999; Lobao and Hooks 2003; Brady 2005), or whether they produce the various negative unintended consequences so often attributed to them, such as driving down economic growth and causing higher unemployment (for reviews, see Atkinson 1999; Pontusson 2005). In the end, though, we are concerned with the size and scope of government because of the presumed ultimate impact on the quality of human life. Thus, in this paper, we focus our 1
4 attention not on any of the individual or particular effects of market interventions that in turn are thought to have some effect on quality of life, but instead on quality of life itself. In particular, we investigate whether cross-national differences in political interventions in the market affect the degree to which citizens lead lives that they themselves regard as positive and rewarding. This type of empirical investigation is now possible because of the development of a sophisticated literature devoted to the study of life satisfaction. With the refinement of the tools necessary to measure with reasonable reliability and validity how people evaluate the quality of their lives, we are capable of measuring subjective well-being in a rigorous fashion, theorizing about the concrete conditions that determine such differences, and testing the resulting empirical predictions (for reviews, see Heady 1993; Diener and Suh 2000; Frey and Stutzer 2002; Layard 2005, Veenhoven 2009; Radcliff 2013). 1 We use this analytical foundation as the basis for our empirical investigation into the effects of welfare spending, labor market regulation, and other aspects of governmental activity on subjective well-being. The paper is organized as follows. First, we discuss the general question of well-being and government intervention in the economy, drawing on the small but growing empirical literature on public policy and life satisfaction. We then explain our data and research design, before turning to the empirical results. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings. The Human Consequences of Government Intervention in the Market It is beyond the scope of this paper to closely review the extensive literatures in sociology and political economy that imply strong connections between human well-being and the different ideological prescriptions for managing a market economy (for such an attempt, see Radcliff 2
5 2013, chapters 2-3) for the same reasons it is beyond our purview to review the myriad competing theories of happiness which provide the necessary linkages between the material conditions of life that the aforementioned theories take as their subject and the internal mental states we label as happiness or satisfaction (for such, see Veenhoven, 2009). Instead, we illustrate the nature and structure of these familiar connections through a discussion of several strands of contemporary sociological thought that have been argued to be especially applicable to understanding the consequences of more versus less government as it relates to the quality of life that individuals experience. First, and most obviously, the income maintenance programs and related governmental activities usually bundled under the rubric of the welfare state are widely argued to improve quality of life by reducing poverty/inequality and improving living standards. Despite occasional efforts to discredit the antipoverty consequences of social security programs, the literature generally confirms that the welfare state achieves its goals of reducing poverty and inequality (e.g. Bradley et al. 2003; Scruggs and Allan 2006). That the welfare state does reduce poverty has enormous implications for human well-being in that the literature documents a multitude of destructive and injurious effects of poverty, including lower self-esteem, lower efficacy, higher rates of depression, and other deleterious psychological states (e.g. Simmons et al. 2010). It is also well established that poverty is highly correlated with, and a demonstrable cause of, poor physical health, greater rates of alcoholism, domestic violence, and divorce rates, all of which are clearly inimical to human well-being (for a review, see Radcliff 2013). Second, the welfare state, and related labor market regulations that limit the power of employers vis-à-vis workers, are likely to reduce the degree of anomic pressures in market societies. Such pressures, in turn, produce social pathologies, such as crime, which are likely to 3
6 lower overall rates of well-being in the general population. As Messner and Rosenfeld (1997: 1396) explain this institutional anomie theory: Markets presuppose a materialistic goal-orientation among actors... When these orientations develop to an extreme degree, anomie... is likely to ensue... In such an anomic environment, actors are preoccupied with outcomes... and the efficiency rather than the legitimacy of the means governs [their] behavior. The resulting attenuation of normative controls is likely to lead to high levels of deviant behavior, including crime. Empirically, as Messner and Rosenfeld demonstrate (1997, 2006), a more expansive and universalistic welfare state is strongly related to lower levels of violent crime, because a generous safety net lessens to some degree the dominance of this pernicious materialistic goalorientation in the human psyche. Thus, insofar as people are likely to find life more satisfying when there is less violent crime, the welfare state (or similar labor market regulations) should contribute to greater levels of satisfaction. Further, if such programs can be shown to reduce levels of violent crime, it seems plausible that they would also tend to reduce other social pathologies that are also commonly thought to accompany anomie, such as drug abuse or domestic violence. Just as high crime rates are likely to reduce the overall level of happiness in a society, not merely that of the immediate victims of crime, so with other similar pathologies; they impose costs on society in general, thus decreasing the overall level of happiness. Third, as Rothstein (1998) has argued, the welfare state and, again, by implication other state activities that mimic its effects contribute to greater levels of agency within a capitalist economy. Although the market itself clearly contributes to agency in obvious ways, it also limits it in others. In particular, the central feature of capitalism the commodification of labor and thus of persons must by definition reduce agency. The welfare state, by reducing commodification, limits this tendency. Simply put, one is more in control of one s life if one has more security, such that to the extent that the welfare state does provide such security, it contributes to agency, which contributes to greater satisfaction with life. 4
7 Many of these notions, and others besides, are suggested by Pontusson s (2005) emphasis of the difference between social market economies (SMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). The experience of these countries during the 1990s and 2000s also highlights the differential impact of state intervention on human well-being. Specifically, his research suggests that SMEs can simultaneously produce strong employment and economic growth outcomes while avoiding the higher levels of inequality often prevalent among LMEs. Additionally, other recent studies find that higher levels of welfare spending lead to lower poverty rates (Kenworthy 1999; Brady 2005; Brady, Fullerton, and Cross 2009). These findings are important because of the strong link between economic growth/low unemployment and higher levels of subjective well-being (Banks and Johnson 1982; Platt and Kreitman 1985; Veenhoven 1994; Greenberg and Grunberg 1995; Oswald 1997; Kenny 1999) and between lower levels of poverty/economic inequality and higher levels of subjective well-being (Tomes 1985; Alesina, DiTella, and MacCulloch 2003) that other studies have demonstrated. Beyond these direct economic consequences, Pontusson also observes that SMEs (with greater state intervention) have higher levels of labor force participation in policymaking and greater security in the labor market. Scholars have, in turn, demonstrated how these factors tend to enhance life satisfaction among those both directly and indirectly affected by them (e.g. Loscocco and Spitze 1990; Radcliff 2005). Finally, Hicks and Kenworthy (2003) urge us to conceive of the welfare state in its most expansive sense of a wide range of public policies designed to protect individuals and families within a market economy, pursuant with our own logic that we must consider more than conventional focus on social insurance typical of the literature on life satisfaction. They simultaneously build upon, expand, and simplify Esping-Andersen s (1990) emphasis on the 5
