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People usually take out pet insurance to cover the bills for serious vet treatment as this can become extremely expensive. In fact so expensive in some cases that the animal is put down as the owners cannot afford the treatments. Pet insurance is there to ensure this does not happen as the insurance company will pay the medical expenses, which leaves you time and energy to nurse your pet back to good health.

What Is Pet Insurance?

Pet insurance is an insurance policy that covers your household pets and is mainly used for dogs and cats. Most pet insurance will pay for the vet costs if your pet is ill or has an accident. Pet insurance can also provide third party protection for any damage your pet may do to other people's property and cover other expenses such as emergency kenneling costs, theft, travel and even death. Pet insurance also gives you peace of mind, knowing that your pet will always receive the best possible medical treatment available.

On average one in every three pets need treatment from a vet each year following injury or illness and more than 50% of the visits to the veterinary clinic are unplanned due to sudden illness or an accident. Treatment for hip treatments, spinal injuries, broken legs and internal complaints can quickly run into thousands of pounds, especially if medication or x-rays are required. There are also the unforeseen associated costs that may be incurred like holiday cancellations and court costs (you are liable if your dog causes an accident). All of these can add up quickly.

Many pet health insurance companies only cover dogs and cats as a rule. However, there are some companies that also provide cover for other animals such as exotic birds, reptiles, horses and rodents.

What Types Of Pet Insurance Policies Are There?

Most pet insurance companies offer numerous policies from the basic through to premium plans that provide cover for every aspect of your pet's medical care. You need to decide how much care is right for your pet and then pick a policy that closely matches your needs. As with other insurance policies, the higher the premium, the more cover that is provided.

It is important to look out for the following main points to see if they are covered in the pet insurance policy:

1. Cover for life or fixed term
2. Vet Fees
3. Death from illness
4. Accidental Damage
5. The policy excess
6. Dental treatment?
7. Third Party Liability & legal expenses
8. Death from accident, theft or straying
9. How much of the vet bills are covered. 70 - 100%
10. Emergency treatments, X-rays, lab fees etc

As with humans, many pet insurance companies require your pet to have a medical exam . This is so the insurer can manage their risk and keep premiums low as they are not supplying cover for animals that are on deaths door and having to payout on an animal that are known to be dying. The insurance companies will often put a cap on the total amount they will pay on a policy either on any one type of illness or in any given year. If your pet suffers from a pre-existing medical condition, you may find it hard to get an insurance company that will give you cover.

The easiest way to save money on your pet insurance is to shop around and compare prices. Check at least 3 separate insurance companies to compare pricing and terms to make sure you get the best deal.

Source: Why Do I Need Pet Insurance

By Henry A. Kissinger
The Washington Post and
Tribune Media Services
March 10, 2008

The elections in Pakistan, far from calming the political crisis, have opened a new phase of it, and the world has a huge stake in the outcome. Pakistan is at the front line of the assault by Islamist radicalism on moderate elements within the Muslim world and on the institutions of the West. But it is far from clear how firm that front is and, indeed, in which direction it will ultimately face. Pakistan is America’s ally in the war on terror, yet a significant part of its people are opposed to that war; Pakistan helped fight al-Qaida in Afghanistan, yet part of its western frontier is occupied by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Pakistan’s choices will have a significant impact on the 160 million Muslims living in India, as well as on the prospects of peace on the subcontinent, which has already erupted into full-scale war on three occasions.

Most critically, Pakistan is a nuclear power. Athwart strategic crossroads and possessing strategic weapons, Pakistan might lose control of both if its institutions are radicalized or deadlocked as a result of internal conflict. A state occupying strategic terrain but incapable of maintaining control over it could turn into the wildcard of international diplomacy.

The stakes are generally recognized. The remedy has proved elusive. U.S. policy has been to urge President Pervez Musharraf into forming a coalition government with one or more civilian parties, which would then pursue the anti-fundamentalist war in a more coherent and determined manner. That outcome was what the election was supposed to produce.

The goal was laudable. But the results of the election — as in Gaza — show that theoretical preconceptions do not necessarily provide practical remedies, especially in the short run. The challenge for policymakers arises when vital national security objectives are threatened and no viable democratic framework exists. The choice America faced in Pakistan in the aftermath of 9/11 was that Musharraf had taken over less than two years earlier and that the two main political leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both deposed prime ministers, were in exile. In an ideal world, political and security goals would move on parallel tracks. In many actual cases, the tracks, even if parallel, may operate by different time scales.

