How he ever ended up on Fox News, is beyond me. His program should be picked up by MTV or other cable entertainment network to compete with Bill Mahr or The Daily Show. This guy is funny! He doesn't belong lumped in with the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly.

Child's Pole Dancing Toy a Fake!

We (the taxpayers) just made $4 Billion profit on the bailout loans to the banks last fall. I tend to be more loan sharky, and would have liked to have seen a better ROI, but I'll take it. That'll cover cash for clunkers for a while longer, methinks!

Article link.

When going to a political rally, carrying a gun isn't necessarily a good thing. Is it a threat? Is that individual afraid that he himself will be harmed? Is he somehow, without saying so overtly, calling for a coup or revolution? Reguardless of his reasons for bearing arms in a town square surrounded by other concerned Americans, the statement is not a positive one.

Ultimately, what will happen is someone will get hurt. Most likely it won't be intentional, but the injured person will probably be an innocent bystander, maybe even a child. Then guess what happens next? Gun rights will be removed to protect the innocent from "well intentioned" Americans exercising their constitutional rights.

Even if no one gets hurt, the possibilities increase the more people come into a public political rally, and some crazy person will take the opportunity to make his/her own political statement, but this person will use violence and kill innocents.

It is up to the real Americans that honestly value the 2nd amendment, to call out those that are abusing their constitutional rights. Because in the end, we will all lose, and maybe even a repeal of the 2nd amendment could be on the table if our citizens keep abusing it.



Political rallies shouldn't look like this:

Read time: About 5 minutes



It does have everything to do with money and power. There are so many interwoven threads in this broad cloth of Health Care, that trying to unravel it is quite the daunting task. I do not envy the lawmakers working on this issue, as it is really a tough situation. Solving world hunger might be an easier task.

But ultimately, the bottom line is the bottom line. There is a huge amount of money at stake here, and I'm not talking about just from private insurance companies, either. Big pharma has a rather large piece of the pie as well, but that is just the surface. This onion like problem goes down many, many layers.

The next layer is big corporations. Large companies like being at the top of their industry, and don't want that to change. Should health care coverage become more affordable, the threat of small businesses innovating an industry (like maybe the auto industry??) by being able to attract more talent away from the large corporations, puts business on a more level playing field. Right now, the big companies have a lock on not just the retail sector but they also monopolize the talent pool because they can offer the benefits of health care coverage that small start ups cannot. SO if you are a brilliant engineer with a family to support, are you going to take a chance with a start-up that has potential but cannot afford to offer health care benefits to it's people? Most people would opt to care for their family even if their current employment situation is less than satisfying.

Mandatory health care coverage will pit a variety of industries against one another. Suddenly insurance companies will be working against industries like tobacco and fast food. It would be a clash of the titans as the big corporations start lobbying government. This will cost a lot of money, and may even make it impossible for an industry to have any sway at all over a politician if they have to contend with legislation that effects the bottom line. Actually, it might be kind of fun watching big arga fighting with health care insurance companies over food safety regulations.

Then there is the tax fight. The middle class cannot take on any more of the tax burden, the poor don't have anything that can be taxed and our way of living today is unsustainable without an increase in taxes (I think there are a lot places tax money is wasted, as do most Americans). So guess who is going to have to pick up the tab for the old, the sick and the poor? It will have to come from the rich, because that is the only place it can come from. The tax cuts during a time of war not only was counter intuitive, but has practically bankrupted our nation. The money is going to have to come from somewhere, and there is really only one place left to get it, from the top 1% of income earners in the United States. And those are the folks that have benefited the most from the tax cuts and from the wars. Sorry, Wealthy People, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Time to pay the bills!

There are other conventions that are being challenged in this health care reform. For instance, the way a person becomes a doctor will have to change, simply because we need more doctors for our aging population. Traditionally, teaching institutions have limited the number of students not because applicants did not have the scores to get in, but to limit the supply of doctors in our country. Then there is the practice of internships that are grueling on the newly minted physician. The 20 hour work days for slave wages for two years is a tradition in American medicine. If you are a parent, this just isn't a reasonable work environment. Even if you aren't a parent, but actually want some balance in your life after you get done completing 8 years of higher education, a 2 year internship that is comparable to being on a battle field as far as levels of stress goes, good luck in that endeavor. You may have to do your internship overseas.

Ultimately, health care reform is going to turn many of our nation's conventions upside down. There is a ton at stake, and politicians are scared shitless about how their financial supporters will fare once the bill is passed. Chances are the bill we get will have everyone wondering what actually got done because things will appear to not have changed at all.