8 totality of state activities, not merely those that relate to redistribution or social security, but also those that consider (among other things) labor market protections and family policies. They provide strong evidence supporting the contention that the more a country s policies confirm to what they label a progressive liberal ideal (encompassing extensive, universalistic social benefits, active labor market policies, and gender-egalitarian family policies), the better is quality of life within that country, as measured by a variety of indicators including lower levels of poverty, lower unemployment, and less gender inequality. The probable connection between these outcomes and higher levels of aggregate subjective well-being requires no elaboration. To summarize, a growing sociology literature documents a relationship between greater government intervention into the economy and lower levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment, while a second related set of studies show a relationship between lower levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment and higher levels of subjective well-being. Turning to the few studies that explicitly examine the link between government policies and citizens subjective well-being, DiTella, MacCulloch, and Oswald (2003) find that more generous unemployment benefits are associated with higher national well-being. Sjoberg (2010) comes to a similar conclusion, theorizing that unemployment insurance reduces insecurity and uncertainty which, in turn, increases well-being. Additionally, a more comprehensive appraisal of welfare policies by Pacek and Radcliff (2008) finds a strong positive effect of indicators of decommodification and the social wage on life satisfaction, while Bandelj and Mahutga (2010) find that levels of well-being decreased in post-communist countries when the state receded and the private sector expanded. 2 However, not all assessments of government intervention and citizens well-being have uncovered a positive relationship. For example, Ouweneel (2002) finds a strong negative effect 6
9 of unemployment benefits on well-being and Bjørnskov, Dreher, and Fischer (2007) find that life satisfaction decreases with higher government (and less private) consumption in the economy. Further complicating matters, Veenhoveen (2000) finds no relationship between the size of the welfare state and citizens subjective well-being when evaluated over time, while recent work by Ono and Lee (2012) concludes that a larger welfare state increases the happiness of some citizens but at the expense of others (through redistribution of resources). Considered as a whole, these studies paint a confusing picture about the possible effects of government intervention into the economy on citizens subjective well-being. Even if we take the scholars who do find a positive relationship between state intervention and citizens subjective well-being at face value, their work may obscure as much as it enlightens. While they frame their analysis as an investigation of the effects of government intervention into the market economy, they tend to focus only on the welfare state, or specific aspects of welfare or fiscal policy. As important as the welfare state is, it is hardly isomorphic to the wider questions of dependency on the market economy. Therefore, at least two additional issues warrant attention if one hopes to evaluate the general effect of government intervention. The first is the size of the state sector, apart from the welfare state, in the form of what is called government consumption (the share of the economy the state sector consumes or spends on matters other than transfers). Thus, having considered how actively the government redistributes income (through, for example, unemployment benefits and old-age pensions), we can also consider how much it spends on other activities. Here we would consider the total value of all the things the government pays for (and thus administers and controls), ranging from public education to health care to the maintenance of roads to the enforcement of workplace 7
10 safety and consumer protection laws, and so on. The larger the amount of such spending as a percentage of the economy, the larger is the state as an economic actor. The second relates to the emphasis in previous studies on the central causal role in promoting happiness that the protection provided against the insecurity inherent in a market economy system (where workers are argued to be commodified and thus to see their quality of life vary as the fate of other commodities do) provides. While studies that examine the size or generosity of the welfare state certainly offer some evidence on this question, it is equally appropriate to consider the direct measures of security in the labor market on citizens levels of life satisfaction. Data and Method As is conventional in the emerging literature on the cross-national determinants of life satisfaction, we use pooled World Values Surveys (WVS) that provide representative national samples for OECD countries in five survey waves spanning from 1981 to Our dependent variable, self-reported life satisfaction, is measured using the following survey question: All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? There are ten response categories, with higher values indicating greater satisfaction with one s life. Our principal independent variable is a measure of the degree of government intervention into the market economy. Because (as discussed above) there is considerable scholarly debate about how to accurately quantify the size and scope of government intervention, we use four different measures and evaluate if our results are consistent across models. The first indicator we use is the size of government, measured as the government s consumption share of a country s GDP (Penn World Table 6.2). 4 The second measure is a country s total social welfare 8
11 expenditures as a percentage of its GDP (OECD 2009). Third, we use a measure of welfare state generosity (as opposed to only spending) that encompasses the ease of access to welfare benefits, their income-replacement values, and the expansiveness of coverage across different statuses and circumstances. 5 Developed by Scruggs (2005), it is a time-serial extension of the original Esping-Anderson (1990) decommodification index. 6 Fourth, we use the degree of labor market regulation, measured as an index of the overall level of Employment Protection Legislation developed by the OECD (2004). It consists of three components: regulations governing the terms and conditions of permanent contracts in case of individual dismissals, additional provisions in the face of mass layoffs, and regulations governing the possibility of hiring on temporary contracts. For all four independent variables, larger values indicate a greater degree of state intervention into the market economy. Therefore, we expect a positive relationship between each of the independent variables and subjective well-being. We analyze this relationship in two ways. First, we use the satisfaction item for individual survey respondents as our dependent variable, modeling it (separately) as a function of our four measures of government intervention. Research on individual-level determinants of subjective well-being consistently shows that the same basic characteristics tend to affect individuals similarly across countries (e.g. Di Tella, MacCulloch, and Oswald 2003). Therefore, we also control for a set of potential confounding factors that might predict individuals assessments of how satisfied they are with their lives (using the fairly standard specification from Flavin et al. 2011) including a respondent s self-reported health, interpersonal trust, church attendance, unemployment status, education, income, gender, marital status, the number of children a respondent has, and their age. Self-reported health is measured by asking respondents: All in all, how would you describe your state of health these days? Would you say it is very 9
