Life on the farm

With all the projects and what not going on I have had to hire on several new people to help out on the farm and in the shops and all is going great.
Even have a new neighbor, granted by neighbor I mean they live two miles away on the backside of the farm, a nice family by the name of Vega.

The boring details of daily chores on a farm is exactly that ... boring. It is the odd happenings that cause pause for reflection. For instance when the cow came onto the porch and frightened a burglar last year, that stays in one's memory. This morning's adventure is no less memorable.

One of the new people was down by the creek around dawn for a little skinny dipping before breakfast and in typical stereotyped fashion another of the farmhands removed their clothing from where they had left them to another location hidden from their owner. The skinny dipping worker got out of the creek and found the clothing missing but instead of panicking he just began to do his morning job au natural with the intention of shocking whomever took his clothing. As I said he is new here so it was he who was shocked when he came into the hen house to find a couple of other workers there working sans clothing - the look on his face was priceless as Julie informed him it was she that had taken his clothing and put it in his closet while wearing only a basket of eggs in her hand (ok, she was wearing boots, you don't want to go into the hen house barefoot - although the newbie did!).

Right now he is still trying to figure out how the fact that being nude on this farm was the norm had escaped his notice for the three days he has been here. Pretty much wondering the same thing, myself. I guess this means we'll be seeing him around the pool in the evenings now.

Outfox the Fox

Danny Kaye at his best From 1956's "The Court Jester"

Not All That Unbelievable Now Is It?

What is so scary is that it isn't so far fetched as one imagines.

Daily Funny

"They" say I am the mastermind of the entire operation!

Now, if "they" would be so kind as to tell me which entire operation I am the mastermind of then we'll all know.

*****

Don't you just love reading the daily horoscope!

Chatter

There has been a lot of chatter over on the backpackers forum about goings on on yet another forum falling victim to the the PC police. It seems whenever the open flow of ideas is curtailed by a few misguided persons at one location the tragedy of it is known throughout the world - literally.

I must say it is disgusting how this is allowed to happen and what is more disgusting is the fact that hate and fear replace honesty and understanding when it happens. The loss is felt by all who strive for that honesty and understanding.

The bright side to this is that those locations where such has occurred wither and die ignobly as fitting they should and usually a lot sooner than some expect thus leaving room for places not infested with the like who seek to prohibit others to flourish and new locations to emerge and grow.

*****

New feature:
There will be more posts under the heading "Chatter" as I peruse the forums I frequent and find what is the rage of the moment. Just as the profuse distaste of censorship that is making the rounds for the past few weeks on blogs as diverse as there are diverse people.

New Look and the Fearless Afraid

How you like the new look? I thought that since I was updating the looks of my other blogs and company websites I thought I would do some sprucing up around here ... man does it take time!
Still have a few friends to put back on the list and several new ones to add, whew.

Speaking of the fearless being afraid ... our (the Mrs., dog actually) Jack Russell Mac Duff took off at a full run outside today on his regular pattern of the neighborhood, when he can get out past one of us going out, where he usually dares all the labs and retrievers (of which there are several including my two monster-sized labs) to a 'fight' and plays with them until such time as I can catch him or he tires out which ever comes first ... and it is usually me tiring out first anyway.

Today however we had to go meet a friend so I could not give chase so I let him run free. When we returned from our meeting there was a note on the door from a neighbor saying she had let him in the back door after her very overweight fat cat chased Mac Duff right into her arms with his tail between his legs - I wish I had seen that ... that dog isn't afraid of anything except thunderstorms, in fact the bigger they are the better he likes it - until now that is. So we can all mark it down ... Mac Duff is afraid of overweight cats.

Top 10%: It runs in the family.

Just got the grandparents copy of the book and certificate listing my grandson as one of the top 10% of students in the United States - not too shabby for a boy who passed the SAT with a perfect score at 13 years old.

Now he is eligible for over 254 scholarships of $10,000 each on his academics alone, not to mention the athletic scholarship offers he has already gotten from several major universities - he won't be 14 until September.

He said as a tiny tot his wanted to be like his Papa and he has been determined to be just so that he has excelled in academics and athletics with no push to do so by either his grandparents or his parents ... something too many children have happen to them by failed dreams of their parents.

So he has his certificate to hang on his wall next to his copy of my certificate from the time I was among the top 10% of students in the United States.

Of course his being eligible for all those scholarships doesn't hurt because if anyone is tighter with their money than I am it is he ... he still has every penny of the trust fund I set up for him at birth plus every cent of interest - there are six zeros after the numerals by the way, so paying for any college in the world from his on funds is not an issue.

Excuses Needed

It's Memorial Day weekend.
Do you know what that is?
For a lot of folks, it’s just an excuse to drink beer and get onto a boat.

Essentially Eclectic

Essentially Eclectic is off and running.
The new store is carrying several designer lines of of clothing from small labels to big labels, leather goods, Celtic gifts, teas and coffees, gourmet cooking oils and mixes and body care products.

(with all edible goods from organic and natural ingredients)

Response has been great. I even had another artisan approach me at a party the other day inquiring about having her sister's line of bead-work pieces in the shop, so the eclectic mix is growing.

Here I thought being retired meant I didn't have to work!

Thought of the Day

Isn't it funny how those with no credibility are always questioning those with credibility.

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

*****

And round and round it goes. While the sect may have been a place of questionable ethics the state of Texas had no business doing as they did. Being different is not a cause for such abuse by those supposedly in authority. I say supposedly because the people are the authority and not those claiming to be their representatives something that is very confused in the minds of some.

Something akin to a third of the children taken were victims of some type of abuse and two thirds were not according to the official transcripts of the proceedings thus far.

The question is why were cases of those third not thoroughly investigated and those found responsible arrested and prosecuted as the individual cases they are in lieu of a 'cattle round-up' corralling everyone on the basis of innuendo, false allegations and fear of differences?!

I am not trying to defend the guilty nor the innocent here ... I think it is none of my business what adults do in the religion until it affects me directly - if they want to marry multiple times while still married to all others before it is fine by me, I do not have to do that nor am I frightened by others doing that.

Raising their children is also not any concern of mine until it actually harms the children or affects me directly (something which it will never do but the harming of a child does ... under any circumstances). Which is why I question the total lack of investigation by Texas authorities. Traumatizing a child as they have done (over 400 times no less), is just as harmful as any abuse at home and more so to a child who has not been abused at home.

There was a case locally about twenty years ago where a young child of four would scream bloody murder whenever his was around his grandfather ... who turned out was molesting the child. had the authorities then, reacted as have the Texas authorities have now, it would have not come out that the child's mother (the grandfather's daughter) was molesting her own child as well. The child would have been left with his mother, who would have continued to molest the child had the authorities 'jumped' on the first suspicion without investigating the case.

Now in his early twenties the child is a happy individual who has nothing to do with his grandfather and mother. Both of whom are in the last years of their prison terms for the abuse of the child.

How many of the sect's children will be happy individuals twenty years from now?

Petty People, Small Minds

Have you ever had it to here with some petty small mind?

Well, I have.

The most recent is on a forum that I used to frequent and participate in but since the petty small minded individual that is currently causing an itch came onto the scene I have not frequented nor participated there as much.

