I want to thank Bee Stitt for passing on this incredible video!

Here is another incredible story of baseball player Dustin Hermanson.  He was out of baseball due to back pain and through using MonaVie was able to rejoin the majors!  Dustin is now retired and still using MonaVie. I love this business!!  The announcer seems to love the MonaVie product also.  MonaVie Team moving to the top! God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The following article is a condensed version of Frederic Bastiat - “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.”  I found this condensed version of the classic text from the French economist while searching online.  I wish every highschool level student would read classic economic literature to get the other side of the story.  The principles in Bastiat’s work are timeless and as important today as the day they were written a century plus ago.  In fact, maybe more important today as government and the media feed us words that tickle our ears on bailouts (handouts to the few at the expense of the many) and government intervention.  Only an educated & courageous electorate can stem the tide towards socialism.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Bastiat was an economist who was also a member of the French parliament in the middle of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, the issues he raises are as valid today as they were over 150 years ago. In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them. There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen. Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

[This pamphlet, published in July, 1850, is the last that Bastiat wrote. It had been promised to the public for more than a year. Its publication had been delayed because the author had lost the manuscript when he moved his household from the rue de Choiseulto the rue d'Algen. After a long and fruitless search, he decided to rewrite his work entirely, and chose as the principal basis of his demonstrations some speeches recently delivered in the National Assembly. When this task was finished, he reproached himself with having been too serious, threw the second manuscript into the fire, and wrote the one which we reprint]

The Broken Window

Have you ever been witness to the fury of that solid citizen, James Goodfellow, when his incorrigible son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at this spectacle, certainly you must also have observed that the onlookers, even if there are as many as thirty of them, seem with one accord to offer the unfortunate owner the selfsame consolation: "It's an ill wind that blows nobody some good. Such accidents keep industry going. Everybody has to make a living. What would become of the glaziers if no one ever broke a window?" Now, this formula of condolence contains a whole theory that it is a good idea for us to expose, flagrante delicto, in this very simple case, since it is exactly the same as that which, unfortunately, underlies most of our economic institutions. Suppose that it will cost six francs to repair the damage. If you mean that the accident gives six francs' worth of encouragement to the aforesaid industry,

I agree. I do not contest it in any way; your reasoning is correct. The glazier will come, do his job, receive six francs, congratulate himself, and bless in his heart the careless child. That is what is seen. But if, by way of deduction, you conclude, as happens only too often, that it is good to break windows, that it helps to circulate money, that it results in encouraging industry in general, I am obliged to cry out: That will never do! Your theory stops at what is seen. It does not take account of what is not seen. It is not seen that, since our citizen has spent six francs for one thing, he will not be able to spend them for another. It is not seen that if he had not had a windowpane to replace, he would have replaced, for example, his worn-out shoes or added another book to his library. In brief, he would have put his six francs to some use or other for which he will not now have them. Let us next consider industry in general. The window having been broken, the glass industry gets six francs' worth of encouragement; that is what is seen. If the window had not been broken, the shoe industry (or some other) would have received six francs' worth of encouragement; that is what is not seen. And if we were to take into consideration what is not seen, because it is a negative factor, as well as what is seen, because it is a positive factor, we should understand that there is no benefit to industry in general or to national employment as a whole, whether windows are broken or not broken.

Now let us consider James Goodfellow. On the first hypothesis, that of the broken window, he spends six francs and has, neither more nor less than before, the enjoyment of one window. On the second, that in which the accident did not happen, he would have spent six francs for new shoes and would have had the enjoyment of a pair of shoes as well as of a window. Now, if James Goodfellow is part of society, we must conclude that society, considering its labors and its enjoyments, has lost the value of the broken window. From which, by generalizing, we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value of objects unnecessarily destroyed,"… "To break, to destroy, to dissipate is not to encourage national employment," or more briefly: "Destruction is not profitable." The reader must apply himself to observe that there are not only two people, but three, in the little drama that I have presented. The one, James Goodfellow, represents the consumer, reduced by destruction to one enjoyment instead of two. The other, under the figure of the glazier, shows us the producer whose industry the accident encourages. The third is the shoemaker (or any other manufacturer) whose industry is correspondingly discouraged by the same cause. It is this third person who is always in the shadow, and who, personifying what is not seen, is an essential element of the problem. It is he who makes us understand how absurd it is to see a profit in destruction.

Theaters and Fine Arts - Should the state subsidize the arts?

There is certainly a great deal to say on this subject pro and con. In favor of the system of subsidies, one can say that the arts broaden, elevate, and poetize the soul of a nation; that they draw it away from material preoccupations, giving it a feeling for the beautiful, and thus react favorably on its manners, its customs, its morals, and even on its industry. One can ask where music would be in France without the Théâtre-Italien and the Conservatory; dramatic art without the Théâtre-Français; painting and sculpture without our collections and our museums. One can go further and ask whether, without the centralization and consequently the subsidizing of the fine arts, there would have developed that exquisite taste which is the noble endowment of French labor and sends its products out over the whole world. In the presence of such results would it not be the height of imprudence to renounce this moderate assessment on all the citizens, which, in the last analysis, is what has achieved for them their pre-eminence and their glory in the eyes of Europe? To these reasons and many others, whose power I do not contest, one can oppose many no less cogent.

There is, first of all, one could say, a question of distributive justice. Do the rights of the legislator go so far as to allow him to dip into the wages of the artisan in order to supplement the profits of the artist? M. de Lamartine said: "If you take away the subsidy of a theater, where are you going to stop on this path, and will you not be logically required to do away with your university faculties, your museums, your institutes, your libraries?" One could reply: If you wish to subsidize all that is good and useful, where are you going to stop on that path, and will you not logically be required to set up a civil list for agriculture, industry, commerce, welfare, and education? Furthermore, is it certain that subsidies favor the progress of the arts? It is a question that is far from being resolved, and we see with our own eyes that the theaters that prosper are those that live on their own profits. Finally, proceeding to higher considerations, one may observe that needs and desires give rise to one another and keep soaring into regions more and more rarefied in proportion as the national wealth permits their satisfaction; that the government must not meddle in this process, since, whatever may be currently the amount of the national wealth, it cannot stimulate luxury industries by taxation without harming essential industries, thus reversing the natural advance of civilization.

[Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine (1790-1869), one of the great poets of French romanticism and subsequently a distinguished statesman. First elected Deputy in 1834, he attained his greatest glory at the time of the Revolution of 1848, when he was a prime mover in the establishment of the Republic. By his eloquence he calmed the Paris mobs that threatened to destroy it and became the head of the provisional government. More an idealist and orator than a practical politician, however, he soon lost influence and retired to private life in 1851.—Translator.]

One may also point out that this artificial dislocation of wants, tastes, labor, and population places nations in a precarious and dangerous situation, leaving them without a solid base. These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of state intervention concerning the order in which citizens believe they should satisfy their needs and their desires, and thus direct their activity. I confess that I am one of those who think that the choice, the impulse, should come from below, not from above, from the citizens, not from the legislator; and the contrary doctrine seems to me to lead to the annihilation of liberty and of human dignity. But, by an inference as false as it is unjust, do you know what the economists are now accused of? When we oppose subsidies, we are charged with opposing the very thing that it was proposed to subsidize and of being the enemies of all kinds of activity, because we want these activities to be voluntary and to seek their proper reward in themselves. Thus, if we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in religious matters, we are atheists. If we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in education, then we hate enlightenment. If we say that the state should not give, by taxation, an artificial value to land or to some branch of industry, then we are the enemies of property and of labor. If we think that the state should not subsidize artists, we are barbarians who judge the arts useless.

I protest with all my power against these inferences. Far from entertaining the absurd thought of abolishing religion, education, property, labor, and the arts when we ask the state to protect the free development of all these types of human activity without keeping them on the payroll at one another's expense, we believe, on the contrary, that all these vital forces of society should develop harmoniously under the influence of liberty and that none of them should become, as we see has happened today, a source of trouble, abuses, tyranny, and disorder. Our adversaries believe that an activity that is neither subsidized nor regulated is abolished. We believe the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind. Ours is in mankind, not in the legislator. Thus, M. de Lamartine said: "On the basis of this principle, we should have to abolish the public expositions that bring wealth and honor to this country." I reply to M. de Lamartine: From your point of view, not to subsidize is to abolish, because, proceeding from the premise that nothing exists except by the will of the state, you conclude that nothing lives that taxes do not keep alive. But I turn against you the example that you have chosen, and I point out to you that the greatest, the noblest, of all expositions, the one based on the most liberal, the most universal conception, and I can even use the word "humanitarian," which is not here exaggerated, is the exposition now being prepared in London, the only one in which no government meddles and which no tax supports.

Returning to the fine arts, one can, I repeat, allege weighty reasons for and against the system of subsidization. The reader understands that, in accordance with the special purpose of this essay, I have no need either to set forth these reasons or to decide between them. But M. de Lamartine has advanced one argument that I cannot pass over in silence, for it falls within the very carefully defined limits of this economic study. He has said: The economic question in the matter of theaters can be summed up in one word: employment. The nature of the employment matters little; it is of a kind just as productive and fertile as any other kind. The theaters, as you know, support by wages no less than eighty thousand workers of all kinds—painters, masons, decorators, costumers, architects, etc., who are the very life and industry of many quarters of this capital, and they should have this claim upon your sympathies! Your sympathies? Translate: your subsidies. And further on: The pleasures of Paris provide employment and consumers' goods for the provincial departments, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages and the bread of two hundred thousand workers of all kinds, living on the complex industry of the theaters throughout the Republic, and receiving from these noble pleasures, which make France illustrious, their own livelihood and the means of providing the necessities of life for their families and their children. It is to them that you give these sixty thousand francs. [Very good! Very good! Much applause.]

For my part, I am forced to say: Very bad! Very bad! Confining, of course, the burden of this judgment to the economic argument which we are here concerned with. Yes, it is, at least in part, to the workers in the theaters that the sixty thousand francs in question will go. A few scraps might well get lost on the way. If one scrutinized the matter closely, one might even discover that most of the pie will find its way elsewhere. The workers will be fortunate if there are a few crumbs left for them! But I should like to assume that the entire subsidy will go to the painters, decorators, costumers, hairdressers, etc. That is what is seen. But where does it come from? This is the other side of the coin, just as important to examine as its face. What is the source of these 60,000 francs? And where would they have gone if a legislative vote had not first directed them to the rue de Rivoli and from there to the rue de Grenelle?

[This refers to the Great Exhibition, in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, sponsored by the London Society of Arts, an association devoted to the development of arts and industries. The first in a series of great international exhibitions, or "world fairs," it was famous for the Crystal Palace, a remarkable architectural structure, in which the exhibitions were displayed. Albert, Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, presided over the exhibition.]

That is what is not seen. Surely, no one will dare maintain that the legislative vote has caused this sum to hatch out from the ballot box; that it is a pure addition to the national wealth; that, without this miraculous vote, these sixty thousand francs would have remained invisible and impalpable. It must be admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they will be taken from somewhere to be sent somewhere else, and that they will have one destination only by being deflected from another. This being the case, it is clear that the taxpayer who will have been taxed one franc will no longer have this franc at his disposal. It is clear that he will be deprived of a satisfaction to the tune of one franc, and that the worker, whoever he is, who would have procured this satisfaction for him, will be deprived of wages in the same amount. Let us not, then, yield to the childish illusion of believing that the vote of May 16 adds anything whatever to national well-being and employment. It reallocates possessions, it reallocates wages, and that is all. Will it be said that for one kind of satisfaction and for one kind of job it substitutes satisfactions and jobs more urgent, more moral, more rational? I could do battle on this ground. I could say: In taking sixty thousand francs from the taxpayers, you reduce the wages of plowmen, ditchdiggers, carpenters, and blacksmiths, and you increase by the same amount the wages of singers, hairdressers, decorators, and costumers. Nothing proves that this latter class is more important than the other.

M. de Lamartine does not make this allegation. He says himself that the work of the theaters is just as productive as, just as fruitful as, and not more so than, any other work, which might still be contested; for the best proof that theatrical work is not as productive as other work is that the latter is called upon to subsidize the former. But this comparison of the intrinsic value and merit of the different kinds of work forms no part of my present subject. All that I have to do here is to show that, if M. de Lamartine and those who have applauded his argument have seen on the one hand the wages earned by those who supply the needs of the actors, they should see on the other the earnings lost by those who supply the needs of the taxpayers; if they do not, they are open to ridicule for mistaking a reallocation for a gain. If they were logical in their doctrine, they would ask for infinite subsidies; for what is true of one franc and of sixty thousand francs is true, in identical circumstances, of a billion francs. When it is a question of taxes, gentlemen, prove their usefulness by reasons with some foundation, but not with that lamentable assertion: "Public spending keeps the working class alive." It makes the mistake of covering up a fact that it is essential to know: namely, that public spending is always a substitute for private spending, and that consequently it may well support one worker in place of another but adds nothing to the lot of the working class taken as a whole…

Questions for thought 1. The proponents of government spending on sports stadiums often argue that this spending expands employment. Evaluate this view. 2. The U.S. federal government spends billions of dollars subsidizing agriculture. Do these subsidies increase employment and output? Explain.

