Currently two bills are before Congress. The bills are PIPA(Protect IP Act) and SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act) which will censor the internet and may force American businesses to have to close up shop or move out of the country taking away more American jobs. Either way this bill will cause more job loss in a time when we need to be growing our economy and not shrinking it.

Please take the time to tell Congress not to censor the internet and harm the US economy.

Vote For The Net

Google

You might also like:

• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men
• AZ Sheriff Off His Rocker?

I just finished reading a few articles about this brewing controversy over the Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street video, which I also just watched. You can watch the video above which is being criticized as sexist by some, and has inspired impassioned debate on forums and blogs.

The only thing that could even remotely be construed as sexist about the video is the title.  By my reckoning, there is nothing in the film that even remotely suggests that the women who appear in it are being exploited sexually by the filmmaker.

What do you think?  Is this a sexist video that is exploiting its subjects or is it a piece of art?

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men
• AZ Sheriff Off His Rocker?

The single-page Department of Justice document, “Retention Periods of Major Cellular Service Providers,” (DOWNLOAD IT HERE) is a guide for law enforcement agencies looking to get information like customer IP addresses, call logs, text messages and web surfing habits out of U.S. telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

The document, marked “Law Enforcement Use Only” and dated August 2010, illustrates there are some significant differences in how long carriers retain your data.

Verizon, for example, keeps a list of everyone you’ve exchanged text messages with for the past year, according to the document.  But  T-Mobile stores the same data up to five years. It’s 18 months for Sprint, and seven years for AT&T.

The biggest difference in retention surrounds so-called cell-site data. That is information detailing a phone’s movement history via its connections to mobile phone towers while its traveling.

Verizon keeps that data on a one-year rolling basis; T-Mobile for “a year or more;” Sprint up to two years, and AT&T indefinitely.

The document was unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina via a Freedom of Information Act claim.

The document release comes two months before the Supreme Court hears a case testing the government’s argument that it may use GPS devices to monitor a suspect’s every movement without a warrant. And the disclosure comes a month ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Electronic Privacy Communications Act, an outdated law that the government often invokes against targets to obtain, without a warrant, the data the Justice Department document describes.

Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat from Vermont) has proposed legislation to alter the Electronic Privacy Communications Act to protect Americans from warrant less intrusions.

I am okay with this data being recorded but I think it should only be accessed through normal warrant wire tapping procedures which are still pretty easy to get.  ATT is definitely the worst when it comes to privacy concerns as they are the only provider that keeps copies of text message content.  They also keep IP session details the longest (one year) which records your phones ip and sites you are browsing/connecting to.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men
• AZ Sheriff Off His Rocker?

This is just another reason why homeschooling was the best choice for us.

Look at what a school district in Florida is doing according to WJHG.

Roll call is a thing of the past in Washington County Schools. Students now check in with finger scanning devices.

School Superintendent Sandra Cook said the old method just wasn’t cutting it.

The systems have been up and running for two months inside the schools, but since the majority of students ride the bus every day, district officials decided to move the devices there.

Talk about being a police state….

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Boys Becoming Men
• AZ Sheriff Off His Rocker?

I read CNN’s opinion piece by William Bennett called “Why Men Are in Trouble” and it made me think hard about men.

It’s interesting that Bennett addresses a lack of maturity that he thinks is a big part of the problem.

“Just ask young women about men today. You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up. I’ve heard too many young women asking, “Where are the decent single men?” There is a maturity deficit among men out there, and men are falling behind.”

If men are in trouble, what does this mean for the future of serious relationships?

Before I read this I was just on Facebook so that made me think about my high school class which has an average age of about 30. Virtually all of the women I graduated with are either married, in a serious relationship or looking for one. While with the men I would say it is pretty even 50/50. 50% are like the majority of the women while the other 50% is still just into partying, having fun, and don’t have an interest in any type of relationship or even a reliable job/career while some them have degrees but don’t even use them.  Most of that 50% want to make sure they make enough to pay for there bills and entertainment expenses for the month.

Another thing that stood out in the article is the fact that Bennett sited a “decline in virtues” that men are showing less success/interest in work, marriage, and religion.

