Fact Check

Her fairy tale–however well-delivered–was one great, big, colorful lie.


http://conservativebyte.com/2012/09/fact-check-first-ladys-false-fairy-tale-of-struggle/


HA!




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Businessme​n Reply to Obama's "You didn't build that"

Love this...

This sign is prominently displayed at a local lumber yard in Savannah GA. 

Friends,


When the prez of the U.S. stands up and says that "you didn't build that, someone else did" he insulted every businessman that ever started a business and tried to run a successful business. It's time we stood up and say "NO, Mr. President, you are wrong. I built this business." If you have a marque or a sign board you owe it to your country to answer back. This is my answer to Obama.


Raymond Gaster
President


Celebrating 27 Years of Providing Materials for Savannah 's Finest Homes

 

Top 12 Reasons to Vote for a Democrat

This made me smirk... and scared me a little bit...

http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/07/top-12-reasons-to-vote-for-a-democrat/













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Why Friday the 13th?

I started wondering why Friday the 13th is such a big deal... so I googled it...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1879288,00.html










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Tipping Etiquette Around the World

Good to know:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1aYHDS

The Reunion

So I said to him,  "Barack, I know Abe Lincoln, And you ain't Abe Lincoln..."

Obama  has made numerous attempts to quote Lincoln
  SO WHY DOESN'T OBAMA USE THIS FAMOUS LINCOLN QUOTE:


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 up 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
people's initiative and independence.
  You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they
could and should do for themselves.
... Abraham Lincoln

Holy Prostitutes

hilarious

A man is driving down a deserted stretch of highway when he notices a sign out of the corner of his eye....It reads:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
10 MILES....

He thinks this is a figment of his imagination and drives on without second thought....
Soon he sees another sign which reads:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
5 MILES....

Suddenly he begins to realize that these signs are for real and drives past a third sign saying:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
NEXT RIGHT....

His curiosity gets the best of him and he pulls into the drive. On the far side of the parking lot is a stone building with a small sign next to the door reading:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS....

He climbs the steps and rings the bell. The door is answered by a nun in a long black habit who asks, "What may we do for you my son?"

He answers, "I saw your signs along the highway and was interested in possibly doing business.."

"Very well my son. Please follow me."

He is led through many winding passages and is soon quite disoriented. The nun stops at a closed door and tells the man, "Please knock on this door."

He does so and another nun in a long habit, holding a tin cup answers the door.

This nun instructs, "Please place $100 in the cup then go through the large wooden door at the end of the hallway."

He puts $100 in the cup, eagerly trots down the hall and slips through the door pulling it shut behind him.

The door locks, and he finds himself back in the parking lot facing another sign:

GO IN PEACE.
YOU HAVE JUST BEEN SCREWED BY THE SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS.
SERVES YOU RIGHT, YOU SINNER....

Trump Explains Dumbo Care...

I can't verify that Donald Trump actually said this, but I love  it:

Let me get this straight…

We’re going to be “gifted” with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 30 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congrass that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a Dumbo President with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we’ll be we’ll be taxed four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke!  What could possibly go wrong?

.

whatshouldwecallme

Discovered this little gem of a website...  http://whatshouldwecallme.tumblr.com/

this one made me smile:  http://whatshouldwecallme.tumblr.com/post/22812493547/when-my-mom-tried-to-hang-out-with-my-friends-i




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presidential bios

Love this article... but it scares me...

Everyone knows presidents have larger-than-life size egos. It goes with the job. But changes on the official White House website reveal that we’ve never had a self-regarding narcissist quite like the Oval Office’s current occupant.

They also reveal a fatal flaw in the Obama presidency, which is bad news for the rest of us if Barack Obama wins a second term.

It seems the Obama team has been taking the website’s standard biographies of past presidents and inserting gratuitous references to our Beloved Leader.

That’s led to entries like, “On February 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn etc.” and “On August 14, 1935 President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect senior and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.”

The only recent president *not* to get the Obama treatment was Gerald Ford. It seems even Obama’s webmaster didn’t want to link his boss to a president best known for tripping over his own feet and pardoning Richard Nixon.

Let’s set aside the colossal ego of someone who treats his predecessors as mere precursors of himself. Indeed, it’s easy to think about how Obama could have extended the comparisons. Eg. “God created the world in six days. President Obama created his first White House jobs summit in just four.”