This self proclaimed tyrant insists on reading meaning into things that are not there nor were even thought of until he interprets it as fact ... which has garnered so many complaints I have lost count yet he persists in his claim that it is myself and one other who are generating the complaints.

First, as I am not even there a lot nor do I post attacking or ridiculing posts willy-nilly when I am there so that is not be true.
Second, I have received in excess of 200 e-mails from over 175 individuals (and only two repeat senders) saying exactly the opposite.

His claims as to being fair are a bad joke as he has allowed the wing-nuts and lunatic fringe to rant and rave unabated, attacking a ridiculing everything and everyone with impunity ... something that had been all but stopped by a few members unafraid of the howling monkeys and the previous individual to function are the forum's chief moderator from the early days of the forum when the wing-nuts ran amok and no one wanted to be on the forum and membership was declining ... the same thing is happening again with the allowance of the bile spewing from the lunatic fringe.
Mature posters of all stripes are leaving the forum and all state the two reasons are the renewed wing-nut ranting and the new chief moderator's allowance of such while censoring of any that oppose such.

Things such as this are not allowed on this blog and my readers appreciate that.
Opinions vary and those presented in a mature civil manner are accepted as what they are.
Ranting, spewing bile and hatred will never be tolerated here - that is about the only intolerance you will find here (other subjects and topics may be added as time goes on. For example certain types of porn will most likely be on the taboo list, so you get the idea).

Over 9000 regular readers read this blog, thank you.

There is a new forum linked to the right that is just up and hopefully will be running with people of those varying opinions posting on virtually any subject - the forum is set up as an ultra forum in which all groups and interests can have a say except the haters and the fear mongers.
Check them out.

Sage Wisdom

Don't get so busy fighting alligators that you lose sight of your objective.

Say it ain't so, Teddy!

Sen. Edward Kennedy has cancerous brain tumor

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live.

Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news.

"Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy family have faced adversity more times in more instances with more courage and more determination and more grace than most families have to," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Every one of us knows what a big heart this fellow has. He's helped millions and millions of people - from the biggest of legislation on the floor to the most personal."

Kerry added: "This guy is one unbelievable fighter."

Kennedy's doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said he had a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe, a region of the brain that helps govern sensation, movement and language.

Seizures can be caused by a wide variety of things, some of them relatively minor. The finding of a brain tumor - and specifically a glioma, an especially lethal type - was about the worst possible news.

Kennedy's doctors said he will remain in the hospital for the next couple of days as they consider chemotherapy and radiation. They did not mention surgery, a possible indication the tumor is inoperable.

Outside experts gave him no more than three years - and perhaps far less.

"As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

In a statement, Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of neurology at Massachusetts General, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary physician, said the senator "has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital."

"He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the physicians said.

An Associated Press photographer who was given access to the senator on Tuesday captured Kennedy, dressed in a gray sweater and dark slacks, joking and laughing with family members as he sat at a table in a family room at the hospital.

Kennedy's wife since 1992, Vicki, and his five children and stepchildren have been at his bedside.

"Obviously it's tough news for any son to hear," said Robin Costello, a spokeswoman for one of Kennedy's sons, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. "He's comforted by the fact that his dad is such a fighter, and if anyone can get through something as challenging as this, it would be his father."

Kennedy, the Senate's second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat 145 to 160 days afterward.

Among the potential Democratic candidates: Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general; Rep. Edward J. Markey; former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, Kennedy's nephew; and Kennedy's wife. The Republican contenders could include former Gov. Mitt Romney or former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.

Kennedy has left his stamp on a raft of health care, pension and immigration legislation during four decades in the Senate.

Senators of both parties heard about Kennedy's condition during their weekly, closed-door policy lunches, and some looked drawn or misty-eyed.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving member of the Senate, wept as he prayed for "my dear, dear friend, dear friend, Ted Kennedy" during a speech on the Senate floor.

"Keep Ted here for us and for America," said the 90-year-old Byrd, who is in a wheelchair. He added: "Ted, Ted, Ted. My dear friend. I love you and miss you."

"I'm really sad. He's the one politician who brings tears to my eyes when he speaks," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who happened to be in the Capitol.

In a statement, President Bush saluted Kennedy as "a man of tremendous courage, remarkable strength and powerful spirit." He added: "We join our fellow Americans in praying for his full recovery."

Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year. In general, half of all patients die within a year.

"It's treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it's not a curable tumor," said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The Kennedy family has been struck by tragedy over and over. Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, died in a World War II plane crash; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The tragedies thrust "Uncle Teddy" into the role of surrogate parent to his brothers' children. He walked Caroline Kennedy down the aisle.

A high point in his life came in 1980, when Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. He eventually bowed out with a stirring speech in which he declared, "The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." His eulogy for his brother Robert was equally stirring.

The low point was 1969, when Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha's Vineyard. The accident killed aide Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy at the time was married to his first wife, Joan, whom he later divorced. His failure to promptly report the accident, and questions about his relationship with the young woman, may well have cost him the presidency.

Kennedy has been active for his age, maintaining an aggressive schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Sen. Barack Obama.

"He fights for what he thinks is right. And we want to make sure that he's fighting this illness," Obama said Tuesday. "And it's our job now to support him in the way that he has supported us for so many years."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said: "Ted Kennedy's courage and resolve are unmatched, and they have made him one of the greatest legislators in Senate history. Our thoughts are with him and Vicki and we are praying for a quick and full recovery."

Last summer, Kennedy announced a deal with a publisher to write a memoir, scheduled to come out in 2010.

Court News

Authorities find investigator's body near Charlotte, N.C.

Authorities searching a wooded area on Tuesday found the body of a North Carolina insurance investigator who prosecutors believe was killed by the owner of an agency she was auditing.

Police had been looking for 44-year-old Sallie Rohrbach since she was reported missing Friday. Michael Howell, 40, has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

Charlotte Police and Chrissy Pearson, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Insurance, confirmed the body's identity.

"We are devastated that all hope is lost, but we also find a sense of closure in knowing that we can lay to rest our dear friend and colleague with the dignity and respect she deserves," Pearson said.

Her body was found near Fort Mill, S.C., about 25 miles away from Howell's Dilworth Insurance Agency in Charlotte.

Rohrbach traveled nearly 170 miles from Raleigh last week and planned to spend several days auditing the agency. When family and co-workers didn't hear from her by late last week, they called police.

Authorities said Rohrbach's slaying was connected to her duties as an auditor, and that evidence was found in both her car and Howell's vehicle. They have released little other information, including a suspected cause of death.

Earlier Tuesday, Howell made an initial court appearance, where a judge denied his request for a public defender.

Public defender Susan Weigand appeared with Howell and argued he cannot afford to pay for two attorneys, as he would be entitled as a defendant in a capital murder case.

The request was denied. District Court Judge Bill Constangy - citing Howell's $6,000 monthly income and $7,200 in expenses - ruled he has enough income to pay for his own defense.

Gas Prices

And to think some idiots are still clamoring for four mores year of this!

Angel Oak

Angel Oak

Angel Oak is a Southern live oak tree located in Angel Oak Park, in Charleston, South Carolina, on Johns Island, one of South Carolina's Sea Islands. It is estimated to be over 1500 years old, standing 65 feet tall, 9 feet in diameter, and the crown covers an area of 17,000 square feet. Its longest limb is 89 feet in length.

