Ruth Carter, an attorney in Arizona, explained that “a verbal agreement and a handshake is enough, if there’s never a disagreement.” That said, “The contract ensures that the freelancer and the hiring party are on the same page regarding what work they’re supposed to do, when it’s supposed to get done, any guidelines on how it should be done, who owns the work product once it is complete, and how the parties will resolve any disputes if they occur.”

Essentially, a contract protects a freelancer in the event their client disagrees with the work the freelancer produces — or the rate they charge.

Carter explained that while every contract will differ based on terms of the project, most freelance contracts should include a few basics. “The contract should clearly state what work the freelancer will do, what deliverables they will create, all deadlines, how much the freelancer will get paid and when,”she said.

Additionally, she added the contract should include who owns the copyright for the work. This is incredibly important in the case that the hiring party gets the copyright in the work. In this case “the freelancer should insist on getting a license to at least put a copy of the work in their portfolio so they can use it to obtain other work.” She also advised to include a provision about the circumstances under which either side can terminate the contract.

In the case that a client provides a freelancer with a contract, Carter advised that “freelancers read their contracts carefully because they will generally be bound by the contracts they sign unless they are illegal.”

Carter said to ensure the contract includes clear instructions regarding deadlines and deliverables, and if the freelancer needs materials and content from the hiring party to perform the work they’ve been hired to do, the contract should clearly state what the hiring party will provide and when. Carter also suggested having a lawyer review contracts that are provided to freelancers. The freelancer should never feel pressured to sign a contract that they are unsure about or that contains provisions they don’t understand,”she said.

More From The Freelance Strategist:

Breaking The Writer Stereotype

6 Secrets to Landing a Content Marketing Gig

The Holes in Your Freelance Contracts

This post is brought to you by Contently, a content company that empowers professional journalists and bloggers to build a career doing what they love. The Freelance Strategist provides freelancers with the tips and tools they need to build a successful career.

The post Tips for Writing a Freelance Contract appeared first on The Faster Times.

When a freelance writer is first starting out, he or she has to take charge. This means figuring out health care and insurance, tax information, and, often times, obtaining a business license.

Before jumping in and buying a license, a writer should do background research and find out if it’s necessary. The requirements for a business license depend upon where a freelancer lives. Dana Neuts, a Seattle-based freelance writer, said that, in her experience, the licenses can cost anywhere from $35 to $100 per year. However, in some places, like the state of Washington, small business owners only have to pay the fee one time.

To figure out if a business license is necessary in a certain area, a writer can call the local office that issues them. According to Nolo.com,”This might be the city or county clerk, planning or zoning department, city tax office, building and safety department, or department of public works.Your local chamber of commerce might be able to tell you who to call.”

As Michelle Goodman of The Anti 9 to 5 Guide points out, it’s also important to find out if local zoning regulations allow for businesses to be run out of home. “If you live in a community with a particularly militant local government and your reside in a building zoned as ‘residential,’ you may have a problem working from home,” she said. Her advice is to hire a tax preparer and find out this information and answers to any other tax questions.

Liz Swain, a work at home writer in California, got hit with a $302 bill from her city of San Diego after years of being a freelancer and operating without a business license. “Apparently, the state of California gave the city my tax information, and San Diego billed me $34 per year plus hefty penalties for not filing for a license for those three years. There was also a processing charge,”Swain said.

Swain ended up paying most of the bill, and filing in her newest place of residency, La Mesa, California, for $85. “My advice is to avoid a large bill by checking with government agencies or the chamber of commerce to learn whether you need a business license,” she said

Before a freelance writer even begins to embark upon getting a license, he or she needs to follow the steps provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration website. A business needs to be filed as a limited liability company, a partnership, or a sole proprietorship. The last option would be the one most commonly registered by freelancers. The business name also should be registered and a federal and state tax ID need to be obtained.