Do you agree with CNN’s editorial that men are not stepping up to the plate in their transition from boys to men?

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• AZ Sheriff Off His Rocker?

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has appointed a “cold case posse” to review information pertaining to President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Arpaio broke the news to World Net Daily, explaining that “this investigation does not involve politics,” concluding, “I listen to all the residents of Maricopa County who come to my office with complaints, regardless what their politics are.”

Is he out of his mind? I’d have to say yes. Sheriff Joe’s an embarrassment to our county and moreover, one of the most incompetent law enforcers this country has ever seen. His own party abandoned him and last time he ran, John McCain backed an Independent Candidate instead of him.

Everything Sheriff Joe does is for publicity and not effectiveness. His tactics have cost the tax payers millions and the only outcome has been his re-election. He finds the triggers that the Phoenix area people respond to, then creates hype around it. Even if there isn’t anything to create hype around.

However, I really think that lately, he has burned his supporters. The local papers, TV stations and most other media outlets have been railing against him lately. He is so disliked and he now travels with armed body guards 24/7.

It’s time for Joe to Go!

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

Normally, we don’t hit the political arena here but thought we’d take a moment to talk about one of the presidential candidates, Rick Perry, from our neighboring state of Texas.

When Rick Perry announced his candidacy for President the other day, he growled that his goal as president would be to make Washington “as inconsequential in your lives as I can” and that he would do for this country what he did for Texas.

The chart shows that Texas employment wasn’t down much at all in these years, as the state lost only 53,000 jobs.  But looming behind that number are large losses in the private sector (down 178,000) and large gains (up 125,000) in government jobs.

In fact, as the table below shows, the nation as a whole added 264,000 government jobs, 2007-10, meaning public-sector jobs added in Texas account for almost half of the nation’s public-sector jobs over these years.

Here is a portion of an Article published in The Guardian:

When the truck from the Capital Area Food Bank eventually came, each person patiently waited to pick up a box containing cans of spaghetti sauce, fruit juice, a few pounds of potatoes and some pears. Connie Gonzales, an Austin city official, watched the crowds of hungry and desperate people and said that they grew bigger each week. “It is the economy. It is bad. Any help these people can get, they really need it,” she said.

It is not meant to be this way. Not in Texas. After all, this is governor Rick Perry’s Lone Star state. This is the Texas whose record at job creation is at the center of Perry’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination. This is the state whose economic “miracle” is being hailed as a conservative blueprint for the future of America – “Texas exceptional ism” as right wing columnist George Will glowingly called it. This is the state of low taxes and low regulation and which is so pro-business that corporations are booming here. It is the state that dodged recession and has roared back into recovery; an oasis of jobs in a devastated US economy.

Yet there is a dark side. It was on stark display in Dove Springs. This is the Texas of a collapsing education system that is failing to educate its children. This is the Texas where millions have no health insurance and a growing low-wage economy means having a job is not enough to provide the basics of life. This is the hungry Texas that the food bank serves

You can read the full article HERE

The Texas economy is really a false economy. The little private sector growth they did receive was stolen from other states because of zero or even negative tax breaks for billion dollar corporations.

Since Perry has been governor the state spending went from 49 billion to 90 billion with almost 50 billion going straight to corporations. Rick Perry even wants to lease roads to corporations so they can maintain and charge everyone toll roads. I know toll roads are common in some states but that just sucks.

Perry also claims to have low unemployment but Texas ranks 23rd for unemployment with neighboring states New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma all having lower unemployment.

In 2007, 221,000 residents of Texas were making minimum wage or less.  By 2010, that number had risen to 550,000.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

Monica Young of NaturalNews.Com recently published an interesting article on over subscribing of psychiatric drugs.

A quick quote from the Article :

“Imagine if the beloved young characters in Mark Twain’s classic, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” lived today. Based on current psychiatric criteria, Tom and Huck could be designated mentally ill and prescribed mind-altering drugs. Quiet, listless and numb, their legendary adventures would be over.”

Looking at a few children I know that are on various ADHD drugs, most of them are no worse than my friends and I were at their ages. I never had the best concentration either but still did just fine without being doped up. These medications change the child, most of the time for the worse.  I know the doctors always say well lets just try another dosage or lets use this drug but overall it kills the child in a way.

