It's Still the Economy

John McCain wants to cut corporate taxes by 10% -- taking the corporate tax rate down from 35% to 25%. He believes this will convince companies not to go off shore for workers. It'll keep them here. Too bad he's wrong.
Publicly traded companies care about one thing -- their stock prices. Giving them a tax cut won't guarantee any company will keep jobs here, especially if it'll make their stock price go up to locate jobs overseas.
McCain, also, wants to take the burden of insurance off the backs of our corporations and have individuals pay for it themselves. He's really working the business side of things, isn't he? He believes that we'll keep prices down if we have to pay for the insurance ourselves. He wants to give a tax credit to us, so we'll buy our own insurance. ($2500 for singles, $5000 for families)
That'll work.
You know what will happen? People will buy the insurance and those with a lot of money will buy the good insurance. The insurance that'll cover everything and they'll stay off the public rolls when a serious illness comes along -- most likely. People with middle incomes will buy middle cost insurance. They'll risk losing their homes if a serious illness comes along. And, the people at the bottom of the income levels will buy exactly the amount the credit covers and when it isn't enough to cover their needs, we'll all be supporting them.
McCain, also, wants to make the Bush Tax Cuts permament. Well, that'll help those on top and leave nothing for the others on the bottom.
Here's an idea:
Instead of just granting businesses a huge tax cut, give them the credits. For each single employee, give the employer a $2500 credit to help offset the cost of insuring them. Give a $5000 tax credit to ensure an employee and their dependents. That would ease company's burdens -- limit the tax credit to only Americans working in America. Place a cap on how many overseas employees a company can have to keep the credit.
Don't make the Bush cuts permament -- restructure the income tax tables. Right now, it's 10%,15%,25% and 33%. Let's keep the top spot and rearrange the others. We need 20% and 30% brackets. If I had more time this morning, I'd tell you why.
Well, it's off to work for me. I'm still reading on Barack Obama's ideas for the economy and I'm sure I'll have something to say about them, too.

God Bless

The Candidate For Whom I would Vote...

I'm tired of all these campaign promises that really mean same old same old for the next four years.  I want to have some true action in my government.

First, I want a Federal -- not state -- law that says, You harm your child and the child lives, you go to jail for the rest of your life and someone else gets to raise your child -- in another state, far away from you so they NEVER have to see your disgusting ass again.  And, I don't mean someone who paddles their kid's behind, I mean, trying to poison them with salt or leaving them alone in the car on a hot summer day.

Second, if said child dies, you die.  Period, end of story.  And, I think that women who cannot have children should be allowed to be the ones to pull the trigger.  I believe that the punishment should fit the crime, so however horrendous your child's death was, yours should be just as bad.

Catherine's and Fashion Bug

Let's get a little personal -- all right, who am I kidding? I always get personal.

So, my cousin is getting married this weekend. I have an outfit to wear, but I don't like the top -- it's too heavy for a July wedding -- so I need a new top. Yesterday, I went to Catherine's - over on Washington in Racine. The saleslady's name was Cheryl. She was very nice and very helpful. I didn't find a top, but I found a new pair of jeans and I needed a new pair of jeans.

Tonight, I went to Fashion Bug, where I was waited on by Alfie and Chantel, also on Washington in Racine. Alfie was supposed to be leaving, but she stayed late so that I would have the perfect top for my cousin's wedding. And, now I do.

So, if you need clothes, I suggest Fashion Bug and Catherine's. If you go by Fashion Bug and see Alfie, tell her Julie told you to come by.

God Bless

Boys

Little boys are made of snips, snails and puppy dog tails. I have seen two little boys take Nana's clean home and demolish it in a matter of seconds. Boys need to have the freedom to romp and play (and, so do girls). I just read in a two week old Time magazine that 75% of American school children do not have a physical education. So, I wonder, how does anyone expect rambunctious boys to sit and learn without a physical education class to burn off some of their energy?

Plus, I was reading in the same magazine and it stated that America has an epidemic of obese kids. So, I'm wondering, when kids come home from school to play World of Warcraft, how do we cut PE from their schooling?

Our school systems are cutting a lot from the curriculum's -- art, music -- PE shouldn't be added to the list, but judging from the article, I'm just howling at the wind because it's all ready too late.

God Bless

Church of England changes rules to ordain Women Bishops -- Vatican has a cow

According to the CNN article, the Church of England has voted to allow women to be Bishops. The Vatican is all up in arms because this means the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church will not be able to join forces. Is anyone else questioning this? The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England were never going to become one giant Church under God.

My favorite part of the article was this: "The General Synod passed a resolution Monday night that allows women to become bishops, acting over the objections of traditionalists who argued that Jesus only wanted men in leadership positions." Yeah, that's what my Bible says -- Jesus only wanted men in leadership positions. I'm really getting pretty sick and tired of the moronic men who claim only men should be in power, aren't you? They thump their Bibles and claim that they know what Jesus would do or what Jesus wants. (I'm betting he just wants to be left alone.)

