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Sam Antar was the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, his cousin’s electronics retail empire.
Sam is a much sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit currently, and his seminars may also earn CPE and CLE credits for the attendees.

That’s because he is a convicted fraudster.

Ethics continuing education courses are generally self-paced correspondence courses one takes at one’s own leisure as a part of maintaining one’s professional good standing.
Reading through Sam’s site on the worldwide web, however, is as educational as any structured academic account can be.

As the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, Sam presided over one of the most famous scandals in the chronicles of corporate crime.
He lays it all out, bare, raw, and unembellished by any of the normal self-serving rationaliziations typically given to insiders’ accounts – all unadulterated on his website.

This is an ethics CPE course like none other – if it were accredited as such.
As it is, it’s just a website – but oh, what a website!

White-collar offense never seemed so exciting.
That’s because the Crazy Eddie’s scandal was at heart a soap opera displaying all the acquainted human foibles known to a Greek chorus – lust, greed, betrayal, as well as family.
Yes, family.

The familial element in this drama makes this type of corporate crime so – if the pun will likely be pardoned – familiar to lay readers, grabbing and holding their awareness where other accounts might lose them under a mountain of technical particulars.
However, it isn’t that Sam offers no minutiae of his own; his very purpose today is to combat criminal activity, after all; it’s that these details, which would be so boring otherwise without the benefit of a human drama in which to place them in the appropriate perspective, come to vibrant life against the framework of a family power battle that resonantes forcefully with everyone who’s ever underwent any semblance of sibling rivalry.

How’s that for an ethics CPE course!

China, China, China – what’s the big deal?
Why is every person going on and on about China on a regular basis?

Okay, so they own billions (or is that trillions) in American securities, currency, whatever.
And they make lotsa stuff.
Like NFL beach towels and stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.

It’s not like most people want to work on an assembly line in any case, making trinkets and curios for Walmart.
But whatever.

Okay, so it’s not simply NFL beach towels that they make.
It’s that they are also climbing up the food chain, making stuff that’s more and more high-value, such that good-paying jobs may be the next to go.
They’re hardly making textiles any more – notice that many of the clothing nowadays come from even more unique locales – like Indonesia and Sri Lanka?

In fact, to be fair, it isn’t NFL beach towels that anyone’s upset over.
It’s the fear that aircraft manufacturing could be next!
Already the Chinese government is on record as gunning for leadership in green energy products such as wind mills and solar panels, and already they are well on their way in direction of dominating those industries.

But does it need to be a zero-sum game?
Does China’s rise mean everyone else’s loss?
Put another way, are they simply gobbling up ever more slices of the pie – or could Chinese ascendancy grow that pie for everyone involved?

Well, speaking of the NFL, it’s interesting to compare and contrast that sporting league’s business decisions with that relating to the NBA.
Basketball is growing in popularity over there while years ago a structured exhibition game of American football was canceled practically at the last minute.
If this serves as any indication, it may be that being in place surpasses staying on the sidelines!

Wind chimes are not just pretty decorations to hang up around the house or garden which happen to make noise every now and then.
They have actually been used in real music, from high-brow modern music to popular everyday fare such as videogame soundtracks.
The French composer Oliver Messiaen has written for glass, wood, and seashell chimes in his opera depending on Saint Francis of Assisi, while David Sitek of the American rock band TV on the Radio often hangs a wind chime at the end of his guitar for texture.

Probably the most well-known unknown use of wind chimes in the world was made by Koji Kondo, lead musician at Nintendo, the Japanese videogaming giant.
He is responsible for the music in such bestsellers as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, and has incorporated chiming sounds throughout his work, such as the theme for the “Vanilla Dome” world (or stage – that is, game level) in the sequel Super Mario World.

However, it ought to be noted that musical instruments already can be found which employ chimes or chime-like hardware.
Without a doubt, one such device, a mark tree, is also frequently known as a chime tree or a set of bar chimes.
It is played out by sweeping a finger or stick through the length of hanging cylinders, typically made of metal though of varying lengths.
These cylinders are hung from a bar and attached in pitch order.

Very similar instruments include tubular bells and the bell tree.
Like wind chimes proper, they are often thought of as percussion instruments, generally used in musical color.
Tubular bells, however, can produce harmonic spectra
and thus are capable of melodies.
But these are usually very simple, and few solos are written for tubular bells.
One noteworthy use of the instrument is made by the animated television series Futurama, for its theme.
In the 1980s, the popular children’s show Sesame Street also featured tubular bells throughout part of its closing credits.

Plenty of personal household safes have been turning up at Japanese police stations in the wake of that country’s recent devastation.
They haven’t yet only been recovered by save workers excavating through rubble but have also been washed up ashore, and now law enforcement is running out of room to store them.

Up to now, these safes have been kept in the station parking lot, but with each station holding onto several hundred at a time, authorities decided to attempt a more pro-active method of reuniting them with their owners outside of simply waiting for those people to show up.
Japanese police now hope to open these safes themselves with the idea of discovering identifying information within with which to make their own inquiries.

