Naval idea: NCAA piggybacking on last year's 'all on deck' success

Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - The NCAA is big business because it has recalibrated and recultivated its image to stay one dribble ahead of our wants and needs.

We, as college basketball fans, clamor for change -- even if a superficial tweak is pre-packaged as a monumental shift. We voiced displeasure with "our" teams being left out of March's madness, and the NCAA created the very successful First Four. Our warning cry at greater tournament expansion (98 teams or more) was heard as the governing body pumped the brakes in the face of public discord despite walking away from the millions more invitees would have brought.

Either the NCAA employs a full department of Twitter listening agents, or it's adept at correlating fans' passions into mutual beneficial actions. That's why March Madness is so popular and successful, and it was the main idea behind last year's Carrier Classic, the North Carolina-Michigan State season tip-off aboard the USS Carl Vinson in the San Diego bay.

The NCAA used a visually stunning atmosphere, tied it into a patriotic event with President Barack Obama in attendance, plastered it in national television's high-definition sets and marketed it as the unofficial start of the college basketball season.

Brilliant.

It didn't hurt that two of the game's most popular programs were part of the Veteran's Day spectacle, a mixture of national pride and pageantry that went off without a hitch from the untrained eye (despite all of the logistical headaches involved with holding a live sporting event aboard a government- owned ship).

No one seemed to notice the sloppy early season basketball, because on-court precision wasn't the game's purpose. For years, fans yearned for a season start date, like baseball's Opening Day or even college football's Kickoff Classic.

The NCAA balked at labeling one game the season's tip-off, using Thanksgiving holiday tournaments from Alaska to Hawaii as the unofficial beginning, but when this idea presented itself, the marketing minds in Indianapolis did what they always do.

They jumped at the chance to celebrate our nation's servicemen and women, while using the forum to announce with grandeur, "college basketball is back!" And when the NCAA sees success, it doesn't sit on its hands but rather aims higher, and in this case farther out to sea.

Florida will face Georgetown on a ship off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida on November 9, the closest non-college football or NFL date to Veterans Day. The Gators-Hoyas tilt is the third college hoops contest scheduled to be played on a naval ship on that date. Marquette and Ohio State will play on a ship off the Charleston, South Carolina coast, while Syracuse will take on San Diego State off the San Diego coast on the flight deck of the retired USS Midway. It is not clear whether the other two games will be played on active ships.

The success of one game has spawned into three, but that shouldn't be a surprise for anyone who knows the venture capitalists at the NCAA, which was lauded for the precision with which it organized last year's Carrier Classic and praised for the overwhelming television viewership and genuine interest in the unofficial start to the season.

The NCAA is still big business, actually even bigger than it used to be, because it listens, it discusses, it acts, it assesses then it comes back bigger and grander than ever. The First Four and Carrier Classic are just two examples of college basketball attempting to increase fan interest and line its pockets in the process.

Judging by last March's television ratings and the praise at this year's Carrier Classic announcements, the NCAA has not only maintained its one dribble edge on its customers, but it is sprinting forth faster and stronger than ever before.

NOTRE DAME LOCKS UP BREY

In a profession with little job security, Mike Brey certainly feels appreciated and secure after the Fighting Irish announced a 10-year contract extension that will run through the 2022 season. Brey hit the nail on the head during a press conference announcing the extension, explaining that he felt this job was his last one if he handled it the right away and detailing how expectations under his leadership have evolved from "surviving" in the Big East to "thriving" in the conference. That's what eight NCAA Tournament appearances will do, including one of his best coaching jobs last season, leading the Irish to 22 victories before a loss to Xavier in the NCAA Tournament's second round.

What comes with increased expectations is an increased desire for improvement, and for Brey's program, that includes a trip to the Final Four. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick understands those sentiments.

"We're in business to win NCAA championships," he said. "If I didn't think Mike Brey could win an NCAA championship in basketball, we wouldn't be sitting here today."

UCONN SUFFERS MOST FROM NCAA'S NEW ACADEMIC REQUIREMENTS

We first discussed the Huskies' self-inflicted plight last spring, but it has been revealed that Connecticut is just one of 10 men's basketball teams that will be banned from next season's NCAA Tournament because of a failure to reach new academic standards.

UConn is the first school from a major conference to face a postseason ban in one of the two most prominent college sports based completely on its APR (Academic Progress Rate) score. Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Cal State Bakersfield, California-Riverside, Jacksonville State, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina-Wilmington, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Toledo and Towson will join Jim Calhoun's program on the sidelines.