How can anyone of us here on earth know what Jesus would do? Really? Sure, be nice to your neighbor, I get that. But, when the boy who knocks up my friends' daughter isn't supporting the baby, does Jesus want me to be nice to him or kick some sense into him? What should I be doing? Shoving him up against the house and telling him to grow up or patting the little bastard on the head and saying, "Oh, poor little guy. He's had a rough life."

Where would Jesus be standing then? Behind me with that rod His Father said we shouldn't spare and patiently waiting for his turn in the butt kicking or standing next to the kid comforting him?

Personally, when I even think some butt kicking might be involved, I leave Jesus at home. I don't want Him to have to make a choice.

But, getting back to the women in leadership roles, I think the Vatican is going a bit far in all of this. Who died and made the Vatican the database of record for what Jesus thinks and wants?

I wish He'd come back, so He could set this record straight.

God Bless

Obama's Dog

I love this little piece of gossip I heard.

Barrack and Michelle Obama made a deal with their two young daughters that if they would support their father's bid for president, they could have a dog. Now, the dog issue is constant dinner time discussion. One of their daughter's has allergies, so the American Kennel Club has a list of five dogs the Obamas should consider and they are holding a vote about which one the family should get. Now, I understand the reasoning behind the list of five dogs -- these are hypoallergenic, but I think they left one dog off their list -- the American Eskimo Dog.

Now, I have allergies to both cats and dogs. I own Skywalker an eleven year old Eskie. He's a beautiful dog, as well as spoiled. He barks a little too much, but he's good with kids. He loves car rides and being with his family. When my grandsons were born, he took a great interest in them. There are very few people who can grab his tail -- Danny and Alex are on that list. He's studier than any of the other foo foo breeds the AKC picked.

So, here's my personal invitation to the Obama family. Before picking one of these dogs picked out by the AKC, come check out Skywalker. If not him, make sure you meet someone else's American Eskimo Dog. They are the most loving creatures on the planet and would make a perfect pet for your girls. Even the AKC agrees:

The American Eskimo Dog is intelligent, alert, and friendly, although slightly conservative. It is never overly shy nor aggressive, and such dogs are to be severely penalized in the show ring. At home it is an excellent watchdog, sounding a warning bark to announce the arrival of any stranger. It is protective of its home and family, although it does not threaten to bite or attack people. The American Eskimo Dog learns new tasks quickly and is eager to please.

Sounds like the perfect dog for two growing little girls. Might be nice to have a couple of youngsters in the White House again. :-)

God Bless

Pat Buchanan and World War II

There are but a few things in the world that I know with absolute certainity.

1. My dad's a hero for fighting in Vietnam.
2. My grandfather's a hero for fighting in WWII.
3. And, finally, Hitler was a horrible man and the US had to fight WWII in order to stop his reign of terror.

Pat Buchanan doesn't know my father and grandfather, but I wouldn't expect him to know them. However; I would expect him to know the final point. Apparently, he does not.

Now, I haven't read Buchanan's book and I have no intention of doing so. However; I have read a very interesting critique of the book in last week's Newsweek by Christopher Hitchens. The critique is well written. Apparently, Buchanan wants to rewrite history and ignore the true reasons we went to war. According to Hitchens critique, Buchanan twists facts to make it look like we picked on poor Hitler, who was doing nothing more than taking on the evil Russians who needed to be destroyed.

I'm not exactly sure why reading that Buchanan thinks WWII was a waste of time upset me so much, but it did and that's why I've written this post.

God Bless

New Design - Eve Was Framed

Hot off the presses -- and cooly done -- My new Eve Was Framed designed. This hot seller needed an redesign and here it is!

Another Video

Buy American

I realize that not all of us can afford to buy American. The call to buy American products has long passed us by. I can remember commericials where Barbara Mandrell sang about buying American and look for the American label back Wal-Mart products actually were American. However; I drive a foreign car. Cheryl drives a foreign car. We went looking at American cars this year and we couldn't find one in our limited budget.

However; I was just reading somewhere that the flags flown over our federal buildings aren't made in America. They're made somewhere else. How can that be? Shouldn't our national symbol only be made here?!? Okay, for the average American, make them somewhere else, but the feds should NEVER buy a flag made in a different country.

Furthermore, nothing our federal government purchases should be made outside of this country -- NOTHING! If our own government doesn't support our economy, we have a serious, serious issue in this country. One reason for government purchases is to stimulate the economy, so nothing made for the feds or purchased by them should have foreign parts.

NOTHING! End of story.

God Bless

Charlie Wilson's War

If you have not seen Charlie Wilson's War, stop reading. I don't want to have someone find out the ending when they didn't want to.