The only place where the people still have a voice is in the US Courts system. That is also the only place that any real change or reform has taken place since my birth. Hopefully the lawmakers leave room in this health care reform bill for challenges in the courts, and maybe my grand children might have a chance at seeing real health care reform.

Update** Well, that's it. End of life care is out of the bill for now. Hospice care for medicare recipients and being a required coverage item for private insurance customers is gone because enough people yelled and screamed that they didn't want it. which is too bad, because it seemed like one of the more humane things that we as a society could do for our terminally ill citizens.




No I'm not talking about abortion services, I'm talking about killing already born babies up to 2 years of age. That's right, this is the line I got from my mother yesterday, that there is a provision in the Health Care Bill that will allow mothers to "abort up to 2 years post birth".

WTF?!


So somehow we've gone from the idea of lines at the hospital to wait for care being an inconvenience of health care reform, to somehow now we are going to kill babies and the elderly?

My only response to people is to please stop reading the old testament as if it is the daily newspaper! In the United States we do not have a king or Caesar that can order the execution of all male children under the age of 3 or somehow has the power to kill all the aged and useless slaves.

Why are the crazy people even getting any press? Why are they allowed to make a spectacle of themselves in serious news reporting agencies? We might as well allow the those that are for space alien integration have a voice in the debate, too. It appears they had some influence on the last administration, anyway!

Read time: Approx 5 minutes

Blog Me Baby!

Maybe I'm a dinosaur living the age of the automobile, but I had no idea that blogging was an industry in and of itself. Blogging. That thing that people do for a variety of reasons, but primarily as a hobby.

So is "blogger" a legit career description if you aren't Arianna Huffington or part of Salon? How much money does one have to earn blogging to be considered a "pro"?

I sat down and watched a 45 minute video presentation by the author and blogger Tim Ferris. The video was called "How to blog without killing yourself". It was dry as toast and talked about key words, monetization, click patterns, using good copy, and SEO. I watched the video through 3 times, then sat down with a notebook and watched again, using the rewind function to make notes on points I found important and relevant. The information was jammed packed into this 45 minute presentation, so I would watch a minute or two, pause the presentation, make some notes then watch some more. It took me 3 1/2 hours to get through the whole thing while making notes.

Why am I sharing this? Because I enjoy blogging. I like learning skills to become a better blogger. But I really had no idea that blogging was so huge in our society. I found this site for all things blogging: http://www.blogworldexpo.com/

So, bloggers of the world, converge on Las Vegas in October and learn how to be an even better blogger than you are! Learn from the masters, network with other bloggers, go to seminars to learn from blogging experts. All for the low, low price of $600 (if you buy tickets early).

The thing I find the most fascinating is that if one doesn't have the skills or the cash to have his/her own independent blog built, then that blogger is at the mercy of the blogging site that houses his/her blog. I am currently experiencing the frustration of "do-it-yourself" blog development. I've got the content. I've got the tools (CS4). I just don't have the skills to put this bitch together in a timely or attractive fashion. I suppose I could hire a nice kid from New Delhi to do the work for me, but there is a part of me that is nervous about handing over the keys of my car to a driver that I've hired to take me to the places I need to go.

I'm coming along with MySQL and PHP, but the learning curve is fairly steep. I've enrolled in an online class that begins Aug 15 to teach me the basics. So now I'm bumping up against $300 in costs so far for a blog that doesn't yet exist anywhere but in my imagination. I suppose plunking down another couple hundred to bring it to life wouldn't be out of the question. I'll take a wait and see approach for a couple more weeks to see what I am capable of on my own, then I'll begin my search for people who actually know what they are doing in this new realm of computer alchemy.

Govt to suspend 'cash for clunkers'

Appearently, all Americans needed to get their gas guzzling cars off the road was a little incentive from Uncle Sam. This program has worked so well to get fuel sucking, pollution spewing old vehicles traded in, that the money allocated to the program in the stimulus package was only enough for a week's worth of vehicle sales.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.

Now that's some stimulus, right there! The program only took effect on July 24th, so in less than a week American's mobilized to get some cash flowing through the economy thanks to this little $1billion program.

But, alas, the early bird gets the worm, and the program is almost out of money. The count of vehicles sold over the weekend still isn't totally in, and the $1billion is likely all gone.

I'm opposed to cap and trade due to the potential for abuse not unlike what happened in the subprime mortgage derivatives meltdown. But we need to do something and just crossing our fingers hoping that something will change without any prompting is about as effective as wishing on a star.

Read time: about 12 minutes

Living better than everyone else.

