Cooler weather?

Wow! it's *finally* under 100 for our daily temperatures here in S. Texas. About time. We can even shut off the AC at night now, and just start it up during the day. We did get some rain last week, which was really nice, but it means the lawn weeds have started growing again and need mowing.

We have been looking at cars for the youngest, now that she is working almost every day after college classes, and I'd really like my car back. I was informed being I had "tagged my car up with lots of bumper stickers" I wasn't due to get the new (used) car. We've been looking at the Toyota Yaris, which has a weird arrangement of the gauges being located in the center of the dash, not on the left like usual.

I've been re-arranging my kitchen lately, and staying offline more, doing more things like crocheting (think Christmas presents) and just general messing around. Reading alot more. I'm about halfway done with Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. It's quite interesting actually. It was one of the free books for Kindle that I found over at Amazon, and just finally getting around to reading. I have 176 books on there to read, and I've read probably 50 of them. Guess I'd better get hot!

We watched the debate the other night, and thought Herman Cain did a great job, Mitt even sounded good (which I know he would be obama-lite) and Rick Perry was just totally lost.

I don't know if you've looked into the Cain 9-9-9 plan, which I really like.

Phase 1 - Immediate Boost

As I have outlined, the following represent the minimum for feeding the economic engine and are the “low hanging fruit” offering the most “bang for the buck”
Reduce individual and business income taxes to a maximum 25%
Eliminate taxes on repatriated foreign profits and capital gains.
The capital gains tax is a wall separating those with ideas from those with money.
Why would we want to wall off those with ideas? That’s where we get business formation, job creation and innovation.
When companies sell products overseas they face double taxation when those profits are brought home (repatriation) to invest in America and pay its workers.
Companies don’t ship jobs overseas, Liberals ship capital overseas and the jobs merely follow.
Phase 1 - Enhanced Plan

Current circumstances call for bolder action.
The Phase 1 Enhanced Plan incorporates the features of Phase One and gets us a step closer to Phase two.
I call on the Super Committee to pass the Phase 1 Enhanced Plan along with their spending cut package.
The Phase 1 Enhanced Plan unites Flat Tax supporters with Fair tax supporters.
Achieves the broadest possible tax base along with the lowest possible rate of 9%.
It ends the Payroll Tax completely – a permanent holiday!
Ends the Death Tax.
Business Flat Tax – 9%
Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders.
Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for payroll employed in the zone.
Individual Flat Tax – 9%.
Gross income less charitable deductions.
Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in the zone.
National Sales Tax – 9%.
This gets the Fair Tax off the sidelines and into the game.
Phase 2 – The Fair Tax

Amidst a backdrop of the economic boom created by the Phase 1 Enhanced Plan, I will begin the process of educating the American people on the benefits of continuing the next step to the Fair Tax.
The Fair Tax would ultimately replace individual and corporate income taxes.
It would make it possible to end the IRS as we know it.
The Fair Tax makes our exported goods and services the most competitively internationally than any other tax system.
Phase 1 Enhanced Plan – Summary

Unites all tax payers so we all pay income taxes and no one pays payroll taxes
Provides the least incentive to evade taxes and the fewest opportunities to do so
Lifts a $430 billion dead-weight burden on the economy due to compliance, enforcement, collection, etc.
Is fair, neutral, transparent, and efficient
Ends nearly all deductions and special interest favors
Ends all payroll taxes
Ends the Death Tax
Features zero tax on capital gains and repatriated profits
Lowest marginal rates on production
Allows immediate expensing of business investments
Dividend deductibility will help retirees, improve accounting, and moderate stock-option driven executive compensation
Increases capital formation. Capital per worker drives productivity and wage growth
Capital formation will aid capital availability for small businesses
Features a platform to launch properly structured Empowerment Zones to revitalize our inner cities
We all know the Fed has tripled the money supply since 2008. They have been printing money out of thin air to finance the Obama spending machine. While true Fed reform that restores sound money may have to wait for my election, the best thing we can do now is to pursue policies that increase the DEMAND for dollars to help mitigate the risks associated with the increase in the supply.
Pro-growth economic policies equal a strong dollar policy

I think that with the Demoncats and Republicrats, that there is a very slim-to-none chance it would actually go through if he was elected. But at least there is someone who actually has a *plan* to get stuff working again.

Hmm. I wonder if we can pull the 'race card'... you just don't like his plan because you're racist ... LOL. I am not sure how he's doing on the straw polls. I know Ron Paul does pretty good.

