Best Wishes

The sole active Female Supreme Court Justice~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg is hospitalized for surgery to remove a tumor on her pancreas. Ginsburg is one of only two female justices to ever serve. The other is Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired in 2006.

The only woman on the court, Ginsburg has been a justice since 1993. She is a liberal-leaning justice who has been vocal in recent years about the court's more conservative stance.

In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and had chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The new cancer was discovered during a routine, annual exam late last month at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers: Nearly 38,000 cases a year are diagnosed and overall, fewer than 5 percent of patients survive five years. Hers was caught early, so it is hopeful she will respond to the treatment.

Ginsberg is one of the few voices of reason in the Supreme Court.

I wish her well.

Overheard....

Dave Letterman had Blagojevich as a guest on his show.

DL: So, what brings you here?

Blago: I've always wanted to be on your show, in the worst way

DL: You sure are....

Wrapping your head around the numbers

President-elect Barack Obama said the deficit appears on track to hit $1 trillion soon. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top economic aides, Mr. Obama said: "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on."— Jan. 2009

Actually, the deficit is on track to hit $1.2 trillion this year, but what's $200 billion among friends?

Seriously, what is it? To the average person, a number that big probably doesn't mean much. At some point long before the hundred-billion-dollar mark, large numbers simply become figures on the page, well beyond human scale and intuitive understanding.

But that similarity trips us up when it comes time to imagine how those figures translate to the real world, where three more zeros make all the difference.

"My favorite way to think of it is in terms of seconds," says David Schwartz, a children's book author whose How Much Is a Million? tries to wrap young minds around the concept.

One million seconds comes out to be about 11½ days.
A billion seconds is 32 years.
And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

I like to say that I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing a million seconds from now, no idea what I'll be doing a billion seconds from now, and an excellent idea of what I'll be doing a trillion seconds from now." ~ Time

So that is the deficit, then there is the debt....

The estimated population of the United States is 305,589,466
so each citizen's share of this debt is $34,926.72.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$3.36 billion per day since September 28, 2007


--- "Budget Deficit" vs. "National Debt"---
Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow. The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.

Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $10,000,000,000,000 and growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt.

In Fiscal Year 2008, the U. S. Government spent $412 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.

The total debt has increased over $500 billion each year since FY 2003, (Bush!!!). The annual US budget deficit increased to $455 billion in 2008. The annual change in debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in FY 2008.

The bottom line is We the People are made to pay taxes, taken right out of our paychecks, and there are no allowances for oversights with the IRS. We are in serious trouble... the Feds have to get a grip on the money issue.



Rachel Maddow does a blurb on the National Priorities Project

Sweet Tribute Song

Generally Clueless

General Motors is investing one billion dollars in Brazil! Thank you American Taxpayers! The Latin American Herald Tribune ran the story.

Anyone notice Cadillac (GM) ws a major sponsor of the Super Bowl?

Must be nice they are doing so well.

Wait a minute~ General Motors was the biggest whiner @ the recent Big Three begging for bailout sessions.
They were hurting the most- on the brink of bankruptcy. Finally, they were able to declare themselves a bank, as they have the GMAC lending wing of the company, & got $9.2 billion bailout money.

So all that song & dance was just that- According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."

As they say in Brazil: Siempre mamones!

So long suckers!

Shhhhh! Business as usual~ (GARY MYERS DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER) reports:

"TAMPA - Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes will get his brand-new Cadillac, even if financially troubled General Motors would just as soon nobody knows about it.
Holmes picked out Cadillac's most expensive model Monday as his reward for winning the MVP: the Escalade Hybrid Platinum with an $85,200 sticker price, according to Cadillac spokeswoman Joanne Krell.
This time there was no Cadillac on the field Sunday night during the awards ceremony and no Cadillac in the hotel ballroom Monday for the MVP news conference. Usually the MVP marks off on a board which car he wants. There was no board, either. It was all done in private.
There was no mention of Cadillac or of Holmes winning the car at the news conference. It was at the request of Cadillac, commissioner Roger Goodell told the Daily News Monday.

Cadillac has a multiyear contract with the NFL to sponsor the award but knows how bad it would have looked to make a big deal of it this year. This is the eighth year it has been the sponsor.

"Given the current business environment, it was much more appropriate we not do that," Krell said in a phone interview. "We made the decision not to actively participate in the Super Bowl. We congratulate the MVP, it is a great achievement. We are very sensitive to the federal assistance loan we have received and we want to carry on our fiduciary responsibility. The Super Bowl was not a place for us to be this year. That is not to say it's not a great platform."
Holmes will get his car, she said.

