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Financial misery forces Brown to abandon plans for early election

The combination of a slowing UK economy and his chancellor’s first budget may finally force Gordon Brown to shelve any plans he had for calling a general election in early 2009, as voters will be forced to tighten their belts over the next year.

Rumours from Labour insiders suggested that the beleaguered PM had hoped that he could secure the keys to number 10 for another five years by calling an early election. But, the effects of the global credit crunch are hitting the UK economy harder than expected, thus prompting Brown’s advisors to believe it would be unwise to risk being ousted at the first attempt.

Chancellor Alistair Darling indicated during his first budget statement that public finances, now well in the red, are not expected to return to credit until 2010 at the earliest. Brown must call an election by May 2010 at the latest, so he may well wait until the absolute limit, hoping that the current economic woes will be reversed by then. Even revised growth figures for 2008 – 2010 issued by the chancellor are viewed as optimistic by many financial analysts, who believe there is definitely more gloom ahead, before signs of any recovery.

Recently, leading lender Nationwide announced that house prices had fallen for the fifth consecutive month, and with mortgages costing most far more than in previous years many homeowners are feeling the pinch. Those borrowers who own cars and like to drink or smoke have also been affected by the chancellor’s tax increases during his first budget; the cost of a bottle of spirits rose by 55p and a pint of beer will now cost 4p more, while cigarettes cost another 11p for a pack of 20.

Increases in vehicle excise duty have also added to motorists’ woes. The cost of motoring has risen drastically, even before the budget increases. Buying a vehicle is now more expensive as car credit rates have increased in line with base rate rises and other lending options. In addition, petrol now costs 20 per cent more than it did at this time last year, and insurance costs have also risen faster than inflation.

Add increased motoring costs to council tax rises, throw in the impact of inflation-busting increases in domestic fuel and utility costs, and then top it off with increased duties then it’s easy to see why the ‘feel good’ factor has rapidly eroded. With so much financial misery on the horizon, if you were Gordon Brown, would you opt for a general election right now?

No, and neither will Gordon!

Financial misery forces Brown to abandon plans for early election / Author: Vicky Cochrane

Increase Your Speed For a Powerful Golf Swing

Like a high-performance engine that stalls when it leaks oil, water or fuel, a golf swing comes to an idling stop when the potential energy created in the backswing is emptied well before impact. Here are three tips designed to boost your golf swing speed and keep power from leaking out of your game.

Make A “Differential” Impact
When you watch long-hitting players on the PGA Tour, pay attention to the relationship of their hips and shoulders at impact. The secret formula here is what I like to call 30/5. At impact, the hips should be open about 30 degrees, and the shoulders open somewhere between zero and five degrees. Practice a few golf swings with a mirror and hold your impact position. If your hips are square and shoulders are open, keep making practice swings until you get a feel for the 30/5 ratio.

Find Your Slot
Often, golfers will try to increase their swing speed by overpowering the downswing with their arms and shoulders, regrettably resulting in the dreaded over-the-top move and slice-induced blow to the ball. Real power comes from delivering the club on the correct angle. Midway through the downswing, the clubshaft should bisect the right forearm (left for left-handers). Make a practice swing with a mirror to your right and, at 3⁄4 of the way down, stop and verify that the clubhead passes over your right elbow in the mirror. Perform this drill in slow motion first until you get a feel for correctly “slotting” the club. Once you do, you can kiss the over-the-top, smothered shot goodbye.

Release And Rotate
A proper release through impact guarantees the maximum release of energy into the ball. A fundamentally solid release features extended arms following contact, with the right forearm positioned above the left forearm. In addition, the forearms should be touching. To make sure you’re fully extended through impact, place a sweatband, watch or towel (attached with a rubber band) on your left forearm. Following impact, you should feel your right forearm touch the worn item. Practice this move until you no longer need a reminder and you’ll soon find yourself a few extra yards down the fairway.

Master your golf swing with golf instruction videos from the pros.

Increase Your Speed For a Powerful Golf Swing / Author: Chase Stewart

The Modern Golf Swing

Up for grabs is the opportunity to take full advantage of today’s latest technology which can analyze the swinging of a golf club frame by frame, millimeter by millimeter & apply this modern wizardry to our golf swings!

Our contemporary golf industry has an infinite array of high tech, faster than a speeding bullet, space age equipment designed to “break down” the swings of our super star players. Thanks to these technocrats, who do all the work & hand us the results, we are able to cut and paste the information directly to our own golf swings! Only a Neanderthal would dig a golf swing out of the dirt like the out of date “old timers” did. With today’s electronic gadgetry at our beck and call, why do “IT” the hard way?

The point of impact is the intersection at which the “accident” takes place, preciously when & where the head of a golf club slams into the unsuspecting dimpled sphere sitting patiently on a wooden pedestal! That’s where the sperm and the egg embrace.

Stop the camera at that lightening fast blur and steal all we can from that dash of time reaping the bag full of priceless rare jewels. At long last the mysteries of the gifted are shared with we less privileged mortal souls…i.e. tips to transform our inept golf swings into incredible ball crushing machinery. The rabbit is pulled from the magician’s hat. We now know how much the golfers knee flexes at that mini-moment, right and left elbow shape, spine torque, wrist flex, grip pressure, lower to upper body X-factor, shoulder ratio & it’s relationship to hard or soft spikes, the reaction of titanium versus platinum heads, & fiber strands versus cold rolled steel shafts!

Today’s designer swings, single axle, double clutching, rubber burnin’, nitro fuel powered un -natural golf swings are the brain child of the golf industry more specifically the teaching golf instructor, the magazine publisher, the Golf Channel, the carnival barker & the vizored chap with the pencil thin mustache & Chesterfield cigarette running the shell game. So brazen, they rob without a mask and are oblivious to the rolling security cameras. This brain laundering approach makes lots of folks…..lots of wampum.

If you’ve been sucker punched into falling for their lunacy, shame on you, enjoy your stay in no-mans land and get set to havin’ yo’ butt whopped by those using common sense.

The significant time period that will go down in history should, hereafter, be referred to as the Golden Age of The Golf Swing… before computers, high speed film and all the other gadgets that were NEVER used by the classic swingers & absolutely do NOT apply to how the golf swing truly functions. For you see, Mr.Common Sense, the golf swing is way too quick for us mortals to effect the changes the Golf Industry Thieves are pitching at us. They continue using their marketing approach because “we buy it.” “The rich get rich and the poor golfer gets poorer, in the meantime, in between time “Ain’t they got Fun? & money to burn!”

Sam Snead, when asked how he found his elegant, graceful, fabulous golf swing replied, “It’s just like hitting a rock with a stick.” Sam didn’t know a computer from a fishing pole but he finished in 1st place 185 times, 2nd place 63 times and 3rd place 54 times. Sam finished in the top ten 358 times and in the top twenty-five 473 times. In 1954, he won his third and final Masters after defeating Ben Hogan in a memorable 18 hole playoff, and in 1959 he shot a world record 59 in a USGA sanctioned golf tournament. Sam didn’t fall for the complicated version of the golf swing… how ’bout you?

Introduced to golf at an early age, Jim became known as the “Whiz Kid” with an incredible swing and a gifted ability to instruct. At age 15, students came to him at his family owned golf course from four surrounding states for lessons. Jim attended Arizona State University at Tempe on a golf scholarship and graduated from the PGA Golf School in Long Beach California.
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The Modern Golf Swing / Author: Jim McLellan