Russian President Vladimir Putin (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin should be glad he didn't mess with Texas, according to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
Last week, Putin denied an accusation that he had stolen a Super Bowl ring from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. On Tuesday, Cruz said a heist like that wouldn't have gone over so well had it happened to his beloved Dallas Cowboys.
During an interview on the Andrea Tantaros radio show, Cruz said he would "absolutely" have gotten a stolen Cowboys ring back from Putin by now?with a little help from some fellow Texans in high places.
"I have a feeling that if Vladimir Putin had stolen a Dallas Cowboys ring instead of a Patriots ring, you and Sen. [John] Cornyn, [Texas Gov.] Rick Perry and [Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones would've gotten that ring back by now," Tantaros told Cruz.
"That's absolutely right," Cruz replied.
The last time the Cowboys won a Super Bowl was 1995.
Look up in the sky for a super sight: the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.
The so-called supermoon will appear 14 percent larger than normal early Sunday as our celestial neighbor swings closer to Earth. Some may think the supermoon looks more dazzling, but it's actually an optical illusion. The moon looms larger on the horizon next to trees and buildings.
The moon will come within 222,000 miles of Earth and turn full around 7:30 a.m. EDT, making it the best time to view.
In this image taken from video, a police officer photographs a car outside the home of New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in North Attleboro, Mass. State police officers and dogs searched Hernandez's home as they investigate the killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose body was found nearby. (AP Photo/ESPN)
In this image taken from video, a police officer photographs a car outside the home of New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in North Attleboro, Mass. State police officers and dogs searched Hernandez's home as they investigate the killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose body was found nearby. (AP Photo/ESPN)
Aaron Hernandez returns to his home at Friday, June 21, 2013 in North Attleboro, Mass. At least one company yanked an endorsement deal from New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Friday as puzzled family members of a friend found slain a mile from Hernandez's home sought answers about how he died. (AP Photo/The Boston Herald, Ted Fitzgerald) BOSTON GLOBE OUT; METRO BOSTON OUT; MAGS OUT; ONLINE OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT
This Dec. 25, 2012 photo taken by a sister and provided by the Boston Bandits football team shows Odin Lloyd, 27, whose body was found Monday, June 17, 2013 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass., about a mile from the house of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. (AP Photo/Lloyd family via the Boston Bandits )
FILE - In this May 29, 2013, file photo, New England Patriots' Aaron Hernandez kneels on the field during NFL football practice in Foxborough, Mass. Hernandez is being sued in South Florida by a man claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after an argument at a strip club. The lawsuit comes as police in New England investigate Hernandez's possible connection to the death of a semipro player. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? Police are again searching the area near the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, a week after his friend's body was found about a mile away.
Some law enforcement officers wore wetsuits Monday while searching near both Hernandez's home and the industrial park where Odin Lloyd's body was found.
Lloyd was a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits who was found slain June 17.
His family says he was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee. They say the two men were friends and were out together on the last night of Lloyd's life.
An Attleboro District Court official said no new documents were available in connection with the case Monday morning.
It is a common scene for parents to get excessively worried about their teenage sons as boys become most vulnerable physically and emotionally during this time. Most parents often complain about difficulties in connecting with their teenage sons because of their sudden behavior change, social withdrawal and increase in their impulsive attitude. Therefore, this is the time when they require proper parental attention and guidance but find hard to admit it on their part. Therefore, here are some important steps for parents to deal with their teenage sons in order to help them face the challenges of becoming a man and prevent them from self-destructive behavior:
When boys go through the adolescence phase, they sometimes become overwhelmed by the responsibilities thrown over their shoulders and by the knowledge of the adult world. Therefore, they often try to cope with their physical and emotional development by going against their parents or by withdrawing themselves completely from the social circle. However, this transformation in their behavior should not discourage the parents to set limits to their freedom because these limits will eventually prevent them from choosing the wrong way.
Avoid giving them long lectures
Nobody likes to hear lectures and bring a teenage boy in the scene; it will probably drive him crazy in a matter of minutes. So, instead of giving your son lectures about what is good and bad for them, try making short and frank conversations with them. This is the time when they want to be treated more like adults and less like kids and so, try to give them what they want in small doses. This technique will not only help you to connect with your son but will also make them comfortable enough to share their problems with you.