12 good, good, fair, poor, or very poor? and coding respondents as a 1 if they report very poor health and 0 otherwise. Interpersonal trust is measured using a dummy variable where the respondent is asked, Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people? and coded 1 if they responded most people can be trusted and 0 if they responded need to be very careful. Church attendance is measured on a 1-8 scale where a higher value indicates more frequent attendance. Unemployment status is coded as 1 if the chief wage earner in their household is unemployed and 0 otherwise. 7 Education is coded as the number of years of formal education completed, and income is standardized for that country-wave and ranges from 1 to 10 (counting wages, salaries, and pensions before taxes and other deductions). Marital status is coded as 0 if unmarried and 1 if married (or living as married). The children variable reports the number of children a person has. Finally, we include a covariate for both age and age squared because of our expectation of a curvilinear relationship such that both young and old respondents tend to, on average, be more satisfied with their lives than those who are middle aged. To account for all of the other ways in which countries are different from one another (history, culture, etc.) and isolate the possible effects of government intervention, we include country fixed effects in the models that fit separate intercepts for each country (excepting a reference category). Similarly, to account for differences over time we also include year fixed effects. In all of our individual level models, we report robust standard errors that are clustered by country, which corrects for the pooled structure of the data (i.e. error terms that are neither identically distributed nor independent). Because the response set for life satisfaction has a wide range (1-10) and the wording of the question asks for a numeric score rather than a verbal ranking (such as somewhat satisfied vs. very satisfied ), we assume a constant distance 10
13 between response categories and treat the dependent variable as interval rather than ordinal (Heady 1993). Given this assumption, we use OLS in all individual level estimations. However, the results we present are substantively similar when we instead use an ordered probit estimator. 8 As our second way of evaluating the relationship between government intervention into the market economy and citizens subjective well being, we generate the mean level of life satisfaction for each country-wave in the survey and model this mean as a function of nationallevel factors using a random effects regression framework. 9 Along with our four different measures of government intervention, we also include a set of national-level controls. The importance of a nation s level of economic development, as well as its short term level of economic prosperity (particularly its level of unemployment) has been well-documented as influencing levels of subjective well being cross-nationally (Blanchflower and Oswald 2004; Di Tella and MacCulloch 2005). In addition, the degree of social connectedness among citizens has been linked to higher levels of life satisfaction (Helliwell and Putnam 2004; Helliwell and Haung 2008). Finally, it seems clear that the extent of individualization (Veenhoven 1999) present in national cultures is also a consistent predictor of national levels of satisfaction (also see Schyns 1998). To account for these factors we include measures for real GDP per capita (from the Penn World Tables 6.2), the unemployment rate (from the World Bank s World Development Indicators), the percentage rate of economic growth from the previous year to the current year, an aggregated measure of social trust (using the country-wave mean for the trust item explained above), and the index of the individualism of culture devised by Triandis (1989; data from Diener, Diener, and Diener 1995) for each country-wave included in the model. To account for the possible downward secular trend in life satisfaction argued to have occurred over recent decades (Lane 2000), we also include a control variable for the year of the survey. 11
14 Analysis We begin by regressing individuals self-reported level of life satisfaction on our four different measures of government intervention, the set of individual level control variables described above, and country and year fixed effects. We report the results of these estimations in Table 1. Note that the sample size differs across the models because some countries are missing data for one or more of the government intervention measures for certain years. For each model, the measure of government intervention used is listed at the top of the column; the country and year fixed effects are included but not reported. [TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE] Inspecting the results, we find that all four coefficients for government intervention are positive and statistically different from zero. Across the sample, as the degree of government intervention into the market economy increases, individuals subjective well-being increases as well. Substantively, the magnitude of the effect is quite large and varies based on the independent variable in question. For example, moving from one standard deviation below the mean to one standard deviation above for government consumption (Column 1) leads to a predicted increase in life satisfaction of.28, while the same move for social welfare spending (Column 2) predicts a.25 increase. More strikingly, moving from one standard deviation below the mean to one standard deviation above for the decommodification measure (Column 3) leads to a predicted increase in life satisfaction of 1.65 (nearly a full standard deviation), while the same move for the Employment Protection Legislation measure (Column 4) predicts an increase of.76. As a means of comparison, the substantive effects of the decommodification and Employment Protection Legislation measures are both larger than the effect of being married 12
15 compared to not being married, being employed compared to being unemployed, and comparing a person one standard deviation above the mean for income to one standard deviation below. Taking these results in their entirety, it seems that government intervention (however measured) matters, but it matters the most for specific policies (decommodification and labor market regulation) that seek to insulate citizens from the negative consequences of the market economy. Regardless of the specific measure used, we find that citizens living in countries where the government more actively intervenes in the market economy report higher levels of life satisfaction even after accounting for a host of alternative explanations. Moreover, the substantive effect rivals or exceeds that of other traditional predictors of life satisfaction. 10 In sum, the real world impact of government intervention on whether individuals deem their lives satisfying is quite substantial. 11 We next examine if the relationship between government intervention into the economy and life satisfaction varies across different groups of citizens. Advocates of a greater role for government often defend their position in terms of meeting the needs of the disadvantaged and less fortunate in society. One might conclude, therefore, that the impact of government intervention on life satisfaction will be greater for lower status citizens than for their more affluent counterparts. We thus ask whether the positive relationship between the size of the state and life satisfaction demonstrated in Table 1 is moderated by income by estimating the same models and adding an interaction term between each of the four measures of government intervention and income. The results of these estimations are reported in Table 2. [TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE] Looking at the coefficients for the interaction terms in Table 2, we find that none are statistically different from zero. Statistically, this indicates that the effect of government 13
16 intervention on life satisfaction is not moderated by an individual s income. Substantively, this indicates that the size of government, the generosity of the welfare state, and the extent of labor market regulation affect the satisfaction of everyone, rich and poor alike. The results reported in Tables 1 and 2 are from estimations with individuals as the unit of analysis. In our final set of estimations, we change levels of analysis and instead investigate the relationship between government intervention and life satisfaction at the country level using the mean life satisfaction level for country-waves and a random effects regression framework. The results of these estimations are reported in Table 3. Similar to the results for the individual level analysis discussed above, the coefficients for all four measures of government intervention into the market economy are positive and statistically different from zero. Regardless of whether the level of analysis is the individual or the country mean for that survey wave, greater government intervention predicts higher levels of life satisfaction. 12 [TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE] Discussion In this research manuscript we set out to determine what impact, if any, government intervention into the economy might have on the subjective well-being of citizens in advanced industrial democracies. To this end we employed a range of measures, including the share of the economy consumed by the state sector, overall welfare expenditures, the extent to which citizens were specifically decommodified, and the degree of labor market regulations. While, as we noted earlier, there are contentious competing perspectives on what these relationships should be (based both upon ideological biases and more purely intellectual, social-scientific theories), our results firmly and robustly speak to one conclusion: at least in the advanced industrial 14