     I had a friend ask me yesterday how I manage to have the discretionary income that I do considering my financial situation. I don’t make a lot of money. I used to have a nice income when I was an exotic dancer, but today my husband and I together earn just about what is considered “median” wages for our region. I kind of shrugged and thought to myself that I don’t have a kid and paid off my credit cards before I quit dancing, but I thought for a second that there might actually be something more to this question. I decided to give the question more thought and began to come up with some ideas that might be the reason why my income goes further than an equal income of my peers—some of which are living in far more affordable regions than my own and are earning more per year than my husband and I.


     Working as a stripper taught me some financial habits that I may not have otherwise picked up. I had no verifiable source of income, no employer to confirm income, and when I began dancing I had just gone through a brutal divorce and bankruptcy that left me credit unworthy in a major way.  This leaves a person little choice but to create a savings habit if she ever expects to be able to purchase a big ticket item like a car, vacation, kitchen appliances or even rent a decent apartment. I also had enough money to avoid the traps that get most people in a non-existent credit situation, such as payday loans, furniture rental stores, check cashing fees, money order fees, and exorbitant car loan rates that suck the life out of many a working family.


     So I was in a bit of a unique situation in that I had a high income, no proof of that income and totally trashed credit. I equate my financial situation to that of an obese couch potato suddenly finding herself living in a vegan-fitness commune and cut off from the outside world. How long do you think she’ll remain obese? Just like that woman living a new vegan lifestyle, I learned how to adjust my spending lifestyle to accommodate my new circumstances. Just about everyone I worked with was in the same exact situation I was in. But some of the strippers I worked with continued to use the Rent-A-Center for household goods and bought cars from the title loan companies anyway. I once remember going with a co-worker of mine to one of those title loan car lots because she wanted a car. As the salesman talked her into buying a.) a car they didn’t even have on their lot or anywhere else, and b.) paying 29% interest on a car loan without even getting a car until the loan was 50% paid off.


     If your reaction just now was WTF? You understand how I felt about the transaction, too. I was livid. I asked the salesman how he was able to sleep at night knowing that his company was likely causing children to starve or go without clothing or health care? He shrugged and said, “No one is holding a gun to your head.”

     My friend and I left and went next door to a bank and opened a savings account instead. She put her $400 that she had for her down payment into the bank. In a matter of 2 months she was able to buy a decent used car for $5000. Yes, she had to take cabs, ride the bus or share rides with friends for 2 months, but that small inconvenience saved her thousands of dollars and probably a nightmare of a situation with that scandalous car dealer.


     However, my friends, don’t pat yourselves on the back so quickly for not getting stuck in that kind of situation, because chances are that you are in that boat right now but in more subtle ways. Do you pay for a gym membership you never use? How high are your bounced check fees every month? Are you carrying balances on your charge cards? What else are you paying for that you are getting zero benefit from?


     I went through my finances a couple years ago to see if there was anymore fat I could painlessly trim from my financial diet. I started to notice some redundant charges. By redundant I mean paying for a land line I no longer used just in case I might want to send a fax to someone. Landline: $60 a month. Fax at FedEx-Kinkos: $2. Was it the convenience factor of being able to do it all at home? That wasn’t even it because I could email a scan of whatever it was I wanted faxed and then pay with my debit card, all without leaving home. It was a little like getting a raise at work, I now had an additional $720 to work with a year. This got me excited and I started looking into other places that I could trim. Here’s what I found:


     So what am I able to save per month without feeling even a teeny-tiny bit deprived? $341.95 This had me very excited. We were beginning to come into recession and my husband was watching those in similar trades start to fail. We trimmed the fat out of his business in a similar fashion. This trimming has literally saved our asses in this downturn. In our household savings alone we can count on an additional $4,103 a year of discretionary income.


     I also have some other unique lifestyle habits that create more affordable living circumstances, but I know most people aren’t able or willing to live like a monk. I’ll thow them out there anyway, just in case you want to incorporate some of these ideas into your own household:


•    Buy fresh, whole food. Pre-cut lettuce, pre-packaged cereal, and convenience foods will cost your budget dearly. Also skip bottled beverages like juice and soft drinks. They are nutritionally devoid of value, make people fat, create land fill waste and cost a ton of money! Personally, I LOVE Kool-Aid and those frozen concentrate juices. Saves money and calories.

•    Set up your bill-pay function through your bank. This is a free service offered by most banks. If your bank either doesn’t offer this service or charges for this service, consider switching banks. This will save you not just time and postage, but it could prevent a bill from slipping your mind and costing you huge late fees and penalties.