There went $85,200. But we should not be upset.... no one else actually had the money to buy such a vehicle.... certainly not the 200,000 people who lost their jobs, just last month.

By the way, to the folks at General Motors- when the mandate of change came with the bailout money, they did not mean to be covert about wreckless expenditures- they meant actual change.

Epidemic of innocent mistakes

Damn! We can't seem to find any clean politicians. When they fail to pay taxes, they are "oversights" or "Innocent mistakes". So a little oversight on Geithner's part, failed to pay $35,000 self-employment taxes for several years. He paid $15,000 in interest, but no penalties. Hey! Anyone who can get away with bilking the IRS of $35,000 for all those years, AND not pay a penalty must be a financial genius!

Now we have Daschle & his baggage. His post Senate situation prohibited lobbying, so he worked as a "special policy advisor" of a lobbying firm. Daschle did not pay taxes on an additional $83,333 that he earned as a consultant to InterMedia Advisors in 2007,
He also took tax deductions on $14,963 in charitable donations that did not qualify. Daschle just now paid owed taxes and interest -- an amount totaling $140,167 -- in January 2009. No penalties for him either?
Worse, his work was for big pharma. Clearly that is a major breech of the ethics policy Obama rolled out.
#1 No making up different names for lobbying, such as special policy advisor
#2 Does no one else see this as a conflict of interest? The Health & Human services director comes from a position of lobbying for makor pharmaceuticals?

Maybe we can just restore the Federal Treasury by nominating a string of politicians and find their tax oversights? Everyday people have to pay hefty penalties for money owed to the IRS. Do we have special rules for politicians, because it was just an oversight/ mistake?

Happy Birthday

A happy birthday shout out to Grandpa Mac-- 82 years old today. He is celebrating while in the hospital. The 4th chemo treatment proved to be too much. 5 days later he is feeling better, but still under observation. We love you Grandpa!!!!! 

Wow!

With the economic shit hitting the fan, I was beginning to be concerned about Mr. Rambings extended layoff situation. But it would appear our worries are over, when I discovered this in my inbox:

CONFIRM YOUR 2009 YEARLY AWARD !!!

This email is to notify you that you have won an Award Sum of €1,000,000.00 in an E-mail program held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Please contact the claim officer with your winning info below;

TICKET NUMBER: 860655927438
SERIAL NUMBER: 9768/02
Lucky No 2-10-18-22-36-4/6
Batch Number: 074/05/ZY369
Ref Number: SP/9850X/09

Mr. Mark Edwin.
Tel: 0031-681-752-263
EMAIL: claimofficeinfo@gmail.com

Please note that the validity period of these winning is 30 working days; hence you are expected to make your claims immediately. Any claim not made before this date will be CANCELLED.

Congratulations !!!

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Karen Olanna.
Public Relation Officer.
www.sponsorbingoloterij.nl


I quit my job, and discontinued the husband's unemployment claim. I am not exactly sure what the conversion rate is, but that is a lot of zeros!!!

Huge over-the-top party to be announced.

You are all invited!

Blogroll Amnesty Day

The point of this folly is to give a hat tip to other up & coming bloggers.

That being said I am giving "linky love" to the following bloggers:

• Annette ~ Just my little piece of the world

A nice sampling of news & opinion, fresh off the press, good doses of humor.

• Lulu Maude ~ Take Your Medicine

Queen of photoshop finesse, and a heck of a writer. Edgy & fun ~ Fantastic Feminist.

• DK ~ Redheaded Wisdom

Tends to do in depth writing, with healthy doses of snark & wit.

• Kellybelle ~ Ephphatha

Maybe she should have been a stand up comedian? Kellybelle brings a unique black perspective

to the blogospere, with a slant towards mental health.

• Mauigirl ~ Mauigirl's Meanderings

In a demanding job, sometimes her cat Baxter takes over the keyboard & give his feline take on the two legged ones. That is one introspective cat! Maybe we need catnip awards?

Skirting the edge of the Blogroll Amnesty guidelines~ I am throwing in one more plug. Some may call it a shameless promotion, but I am only one of many writers on the fledgling cornucopia compendium site known as

Siren's Chronicles ~ A rainbow pallet of writers contributing to the blogosphere. Pretty much left leaning, if not an outright radical liberal bent - news, opinion, music, and perspectives on a full spectrum of issues. The folks at Siren's have also participated in Blogswarms- a day where all writers contribute to a particular topic. The Iraq war, and Poverty were two swarm topics in '08. Kind of a fledgling in comment volume, there is good stuff there. Something for everyone!

Coin Parody

http://blip.tv/file/520347/