17 democracies in question, government intervention increases the likelihood that citizens find their lives to be satisfying. While we consider this conclusion of substantive importance, the paper should not be interpreted as a normative or ideologically based defense of left-progressive public policies. While we find empirically (and believe there are strong theoretical reasons to believe) that social democratic policies do contribute to a world in which there is greater life satisfaction, we offer no judgment on whether an expansive, activist state is better or worse than a limited one. Indeed, no empirical analysis can offer a normative judgment on the wisdom of a generous welfare state. Instead, we focused our attention here on one part only of this enduring debate about the size and role of government by asking: Does more (or less) government enhance (or hinder) human happiness? We found what we believe to be conclusive evidence that indeed it does. Further, we can add that politics itself matters. Specifically, the preferences and choices of citizens in democratic polities, as we have shown, have profound consequences for quality of life. In short, democracy itself thus matters. This research, we believe, moves one of the major debates in the scientific study of human happiness forward. Much work in the study of subjective well-being, dominated as it has been by economists and psychologists, have (for different intellectual and methodological reasons) typically envisioned society as an aggregate of individuals who vary across many individual-level characteristics, but who are not thought of as living in societies that differ by their public regimes and thus the social conditions of life that such regimes produce. We are left thus with a literature that is extremely broad but not nearly as deep as it might be. Simply put, far too little attention has been devoted to theorizing about the range of social and political conditions that make life more (or less) enjoyable. In our focus on explicitly political conditions, 15
18 we have attempted to underscore the need for theories that more richly incorporate such determinants. Given the central role it plays in our analysis, we further maintain that the market economy itself deserves renewed scholarly attention as a major factor in the empirical study of human happiness. Specifically, we suggest that future theory-building in the area of happiness studies pay far closer attention to the nature and logic of the market and human interactions therein. Living as we do in the shadow of the Great Recession and amid ample evidence of tension between pro-market and more pro-social forces, as reflected in the debate over (in the West) austerity and (throughout Latin America and the developing world) the more general neoliberal agenda, it would be foolish to ignore a major axis of political conflict that we have demonstrated has great consequences for the degree to which people tend to find life satisfying. In short, the market system is a principal force determining the happiness of people and should be theoretically attended to as such. 16
19 About the Authors Patrick Flavin is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Baylor University. His research and teaching interests include political inequality, government representation of public opinion, political behavior, the impact of political processes on citizens quality of life, U.S. state politics, public policy, and research methods. Alexander C. Pacek is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His research and teaching interests include the political determinants and consequences of life satisfaction and happiness, and the political economy of voter turnout and electoral choice in the post-communist countries, the developing world, and the advanced industrial democracies. Benjamin Radcliff is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. His research and teaching interests include the social scientific study of human happiness, the political implications of organized labor, elections, and public policy. 17
20 References Akay, Alpaslan, Olivier Bargain, Mathias Dolls, Dirk Neumann, Andreas Peichl, and Sebatian Siegloch Income Taxes and Happiness. Working Paper, IZA, Bonn, Germany. Alesina, Alberto, Rafael DiTella, and Robert MacCulloch Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different? Journal of Public Economics 88(9-10): Allan, James and Lyle Scruggs Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies. American Journal of Political Science 48(3): Atkinson, A.B The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Bambra, Claire Research Note: Decommodification and the Worlds of Welfare Revisited. Journal of European Social Policy 16(1): Bandelj, Nina, and Matthew Mahutga How Socio-Economic Change Shapes Income Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe. Social Forces 88(5): Banks, Michael H., and Paul R. Jackson Unemployment and Risk of Minor Psychiatric Disorder in Young People: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence. Psychological Medicine 12: Bjornskov, Christian, Axel Dreher, and Justina A. V. Fischer The Bigger the Better? Evidence of the Effect of Government Size on Life Satisfaction Around the World. Public Choice 127(3): Blanchflower, David, and Andrew Oswald Well-Being Over Time in Britain and the USA. Journal of Public Economics 88(7-8): Brady, David The Welfare State and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, Social Forces 83: Brady, David, Andrew Fullerton, and Jennifer Moren Cross Putting Poverty in Political Context: A Multi-Level Analysis of Adult Poverty Across 18 Affluent Western Democracies. Social Forces 88: Cohen, Sheldon, and Thomas Ashby Wills Stress, Social Support, and the Buffering Hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin 98: Diener, Ed, Marissa Diener, and Carol Diener Factors Predicting the Subjective Well- Being of Nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69:
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Here are the few interesting stats from SEBI in its recent Discussion Paper on Growth and Development of Equity Derivative Market in India which gives a fair understanding about participation in NSE Equity derivative markets.
Derivatives – Median Quarter-Sigma Order Size – Explained
Quarter Sigma Order Size is the order size (price x Volume) required for the stock price movement of 1/4th of Standard deviation of the stock price and it should be greater than Rs10 lakh. Higher the Quarter Sigma order Size means higher the liquidity and tougher for stock operators to manipulate the stock price movements to some extent.
Understanding Financial Regulatory Bodies in India
Punjab and Kerla Now tough on E-commerce Regulations
The Latest Rules And Regulations Of SEBI Crowdfunding
SEBI( Securities and Exchange Board of India) has very recently changed its rules and regulations of crowdfunding. If you do not have any idea on the term crowdfunding, it is worth to mention that the term crowdfunding refers to the solicitation of funds from several investors. This process is done through various social networking sites or web based platform to accomplish a particular project or social cause or any business venture.
How to Become a Registered Investment Advisor in India
The career of investment advisors comes with great demand. They are the professional that provides exclusive assistance to the clients when the main area of concern is related with the financial matters. Whether it is equipped with retirement planning, insurance options and investment strategies, investment advisors are there to solve any type of problems related with monetary issues. If you are from India and planning to pursue your career as an investment advisor, you need to obtain proper registration certification that will facilitate you to work as an investment advisor.
Understand The Way To Demat Certificates Of Your Physical Shares
It is evident that holders of physical shares are mostly senior citizens that find it pretty impossible and difficult to convert the same in demat format. A recent study has brought into the limelight that about 300 crore shares of the present Sensex companies are available in physical form. There is hardly any room of doubt that dematerializing of your share would allow you to avoid the risk of losing the certificate or duplicating the same.
What is Dabba Trading?
Dabba means box and a dabba operator, in stock market terminology is the one who indulges in dabba trading. His office is like any other broker's office having terminals linked to the stock exchange showing market rates of stocks. However, the difference is that the investor's trades do not get executed on the stock exchange system but in the dabba operator's books only.