Citation: Bastiat, Frederic, Selected Essays on Political Economy. The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. 1995. Trans. Seymour Cain. Ed. George B. de Huszar. Library of Economics and Liberty. 30 September 2006.

I kept this fable in my planner for years to remind me that I was looking for ambitious red hens in building our Team community.  This fable has plenty of lessons for the entrepreneur and anyone willing to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Once upon a time, on a farm in Kansas

. . . there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"

"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. And so she did; The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did. At last it came time to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They
wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No,
I shall eat all five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow.
"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.
"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain.

And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched around and around
the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly," said the agent. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand." But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her, for she never again baked any more bread.

The Leadership Challenge is a must read in the leadership field.  Both Chris Brady and I had read the book before writing our NYT and WSJ best seller Launching a Leadership Revolution.  I highly recommend Kouzes and Posner's book to any aspiring leader on their journey up life’s mountain.  I will share their five points for transformational leadership from the book.  Study these and see if you are exhibiting the five points for transforming your team’s results.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Transformational Leaders – Five Principles

1. Change the Process – Leaders drive change by working on the process.  If the process is not changing and improving, then the leaders are not leading.

2. Inspire a Shared Vision – You as a leader have to provide direction and inspire them to reach it.  Everyone should know and be inspired to hit 1 million people.

3. Enabling Others to Act – Provide the team methods that allow people to move forward.  Help remove obstacles that hinder people from accomplishing the team’s goals.  The Team PC is constantly asking what can we do to help people grow faster.

4. Encourage the Heart – Reach out and touch people’s hearts the same way we would use logic to help them make decisions.  The Smile/Validate video is a perfect example of encouraging the heart.

5. Model the Way – Lead by Example.  The Team PC is in the hunt with the rest of the Team leaders to reach our goals and dreams together!

Stuart, Florida is the sailfish capital of the world.  Captain Bill and I are headed out this morning on our quest to catch the monster sailfish.  We have fished several times for sailfish, but have been unsuccessful so far.  We applied the Plan-Do-Check and Adjust to our methods and are back at it today.  I will let you know how it goes.  We have the dream to catch the big one and must persist until the dream is accomplished.  That is what life is about - get a big dream, PDCA, surround yourself with other dreamers, celebrate one another's success.  Life is too short to be a victim, complain about your circumstances, or focus on past failures.  Today is a new day and your sailfish (dream) is waiting for you to sieze the moment!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Update:  Here is a longer video thanks to reader Matt Foote.

I watched a fascinating interview of Will Smith this morning.  Will Smith has skyrocketed from an unknown dreamer to one of the top superstars in the movie industry.  His meteoric rise was by design, not accident.   Watch the following interview from the Tavis Smiley show.  You can feel the enthusiasm and belief flowing out of Will.  Do you have this type of enthusiasm and belief in your life?  I believe that Will Smith is successful at any endeavor that he focuses on because he has a hungry learning spirit.  It is obvious that Will reads voraciously and dreams big dreams.  Listen to some of the quotes from this interview.

I don't want to be an icon.

I want to be an idea. I want to represent possibilities.

Your in a universe that says 2 + 2 = 4.  2 + 2 is going to be what I want it to be. 

The power of making a choice in your life.

Just decide!  The universe will get out of your way.

I want to represent the idea that you really can make what you want.

I can create whatever I want to create, if I can put my head on it right,study, and learn the patterns.

We are who we choose to be.

Update:

I consider myself an Alchemist. An Alchemist took lead and made gold.

My grandmother taught me that if life gives you lemon then you have to make lemonade.

The only thing that I see distinctly different about me is that I will not be outworked period.

You might have more talent than me, might be smarter than me, might be sexier than me, all of those things you have on me in nine categories, but if we get on a treadmill - you are getting off first or I will die!

I am going to get back in or I will be dead.  You will not outwork me.  The guy who is willing to hustle the most will get the most loose balls.

Achievement is based on hustle, outworking and staying ready so you don't have to get ready!

As I read these quotes and watched the interview numerous times, I realized that Will Smith believes - "When the dream is big enough, the facts don't count."  Here is what this quote means to me - that anything you are lacking in life, you can develop.

Not good with people? - Change that fact!

Don't have any money? - Study, Learn, Grow, Save! - Change that fact!

Didn't grow up on the right side of the tracks? - Move to the right side of the tracks. - Change that fact!

Knocked down and criticized? - Get back up and win! - Change that fact!

Any reason that you can state as to why you cannot win, is actually just a fact that you must change on your journey to success.  You can make a million excuses or you can make a million differences, but you cannot make both! God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is one of the classic economic books of all-time.  Henry Hazlitt was a journalist with a keen mind for economic issues.  I recommend Economic in One Lesson to all readers as an introduction to everyday economics.  Here is a long video with interviews from the top Austrian school economists reviewing each chapter of Hazlitt's book.  You can watch this video in 15 minutes snippets and it would be well worth your time.  Turn off the TV and tune in to real learning from the top economic minds.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Dr. Ravi Zacharias is one of the best theologians/philosophers in the world today.  His writings have encouraged my heart and stretched my mind many times over the years.  I want to share with you, on this Sunday morning, one of Dr. Zacharias's most discussed lectures.  The video is over an hour, but I can't think of a better hour of your time on this Lord's day.  People will take time to watch hours of sports, movies, or other entertainment today, but will say they do not have time to learn about God.  Each of us is accountable personally for their lives, whether we admit it or not. This lecture will start you thinking on the meaninglessness of the postmodern condition and the meaning that Christ brings to a person's life in the present & in the eternal.   Thank you Dr. Zacharias for making your life count and sharing truth to inspire others!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward 

I would encourage you to get a pen and notepad to take notes on this video.

