On Sunday, December 9, 2012 Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) encouraged Democrats to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits because the programs are “things we don’t absolutely need”.
The problem today for the Republican party isn't that the nation has shifted to the far left. It's because conservatives have tipped so far to the right nearly everyone appears in their eyes to be a socialist leaning leftist.
What follows are a few examples of why Ronald Reagan would be completely rejected by today's Republican party.
Reagan On Social Security Versus Deficit Spending
Reagan Supported The Social Security Program
How the Republicans think they can continue to exist marginalizing just about everyone in the country is beyond me.
A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper, Guido, has cheated him out of $10,000,000.00. His bookkeeper is deaf. That was the reason he got the job in the first place. It was assumed that Guido would hear nothing so he would not have to testify in court.
When the Godfather goes to confront Guido about his missing $10 million, he takes along his lawyer who knows sign language. The Godfather tells the lawyer, "Ask him where the money is!
The lawyer, using sign language, asks Guido, Where's the money?
Guido signs back, "I don't know what you are talking about."
The lawyer tells the Godfather, "He says he doesn't know what you are talking about"
The Godfather pulls out a pistol, puts it to Guido's head and says, "Ask him again and tell him if he doesn't answer I'll kill him!"
The lawyer signs to Guido, "He'll kill you if you don't tell him."
Guido trembles and signs back, "OK! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed at my cousin Bruno's house.
The Godfather asks the lawyer, "What did he say?"
The lawyer replies, "He says you don't have the guts to pull the trigger.
COMMENT: Factor that with a young couple who owe college loans and I could see why contraceptives are needed. Who could afford on top of all of that to have kids and buy a home to raise them in?
I'm not familiar with other ones, but I use Bank Of America's "ShopSafe® Service". I have for years and love the thing. When you arrive at the online checkout, you pull up the app and log in. Generate a random account number, expiration date and spending limit. There are some who claim that there has been times merchants were still were able to get past the limit or expiration date. This never happened to me over the many years I've been using it.
Then on the other hand this may be because, after the purchase goes through I delete the randomly generated account number a day or two later just to play it safe. I also have my email alerts set up for anything that happens (payment or charge) over $1. Most times I'm alerted in email that a transaction was made before I complete my checkout at the merchant.
Even though someone is held liable for only up to $50 I think anyone not using a virtual number app is being foolish. Besides that's still fifty bucks! If you get suckered on your actual credit card number you will have to paper file a claim. Kill your credit account till it gets straightened out. While this app can't protect you from a sleazy merchant it certainly offers peace of mind knowing that they haven't gotten a hold of your actual credit card number and max'd it out.
Check out whether your credit card offers one of these apps. If not I'd consider opening one that does.
Apparently it's not enough that already chemical color is added to farmed salmon nor that "the farms release toxins, diseases, and parasites into the surrounding water... the Atlantic Salmon is now an invasive species that competes with the natural, endangered species"
"When you get your tax forms for this past year, a new line will be added. It's called a use tax, the counterpart to a sales tax, meaning you'll have to declare what you bought out of state and pay the Pennsylvania sales tax on it."
You Think?
R Rated Lyrics (cursing) "Goin' to the C.P.A. (The Tax Song)"
I never bought into this one in the first place. This, like most research studies, will skewer positive results for whoever is paying for them.
How many of these studies have to be ginned up and found to be false before people figure out a large number of them are simply bull?
There has been entirely too many vested interests research studies for the heart, transportation planning, urban planning, fracking, pharmaceutical and countless of others. After a few years, many of these are found to be hogwash.
Face it, if some university receives a couple of million dollar$ for research, the results better work out for the donor OR no more studies for you guys. It always looks good to have a creditable university tag on it. Some universities have come to depend on their research departments for funding. No pressure there, right?
This doesn't mean we have to blow off research. What it does mean is we have to look at who's paying for it?. What would they stand to gain? Then temper confidence in the results based on these. Far too many times media only publicizes results, not who's funding them.
This is where government grants do a much better job, rather then allowing pharmaceutical firms, oil drillers and so forth to payoff fund scientific research.