I just now finished watching Charlie Wilson's War. It was an entertaining movie and told a story I didn't know a lot about. I knew the Soviet's invaded Afghanistan and I knew we helped throw them out, but I didn't know how it was done. I liked the movie, but I felt that the ads for it played up much more humor than what was present.

The thing that kept running through my mind was once we kicked out the Soviets, we left room for the Taliban, which led to the terrorists that flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This thought bothered me, because I was thinking should we really be idolizing Charlie Wilson and his CIA pal, the late Gust L. Avrakotos, knowing what we do now?

And then the movie came to the end and you see Charlie struggling -- and failing -- to obtain funding to rebuild the Afghan schools. We helped kick the Soviets out, but we didn't follow through and help the Afghan put their nation back together again. We did nothing. It wasn't on the radar, it wasn't important.

Which leads me to my next thought: What are we going to do in Iraq? Are we really just going to pull out our troops and leave the country devastated? Are we going to finish what we start and rebuild the nation? While we're all fighting over here about the war in Iraq, there are people in Iraq who don't have clean water. And, the reason they don't have clean water is because we wanted to get Saddam Hussein.
So, what are we going to do? Pull out prematurely? Or, fix up the country and perhaps stop the next generation of terrorists?

Something to think about.

God Bless

Hypocrisy - If it harms you, who cares? If it harms me, the government should fix this.

The other day I was talking to someone I know -- we'll call her Anne* -- who is a hardcore Republican.  She firmly believes that the Republican party still stands for individual rights and responsibilities.  Anne believes that laws protecting consumers are not needed because companies will do the right thing and people should be able to think for themselves.  In other words, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is and you shouldn't be taken in.  She believes that there shouldn't be laws to protect people from scams because it is just your own damn fault you got into the mess in the first place. 

However; on this particular day, Anne was telling me about her son -- Mitchell*, who purchased a home that was overpriced a few years ago with a three year ARM.  Mitchell is like millions of Americans who have recently purchased overpriced homes using a low interest rate ARM.  He needs to refinance, except here's the catch.  Mitchell refinanced not very long ago and was convinced that using the equity in his home to pay off some bills would be a smart thing to do.  Plus, the interest rate went even lower, so he borrowed another $20,000* on his $200,000* home.

Guess what?  Mitchell's home has now been valued at $175,000 and he owes -- on a three year ARM -- $195,000.  He can't refinance to get out from underneath the ARM because no reputable bank will loan you $195,000 on a home worth $175,000.  The ARM is coming up soon and his interest rate -- from what I've been told -- is going to skyrocket, making his monthly payment jump too high for him to pay.

So, I say "Gee, that's too bad.  I guess he should've thought about the situation he was in and made a better decision.  He certainly shouldn't have taken out a second ARM when he refinanced."  I mean, we're a country where individuals need to take responsibility for their lives.  I didn't buy a home that was overpriced.  I didn't take out an ARM -- and when I refinanced, I didn't borrow more than I thought my home was worth -- EVEN THOUGH the mortgage lender kept saying my home was worth X and didn't I want to borrow more money. 

Anne's response is that the mortgage lender should be put in jail and there should be laws against this sort of thing.  The government should step in and help Mitchell save his home.

Isn't that hypocrisy?  If I had called Anne and told her the above sob story about someone she didn't know, she'd be saying, well, that's too bad, but Mitchell's an idiot and should lose his home.  Might teach him a lesson.

But, since Mitchell's Anne's son, the government needs to step in and save him from his own stupidity.

Now, I don't really know what to think about the current housing market crash.  I think something needs to be done because if everyone defaults on their loans, we're going to have a much larger issue than Mitchell losing his home.  There's a lot of Mitchell's out there.  I, also, think why don't we teach this stuff in school?  When we're teaching Algebra, why aren't we teaching kids how to read loan papers?  Would it be too hard to teach kids real world applications for their thought processes?  Something theyr'e really going to use in life?  Because I don't know about you, but I still haven't used Algebra.  I could've used some help when making decisions about my refi.

Getting back to the original issue, I know it is really too much to ask and it happens on both sides of the political spectrum, but I just wish we didn't have so many hypocrites in our nation. 

God Bless


* - I'm using assumed names and changing information that would allow people to know who these people are for their privacy.  The numbers aren't exact either, but you get the general idea.

Supreme Court Rulings

This is totally off the top of my head, but what the HE double hockey sticks is the Supreme Court thinking? Executing a child rapist is cruel and unusual, but allowing handguns is constitutionally sound? I expected the second decision to go down that way, but I thought with a conservative court executing despicable torturers would be their thing!

Something to wonder about, isn't it?