Find a mentor for your son
In case you are failing to handle your teenage son very badly then it?s time for you to find a mentor for him. It can be anyone from your family like an uncle who is fun-loving and smart and is also admired by your son or any teacher from the school who is great with your son. Most of the time, boys find it very hard to discuss their problems or take advice from their parents but instead like to share it with someone else who is not their immediate family. So, finding a mentor can immensely benefit your teenage son.
Make mandatory family time
Make it mandatory for your teenage son to spend time with all the family members at least once a week like going to a family picnic, outing, movies, or even visiting other family members. Do not allow them to say no to it saying that it?s mandatory because if given the chance, they will always avoid it. Spending time with the family will make them realize the importance of having a family and will also make them feel lucky to have parents who likes their presence in family events and takes care of them.
Make them participate in group activities
Becoming a man also involves many social responsibilities and in order to make them realize it encourage your teenage son to volunteer in small group activities involving social cause. This will allow them to have a glimpse of the real world of the grown-ups and will make them socially and morally responsible in the future.
The switch from doing jobs to starting startups: will we even notice?Written by Grzegorz Pietruczuk
Could our increasingly online lifestyles morph smoothly into self-employment if today?s culture of ?employee-based careers for all? gradually fades into oblivion?
Something important has happened without us really noticing.
Could the Lean Startup model play a role in a switch to a startup-dominated occupational culture?
The ?employee turned startup founder??will quite possibly start their venture without having any investment money to ?waste? in a non-Lean way.
However, Lean Startup?s principle of rapidly determining the size of potential markets for novel solutions can certainly these days at least be started without having to spend any money on development.
A penniless individual operating on a Lean Startup model ?is essentially someone conducting a market research exercise for products and services that don?t yet exist.
Market research exercises of this sort involve starting conversations with prospective users about requirements to solve a problem, in the context of a speculative solution to that problem that the startup founder has dreamed up.
Starting conversations that might turn into opportunities to provide new things that people want and are prepared to pay for (and learning how to do this well) may just turn out to be the activity which replaces today?s job seeking, either because mastery of it becomes culturally encouraged or because job seeking itself switches to becoming much more of a minority sport than it is today.
People of all ages and backgrounds are starting to make a point of not making much of a fuss about instantly embracing technological change, even though (and more than likely because) they are encountering fresh changes on an almost daily basis.
It is becoming increasingly tiresome to seem too awed when discovering that you are able to do yet another thing online that you previously could only do offline.
?Wow fatigue?: we very quickly stop raving about it, we just use it and pass it on
Yes, we might initially be expected to find ourselves still saying ?wow!? or ?amazing!? when someone shows us one more thing that we currently do offline that?s suddenly been made easier, usually because of a new mobile app, but that?s about it: from that point onward, we?ll be expected to do three things: use it if we need to and, at a relevant moment, ask others whether they know about it, and if they don?t, then show them how to get it and use it.
If we do make too much fuss about these kinds of things on a regular basis, it is usually a sign to others that have stopped making such a fuss (which is rapidly becoming the majority) that we are not really adjusting to the culture.
Such ?technologically maladjusted behaviour? is becoming beyond uncool, it is antisocial: you are going to be seriously annoying people by regularly obliging them to justify spontaneous and uninhibited technology adoption behaviour that seems to them to be straightforward common sense and which is also ?no big deal?.
And yet, despite all this ?labour-saving?, we still expect to need to work
However much we might still fantasize about a future where all the work is done by robots and a life where the need to have a job has been eliminated, our current experience of ?things going digital in our lives? doesn?t seem to have left most of us feeling that it?s all getting to the point where we probably won?t need to work?for a living any time soon.
Even though a lot of things are free online (usually paid for by advertising) things like food and clothing, transport and accommodation still tend to need money and to most people that means needing a job.
Something else hasn?t changed: jobs are still looking easier than starting startups?
Things going online also don?t change the fact that, in a job, as an employee, you are usually just involved in doing something which is just a relatively small part of a bigger operation, rather than being responsible for running the whole thing.
You apply for jobs (maybe online) and if things work out, you get one.