I trust private for-profit corporations funding research about as much as I'd trust students grading their own exams. There's just too much an incentive to cheat when million$ of dollars could be at stake. I'd no sooner hand over keys to the hen house to a fox, then trust these kind of private industry research grants.
According to NPR: If there's one thing worse then being forced to pay the government, it is being forced to pay corporations.
You wonder why TV is lousy?
It's because networks get paid even when sponsors aren't buying what their selling. Each network owns several cable channels. It's a package deal. Cable company's are forced to take them all or none. In our area that would mean losing channels 3, 6, 29, 17 and 10 out of Philly.
Take for example NBC/Universal (GE). They own the Weather Channel, CNBC, MSNBC, SyFy, USA, A&E, Lifetime, History, Bravo, Telmundo, ShopNBC, NBC10 Philadelphia to list a few.
ABC-- Disney Channel, ABC 6 Philadelphia, ESPN, Soap, Lifetime, Family channel to name but a few.In years past if no one watched a lousy program on one of their channels, they didn't attract sponsors. Today they don't have to. They're being paid either way. Don't blame the cable companies for not selling à la carte. If there is a blame to be placed, put it on the U.S. government that allows network owners to do this to consumers.
If federal regulations would require networks to sell à la carte, I'm certain TV quality would improve. Even if we only had half the channels that now exist.
TV makes money because.. (a) They have great programs? OR (b) Great lobbyists?
The short and long of this is there are those who want to export all the natural gas found in Alaska's North Slope to the Asian Pacific area. This isn't the only example nor first time either.
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Time and time again we've heard the screaming of the politically ignorant "Drill Baby Drill." The theme was repeatedly pounded into the less then brain filled heads of the masses by the super energy PAC's and lobbyists. These folks are not promoting some patriotic message but rather 100% of their own self interests. The pitch to the less then brilliant, who walk among us, is that this will somehow bring "energy independence". I'm here to tell you Sparky that your being played for a fool.
Did you know?I could go on and on with further documentations. Let me break this down so that even a turnip could understand...The only way to true "energy independence" will come from developing alternative energies that can't be exported.
Can you understand why oil producers and foreign oil producing countries have a big stake in seeing this never happens?
How many more oil producing countries will we invade or crawl in bed with to offset our fossil fuel exports?
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced today that it has reached a settlement with E&B Giftware LLC (E&B), of Yonkers, N.Y., resolving CPSC staff allegations that E&B failed to report a defect with its fitness balls. In settling this matter, E&B has agreed to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $550,000. The settlement agreement has been provisionally accepted by the Commission.
CPSC staff alleged that E&B’s subsidiary, EB Brands, LLC (EB Brands), knew of 25 incidents related to the defective balls as early as 2007, but failed to immediately inform the Commission as required by federal law. Some of these incidents led to consumers being injured. By October 2008, when EB Brands reported to the Commission, EB Brands knew of at least 44 incidents involving the fitness balls.
EB Brands sold three million of the fitness balls from May 2000 through February 2009. They were recalled in April 2009.
At that time, there were 47 reports of the fitness balls unexpectedly bursting when overinflated by consumers, resulting in injuries, including a fracture and bruises.
Federal law requires manufacturers, distributors and retailers to report to CPSC immediately (within 24 hours) after obtaining information reasonably supporting the conclusion that a product contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard, creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death, or fails to comply with any consumer product safety rule or any other rule, regulation, standard or ban enforced by CPSC.
In agreeing to the settlement, E&B denies CPSC staff allegations that it knowingly violated the law.
Read The Directions? I DON'T NEED NO STINKING DIRECTIONS!
Richard Whitney, President of the N.Y Stock Exchange, warns the risks to capitalism by government regulators because of the the National Securities Exchange Act.
Almost 4 years before he was sent to Sing Sing for embezzlement.
It used to be only when you logon to YouTube you would see this...
By clicking on "I don't want to use my full name", you are then presented with this...
By clicking on "Different names" you would think that would be the end of it. Not quite. The next time you log in the same popup hounds you once again. Now it's become even more obnoxious as these same nag screens block out all possible activity till you acknowledge them over and over again every so many videos. Even after you've logged in.
