March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, plans to award $2 billion in extra compensation to about 1 million U.S. hourly workers this year after sales jumped in the recession (average of $2,000 per worker). The Arkansas-based retailer is benefiting from record sales in the fourth quarter that boosted annual revenue by 7.2% to $401 billion.

The amount of the bonuses, profit sharing, discounts and 401(k) and stock-plan contributions being given to employees compares with the $1.8 billion Wal-Mart distributed last year. Payments to employees include $933.6 million in bonuses today.

HT: Russ Roberts , who points out that "This is how capitalism once worked. Successful companies rewarded their employees and lousy companies disappeared."

According to the UCA Echo, in a recent meeting of the UCA board of trustees, trustee Rush Harding explained that the money for the buyout of past UCA president Lu Hardin's contract will come from existing, unrestricted monetary gifts to the foundation and other money given specifically for this purpose. There is not enough money yet but Harding was quoted saying, "We're going to have to find some folks in short order who believe in the university and the university's future..."

Really? I guess you're right, what better way to look to the future than pay off the old president another half million dollars after he resigned because he was publicly called out for forging a letter to the board.

In case you haven't heard: Lu Hardin resigned for "health reasons" after it was found that he had forged a letter to the Board of Trustees recommending that the board award him his $300,000 bonus early and without public disclosure.

But considering how much attention would have been lavished on a comparable run of hot weather or on a warming trend that was plainly accelerating, shouldn't the recent cold phenomena and the absence of any global warming during the past 10 years be getting a little more notice? Isn't it possible that the most apocalyptic voices of global-warming alarmism might not be the only ones worth listening to?

There is no shame in conceding that science still has a long way to go before it fully understands the immense complexity of the Earth's ever-changing climate(s). It would be shameful not to concede it. The climate models on which so much global-warming alarmism rests "do not begin to describe the real world that we live in," says Freeman Dyson, the eminent physicist and futurist. "The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand."

But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot. Dogma and zealotry have their virtues, no doubt. But if we want to understand where global warming has gone, those aren't the tools we need.

From Jeff Jacoby's latest column "Where's Global Warming?"

Why do some people succeed far more than others? Is at the heart of Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, Outliers. We often look at the intelligence and ambition of the successful when we should spend more time looking around them - at such things as their families or their birthplace. He argues that the true story of success is more complex and a lot more interesting than it initially appears.

In the final chapters Gladwell writes about a KIPP middle school (Knowledge Is Power Program). There are no entrance exams. Students are chosen by lottery. Roughly half are African-American and the rest Hispanic. Three quarters come from single-parent homes. Ninety percent qualify for "free or reduced lunch." In the school they walk quietly down the hallways in single file. In the classroom, they are taught to turn and address anyone talking to them in a protocol known as "SSLANT": smile, sit up, listen, ask questions, nod when being spoken to, and track with your eyes. This is just a brief preview of what is expected of the students, teachers and parents. On the walls of the school are hundreds of pennants from the colleges that KIPP graduates have gone on to attend.

Check out the KIPP school in West Helena, AR. http://www.kippdelta.org/

The professor and employee salaries at the University of Central Arkansas for the 2008-2009 are finally here and now they can be sorted.

Click Here - UCA Professor Salaries

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling the wage payer down
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves
Abraham Lincoln

...and the response???



The only comment needed is that the shooting is reported to have occurred around 9:20pm

Update: The main page of the UCA website was posted with a short warning description to say that campus is locked down around 10:55pm.

UCA sent emails to students at around 11:00pm