The Angel Oak is thought to be one of the oldest living things east of the Mississippi River. Acorns from the Angel Oak have grown to produce authentic direct-offspring trees. Its limbs, the size of tree trunks themselves, are so large and heavy that some of them rest on the ground (some even drop underground for a few feet and then come back up), a feature common to only the very oldest live oaks.

It has survived countless hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and human interference. Angel Oak was damaged severely during Hurricane Hugo but has since recovered.

In the spring and summer there are numerous artistic events, including the "Evening Under the Angel Oak" series, which feature music, dramatic presentations, and various other activities, especially during the Spoleto Festival in May/June

Calling'em On Their Nonsense

Man's rare ability may unlock secret of memory

Give Brad Williams a date, and he can usually tell you not only what he was doing but what world events happened that day. He can do this for almost every day of his life.

Williams is one of only three people in the world identified with this off-the-charts autobiographical memory, according to researchers at the University of California-Irvine who gave the condition its name: hyperthymestic syndrome, from the Greek words for excessive (hyper) and remembering (thymesis).

Unlike most people whose memories fade with time, much of Williams' life is etched indelibly in his mind.

"It's just there," said Williams, 51, who reports the news for a family of radio stations in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The California researchers are studying Williams and the two others with hyperthymestic syndrome, a man in Ohio and woman in California, hoping to gain new insights into how a superior memory works.

The goal of the study is to find a way to help people with failing memory.

Williams didn't realize how exceptional his memory was until his brother Eric told him about an article published two years ago in the journal Neurocase, describing a woman referred to by the initials, A.J.

"My brother in California saw this and said, 'She sounds like you. Why don't we talk to the folks at Irvine?'" Williams said.

At Irvine, researchers quizzed Williams, as they have the two other hyperthymestics, about a series of dates, asking for the corresponding event, and vice-versa.

"The speed with which they do this is part of why I find this so amazing because it seems to indicate there's no -- or not much -- intentional calculation going on. It's boom, boom, boom, there's the answer," said Larry Cahill, a fellow at the university's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. "Remember, these are questions they had no idea what we're going to ask them."

Now researchers are using an MRI to create three-dimensional pictures of the hyperthymestic brain. They want to see whether any brain structures differ in size, compared with the average brain.

Cahill and his colleagues are still going over the results but it appears some structures in the prefrontal cortex are substantially larger in hyperthymestics. The prefrontal cortex sits at the front of the brain and has been associated with complex thinking, not learning or memory.

Cahill said he hoped others with this extraordinary ability will come forward.

"I hope that we can identify as many of these people as possible because the more we identify and the more we study the greater the likelihood that we are going to really figure out fundamental new things about brains and memory that we would have never figured out without them," Cahill said.

Flipping through a family photo album with him it was astonishing how much Williams recalled, going back decades.

Asked about one black and white picture taken in the Badlands of South Dakota, he remembered exactly when it was taken: Tuesday, July 28, 1964, the same day as a trip to Mount Rushmore. He also remembered that the temperature reached 100 degrees and that they tried to keep Funny Face drinks cool in a Thermos in the back of the car.

Cahill said Williams and the other hyperthymestics don't do any better than average on standard memory tests, nor are they savants, a condition where one extraordinary mental ability is accompanied by deficits in other areas.

In this age of instant information, what can you do with phenomenal recall?

"I don't really know. I've thought about it for years," said Williams, the 1969 Wisconsin Spelling Bee champion. Williams appeared on "Jeopardy!" but finished second.

For now, Williams said he is content knowing research into his memory might help others. "That would be the ultimate goal."

Even now this is more

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 15 May 2008 at 04:01:25 PM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 303,993,809
so each citizen's share of this debt is $30,834.60. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.59 billion per day since September 28, 2007!
Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!

If

If you can keep your head when all about
you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself
when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you
can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in
lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too
good, nor talk too wise:
,

If you can dream - and not make dreams your
master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can
meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the
same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves
to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to,
broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your
winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and
start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your
loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn
long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in
you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your
virtue,
Or walk with kings
and run with the poorest of the poor,
then you can be as I
and not before.

Baby Boomer Fun

Baby Boomers 1946 - 1964 click here to find out what happened in the world when you were born

Familial Coat of Arms

Life on Mars?

Fingerprints for ID demanded from a woman without arms

News of the Stupid

From the Johannesburg , South Africa, office:

The department of home affairs has failed to put in place a system that will help people with disabilities to get identity documents, the SA Human Rights Commission said.

Spokesman Vincent Moaga said the commission was concerned the department had requested that a woman with no arms could not get an ID unless she was fingerprinted.

Victoria Modise, 37, of Diepkloof Zone, Soweto, who lost her ID last year, applied for a replacement but was told she needed to be fingerprinted.

Moaga said the commission was deeply concerned by this incident.

He said the department should refer to international practice and follow suit.

“Home Affairs should look at international practices and see what system can be put in place to assist people with disabilities to get their IDs.”

Moaga said despite the commission meeting the department of home affairs last year to discuss these issues, not much had been done.

*****

And to think incidents such as these are actually commonplace everywhere. That is scary.

Lightbulb that's burned for 107 years

A lightbulb in a firehouse in Livermore, CA, has been burning continuously since 1901.

In 1901, when the tiny bulb was first screwed into place inside a so-called hose cart house, it cast its light on a simpler era.

Back then, horse-pulled carts carried water to fires. The bulb burned day and night, hanging at eye level from a 20-foot cord. Its job: to break the darkness so firefighters responding to calls wouldn't have to fumble to light the wicks of their kerosene lanterns. Manufactured by the Shelby Electric Co. of Shelby, Ohio, the bulb soon outlived its maker, which closed in 1914.

Later, in the main firehouse, it illuminated more modern rigs as horses were replaced by gas-fed engines.

It didn't always receive kid-glove treatment.

Climbing atop their engines, firefighters returning from World War II and Korea often would give the bulb a playful swat for good luck. The next generation -- the Vietnam veterans and the younger kids -- used it as a target for Nerf basketball practice.

Then, in 1972, a local reporter checked records and interviewed old-timers to trace its history. Firefighters suddenly realized they had a treasure.

"The good-luck slaps and target practice stopped," Bramell recalls. "We figured, 'Wow, maybe we should take care of this bulb.' "

Happy Mother's Day: Woman pregnant with 18th child

It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman - she's pregnant with her 18th child. Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children - whose names start with the letter J - are home-schooled.

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.

The new show looks at life inside the Duggar home, where chores - or "jurisdictions" - are assigned to each child. One episode of the new show involves a "jurisdiction swap," where the boys do chores traditionally assigned to the girls, and vice versa, Duggar said.

"The girls swapped jurisdictions, changing tires, working in the garages, mowing the grass," she said. "The boys got to cook supper from start to finish, clean the bathrooms," among other chores.

Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

"The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."

The other Duggar children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 2.

*****

They know what causes pregnancy now, don't they?

Think Gas is expensive ...

The Price of Gas Versus Printer Ink

All these examples do NOT imply that gasoline is cheap; it just illustrates how outrageous some prices are...