subset: commoncrawl


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Search 321,000 hotels worldwide.
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Multi-national InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, also known as IHG, has its headquarters in Buckinghamshire, England. Although founded in 2003, the origins of the company actually date back to 1777, when William Bass opened the Bass Brewery in Burton-on-Trent. IHG now has nearly 5,000 hotels worldwide, including in Guangzhou, China. Use Expedia to find the IHG hotel in Guangzhou that suits you, whether you're in town on business or pleasure. Look for IHG's well-known brands Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels.
An important trading hub, Guangzhou hosts the China Import and Export Fair, otherwise known as the Canton Fair, each spring and autumn. Housed in the sprawling Pazhou Complex, the largest exhibition centre in Asia, the Canton Fair attracts more than 22,000 exhibitors and 165,000 trade visitors to each event. The Baiyun Conference Centre in the Baiyun district has easy access to the hotels and corporate headquarters in Tianhe, the city's Central Business District.
Guangzhou is not all about fast-paced business. The centrally located Yuexiu district is regarded as the cultural heart of the city. Formerly known as Canton, Guangzhou's fascinating history dates back to the Qin dynasty. Explore it all wandering around the ancient artefacts in the Guangzhou Museum in Yuexiu Park's tiered Zhanhai Tower. Or see the 2000-year-old tomb of King Zhao Mo, leader of the Nanyue Kingdom in the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, one of China's best museums.
The birthplace of Cantonese cuisine, Guangzhou has some of China's finest restaurants. Head to the Tianhe district to get a high-end Canton experience. But for a traditional dining experience feast on traditional wonton noodles and stewed crocodile in one of the low-key eateries which line the narrow, Old Canton streets of Liwan. Bargain hunters will love to trawl the bustling wholesale markets of Yide Road or pick up some excellent electronic or fashion deals at the Beijing Lu Shopping district.
Use Expedia to choose between the variety of IHG hotels, from mid-range Holiday Inns to full-service Crowne Plaza hotels in many of Guangzhou's downtown districts.


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PORT ROYAL, VA – Stephen Ellis walked through a field of barley, some of it green, some of it yellow — almost none of it heading like it should have been.
"Basically we're killing this crop and going into early beans," he said. "There's not going to be enough to run a combine through."
It was late April, and that afternoon Ellis would spray the crop, with the goal of getting in early beans by the end of the month. Earlier in the month, cold weather had sealed the fate of these 65 acres of barley. Ellis estimates freeze damage to the stand to be over 80 percent. [Read more…]


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JotForm is a free online form builder which helps you create online forms without writing a single line of code. No sign-up required.
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When legislators assault the rights of the people, the people have right to demand their ouster:
A handful of Democratic state lawmakers in Colorado face recall petition efforts in what looks to be the first wave of fallout over legislative votes to limit gun rights. In an era in which recall efforts are booming, from governor's offices down to town councils and school boards, the Colorado efforts will serve as the first test of gun-rights groups' ability to punish elected officials who expanded gun control laws after last year's Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., shooting massacres.
In Colorado, gun-rights activists wasted no time seeking recalls to oust state Senate President John Morse and three other Democratic lawmakers. The targeted lawmakers weren't necessarily the main advocates for ratcheting back gun rights, but all come from districts with enough Republicans to give opponents hope they can boot out the Democrats and replace them with lawmakers friendlier to guns. Colorado is the only state outside the East Coast to have adopted significant statewide gun controls this year.
Odds are that politicians in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and California will not face any near-term electoral repercussions for their transgressions against the rights of citizens who seem quite content to be slaves.
The recall effort in Colorado is predicated on the belief that conservative and moderate Democrats in the state will choose to defend the Constitution from local politicians who made alliances with New York progressive Michael Bloomberg to push an intrusive government further into people's lives.


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Fairbanks - FairbanksMile 8-12 Chena Hot Springs Road
This road is haunted by ghostly lights. Late at night two lights that resemble headlights follows passing cars. Sometimes it will start to fly and form one bright light. Other times it will look like a fast moving car or truck with bright blue white and orange colored lights.
Fairbanks, Alaska
There are 32 Haunts nearby
Source: Internet
|Location Approximate!!! Care to correct it?
64.8377778, -147.7163889


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New York, New York – (The Hosting News) – October 1, 2009 – Web hosting providers, CirtexHosting and HostV, will join the fight against cancer by donating a portion of its sales in October to the Jimmy Fund, which supports cancer research and care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
John Xie, President of Cirtex Corp. remarked, "In one way or another, cancer affects us all. At Cirtex Corp, we've seen the effects of cancer up and close, and it's our moral obligation to stand up and do our part to help advance the important research that offers the hope of better treatment and higher survival rates. My hope is that we can encourage more individuals and businesses to join our efforts and begin to support causes like this. Sometimes we don't realize how important medical research is until it's too late."
Each year, the Jimmy Fund hosts the Jimmy Fund Walk as part of the Boston Marathon. This year's walk was held several weeks ago and nearly 800 walkers raised more than $325,000. Cirtex Corp. is making its October donation to the 2009 Jimmy Fund Walk in the name of the walkers in this year's event.
Cirtex Corp. has supported a variety of charitable initiatives in the past, including the recovery efforts in the wake of the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province. The company also perpetually supports non-profit open source software development initiatives and conferences, including the WordCamp series for WordPress, as well as programs for Drupal, ClipBucket and PHPMotion.
Founded in 2003, Cirtex Corp. is the leading provider of shared, reseller, virtual and dedicated web hosting solutions. The company serves thousands of customers internationally through two dynamic brands – CirtexHosting and HostV. Cirtex Corp. offers 24/7 technical support and a 30-Day unconditional guarantee.
To learn more about Cirtex Corp., please visit: www.cirtex.com.
For more about The Jimmy Fund, please visit: www.jimmyfund.org.
To learn more about the Jimmy Fund Walk, please visit: www.jimmyfundwalk.org.
For more about Cirtex Corp.'s contribution and make a contribution yourself, please visit: www.cirtexhosting.com/donate-jimmyfund.shtml.