After those requirements are completed, to start the business license process, freelancers can log onto the U.S. Small Business Administration website, type in their area code, and see all the local and state regulations. The site recommends after receiving the license, to “keep track of those that need to be renewed on a regular basis and keep a calendar of renewal dates.”

For freelancer writers, who, many times, have an unsteady flow of income, paying for a business license straight away may be the best option. Swain’s is a cautionary tale that should not be taken lightly. To play it safe, a license should be acquired. Even if a writer is in a less than ideal financial situation, $35 to $100 per year is affordable, and will save money and stress down the line.

More From The Freelance Strategist:

Breaking The Writer Stereotype

6 Secrets to Landing a Content Marketing Gig

The Holes in Your Freelance Contracts

This post is brought to you by Contently, a content company that empowers professional journalists and bloggers to build a career doing what they love. The Freelance Strategist provides freelancers with the tips and tools they need to build a successful career.

The post Business Requirements for Freelancers appeared first on The Faster Times.

“Time is money.” How often have you heard that? The funny thing about investing is that the correlation of time and money is absolutely true. There’s even a nifty calculation in finance theory that proves it, called, naturally, the “time value of money.”

You run into this calculation all the time, probably without realizing it. The interest rate on a credit card, for instance, is a calculation of interest earned if you delay repayment. If you have ever taken a car loan or a mortgage, you probably saw a very long series of number columns (especially if you signed a mortgage), known as the amortization table. It shows, month by month (time), the payment amount, broken down into how much is principal and how much is interest (money).

When you invest, you are doing exactly the same thing a credit card company or bank does: Lend money out for a period of time at an expected rate of interest. How much money for how much time is your time value of money.

That’s the easy part. What few people realize is just how very large the time factor is when it comes to saving and investing. Simply put, a small amount of money put away from a long period of time can turn into quite a large sum.

Abigail vs. Tim: The Savings Challenge

How much? Well, consider this example. Abigail is just out of college at 22. She manages to graduate debt-free (yippee!) and gets an entry-level job in sales. Money is tight, but she decides to start saving $400 a month into a savings account that pays 1.5% (wishful thinking at today’s rates, but stay with it).

Eight years on, Abigail reaches 30. Her savings account balance, including interest, is $41,273 and change. Nice, right?

Okay, so here’s where things get interesting. She dumps that balance into an investment account and earns an average of 10% annually for the next 35 years. At 65 years of age, the balance is well over $1.1 million — yet from 30 to retirement age she does not put in even one more dime! Her gains come from compounding alone.

Tim is her classmate. He puts off saving all through his 20s. He buys a nice new car, enjoys a skiing vacation each year, eats out whenever he likes, perhaps five nights a week if he’s busy at work. He gets to 30 with virtually no savings. Can he get to $1 million by 65?

Running Behind

He can still get to the goal, but he’s lost those first eight years to spending. Tim has to put away $325 a month without fail for the next 35 years to come up with a balance comparable to Abigail’s. No matter what happens financially, Tim is strapped into permanent saving to make up those lost eight years, while Abigail can save more (or not) over the ensuring decades and still end up a millionaire. (If she stays with her $400 plan over those decades, her total is nearly $2.6 million.)

How can you make this simple trick work for you? One way is to immediately join your company’s 401(k) plan. Your employer should be able to auto-deduct from your check. Painless savings. You won’t even miss it.

If you don’t have a 401(k), open an IRA at your bank and set up automatic deductions from your checking account. The really important step is to remove the obstacle of “thinking about saving” and turn it into repetitive, automated action, ASAP.

Investing On Autopilot

You can save straight into a standard, taxable investment account, of course, but you lose the tax advantages of an IRA or 401(k), and you are more likely to liquidate it in a panic if the market temporarily slides. That’s because retirement accounts carry tax penalties which make removing the money crazy painful. That alone tends to keep you in the market long-term, rather than jumping in and out willy-nilly.