In Europe, the nation and a functioning civil society preceded the formation of democratic institutions. In almost every successful democracy, the constitutional framework is treated as more important than any conflicts within it and guides the process of settling disputes. The opposite is the case in the crescent from the border of India to the shores of Africa. In the absence of a civil society, the losers in a political contest have few motives to subordinate their convictions to the general good, since the definition of the “general good” is precisely what is at issue. In such circumstances, democratic pluralism lacks a social basis — especially in states proclaiming the identity of church and state in the name of a universal religion. Crises are more often sharpened than solved by elections. Political cohesion being forever precarious, coalitions are fragile and authority oscillates between being tenuous or all-pervasive — even in Europe, as in ethnically divided parts like Yugoslavia or Belgium, if the latter in attenuated form.

It surely has been the case in Pakistan. Formed in the partition of British India in 1947 because the Muslim minority rejected rule by the majority Hindu population, its eastern borders the dividing line between the Hindu and Moslem religion, its western borders those of the British raj, Pakistan reflected not a common history so much as a common fear. Until 1971, an East Pakistan region existed — also defined by its Muslim religion — but separated by 2,000 miles of Indian territory from West Pakistan.

Even after East Pakistan seceded to form the new state of Bangladesh, Pakistan was beset by regional conflicts. Punjab’s predominance was resisted in the Sindh region and Baluchistan. The northwest frontier territories remained, as they had under British rule, autonomous; no government, civilian or military, has ever succeeded — or even seriously attempted — to establish its own direct control there.

These circumstances produced the special character of Pakistani foreign and domestic policy. In international affairs, Pakistan allied itself with the United States during the Cold War, if with a special perspective. It received American arms as part of the geopolitical conflict with the Soviet Union, even while it perceived India as its principal security concern. Pakistan proved enormously helpful in facilitating the opening of American relations with China but more for the purpose of creating an additional obligation than devising a common global strategy.

Though elections were held periodically, they usually reflected regional populist loyalties. Governed by feudal principles, the parties were organized for no-holds-barred political contests not mitigated by the restraint imposed by a sense of community. Civilian and military government alternated with each other. No elected government has ever served out its term.

Of the major groupings, Bhutto’s party represented the large landholders of the Sindh province around Karachi; Sharif’s party the commercial classes of the Punjab. Both parties practiced a rampant populism, with Bhutto leaning to left-wing secularism; Sharif relying more on an appeal to Muslim fundamentalists. The feudal organization of the parties is demonstrated by the fact that, within 48 hours of Bhutto’s assassination, her husband, in exile in Dubai after eight years in prison, was appointed de facto head of her party. Sharif, who recently returned from exile, had been overthrown after what Musharraf, then commander of Pakistan’s armed forces, alleged was an assassination plot against him in which he claimed Sharif was implicated.

With populism as the dominant method — if required, tinged with anti-Americanism — the temptation to use radical Islamist movements was ever present. In the 1990s, the Bhutto and Sharif governments cooperated with the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan and jihadist groups in Kashmir. The military intelligence service used similar methods when the military controlled the government. A government-tolerated “private” network facilitated nuclear proliferation to a number of rogue states.

In such an environment, the relation between Pakistan’s three feudal-type organizations, the military and the major political parties, has more of the character of those among Italian city states during the Renaissance described by Machiavelli than of the party politics of traditional democracies. They have occasionally made temporary alliances — as they appear to be doing now — for tactical purposes, but these have always proved preludes to new confrontations with the military appearing as arbiters in the end. The difference between feudal leaders who wear uniforms and those in civilian clothes is in their constituencies, not in their commitment to a pluralistic process as we understand it.

An alliance between Bhutto, whose father was executed by the military, and Musharraf, who hated the Bhutto family, was destined to be precarious. It was doomed by the impatience with which it was pursued. The unforgivable atrocity of the Bhutto assassination ended the original design.

At this point, any attempt to manipulate the political process that we have urged is likely to backfire. A wise policy must recognize that the internal structure of Pakistani politics is essentially out of the control of American political decision-making. Construction of a centrist coalition is a commendable goal, but the conditions for it can only be nurtured by Pakistani political forces and, in the absence of a center, require patience over a period of time.

The future of President Musharraf will undoubtedly become a major issue as the potential coalition partners seek his removal. It is his task as president — not ours — to manage the consequences of the election. At the same time, it behooves us to remember the valiant support Musharraf gave the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan after 9/11 and his confrontation with jihadist fundamentalism at home. Conspicuous American dissociation would only compound our risks in Pakistan — not to mention the message it would send to other leaders in the region allied to America.