Cal State Bakersfield could be eventually removed from the list because its scores are still being reviewed.

The three-time national champion Huskies are the sore thumb that sticks out of the group. Their four-year APR score of 889 is eleven points below the prerequisite benchmark, and an appeal to the NCAA for a waiver that would have allowed it to play in next year's tournament was denied. UConn could also be ruled ineligible for the Big East Tournament, forcing the conference to re- seed prior to the championship in New York City.

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Sexual Freedom is Conducive to Social ... - Morocco World News

By Larbi Arbaoui

Morocco World News

Taroudant, Morocco, June 27, 2012

The proposal to repeal the Penal Code Article 490, which prohibits sexual relations outside of marriage does not please everyone, and rather made so many gorges rise.

This proposal doesn?t provide a solution, but creates more problems and paves the way to endless social and ethical issues. Sexual freedom endorsed by few activists should not be understood as a mere political card aiming to kindle the rough of Islamist-led government. For human right activists, this provision of law is an obstacle to sexual freedom, which ? they believe ? is one of the freedoms that every individual has to be endowed with. But can we just stop at that level?

Sexual freedom advocated by the so-called human right activists is to be understood as an explicit sexual liberation movement aiming to increase the acceptance of sex outside social institutions, implicitly including heterosexual, lesbianism and homosexuality. These proposals, which are in stark contrast with Moroccan religion and culture, may lead other people to claim public nudity as unalienable personal rights, the normalization of homosexuality as an alternative form of legal sexuality and more likely abortion will be legalized. Before you come down on the side of a certain party, I would like to invite you to consider these facts, which are the result of sexual intercourse outside marriage.

Every year in Morocco, according to figures of the Moroccan Association of the National Institution for Solidarity with Women in Distress (Insaf), quoted by AFP, more than 80,000 children are born out of wedlock. Such alarming figures of homeless and abandoned children call into question the responsibility of everyone and the role of family.

What future is there for babies who are the result of a fleeting ephemeral pleasure? Who is to blame for children who have no chance to have a social status or to be recognized by their fathers? It is up to you to guess under what circumstances these children will be raised and educated so that they can function properly in their society.

Sexual freedom under the pretext of securing individual rights is in collision with the requirements of international human rights, which emphasize the respect of the specificities of a certain nation. These claims are very dangerous to the natural balance and stability of the society. Family is not only a social pretext, under which sexual rapport is practiced legally, but a social institution that affords protection and care for the babies and also a cultural unit which teaches human values and beliefs to the next generations.

Susan L. Brown from Bowling Green State University found that children born to married couples, on average, ?experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes.? Any violation of family as a social and cultural unit is a knockdown to the history and human values.

People who have no respect for the family, social values and cultural considerations that characterize a certain people are likely to be driven by their uncontrolled sexual desires. I do believe, that sexual desires if not suppressed and controlled outside a social pretext, that will protect both partners, will naturally lead the whole population to chaos and will bring the society to a moral decadence. At the absence of regulations and explicit penal codes, such people, who advocate sexual freedom, will be immersed in an extreme indulgence in sensual pleasures that may be the cause of so many health complications and social disorder.

The views expressed in this article are the author?s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News? editorial policy.

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Blow-up solar lantern lights up Haiti's prospects

The elegant clear-plastic lantern, which charges itself when left out in the sun and emits the light of a 60-watt bulb, will bring a safe and inexpensive light source to those without electricity.

By Laurie Goering,?AlertNet / June 26, 2012

Children at Edeyo School in Port au Prince, Haiti, examine Luci, a blow-up solar-powered lantern.

Courtesy of MpowerD

Enlarge

What does sustainable development look like? It?s sitting in the palm of Jill Van den Brule?s hand.

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She and a handful of other social entrepreneurs have come up with a blow-up solar-powered lantern that squashes flat like a child?s beach toy for easy transport. The elegant clear-plastic lantern has white LED lights that produce as much illumination as a 60-watt bulb, charges itself when left out in the sun, lasts a year, and costs $10 ? a sum its inventors expect to be able to reduce.

?It cuts across a lot of problems,? says Van den Brule, who previously worked with United Nations children's agency UNICEF in Haiti following the country?s devastating 2010 earthquake and is now introducing the lanterns there.