And set aside the drooling sycophancy of those dreamed up this scheme, and then carried it out.

What’s chilling is that a president who treats his office as nothing more than a prism for reflecting his own virtues, is never going to admit his own policies might be why we are experiencing the slowest economic recovery in modern history, persistent high unemployment, the collapse of respect for America around the world-–and why 70% of polled Americans say we’re on the wrong track.

It takes a strong president to admit a mistake and change course in midstream. Abraham Lincoln decided he couldn’t win the Civil War without renouncing his earlier promises not to interfere with the institution of slavery, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt realized that to arm this country in preparation for World War Two, he had to give up his instinctive dislike of capitalism and turn loose America’s businessmen to build his “arsenal of democracy.”

Harry Truman learned that his initially conciliatory approach to Stalin and the Soviet Union wasn’t working, and embraced a get-tough policy of containment instead.

George W. Bush was willing to scrap three years of failed strategy in Iraq, in order to give General David Petraeus a chance to launch his surge.

And even Bill Clinton, no slouch at self-preening, realized his left-leaning social policies including HilaryCare, were losers and moved to the center instead.

Don’t expect any such change if Obama gets re-elected in November. It’ll be more of the same failed policies, the same game of blaming George Bush and Republicans and the One Percent for everything that’s going wrong.

And if we don’t thank him for the wreckage he leaves behind, it’ll be our failing, not his.

The White House website will say so.

Historian Arthur Herman is a visiting scholar at AEI. He is the author of the just released "Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" (Random House May 2012) and the Pulitzer Prize finalist book "Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age" (Bantam, 2008).


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/05/16/obama-fatal-flaw-revealed-in-white-house-website-presidential-bios/?intcmp=obnetwork#ixzz1wHzEWrFj

Male or Female?

Male or Female?   

You might not have known this, but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female.  Here are some examples:  

FREEZER BAGS: They are male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them. 

PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female, because once turned off; it takes a while to warm them up again. They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong Buttons.

TIRES: Tires are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated

HOT AIR BALLOONS: Also a male object, because to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under their butt.

SPONGES: These are female, because they are soft, squeezable and retain water. 

 WEB PAGES: Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.

TRAINS: Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.

EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female because, over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMERS: Male, because in the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.

THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would be male, but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying.

Penguins

Penguins are cool... check out this one!

This 10-year-old King Penguin was rescued from a fisherman's line and refused to leave after he was healed. He was adopted by a family in a small town in Japan and became a beloved pet who has his own personal air-conditioned cold room. Lala is so smart - he walks to the fish store with his little backpack to shop for fresh fish every day.

http://www.flixxy.com/pet-penguin-goes-shopping.htm

Loser Line

Ok...i got this info in an email, but haven't had the guts to actually call the number to see what happens...

The Wild 95.5 radio station  LOSER LINE

561-515-4549

 for Tool Bags (guy's you are not interested in) to call and leave you a message.

They then play the message on the radio on Monday mornings.

So, when a guy is hitting on you while out clubbing and you are not interested you give him your phone number (LOSER LINE Number) for him to call you. He gets a standard message to leave a message.

Cool tip for Shucking Corn

I might try this this week :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=YnBF6bv4Oe4&feature=youtu.be






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Smoking can make your nipples fall off

I will not attempt to explain.  Just read the story...


http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/05/smoking-can-make-your-nipples-fall-off/?hpt=hp_bn10

Reagan Vs. Obama - Social Economics 101

i wish a news channel would broadcast this a few times a day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8O7V-WxWQ&feature=related







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Advice from snopes

Advice from snopes.com, a clearinghouse for truth on the internet


1) Emails that say "forward this to 10 of your friends", "sign this petition", or "you'll get bad luck" or "you'll get good luck" or "you'll see something funny on your screen after you send it" --- are almost always ploys designed to identify the email addresses you send to for SPAM purposes.  Even when you get emails that demand you send the email only if you're not ashamed of Jesus --- that is email tracking, and they are playing on our conscience.  "Missing child", "Dying child" -- these are email tracking schemes.  Ignore them and don't participate!

2) Email petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress, Social security, or other government organizations.  To be acceptable, petitions must be ink on paper with the full address of the person signing the petition, so this is a waste of time and you are just helping the email trackers.