Things going online therefore don?t seem to have changed the fact that ?being an employee? still looks to most of us as if it is a much simpler thing to make happen, as well as imposing a less demanding lifestyle and offering a much less risky way of earning a living than starting a business.
But could ?employment as the default career of the masses? come to an end long?before all the work will be being done by robots?
As someone who is really interested in the future of startups, this recent change in attitudes to embracing technological change raises an important question in my mind about the future of work:
Is the re-shaping of our lives, changing from a (comparatively recent) state of affairs where there was just an ?online option? to one where for many things there is now only an ?online imperative? (where doing things offline is not just harder, but actually impossible: official ?paperwork elimination? for example) also going to result in a similar kind of change from a ?startup option? to a ?startup imperative? (jobs becoming much scarcer, even for those professionally qualified, by contrast with startups which might just be becoming much easier to start and sustain)?
What would need to change before the option of founding a startup overtook that of becoming an employee?
are the attractions of starting a startup getting stronger?
?Ok, so I get this ?switch to startups thing?, but are you saying that everyone who gets into startups instead of being an employee will be a startup founder??
If a switch from employment to startups happens, the initial economic impact might just be manifested by significant numbers of those ?outside the employment system? who may suddenly have a bit more money to spend if the startup they are working on quickly ?monetizes itself into substantial revenue?. These individuals may be startup founders, but they may also be ?early hires? of other founder?s startups.
Eventually, early startup hires may become conventional paid employees, but in such cases they would be employees working at a startup, and as such, represent a significant component of what it might be that would make the switch to a predominantly startup-centric career model look different to what we have now.?
Nonetheless, if a big switch from employees to startups manifests itself, it would be reasonable to expect that a significant proportion of early hires of startups might also be contemplating starting their own venture.
The switch from employment to startups is not likely to mean an end to employment, but more likely an end to the current predisposition toward ?just being an employee? (and not also being a startup founder).
are the risks seeming less daunting?
does the on-ramp to starting a startup ?subliminally permeate? more of our lives (perhaps because so many of the new online resources that we encounter and use every day are being provided by startups)?
will the escalating cost effectiveness of ?doing online business as a secondary, non-occupational activity? morph hitherto permanent employees into full time entrepreneurs?
At first sight, it seems like quite a stretch: although something as small-time as selling unwanted household items on eBay might in some sense be deemed to constitute ?doing business?, to imagine that anybody would treat the fact that they had ever done this as a basis for seriously committing to ditching their day job and replacing it with being a full-time online vendor, would probably be to go just a bit too far for most of us (although a significant minority have indeed made this switch).
The main problem with being too cavalier about projecting the ?job to startup switch? based upon such a simplistic model, is that it doesn?t take into account of the fact that this is one option which has already existed for quite some time and although it has indeed spawned a significant number of new businesses, it has not resulted on a decisive shift in the balance between the self-employed versus employees.
So the next logical question would seem to be:
Is anything ?waiting in the wings??
Has anything else changed since the advent of such simplicity of doing something like setting up an online shop, but which has yet to make its impact in terms of shifting that balance?
Would the thing that would make startups start to replace jobs on a much bigger scale be:
a wider diversity of other types of business that are as easy to start as an online shop?
something which would enable a business which was ?too small to replace the need for paid employment? to grow into a business which was big enough to do just that?
something which reduced the real and perceived career risks and other inhibitions that would deter someone from starting a business?
something which reduced the up-front costs and financial commitments associated with starting certain kinds of business?
something which made it cheaper, easier and more effective to promote a business than ever before (so that smaller businesses could reach much larger markets)
something which made it quicker, more painless and practical to test out an untried new business idea than ever before
something which reduced the amount of time and effort that you needed to devote to running certain kinds of business, just so that you could get one started without having to ditch your day job, where previously that kind of business would have required full time commitment, even at the very start?
At the moment, because there is no sign of a widely recognised shift in the balance, I would say that if any of the factors above are currently increasing in prevalence or impact, they have not yet reached critical mass.
But if you coupled a steady increase in the widespread prevalence of these ?startup facilitation factors? (an increase which I do believe is actually under way) with a significant and sustained drop in the job market (resulting from a discernible long-term trend, such as the automation-driven effects discussed by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee?in their book Race against the machine) then perhaps you could expect a sudden and unprecedentedly large surge in the number of people who would be starting startups.