RELATED: Top 5 nations that use renewable energy

Finding ways to create ?energy for all? has been a focus at the Rio+20 sustainable development summit, which ended June 22 in Rio de Janeiro. The push, led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, aims by 2030 to bring power to everyone around the globe, to double energy efficiency, and to double the share of renewable energy being used.

It has so far won commitments of more than $50 billion in private funding, as well as tens of billions of dollars of government, development bank, and civil society backing, UN officials said in Rio.

At least 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency, and as many as 3 billion ? half the planet ? have only irregular access to power.

But a range of innovative efforts aim to change that ? including projects like?Luci, the solar lantern that Van den Brule is now rolling out with her partners at?MpowerD, based in the United States and France.

Solar lanterns aren?t new ? at least 10 are on the market today ? but they will have a growing role to play in providing inexpensive and safe evening lights in parts of the world without the money or grid access for electricity, or in places looking for more sustainable sources of light, experts say.

Van den Brule said many children in Haiti study at night with kerosene lamps, which can cost at least $10 a month to run, produce toxic fumes, and can cause burns if knocked over.

Indoor smoke from cooking fires and lamps also contributes to nearly half of the world?s 2 million pneumonia deaths among children each year, and to cancer in women ? two-thirds of female lung cancer victims in the developing world are nonsmokers, Van den Brule said.

The lanterns could also improve women's safety. Rape has been rampant in camps for families displaced following Haiti?s earthquake. But when lights were introduced into the camps at night, the number of rape cases per week fell from 57 to 2 in just one week according to UN statistics, Van den Brule said.

The lights used in the camp were not solar lanterns, but the value of access to portable lights at night, including for women or children going outside to toilets, is evident, she said.

There are other potential benefits. The lightweight lights could be included in kits for midwives. And the?inventors are looking at creating a model that could also be used to charge mobile phones ? a big demand in Haiti and many parts of the world ? and at building the lanterns from recycled plastic bottles.

?We want the communities to come up with ideas of what they want,? Van den Brule said.

After early experimentation, a first batch of 10,000 lanterns are headed to Haiti soon, she said, and at least one UN agency is pondering carrying out a pilot project using them.

Van den Brule suspects the hand-held lights may eventually find another home in camping stores in the developed world and could even end up on fashion catwalks or hanging outside hotels to provide evening lights.

?We?re empowering communities but also creating things that are aesthetically nice,? she said. ?There?s no reason something going to a developing country has to be ugly.?

? This article originally appeared at AlertNet, a humanitarian news site operated by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

? Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

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US, Russian leaders jockey for leverage on Iran, Syria in first meeting since Putin's return

SAN JOSE DEL CABO, Mexico - President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin need one another, an uncomfortable truth for the superpower leader waging a tough re-election campaign and the newly elected Russian leader who is deeply suspicious of the United States.

The two men will use their meeting Monday, the first since Putin returned to Russia's top job, to claim leverage. Much of the rest of the Group of 20 economic meeting will be devoted to the European fiscal crisis and the fate of Greece as a part of the euro zone. A pro-euro candidate is trying to form a coalition government following elections Sunday, but the anti-austerity second-place party has refused.

"I expect that it will be a candid discussion, it will get down to business," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said ahead of the lengthy morning meeting between Obama and Putin.

"We'll be able to sustain co-operation in some areas, we'll have differences in other areas, and we'll work to try to bridge those differences."

The G-20 gathering is a natural forum for sideline discussions of the urgent crisis in Syria as well as diplomatic efforts to head off a confrontation with Iran. Russia is a linchpin in world efforts to resolve both crises, and to U.S. goals for the smooth shutdown of the war in Afghanistan. In the longer term, Obama wants Russia's continued co-operation in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

Obama made a special project of Russia in his first term and arguably needs Moscow's help even more if he wins a second one. He is trying to avoid a distracting public spat with Russia during this election year, as suggested by an overheard remark to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in March. Obama told Medvedev he would have more flexibility to answer Russian complaints about a U.S.-built missile defence shield in Europe after the November election.

Things got off to a rocky start with Putin, when Obama pointedly withheld a customary congratulatory phone call to Putin until days after his May election. Putin appeared to snub Obama by skipping the smaller and weightier Group of Eight meeting that Obama hosted later that month at Camp David, and a planned Oval Office welcome for the new Russian leader.