I watched the most incredible 15 minute video of my entire life.  The lessons in this short 15 minutes cover a range from joy to depression, victories to setbacks, naive positivity to chosen positivity, self to others, individual to team, living small to living large, hopeless to hopeful, taking to giving, paycheck to significance, and many more. 

The longer I live, the more I realize the essential hunger inside of everyone to be accepted, approved and appreciated.  If we, as human beings, could all learn to focus on others before focusing on ourselves, we would overcome so many of the problems that plague our society today.  If we desire acceptance in life, then we must give acceptance.  If we desire approval in life, then we must give approval.  If we desire appreciation in life, then we must give appreciation.  If we desire validation in life then we must give validation and if we desire smiles then give others your smile. 

I know people can accuse me, an engineer, of losing my rationality and falling into sentimentality, but I know what I speak is true.  A sincerely thought out and spoken or written comment can fuel a person for a week.  I know many high achievers and it is as true for them as it is for a young child.  Recognition: grown men die for it and babies cry for it.  Do not hoard this precious gift.  Do not feel that complimenting and praising others takes from you.  Appreciation is one of the few gifts that the more you give it away, the more it returns to you.  You will gather more bees with honey than vinegar.  There is a shortage of honey and stockpiles of vinegar in life.  This short film has inspired me to share my thanks with you.

I want to thank all of my friends and family for the many kind words and encouraging statements.  I will never be able to share how much they have meant to me over the last year.  The world tends to beat the joy out of you, but you still have the choice of whether to surrender your joy.  If you lost your joy in 2008, then choose now to reclaim it by giving away joy to others.  Start a virtuous cycle of sincere praise and appreciation and let’s change the world one life at a time!  Can you imagine if every person at every open encourage the other people at our opens like Hugh Newman?  The Team would be well past one million people in no time at all!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Assignment: Please share the names of people who have brought joy to your life through their encouraging words of appreciation and validation.

Chris Brady and I were two engineers climbing the corporate fast track at General Motors in the mid-1990's.  We both realized that the leadership was not present to take GM successfully through the challenges faced them.  Inertia, an against change attititude, will kill any company.  Organizations resist change even when they know their current plan is not working through fear of the unknown.  The fear of the unknown paralized GM and Union leadership and analysis paralysis resulted. 

Chris and I both left our jobs with a Plan, Do, Check, Adjust (PDCA) mentality.  We studied networking, studied leadership, studied patterns and built and organization from 200 people attending meetings to over 20,000 in attendance in 7 years.  Our newly revised and titled book, Commerce through Community (CTC), was just released and it broke the previous record for first week sales!  CTC is an excellent first night book to share with your new people.  It will give them a primer on networking and the trends that are propelling our profession mainstream.  Be sure to pick up your copies and share with your teams.

The MonaVie Team motto is Have Fun, Make Money, and Make a Difference!  If any of the above interest you, then you will be excited to know that we have rolled out our SuperStar pack and our PowerPlayer pack!  In these CD packs, you will learn how to build the MonaVie Team in blocks of SuperStar.  Chris and I and the rest of the leaders are so pumped for 2009 and with all of the proven Team methods married to MonaVie's proven product track record - the sky is the limit!  More products and more markets opening, it is time for the MonaVie Team to build depth, learn & share the patterns and systems, and share the MonaVie products with others.  The packs plus other valuable training materials are available on the Team site!  Are you in business or are you playing the lottery?  Remember, when opportunity and preparedness meet - success must happen.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward 

Please share what you learned from the CTC book or the MV Team training materials.

Nick Vujicic and his attitude is another example of the celebration of life over limitations.  If we could all learn that God puts us in situations to build our character not destroy us.  If we could learn that tensions in our life are there to strengthen our convictions not bowl us over.  Nick shares that if he fails, he tries again and again.  If you fail, are you going to try again?  The human spirit can handle much more than we realize.  When we know why we are doing what we do, rejection is just fodder for future growth.  Do you know why you do what you do?  Nick does and that is why his life is such an inspiration to others.  Nick is thankful for what he has and not bitter for what he doesn't have.  I have never met a bitter person who was thankful and I have never met a thankful person who was bitter.  In life you have a choice - Bitter or Better?  As for me and my family, we choose bettter - just like Nick Vujicic!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The following discussions is designed to get people to think and examine their beliefs and values.  We may disagree, but we can disagree respectfully as human beings with different thoughts on the issues.  I feel our society loses when we lose the ability to dialogue and reason.  Today's post is an issue that is heated on both sides.  We need cooler heads to discuss and not name call either side of the issue.

Our post modern culture is good at casting aspersions on our forefathers for their hypocrisy.  I will use just three examples to share my point.  Have you ever heard any of the following?

1. Founding Fathers were hypocrites to say that all men were equal, but some had slaves.

2. Manifest Destiny was just a nice way of saying we are going to steal the land away from the Indians who could not stand against American firepower.

3. America needs to bring its troops home and let the countries that are defenseless against our firepower make their own decisions in government.

I believe each of these points has some validity and that we should discuss the ideals and the realities in each case.  What concerns me is that our post-modern culture can clearly see the fault of past generations, but never seems to look inward at our own hearts.  Jesus said, “Before you remove the speck from your brother’s eye, remover the beam from your own eye.”  The Bible is clear that Christians should defend the defenseless, ensure justice to the weak against the strong, and stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

The slaves during the American Revolution could not stand up for themselves and even though individual founding fathers did make stands, it took a Civil War to finally settle the slavery issue.  The founding fathers had ideals, but could not implement without risking the entire American Experiment.  Were they right or wrong to do so?  Great questions and great topics of discussion that will be discusses for as long as people reason.

The Indians on our great plains could not stand up to the land hungry Americans moving west.  Did individual American’s attempt to enforce the Indian nations rights?  Yes, some did, but justice was trampled for expediency and Indians were herded off to plantations instead of being assimilated into the American experiment.  Should America not have headed west at all?  These are great questions for ongoing dialogue that will be discussed for as long as people reason together.

The sovereignty of other countries is intervened by our powerful military and political machines.  Does America have the right and responsibility to ensure justice for the oppressed around the world?  These are more intelligent discussions with well reasoned argument on all sides.  If America is threatened, do we have the right to intervene?  There must be limits and principles applied to each situation. 

The point is that we should always examine the past and the present to ensure our hearts are right on these matters.  The goal of studying history is to learn the past so we can apply the right principles at the right time in the future.  As Harry Truman said, “There is nothing new under the sun, only the history that you do not know.”