However, because most ?casually initiated startups? are not ?registered? in any formal sense, a sudden upsurge of such activity would probably become apparent in an indirect way.
The way that this might be expected to manifest itself ?at the macroeconomic level? would be a very significant drop in the numbers of people in paid employment (bought about by layoffs triggered by any one or combination of: market shrinkage, cuts in public services, or massive productivity improvements brought on by automation) which was not accompanied very soon after by the anticipated associated drop in consumer spending.
If there had been a preceding serious drop in employment, an uptick in startups would perhaps be expected to come from some of the laid off employees spending their redundancy/severance money on starting new businesses.
In such circumstances, the usual questions regarding ?flash in the pan?, unsustainable, hastily and poorly thought through no-hope ventures inevitably come to mind. In other words, most expectations at that point would be that any perceived switch from from employment to startups was really just the first step on an ex-employee?s journey to unemployment.
But what if something new is beginning to happen to the ?job versus startup equation?, and it turned out that the ?digital imperative lifestyle? was playing no small part in it?
Even a worst-case scenario may not stop startup takeup
What if, even with no redundancy money (either all spent or never given) and with just dole money (and being confined to living what startups call a ?ramen lifestyle?) or maybe even with ?normal working hours? having to be spent stacking shelves just in order to be able to afford ramen, the online world will start to make starting a startup as natural and culturally accepted as a sensible way of spending your time and trying to earn a living as the old ?jobs for life? ethos that society has recently replaced with a (perhaps soon to be also discarded) ?portfolio employment career??
If this happened, starting a startup would become just a little bit more like buying a lottery ticket: from a social perspective, nobody would expect you to pin all your hopes on it solving all your problems, but nobody would think that doing it was out of the ordinary, or unreasonably foolish or impractical either.
This ticket is getting cheaper, the effort to get it is getting smaller, the prize is more than just ?earning a living? and buying a ticket doesn?t really stop you doing anything else afterwards (including getting another ticket).
In such circumstances, starting a startup would be a totally normal thing for just about anyone to be contemplating, and if you weren?t?doing it, or you questioned why anyone else was doing it, you might even be expected to explain why you were even asking.
If the path to starting and succeeding in startups becomes gentle enough and the current preferred route to a earning a living begins to disappear, then one day, who knows, it is just possible that telling anyone that you?re thinking of embarking upon a non-startup career will sound just as weird and amusingly impractical as saying ?I?m seriously contemplating just doing everything offline?.
Take away:
If startup facilitation factors become much more pervasive and productive than they are today and the job market starts to shrink dramatically and systemically as some suspect it might, then the number of employable individuals starting work in startups may overtake the number of new (non-startup) job positions filled.
The next question will be: but will ?working on startups? make enough money to feed us as well as non-startup jobs used to?
This may be an academic question if the ?conventional? jobs that we?d like to be able to go back to (?as a backup option?) are simply no longer there.
Speaking as a former hiring manager, I dislike ?Dear Hiring Manager? since that?s not my title. My preference is for ?Dear Sir or Madam.?
What I?m writing for, though, is to emphasize that if a name is given in the advertisement, ALWAYS address the letter to that person.
I once received a letter that was obviously copied from a book. For the date, the writer typed ?Date: ______? and handwrote the date. The ad said ?reply to Dave,? and the salutation was ?Dear Hiring Manager:? (at least he properly used a colon. The first sentence was ?In response to your advertisement in the Newspaper A/Newspaper B/Newspaper C, I am applying for a position as Position A/Position B/Position C?? (newspaper names and positions not revealed hear, to help protect the ignorant; this was 20 years ago, after all). The applicant had CIRCLED the newspaper name and position title.
Needless to say, he was not considered any further. The only reason the letter didn?t go into the shredder immediately is that I kept it, without identifying information, as an example of how NOT to write a cover letter.
Just a last point for applicants to consider: if the advertisement or job posting doesn?t specifically say ?no cover letter,? write one. That was my first cut ? if I couldn?t read the letter, I didn?t care what the applicant?s technical abilities were. Whether or not it?s stated in the job description EVERY job requires communications skills.