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- Net sales increased by approximately 17.0% to $24.0 million, from $20.5 million in the second quarter of 2010, as a result of an 11% increase in new customers acquired during the second quarter of 2011 and an increase in average order size to $315.45, compared to $310.39 in the second quarter of 2010. In addition, net sales for the quarter included an opportunistic sale of inventory to a third-party for $1.3 million.
- Gross profit margin decreased to 31.2%, from 38.8% in the second quarter of 2010 as a result of both a decrease in product margins related to the increase in sales of luxury designer merchandise, which historically have lower gross margins compared to contemporary merchandise, and an increase in promotional incentives during the quarter. Furthermore, gross profit margin was also negatively impacted by currency fluctuations between the U.S. dollar and the Euro.
- Total operating expenses remained relatively unchanged at approximately $8.6 million in the second quarter of 2011. As a percentage of sales, total operating expenses decreased to 35.9%, compared to 42.1% in the second quarter of 2010. Excluding $358,000 of costs related to the Eyefly Web site, which was launched in June 2011, total operating expenses decreased by over 4% compared to the second quarter of 2010.
- Operating loss was $1.1 million, as compared to $669,000 in the second quarter of 2010. Excluding the operating loss related to Eyefly of $341,000, total operating loss increased by approximately 20% compared to the second quarter of 2010.
- Adjusted EBITDA decreased to negative $33,000, from an adjusted EBITDA of $143,000 in the second quarter of 2010. Excluding Eyefly's net loss of $342,000 for the quarter, the Company's adjusted EBITDA decreased to positive $141,000.
- Net loss attributable to stockholders was $1.0 million, as compared to net loss of $724,000 in the second quarter of 2010. Loss per share attributable to stockholders increased to $0.04 per share, from a net loss of $0.03 per share in the second quarter of 2010.
- Cash and cash equivalents decreased to $3.5 million at June 30, 2011, compared to $10.4 million at December 31, 2010.
- Inventory increased to $30.6 million at June 30, 2011, compared to $25.1 million at December 31, 2010. The increase in inventory includes $1.6 million of goods in transit, and reflects an increase in the receipt of designer goods in part to meet the increased demand for luxury.
Bluefly, Inc. (NASDAQ Capital Market: BFLY), a leading online retailer of designer brands, fashion trends and superior value ( www.bluefly.com), today announced an increase of over 17% in net sales for the second quarter of 2011. Melissa Payner, Bluefly's Chief Executive Officer stated: "Our second quarter results included double digit sales growth driven by our ability to excite consumers with compelling luxury brands at great value in an online easy to shop environment and, excluding our investment in Eyefly, positive adjusted EBITDA results. While our gross profit margin declined in the quarter, going forward we believe our strategies position us to drive sales and therefore increase gross profit dollars." Results for the second quarter of 2011 included the following highlights:


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NAP Media is a complete multimedia package for professional and commercial communities, with multimedia services that integrate events, multimedia content, and business information. It includes a team of youngsters bursting with passion, energy and zeal along with some solid work experience in the field of Filming, Documentaries, Corporate films, TV Commercials, Animations walkthroughs designing and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). It is a complete package of creativity and contemporary output which will help you create the perfect platform to execute your brand. It deals with all important media product categories and creative services. It endeavors to create not only world-class services, but also long lasting relationships with clients. The core team works towards a common goal of productivity and effectiveness, to create the best media solution for your brand and in the most cost-effective way. Right from macro-level planning to a well structured perfect execution, we work as a team, going hand in hand with the belief that - success lies in our values, which is Think Best. Create Best. Deliver Bestest. Commercials: Making one of these has everything to do with putting your imagination into action. Executing a brand within the short spell of a minute or less is a challenging task. It requires a great deal of expertise in the field of production and some prodigious editing hands, both of which we provide. This service comes with great promise from a team with many years of work experience in this industry. Corporate films: We are talking the entire essence of your company's corporate image and strategy being locked in a film, in other words, a Corporate AV. Usable as online videos to attract prospective customers to your websites. We start by understanding your business, your target customer's profile and your objective for developing a corporate film. This is succeed by a concept, a script & storyboard, and after you love them, starts the filming, with state-of-the-art technology of course. 2D & 3D Animation 3D effects are in great demand these days, especially after seeing the enormous popularity they have achieved in recent times. At Corporate Video Films we give exceptional 3D Animation effects to your videos giving a greater mass appeal and attracting a bigger audience, thus increasing the overall turnover of your brand. A number of videos are created with 3D effects nowadays. 3D effects are nowadays used in almost all the major videos, right from ads to the big banner Hollywood and Bollywood movies and the responses have been very encouraging. Corporate Video Films give an amazing effect in their 3D videos to give an excellent result when the videos are finally viewed on the big screens. Documentary Films A documentary is the most effective medium capable of engaging all viewers' senses. Be it any topic, thought provoking or senses enlightening, we create videos that give the desired effects that one expects in a well created documentary. At Corporate Video Films we create a dynamic experience on the viewer's mind that prevails for a very long time. The viewers undoubtedly respond effectively to the deeply dedicated videos created at Corporate Video Films and undoubtedly we leave on their minds through our film endeavor! With the mission to pioneer the creativity and art of film making, we create a new vision of excellence to shadow the minds of our viewers. Promotional Films or Infomercials Corporate Video Films produce exceptional HD marketing videos to promote and advertise your business. Our promotional video design team works with you creating the perfect video for your marketing needs. We also commonly create videos for private productions, general events. We create videos that have a viral effect in electronic media. We can find out the exact strategy that your business needs in order to be promoted. Corporate Video Films Videos will propel you into the limelight of the business world with its imposing business promotional videos that will give you a commanding presence in the media. Integrated Marketing & Communication (IMC) An approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign, through a well coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other. At NAP Media integrated marketing communications "we... recognizes the value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety Other Services Short Films Event Coverage Celebrity Management Local Line production Feature Films TV Serial
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So, as you are probably aware if you're stumbling upon this blog, IGN Comics is going to try something new to get the MyIGN community directly involved in our weekly comic book reviews! We know there are books that we're not able to get to week in and week out, so we're enlisting your help.
Each week, I'll post our scheduled review coverage on this blog, where you can then take it upon yourselves to fill in the gaps. All you've got to do is:
- Get your comics.
- Read your comics.
- Review a book that isn't listed below.
- Write your review, and post it on your MyIGN blog.
- Drop me a link to your review on my MyIGN wall by 8PM EST on Wednesday.
If you've got a strong, (relatively) mature, and informative writing style, we'll include your review in our weekly roundup and link out to your MyIGN blog. We can't guarantee that you'll be featured, but the more valuable the content you create, the more likely it is that you'll get a shoutout. At worst, you're sharpening your writing skills. Remember, we won't be posting any reviews that don't meet the standards of our normal comics reviews, nor anything that we've already covered ourselves. We also won't post a review of a book that didn't release in the current week. Check back at my blog every week for the list of what we are covering.
All reviews should be concise; no more than 250 words, and keep it clean! Most importantly: have fun!
Here's what we're covering this week. Everything else is up for grabs!
- Action Comics #899
- American Vampire #13
- Detective Comics #875
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8
- Jimmy Olsen One-Shot
- Scalped #47
- Teen Titans #93
- Wonder Woman #609
- Zatanna #11
- 5 Ronin #5
- Age of X Universe #1
- Amazing Spider-Man #657
- Avengers #11
- Black Panther #516
- Captain America #616
- Captain America and Secret Avengers #1
- Incredible Hulks #625
- Kick-Ass #2
- Scarlet #5
- Secret Avengers #11
- Thor #621
- Wolverine #7
Dark Horse
- Star Wars: Darth Vader & the Lost Command #3
- The Walking Dead #83
- Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1
- Incorruptible #16
- The Traveler #5


