NATIONAL HEALTH CARE IN A GLASS

There are so many additions to a planned national health care bill that it is starting to get out of hand. I believe now that congress will take all the additions and will put them in a blender, give it a good stir and pour out some in a glass. What's in the glass is what we will get and once past, for decades to come, congress will spend it's time tinkering with it, a change here, a change there, a little more of this, a little less of that, and after the decades have past the health care we started out with will long be gone. No wonder people are mad at the town hall meetings. They are scared of what we might get stuck with. People will accept change, but only if their shown what the change will be, but with congress always changing what a health care plan will look like, people will not support. The latest polls show that, 53% against national health care, 43% for it. And when you have one representative state on national TV he gives a damn about what his voters think, he is going to do what he thinks is best, that makes people really mad. Congress needs to step back from national health care, let the dust settle and then take it back up, but it needs to have input from the Dems & Reps. Then maybe they can achieve a health system that will work, that won't be rationed, that is reasonable in price and one that lowers cost without hurting the people or the health care system whatever that may end up being.

NCAA & THE NBA

What are college scholarships for? Most would say the intended purpose is to help students with tuition while they attend a college seeking their degree in one of the academic fields. What would you say to Mississippi State University when their basketball coach tells a high school student that if he plays for the MSU basketball team that he will get the kid into the NBA in two years and that a scholarship will be provided him? Doesn't sound so good does it?
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Lets look at this from another view. A student receives a scholarship to attend a university to study in the field of medicine with the end result of moving on into the research field. The student is brilliant, his research leads to a great cure for a disease that had no cure. A great contribution to society. Now lets look at the student going to college under a scholarship that eventually leads him into the NBA. He has a long career in the NBA and he sets new scoring records. His contribution to society is zip. But, for the basketball player he gains wealth and fame.
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This is the evil of NCAA basketball. The scholarship handed out to students that show a great talent for playing basketball is done so under the disguise of eventually earning a degree in one of the academic fields. If you were to look at what the degree falls under you would see that's really a worthless field that will not gain the student any advantage in the working world. All colleges, coaches and basketball players know the end result is to make it to the NBA where fortunes are to be made. Is this wrong, well not really. For many of the students playing college basketball it's their only chance to achieve independence, and for those that do not make it into the NBA, life for many means working at menial jobs after leaving college. We all have a talent in something and it's this talent that we try to be the best at. We achieve a level of success based on how good we are at our talent and that is life.
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So what it the beef here? It's the plain view that scholarships should only be given to students seeking a degree in an academic field, one that will eventually benefit society and not one that only provides for fame and fortune which provides no contribution to society. But to limit scholarships as such would go against college tradition and take away from the college life itself. College sports is part of the very fabric that makes up a college. It's part of why some student's elect to attend a certain college over another. I for one do not wish to see any changes made to recruitment practices, go ahead and promise a student that he will make the NBA in 2 years. Go ahead and give a scholarship for a kid to play basketball. I'm for it.
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Yes I'm for keeping the status quo, but I will still have heartburn over wasting a scholarship for some kid to play basketball. Here is my solution. The NBA treats NCAA basketball as nothing more than an collection of farm teams. So why not have the NBA contribute to the college farm teams by way of penalties paid to the NCAA. If the NBA drafts a college basketball player out of college before the player attains his degree, then the team that drafts the player must pay a penalty fee in the sum of $300,000. This fee would cover the cost spent on the player's scholarship and would also provide additional funds for other scholarships that would be used for academics and not sports. This would also have the benefit of slowing down the ever increasing tuition cost for students.
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Well there you have my take on the subject, what say you about it?