Likewise, automated savings plans allow you to make automated investments, putting in the same amounts like clockwork over many months and years. The advantage of that approach is that you end up dollar-cost averaging, that is, buying more shares when stocks are cheap and fewer when stocks are relatively pricey.

It’s counterintuitive, but research shows that such programmatic investing nets you more over the long-term by removing the itchy trigger finger from your accounts. Instead of chasing performance and missing it, you build a market position slowly but surely.

Do you need to calculate all this out to the penny to get started? Of course not. Pick a monthly savings amount that you feel is aggressive enough, set it, and forget it for a while. You will have worse problems in life than deciding how best to invest your growing cash cushion. Remember the guy that said “time is money?” He also said “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

More From Wherewithal:

Finding Your Inner Grasshopper: The Difference Between Saving and Investing, and Why Investing Isn’t That Much Work

Rebalancing, Truly the Only Game in Town

The Invisible Tax: Inflation and Its Effects

This post is brought to you by Wherewithal. Wherewithal provides easy-to-use tools that help investors take control of their savings and break free from a misplaced faith in conventional wisdom. The Wherewithal Blog offers tips and advice to help you reach your investment goals.

The post Savings Tips: Why Saving in Your 20s Matters appeared first on The Faster Times.

Loads of new concepts have become trendy in the past few years: CrossFit, bright pants, Katy Perry documentaries.

The wisdom of some of these trends is questionable. (Orange jeans? Really?) But the explosion in popularity of index funds and exchange-traded funds is definitely one of society’s better moves.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that index funds and ETFs are low-cost alternatives to expensive actively managed funds. They allow you to keep more of your money in your own portfolio, instead of feeding some suit-and-tie’s nest egg.

That’s why more than $122 billion in new funds flowed into equity ETFs between mid-2009 to mid-2011, according to the Wall Street Journal. Compare this to the trend in mutual fund during the same time period: investors were selling them like hotcakes during that same era, to the tune of a $33 billion outflow.

Bottom line: ETFs and index funds, good. You know that. You get it.

But index funds and ETFs have gained so much popularity in recent years that now there are offerings for every niche and sector.

Index funds and ETFs now represent a wide-ranging assortment of sectors, regions, countries and investment styles. They span sectors as varied as health care, utilities, precious metals, finance, and global energy, to name just a few. Investors can buy indexes or ETFs tracking small-caps in Japan, financials in Brazil or high-dividend kings in Great Britain.

The structure of index funds – which are bought and sold at the end of the trading day, like mutual funds – keep the trading possibilities at bay. The ETF world is far wilder.

ETFs trade on the market in real-time, just as a stock does. As a result, investors have created every form of ETF imaginable to serve as a minute-by-minute trading tool. For example, here are three product variations of ETFs:

* Inverse ETFs allow traders to “short” the underlying index, which is market-speak for “place a bet that the index will fall, rather than rise.”

* Leveraged ETFs double or triple the underlying indexes’ gain or loss; a 1 percent gain in the underlying index results in a 2 percent gain for a leveraged ETF.

* Actively-managed ETFs – no, that’s not a typo — are presumably for investors who are feeling nostalgic for high fees.

How should you handle this enormous platter of choices? Should you stick to broad-market index funds and ETFs? Or should you try the hottest sector-specific fund?

Should you stick with direct ETFs? Or should you take a gamble on inverse or leveraged ETFs?

What Should I Do?

Heed this: Sector-specific funds are specialized arenas that carry extra risk, as compared with a diversified broad-sector fund.

Are you an expert in precious metals – or did you just glance at the headlines and see that the price of gold is up this week?

Do you read Restructuring Today, Utility Week and other utilities trade publications? Or do you simply think your gas bill is too high?

Your answers to those questions should guide your decision about whether to leap into a sector fund or not.

Meanwhile, inverse and leveraged ETFs are trading tools for day-to-day speculators, not long-term investors. Don’t be lulled by the ETF acronym – these vehicles carry substantial risk.