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Our Mission
To expand the world view of participants by providing high quality, relevant, dynamic, socially responsible and academically challenging experiences.
Our Vision
We are the number one choice in Belize for providing professional and academic education by exceeding our participants' expectations and contributing to the success of the communities with which we work.
Core Values
We are committed to building a better understanding of Belize's rich cultures and biodiversity whilst ensuring our business activities have a beneficial and sustaining impact.
We treat everyone with dignity, equality, kindness and trust regardless of ethnicity, lifestyle, gender and beliefs.
We work together through cooperation, dedication, respect and open communication.
We actively pursue and value cooperative relationships in pursuit of our mission and vision.


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An alias is an alternate name for an entity. They typically contain common mispellings or variations of the name and are also used to improve search results. View the alias documentation for more details.
Bob Mould has no aliases.
Artist credits
This is a list of all the different ways Bob Mould is credited in the database. View the artist credit documentation for more details.
|Bob Mould
|Bob Mould feat. Vic Chesnutt
|No Age & Bob Mould
|The 6ths with Bob Mould


text: Tower Fairytale Locket September 20, 2010 By Outblush Here's a twist on a traditional locket for ya ... Based on the Rumpelstiltskin story, the Tower Fairytale Locket ($38) has a little surprise inside. The tiny spinner inside won't spin any gold, but it's an unexpected treat. We all need a little fantasy in our lives, especially when it looks like the tower of London.


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Summary of Season 1 (2005) - 4 discs
Taking viewers behind the front lines of a fictional war in Iraq, the first season of this original Steven Bochco series captures plenty of real-life scenarios, exploring the effect of war on a U.S. Army unit. The ensemble cast includes Josh Henderson, Luke MacFarlane, Erik Palladino, Keith Robinson and Sticky Fingaz, who portray GIs living out their first tour of duty in combat. Extras include a bonus featurette on the making of the series.


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Cowl Dress
Related Categories: Cowl | Pink Dress | Cowl Neck | Shirt Dress | Long Sleeve Dress | Cowl Neck Dress | Long Sleeve Cowl Dress | Purple Dress
Sitting at a desk from 9 to 5 doesn't have to be dull. Liven up the working week with our cowl-neck dress – and finish the look with a contrast cropped cardigan.
- Outer 70% lyocell 30% cotton
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Who doesn't love a cowl neck? Our dress is sophisticated and cosy, with a warm wool blend fabric that softly drapes and flatters your shape. Its slim fit and long sleeves make it ideal for both a day in the office or a brunch date with friends.
- Main 80% lyocell 20% wool
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- Length finishes at knee
- Full length sleeves
- Soft drapey wool blend jersey
- Fully lined
Long Sleeve Cowl Neck Dress
$118.00 $47.20