BING CROSBY PIONEER FOR RECORDING TAPE USE

Just a bit of radio broadcast history.
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Development of magnetic tape recorders in the late 1940s and early 1950s is associated with the Brush Development Company and its licensee, Ampex. The equally important development of the magnetic tape media itself was led by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing corporation.-
American audio engineer John T. Mullin and entertainer Bing Crosby were key players in the commercial development of magnetic tape. Mullin served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was posted to Paris in the final months of WWII. His unit was assigned to find out everything they could about German radio and electronics, including the investigation of claims that the Germans had been experimenting with high-energy directed radio beams as a means of disabling the electrical systems of aircraft. Mullin's unit soon amassed a collection of hundreds of low-quality magnetic dictating machines, but it was a chance visit to a studio at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while investigating radio beam rumours, that yielded the real prize.
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Mullin was given two suitcase-sized AEG 'Magnetophon' high-fidelity recorders and fifty reels of recording tape. He had them shipped home and over the next two years he worked on the machines constantly, modifying them and improving their performance. His major aim was to interest Hollywood studios in using magnetic tape for movie soundtrack recording.
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Mullin gave two public demonstrations of his machines, and they caused a sensation among American audio professionals -- many listeners literally could not believe that what they were hearing was not a live performance. By luck, Mullin's second demonstration was held at MGM studios in Hollywood and in the audience that day was Bing Crosby's technical director, Murdo Mackenzie. He arranged for Mullin to meet Crosby and in June 1947 he gave Crosby a private demonstration of his magnetic tape recorders.-Crosby was stunned by the amazing sound quality and instantly saw the huge commercial potential of the new machines. Live music was the standard for American radio at the time and the major radio networks didn't permit the use of disc recording in many programs because of their comparatively poor sound quality. But Crosby disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts, preferring the relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio. He had asked NBC to let him pre-record his 1944-45 series on transcription discs, but the network refused, so Crosby had withdrawn from live radio for a year, returning for the 1946-47 season only reluctantly.
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Mullin's tape recorder came along at precisely the right moment. Crosby realised that the new technology would enable him to pre-record his radio show with a sound quality that equalled live broadcasts, and that these tapes could be replayed many times with no appreciable loss of quality. Mullin was asked to tape one show as a test and was immediately hired as Crosby's chief engineer to pre-record the rest of the series.-Crosby became the first major American music star to use tape to pre-record radio broadcasts, and the first to master commercial recordings on tape. The taped Crosby radio shows were painstakingly edited through tape-splicing to give them a pace and flow that was wholly unprecedented in radio. Mullin even claims to have been the first to use "canned laughter"; at the insistence of Crosby's head writer, Bill Morrow, he inserted a segment of raucous laughter from an earlier show into a joke in a later show that hadn't worked well.
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Keen to make use of the new recorders as soon as possible, Crosby invested $50,000 of his own money into the Californian electronics company Ampex, and the tiny six-man concern soon became the world leader in the development of tape recording, revolutionising radio and recording with its famous Model 200 tape deck, issued in 1948 and developed directly from Mullin's modified Magnetophones.