You’ll also pay sky-high fees for inverse and leveraged ETFs, just as you do for actively-managed ETFs. The UltraShort FTSE China 25, for example, an inverse ETF tracking the largest 25 Chinese stocks, carries an expense ratio of 0.95. That means nearly 1 percent of your investment is gobbled by fees, regardless of whether you walk away with a net gain or loss.

The Bottom Line

Don’t venture into those fields without doing your homework first.

If you want to venture into inverse and leveraged ETFs, remember that you’re making the decision to be a day trader and speculator. You’ll be carrying as much risk as the pit traders who buy calls and puts. (If you don’t know what that means, stay away from inverse and leveraged ETFs).

If you decide to leap into the shark tank, well, you’re an adult. I can’t stop you. But I can recommend that you buckle down, study hard, talk to other investors, and test-drive your plays as paper trades for the first few months.

If you want a tried-and-true, long-term investment strategy, don’t get distracted by the glitz and glamour. Stick with broad-sector funds, allocated based on your age and risk tolerance.

And for Pete’s sake, throw away those orange jeans.

More From Wherewithal:

Finding Your Inner Grasshopper: The Difference Between Saving and Investing, and Why Investing Isn’t That Much Work

Rebalancing, Truly the Only Game in Town

The Invisible Tax: Inflation and Its Effects

This post is brought to you by Wherewithal. Wherewithal provides easy-to-use tools that help investors take control of their savings and break free from a misplaced faith in conventional wisdom. The Wherewithal Blog offers tips and advice to help you reach your investment goals.

The post Index funds, ETFs, and the Best Industries to Invest In appeared first on The Faster Times.

If you or your company has iPads and other iThings on its network, one of the frustrations is not being able to print from them. In the past, you needed a printer that was designed for AirPrint (Apple has a long list of them here) or you had to try to set up printer sharing with an existing Mac USB printer across your network.

But what if you want to use your existing printer that isn’t on this list? Or want something that you can manage its print output for cost accounting purposes? Or if you don’t want to share a local printer? You have several choices.

One solution is to use Lantronix xPrintServer that can do the job for any network or USB-connected printer. It’s so easy that it will take you longer to read how to do it than to actually implement it. The print server is about the size of an iPhone, and has three connectors: an RJ-45 for your Ethernet network, a USB jack and a power plug. Plug it in and, in a few moments, you are good to go.

If your app has a print dialog icon, you can now start printing from your iThing. The print server will auto-discover any network printer that is on the same network subnet. If you want to print to another subnet, you will have to go through some manual configuration, using the printer’s built-in Web server. If you have iPhones, you will of course need to turn on their Wi-Fi radios and connect to the same subnet to see the print server. Lantronix has this funny short video with the loveable IT guy featured here. As he says, “Try it now.” It will print wirelessly from any iOS device running iOS version 4.2 or later. The home editioncosts $99 and supports two printers. If you want a more capable print server that supports more printers, there is a $150 version of the box.

If you are using the Aerohive Wifi access points, they have recently been upgraded to support Apple’s Bonjour technology and this video explains how it is done. If you have to purchase an Aerohive Wifi network, this isn’t going to be cheap.

Finally, EFI has had its PrintMe cloud-based service for a decade for PCs. The new mobile version extends this functionality to a variety of mobile devices and to a wide variety of printers that can be located anywhere. Pricing is $2,500 for a minimum of five printer connections including a year’s support and maintenance. Again, this is somewhat pricey.

The Lantronix solution is a good compromise of price and features, and is what I would recommend if you have a couple or a large fleet of iPads to support.

This post is brought to you by Mozy, the world’s most trusted online backup service that allows consumers and businesses to securely back up their data, starting at just under $10 a month. Mozy’s awesome blog provides all the latest tech news and analysis that you need to stay ahead.