•    Don’t go shopping for entertainment. You may think you’ll never impulse buy, but inevitably I always walk out of the mall with something, even if it is just a giant soft pretzel or iced latte. Instead go for a walk in a park or on a college campus. Is the weather foul? Consider going to a bowling alley or pool hall. You’ll still spend money, but you won’t leave feeling poor and unfulfilled. Museums are good rainy day spots, too.

•    Cancel your cable TV. Sell your television. Seriously, you’ll miss it for about 2 weeks, then suddenly you’ll wonder why you needed it in the first place.

•    Buy clothes at discounters like TJ Maxx, Ross, Nordstrom Rack or at upscale second hand stores. Also consider second hand for household goods. I’ve got some awesome lamps I found on eBay. One turned out to be an antique collector's item worth about $900. I paid $5 for it.

•    Get rid of items you don’t use. Don’t let that computer sit in the closet forever. You know you will never use it again. Take out the hard drive and destroy the disc. Then take the thing to your local recycler. Get rid of all those things that are taking up space. You might be wondering what this has to do with money savings? If you throw things away, how is that saving money? I’ve found some pretty expensive things when getting rid of junk, had a garage sale and was suddenly $500 richer for it! Which brings me to…

•    Have a garage sale! Even if you think you don’t have anything of value, people who shop garage sales surprise me every time with what they are willing spend for what I perceive as junk. Contrariwise, I’ve seen people pass over items I thought had great value. Go figure?

•    Switch to CFLs. My home is 100% CFL and the savings is quantifiable. My power bill dropped by $23 the first month I switched.

•    I don’t commute to work; I work from home. This saves me time, gas money, lunch money and other expenses involved in holding an on-location job.

•    If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Car running fine? Don’t go buy a new one. Washer and dryer still good? Run those suckers into the ground. This is where most American’s piss away most of their income. Buying stuff because of desire, not due to necessity. Who has a burning desire for a new washer and dryer, anyway? The advertizing agents work very hard to make you consider laundry as a glamorous activity. Ditto with vacuuming, lawn mowing, mopping and other household chores. Why spend $20 on the “cool” new duster-thingy when your old cloth works just as well? I don’t get it.

•    I left this for last, but this is likely the most important key to having discretionary income: Have a savings account with at least $1000.00 in it. This is so important, I just can’t stress it enough. I’m not asking you to save the world or anything, but putting away a little money on a regular basis will get you there faster than you think.


     Why is the $1000 in savings at all times so important? Because it will help you avert financial disaster. We will always have emergencies in our lives. Even small set backs can have devastating effects on the financial health of a family. What if the water heater dies? What if a the dog gets hit by a car? What if you get the flu and can’t work for 2 weeks? What if your kids get the flu and you can’t work for another 2 weeks after you get better? What if your 93 year old grandmother “suddenly” dies and you need to go to her funeral half away across the country?


     These things happen. The simple answer is to be ready for it, just in case. If you don’t have the $1000 set aside, trying to pull an extra $1000 out of your regularly monthly budget is going to set you back a year or more. Not to mention what it’ll cost you if you have to open up an emergency line of credit. Can you cut, oh, say $341.95 a month from waste in your current budget? Put that cash into a savings account right away and in a short time you’ll have that emergency cushion.


     Why $1000? Because most of the time, that is all it takes. Most insurance deductibles are $1000 or less. Most major events won’t run you more than $1000, like that trip to your grandmother’s funeral, the busted hot water heater or that unexpected time off from work due to the flu. It may seem daunting to try to save $1000 in this economic climate. But it is totally worth the short term sacrifice to do so.

     These simple habits are why I’m able to make my income go further than most. I also have a knack of digging up bargains, too. My husband and I enjoyed a free week at a beach house thanks to a favor he did for the owner of the house. I dig deep for discounts on discretionary items. The items are discretionary, after all, so if I’m unable to find what I want on the outset, it doesn’t really matter.

     I also find getting a bargain deeply satisfying. I went to an art gallery last month, and there was a beautiful hand painted frog sculpture there that my husband just fell in love with. It was small, no larger than a coffee pot, but it was priced at over $2000. No way we could afford to spend that kind of money on art. Two days ago, I was at a crafter’s mall and found an art piece that was of the same genre and style. It was a gorgeous hand painted iguana statue. I figured for sure that I would never be able to afford it, when I checked the price, it was listed at $16. I bought it and a hand painted vase for $12. I find these pieces to be as beautiful and enjoyable as the gallery pieces, and I can actually afford them!