Under Japanese law, there is a little more than three weeks for missing items to be claimed by their owners.
After twenty-three days, finders can become keepers – or the government takes title.
Police hope to reunite catastrophe victims with their belongings ahead of the finders/keepers-law can take effect.
Obviously, given the special circumstances involved, extensions to the typical deadline have been offered, but any haste that can be made would surely be welcome by the victims.

The matter is especially important because of the Japanese practice, found especially between their elderly, of saving money and other valuables not in banks but at home.
Such “wardrobe savings,” as the Japanese term goes, is very typical but has become quite the misfortune for disaster affected individuals who have lost literally everything short of their lives and the clothes on their backs.
Therefore, any work expedited on behalf of such people would not simply be greatly appreciated but is absolutely essential to ensure even their very continued survival.
Luckily, of course, it is because of the exclusive nature of Japan that valuables have been submitted, along with the absence of looting and other rioting – a fact not lost on envious foreign observers.

The recent Japanese catastrophe has shone a spotlight on the country’s relatively unique social structure.
Unlike many other situations of natural disaster elsewhere, no looting or rioting has followed to compound the catastrophe — and this has greatly impressed many a non-Japanese observer.
From the patient orderly lines to the return of valuables, “yamoto-damashii,” or the Japanese spirit, has elicited admiration and further sympathy from the world.

As can be imagined, articles have appeared seeking to describe the phenomenon of people who continue being law-abiding citizens despite being deprived of not simply creature comforts but everything they own and even of loved ones.
Police stations all along the coast are filled to capacity together with the personal household safes of victims which have washed back to terrain or been recovered from the rubble by rescue workers.
Then there is the seemingly suicidal heroism and self-sacrifice of many nuclear power plant employees.
Even animals have displayed yamoto-damashii: a dog made worldwide headlines for standing by another dog caught under rubble, declining to leave!

Much has been written both for and against the “Japanese-spirit interpretation” of events.
On one side, people note that the country is a wealthy one, a technologically advanced one, and one that is perhaps uniquely homogenous among the leading industrialized societies of which it is a member.
Of course household safes and other belongings have been returned or at least still left unmolested!
It figures, argue such people, because there is no inducement to loot and riot when the country all together offers so many resources to provide succor.

Others note that the spirit of Japan is such that rules are observed simply because they are rules – Japanese rules – and one is Japanese.
Safes are not broken into because that is not what a Japanese person does, basically.
This side of the debate notes that no matter how rich the society, individual victims always suffer – yet they do so patiently, in a manner uniquely Japanese.

Are wedding favors going out of style as society will become ever more simple?
Not if the ladies have anything to do with it!

Practicing giving gifts to matrimonial guests may not be the cultural institution it once was, but weddings are still one of the biggest dynamos throughout any economy.
While wedding favors may not be the first thing or two that delighted couples think about when planning their special day, it is something that is still expected and few ceremonies would feel complete without some souvenir for the guests.

Obviously, were marriage itself to continue to decline, then there may well be a day when wedding favors go extinct — as nuptials themselves do!
Such a situation is unlikely, and outright impossible for the foreseeable future.
The wedding industry is and will continue on to be healthy for decades to come.

To play the futurist for a moment, nevertheless, let us imagine a world centuries ahead where human civilization has evolved substantially, a Star Trek future where money itself is no longer used, a society as significantly different from our own as ours is from that of the neanderthal.

No more sickeness, incredibly extensive life spans if not immortality plain and simple.
Might marriage still make any type of sense in such a world?
Can people truly be monogramous “forever and ever” when there is no death to do them part?

Maybe not forever, but it does look that as naturally social creatures there will always be a pairing off of human beings, even if simply for a period of time, and it’s not inconceivable that some couples would wish to publicly proclaim their arrangements: that is, to get married.
This would mean that guests would certainly be receiving favors, or gifts, in affection of their attendance, even in an otherwise totally changed world!

As an Internet Marketer, you recognize precisely how much work is needed to ensure that your business succeeds. You don’t just have to make items you need to market them and develop significant buzz for them. You must track the income you make, the e-mail addresses you receive and your customers’ information. You have to work to take care of client relationships and talk on a regular basis with existing buyers and potential buyers. Not only that however, you should work on developing your reputation. With merely so many hours in each day, how are you supposed to get everything completed? Here are a number of suggestions you can use to handle your time better and be more productive during the day.

Create both extended and quick ambitions for yourself as well as your business. This means that you have to write a list of everything that you need to do from the money you want to produce next year to the quick e-mail that you forgot to write this morning. Write down all you want and should do and then break out that list into different types: right now, short term and long term. Do every one of the things that you should do at this time and then map out a schedule of things that can be done over longer periods of time.

Each day needs its own to-do list. You can either create it one night for the upcoming day or in the morning while starting to get to work. Write out every one of the items you need to get done before you quit work for the day. Then, after those, jot down one of the short term tasks that you need to put work into and then one of the long term projects that you need to work on. You shouldn’t work on the end of the list until you have finished the beginning of the list. If you finish everything on your list–the “now” stuff as well as the short and long term stuff, you can choose whether to keep working on larger projects or if you’d like to reward yourself with some free time.

