Britney and Chris
I was honored to have one of my best friend’s daughter ask me to do her engagement photos.
I suggested Kinder Park for the backdrop.
Fine Print Police
Obama wants fine-print police for consumer products - and that’s good, I guess.
âThose ridiculous contracts with pages of fine print that no one can figure out â those things will be a thing of the past,â the president said in a statement accompanying the 152-page draft bill. âAnd enforcement will be the rule, not the exception.â
Let’s face it, credit card companies have used complicated lawyer speak on their policies and statements for years.
I have to wonder though, if Obama is so upset at long, complicated pages from seller to consumer, why doesn’t he apply that to Congress?
We have a cap and trade bill passing the house, with hundreds of pages, millions of dollars, doing it in a hurry, and admittedly our lawmakers haven’t even read it.
Says Michelle Malkin:
When I live-blogged the House debate on cap-and-tax last Friday, I noted the existence of a âplaceholderâ in the bill. Rep. Joe Barton mentioned it was unprecedented to have such a mechanism (allowing bill-writers to insert language to be determined after the law was approved) in a bill up for final passage. Later, I noted that Barney Frank explained on the floor on Friday that the placeholder in the cap and trade bill apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing carbon emissions. Frank said he was confident a âgood system will be in place.â
Michelle wants to know:
Now, since everyone in Washington is so concerned with fine print, why donât they show us the fine print of the missing section of this bill.
I agree, I want to know too.
Congress Taxpayer-financed Trips Abroad Has Risen
It’s hard to believe that we as a country, a world in fact, has fallen on hard times. The very same people who sign trillions of stimulus claiming the economic sky is falling, can’t stop taxing and spending, this our nation’s Congress.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.
The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free.
In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night.
The lawmakers were invited to a dinner party at the U.S. Embassy and had cocktails at a private party at the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Inouye attended a dinner sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. trade group. Another senator on the trip, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, took a cruise on the River Seine with defense-industry executives and elected officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.
In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.
Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the GalĂĄpagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.
So the next time your taxes are raised, and they will be, you indeed have to wonder where it all goes.
Meek and Cam
After a morning of playing with “bar-bar” & “Dolphin”, swiming in the pool forever with “Ida”, a three hour nap, and a huge appetite all day, it was nice to see Cameron cuddling and relaxing with Miquel on my bed. Cameron is such a joy.
Free Republic’s Take on Cap and Trade
Speaker Pelosiâs national energy tax is going to raise electricity prices, increase gasoline prices, and ship American jobs overseas to countries like China and India. This, we know.
It would be a bureaucratic nightmare overseen by a confusing web of government agencies that would take and redistribute trillions of dollars from family budgets and workers payrolls. This, we also know. Even Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) admitted in the Washington Post this morning that: âThe truth is, nobody knows for sure how this is going to work.â How encouraging.
But what donât we know? Here are some facts you may not know about Speaker Pelosiâs national energy tax:
Homebuyers Beware. Trying to save up for a new home? You may have to save up a little longer for your purchase. The Democratsâ bill would dramatically increase new home costs by mandating Californiaâs expensive new building codes for the entire nation. Immediately upon enactment, the Democratsâ bill would demand a 30 percent increase in energy efficiency for new construction. A couple of years later, the Democratsâ bill would require an additional 50 percent improvement. These numbers were chosen with no concern for cost to consumers or feasibility in implementation.
Homebuilders Beware. The Democratsâ bill imposes new mandatory regulations and civil penalties for homebuilders. If your state refuses to accept the stringent and costly California building codes, the federal government may assess penalties. And donât get too comfortable with the new mandatory regulations because the Democratsâ bill allows for âconsensus-basedâ codes to supplant those outlined in the bill. So, as soon as youâve invested your hard-earned money to comply with the billâs mandates, the rug could get pulled from underneath you. Translation? Youâll pony up more and more money.
Home Sellers Beware. Having a hard time selling your home? Hereâs one more hurdle to jump: all homes sales are conditioned upon an energy audit and a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program for your home thatâs outlined in the Democratsâ bill. And if you thought you could improve your property with a fresh coat of paint and some granite counters? Think again! Now your home will be subjected to a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program that will penalize you for older windows, original fixtures, and dated appliances. So the Democratsâ bill would bring down the value of your home!
New Lights No Matter the Cost. As early as 2012, the Democratsâ bill eliminates all existing lighting technology used in many outdoor lighting fleets (parking lots, stadiums, secured facilities like power plants and factories). Just as an example, switching to the mandated technology in the bill will cost one small utility about $30 million in annual revenue. So you now have to comply with the new mandates for new lighting? Hold the phone. It is not clear that a feasible alternative technology is available for every existing lighting application â regardless of cost â which could force some businesses to close.