As if this weren't a pain enough nearly every video worth watching comes with a commercial pre-role. On some you are NOT given the option to skip. Others you can click on skip after a 5 second countdown. Ah BUT WAIT... some posters have gamed the system by adding their own fake annotations. If you click the skip button it takes you off of YouTube to their site.
Still others are posting videos that go to 'still frame' after watching for couple of seconds telling you to click onto their own site to watch the rest of the video. This morning I got nailed by 4 out of the 6 search results for the 2013 Oscars.
Then there are those results that come up everyday in which I search for videos about Allentown or the Lehigh Valley. There are dozens and dozens of wasted videos posted by realtors, car dealerships and other commercial intrests that garner ZERO views. Most are never viewed even a week later. Take a hint.. nobody cares about your damn postings!
The new search algorithms skew results away from long time amateur posters. The 'Browse Channels" feature now makes it nearly impossible to find users other then whom they are promoting. The average smuck doesn't have a chance to have their videos or talent watched.
In short they lost the vision of YouTube's 2005 founders Steve Chen, Chad Hurley & Jawed Karim. I know Google paid a ton of money for YouTube. I understand the need to make a profit, but if they lose the vision YouTube started out with, it will become nothing more then another pay TV channel.
A lot of today's stars got their start on YouTube. Justin Bieber, Esmee Denters, Charice, Taylor Swift & Greyson Chance to name a few.
2008: Journey's New Singer Was Found on YouTube (Arnel Pineda of the Philippines)
Taylor Swift
Justine Bieber
Charice Pempengco -- THEN..
Charice Pempengco -- 2 Years Later!
Google, you are killing the goose that laid the golden eggs with these changes. Stars are not made by corporate designed algorithms. They are born by the people who have supported, interacted and became fans of them. If we can no longer search or find tomorrow's super talents on YouTube we will find them elsewhere. There will always be another Berry Gordy or Steve/Chad/Jawed who will create the next great upstart that will relegate YouTube to soooo yesterday.
YouTube has become so monetized, cumbersome and mainstream that they've handed an opportunity to the next entrepreneur. The kind of person(s) who will realize the heart and soul of any endeavor is to allow users to steer policy. Not the other way around.
This past summer we planted a small garden. We have a very limited backyard, so it was only 4'x4.
We supplemented the garden soil from our own compost container. We used only leftover food scraps like eggs shells, peels, vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds and the like. Nothing like meat or stuff that would stink up the joint.
I was quite please how much we got out of it while doing practically no tending. I'm lazy when it comes to weeding.
If a lot more would have composted how much food leftovers wouldn't have been needlessly wasted by ending up in a dump. Also how much less the sewer plant would have to process for those who flush these down a kitchen disposal.
How many tons of foods would not have been transported by fuel guzzling trucks if everyone just planted a small patch of their own.
Not only did we save a couple of bucks, we knew for certain that our vegetables were 100% organic. It is also believed that every hour that goes by after harvesting, the vegetables lose some of their nutrient content. For almost 3 months whenever we made a salad for dinner all I had to do was go out back a snip a few leaves of lettuce. Nothing fresher then that!
Certain garden herbs we planted attracted hummingbirds and butterflies.
What a waste when you see all that empty area on most suburban home's lawns going unused. Wonder why more people don't put at least some of it to practical use. It would also be one less area to mow.
The final bonus is, after the plants are harvested the stems and stalks can go back into the composting container for next year's garden.
The following videos are of the alpine single track coaster in Mieders, Austria. They are single cars with one occupant fastened in with a seat belt who can control their speed with a hand brake.
This next video is from the viewpoint of the rider, David Jellis, the maker of these videos, who decided to max out his ride by not applying the hand brake for the entire ride.
Not to rain on someone's parade, but I spotted a few things concerning safety. Notice the tree stumps right alongside the rail within falling distance. What if there were to be a tree laying across the track unseen just beyond the next bend? I can also imagine a deer running out of the woods. I'd hope those brakes would have good stopping power.
Alas I guess that's all the more the thrill of it all and I'm just showing how big a wuss I've become.
I suppose my anxiety comes from all the pains I've felt to my body from all the dumb stuff I've done in the past. For some it's being young and foolish. In my case it was young and 'stupid' !