More From Mozy Blog:

Cloud Roundup and Links of Interest — August 15

Small Biz in the Forum: How Smart Posting is Good Marketing

Whole House Surge Protection

The post Print From Your iPad appeared first on The Faster Times.

Mozy is the world’s most trusted online backup service that allows consumers and businesses to securely back up their data, starting at just under $10 a month. Mozy’s awesome blog provides all the latest tech news and analysis that you need to stay ahead.

In the United States, a broadband data service for your smartphone, tablet, notebook, mobile hotspot or other device can be relatively affordable. To vastly oversimplify, plans run from $30 to $50 or so per month, or about $10 to $15 per gigabyte.

But if you’re traveling outside the U.S., mobile data isn’t that cheap — and not that simple. For internationally roaming travelers, network charges — not just for data, but also for voice calls, GPS signaling, and any other interactions with the carrier networks — can be ultra-expensive. Data can easily cost fifty cents a megabyte — or more.

For example, in October 2011, PCWorld reported that a Florida woman whose brother brought her phone with him to Canada ran up a $200,000 bill over two weeks. Uploading a few photos or watching a three minute video can ding you for $100; if your GPS keeps checking location, or apps check regularly for updates, that sound you hear is your bill going wild. (And it’s not just data — even a few short international cell phone calls can quickly run up about $400 of charges.

You can get better — and more controlled — phone service by either getting a local SIM card (assuming your phone is “unlocked), or renting a local-country phone.

International Wi-Fi TipsYou can do your best to minimize data usage. When in doubt, turn it off: turn off apps, turn off “data roaming” and “fetch data” and automatic synching, turn off anything that does automatic updating. And turn off network and GPS services, other than WiFi. (If you’re willing to turn off WiFi, you can set the phone to “Airplane mode,” although on some phones this also disables Bluetooth, which you may still want to use.)

But that doesn’t solve the problem of affordable — and controlled — data service.

Renting or Buying a Mobile WiFi Hotspot

A “mobile WiFi hotspot” is a pocket-sized device that talks to a mobile broadband carrier, and includes an 802.11 WiFi router — i.e., it creates a local WiFi hotspot area. Novatel introduced its MiFi, the first of these compact products, in 2009. Today, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and other carriers offer MiFis, and Novatel offers MiFIs that can be used in over 200 countries. Other companies, like Option XYFI and Zoom Telephonics, offer “unlocked” mobile hotspot products that accept SIM cards and can be used in many countries.

But you don’t even have to buy one. You can now rent a mobile WiFi hotspot just like you can rent a local cell phone — and the price may be hard to beat. Xcomglobal.com, for example, offers rental MiFis for use in over 175 countries, with unlimited data, for around $15/day for most countries. (A given MiFi won’t necessarily work in all the countries you may be visiting in a trip, always confirm usability and pricing.) Thought the company currently has pickup/drop off only in Los Angeles and New York, but you can pre-order a rental unit via the web site.

And, of course, other companies are getting into the international MiFI rental business, such as MiFiRental.com.

So while you definitely need to master turning off cellular, GPS and other data usage for your smartphone and any other devices you carry (e.g. a broadband enabled tablet or notebook), you’ve got options other than “being cut off” or “going broke staying connected.”

Don’t Overlook Local WiFi

Depending on where you’re going to be, another option may be relying on WiFi. While not as exorbitant as international carrier data service, local hotspots can still get costly, especially if you’re moving around and would have to buy an hour at your hotel, an hour at the coffee shop, another hour at the airport, a day at your next hotel, and so on.

One way you may be able to slash your WiFi costs — and certainly control them — is through Boingo.com, which offers access to hundreds of thousands of WiFi hotspots around the United States and internationally. Plans include options for multiple devices, so you wouldn’t have to purchase separate access for your smartphone, tablet and notebook.

So plan ahead:

1) Learn how to turn off data-using activities on your devices 2) Look for affordable devices and plans for where you’ll be going.