I have said all of this to bring you to our post-modern culture’s biggest hypocrisy and crime, in my opinion.  How can we deftly point out the hypocrisy in our past and not blush with shame with our culture’s stand on abortion?  Isn’t the American creed to stand up for those that are defenseless?  Isn’t it the blatant hypocrisy that gets our gander up when we see the double standards from our past of (free men & slavery), (right to own property & land grabbing migrations), and (national sovereignty & empire building government)?  How is it that we see their hypocrisy, but miss our own? 

Can we truly say we are concerned about the welfare and rights of our defenseless brothers and sisters when we allow partial birth abortions?  What more defenseless human being can there be than a baby in their mother’s womb?  I can see future generations looking back on this generation with disdain.  They will mock our hypocrisy that we were so concerned about the defenseless until it called for a personal sacrifice.  Yes the modern God is the God of convenience and we are for doing right until it hurts.

It has been said that integrity is not doing wrong, but character is doing right.  You may not support partial birth abortions nor have had one and so you have integrity.  But I would submit to you that character would go the next mile and defend in a constitutional way the rights and the justice our speechless defenseless brothers and sisters.  America’s ideals have always stood for coming to the aid of the defenseless against injustice.  Please consider your positions and examine your own heart.  Do you have a double standard when it comes to judging the past and the present?  Do you, like our forefathers, use misleading arguments to justify the hypocrisy?  Like attempting to show that babies in the womb are not really human babies yet?  Doesn’t this sound frighteningly similar to bogus argument about Blacks not being fully human in an attempt to justify slavery?  Does it sound like bogus arguments that Indians could not be fully civilized in an attempt to justify rapaciousness?  Does it sound like fallacious arguments that the weaker countries need us to force upon them our form of government even though we would fight to the death to not allow a foreign power to do the same to us? 

The Bible compels us to go beyond integrity and into character.  I have made stands in my life that have cost me plenty.  Money, friends, reputation must all be put on the line before you surrender your character and your principles.  Can it be tough at times to stand for truth?  Sure, but not as tough as looking in the mirror and knowing that you are a hypocrite.  John Wooden said, “The softest pillow is a good conscience.”  Is your pillow soft at night?  Please watch the videos and think on these things.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.

• FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.
• FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
• FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

FOCA Would Wipe Away Every Restriction on Abortion Nationwide

I watched this video and it brought tears to my eyes.  This describes exactly the mentality of a true MonaVie Team leader.  Success principles are success principles in any high level team achievement. To win as a team, you must buy into a bigger cause than yourself and play your part.  Boise State, a smaller school, in 2006 finished an undefeated season by beating Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. Listen to the video and read these quotes that were shared! God Bless, Orrin Woodward

1. We were playing for anyone who feels that they didn't stand a chance.

2. We talked about setting goals and meeting expectations by taking it one game at a time.

3. We bought into the system.

4. You have to believe in something bigger than youself.

5. We are going to win as a team and family or die as a bunch of individuals.

6. You need to have a Blue Collar mentality - You tough it out and do what you need to do in order to be successful.

7. If we finish, play hard and keep doing that consistently, obviously, we are going to win some games.

8. A sense of belief just because of the preparation we put in.  A sense of belief that these guys don't know what's coming to them.

9. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

10. Do not take counsel of our fears, our naysayers or the unknown.

I want to thank Dallin Larsen for his incredible programs to reward top performers in MonaVie.  Laurie and I have never been treated with such dignity and respect in all of our years of building communities.  I love MonaVie because they recognize that it is the distributors that build the organizations to move their world-class products.  Anyone with a dream, work-ethic, persistence, and character can build it big on the MonaVie Team.  There may be a recession in the economy, but there is no recession on the MonaVie Team.  The Team is off to a record breaking January to start 2009!  If the MonaVie Hawker 1000 is already booked, Dallin has secured the Piaggio Avanti P-180 for our use.  What a beautiful aircraft!

Dan and Lisa Hawkins drove us to the Madison Airport on Sunday morning.  They were recognized as new Triple 100’s on Saturday night!  They just missed the coveted Turbo 200 goal through their binaries.  The Hawkins’ lead with heart and are some of the best up and coming team builders in the entire Team organization.  Dan was a mechanic that was too shy to meet and greet customers coming into the garage.  Dan preferred to work on the cars and allow the other mechanics to handle payments in the front office.  It took courage for Dan and Lisa to confront their fears and move in the direction of their dreams.  The sky is the limit for this young couple with big dreams as they are going into emerald qualification and up.

Here are some pictures of the Piaggio Avanti – P. 180 that we flew from Stuart, Florida to Madison, Wisconsin.  We hopped into the plane in Madison on Sunday morning at 9 am central (12 degree weather) and were home in Stuart (82 degree weather) just after 1 pm eastern time.  No lines, no waiting and just over 3 hours of flight time.  Life is good on the MonaVie Team because we are building depth, building numbers and building volume through customers and distributors!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

PIAGGIO AVANTI P.180

No aircraft today, jet or turboprop, offers the versatility of the P.180.  With the ability to fly non-stop from New York to locations such as Chicago, Atlanta, West Palm Beach or Miami.  The P.180 cruises at jets speeds and still offers the operational flexibility to fly in and out of shorter runways – increasing your travel destination options.

The P.180 defines a new category of luxury, performance and efficiency in jet powered, turboprop aircraft.  Cruising at jet speeds over 450 mph, the P.180 travels faster and quieter than most light class aircraft, yet has a fraction of the fuel consumption and lower overall costs.

With rear-mounted propellers and an acoustic blanket enveloping the cabin, you’ll experience one of the quietest rides in the fractional aircraft industry – even quieter than most jets.  The unique shape of the P.180 lends itself to a spacious, luxurious stand-up cabin – with oversized stuffed leather seats, the cabin-cross section of a super mid-size aircraft and plenty of work space.