The rescheduled Obama-Putin meeting comes the same day as Moscow hosts an international negotiating session with Iran. Russia has gone along with U.N. Security Council efforts to tighten some penalties against Iran because of questions about its nuclear weapons ambitions, but has blocked the harshest punishments. Still, the United States needs Russia's participation to lend legitimacy to the argument that Iran faces broad international condemnation. Iran usually paints the dispute over its nuclear program as a confrontation with the U.S. and its ally Israel.

Brutal attacks on anti-government protesters in Syria and the threat of civil war in the Mideast nation pose the most immediate crisis.

Diplomatic hopes have rested on Washington and Moscow agreeing on a transition plan that would end the four-decade Assad family rule. Russia, as Syria's longtime ally and trading partner, is seen as the best broker for a deal that could give Syrian President Bashar Assad political refuge. So far, Moscow has said no.

Pressure increased on Russia over the weekend, when the United Nations suspended its unarmed monitoring mission in Syria out of concern for the monitors' safety. The move was widely interpreted as a challenge to Russia to intervene with Assad to preserve a U.N. role Moscow sees as a brake on any armed foreign intervention.

The United States has refused to arm anti-Assad rebels in part to avoid a proxy fight in which Iran, Russia and others arm one side and the U.S. and Sunni Arab states arm the other. Opposition groups estimate 14,000 people have died in violence that the U.S. fears is sliding into civil war.

Putin's campaign included some of the strongest anti-American rhetoric from Moscow in a decade and he openly accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him. The Obama administration mostly tried to shrug it off, but Putin's return to the presidency makes it more likely that any help Russia provides in Syria, Iran or other matters will come at a cost.

U.S. strategy has favoured flattery that may overstate Russia's influence, especially on Syria, and efforts to highlight areas where U.S. and Russian goals align.

Russia's membership in numerous world bodies and its veto power at the U.N. Security Council give it leverage beyond its economic or military power. Obama holds far greater power and both leaders know it, but Putin can be a spoiler and irritant.

"President Putin clearly is somebody who can articulate where he has differences with the United States, but we can also articulate where we have differences with Russia," Rhodes said. "And I think our assessment is that being candid with one another and clear with one another is in the best interest of the relationship. So because the relationship between the United States and Russia is in our interest, it's in Russia's interest, but also it's in the interest of the world community, because when we can work together on issues, again, it opens up the door to much better progress, whether you're talking about nonproliferation and nuclear security, whether you're talking about resolving regional tensions as in Syria, or whether you're talking about the global economy."

The White House tried to soften the blow of Clinton's accusation days before the G-20 meeting that Russia was equipping the Syrian government with attack helicopters that could be used against civilians. She later acknowledged they were only helicopters already owned by Syria that had been sent back to Russia for repairs, but Russia was already annoyed.

Russia insists that any arms it supplies to Syria are not being used to quell anti-government dissent that began more than a year ago, and has rebuffed efforts to impose an international arms embargo. Russia and Syria have a longstanding military relationship and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea.

White House press secretary Jay Carney brushed aside questions last week about whether the U.S. might yank support for Russia's membership in World Trade Organization if Russia refuses to help on Syria. He underscored that the U.S. supports that core Russian goal, which will be a centerpiece of the talks.

"Putin is in a petulant sort of mood," said Russia scholar Mark N. Katz of George Mason University. "He's got all these grievances about American foreign policy and he's looking for us to satisfy him, and I don't think we're going to do that. No amount of bonhomie or talking nicely is going to fix that."

The Pew Research Center's newly released global public opinion survey gives Putin job approval ratings Obama can only dream of. About 72 per cent of Russians have a favourable opinion of Putin, and a majority put more faith in a strong leader than in a democratic form of government. Nearly three-quarters of those polled said Russia deserves greater respect from other countries.

Despite that footing, tens of thousands of protesters thronged Moscow streets this past week in the first mass protest against Putin since he returned to the presidency in May. His tactics in cracking down on political opponents will make it difficult for Obama to play down longstanding U.S. complaints about human rights abuses. The Kremlin ordered the detention and interrogation of at least one activist and searches of others' homes last week.

Putin's own return to the presidency was far more certain than Obama's re-election chances. Despite their differences, Putin probably would prefer a second Obama term to a Mitt Romney presidency, Katz said, not least because the Republican challenger has called Russia the chief strategic enemy of the United States.

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Can Occupy Wall Street survive?