What would you do?

What would you do?

Situational assessment.............  
The producers of this beer commercial borrowed a small 150 seat cinema playing a popular film, and filled 148 of its seats with rough-looking, tatooed bikers, leaving only two free seats in the
middle of the theater. They then allowed theater management to sell tickets for the last pair of tickets to several young couples. 

What would you do? 

Watch till the end .....

http://www.theinspiration.com/2011/09/carlsberg-stunt-in-cinema/

Digging to China?

Remember as a child on the beach you'd try to 'dig a hole to China'?

(and these days we know it's not safe to dig giant holes for fear of being buried to death by sand)

Well, it turns out, if you actually dug straight through the Earth's center to the other side, you'd drown... and no where near China...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAxGccJNw0A

Earn the right to sit at a desk...

Here's a good story for you...

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building
supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'

'No,' she said.

'Maybe it's our behavior.'

She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids
started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'

By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded Teacher of the Year for the state of Arkansas in 2006.

Don’t forget that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by U. S. Veterans. Always remember them and the rights they have won for us.

Blessings abound in the USA!


http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp

Things I Owe My Parents

This is cute...


Things I Owe My Parents........

1. My Parents taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE ...
"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside... I just finished cleaning."

2. My Parents taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

3. My Parents taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My Parents taught me LOGIC.
"Because I said so, that's why."

5. My Parents taught me MORE LOGIC .
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

6. My Parents taught me FORESIGHT.
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

7. My Parents taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

8. My Parents taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
"Shut your mouth and eat your supper"

9. My Parents taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

10. My Parents taught me about STAMINA.
"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

11. My Parents taught me about WEATHER.
"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

12. My Parents taught me about HYPOCRISY.
"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

13. My Parents taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

14. My Parents taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
"Stop acting like your father!"

15. My Parents taught me about ENVY.
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."

16. My Parents taught me about ANTICIPATION.
"Just wait until we get home."

17. My Parents taught me about RECEIVING.
"You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My Parents taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way."

19. My Parents taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My Parents taught me HUMOR.
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21. My Parents taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.
"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My Parents taught me GENETICS.
"You're just like your father."

23. My Parents taught me about my ROOTS.
"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My Parents taught me WISDOM.
"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

25. My Parents taught me about JUSTICE.
"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!"

April Fools Day

Now I understand why we have April Fools Day... this made me smile :)


A  FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY
 
In Florida, an atheist created a case against Easter & Passover Holy days.  He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians & Jews and observances of their holy days.  The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge.  After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"
The lawyer immediately stood and objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case?  The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others.  The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur & Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays." 

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counselor, is woefully ignorant." 

The lawyer said," Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists." 

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fool’s Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.'  Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that, if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day.  Court is adjourned..."

 You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!

Barney...

Reminiscing about childhood cartoons, characters, events this morning at work... we ended up at Barney... my supervisor exclaims "Let me tell you something! If that thing was real, it woulda ate them kids!"

hilarious start to my day ;)

Swarming Honeybees

Good warning...

Spring is the time of year when large groups of honeybees will leave their hive and seek a new location. In the process they swarm around a fixture or fence or tree branch – possibly in your yard. If you see something like this, stay clear and do not attempt to dislodge or harass them as they can be very dangerous. The attached flyer provides contact information of professionals that you can call to collect the bees.

If you can't read the picture, click on it to open it in a larger version...

Tired...

Water Bottles

too many water bottles?  this is genius...

http://www.mysimplerlife.com/blog/water-bottles








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Men are Happier People

Had to share these... although it's titled Men are Happier People, I'd argue men are more simple people...

Men Are Just Happier People

NICKNAMES
If Laura, Kate, and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate, and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Bubba, and Wildman.

EATING OUT
When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS
A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel.
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

Feb 29

Happy Leap Day!

How much do we really know?

I know it's a little early for 4th of July... but I didn't want to wait to post this quiz that I'm slightly embarassed to say kicked my butt...

http://games.toast.net/independence/

Pendulum Waves

THIS IS COOL!!!!

http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k16940&pageid=icb.page80863&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent341734&state=maximize&view=view.do&viewParam_name=indepth.html#a_icb_pagecontent341734
















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Our national federal debt far exceeds $15 trillion...