MonaVie continues to excel in the marketplace by recently being featured on The Doctors Show!  Here are professionals touting the benefits of Acai and the MonaVie products.  The Doctors Show states that Acai is one of the hottest trends for 2009 in one of the hottest industries - Health and Wellness.  The MonaVie Team combines the hottest product in the hottest industry with the timeless principles of leadership and community building.  The tide is rising and I hope you have your ship on the water.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Today’s post is on one of the best communicators in America’s history, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones.  I read Charlie’s book Life is Tremendous very early in my leadership journey and it made a significant impact.  Charlie’s style of speaking is focused on helping you to think through the issues for yourself.  After 14 years of knowing and learning from “Tremendous” Jones from afar, I was finally blessed with getting to know him personally.  No communicator can lift me up when I am down like Charlie Jones!  I bought a tape of his in 1998 and literally wore it out by listening to it nearly a hundred times.  When I felt that I couldn’t go on, I would pop in Charlie Jones and he would tell me to quit quitting!!  One of my favorite quotes was, “It is time to stop listening and memorizing and start thinking and realizing.” I listened to a greatest hits CD from Charlie Jones three times yesterday!  The last time, I had my children listen to it also because it was so impactful.  Charlie told all of us to stop having a hard heart and soft skin and learn to have a soft heart and hard skin.  Life is too short to be offended all the time.  Plus, offended people cannot serve others because they are too focused on themselves.

Charlie passed away a few months ago, but his message lives on in the hearts and minds of the millions of people that he affected in a positive way.   The world needs more men like Charlie Jones, men who will stand for truth and encourage others to learn truth for themselves.  Charlie was a true Christian and the lived his life by the principles of the Good Book.  He fought cancer for over a decade, but you would never hear him complain.  He thanked God everyday for another day to share his teaching with his fellow human beings.  Charlie’s spirit of empathy for others would never allow him to have sympathy for himself.  That is an attitude of gratitude and a spirit that all leaders must develop.  If possible, I am going to get the best of Charlie Jones and offer it as a CD selection in the Team.  It is too good not to share with the incredible leaders on the Team! 

I thank you Charlie, for leading a life worth emulating.  There will never be another Charlie Jones, but his example will inspire others to be an original in a world of copies.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward 

Words of wisdom from the greatest basketball player of all-time! God Bless, Orrin Woodward

I am in the community building business today thanks to Paul Pilzer.  I listened to a 1993 tape from Paul Pilzer on Economic Paradigms and was hooked.  I loved the idea of building my own business and Having Fun, Making Money and Making a Difference.  I went from a broke engineer to a multi-millionaire business owner by becoming a student and doing the work.  Thank you Paul Pilzer for sharing the dream of a better future with a young man who was losing hope in his future.  I spend my life focusing on helping the next generation of hungry students have the same opportunity that I was blessed with.  Paul Pilzer states that the Health & Wellness field is the fastest growing field for community builders.  Paul has never led me wrong and the MonaVie Team plans on playing a big part in helping the 500 billion industry hit 1 trillion over the next fives years, like Pilzer says.  What part are you going to play in the next generation of millionaires and the Health & Wellness revolution?  Enjoy the video and make a decision to shine in 2009!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Intelligent Design: Unlocking the Mysteries of Life. 

I am going to change subjects in our quest of knowledge.  Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, said his wisdom came from knowing that he did not know all the answers.  I find it interesting that so many scientist and academia behave as if they have all the answers.  In the scientific field, absolute certainty is difficult to obtain since another experiment may prove your studies incomplete or outright wrong.  I love the quote from F. A. Hayek that states, “Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts.”  Have you ever wondered what ignorance might be lodged in our current beliefs in different fields of study?  Imagine living before the Copernican revolution, the starting assumption was that the earth was the center of the solar system and it was dangerous to believe otherwise – I refer you to Galileo.  Imagine before the germ theory in medicine, where a doctor would work on cadavers and then deliver a baby without disinfecting or washing.  Right ideas and wrong ideas both have consequences.  If you begin with the wrong assumptions, it is very hard to arrive at the right answers. 

Socrates genius engulfed the idea of questioning your assumptions to protect yourself from securely lodging your ignorance.  The goal of this blog is not to tell you what to believe, but to help you question your assumptions.  We must study the current dogma poured forth from the academia, media, and ruling authorities to truly think.  I occasionally will get (hate filled) and (thinking empty) comments on this blog.  Why is that?  Most likely, the commenter is fearful of questioning their assumptions and thus losing the certainty of their ruling beliefs.  With less than 40% of Americans reading even one entire book in a year, I am concerned that we will swallow whatever we are told from the experts.  My goal is to get people reading and thinking again.  By providing access to different thoughts through articles, books and videos, perhaps we can turn the tide.  This blog gives me hope that all is not lost.  The comments from people who are reading and thinking inspire me to continue to discuss ideas that have consequences.  Why do you read this blog?  Are you one of the rare Americans with the courage to think?  I have started a list of areas to discuss the beginning assumptions.  Please help add to this list.  Here is my list to date:

1. Economics – Ruling dogma is Keynesian

2. Science – Ruling dogma is Darwinism

3. Medical – Ruling dogma is prescription drugs

4. Political – Ruling dogma is democracy and the rule of 51%

5. Christian – Ruling dogma is post modern theology

6. Philosophy – Ruling dogma is post modern thought

7. Success – Ruling dogma was University education & Corporate job – Breaking down

8. Leadership - Ruling dogma is positional authority - Breaking down in flat world conditions

9. Marriage - Ruling dogma is that love is something you feel not something you do - Added thanks to commenter Matt

10. Law - Ruling dogma is judicial activism vs. Rule of Law

11. Education - Ruling dogma is centralized education

Today’s discussion will be on the dialogue between proponents of Intelligent Design and the proponents of Darwinist (chance plus time).  As I read the discussions on both sides, I am amused at how dogmatic the Darwinists are that there is no room for Intelligent Design.  What is there to fear in genuine discussion?  Their initial assumptions preclude them from rationally discussing or thinking through the case for design.  The Intelligent Design scientists are treated very similar to Galileo, when he had the alleged hubris to question the reigning Ptolemy based (earth at center) hypothesis of the solar system.  Thinking can be dangerous to the reigning assumptions, but I would argue it is much more dangerous to not think.  You don’t have to be a scientist or engineer to enjoy the discussion on both sides.  The attached article and video are explained at a level that will help you grow immensely in your understanding of the issues in the scientific field.

As you read the discussions on all sides, ask yourself what are the underlying assumptions that are beyond question.  Everyone has their initial assumptions and beliefs that build their world-view, but some people have a harder time admitting this.  Very rarely will you find a neutral science because the experimenter’s world-view invades their science.  Only a few researchers are honest enough to admit this.  I have a world-view that states God created the world and created us.  This world-view should not preclude me from a discussion on science anymore than a materialist world-view, that believes we are a random grouping of atoms that can think, precludes them from the discussion.  Discussion and dialogue makes all of us better, name calling and closed mindedness only secures a person’s ignorance.  