In dealing with the emerging Pakistani leadership, American policy should focus on national security objectives (control of nuclear weapons, counterterrorism cooperation and resistance to Islamist radicalism). Our democratic principles should be clearly conveyed, but we should have learned by now that the evolution of the immediate political process is beyond our reach. Common approaches on the security issues are necessary, including an end of ambiguity toward terrorist enclaves. For most of its history, Pakistani leaders, whether civilian or military, have acted on the principle that good relations with America were in Pakistan’s national interest. A strategic consensus remains imperative. If that effort fails, many countries will be affected and, perhaps more immediately, Pakistan’s stability should not be viewed as an exclusively American challenge.

A starting point is to reconcile ambivalent American attitudes at home, difficult as it may be during an election campaign. We do not have the choice between national security and democratic evolution. Both are important objectives but may be achievable only on different time scales. The next president will have to face this reality in many places, and we can do him or her a favor by conducting our national debate from that perspective.

I’ve carefully followed the careers and lyrics of the Jamaican Dancehall artist Mavado and American Rap artists 50 Cent/G Unit since they came on the music scene.

I predicted that they would both be stars..but more so 50 Cent because he is a little more versatile, being able to collaborate with artists outside of his genre like Justin Timberlake. However, I don’t support the content of most of his music, i.e violence, gangs, sex. I thought that evidence to prove that the popularity of his negative music has a bolstering effect on crime levels and the audacious nature of criminals in Trinidad was impossible..until, almost as if it were only for the sole purpose of proving me wrong :

G-Unit Gang Strikes

“Police believe the hit was carried out by the notorious G-Unit gang, a group which started in Port-of-Spain and has spread its tentacles into the East-West corridor”.

Another G-Unit Member Gunned Down

“Julien is the third G Unit member to be killed within the past two weeks.

Sources said following the September 16 killing of G Unit leader Kerwyn “Fresh” Phillip, there has been an internal struggle in the gang for the leadership position. However, the struggle intensified after it was learned that people from within the gang were responsible for Phillip’s murder.

Following this disclosure, the G Unit gang became divided, with Julien leading a “fragmented section”. “

Wow. They even have their own splinter cells. Yes. Trinidad has its very own G-UNIT gang that’s going around killing people…CLEARLY influenced by the music of 50 Cent and G-Unit. Even though these people may have still been doing this in a parallel world where there is no 50 Cent or G-Unit, calling themselves the Dave Matthews Band or something, the fact that they have modeled or arguably, are modeling, themselves after artists who produce such music as 50 Cent or G-Unit proves that their music is not having a positive effect on Trinidad, or just young people in general. How could it with lines such as :

I got X
Meth and slabs of cocaine
So the feds wanna search
It’s like arabs boardin’ tha planes


Nigga, I’m high all the time…
I smoke that good shit.
I stay high all the time…
Man I’m on some hood shit


You cross me and you gon’ make a cemetary visit
That’s gangsta, you know me I told it, cuz I live it


Teflon, kevlar, need to wrap it round your chest
You pop off they pop back and you get left a bloody mess
Mac 11 mac 10 time for some action
Dump a clip out this bitch and see how niggaz act then

Everything’s cooler than a fan till you rolled on
Have you in the I.C.U. tryin to hold on
Niggas in the waitin room been waitin so long
Till they hear the flatline the doc say he’s gone, he’s gone (Ha ha, that’s fucked up!!!)
Well he knew that could happen fuckin with the kid
This is graveyard music right here ya dig?
This is not competition this is murder

We “dig” you loud and clear. You make violent, negative, fucked-up music that is dangerous for young impressionable minds to listen to. Out of 5 songs that I randomly picked, 3 are about guns, shooting guns, or atleast killing someone and 2 are about drugs. The rest would be about sex, the ghetto, or how rich he is.

In light of the current crime situation, Trinidad should explore some measure of censorship of music such as 50 Cent’s…maybe even do it the Iranian way and ban the thing altogether :
Iran Bans Rap Music

People need to understand that everyone is different. You may say that you’re normal and you don’t kill or maim people yet you listen to 50 Cent and G-Unit and their genre of music, but there are frustrated, foolish people out there for who listening to such music may be the last push towards them committing a crime.

Freedom of speech, artist expression, “music doesn’t cause violence, people do” - my ass. There is a fricking gang of criminals calling themselves G-Unit for shit’s sake. Its time to do something…………before an all-out war erupts among the Flipmode squad from Felicity, Dipset gang from Diego Martin, St. Lunatics crew from St. Augustine, D12 from Chaguanas and The Eastside Boyz from San Juan…….

The mainstream press lately often features articles from the audiophile perspective that bemoan the apparent abysmal quality of mp3 sound. Life is of course a battle of constant trade-offs. What do you do if you’ve told yourself you only like blondes, then realise a brunette’s personality makes her your potential soul mate? Or if you always sleep on the side of the bed nearest the door, only for your new beau to take up that position? What characteristics have to be in play for you to break your ‘no pets’ rule?