You will be really shocked by the last one! (At least, I was...)

Compared with Gasoline...

Think a gallon of gas is expensive?

This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective.

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29... $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19... $9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59... $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25... $10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15... $33.60 per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35... $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85... $123.20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39... $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99... $84.48 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...

Evian water 9 oz $1.49... $21.19 per gallon! $21.19 for WATER and the buyers don't even know the source.

(Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)

Ever wonder why printers are so cheap?

So they have you hooked for the ink. Someone calculated the cost of the ink at... (you won't believe it... but it is true)… $5,200 a gallon (five thousand two hundred dollars).

So, the next time you're at the pump, be glad your car doesn't run on water, Scope, Whiteout, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or God forbid, Printer Ink!

Just a little humor to help ease the pain of your next trip to the pump...

And - If you don't pass this along to at least one person, your muffler will fall off!!

Okay, your muffler won't really fall off... but, you might run out of toilet paper.

Batman in Vietnamese

Holy 1966! Batman!

Monty Python's "Galaxy Song"

Tornado knocks vehicles around in NC

Authorities began combing through the wreckage Friday caused by a reported tornado that killed one person and injured three others in central North Carolina.

A possible tornado touched down on the outskirts of Greensboro late Thursday as severe storms swept across the Southeast, damaging homes and businesses in at least three other states.

Earlier in the day, an apparent tornado also wrecked a shopping area in Mississippi and strong winds flipped a mobile home in Alabama. In south-central Tennessee, at least four homes and a few barns were damaged.

In North Carolina, a person in a small truck was killed after the vehicle was overturned in a parking lot west of Greensboro, said Alan Perdue, emergency services director for Guilford County. He did not have other details.

The storm also knocked down a wall at a distributing business, sending one person to the hospital, Perdue said. Two other people were hurt while in vehicles, but details were not immediately available, Perdue said. None of the injuries was considered life threatening.

The storm left numerous trees and power lines down, some on top of homes, in its wake. Authorities were also combing through wreckage in a mostly industrial area outside of Greensboro, and getting a better look at the damage as daylight broke.

The North Carolina Highway Patrol said the storm blew several tractor-trailers off Interstate 40 but could not confirm the number.

*****

Yep last night's storm was a doozey!

Classified Ads

Want a good laugh?
Read the Classifieds!

Here are but a few examples of actual Classified Ads found in newspapers and newsletters:


•Free puppies: 1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

•Free puppies...mother, AKC German Shepherd, father, super dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

•Found dirty white dog. Looks like a rat. Been out a while. Better be a big reward.

•Nordic Track: $300, hardly used, call Chubby.

•Joining nudist colony! Must sell washer and dryer, $300.

•Wedding dress for sale, worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie.

•For sale. Three canaries of undermined sex. Great Dames for sale.

•Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

•Tired of cleaning yourself. Let me do it.

•Vacation special: have your home exterminated. Get rid of aunts. Zap does the job in 24 hours.

•Toaster: a gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.

•For rent: six-room hated apartment.

•Man, honest. Will take anything.

•Used cars. Why go elsewhere to be cheated. Come here first.

•Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.

•Wanted: Hair cutter. Excellent growth potential.

•Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

•Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops.

•Wanted: Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family.

•And now, the superstore-unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

•We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.

•Illustrate? Write today for free help.

•Auto repair service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere again.

•Our experienced mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals and smacks included.

•Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.

•Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.

•Stock up and save. Limit: one.

•Semi-annual after Christmas sale.

•Three-year-old teacher needed for preschool. Experience preferred.

•Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.

•Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

•Dinner special — turkey, $2.35; chicken or beef, $2.25; children, $2.

•For sale: antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.

•Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.

•We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

Cell Phones Alter Brain Patterns

New research shows that the electromagnetic signals emanating from mobile phones can alter your brainwaves. Indeed, the latest studies suggest that mobile phone transmissions can even affect behavior. In one study, scientists from the Swinburne University of Technology monitored the brainwaves of folks with Nokia phones, er, strapped to their heads. They noticed that the cell phone transmissions boosted alpha waves. In a separate experiment, researchers from the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre observed that sleep-deprived subjects with phones on their heads showed a dampening of delta waves that are markers of sleep. For hours after the phones were turned off, the test subjects exhibited difficulty falling asleep. From Scientific American:

Although this research shows that cell phone transmissions can affect a person's brainwaves with persistent effects on behavior, (Loughborough University's James) Horne does not feel there is any need for concern that cell phones are damaging. The arousal effects the researchers measured are equivalent to about half a cup of coffee, and many other factors in a person's surroundings will affect a night's sleep as much or more than cell phone transmissions.

"The significance of the research," he explained, is that although the cell phone power is low, "electromagnetic radiation can nevertheless have an effect on mental behavior when transmitting at the proper frequency." He finds this fact especially remarkable when considering that everyone is surrounded by electromagnetic clutter radiating from all kinds of electronic devices in our modern world. Cell phones in talk mode seem to be particularly well-tuned to frequencies that affect brainwave activity. "The results show sensitivity to low-level radiation to a subtle degree. These findings open the door by a crack for more research to follow. One only wonders if with different doses, durations, or other devices, would there be greater effects?"

I knew I didn't like or have one of those annoying things for a reason! What the studies didn't find was the total lack of courtesy and social decorum cell phone users have - much like smokers!

Eddie Arnold Dead At 89

Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography "Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip.

Arnold's vocals on songs like the 1965 "Make the World Go Away," one of his many No. 1 country hits and a top 10 hit on the pop charts, made him one of the most successful country singers in history.

Folksy yet sophisticated, he became a pioneer of "The Nashville Sound," also called "countrypolitan," a mixture of country and pop styles. His crossover success paved the way for later singers such as Kenny Rogers.

"I sing a little country, I sing a little pop and I sing a little folk, and it all goes together," he said in 1970.

He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. The following year he was the first person to receive the entertainer of the year award from the Country Music Association.

The reference book "Top Country Singles 1944-1993,'" by Joel Whitburn, ranked Arnold the No. 1 country singer in terms of overall success on the Billboard country charts. It lists his first No. 1 hit as "What Is Life Without Love," 1947, and for the following year ranks his "Bouquet of Roses" as the biggest country hit of the entire year.

Other hits included "Cattle Call," "The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me," "Anytime," "Bouquet of Roses," "What's He Doing in My World?" "I Want to Go With You," "Somebody Like Me," "Lonely Again" and "Turn the World Around."

Most of his hits were done in association with famed guitarist Chet Atkins, the producer on most of the recording sessions.

The late Dinah Shore once described his voice as like "warm butter and syrup being poured over wonderful buttermilk pancakes."

Reflecting on his career, he said he never copied anyone.

"I really had an idea about how I wanted to sing from the very beginning," he said.

He revitalized his career in the 1960s by adding strings, a controversial move for a country artist back then.

"I got to thinking, if I just took the same kind of songs I'd been singing and added violins to them, I'd have a new sound," he told The Associated Press in 2002. "They cussed me, but the disc jockeys grabbed it. ... The artists began to say, `Aww, he's left us.' Then within a year, they were doing it!"

Among his recent albums were "Looking Back," 2002, and "After All These Years," 2005.