The very first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack TRS-80 MC-10. I was quite pleased someone (not me) posted the video that follows about it.
I even bought the extra 16k ram module you see sticking up in the back of this picture.
I self taught myself to work with what was called "Microsoft Level III BASIC". A computer language to create small programs. I even managed to create for myself a small ledger program. It took days and days to define arrays, create counters, correctly call out multiple nested loops, etc.
The computer used a standard TV for a monitor. Unlike today's hard drives, a audio cassette tape recorder was used to store your own unique original program commands.
I quickly learned the FREAKIN' hard way to ALWAYS backup four or five copies. That was because 9 out of 10 times at least two of them would never load back into the computer. The reason being, tape speeds were not always reliable enough to reproduce the precise pitch of the audio signals. Believe me, there's nothing greater for testing one's patience then to experience a couple hundred hours of work going poof !
Talk about tedious.. Here's an example;Here's what a run of that program looked like on the screen...You wanted something fancier on the screen you could spend hours defining colors, positions on the screen, drawing lines, etc.
After that I did a bit of self taught C+ & C++ compiling, COBOL and Visual Basic before I decided to bag the idea that I'm not a programmer by any means. These were just four of around 50 major languages with about 2,500 sub language categories throughout history of computers.
While I go for a aspirin for my headache, in just thinking back on this endeavor, have a look at the video that got me started down this 'Hobbit Hole' in the first place.
Radio Shack TRS-80 MC-10 Micro Color Computer review
I couldn't wait for Windows 1 to finally come out in 1985. What an UPGRADE!
We've Come A Long Way Since Then...
For you young guppies, here's a video from the 'land down under' :-)
It's also legal in many instances to do warrantless wiretapping, Warrantless car searches. Warrantless GPS vehicle tracking.
It's Not Only The Warrantless Searches
"Louisiana bans using cash in sales of second-hand goods."It not only concerns me that buyers are losing their privacy. Nor that a state can just null and void U.S. Government issued legal tender. The larger ticket here is, how the hell can a state force consumers to use the banking industry's products?
What will happen if several states should decide to take this route? What if nearly all purchases had to be made in this way? Can you only imagine would will happen when banks know your forced to buy their products? I could easily see fees doubling or even tripling. Talk about banks and their government lobbyists taking over!
Medical providers claim in order to avoid insurance fraud, they now require a driver's license or other tangible form of ID. While that is true, it also allows them to run a background credit check to see if your a financial risk to them. Would a patient, who has a lousy credit history get the same course of treatment?
Piled on top of that are the ever expanding voter ID laws. Employer background checks. Future ID requirements to sign up for internet social services. Retina and facial recognition on city street cameras. Will employer, point of sale transactions, medical service sign ins and cop cars be far behind? The Random drug testing. The airport required passenger ID's. Cell phone tracking software.
The wife and I for years went on school trips as chaperones. Now schools require forms so they can run background checks.
Funny how everybody "else" is allowed to snoop, but when it comes to the government or business practices, everything's a hush hush unless citizens jump through legal hoops to get redacted information.
I know what people will say.. if you have nothing to hide what's the problem? The problem is we, the common masses, are living on what is almost a one-way street when it comes to privacy matters. Just because we all have butts, doesn't mean everybody's entitled to look at them!
One of these intrusions are not a problem, but when you put all of those I mentioned together, I see a real concern. If you think every employee who works in government and business are honest and full of good intentions your living in a Pollyanna world. Information is bought and sold. Sometimes for very nefarious reasons.
The information itself can be contaminated. Names can get crossed up. Most of these databases are impossible for us to correct, even if we should ever become aware of mistakes in the first place.
Criminals, armed with information, can become us. The more information one gives up, the more opportunity a criminal has to impersonate us. Ask anyone who has suffered for years after their identity was stolen.
If a perpetrator has one or two items, up until now, we could provide three or four other pieces of information that would exonerate us. Because of all this informational super technology we may have nothing left to defend ourselves. Things that were previously unknown to those who target a victim have now become semi-public property of someone, somewhere else who has access to almost all the infinitesimal details of our most private information.