GOD, THE BIG BANG AND ME

GOD AND THE BIG BANG
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Some have responded to my Facebook post about God and the Big Bang. Well here it is and I know some you may not like it, but maybe a few will accept it. The whole thing gets down to how I finally worked out that there is a supreme being.
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I know what the Bible says about the beginning and I know what scientist say about the beginning. There is direct conflict between the two, or is there?
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I’m a believer in science, it has given many wonderful things, it has given us the computer and now anyone in the world can communicate to someone else on the other side of the world. It’s given us life saving meds. And it’s given us things that we do not understand if we believe in God because it goes against what is written in the Bible.
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When scientists look at the universe they see the galaxies moving apart. Scientist can measure how fast the universe is moving and they can pin point where the galaxies originated. And the grand conclusion is that the universe all started from something smaller than an atom. Hard to believe, but I believe it. From some people it just sounds so unbelievable that they will never believe it. But what makes me believe? Well, for me it’s my starting point to my journey to believing in the Supreme Being.
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Something smaller than an atom produced the universe. From it came everything we see, every object on this earth and the earth itself. To me that requires that you have to believe that if the Big Bang did occur from something smaller than atom then you have to believe a supreme being created that small little microscopic speck and caused its explosion into something really grand. Thus my belief in God springs from the Big Bang.
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Now I hear the argument, if the Big Bang did occur and that I subscribe to that theory, then don’t I have to subscribe to what scientists say about other things such the existence of the dinosaurs? The Bible makes no mention of such creatures. So how do I get around that? For a long time I couldn’t find a way around it. It’s something I thought about for years, but I finally came to a solution that works for me.
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What I’m going to say next may cause many of you to want to stone me. I ask that you bear with me.
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Here’s my take. God was the cause of the Big Bang, though it took billions of years to reach it’s current form, it was just a blink of an eye for God. When he saw what he had made, he populated many of the worlds including our own with living creatures. Now here is the part that may get many mad at me. None of the creatures that God created for our world did not include man and thus man was not around to record the event. Remember, it was man that wrote the Bible and thus we know what happened after mans creation.
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There were two great extinctions of the earth. From what the scientists tells us the first extinction was caused by an exploding star and the earth was in direct line of the killing gamma burst from that star and it killed off over 90% of living things on earth. I believe this was an act of God since he did not like what he had created. I heard someone say that God makes no mistakes. If God was only dealing with earth itself and not any of the other planets that he populated with living creatures than I could agree with that. I’m not saying God is not perfect, what I’m saying is that not only did he create earth but also the universe and there are billions of other worlds in our galaxy and there are billions of galaxies. That means God may just had his hands full and when he got back to earth he found it needed a little change.
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I think after first extinction of the Earth, God went back to checking the other worlds he had populated and started making changes to them. Then when he got back to Earth again, things still were not to his liking. The Earth was covered many creatures and the Earth was lush with vegetation. But it still was not good and God deemed another minor adjustment was needed and he caused the second extinction by sending a meteor crashing into the earth which wiped out most of the living creatures. And like the first extinction man was not around to record the event.
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When God paid a third visit to earth he then found things much more to his liking and found that earth just needed a very minor tweak to make it better and this tweak was man. And as time past man took up the pen and started recording God’s work. Of course man did prove a slight disappointment to God for he had to make another minor adjustment in the form of the Great Flood.
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All this may seem silly to some, but as the pastor’s wife said to me “It’s not important how you came to God, it’s that you did.” So if you want to condemn me for the path I took to God then so be it, if you care less about the path I took but care only about my happy arrival, then thank you.

HEALTH CARE - THE NEW MONUMENT

I grew up in Washington, D.C. I grew up with the Federal Government and I've seen what the government can do. There is an old saying in Washington, "What is passed by Congress to be temporary becomes permanet. What is past as permanet becomes a monument." The last means that any bill wich finds it way into law never goes away. Like the Jefferson Memoral or the Washingto Monument, which always requires every increasing funds to maintain either, a national health care once passed into law it will also have to be maintained with every increasing funds.

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At the moment medicare as of last year is broke, meaning it now exist on one of the largest ponzi schemes in history which makes what Maddoff did look like a drop in the bucket. The out lay for medicare now exceeds 1 trillion dollars a year, it depends on those working to pay for those retired, that's a ponzi scheme. I can't imagin what will be the cost within the next two years when the babyboomers start hitting medicare. When those working can no longer support medicare, one of two things will have to be done, raise taxes or cut back on services. What will cutting back on services gain, that I do not know. Obama says approximately half of the cost for a government run single payer national health care program can be paid by cutting of waste from medicare. Maybe it can, but then somewhere down the road medicare will still need additonal funding other than what it gets from those working.

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One important point to consider about a government run health plan, it's start up cost, it's been indicated it will require 2 trilloion dollars in startup funding. Where will that come from? We now have a national dept of 1 trillion dollars, where will the additional 2 trillion come from and where will the 1 trillion to cover the first 10 years according Obama come from? We are talking about a lot money that no one has really stated where it will all come from and most likely we will never really know.

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Here's the real point here. Once a law is past, that's it. It never goes away. Any required funding never goes away. And when a program needs additional funding, it will get it. Congress is very good at hiding additional funds for any program as an admendment to any spending bill. You already see how this works with the pork barrel spending - oh did you know there will be pork in the national health care bill in it's final form. The pork projects has already been debated on the different national news shows. And if additional taxes is placed on us down the road to keep a national health care going, believe me when I say we will pay it and we may not even know it when we do. You may find a minor change in the income tax laws, maybe a slight drop in a particular deduction. Taxes can buried in anything.