Joe Galante, chairman of Sony BMG Nashville, which includes RCA country artists, said he was talking about making another just a few weeks ago. "There was a special kind of happiness about him whenever he talked about music, and that is how I will remember him," Galante said.

Over the years, he invested wisely, especially in real estate in the Nashville area, and was regarded as one of the wealthiest men in country music. He once had this advice for young singers: "Get a good lawyer, a good accountant and be on time."

Friends said his wife helped handle his business dealings and was the inspiration for many of his love songs.

"What hurts me more than anything else is that he died of a broken heart," said Grand Ole Opry star Jim Ed Brown, a friend. "I don't think he ever recovered from that."

Arnold was born May 15, 1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tenn., the son of a sharecropper. He sang on radio stations in Jackson, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis before becoming nationally known.

Early in his career, his manager was Col. Tom Parker, who later became Elvis Presley's manager.

His image was always that of a modest, clean-cut country boy.

"You cannot satisfy all the people," he once said. "They have an image of me. Some people think I'm Billy Graham's half brother, but I'm not. I want people to get this hero thing off their mind and just let me be me."

Arnold lived in Brentwood, a Nashville suburb. Survivors include a son, Richard Edward Arnold Jr., and daughter, Jo Ann Pollard, both of Brentwood.

Oldest League Bowler Dies At 106

By the time Bill Hargrove was recognized last year as the nation's oldest league bowler, his eyesight had deteriorated so much he could hardly see the pins.

But he kept at it, armed with a mental image of them. He was still bowling last week, just before he was hospitalized and died Monday of congestive heart failure - four days shy of turning 107.

Hargrove died at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, a spokeswoman said Thursday. He lived nearby in Clermont.

He earned national attention in May 2007, after turning 106, when the United States Bowling Congress dubbed him "the oldest league bowler ever."

Hargrove began bowling in 1924. For decades, he played a version known as duckpin bowling. As duckpins faded, Hargrove took up the more popular form of bowling, played with a larger ball. He said it helped him cope with the 1973 death of his wife, Johnnie Ruth Carter Hargrove, and gave him something to look forward to after he retired.

"I love it," Hargrove said when the league honored his longevity. "It puts you on trial as far as your ability. And your ability comes and goes. I'm fighting it all the time."

"Bowling kept him fit, and I'm sure having something like that, something that you really love, keeps you going," said Sandra Hargrove Carnet, 59, Hargrove's only child. "But he never became retired from the world. He stayed out there, interacted with people and the world. He just really enjoyed being part of the community, and that's what ultimately contributed to his longevity."

Toilet Paper Wedding Dress

Behold, the prizewinning toilet-paper wedding dress, conceived of, designed, and modeled by Vicky Heir of Christchurch, NZ.

Expo manager Peta-Marie McLeod said the designers were allowed to use two four-packs of the double length Cottonsofts toilet tissue -- about 16 normal rolls -- to make their dresses.

Some China firms outsourcing to USA to cut costs

Now this is a little bit interesting - don't you think?!

An article in the LA Times this week on businesses from China bargain-hunting on operational costs by outsourcing to the USA:

Liu Keli couldn't tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It's as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans.

But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China.

Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg -- less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn't have to put up with frequent blackouts.

Craftsman's $8600 everything tool kit

This $8600, 1470 piece Craftsman tool set contains more pieces of precision metal than I could possibly use -- but it sure looks purdy all laid out there, doesn't it?

Singing the Beatles

Neo/Theo-Cons Beware

Do you really want to know the answer to that question?

At the club.

Naturist girl having a shower
Uploaded by dmqalias

Naturisme Ad

Pub Journee Du Naturisme
Uploaded by davparis

When a girl loves a boy.

Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

They had married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Returning to their Virginia hometown, they were arrested within weeks and convicted on charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.

The couple avoided a year in jail by agreeing to a sentence mandating that they immediately leave Virginia. They moved to Washington and launched a legal challenge a few years later.

After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they lived with their children Donald, Peggy and Sidney.

Richard Loving died in 1975 in a car accident that also injured his wife.

In a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, Loving said she wasn't trying to change history - she was 'just a girl who once fell in love with a boy.'

Seventeen Year Cicadas

I have lived through several of these, and the article is right. It’s creepy, noisy, crunchy, and strange.

“The 17-year cicadas are coming any day now. And there’s not much anyone should - or could - do about it, except hang on for a wild, eerie ride.”
[…]
“At night, they would be quiet, but when the sun would come up, it was like throwing a switch,” said Chief Eric Tinsley, of the Biltmore Forest Police Department, who was then a town patrolman.

He also remembers the crunching sound of cars running over the dead cicadas left on streets. “It was like popcorn popping,” he said.”
[…]
“It’s a remarkable life cycle. They live many years underground. They have their last hooray, a mating frenzy. They lay their eggs and die very soon.”

The show can be over in a week or two, depending on temperatures, he said.
[…]
“Imagine the sheer biomass. That’s a lot of nutrition being pumped into the ecosystem. The birds will have a field day.”

Just be in the mountains during this time of year and the sound will make you think of every sci-fi film you ever saw ... and then there are the birds ...

Living On The Edge

Elizabeth Warren writing for Havard Magazine had this to say about the state of affairs for working America:

Forum: The Middle Class on the Precipice
Rising financial risks for American families

by Elizabeth Warren

During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure has been transformed by economic risk and new realities. Now a pink slip, a bad diagnosis, or a disappearing spouse can reduce a family from solidly middle class to newly poor in a few months.

Middle-class families have been threatened on every front. Rocked by rising prices for essentials as men’s wages remained flat, both Dad and Mom have entered the workforce—a strategy that has left them working harder just to try to break even. Even with two paychecks, family finances are stretched so tightly that a very small misstep can leave them in crisis. As tough as life has become for married couples, single-parent families face even more financial obstacles in trying to carve out middle-class lives on a single paycheck. And at the same time that families are facing higher costs and increased risks, the old financial rules of credit have been rewritten by powerful corporate interests that see middle-class families as the spoils of political influence.

Raising Incomes the Two-Worker Way

In just one generation, millions of mothers have gone to work, transforming basic family economics. The typical middle-class household in the United States is no longer a one-earner family, with one parent in the workforce and one at home full-time. Instead, the majority of families with small children now have both parents rising at dawn to commute to jobs so they can both pull in paychecks.

Scholars, policymakers, and critics of all stripes have debated the social implications of these changes, but few have looked at their economic impact. Today the median income for a fully employed male is $41,670 per year (all numbers are inflation-adjusted to 2004 dollars)—nearly $800 less than his counterpart of a generation ago. The only real increase in wages for a family has come from the second paycheck earned by a working mother. With both adults in the workforce full-time, the family’s combined income is $73,770—a whopping 75 percent higher than the median household income in the early 1970s. But the gain in income has an overlooked side effect: family risk has risen as well. Today’s families have budgeted to the limits of their new two-paycheck status. As a result, they have lost the parachute they once had in times of financial setback—a back-up earner (usually Mom) who could go into the workforce if the primary earner got laid off or fell sick. This “added-worker effect” could buttress the safety net offered by unemployment insurance or disability insurance to help families weather bad times. But today, a disruption to family fortunes can no longer be made up with extra income from an otherwise-stay-at-home partner.