I am not saying some children don’t need medication as I know some do but nowhere near the amount that end up with it.  Most of the time it is not the parents or pediatrician that want to put the kid on medication but it is the school district wanting to send the kid out to a school psychologist so they don’t have to deal with him in class as he will just be doped up all the time.

You can read the full article at NaturalNews.Com

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

The US Treasury Department will withhold financial incentives from three of the largest mortgage servicers after they failed to take required steps to prevent foreclosures under an Obama administration program.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase have been found in need of substantial improvement by the Treasury Department.

The banks will be penalized but not by a fine as Tim Massad the acting Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability has stated “We have the power to publicize what they’re doing. We have the power to withhold incentives. That’s what we’re doing.”

The Treasury Department will be withholding all incentives from the above named banks. The amount is unknown but it is in the tens of millions of dollars.

We have experienced the loan modification first hand with Bank of America.  It has now been 18 months and the process is still ongoing. They keep loosing paperwork, wanting to change terms, or other issues.

And don’t forget our upcoming Treasure Chest Giveaway.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

If you missed this years Billboard Awards, you missed out on the absolute best performance I have ever seen on any recent award show. Beyoncé and her team put together an interesting combination of live dancing with video scenes behind her.

The performance started with a tribute to her from her peers, mentors, family and friends. Everyone described the legendary Beyoncé and all the things she has done in her life and what they foresee for her future. Then it cut to what appears like a silhouette but you quickly learn that it’s actually Beyoncé standing in front of a big screen that is playing a video. Beyoncé is in perfect time with the video playing behind her and it creates an amazing display of creativity.

Of course they handed out many awards, Justin Bieber kissed Selena Gomez, and Neil Diamond closed the show but hands down, Beyoncé performance of Run This World was the best part of the show.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

Or a better question yet. Can women be addicted to porn?

The Guardian has an interesting story about this at http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/07/women-addicted-internet-pornography.

In the article one women talks about missing her interview because instead of printing her resume she saw a link to an adult site she saved and was sucked into the website.  To me someone who does that sounds like they have an addiction problem or she just hates job interviews and found a reason not to go.

There is a dispute about whether pornography addiction exists. There is further argument as to whether or not it has harmful effects. Some sex therapists argue that it is a real addiction with serious consequences, while others argue it is not comparable to substance addiction and should not be classed as such.

Does pornography addiction even exist or is it just a form of an obsessive-compulsive disorder?

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

There has been a lot of people talking about coupons lately. The good, the bad, and the extreme.

Yes, I’m talking about the show Extreme Couponing. The people on the show make your average coupon user look meek in comparison.

I spent some time browsing around and reading up on extreme coupon users before deciding to write this post. A Full Cup listed ten things that the show doesn’t show or tell you about extreme coupon users.

1. It Takes Time to Coupon
It takes hours of planning to take a $2,000 bill and get it down to $100. Extreme couponing like you see on the TLC show is a part-time or even full-time job in regards to the hours put in.

One extreme coupon user said she spent 40-60 hours a week ON TOP of her full time job to keep up with her coupon habit and she skipped doing things with her family and friends because she couldn’t miss out of a really good sale. It sounded too much like an episode of Hoarders.

5. Store Policies Vary
Stores have different coupon policies – the way coupons were allowed at the store on the show may not be the same at your local store, even if it is the same “brand” of store. Some will double or triple coupons, some don’t. Some limit the number of “like coupons,” some don’t. Some will even limit the number of coupons per transaction. Find out your local store’s coupon policy before shopping with coupons. Don’t assume just because you saw it on TV that you can do it too.

And store policies can be interpreted differently at various stores by different cashiers. Some cashiers let the register match items and some cashiers read every single word on every single coupon. We’ve even had problems buying a product with a coupon because the picture on the coupon didn’t match what we bought EVEN though the coupon states “off any product,” i.e. buying grape jelly when the picture is strawberry jelly but the coupon says off any jelly product.