And enjoy being able to afford to stay connected.

More From Mozy:

Unbaby.me Cuts Friends’ Kids From News Feeds

How to Make Money From Your Company Blog

How to Protect Your Whole House From Power Failure

The post Cheap International WiFi For Travelers appeared first on The Faster Times.

It was a similar crew of conservative justices on the Supreme Court that decided that their long-held beliefs on states’ rights were irrelevant and made George W. Bush our next president in 2000. Now, they’re back!!! And they might decide yet another presidential election.

Imagine the damage it does to President Obama to strip him of his signature accomplishment right before the election. It would also allow the Republicans to say — “See, we told you so! It was unconstitutional all along. It was a wild, socialist over-reach of big government.” It creates a permanent stain on the law — as if there was something horribly wrong with it all along. And it takes it off the books at a moment when it is still relatively unpopular. So, before any of the popular provisions are put into effect it would go in the record books as a complete disaster.

Why don’t you just hand the Republicans the election? Which is, of course, exactly what the conservatives of this court would love to do. These conservative justices are given far too much deference in the media. They are largely partisan hacks.

Antonin Scalia is a complete fraud. He will bend any so-called principle to get to the political result he wants. If it’s upholding anti-gay legislation or striking down federal laws he doesn’t like, he is a huge advocate for states’ rights. But if it’s marijuana legalization or euthanasia or Bush v. Gore, then he hates states’ rights. So, which one is it? Here’s how you can tell — which side is the Republican Party on?

Remember, this is a guy who goes duck hunting with Dick Cheney and attends political fundraisers with the Koch brothers. Of course, he doesn’t recuse himself from any cases that involve those people. In fact, he votes on their side nearly 100% of the time.

We’ve been hearing for at least thirty years about the dangers of activist judges. That it is so wrong for unelected officials, like judges, to invalidate laws made by the people’s representatives. Now, all of a sudden, the Republicans love that idea! They want to interpret the Commerce Clause in a way that it has not been interpreted since 1937. They want to invalidate a sitting president’s signature piece of legislation for the first time in 75 years. And their hack, partisan justices on the Supreme Court can’t wait to do their bidding.

The way Scalia, Alito and Thomas are going to vote is certain. There isn’t a single Republican position those guys haven’t wanted to fondle. They will enthusiastically wrap their legs around the idea that the mandate is unconstitutional. And they will double down by saying it strikes down the rest of the law with it.

John Roberts plays a moderate on TV, so there is some questions about which way he’ll go. But in the real world, he always votes with the conservatives because… he is deeply conservative (or more accurately, party line Republican, no matter where the so-called conservative position lies).

So, that leaves us with Justice Kennedy, who is a genuine swing vote. But remember he is the one that swung toward Bush and meddled with how Florida counts its votes despite decades of empty talk about states’ rights. If he sides with the rest of the conservative justices, he will forever cement his place on the Hack Hall of Fame as one of the most deeply partisan justices we have ever had. If he helped to decide two presidential elections based on which party he likes rather than his so-called deeply held beliefs, like his oft-repeated deference to precedent, than it would be hard to find a more political and disingenuous justice.

One last thought, which is on the sad incompetence of the Democratic Party. They should be screaming “activist judges” from the rooftops. Instead they are meekly mumbling about how it’s unclear which way the court is going to go and how we shouldn’t pre-judge. I got news for you — the Republicans have been pre-judging your bill for years now. You should consider fighting back.

But the primary responsibility is the president’s. Why did you agree to the Republican idea of mandates in the first place?

Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was the original sponsor of the mandate in the Senate back in 1993. The Heritage Foundation championed the idea. Mitt Romney was applauded wildly by conservatives when he passed a mandate in Massachusetts. Did the president think they would like him more if he agreed to their idea? No, they have always opposed you at every turn, and they always will. They turned on their own idea the minute you agreed to it — and now they’re using it to kill your whole bill.