Income risk has shifted in other ways as well. Incomes are less dependable today. Layoffs, outsourcing, and other workplace changes have trebled the odds of a significant interruption in a single generation. The shift from one income to two doubled the risks again, as both Mom and Dad face the possibility of unemployment. Of course, with two people in the workforce, the odds of income dropping to zero are lessened. But for families where every penny of both paychecks is already fully committed to mortgage, health insurance, and other payments, the loss of either paycheck can unleash a financial tailspin. Nor are such risks solely related to unemployment. Consider health-related exposures. Two wage-earners means either Mom or Dad could be out of work from illness or injury, losing a substantial chunk of the family income. Finally, the new everyone-in-the-workforce family faces higher risks for caregiving. When there was one stay-at-home parent, a child’s serious illness or Grandma’s fall down the stairs was certainly bad news, but the main economic ramification was the medical bills. Today, someone has to take off work—or hire help—in order to provide family care. At a time when hospitals are sending people home “quicker and sicker,” more nursing care falls directly on the family—and someone has to be home to administer it.

Even the economic risks of divorce have changed. A generation ago, the end of a marriage was an economic blow, but a nonworking spouse usually took a job, bringing in new income to stay afloat. Now, whatever the two-income divorcing couple earns has to cover both their old and new expenses. Evidence mounts that post-divorce, both women and men are struggling to make ends meet as they try to support two households on the same combined income. A divorced woman with children, for example, is about three times more likely to file for bankruptcy than a man or woman, single or married, without children. And men who owe child support are about three times more likely to file for bankruptcy than men who don’t.

The news is even worse for single parents. They face all the difficulties of dual-income families—all income is budgeted, there is no one at home to work if the primary earner loses a job or gets sick, and no one to take over if a child gets sick or an elderly parent needs help—and they are trying to make it on a lot less money, competing with two-income families for housing, daycare, health insurance, and all the other goods and services. As one divorced, working mother put it, “With what my ex contributes and what I earn, I can just about match what a man can make, but I can’t match what a man and woman both working can make.” The two-parent families are struggling to swallow the risk, but their single-parent counterparts are choking.

Does this mean that middle-class women should return to the home in order to reduce their families’ risk? Before jumping to that conclusion, it is important to look at the expenses middle-class families face.

Soaring Expenses— and Risk

Why are so many moms in the workforce? Surely, some are lured by a great job, but millions more need a paycheck, plain and simple.

It would be convenient to blame the families and say that it is their lust for stuff that has gotten them into this mess. Indeed, sociologist Robert Frank claims that this country’s newfound “Luxury Fever” forces middle-class families “to finance their consumption increases largely by reduced savings and increased debt.” Others echo the theme. A book titled Affluenza (by John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor) sums it up: “The dogged pursuit for more” accounts for Americans’ “overload, debt, anxiety, and waste.” If Americans are out of money, it must be because they are over-consuming—buying junk they don’t really need.

Blaming the family supposes that we believe that families spend their money on things they don’t really need. Over-consumption is not about medical care or basic housing; it is, in the words of Juliet Schor, about “designer clothes, a microwave, restaurant meals, home and automobile air conditioning, and, of course, Michael Jordan’s ubiquitous athletic shoes, about which children and adults both display near-obsession.” And it isn’t about buying a few goodies with extra income; it is about going deep into debt to finance consumer purchases that sensible people could do without.

But is this argument true? If families really are blowing their paychecks on designer clothes and restaurant meals, then the household expenditure data should show them spending more on these frivolous items than ever before. But the numbers don’t back up the claim.

A quick summary of the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey paints a very different picture of family spending. Consider what a family of four spends on clothing. Designer toddler outfits and $200 sneakers are favorite media targets, but when it is all added up, including the Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses, the average family of four today spends 33 percent less on clothing than a similar family did in the early 1970s. Overseas manufacturing and discount shopping mean that today’s family is spending almost $1,200 a year less than their parents spent to dress themselves.

What about food? Surely, families are eating out more and buying shopping carts full of designer water and exotic fruit? In fact, today’s family of four actually spends 23 percent less on food (at-home and restaurant eating combined) than its counterpart of a generation ago. The slimmed-down profit margins in discount supermarkets have combined with new efficiencies in farming to cut more costs for the American family.

Appliances tell the same picture. There is a lot of complaining about microwave ovens and espresso machines: Affluenza rails against appliances “that were deemed luxuries as recently as 1970, but are now found in well over half of U.S. homes, and thought of by a majority of Americans as necessities: dishwashers, clothes dryers, central heating and air conditioning, color and cable TV.” But manufacturing costs are down, and durability is up. Today’s families are spending 51 percent less on major appliances than their predecessors a generation ago.

This is not to say that middle-class families never fritter away money. A generation ago, big-screen televisions were a novelty reserved for the very rich, no one had cable, and DVD and TiVo were meaningless strings of letters. So how much more do families spend on “home entertainment,” premium channels included? They spend 23 percent more—a whopping extra $180 annually. Computers add another $300 to the annual family budget. But even that increase looks a little different in the context of other spending. The extra money spent on cable, electronics, and computers is more than offset by families’ savings on major appliances and household furnishings alone.

The same offsetting phenomena appear in other areas as well. The average family spends more on airline travel than it did a generation ago, but less on dry cleaning; more on telephone services, but less on tobacco; more on pets, but less on carpets. When we add it all up, increases in one category are offset by decreases in another.

So where did their money go? It went to the basics. The real increases in family spending are for the items that make a family middle class and keep them safe (housing, health insurance), that educate their children (pre-school and college), and that let them earn a living (transportation, childcare, and taxes).

The data can be summarized in a financial snapshot of two families, a typical one-earner family from the early 1970s compared with a typical two-earner family from the early 2000s. With an income of $42,450, the average family from the early 1970s covered their basic mortgage expenses of $5,820, health-insurance costs of $1,130 and car payments, maintenance, gas, and repairs of $5,640. Taxes claimed about 24 percent of their income, leaving them with $19,560 in discretionary funds. That means they had about $1,500 a month to cover food, clothing, utilities, and anything else they might need—just about half of their income.

By 2004, the family budget looks very different. As noted earlier, although a man is making nearly $800 less than his counterpart a generation ago, his wife’s paycheck brings the family to a combined income that is $73,770—a 75 percent increase. But higher expenses have more than eroded that apparent financial advantage. Their annual mortgage payments are more than $10,500. If they have a child in elementary school who goes to daycare after school and in the summers, the family will spend $5,660. If their second child is a pre-schooler, the cost is even higher—$6,920 a year. With both people in the workforce, the family spends more than $8,000 a year on its two vehicles. Health insurance costs the family $1,970, and taxes now take 30 percent of its money. The bottom line: today’s median-earning, median-spending middle-class family sends two people into the workforce, but at the end of the day they have about $1,500 less for discretionary spending than their one-income counterparts of a generation ago.

