27th Aug is the date that the whole world is waiting for. Planet Marswill be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will lookas large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will happen on Aug.27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch thesky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. Thenext time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
Author Unknown
The Demographics of American Newspapers:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country . . . or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheists who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Pensacola News Journal is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
Then there is my paper the Gazette: It is too stiff to wipe my tail on, to small for a small dog to piss on, all its news is taken off the UPI and the only reason I subscribe to it is to find the local store specials, the funnies and the Obits. If i'm not in the Obits, I read the funnies and my wife checks the local store specials and then we trash it.
Author Unknown
The Kalamazoo Gazette my local paper. I don't subscribe to it because; what is not local news is taken off the UPI. The sports are half hearted. There is hardly any Detroit professional teams or any other professional sports, little if not for University of Michigan or Michigan State. Business news, just as much of a joke as the sports section, a very limited selection of stock and mutual fund results. Just another newspaper headed for the same business health of the New York Times and the Los Angles Times. Losing significant numbers of readership that puts out their opinion, while disregarding their readerships opinion.
Dear Mr. Piet Van:
This is in response to your recent correspondence regarding the subject of immigration. I appreciate receiving your views on this important matter.
Our immigration system is broken and needs reform. Undocumented immigrants flow through our porous borders. Employers hire them with near impunity. Our government lacks the ability to adequately detect unauthorized employment, while employers in sectors such as agriculture, Michigan’s second largest industry, fear that their crops will go unpicked for lack of legal, authorized workers. The bipartisan compromise bill before the Senate was an opportunity to reform this broken system.
The first step in immigration reform must be stronger border security. Although there were some provisions in the bill before the Senate that I did not support, this legislation had strong border security measures, even stronger than the ones we debated a few weeks ago. In fact, it contained the funding for the enhanced border security.
We need a more secure, more sensible, and fairer system of immigration. Because of filibusters in the Senate we were unable to fully consider and amend the bill. We do not know what the final language might have been, and we were unable to get a vote on a number of amendments because of the filibuster. We should have finished the consideration of those amendments to determine whether or not the final product was an improvement on the status quo. I’m disappointed the Senate was thwarted in that effort.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
Bloggers Response:
Thank God there were enough Senators that listened to the people versus my Senator! I must agree that we must get border security first. I must disagree that there are not people that are willing to do the farm work with out the illegal immigrants. There are people willing to do the job, just not below minimum wage or possible the wage that the farmers want to pay.
To the Honorable Senator Debbie Stabenow & Carl Levin:
I would like to know when would you be pushing the legislation to make the 2002 tax cuts permanent? Failure to make the tax cuts permanent will be a significant tax increase on my family and other families in our great nation.
One of the biggest tax cuts was the child tax credit. I am sure you are in favor of doing things for the children of this great nation. The next measure that directly impacted families was the raising of the minimal taxable income.
As I remember there were also provisions in those tax cuts that revised the depreciation schedules advantageous to businesses. By making these depreciation schedules permanent this is advantageous to re-investing in your business. Additional measures included the lowering the capital gains taxes. Right now Michigan manufacturing needs this help. Michigan manufacturing has taken such a beating in plant closures; jobs moving down south and internationally. This is very depressing. In quoting for jobs as an engineer, the deprecation costs sometimes is the make it or break it factor in keeping these jobs in Michigan and the United States. Without the revised deprecation schedules made permanent, you cannot depend on using the current deprecation schedules; we must use the old schedules.
I’m sure you understand that Michigan has some of the highest unemployment in the nation. Tax cuts and making the tax cuts permanent is one of the biggest things that the federal government can do to stimulate the economy. I grew up in Michigan. I returned to Michigan after honorable service in the United States Navy and I would like to raise my family in Michigan. The Great Sate of Michigan needs your help right now!
Sincerely,
Pieter J. Vande Vusse
What a great thing happened this week in the Senate. The people spoke and the Senators had no choice but to listen. The people did not want was what congress had come up with for immigration reform.
This incident goes to show how powerful the voice of the people is. It told the people the importance of writing your Congressman/woman and Senators. If you are upset with what congress is doing, you must call or write your legislator.
Have you written your legislator to tell hem how you feel about making the 2002 tax cuts permanent? I have young kids and those tax cuts equals $3,000 a year to me. What else is important to you?
By the way, the Senators were not happy about this mass of calls, e-mails and letters. They are blaming Talk Radio, and they are right. Talk Radio did stir up a lot of the people, but it is the job of the legislators to listen to the people too. In response to the Amnesty bill failure by the Senators having to listen to the people. There are Senators that are trying to write legislation that would kill Talk Radio. When this happens, it will be time again for the American people to tell their senators what to do again.