AND on this final note: If you have a dog, try the Bil-Jac brand of dog food - you can get it at Petco and Petsmart. It's a bit less expensive than Blue Buffalo, but they use 10 lbs of chicken in each 14 lb bag of food. It kind of looks strange (at least the fat-dog food) because it's shaped like the little alfalfa pellets that you feed rabbits. I am a BzzAgent, and I am trying this food, and telling people about it. Rocket actually LOVES the food (which is surprising, he's picky) and he hates fat-dog dog food. It hasn't been giving him gas like Purina and many other foods do. I think I'm going to stick with this food. But I need to get one of those bowls that has the 3 pegs in it to keep him from bolting his food. Also found out I had been overfeeding him - for an 11 to 20 lb dog, 1/2 cup to 1 cup of food a day. Wow.. I've been just letting him feed off & on. keeping the bowl full. No wonder he is shaped like a watermelon with legs & a tail.

Socialism

I was offline for a while, an old cable running from our antenna down rotted away and had to be replaced. I wrote this while I was without internet. Funny how you end up with (seemingly) more hours in the day when your net is down!

"True sociopaths, whether they murder their brother or rape their sister, have no remorse. They wish to push the order of things out of shape." This was a bit out of a book that was mentioned in the book I am reading by Michael Savage - the original book is "The Italian-American: Troubled Roots" by Andrew Rolle. Mr. Savage goes on to ask if the RDDB lawyers (red diaper doper babies) are trying to push society out of shape.

Socialism will not come rushing in with the face of Hitler, nor will Fascism come in with the face of Mussolini. Or the Communism of Stalin or Mao.

As Jonah Goldberg puts it - it will come in the guise of "smiley face fascism".

"think of the children!" is one thing that I think has been a large downfall of much of our liberty in this country. I have been watching more TV this past few weeks, and I noticed a commercial for an ADD/ADHD drug - basically turn your kid into a zombie, and everyone's happy. There ARE a few that are add/adhd, but not to the extent that its being diagnosed. Why is there such an upswing? Because kids today are planted on their butts on the couch, playing video games, instead of running around and playing outside with real games. Have them go outside and play a few hours of football, basketball, etc. They will be too pooped to act up. I remember growing up, if I wasn't doing my homework after school, I was outside. Mom limited TV to a bit of Saturday morning cartoons, and Sunday evening Carol Burnett & HeeHaw. And football. LOTS of football.

I was about 8 or 9 when Pong came out, on the Atari. My friend down the street, her parents bought one. It was good for about 30 minutes, but it was WAY more fun outside on the tire hanging on the tree, jumping off that into the lake, or just running around "discovering" things. All summer I was outside, and down at the lake every day. Fishing, swimming, taking out the paddleboat to the middle of the lake, turning it upside down & jumping off into the water. also, filling a canoe with kids, and then someone would get up on the sides & stand, and try to dump us all into the water. During the winter, it was hockey on the lake, skating, sledding, snowmobiling. (yes, you can fit 6 kids on a single snowmobile!) Drinking hot chocolate, laughing when swallowing, hot chocolate coming out your nose. (it hurts). if it was summer, I was outside doing something. Not sitting indoors.

I don't think my mom would have let me stay indoors. She thought getting out & doing things was important, even if it was having me go outside and weed the garden & see if there were any ripe vegetables. Or to go sit outside and decimate her rhubarb plants. (i love rhubarb, just pick it, and eat the stalk!)

I didnt have my girls hang out inside. On a really hot day, we'd stay in part of the day when it was bad, but we'd be outside, they'd be playing in the mud in the ditch, floating boats there, climbing trees, shooting BB guns (and shooting out our shed windows), throwing the hard pears off the tree in the backyard at an old doghouse to make holes in it.

When we had chickens, we'd get 2 to 3 eggs a day - 4 people cannot use all those eggs! I tried. One day, hubby had the girls outside, teaching them how to egg a house. They also learned how to wash egg off a house.

I ran across a blog recently, Free Range Parenting", and from reading it, it was how I was raised, and how I raised my girls. Some interesting stuff over there.

Yet another peeve of mine -

people complaining about "the crap pay" of 7.25 an hour, and how they would NOT take a minimum wage job, but prefer to just take the government's money. It's a JOB. There is no shame in taking a job, but there IS in taking money from the government. It seems to me that the shame in taking welfare has been done away with. People did not starve to death before we had the great welfare state. Churches, civic organizations, and private organizations did the job - and far better than a centralized beurocracy (I can't spell it, but I know how to pronounce it!)

Who is better able to judge what a locality needs, someone 3,000 miles away, pushing papers in an office, or someone who lives in the community?