What happens to the family that tries to get by on a single income today? Their expenses would be a little lower because they can save on childcare and taxes, and, if they are lucky enough to live close to shopping and other services, perhaps they can get by without a second car. But if they tried to live a normal, middle-class life in other ways—buy an average home, send their younger child to preschool, purchase health insurance, and so forth—they would be left with only $5,500 a year to cover all their other expenses. They would have to find a way to buy food, clothing, utilities, life insurance, furniture, appliances, and so on with less than $500 a month. The modern single-earner family trying to keep up an average lifestyle faces a 72 percent drop in discretionary income compared with its one-income counterpart of a generation ago.

Combine changes in family income and expenses, and the biggest change of all becomes evident—on the risk front. In the early 1970s, if any calamity came along, the family devoted nearly half its income to discretionary spending. Of course, people need to eat and turn on the lights, but the other expenses—clothing, furniture, appliances, restaurant meals, vacations, entertainment, and pretty much everything else—can be drastically reduced or even cut out entirely. In other words, they didn’t need as much money if something went wrong. If the couple could find a way—through unemployment insurance, savings, or putting their stay-at-home parent to work—they could cover the basics on just half of their previous earnings. Given the option of a second paycheck, both could stay in the workforce for a few months once the crisis had passed, pulling the family out of their financial hole.

But the position today is very different. Fully 75 percent of family income is earmarked for recurrent monthly expenses. Even if they are able to trim around the edges, families are faced with a sobering truth: every one of those expensive items—mortgage, car payments, insurance, childcare—is a fixed cost. Families must pay them each and every month, through good times and bad; there is no way to cut back from one month to the next, as can be done with spending on clothing or food. Short of moving out of the house, withdrawing their children from preschool, or canceling the insurance policy altogether, they are stuck.

In other words, today’s family has no margin for error. There is no leeway to cut back if one earner’s hours are cut or if the other gets sick. There is no room in the budget if someone needs to take off work to care for a sick child or an elderly parent. Their basic situation is far riskier than that of their parents a generation earlier. The modern American family is walking a high wire without a net.

The Rules Have Changed

The one-two punch of income vulnerability and rising costs has weakened the middle class, at the same time that the revision of the rules of financing delivers a death blow to millions of families each year. Since the early 1980s, the credit industry has rewritten the rules of lending to families. Congress has turned the industry loose to charge whatever it can get and to bury tricks and traps throughout credit agreements. Credit-card contracts that were less than a page long in the early 1980s now number 30 or more pages of small-print legalese. In the details, credit-card companies lend money at one rate, but retain the right to change the interest rate whenever it suits them. They can even raise the rate after the money has been borrowed—a practice once considered too shady even for a back-alley loan shark. When they think they have been cheated, customers can be forced into arbitration in locations thousands of miles from home. Some companies claim that they can repossess anything a customer buys with a credit card.

Credit-card issuers are not alone in their boldness. Home-mortgage lenders are writing mortgages that are so one-sided that some of their products are known as “loan-to-own” because it is the mortgage company—not the buyer—who will end up with the house. Payday lenders are ringing military bases and setting up shop in working-class neighborhoods, offering instant cash that can eventually cost the customer more than a thousand percent interest.

For those who can stay out of debt, the rules of lending may not matter. But the economic pressures on the middle class are causing more families to turn to credit just to make ends meet. When something goes wrong the only place to turn is credit cards and mortgage refinancing. At that moment, the change in lending rules matters very much indeed. The family that might manage $2,000 of debt at 9 percent discovers that it cannot stay afloat when interest rates skyrocket to 29 percent. And the family that refinanced the home mortgage to pay off other debts suddenly faces escalating monthly payments and may find itself staring at foreclosure. Job losses or medical debts can put any family in a hole, but a credit industry that has rewritten the rules can keep that family from ever climbing back.

A Politics of Living on the Edge?

Every day, middle-class families carry higher risks that a job loss or a medical problem will push them over the edge. Although plenty of families make it, a growing number who worked just as hard and followed the rules just as carefully find themselves in a financial nightmare. The security of middle-class life has disappeared. The new reality is millions of families whose grip on the good life can be shaken loose in an instant.

Although my own work, on bankruptcy and credit, has focused on the specifics of families’ household finances, I cannot help but think that their changed circumstances during the past generation have larger echoes for public policy.

During the same period, families have been asked to absorb much more risk in their retirement income. In 1985, there were 112,200 defined-benefit pension plans with employers and employer groups around the country; today their number has shrunk to 29,700 such plans, and those are melting away fast. Steelworkers, airline employees, and now those in the auto industry are joining millions of families who must worry about interest rates, stock market volatility, and the harsh reality that they may outlive their retirement money. For much of the past year, President Bush campaigned to move Social Security to a savings-account model, with retirees trading much or all of their guaranteed payments for payments contingent on investment returns. For younger families, the picture is not any better. Both the absolute cost of healthcare and the share of it borne by families have risen—and newly fashionable health-savings plans are spreading from legislative halls to Wal-Mart workers, with much higher deductibles and a large new dose of investment risk for families’ future healthcare. Even demographics are working against the middle class family, as the odds of having a frail elderly parent—and all the attendant need for physical and financial assistance—have jumped eightfold in just one generation.

From the middle-class family perspective, much of this, understandably, looks far less like an opportunity to exercise more financial responsibility, and a good deal more like a frightening acceleration of the wholesale shift of financial risk onto their already overburdened shoulders. The financial fallout has begun, and the political fallout may not be far behind.

Greedy Salmon Kills

Because of the greedy demand for salmon some are being murdered:

Sea lions shot dead on Columbia River as salmon battle rages

For years, the sea lions lounging at the Bonneville Dam have had easy pickings from salmon waiting to go up fish ladders to upriver spawning grounds.

Over the weekend, the federally protected sea creatures were themselves easy prey for a gunman who shot and killed six of the sea lions as they lay in traps meant to humanely catch them.

State and federal authorities were investigating the shootings, which came less than two weeks after an appeals court issued a temporary injunction against authorities killing the salmon-gobbling mammals. Agents have been trapping them instead, but trapping will be suspended during the investigation, said Rick Hargrave, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Fishermen and American Indian tribes have pushed to protect the salmon and remove the sea lions, by lethal force if necessary.

The carcasses of the four California sea lions and two Steller sea lions were found Sunday around noon below the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River on the border of Oregon and Washington.

The six animals appear to have been shot by somebody on the Washington side during the night, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Two open cages each contained the carcasses of two California sea lions and one Steller sea lion, he said.

Necropsies were planned for all the animals, and the area was being treated as a crime scene by state and federal agencies, Gorman said.

The discovery came one day after three elephant seals were found shot to death at a breeding ground near San Simeon in central California. Investigators will try to determine whether there is any link between the shootings, Gorman said.

Seven California sea lions were trapped on the Columbia starting April 24 after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved their capture. One died during a medical inspection before transfer to a Sea World park.

Washington and Oregon have been granted federal authorization to capture or kill as many as 85 sea lions a year for five years at the base of the dam.

The Humane Society of the United States has gone to court to challenge the authorization, with another hearing set for May 8. Until a judge rules, no animals may be legally killed.

"We're really shocked," said Sharon Young, a Humane Society spokeswoman, who learned about the sea lion deaths from a reporter. "We're a nation of laws, and we should expect people to abide by them."