REUTERS - More than eight months after Occupy Wall Street burst onto the global stage, decrying income inequality and coining the phrase "We are the 99 percent," the movement's survival and continued relevance is far from assured.

Donations to the flagship New York chapter have slowed to a trickle. Polls show that public support is rapidly waning. Media attention has dropped precipitously.

Bursts of violence, threats of municipal chaos and two alleged domestic terror plots have put Occupy on a recurring collision course with law enforcement.

Even its social media popularity, a key indicator of the strength of a youthful movement, has fizzled since its zenith last fall.

National electoral successes - the legacy of the Tea Party, the other major American grassroots movement created in recent years - are not even on the agenda of the famously leaderless organization.

While the movement's signature triumph has been to draw worldwide attention to income inequality in America and elsewhere, some who are sympathetic say it has nevertheless failed a crucial test of social movements: the ability to adapt and grow through changing tactics.

"Most of the social scientists who are at all like me - unsentimental leftists - ... think this movement is over," said Harvard University professor Theda Skocpol, a liberal academic who wrote a book on the Tea Party.

She and others wonder whether Occupy will ever really thrive without solid footing in the mainstream of American political discourse.

Bill Dobbs of Occupy New York's press team takes a different view. He compares the OWS struggle to that of America's civil rights movement - long and uphill, with broad goals to radically alter American society. The first step, he said, has been to re-animate America's long-dormant spirit of social activism.

"We in America have allowed ourselves to be put into a political coma," Dobbs told Reuters. "Occupy Wall Street has shaken the country out of that coma."

But are sporadic protests enough to change the nation?

BOMB PLOT

Skocpol identified what she said are several key differences between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. She said Tea Party activists are generally 45 and older, with many in their 60s; they moved swiftly from organizing rallies to participating in local and national electoral politics, and established local chapters, each with its own leader.

By contrast, the Occupy movement is populated by mostly younger activists who eschew traditional politics and have resisted top-down organization. Instead, she said, they focused on encampments, which left them vulnerable to dissolution after they were evicted from their tent cities.

Headlines about a plot to blow up a bridge in Cleveland during last month's May Day demonstrations and another to attack President Barack Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters with Molotov cocktails during the recent NATO summit drew crucial media oxygen away from the peaceful activities of the movement's large majority.

"Eight months in, the Tea Party were beginning to impact primary elections, and by the second year were having a tremendous impact," Skocpol said. "They were, if not electing, then at least changing the kind of candidates that were being elected.

"But Occupy got bogged down in tent cities. In social movement literature we'd argue that there was a failure to engage in tactical innovation at a crucial time." Certainly the movement shows few signs of creating a summer of discontent in American cities this year.

Its next big gathering is scheduled for Philadelphia, the week of July 4. Organizers say the group will camp out for four days in the "streets and parks of Philadelphia ... as a collective exercise of our free speech" and conduct workshops and panels.

Last month, following credible but unremarkable attendance at national May Day rallies and NATO protests in Chicago, about 200 Occupiers gathered in New York's Union Square to plan a fall re-emergence: a "Yes We Camp" rally on September 17 to underscore the right of activists to occupy public space, like parks and sidewalks.

AN ALLIANCE FORGONE

Last October, lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park hummed with energy, a loose collective of aggrieved Americans united by shared outrage at a spectrum of economic injustices. The spectacle of "horizontal democracy," drum circles, and a revitalized American counterculture captured everyone's attention.

More than 12,000 newspaper stories a month referenced the movement, according to two university sociologists, Patrick Rafail and Jackie Smith. The two most popular Twitter hash tags, #occupy and #OWS, hit cyberspace at an average rate of 20 to 60 times a minute, according to SocialFlow, which analyzed OWS Twitter trends for Reuters. The frenzy peaked after police arrested hundreds of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1. That night, more than 1,500 of just those two tags went pinballing through the Twittersphere every minute.

A Time Magazine poll in October found 54 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of Occupy Wall Street, while 86 percent believed Wall Street itself and lobbyists had too much influence in Washington. By November 2, OWS New York raised more than $500,000 in donations, and by year-end, nearly three quarters of a million dollars.

Public support for OWS spiked briefly following a November 15, pre-dawn New York City Police Department raid that cleared Zuccotti Park and three days later when images of University of California campus police pepper-spraying seated protesters went viral.

But the New York eviction robbed the landmark camp of a central location, and most protesters simply returned to their lives. The core of the movement disappeared from public consciousness.