The consequences of Speaker Pelosiâs national energy tax for families and small businesses are real. It will drive up energy costs, send millions of jobs to countries like China and India, and place an especially heavy burden on rural America. There is a better way. House Republicans have proposed the American Energy Act, legislation that represents the fastest route to a cleaner environment, lower energy costs, and more American jobs. The legislation would:
- Increase environmentally-safe energy production on remote lands and far off our shores;
- Promote the use of alternative fuels that will reduce carbon emissions, such as nuclear, clean-coal, and renewable energy technologies; and
- Encourage increased efficiencies and cutting edge technologies to maximize Americaâs energy potential.
Todayâs vote on Speaker Pelosiâs ill-advised national energy tax will have consequences for every American. It is a bad deal for America. And the American people will remember how their Members of Congress vote.
Home Sellers Beware. … all homes sales are conditioned upon an energy audit and a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program for your home thatâs outlined in the Democratsâ bill. … Now your home will be subjected to a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program that will penalize you for older windows, original fixtures, and dated appliances. So the Democratsâ bill would bring down the value of your home!This should do wonders for the real estate meltdown.Bella
Today Laura and I had our year end homeschooling review. It’s always a treat to see Deleah, but today we had a NEW guest - her granddaughter, Bella!
Laura had a great review, Deleah was impressed and gave us a lot of great suggestions for next year!
Existence of God
Along with my reading, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be An Athiest, Neil points his readers to this site which I found to be excellent, GotQuestions.org? It’s a site that has 184,094 Bible Questions Answered!
I went to the question: “Is there an argument for the existence of God?”
I had to look at former atheist Lee Strobel’s quote:
âEssentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that
nothing produces everything;
non-life produces life;
randomness produces fine-tuning;
chaos produces information;
unconsciousness produces consciousness;
and non-reason produces reason.
Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence ⌠In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.â
Another quote, by a non Christian, Philosopher J. S. Mill even admits:
âIt is self-evident that only Mind can create mind.â The only rational and reasonable conclusion is that an eternal Creator is the one who is responsible for reality as we know it. Or to put it in a logical set of statements:
⢠Something exists.
⢠You do not get something from nothing.
⢠Therefore a necessary and eternal âsomethingâ exists.
⢠The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
⢠Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
⢠Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.
This is where a person sits when deciding between atheism and belief in God. Since belief in atheism could possibly result in irreparable and eternal consequences, it would seem that the atheist should be mandated to produce weighty and overriding evidence to support their position, but they cannot. Atheism simply cannot meet the test for evidence for the seriousness of the charge it makes. Instead, the atheist and those whom they convince of their position slide into eternity with their fingers crossed and hope they do not find the unpleasant truth that eternity does indeed exist and that such a place is an awfully long time to be wrong. As Mortimer Adler says, âMore consequences for life and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from any other basic question.â
Antartica Ice is Growing
In spite of the alarms sounding off in the mainstream media, in fact, in Antartica, over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded. Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years.
The Pool is Open
…and the water is fine!
After much labor in May; getting the leaves out, the cover off, the filter and pump cared for, and cleaning the sides of the pool, it is now finally swimable!
After a chilly and very wet May and June, the water is starting to be swimable. We even put up a clothesline for the towels!
Largest Tax Increase in American History Under the Guise of Climate Change
The so called reason for this large tax increase? In all it sounds good, limit pollution and usher in an era of cleaner energy. Critics of the legislation have said it will cost too much to our already weak economy, so they wanted safeguards in place.
Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.
So how much will it cost? Seems the defenders of this bill ‘low ball’ the price, which of course, is to be expected.
According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman’s co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. Amazing. A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.
For starters, the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.
To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO’s analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to “offset” their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.
Us. All of us.
When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.
A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.
More reading:
Yahoo News: House narrowly passes major energy-climate bill
Edit. Not even Greenpeace seems to like this bill:
Greenpeace Opposes Waxman-Markey
Climate Bill not Science-Based; Benefits Polluters
Greenpeace USA Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett issued the following statement:
“Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbysists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it. Despite President Obamaâs assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible. âAs it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.
Applying for a Job with the City of Bozeman
This should no longer surprise me, but it did:
If youâre planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page.
As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said.
On the application, one can see the following:
âPlease list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,â states a city waiver form applicants are asked to sign. Three lines are provided for applicants to list log-in information for each site.
As the article says, Big Brother Much?
Two Blogs Back Up Again
For some months two of my blogs have been down due to a glitch in the database. I delayed for so long to get this fixed.
Finally, today, I called PowWeb, my host, and they had both back up and in order in no time, which made me wonder why I delayed so long!
So, please visit my Photography Blog and My Lyrics Blog
Also, if you are looking for a special in Web Hosting, visit PowWeb!
Pump Up The Volume
Today Laura and I were invited to Heather’s dance recital. This was the 16th Annual Dance Recital of Dancer’s Dreams, and held where I used to attend High School, Northeast.
The first number, danced to Mercy:
The next number was called, Busting Loose
It was a great show. I took 800 photos in all.
Another highlight was watching Cameron. He loved the dancing, he wanted, “More!”
Coming home was interesting, a terrible storm with lightning greeted us as we left the school auditorium.
Now we’re just under a tornado watch.