Here is an article by James M. Kushiner on the Intelligent Design revolution and some of the key leaders/scientist in the field.  I have also included my favorite video in the field of science that discusses evolution and intelligent design.  Pay particular attention to bacterial flagellar motor in the cell.  Michael Behe states his thoughts on the irreducible complexity of the motor.  As an engineer, I worked on fuel pumps that had a shaft/bearing interface, commutator/brush interface that looks eerily similar to the bacterial flagellar motor assembly.  I received four U.S. Patents for my work on fuel pumps. If anyone would have said that chance plus time could have created the new ideas into a working assembly, I would have thought they were smoking something.   But this is exactly what the Darwinist, by faith, must believe or their ruling assumptions must be thrown out.  Study the design of the motor that is displayed in the video and ask yourself if this level of complexity can be created by chance, regardless of how much time is given.  Enjoy the article and video and please share your thoughts to enhance the discussion, not create new names for me. :)  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The Last Days of Darwin?

A Brief History of the Revolution

by James M. Kushiner

In 1959, Sir Julian Huxley, grandson of "Darwin's Bulldog" T.H. Huxley, was in Chicago to celebrate the centennial of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Taking the pulpit of Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago on Thanksgiving Day, he declared that man no longer needed to "take refuge in the arms of a divinized father-figure." Evolution was the key to reality. The university's "cavernous, Baroque Mandel Hall was packed for performances of an original showboat-style Darwinian musical, Time Will Tell."

Here begins Larry Witham's By Design, a history of "science and the search for God" in the twentieth century. Little did Huxley and the other celebrants know what time really would tell, least of all that 1959 would likely prove to be the high-water mark of Darwinism. But after the festivities ended, continuing developments in science itself, from many quarters, would begin to threaten Darwin's monopoly and, eventually, his theory.

Witham, an award-winning journalist on religion and society, points out the cracks in scientific orthodoxy that developed well before the intelligent design (ID) movement began in the 1990s.

As early as 1951, biophysicist Harold Morowitz was trying to find the cell's "information content." He eventually concluded that it was impossible for life to have arisen without some large infusion of information. Not a theist, he nonetheless created space for an Intelligent Designer.

At the Darwin centennial, naturalist Ernst Mayr and geneticist Sewall Wright could not agree on the mechanism of Darwinism (genetic change or natural selection), yet everyone swore fealty to "gradualism," even though no one really knew what the gradual steps were. Gradualism was the crucial feature of Darwin's theory, as it claimed that minute random steps, accumulated over time, eventually produced a wide variety of species.

Unbridgeable Gaps

Mathematicians using the newly invented computer soon threw a monkey wrench into gradualism. Witham recounts the 1966 debate at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia. Both Murray Eden of MIT and Marcel P. Schatzenberger (later a member of the French Academy of Sciences) argued that it was "mathematically impossible for Darwin's tiny variations to add up to a new organism." Their opponents "could not explain the major gap in their theory: How does the random shuffling of a one-dimensional string of genetic codes create a highly coordinated multidimensional organism?" Eden and Schªtzenberger declared "this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology."

Wider gaps appeared: The fossil record was not what Darwin predicted. Paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould created a theory of "punctuated equilibrium" to explain the sudden appearance of species in the fossil record and their relative stability over time. It was another direct assault on Darwinian gradualism. Paleontologists, but not the public, knew what the fossil record really showed.

Paleoanthropologists could not (and still cannot) agree on the supposed lines of human descent based on fossil finds. Louis Leakey's son Richard "acknowledged his father's tendency to alter criteria to make his fossils Homo, and said the Homo habilis category was ´a grab bag mix of fossils; almost anything around two million years that doesn't fit the robust [ape] definition has been tossed into it.'"

Witham also reviews the discoveries and emerging debates in physics and cosmology, especially as they inched closer to the "God questions" of purpose and design in the universe.

The understanding of science itself was also evolving. In 1958, chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi published Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, an effective assault on the myth of a purely materialistic and objective science. In 1962, Harvard physics instructor and historian Thomas Kuhn started a great debate among scientists by arguing in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions that, "far from being magisterial in its objectivity, science was conditioned by history, society, and the prejudices of scientists."

Breaking New Ground

In the 1980s, two books broke new ground. Charles Thaxton, who took a doctorate in chemistry with him when he went to study with Reformed theologian Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri, Switzerland, was quite taken with Polanyi's claim "that the information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA," an observation that suggests an underlying intelligence at work. Together with Walter Bradley of Texas A&M and researcher Roger Olsen, Thaxton published The Mystery of Life's Origin (1984), which was unique in that it laid out all the current origin-of-life theories and their shortcomings. Also, the epilogue became the opening shot for ID: As a "concrete alternative," it proposed "intelligent causation." Mystery appears repeatedly in the footnotes and bibliographies of the ID books published in the last decade.

Then, in 1987, the second book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Australian biochemist Michael Denton became a scientific bestseller, and the debate that had been kept mostly between scientists now became public. Though Denton was an evolutionist of sorts, he wrote that claims about Darwin's tree of life did not match the evidence—and the crisis was that scientists could find no acceptable alternative.

Meanwhile, key relationships for the ID movement were being formed. Dean Kenyon, author of Biochemical Predestination (1969), eventually lost faith in Darwinism and by the 1980s was supporting dissenting views. He wrote the foreword to Thaxton's Mystery. In 1993, Kenyon, a tenured professor at San Francisco State University, "was stripped of his right to teach biology courses because he criticized some aspects of neo-Darwinian theory." About a year later, he was reinstated by a full faculty-senate vote after a piece on the affair appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen Meyer, a young geophysicist.

Meyer had been influenced by Thaxton and was studying in Cambridge in 1987 when a mutual friend put him in touch with a Berkeley law professor on sabbatical, PhillipžE. Johnson. Meyer put Johnson onto Thaxton; Johnson had already read both Denton's book and Richard Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker. Using his lawyer's training in evidence and rhetoric, Johnson began a public campaign to unmask Darwinism as a fraud.