Do not forget to allow time for breaks. It is easy to think that productivity depends on your lashing yourself to your desk for many hours a day without ever getting up to do anything beyond using the bathroom. It has been proven, however, that people are more productive when they begin working. So allow yourself some time for a couple of breaks every day. A quick morning break, a quick afternoon break and a long lunch break are good breaks to make yourself take each day. Some people also enjoy taking a few minutes to relax after finishing big ticket items on their to-do lists.

There are lots of techniques you can use to increase your productivity. The ideal way to make sure that you get enough accomplished each day is to know exactly what it is that you need to do. If you know what has to get done you will be more likely to stay on track and actually get it done!

This text is brought to you by Cellification.com your source for Unlocked Cell Phones and Smartphones. Keep in mind productively marketing your business can be simpler when you utilize your smartphone the right way.

Comfortably nestled on the upscale Upper East Side of New York City, Cornell University’s medical school offers instruction while also engaged in research. The school can brag about quite a few luminaries among its alumni, with famous names like Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and Henry Heimlich of Heimlich Maneuver fame. Also well-known are former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop and Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley.

It was the first medical school in the country to admit women alongside men, and more recently it has been the first American one to operate outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering an integrated six-year curriculum focused primarily on patient care. With such a storied tradition, it is probably not surprising that the institution has been the beneficiary of much financial backing – since the very beginning, in fact, funded as it was through an endowment established by Colonel Oliver H. Payne, a New York scion of the middle nineteenth century – with a roster of supporters full of prominent locals such as real estate pro Isaac Toussie.

Still, the one biggest benefactor of all has got to be the one whose name now graces the school itself, Sanford I. Weill. Billionaire banker and philanthropist, Weill and his wife have contributed $250 million of their own, with a further hundred and fifty million secured through the fundraising efforts of Mr. Weill. Today the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, or Weill Cornell Medical College (or even more colloquially, especially within the field, “Weill Cornell”), is one of the most selective medical schools in the entire United States, enrolling only about a hundred students per class out of some six thousand applicants in any given year. How selective? Well, 3.8 GPAs are typical, as are 35Q MCAT scores!

So it turns out that Jesse James enjoys Nazi paraphernalia.
No relation to the iconic Wild West figure, the only claim to fame that this latter-day Jesse James has is to be married to Sandra Bullock, one of the most beloved actresses of all time.
Certainly, she has been crowned “America’s Sweetheart” by the celebrity press for not only her good-girl roles but for her legendary off-screen generosity, donating millions at a time, most especially in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the catastrophic trifecta of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-crisis that has lately hit Japan.

So how could she have tolerated such an obvious lout?
They were always one of the most startling couples in Hollywood, a bad-boy/good-girl pair directly out of central casting and screenwriters’ workshops.
What could they possibly have supplied their guests for wedding favors?
Almost sounds like the perfect set-up for one of Tinsteltown’s formulaic romantic comedies.
Sadly, the real life version that has played out up to now more resembles tragedy for the Oscar-winning actress.

As for the bad boy, he’s now happily married to tattoo model Michelle McGee, who has also posed in Nazi regalia.
Actually, McGee has the acronym “WP” etched prominently on her legs, letters which imply “white power” in racist circles but which she claims only refers to a part of the female anatomy that’s wet!

One can only imagine what was offered as wedding favors for their guests.

Of a particular perverse fascination to many observers, however, remains the question of what Bullock knew and the follow-up ones of how could she not have if she really did not and why would she put up with such racist interests if she actually did know.
Many speculate that perhaps she was just too harmless and generous, naive when it came to the white supremacist imagery long favored by biker culture and generous whatever the case towards such naughtiness in a “bad boy” – again, straight outside of central casting: you can’t make this stuff up!

Yes, better to gossip about wedding favors instead.

When I was a personal fitness trainer, I wasn’t too pleased with the idea of a whole certification process just in order to help people exercise.
But that was nothing compared to my shock that certification had to be maintained via online CPE courses as well!
Now of course the aim of certification is to be publicly recognized as being professionally competent, and since things are constantly changing in our fast-paced modern world being competent naturally means some sort of continuing education.
My shock, however, stemmed from the standard view of those outside the fitness industry that trainers are simply muscle-heads and nothing more.

Nevertheless, just because I was a muscle-head who happened to know a little bit about the human body doesn’t mean that everyone else curious in becoming personal trainers also do.
But more to the point and very much to my chagrin, it turned out that as much as I actually realized there was so very much, much, much, much, much more that I could not – never mind online CPE courses; I barely had the fundamentals covered!

My newly found respect for education with regards to the fitness industry now means that I no longer laugh at online CPE courses for personal trainers.
It isn’t going to be as hard as what lawyers, doctors, and accountants have to contend with, to be sure, but neither is it just a laugh, either.
Of course it is mostly memorization of facts at this point, nothing so academically rigorous that any high school student would find it new, but still – it’s a good step in the right course for the industry as a whole and one which I now not only understand but in addition fully support myself.
My days as a trainer have ended but I have stored a lot of respect for continuing education for anyone.