Back to my peeve - I don't get why people who don't have a job, turn their nose up at a job? I get told that "being that you dont' work, you have nothing to say". The thing is, I don't *have* to work. My husband makes enough to provide for our family, without my working. And they liken that to welfare. I don't THINK so. When we need to pay a bill, we don't go to someone else and say "give us money so we can pay xyz".

To date, no one has been able to answer 'what entitles you to someone else's money?"

It seems to upset the seniors, as "we paid into social security all those years so it's there for us". Um, no, you paid in all those years, so that those who were retired during the time you worked could take your money. Now, its the people working now who are paying for your check.

Medicare is another thing that gets my goat. Talking to a lady at church...she had headaches. After 2 MRIs, a CAT scan, and several other tests, she said she'd just go see about an eye exam to see if her glasses were causing eyestrain. And it doesn't matter how much it costs for an MRI, as she isn't paying the tab.

THAT is the mentality that is causing medical costs to skyrocket, as the cost of insurance also. We have major medical - we pay for prescriptions, etc., with a high deductible. When I needed an MRI, we called around - it ranged from $380 to over $2,000. We went with the $380 one. I think that if there were HSAs instead of just covering everything, people would be more cost-conscious, and prices would come down, as the businesses would have to really compete for you. And get the government out of the healthcare/medical field. They have no business in it anyway.

A Cloward-Piven paper

How can the poor be organized to press for relief from poverty? How can a broad-based movement be developed and the current disarray of activist forces be halted? These questions confront, and confound, activists today. It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor. If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.

This vomitrocious paper can be read in full here: The Weight of the Poor.

Funny, we still have poverty, despite spending trillions on it since the welfare state began. As Jesus said, "For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good..."

Up early on a Saturday

I was rudely awakened by the 'poinker' who massaged me gently with his claws, and bit my nose :| What a way to wake up. Speaking of waking up, this is hilarious!



I used JP Sousa playing loudly on the boombox that I took into the girls' room - to this day, they still know the song I played, and can hum it. Either that, or some ice to the back woke them up also.

I'd be freaking out too:

 

Well... considering I don't like spiders, although when we moved our couch, there were BARN SPIDERS underneath it. Rachel and myself were whacking them with paperbacks for a while. I counted at least a dozen. Lovely, under the couch. They could have popped out at any time. And the cats were useless. Like when we first moved in here, we found out that the shed we have...has mice. They got into a couple boxes that we brought into the house to unpack. The cats sat just watching them, while hubby and I played "pool" with a walking stick from Mt. Fuji and the mouse. Corner pocket BAM!

I'm thinking back 23 years ago today...the day hubby and I tied the knot. We went to a cheesy wedding thingie in San Diego, had some woman minister, and taped music. His brother did the photography (and did a great job!). We had both rented, his tux and my bridal dress - evidently San Diego is large enough for that. I was so nervous, I laughed most of the time during the ceremony. Then we had our 'reception' .. it was 2 of Paul's friends, and his family. So we went off to Red Lobster, and I had dropped off the cake earlier in that day at the restaurant. Evidently someone wanted to taste the frosting, as there was a finger smear in the middle of it when they brought it out. We were in the glassed in part, so we could see them decorating the car lol. Had a nice dinner, then off to Disneyland Hotel. His dad had gotten us a room, they upgraded us to a suite, on the 8th floor. We ended up paying for another 2 nights there, and we got the same rate he had paid - employee discount rate. We went to Disneyland, but mostly hung out in the Hall of Presidents - because it was air conditioned. it was so hot those few days. Then up the coast of CA, along I5. Stopped in Gilroy (garlic capitol of the world) and tried garlic wine. It would be good for cooking with. The town smells of garlic. Then on to more wineries, a very nice time.

It seems like so long ago... yet not? I can remember specific things that we did that day - like stopping at Mervyn's to buy nylons and some makeup. Going to the florist to pick up the flowers I had ordered. How Paul looked that day. (young comes to mind!) Here is a picture from that day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35523673@N02/3996212539/in/set-72157622551994198

Life is really strange how many turns and twists it makes. When I left home at 17, I had no plan in mind, no direction, no idea of what I wanted to do. I've lived in a van out in a state park down in Florida (bad time of life), spent years in the Navy, and then worked sporadically since I started having the girls.

The youngest has started college now (although her classes are just in town, so she lives here); another chapter of my life has begun I think. She's so busy with classes and work, that she is hardly ever home. Hubby and I only had a little over a year together before Kat was born, and now it's 'what do we do?'.

I guess we're older, wiser; but that really doesn't matter a hill of beans, when you think about what you've accomplished in your life.

ugh, now i'm getting maudlin, so I'll quit :)