When is the president ever going to learn that agreeing with Republicans never helps him? It never helps the country. All it does is make it easier for them to beat you because you made the fatal mistake of agreeing with them.

The post Supreme Court Might Decide Their Second Election appeared first on The Faster Times.

But it appeared for a while that the one guy fighting against it was President Obama. I was incredibly encouraged by that. I shouldn’t have been. It turned out at the end that he was threatening to veto the bill because he wanted it to have even more executive power, not less. This president has been a disaster for civil liberties. Every time I think about the fact that he used to be a constitutional law professor, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Indefinite detentions, summary executions of US citizens abroad without a trial, warrantless wiretapping and much, much more. All of the things we were outraged Bush did – and then some. Honestly, it makes me feel a little sick that I voted for him. At least, I could say that I fought tooth and nail against Bush.

And civil liberties abuses are the tip of the iceberg in disappointment with this president. Then there is the comedy of financial reform which doesn’t reform a damn thing. There are the zero prosecutions of the top bankers who destroyed our economy through their fraud, took our money and now spit in our face with it. There is the extension of the Bush tax cuts. There is the cave in on nearly every negotiation (the payroll tax cut being the exception that proves the rule (by the way, he “won” on more tax cuts, a profoundly Republican idea)). His crowning achievement of healthcare reform was a proposal originally written by the Heritage Foundation. There isn’t a Republican idea that President Obama didn’t want to cuddle with and adopt as his own.

Now, the argument goes that he might be bad, but the Republicans are worse. Of course. Right now, Newt Gingrich is on the campaign trail arguing that Mitt Romney isn’t kind enough to the rich. I’m not kidding. He is trying to make hay out of the fact that Romney takes capital taxes down to zero percent for only people making below $200,000. Newt thinks that’s discrimination against the rich and he would take it down to zero for everybody. Then he would make your kids clean the rich kids’ toilets in school.

I follow politics for a living; I’m not unaware of how hideous the Republican choices are. But that doesn’t mean that we should pretend that President Obama has been brilliant because we’re scared of the big, bad Republicans. That would be fundamentally dishonest.

And to be honest, I’m really disappointed that he does not have a primary opponent. This country is dying for someone who is going to take on the establishment. Who is that going to be on our side – Barack Obama? On that, I know whether to laugh or cry. Every time I think about the idea that President Obama might be against the establishment, I laugh and laugh and laugh. There is never been a guy who was this enamored with the establishment. If he had wrestling nickname it would be The Establishment.

The guy who appointed Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley (and a list of hundreds of others, including two new Fed appointments, one of which is a Republican who worked for the Carlyle Group) is not a guy who is interested in changing the system at all. Change was a cutesy slogan he used to trick us into thinking he was on our side.

I would have loved a progressive alternative, but apparently we are not going to get one (except for Rocky Anderson running on the Justice Party ticket). Primaries are the perfect place to send a message without taking away votes in the general election. But it didn’t happen because the Democratic establishment says we must fall in line because we wouldn’t want to hurt the agenda of the president. The agenda of the president sucks and is deeply Republican. I’d love to at least get him to reconsider that agenda for a second.

But there is one thing we can do right now that doesn’t really hurt the chances of the president getting re-elected and doesn’t help Republicans one bit. It is an idea that Occupy Iowa came up with. In the Iowa caucuses you can vote for “uncommitted.” In fact, since the 1970′s “uncommitted” has won twice on the Democratic side and it beat Bob Dole in 1980. Of course, the Republican Party has shut down this option on their side. They say you can vote that way in the GOP field but they will not register those votes or send those delegates. Of course, they’re the GOP; they have no interest in your dissent.

But if all of those people were to go and participate on the Democratic side they might have an effect. If “uncommitted” beat President Obama on the Democratic side in Iowa that would make some news. That might even get the attention of The Establishment. So far, he has only responded to right-wing pressure. He is the consummate politician, so if there was actually a little bit of pressure on his left he might have to respond to it, especially during an election season. Wouldn’t it be amazing if President Obama acted like a progressive on some issue because he was worried about the voters?