God Bless

Don't Mess With Tim McGraw

During his Auburn, Washington concert on Tuesday, June 24th, Tim McGraw saw a "fan" attack a woman in the audience. Apparently, Tim doesn't need any security, he reached down and grabbed the unruly concert goer. When security came, they lifted a guy who makes me look small on to the stage and ejected him. The man made a move to charge at Tim and he answered the move with a closed fist. There's video at CNN.

Oh and the song Tim was singing at the time? Indian Outlaw. He started right back up at the "I ain't looking for trouble..."

I've always liked Tim McGraw and now, I like him a little more.

God Bless

So-called Family Groups

I went back and reviewed one of my old posts regarding the American Girl stores and a group called Girls, Inc. In the post, I mentioned that the American Family Association was boycotting them. (Read the original post here) Anyway, I noticed that the American Family Association only had 2.2million members as of the posting (Oct. 2005). It got me to thinking, just how many people are actually a part of all these "family" groups that supposedly support the American Family as they see fit. Because in a country of 365 million people, 2.2 million is .6% of the population.

I wonder how many members of the American Family Association belong to Focus on the Family and how many Focus on the Family members belong to any other right wing group. In other words, how many extreme right wing conservatives do we really have in this country? Probably not many.

On the flip side, Move On has 3.2 million members and the ACLU has 550,000 members, so the extreme left isn't very large either. Between these two groups, we're talking 1% of the population.

My point is that the extremes in this country are the ones who get all the air time. Their opinions make headline news. (Case in point, Dobson's remarks against Barak Obama made the front page of CNN all yesterday afternoon.) We really need to shut the extremes up and tune them out. There are compromises that will need to be made no matter whom is made President in November.

While Focus on the Family is worried about the homosexuals in this country and furthering their own agenda, we're not noticing anything else. What about the economy? What about the environment? What about our children's future?

What about making America the country we've been before? The respected world leader? What about securing our future to continue being a beacon of light in a world gone wrong?

Oh, well, what do I know?

God Bless

James Dobson Needs to Read Both the Bible AND the Constitution

As you can imagine, I don't particularly care for James Dobson. I've never heard the man make one statement with which I agree and I think he has a very limited view on God and Jesus that belongs back in the stone age. Further, I believe that Dobson, his Focus on the Family and other right-wing Christian groups have such a limited knowledge of that which is good for the country that they miss the big picture, which is why they supported George W. Bush.

That said, Dobson came out today and made comments about a speech Barack Obama made in 2006. You read that right. In order to find a statement that he can jump on and use as a reason good Christian people shouldn't vote for Obama, Dobson had to reach back into 2006.

Here's what Obama said:

"Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?

"So before we get carried away, let's read our Bible now. Folks haven't been reading their Bible." -- quoted from CNN.

He said this in a speech in front of the Christian group Call to Renewal. Nothing he said was wrong or even unreasonable. If we take the Bible literally, as evangelical Christians wish us to do, then we have to take the WHOLE Bible and not just the parts we want.

However; James Dobson said (and I'm quoting from the CNN news article) "Obama should not be referencing antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament." I find that humorous since Focus on the Family is against gay marriage based on Old Testament beliefs (before you write, I don't believe St. Paul mentioned gays. The passage was about men loving boys, which is sick.).

In closing, I'd like to just say that this just shows that the right wing Christians are running scared. Someone who doesn't pander to them just might be elected President and their outdated views of the Bible and a just society might die with this election. The tide is turning against them and they now just have to ruffle feathers so we don't forget that they're there.

God Bless

Testing Amazon Video

This seemed like a way to easily post a video of Alex with an ad. So, I'm testing out Amazon's video widgets. Tell me what you think.

Music, Music, Music

Amazon now has MP3 music widgets -- so I'm testing this out here. Here's a list of some of my favorite songs.

If you enjoy any of them, please consider buying them via Amazon. It helps me pay the bills.

Thanks for stopping by today!

George Carlin

On my way into work this morning, I heard the news that George Carlin passed away yesterday from a heart attack.  I can't tell you how bummed I am.  I love George Carlin and quote him often -- even when I didn't realize it was him I was quoting!  (Case in point:  Everyone who drives slower than me is a moron and everyone who drives faster is a manaic.  I always thought I came up with that, but it was Carlin.)

I remember listening to Class Clown when I was around 15 or 16.  The album changed my life and made me a Carlin fan.  I loved watching him in anything he chose to do -- stand up, movies or TV. 

He will be truly missed.

God Bless

Law & Order

I know that there are a lot more things to think about in the world than a Dick Wolf TV show, but sometimes your mind just wants to deal with fluff.

Why is it that on the other two L&O's, the person in charge (PID) holds the rank of Captain, but on the original show the PID is only a Lieutenant -- the only show that has a woman as the PID I might add? Is this an oversite? Isn't it time to promote Lieutenant Van Buren to Captian?

Just a thought.

God bless