In business, such polarity may be less life-challenging, yet equally emotional. There’s a classic business quote I love to use (usually when someone’s trying to beat me up on price!); “Quality, Price, Service. Choose the two you want.” The inference is plainly meant to be that you can never attain all three.

The critical compromise for the music consumer is typically one of convenience over sound to achieve cheap ownership. Obvious examples abound. The Cassette. How could music lovers take to such a concept, supposedly developed as a dictation solution, which to refer to as ‘technology’ is surely an affront to pioneers everywhere? Yet millions happily tolerated hissy background noise chained with the inability to dive straight into a track of choice because we could now listen to music on the move and Tapes were cheap. DAT and Minidisc initiatives failed because we eschewed their trumpeted technological innovation for cheaper and simpler trustworthy CDs. In fact sonic historians will possibly argue that each generational dominant force of listening platform has been what the ‘experts’ would deem the inferior option at the time.

Then mp3 mania took hold. In those late-90s, rogue-Napster, days, most files were encoded to “128 bits”. Whatever the detail of this signifies is largely irrelevant as most of us were aware that this meant your enormous number of ones and zeros that made up the music file on a CD were now compressed to a tenth of their original size, allowing disturbance-free albeit often muffled sounding tunes to clog up hard rives with several lifetimes worth of listening.

So what was the response of an industry trying to encourage legitimate ownership? One plank was to offer files at a higher encoded rate. 192 and 256 mp3s became available, but crucially, these were to command a price premium. The paying customer was expected to deduce that these gave a superior listening experience. But is this true? Thanks to the invaluable Coolfer, I learned from Electronic House that “A recent informal study at the science blog Cognitive Daily revealed that out of nearly 700 volunteers, only 33 listeners could reliably tell the difference between recordings encoded at 128 kilobits per second (kbps) and 256kbps.”

I became privy to rumblings of discontent crescendo from deep-space technoville inhabitants whose day job (undertaken mainly in the dark and at night) was once musicians had left the building, to make a track, shall we say for ease, “radio-ready”.

The phrase ‘poduction’ sprang up, referring to alleged knob-twiddling wizardry which allowed mp3s to sound fantastic on even the flimsiest, tinny headphones. A laudable endeavour. Yet I discovered that many Mastering Engineers muttered that people could potentially scam off the back of this. So, I duly allowed my first ‘launch’ (featuring 3 tracks as a “B-side EP”) to pursue a new route. Given that the instructions normally metered by record labels would be so totalitarian as to make even a Russian government official wince, my Mastering guru was delighted to knock himself out to produce something he considered ‘right’. Turns out he’s in league with the Turn Me Up crew. Bringing the dynamics back to music indeed.

The amazing result, was that I could tell the difference between 192 and his output even on my ipod with only twenty-five quid Sennheiser headphones. (And that coming from someone that couldn’t hear my ‘Dinosaur’ mozzie tones when the guys were working on them much beyond 14khz.)

So what was done? Well, I’ll now attempt the near-impossible; a technical explanation in layman’s language.

The studios ‘lame’ filter of choice developers undertook research with lots of blind-listening so that they could recommend settings to achieve two outcomes:
i) make an mp3 indistinguishable from a (CD) wav file, and
ii) compress the file to a similar size to that of a 128 bit mp3.
The main tool is Variable Bit Rate (VBR). The benefits of this approach come from two main capabilities:

You get different filters. Normally, the mp3 encoding means that say, anything above 16khz will get cut off. You might think that this shouldn’t be a problem, as only toddlers and dogs can hear above this level and neither are renowned music connoisseurs. The problem though, is that this strict parameter causes non-linearities further down the line. This permits weird modulations and phase-shifts to occur. In plain English, this makes the eventual file sound inferior because the 16khz constraint invariably means in some places the ceiling falls, making for instance, parts of the track suffer only a 10khz limit.

Data rate economy. The arbitrary filter figure is not set in stone. This means that when more is going on aurally, the compression can be less. When there’s not as much action, the compression can be more. Any split-second of sound can enjoy the optimum compression that’s uniquely right for it. And with the marvels of studio software, an auto-generated VBR file can be merely a starting point, with forensic examination providing further manual enhancement opportunities.

I suppose given the earlier mantra, if such ‘high’ quality and service exists, then the price should be higher. So, to test this theory out, my task now could be to find an mp3 store that’ll allow me to upload a VBR mp3, and perhaps let me go against the e-tail grain and charge a penny more than the omnipresent 79.