What do I think of it? It’s surely not for me. I can’t get behind spending so much time searching, clipping, reading, shopping, and the like. Personally, I’d rather spend a few extra dollars each week and spend that time with my family. Although, I am all for using coupons; I just wish stores would make their coupon policies easily accessible and that cashiers know and enforce the policy evenly across the board. If I use a coupon one day with one cashier, I shouldn’t have to spend 15 minutes debating with a different cashier at the same store the following week for the same coupon.

And while I’m not against extreme couponing, I don’t appreciate some of the practices you see on the show. Clearing out a shelf and leaving no items for others simply drives me bonkers. Buying more items than you can use in your lifetime is ridiculous. Now, the caveat to that is donating said items. One person on an episode I saw had enough deodorant for her family to last three lifetimes. That is hoarding! One couple had a huge house and were running out of space for them to LIVE because their stockpile was taking over every room in the house. That is hoarding! No one needs 1000 boxes of cereal for a single person. Now if you arrange with the store to get 1000 boxes of cereal AND you donate the ones your family cannot consume before their expiration, you are a fantastic person.

Read the rest of the 10 things they don’t show or tell you! then come back and tell me what you think of extreme coupon users?

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

The FBI has recently released a bizarre memo that appears to prove that aliens did land in New Mexico prior to 1950.

Does this memo prove that we have just moved to a state that has had visitors from another planet?  I doubt it. Everything in this memo is second hand. I have been informed, etc. But it does seem to make it appear that a cover up occurred.  If it wasn’t a UFO from another planet maybe it was a UFO from another country.

In the memo, whose subject line is ‘Flying Saucers’, Agent Hottel reveals that an Air Force investigator had stated that ‘three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico’. The investigator gave the information to a special agent, he said. The FBI has censored both the agent and the investigator’s identity.

Agent Hottel went on to write: ‘They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter.

‘Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall,’ he stated. The bodies were ‘dressed in a metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.’

He said that the informant, whose identity was censored in the memo, claimed the saucers had been found in New Mexico ‘due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanism of the saucers’. He then stated that the special agent did not attempt to investigate further.

The release of the secret memo is likely to fuel conspiracy theorists’ claims of a government cover-up. The town of Roswell in New Mexico became infamous after reports that a flying saucer had crashed in the desert near a military base there on or around July 2, 1947.

You can download the PDF from us or view an image of the PDF below.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men

An outpouring of support for the victims of the shooting at a Safeway grocery store that killed six and injured at least 13 others at the Tucson Together We Thrive including Daniel Hernandez Jr., the intern credited with saving Giffords’ life by applying pressure to her wound, Arizona governor Jan Brewer, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, President Obama, and others.

I was impressed by many of the speakers at this event. I’ve heard that many others were impressed as well. This was a great showing of the Tucson community spirit. It was amazing to see my hometown come together under such tragic circumstances.

As always, our thoughts are with the victims of this tragedy and their family and friends.

You might also like:

• Racial Profiling is Alive in Arizona
• New AZ Money Making Law
• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records

My hometown, the place I grew up, has been in the news over the weekend. As I sat listening and reading about the tragedy as it unfolded, I was stunned. I’ve been following many of the details through media and social networking over the weekend and it’s still surreal.

No matter where you fall on the political line, violence against each other can not be tolerated. And yet, it happens every day of every month of every year; someone picks up a gun and tries to solve a problem with bullets. Suicides, murders, school shootings, drive bys, assassinations.

I’m not saying guns should be banned. I think guns are not the problem; people are. As a society, we need a better way to deal with each other, a better way to deal with those who disagree with us, a better way to handle those with mental problems.

We send our thoughts to the families, friends, colleagues, peers and the whole nation as we grieve for those lost or harmed in Saturday’s event.

In other news, I’ve heard that generous people are giving up some of their time to surround the families during the funerals over the next few weeks because a “church” has publicly stated they will be picketing the funerals.

PICKETING!

Why would anyone think picketing at a funeral is a good idea? Let the people mourn without harassment.

You might also like:

• Why Do Millions Oppose SOPA And PIPA?
• Hot Chicks Of Occupy Wall Street
• Cell Phone Retention Records
• Fingerprinting In School
• Boys Becoming Men