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Politicians are very good schemers. It they say you are getting a tax cut, they'll tell you where, but you will never be told what other tax is being rasied to the cover the tax that is being cut. A good example of this comes out of Mississippi. Car tags were extremely high, it finally got to the point the people started complaining. The politicians in the state capitol, Jackson, got together and came up with the perfect solution, cut the taxes on car tags by half and they did and the people were really happy. Well some were disappointed a little later when they bought a new car, that's when they found out the state sales tax of 7% was no longer true when came to new cars. For new cars it was now 9%. As you can see you really don't get a tax cut, what you do get is a trade off of taxes, drop one, raise another. Keep all this in mind, once the law is passed for a national health care program, it will be with us as long as there is a USA. And it will be paid for not matter how much it will cost down the road. The politicians now in office are only concerned about holding office as long as they can, and if passing on a big mess for our grandchildren to handle, our politicians today could really care less for they know they won't be around when it all its the fan. And what makes it worse our grandkids will grow up thinking its just part of their world.

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So to end this, lets make sure that any health care plan that is passed into law is something we really want and are willing to pay a lot for especially down the road. Nobody can predict the future. Just one last thing, has anybody been keeping track of the Cap-And-Trade aka the Envioremental Bill that congress past. It's estimated to cost each household $4,300 each year in added taxes. Take a good look at it and contact y0ur senator to express your concerns.

POLITICIANS - WHAT A STRANGE BREED

Politicians are a strange breed. Threaten one by running against him or her and see how fast every little dirty trick is pulled to make you look like one the worst people who walked the earth. Just a brief study of politicians from different eras will show you that today's politician, even though they are extremely cutthroat, they don't compare to those of a hundred years ago.

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A politician will pull every dirty trick you can think of and more to stay in office. It's never really been what is good for you, but what is best for them that is until we as a whole start asking questions, then they listen. In my opinion politicians are really failed actors and actress', they have to have an audience to play to so that their ego's are boosted. The main goal is to die in office, in their minds that is the ultimate success and some do just that, die in office.

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I never shake hands with any of them. That one time I did, I never thought I would get the dirt off my hands. They are always the first to step forward with news you want to hear, but they never tell you the bad news that they buried in a bill working its way through congress. The only dance they know is the Washington Side-Step.

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But in the end we do need the little minded boogers, it just seems lately we haven't been doing to good in picking them. And some seem to just become family to us, even though we know they have passed their time to leave office, we just can't seem to vote against family. Maybe some may be put out of office because of the Cap-And-Trade they voted on or the Health Care they voted on, but I suspect it will just be a few.

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There have a few politicians that went of to Washington with all intentions of doing good deeds. Once there they soon found that the good old boy system was much stronger than their good intentions and some decided one term was enough for themselves. One new senator dared expose the backdoor dealings, making them public. Needless to say his party dropped him and he was a one term senator. You cannot get re-elected if the party doesn't contribute to your campaign.

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Speaking of party funding, the voters finally had enough of the large private donations to re-election campaigns, they wanted a change and Washington felt their pain and past news laws saying private donations could not exceed $2k. The voters were satisfied and Washington was satisfied for there was nothing in the law that stopped someone from kicking in $200k to the party with a note attached stating that the party had to use to help a politician's campaign but as a third party. In other words, it's nothing stopping a individual or organization from airing campaign ads on their own. Them little boogers are really slippery aren't they?

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Well enough of this rambling, this must read like a new bill coming out of congress, the type nobody can understand. I'll just end it here by saying, the US still has the best way of doing things and this includes our politicians, at least we can elect them, no so for some countries. My American flag will always fly at my home. Y'all have a good one.

LOW OPINION POLLS FOR CONGRESS

Polls show that people have a very low opinion of congress. Would it be safe to say that since the democrats hold a majority of the seats both houses that according to random polls democratic voters know not what they vote for?

PEOPLE AND POLITICS

Ever wonder what it might be like if there was a third party? Today we have Democrats and Republicans and the two can always find something to disagree on and almost never something to agree on. Voters are hardcore for one side or the other. You can see the conflict in all its glory at the town hall meetings over health care. Even the President has stepped into the fight with "We'll fight back even harder" or something like that. So much for the President being presidential and staying above the fray, I guess he is falling back on the old Chicago way of doing things. What did I just here "How dare I attack the president"? Of course I did, as I just said, people are hardcore loyal to one party. Just imagine if there were just five senators that did not belong to either party, but to a party of their own. Five senators that stood in the middle ground. Imagine how that would change politics as we know it today. Neither the Democrats or Republicans could pass a bill without the middle of the road five senators. No matter what party the president belongs to, it would always come down to those five senators saying ya or nay. Would it change voters attitude, maybe. Would bills that had buried in it money for a bridge to nowhere, most likely it would not have it. Wishful thinking all this.