The fight is on at Gettysburg

Now this is a shame ... losing a historical display at a historical site:

Gettysburg park pulls plug on huge electric War Between the States map

For decades, visitors willing to shell out a few extra dollars at Gettysburg National Military Park could be entertained - or bored - by an electric light display showing troop movements in that pivotal of the War Between the States battle.

With the opening of a new museum and visitor center that offers a bigger "wow" factor for the park's nearly 2 million visitors each year, the National Park Service has decided that its 1960s-era electric battlefield map is obsolete.

As patrons of the new $103 million facility learn about the battle by immersing themselves in new technology, the old center stands vacant, awaiting demolition next year. Before that happens, the 30-by-30-foot electric map - embedded with more than 625 colored lights - will be dismantled and placed in storage.

At least a few people who believe the map still has educational value are urging the park service to find a way to keep the lights on.

One regular park visitor has created a Web site devoted to the cause of preserving it, http://www.savetheelectricmap.com. Jon DeKeles, 51, of Post Falls, Idaho, said he only learned of the map's pending demise during a visit in late March, and he started the site when he returned home.

"Does everything have to be multimedia, high-tech in this world?" DeKeles said.

Emily Rosensteel O'Neil, the daughter of map creator Joseph L. Rosensteel, would also like to see the map get a new home.

"The electric map is an artifact in and of itself," said O'Neil, 67, a retired teacher who lives in Guilford, Conn. "It was my father's masterpiece."

But from the earliest planning stages for the new museum, park officials had envisioned using new technology to give visitors a more vivid picture of how the battle unfolded, said park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon.

The new building, which opened April 14, features two film theaters that can also accommodate live performances and lectures, video and audio presentations scattered throughout the museum, and some computerized interactive exhibits.

The park service has not ruled out resurrecting the map in the future and is willing to turn it over to any nonprofit group that would use it for educational purposes, Lawhon said.

"We haven't had any really serious interest," she said, "but we have gotten a couple nibbles."

One Reason Not to Vote McPain

McPain finished 894th out of the 899 in his West Point class?
So, which is he -- lazy or stupid?

Just the Facts, M'am

Did you know that ALL recessions since 1900, have taken place under republican presidents or directly the result of policies of republican presidents, save one?

True fact.

The single exception occurred at the conclusion of World War II during the Truman administration and it was one predictable consequence of ending a war.

It was also the shortest, as well as the shallowest.

Contrast that with the fact that we are now enduring our SECOND recession due to the shrub thugs.

As BartCop is fond of saying ...

“It’s the Republicans’ job to crash
the economy so the super-rich can swoop in and buy companies and assets for pennies on the dollar.”

Now, this is a bit on the simplistic side, but in essence, it’s EXACTLY what they do!

And another one:

“Never trust a Republican. It’s their job to crash the economy so their billionaire friends can buy once-healthy companies for pennies on the dollar, fire the employees and sell the assets for profit.”

Hunt for the "Kill" switch in microchips

The Department of Defense is freaked out that the commercially-manufactured microchips in their tech might contain "kill switches" that bad people could use to remotely knock the devices out of operation. So at the end of last year, DARPA launched its Trust In Integrated Circuits program to develop methods for sussing out chips with "malicious" circuitry hidden inside. IEEE Spectrum writer Sally Adee looked at the technicalities of the controversy. She told me, "I think interviewed every electrical engineer in the country so I could wrap my head around 1) why that's a big deal and 2) how it would affect me (I'm selfish that way.) From IEEE Spectrum:

Feeding those (fever) dreams is the Pentagon's realization that it no longer controls who manufactures the components that go into its increasingly complex systems. A single plane like the DOD's next generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, can contain an “insane number” of chips, says one semiconductor expert familiar with that aircraft's design. Estimates from other sources put the total at several hundred to more than a thousand. And tracing a part back to its source is not always straightforward. The dwindling of domestic chip and electronics manufacturing in the United States, combined with the phenomenal growth of suppliers in countries like China, has only deepened the U.S. military's concern.

Recognizing this enormous vulnerability, the DOD recently launched its most ambitious program yet to verify the integrity of the electronics that will underpin future additions to its arsenal. In December, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's R&D wing, released details about a three-year initiative it calls the Trust in Integrated Circuits program. The findings from the program could give the military—and defense contractors who make sensitive microelectronics like the weapons systems for the F‑35—a guaranteed method of determining whether their chips have been compromised. In January, the Trust program started its prequalifying rounds by sending to three contractors four identical versions of a chip that contained unspecified malicious circuitry. The teams have until the end of this month to ferret out as many of the devious insertions as they can.

Vetting a chip with a hidden agenda can't be all that tough, right? Wrong. Although commercial chip makers routinely and exhaustively test chips with hundreds of millions of logic gates, they can't afford to inspect everything. So instead they focus on how well the chip performs specific functions. For a microprocessor destined for use in a cellphone, for instance, the chip maker will check to see whether all the phone's various functions work. Any extraneous circuitry that doesn't interfere with the chip's normal functions won't show up in these tests.

“You don't check for the infinite possible things that are not specified,” says electrical engineering professor Ruby Lee, a cryptography expert at Princeton. “You could check the obvious possibilities, but can you test for every unspecified function?”

*****

Can you say Paranoia?

Ok, there can be legitimate concerns here, but come on - the solution is obvious ... manufacture your own microchips, DUH!

Wind in Your Face

Residential wind power is the too often forgotten little brother of the wind power industry that builds turbines on the scale of jumbo jets. But it's starting to grow up and come out of the shadow of its bigger sibling. "improved generator technology [lighter magnets in the generators, blades that adjust to wind conditions, and units that wirelessly report how much power they're making], more financial incentives, rising electric rates, and energy-security concerns have opened the way for small-wind power to bloom in unlikely places."

That's right, they aren't just for the farm anymore. You should see more and more small wind turbines in suburbs and urban settings as time goes on. Of course, we're still talking small potatoes compared to big wind power, on the order of only 3 megawatts in 2007 according to the American Wind En ergy Association (AWEA), but that's triple the generating capacity of 2006. A few more years of tripling and doubling, and the power of exponential growth will be felt.

*****

This wind thing could be very interesting, very interesting. I will keep a watch on this and see where it goes.

U.S. Consumers: "Get the cheap stuff"

So much for healthier eating ...

Lambert, Getty Images

I had a faint hope that the rise in food prices might lead people to buy more carefully, perhaps cook more from scratch instead of buying prepared food, or even cut back on meat and eat more vegetables. No such luck; according to the IHT, Americans are just buying more crap, because the cheap calories come from the most processed, corn-based foods. My favourite quote:

"In Ohio, Holly Levitsky is replacing the Lucky Charms cereal in her kitchen with Millville Marshmallows and Stars, a less expensive store brand." Pizza sales at Domino's are down, while Wal-Mart says that sales of peanut butter and spaghetti are up. On the other hand, so are the sales of packaged food.

Donna Dunaway, a homemaker, used to splurge on the ingredients for homemade lasagna, her husband's favorite, before food prices began to surge this year."Now he's lucky to get a 99-cent lasagna TV dinner, or maybe some Manwich out of a can," she said. "I just can't afford to be buying all that good meat and cheese like I used to."

So much for hoping ...