This is an interesting article that was forwarded to me from a newsletter, I believe it is the S&A Digest (Stransberry & Associates).  Just some food for thought...

A forecast-free Digest… A critical review… Why our deficits continue to soar… Raising taxes won't help… A punching bag replaces the mailbag…

 In today's Friday Digest… a review of what I think are the most critical facts in our country's looming currency crisis. Most people still don't understand the risks we face as a nation because of our feckless leaders and their reckless ignorance of basic economics.

What follows are facts. Nothing in this essay will be conjecture or opinion. I will make no forecast – at least not in this essay. So please, stop the political name-calling… and grow up. The problems we face are ours. All of ours. It doesn't matter how we got here. It only matters that we begin to deal with these issues – soon. If we don't begin to solve these core financial problems, they will certainly destroy our country.

 Today, our national federal debt far exceeds $15 trillion. This alone is not a serious problem. The interest we pay on these debts is small – thanks to the trust of our creditors, who, for the moment, continue to believe America is a safe bet.

So… what's the problem? The main problem is the amount of debt we owe continues to increase at a faster and faster pace. This is exceptionally dangerous for two simple reasons. First, there's simple math. When numbers compound, the result is geometric expansion. And that's happening right now with our national debt because we continue to borrow money to pay the interest. And we have done so for about 40 years. Think about it this way: How big would your debts be today if you'd been using credit cards to pay your mortgage for the last several decades?

 Even worse, our debts are compounding at an accelerating pace because we lack the political ability to limit the federal government's spending. Please understand… I'm not pointing the finger at any politician or either political party. I'm simply pointing out a fact: This year's $3.6 trillion federal budget is 20% larger than the entire 2008 budget. And while our government has grown at a record pace, our economy hasn't. It has hardly grown at all. Thus, this will be the fourth year in a row we set a record for deficit spending. Never before in peacetime has our government borrowed this much money. And now, it's borrowing record amounts every year.

 This combination of borrowing record amounts of money (during peacetime) and continuing to borrow the money we need to pay the interest is setting the stage for a massive increase in total federal debt levels. Why is this happening? Don't our leaders realize they can't continue on this path?
 Well… the problem isn't so simple to fix. What we face isn't a $15 trillion problem. It's actually much, much bigger…

 The $15.3 trillion we owe today is really only a minor down payment on promises the federal government made to its most important creditors – the American people. Not yet included in our debt totals are the $15 trillion shortfall in Social Security (thanks to the Democrats), the $20 trillion unfunded prescription drug benefit (thanks to the Republicans), or the $115 trillion unfunded Medicare liability (thanks to the Democrats and Republicans).

 Most people ignore these looming liabilities because they obviously will never be paid. In fact, the federal government's total obligations today – including all future obligations – is more than $1 million per taxpayer. And that's if you assume all 112 million taxpayers really count. (They don't. Only about 50 million people in the U.S. pay any substantial amount of federal income taxes.)

But here's the funny part… While everyone seems ready to ignore these obligations, we've already begun to pay them. Our spending on Medicare and Social Security already greatly exceeds the $800 billion in payroll taxes we're collecting to pay these benefits. (Total spending on Social Security and Medicare last year was more than $1.5 trillion.) And that means our actual debts will continue to compound faster and faster every year, assuming nothing is done to curtail these benefits.

 I want to make sure you understand this fact: It doesn't matter how much (or how little) Congress chooses to cut its discretionary budget. The promises we've already made to Americans in the form of Social Security and Medicare guarantee that our debts will continue to compound faster and faster, every year. How do I know?

 Once again… let's return to basic math. Right now, we're spending (at the federal level) $2.4 trillion per year on transfer payments and interest on our national debt. That doesn't include any of the other functions of the government – nothing else. Meanwhile, we are only collecting $2.3 trillion a year in income, payroll, and corporate taxes.

Let me make sure you understand this: Even if we cut every other government program – including the entire military budget – the federal revenue collected still wouldn't be enough to merely cover the costs of our direct transfer payments. Not even close. And every year, these payments will automatically grow.