By the way, this strategy also has the benefit of being accurate. I am “uncommitted” toward Obama. I’m uncommitted from supporting a guy that has walked all over our civil liberties, that thinks tax cuts are the only answer, that gave all of the money to the bankers and asked for nothing in return, that thinks the right-wing establishment has all of the answers. Uncommitted is the kindest word I have.

If you live in Iowa, please send a message to the President for the rest of us. We voted for change last time, apparently you didn’t hear us. If you don’t hear us soon, you might be the one that gets changed.

The Young Turks on Current

The post Vote Against Obama in Iowa appeared first on The Faster Times.

1. They are the establishment. They don’t challenge the politicians, the government or the system. They are perfectly content to help maintain the status quo.

2. They trade access for positive coverage. In order to get political officials on their shows, they treat them with kid gloves. The single largest factor in making political decisions is campaign donations, yet they almost never ask them about that or talk about it on any of their shows.

3. They do non-stop talking points, yet no one ever says anything. It’s just people talking past each other in a very boring, scripted movie we’ve seen before.

4. They confuse neutrality with objectivity. If the Cowboys and Steelers play and the Steelers win 21-0, and you say the Cowboys and Steelers both played equally well – you have lied to your audience. You are neutral, but nowhere near objective.

So, we set out to do a political talk show where we break all of those rules. This is the beginning. We hope you join us somewhere down this road. Together, let’s be the change we want to see in the media.

You Can Participate in the Show (Current, 7PM ET) By Clicking Here

The post How We Can Change the Media appeared first on The Faster Times.

Ever since Dove Men+Care sent me their Sensitive Clean Body and Face Wash with MICRO MOISTURE and their Dual-Sided Shower Tool two weeks ago, I’ve been having borderline-spiritual showering experiences. They’ve transformed me from the kind of guy who showers every other day with watered-down shampoo into a fully functional, hygienic member of society. My co-workers have even returned to the desks next to mine ― apparently, they didn’t just want to give me “creative space.”

But I did have a crisis moment: I had to fly from New York to San Jose for what I hoped would be a romantic rendezvous, and I discovered that, shockingly, the TSA does not make an exemption on their no-liquids rule for Dove products. “But…I need my MICRO MOISTURE,” Ipleaded with the TSA official at JFK. “Surely a particularly handsome man like you with such great skin would understand …”

As it happened, the TSA official turned out to be a particularly handsome woman, and she did not understand. She ruthlessly tossed my body wash in the garbage. I slumped to the Jet Blue terminal bar, convinced my date that night was going to be a disaster. “Give me something for a broken heart,” I told the bartender, searching through my carry-on for a pack of tissues. And then it happened. Beneath a layer of clothes and books, I felt a rectangular cardboard box: I had forgotten that I’d packed my sample Dove Men+Care Extra Fresh Body and Face Bar! There was still hope for my evening.

I fidgeted anxiously throughout the flight. Would the Body and Face Bar work as wellas the Sensitive Clean Body Wash? Would it infuse my soul with thesame bravado? There was only one way to find out. Forty-five minutes before landing, I rushed into the bathroom so quickly that the other passengers must have thought I was either a terrorist or had just eaten some very bad airline food. I turned the water on and began to rub the lather into my skin. It felt good. I think I even moaned. A stewardess knocked and asked if everything was okay. “Everything is going great in here,” I called back ― which probably also alarmed the other passengers.

Entering the terminal in San Jose, my skin didn’t feel dry and brittle like after most cross-country flights; it felt hydrated and strong. I felt hydrated and strong.

K met me at the airport. She said I smelt fantastic.

Joe, later that evening — still feeling hydrated and strong.

The post How Dove Men+Care Saved My Romantic Rendezvous appeared first on The Faster Times.