If T.žH. Huxley was Darwin's bulldog, Johnson became ID's pit bull. In 1991, he published Darwin on Trial, which artfully exposed many of the cracks in evolutionary theory and became "a lightning rod for the origins debate." In 1993, Johnson initiated a "smalltime Manhattan Project for the ID movement" at Pajaro Dunes on Monterey Bay in California, in which a group of young scientists met to strategize on how to break the neo-Darwinian hold on science. These men became the core of the ID movement. Among them was Meyer, whom Bruce Chapman of Seattle's new Discovery Institute soon hired to head its Center for Science and Culture, which has been instrumental in the success of the ID movement.

A new generation of scientists, many mentored by Johnson, began to participate in public conferences presenting ID arguments, in some cases alongside the responses of orthodox Darwinist speakers. In 1999, Michael Behe, William Dembski, and Meyer gave papers at a conference sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, collected in Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe, in which they presented what have become signature arguments for design.

Dembski applied developments in the information sciences to argue that "specified complexity" can be used objectively to detect evidence of intelligence in events and artifacts. Meyer dealt with information-rich biological features, including DNA and RNA, which exhibit a level of complexity and specificity that could not have evolved through natural causes. Behe presented some of the material from his acclaimed 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, arguing that the "irreducible complexity" of some biological mechanisms suggests that they could not have evolved in small steps, since the imagined intermediate phases would not have been functional (survivable) mechanisms.

Behe noted that mainstream scientists often describe biological components as "designed machines," and then asked: If they "strike scientists as looking like ´machines' that were ´designed by a human' or ´invented by humans,' then why do we not actively entertain the idea that perhaps they were indeed designed by an intelligent being?" Scientists don't do so because that would "violate the rule," stated baldly by Christian de Duve in his 1995 book Vital Dust: "All throughout this book I have tried to conform to the overriding rule that life be treated as a natural process, its origin, evolution, and manifestations, up to and including the human species, as governed by the same laws as nonliving processes."

By Design's closing chapters on the Human Genome Project and the "mind and brain" debate also make it clear that the ID movement itself is part of a larger revolt against a science rooted in nineteenth-century naturalism.

The growing rejection of Darwinism was the natural result of honestly facing the findings of scientific research. While orthodox Darwinists and materialist science still dominate the scientific establishment, it is clear that a revolution has been in the making.

In the following pages, we have attempted to provide as thorough an explanation as possible of the precise nature of this insurgency, exploring each of the various facets of the intelligent-design movement with the assistance of the very scientists, philosophers, and attorneys who are at the forefront of the battle for scientific integrity.

Are these really the last days of Darwin? In keeping with the precedent established by true ID proponents, we're content to let the facts speak for themselves.

I have one more post on the money supply and the Federal Reserve.  2009 is going to be a big year and knowledge applied is the key.  Here is another fantastic video that will arm you with the facts as you go out into the world.  Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  Make your decision to day to live a life of excellence.  Reading, listening, thinking and praying everyday are habits worth cultivating.   This video is from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute and is another classic. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Happy New Year everyone!  2008 was a year of Booms - 2008 was a year of Bust and 2008 was a year of “get on your boots” Balderdash!  I have been doing research in an area that I believe will be important for anyone interested in securing their financial futures.  The citizens of any country rely on their political leaders to produce money only in relationship to the wealth of the country.  Money cannot be created out of thin air by government fiat.  Sure they can print the paper, but the paper has no wealth unless backed by real wealth.  Gold, silver and other forms of backing have been used throughout the centuries.  A government that would run the paper presses and double their money supply without any real wealth increase from the people has effectively cut the value of all the existing dollars in half. 

Imagine owning a one unit of stock in a company that has 100 shares and has a net worth of $1000.  You own 1% of the value of the company for a $10 stake.  Now imagine that the owner prints another 100 shares and sells them on the open market.  Someone may pay close to $10 per share through ignorance that the owner produced 100 more shares early in the cycle, but eventually the market will realize that the shares are watered down.  The true wealth of the company has not changed overnight, but now there are now 200 shares of stock on the market representing the company of a total worth of $1000.  This means the effective value of the stock has been cut in half.  Your $10 stock has now dropped to $5 after all the buyers learn the full information.  Wealth cannot be created without providing something of value and printing paper is not providing real value.  Through no fault of your own, you have lost half the value of your stock because the owners greed.  There are protections in place to ensure that this does not happen to your stock, but no protections in place to ensure this doesn’t happen to our money supply!

When you save money, you are counting on the “powers that be” to not print more fiat money and destroy the effective value of your earned dollars.  But this is exactly what the American government is doing when it produces more money without the financial backing of gold or other real wealth.  No other corporations could get away with this type of behavior without major consequences and yet our government does this as a matter of business.  Has anyone felt the pinch of the dollar being less valuable?  Have you noticed that in most fields, the costs are rising precipitously?  The housing bubble is a good example of the analogy I used.  Mortgages from our government were flooding the market which means that you need more dollars (stock options) to buy the same house.  This created an illusion of wealth for people who owned houses, but actually, it was just inflated money that required more of the paper to buy the same house.  When people started borrowing against the inflated worth of their house, the bubble was set to burst. The higher housing prices created less demand and less people qualified for the inflated housing prices.  What goes up through fiat money - must come down. When it does, everyone scratches their head and wonders how it all happened.

If you really want to know, you must go back to the only people allowed by law to produce our money.  Our government is no longer tied to any standard to regulate how much money is produced.   Money should only be produced when the real wealth of the country increases through better productivity.  Since the Civil War, money has been slowly freed of the moral restraints imposed by the founding fathers.  In the Nixon presidency, our money was completely separated from gold and financial common sense entirely.  We now rely on a non-federal cartel of banks to determine our money supply and have a Financial Czar known as the Federal Reserve Chairman who can choose to produce more money.  Why not have our money supply and values regulated by the free market compared to other countries?  The free market could quickly ascertain the amount of money on the market and assign a value to each dollar.  This would force our government leaders to operate like a business man and his stocks.  He could only produce more money when the market communicated to the country a real increase in the worth of the dollar.  The government leaders would also have to balance the budget because they would not have fiat money available to print anytime they are in a pinch. 

Murray Rothbard wrote a book, “What has Government done to our Money”.  This would be a great place to start to learn the proper and improper role of government in our money supply.  This video is something that should be watched by all Americans.  Very informative and will help you understand the Booms and Bust cycles without swallowing the media version that free enterprise no longer works.  Like the old saying goes, “The person with the facts, is never at the mercy of the person with an opinion.”  Enjoy the video, it is the best that I have watched on what is happening to our money. I encourage you to take notes for future reference. God Bless, Orrin Woodward