A seemingly natural alliance with the nation's politically active labors unions has been hindered by Occupy's general lack of interest in electoral politics, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, author of several books on labor union organizing.

"A FLOATING ABSTRACTION"

Public support soured through the quiet winter months of early 2012.

When protesters returned to Zuccotti Park on March 17 for the movement's six-month anniversary and threatened to re-occupy the park, police moved in swiftly, arresting dozens more.

In April, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 71 percent of respondents said they did not support OWS. News story citations have dropped below 1,000 a month as of May, according to Smith and Rafail.

Related Twitter traffic has slowed to about five tweets a minute, according to SocialFlow. In significant numbers, #Occupy and #ows are being co-opted by an Oregon wildlife campaign and Connect the Left, a liberal umbrella group.

OWS New York's general fund is down to $31,000 and its bail fund to about $50,000, said Christine Crowther of the OWS NY finance committee.

Almost all of the 300 or more camps that sprung up around the nation have been disbanded, according to Arun Gupta, co-founder of The Occupied Wall Street Journal, the movement's newspaper of occasional record.

"In many cities, most prominently New York, the general assemblies have disintegrated, because the democratic practice becomes a floating abstraction without the space to anchor it," he wrote recently on Aljazeera.com.

While the movement has splintered into small, self-sustaining cells that focus on individual issues at the local level and coordinate where necessary with the other "working groups," a national structure is in place. Different Occupy chapters connect through group conference calls and constant online activity.

OFF THE RADAR

Washington political consultants say they have no serious Occupy-backed or inspired candidates on their radar for this fall's elections, and many Occupy activists say elections are not a top priority.

"As a community that works with consensus with a 90 percent threshold, we'd never be able to build consensus around a single candidate - ever," said Justin Stone. The New York activist still participates weekly in "sleepful protests" in the city - essentially camping on the sidewalk.

(Additional reporting by Edith Honan and Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Martin Howell and Prudence Crowther)

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Simple Home Improvement Tasks You Can Start Today - Plumbing Elf

Although multiple houses are improved with plans that cost substantial money and time, you might be surprised to know you can improve others more economically and simply. Both of these categories should be considered, still noticing the alterations you need to make in your home from an objective point of view is always smart. The subsequent thoughts might give you the urge to start on those plans for your abode that you have been dragging your feet on.

It could be quite a shock to see the decrease in your energy costs as well as how comfortable your house is by placing a ceiling fan in your room, yet it isn?t a huge home upgrade project. Provided you abide in an area that bakes in the summer months, retaining the air conditioning is something to consider, however fans on the ceiling might be a productive option except on the days when it is extremely hot. The air circulation could be helped by the ceiling fans being on even if you keep the air conditioning on low. Another benefit you can have in cooler weather is the ceiling fans can reverse, and this moves the warm air that has moved upward back to the lower place where you dwell.

The effects of home improvement, not only on you but many others, is a fact that has to be recognized. There are so many scenarios and variations ? twists and turns, that maybe you see how difficult it can be to include all bases. So we feel this is just an excellent time to take a break and examine what has just been covered. In light of all that is offered, and there is a lot, then this is a perfect time to be reading this. Our final few items can really prove to be powerful considering the overall.

Your home will benefit greatly from a change in windows, whether in a few rooms or the whole house, as it will give it a nice uplift in terms of appearance as well as in terms of improved energy efficiency. Lowering the heating bills by adding some more insulation to your home can be done by replacing your windows with energy efficient ones. You could also think about window coatings that will maintain a lower temperature during summer and a higher one during winter, like low-e. Even though it involves making an investment, you will see that high quality windows are worth it because they increase the value of a property. Remember that while they provide insulation, they can also serve a decorative role, so make sure to be careful when choosing your windows.

Multiple plans to advance your residence aren?t too bad as far as cost goes, however there are some that a large cash supply is needed, whether for hiring a crew or for the supplies you will need. Therefore make certain that you have the funds before you begin.

The easiest way to tackle home improvement projects is to break down large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. If you don?t have much time and can only dedicate a few hours weekly to your project, this approach is even more important. Painting the whole house is a large project to deal with all at once, so you could do it one room at a time. The home improvement ideas we?ve covered in this article are just a few of the ways that you can easily transform your living space for the better.

The writer is an online marketing and advertising expert ? who writes on varied home improvement related issues such as roofers Jacksonville Fl, roofing contractors Jacksonville Florida and Tampa roof repair.

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