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This is a guest post by Valdemar
It was a Nobel prize-winning Swedish chemist by the name of Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was who first discovered the greenhouse effect. And it didn't take him long to conclude that burning coal (oil was just coming into widespread use as a fuel in the late 19th century) would cause a surprisingly strong increase in that effect. In other words, the earth would heat up. Now Arrhenius didn't necessarily think that would be a bad thing. Far from it. He could see that the world's population was increasing, and he thought that global warming (as we call it) would make more land in higher latitudes available for food production. Also, he was aware that we are living in an interglacial period during the current Ice Age, and therefore increasing the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere could forestall a global cold snap.
His rosy prediction may yet be proved right (though if we believe the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others who've done the scientific heavy lifting that's not the way to bet). Alternatively, none of it may be true. Thousands of scientists from Arrhenius onwards could all be wrong and the world's climate will not become substantially warmer. Suppose that's what happens - yet the government introduces measures to avert the catastrophe anyway. Would that be such a bad thing?
For one thing, the roads would be a lot nicer.
One likely result of policies designed to tackle climate change is that we end up with millions of electric or hybrid cars tootling around in our towns and cities. This makes life a lot quieter, of course, which is no bad thing. Indeed, so quiet are green vehicles that the RNIB would like them 'noised up' a bit, because they represent such a menace to visually-impaired people trying to cross the road.
So, we are likely to see a huge drop in the number of internal combustion engines working in densely-populated areas. How much money will this save the NHS? All the pollutants belched out by gasoline and diesel engines might (invoking our old pal common sense again) have an effect on people's health. Yes, I know some will deny outright that exhaust fumes cause any serious damage. Believe what you like, but ask yourself this: if the internal combustion engine were brand-new technology, how happy would you be to see it introduced on a huge scale?
But let's consider something more important than cutting urban pollution. Maybe the price of fuel will rise so much due to those nasty carbon taxes (and perhaps due to genuine scarcity) that people will have to get off their arses and walk about more. This might have a beneficial effect on society. I suggest that the 'great car economy' lauded by Margaret Thatcher, whatever its economic benefits, has had a more corrosive effect on modern Britain than cannabis or Ecstasy ever could. This might simply because I am an insanely embittered non-driver. But stay with me. I might be good for a laugh, if nothing else.
Walking down the street for more than a few yards is an activity millions of able-bodied people shun in so far as is humanly possibly. Walking, though it's never presented in such stark terms, is the chosen transportation method of society's losers. Drivers whinge incessantly about almost everything, yet the number of people who choose to shun the car in favour of using their legs is hardly striking to someone who (like me) can't drive due to their optical limitations. No, the car is always best, even for a journey that would take a healthy adult fifteen minutes to walk. As a result of this (and, of course, other factors) many people who eat fewer calories than their grandparents did have far fatter backsides. Not great news for the dear old NHS. But perhaps the physical harm habitual driving does is the least of our problems?
I've become convinced that frequent urban driving on our ludicrously congested roads makes people worse – more selfish, more aggressive, and more childishly obsessed with their own immediate needs. When you're behind the wheel of a car it is far easier to be a bad citizen than a good one. Drivers expressing aggression and threatening violence is something the habitual pedestrian sees every day. Drivers can of course show some consideration for their fellow drivers and for pedestrians, but in a very limited way. More nuanced interaction with others is simply not possible.
Does this matter? I think so. So much of what we claim to prize about our society – our ironic, self-deprecating humour, our willingness to muddle through, and to live and let live – are well nigh impossible to demonstrate when you're fuming inside a plastic and alloy pod. A burning, raw hatred for one's fellow man, or woman, seems to be more commonplace than good-natured tolerance. How many of us have been shocked by the way a mild-mannered friend or colleague has been transformed, in an instant and very much for the worse, by that great car culture?
Well, of course, they don't carry that rage into their non-vehicular lives, do they?'
You want to put money on that, Sigmund? I don't believe that people can compartmentalise their minds so efficiently that the raging barbarian at the wheel can simply be put back in his box when the keys come out of the ignition. I think that this unpleasant side to the average driver's character might well be manifest at home, at work, and pretty much everywhere else. I think it's a Bad Thing.
I'm not going Daily Mail here – my chosen headline would not be 'Driving a Car Makes You A Selfish, Immature Bastard Who Doesn't Work at His Marriage or Value His Kids'. No, I'd opt for 'Driving a Car Too Often Makes You Less Pleasant in a Vague, Corrosive Sort of Way'. I'm obviously no loss to modern journalism, but I hope my point is taken.
I think if we drove a lot less our society would be a lot better. Not richer - better. I think that if more people (and a broader cross-section of people) spent more time moving along the pavements we would have less crime, and less fear of crime. I think that women, the elderly and the young would be happier and feel more secure. We would, as a society, reclaim the streets.
Did I hear some old reactionary ask about evidence-based policies? Well, I appeal to common experience. I can't present a UN-sponsored scientific report to support my viewpoint, oddly enough. I just think that our car-based society is very effective at suppressing what has long been considered civilized behaviour. And I think we've lost something important; something nebulous, and certainly something that's hard to quantify, but something real and good, nonetheless.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Get out and walk
This is a guest post by Valdemar
Posted by Heresiarch at 5:17 pm


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6" shocks on 8" lift
Discussion in 'The Garage' started by blazin_blazer, Nov 25, 2005.


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Have you ever gone to the grocery store and made an impulse purchase? I'm sure you have! Well, that happened to me last week when I spotted some egg shaped marshmallows. I had never seen them before and just HAD to get them. While they tasted really great on their own, my creative side wanted to come up with a fun kid dessert for Easter. My kids (and husband) were big fans of these marshmallow egg treats! These turned out great and they are super simple to make! How to Make the Marshmallow … [Read more...]
What's The Best Way to Decorate Eggs?
I love finding new ways to color eggs. There are so many unique ways to decorate eggs, but it can be hard to know which ones are easy for kids and which ones really turn out well. Today I'm sharing 7 ways to decorate eggs AND I'm judged them! Yep. I said it. I'm judged them on how kid-friendly they are, how messy the activity is, the overall appearance, and how well I recommend doing it. I judged them on a scale from 1-5 (1 being low and 5 being high). 1. Melted Crayon Eggs This … [Read more...]
15 Awesome Egg Experiments
Eggs are not only great to eat, but super fun to use for experiments! Today, I'm excited to share with you 15 awesome egg experiments for children. Most of these activities just require a few ingredients. So easy and TONS of fun! Click on the links below to take you to each experiment!! Shrinking Egg Experiment from Science Sparks Lava Egg Science from Momma's Fun World Egg in a Bottle Air Pressure Experiment The Bouncy Egg from I Can Teach My Child Growing … [Read more...]
12 Fun Games Using Plastic Eggs
Easter is around the corner, which means colorful plastics eggs are in stock at stores! Of course you can use them for Easter, but there are so many other ways to use these inexpensive plastic eggs besides just filling them up for Easter baskets. We've been playing some fun games with these and today I'm excited to share 12 games with you! 1. Shake and Roll Game For this game, just fill 5-10 plastic eggs with material from around the house. I used rice, beans, salt, pom poms, buttons, … [Read more...]
Letter Sound Matching Game
I love Target! Every time I'm there, I browse their dollar section. Last week, I found some adorable foam eggs! I grabbed a few packs and I'm so glad I did because they were sold out a few days later! When I snagged these eggs, I thought they would make a great alphabet letter matching game, but I realized we've done a lot of matching games (like this one) and my son is working more on beginning letter sounds. So, I created a letter sound matching game for my 4-year-old. For this game, I put … [Read more...]
Egg in a Bottle Experiment
I'm so excited to share this neat science activity with you all today! For this experiment, you are demonstrating how air pressure works by sucking a hard-boiled egg into a bottle. Here's what you need for the egg in a bottle experiment: A clear, empty container with a narrow top Very hot water Hard-boiled egg (peeled) First, you will boil water. I put 4 cups of water in a Pyrex measuring cup and microwaved it for about 5 minutes. It was piping hot! Then, you will pour the hot … [Read more...]


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