 Here's another way to look at the same basic numbers, but on a macro scale. Right now, total government spending in the U.S. equals $7 trillion per year. (That's federal, state, and local.) Total interest paid in the U.S. economy on all debts, public and private, equals $3.7 trillion. The size of our total economy is only $15 trillion. Thus, we are currently spending $10 trillion (out of $15 trillion) on our government and debt. This is unprecedented in all of American history. This financial structure is unsustainable – and extremely unstable, given our debt levels.

 There's the bigger problem (yes, it gets worse). The political solution to our soaring deficits will most likely be higher taxes. Yes, technically that's a prediction… And I promised no predictions in this piece. But let's face it. You will never see the federal government make dramatic, meaningful cuts to its promised benefits – not when half the country pays no federal taxes and more than 40 million people are on food stamps. So it's not really a prediction – it's a political reality. Will higher taxes save us?

 No. You cannot squeeze blood from a stone. The federal debt isn't the largest obligation we suffer under. Americans hold nearly $1 trillion in credit card debt. We hold nearly $1 trillion in student loans. Total personal debt in America is larger ($15.9 trillion) than all of the federal debt. In total – adding up all of our debts, public and private – Americans owe close to $700,000 per family. It is not possible to finance our federal government's spending via taxes because the American people are broke. Total debt levels in America are the highest – by far – of any developed nation.

 Tax the rich, you say. Well, of course. But marginal rates in many places are already greater than 50%. Tax rates this high don't work… They actually reduce tax revenues as people move their economic activities elsewhere to avoid taxes… or even simply forgo working.

Don't forget, the very wealthy can simply leave. James Cameron – director of blockbuster movies Titanic and Avatar – recently did just that, buying a 2,500-acre farm in Canada. John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, likewise told the Wall Street Journal that he bought a farm on the Canadian border specifically so that he could leave the country whenever he wanted. "We own 18 miles on the border, so we can cross. Anytime we want to, we can get away."

Think I'm exaggerating the risks of real capital flight from the U.S.? Well… let's look at the facts. According to the latest IRS report, the number of Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship has increased ninefold since 2008.

 How then will the government's spending be financed? Well, I promised no predictions. Not today. But I will remind you that since 2008, the Federal Reserve has expanded the monetary base from roughly $800 billion to nearly $3 trillion. That, again, is a fact. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about what the Federal Reserve is likely to do in the future if the U.S. Treasury is faced with a financial need that can't be met.

Girl Scout Cookies

Did you know?

The sale of Girl Scout cookies started as early as 1917 as a way to finance troop activities. Over 90 years later, it has become the nation’s leading entrepreneurial program for girls, teaching them financial and communication skills, goal-setting and following through on a commitment. The program still provides the funding needed for girls to accomplish great things.

Read a few more interesting facts about the history of Girl Scout Cookies here:

http://virginiabeach.macaronikid.com/article/246157/its-cookie-time#comments

Valentine's Day

I've never been a fan of the Hallmark holiday... even now that I'm happily married...

Victory or Death?

worth a listen...  http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=qtjfMjjce2Y



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Best Run City in America

Well this is pretty cool :)  sorry for the crummy picture...

How Old Are Your Spices?

Soooo did you know this?

http://mccormick.com/spices101/howoldspices.aspx





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TheFunTheory

Piano Stairs - Found this on youtube today… how fun!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&feature=player_embedded



of course it led to all kinds of different videos… but this one was one of the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjwNp6gbss&feature=related




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Candidate Match Game

This is interesting...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/candidate-match-game

Although, for some reason the candidates faces were revealed to me half way through :)






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Declutter 'my' life...

I don't usually share 'personal' info on here... but since it is the beginning of a new year, I'm trying to do things a little differently...  like decluttering my life... i found a blog where she has created an entire decluttering regimen for your house... the idea is less than 15 minutes a day! i LOVE it...

I'm sure the "kitchen pantry" will be a point of focus at some point during the year... and when I found this blog post i HAD to share it with you!!

http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/2012/01/14-inspirational-kitchen-pantry-makeovers.html

Happy New Year :)



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He died for a purpose

this is pretty sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCdZwitrNoY

at first I thought it was a staged phone call, but no, it’s real…






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If you hunt, make every effort to recover your prey

I don't hunt, but I have family members that do... this is an important tip to remember...

http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/chesapeake/lead-poisoned-bald-eagle-rescued






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A new beginning...