What is up with companies today expecting new employees to relocate their family, yet expecting the new employee to travel 70% (out of town 7+ nights in 10 working days) and up? Where would it make sense for the new employee to up root their family and never be there. How does it make sense to the company to pay for the relocation expense and never have them in their office?
What is 70% plus travel? Try thinking of it this way; there are 5 working days in a week of seven days. If the employee is out of town over night seven working days in two weeks, that is 70% travel.
Traveling expenses on average traveling to one city in North America, flying out Monday morning and flying home Friday night, hotel, airfare, rental car, meals and misc. expenses; it averages about $1,500 a week. This is base on an average town and not a "big city". Big cities can be considered, Los Angles, New York, Toronto, Chicago, etc. This is based on my experienced of traveling 150,000 plus qualifying miles a year for the last three years and 200 plus nights in hotels per year. Call me a road warrior.
So you need me in the office, fly me there on the way to another meeting or on my way home. It costs a lot less than paying the relocation expense. My experience of 80% plus travel, I'm only in the office maybe 14 days a year. My experience of planned travel to the office has cost on average of about $700 per stop. Compare $9,800 for travel to the office versus $40,000 plus for relocation expense, what a cost save!
Next time you decide you need to hire a person for heavy travel that would have to relocate. Consider getting them a very good laptop, PDA mobile phone with unlimited minutes and extra batteries, and a corporate credit card. Have the travel into the office when you need them there for a meeting and get out and do what you need them to do for your company the rest of the time. It's cheaper for your company and easier on your new employee.
How is it easier on your new employee? First they do not have to go through the stress of selling their house. They don't have to go through the stress of buying a new house and moving. Their family is not up-rooted from where they are already settled. They are already going to be gone from their family a lot, but why put their family where they have little family or friends? You see, your company saves money, and your new employee is happier. In the end it can be a true win, win.
In the end it should be the new employees choice.
The Israelis handled this "negotiation" right with Iraq in the 1980’s; they bombed the reactors under construction. A squadron of Stealth fighters dropping on all of the sites simultaneously would be very effective. Iran is delaying through negations while they continue to build. In effect Iran is thumbing its nose against the world.
The United States is losing the war on terror because we are unwilling to do what it takes to win. The United States is sitting on its hands while terror state nations; continue to build up an arsenal while we try to negotiate. The United States is trying to appease the world with negotiations with terror state nations that flat out say they want to kill all of the Americans (Iran).
Other than Vietnam, no other country has ever beaten the United States in war. We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight. Vietnamese Generals have repeatedly publicly stated one more year of B-52 carpet-bombing would have had Vietnam at the bargaining table begging for peace. We lost the war because we quit. We need to put on our pants and go kick these terrorists off of this plant and let them meet Allah.
As a nation we are not taking the war on terror very seriously. I really believe we will not take it seriously again until we get attacked again to the level of 9-11. Our government also needs to stop denying that these little attacks are people that went wacko and call them for what they are. I am referencing the Muslim that went it to the mall and just started to shoot people.
There was this short little song during the Iranian hostages crisis back when Jimmy Carter was in office, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran. Lets bomb Iran!” The truth is that we are eventually going to have to destroy Iran in its current terrorists state, if we ever desire world peace.
Senator Reid does not understand that bashing the Generals is the same as bashing the troops. Senator Reid has choosen this week to start bashing the Chairman of the Joint Cheif of Staff. Senator Reid has also choosen to bash General Petraeus.
At the same time Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-California), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Pace lost standing among members in March when he said homosexual acts were immoral and that the military should not condone the behavior by letting gays serve openly. Pace later apologized, including in a letter to Tauscher, for expressing what he said were his personal views. The problem is that Representive Tauscher has is she does not understand the troops do not want gays in the military at all. I would believe most troops do support General Pace's comments.
Check out this link.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=3121880&ch=49799&src=news
For once the Communist News Network, for once they have this one right to pick on this school district.
Heck my daughter in first grade would be expelled for kissing boys in kindergarten and first grade. Do I think the kissing is appropriate; yes I was not happy to hear about it. I don't think I'm going to be happy when I find out she has a boyfriend when she is 20 or 30 either. Although, I think kindergarten and first grade is way to young to be kissing boys. I am curious on what is the percentage of how many people did not kiss somebody at school when they were a kid? I think most people have kiss another student at some point when they were growing up when they were kids going to school, I think it’s normal. Although, I could understand a policy against kissing in school.
As to hugs, I see nothing wrong with hugs. As for touching like this schools policy goes, I think they need to spend a little more time concentrating on teaching, than worrying about students touching each other.