We have all seen the polls about congress, the public has very low opinion of congress. We don't trust congress, we think they do a poor job and we say throw the bums out, but we don't. Every wonder why? It's simple really. Take Joe who lives in Ohio. According to Joe his senators are really good. According to Joe it's those stupid senators in Illinois, and those in Pennsylvania, and those in Kentucky, and all the rest of them are those that are dragging down the senate, and Joe votes for his two senators every time. But then Bill in Kentucky thinks his two senators are really good and he votes for them every time, it's those stupid senators in Ohio that are messing up things. So Bill in Kentucky, Joe in Ohio, Sally in Texas, Mike in Nevada, Joan in Idaho and so on all think the same way, our senators are really good, it's those stupid senators from the other states that are bad. So Joe, Bill, Sally, Mike, Joan and the others from the other states keep voting for their senators each time they come up for re-election. Exceptions do occur, but not enough to break the cycle. So when you go to the polls to vote for your senator remember your senator is the good one, it's all the rest that are bad and you'll feel really good about yourself.

One last thought. Pork Barrel is a just form of vote buying and it you accept the pork then are you are any better than a prostitute?

US REPRESENTATIVE REFUSES TO ANSWER

The photo at the right is that of US Representative Ben Chandler of the 6th District of Kentucky. I emailed him several times asking "What part of the house proposed health care bill precludes membership by all representatives from participating in the proposed plan in lieu of a special plan for themselves." I have not received an answer. Maybe a blog comment about the matter and a facebook comment might induce Ben to come up with a answer.

CASH FOR CARS - PAGE 2

Politicians are amazing in what they do, sometimes I think they all want to be a magician - they really know the art of slight-of-hand. Any time an elected political group, whether it be state or national government passes a spending or tax bill they never tell you want is on page 2. The case cash 4 cars is such a bill.

The 1 billion dollars that congress provided for cash-4-cars became an overnight success. Give congress a big pat on the back for that. And now congress will add another 2 billion to the program. The plus side of the bill, it gets a lot of cars off the road that eat gas in large quantities and belch out a lot of pollution not to mention it helps out the auto industry. Another plus, according to a White House spokesperson, the first billion dollars also has the effect of decreasing the amount of oil this country uses by 45,000,000 barrels a year and with 3 billion that comes to 135,000,000 barrels per year - a good deal for us.

Now what was on PAGE 2 of the Cash-4-Cars. Page 2 shows that the highway fund is broke. The highway fund gets its money from the 18.5 cents tax per gallon of gas. I'm not sure how many gallons of gas you get from a barrel of oil, so I will say that it's just 1 gallon. Doing the math that means $24,975,000 is lost for the highway fund, not good since the highway fun is already broke and the white house has floated a trial balloon on the possible increase in the federal tax on gas. Now take the $24+billion and extend out for the average life of the new cars, I would think it really gets up there in the billions. But being fair, it really gets rid of a lot of pollution.

I'm not saying the Cash-4-Cars was a bad idea or was a good idea. What I'm driving at hear is the the politicians only give us the good news, never the bad news. Wouldn't it be great if there was a law in place that mandated that our politicians give us the good news and the bad news side effects. I wonder how many spending and/or tax bills will get past then.

DARK MOVIES

The wife and I just finished watching a movie. We have a subscription with NETFLIX. When you return a movie to them, you can log onto their website and rate the movie you just returned. Well, the plot was good, the acting was good, and everything else about the movie was good, except for one thing, there was so many dark scenes in it that we couldn't tell what we were looking at. It's not the first such movie we watched, loaded to many dark scenes. Well, even though it was good movie, we still gave it 2 out of 5 for the dark scenes. What makes dark scenes even worse, darn if they don't load up the same in some of the Wii games I play, real bummer.

GOVERNMENT PRIVATE JETS

A congressional committee calls the CEO of General Motors and Chrysler for a hearing. The GM CEO flies into Washington in a company private jet. The CEO gets a good going over for using tax payer's money for using a private jet. I agree, on our behalf the government did give them billions of dollars, so yes it's tax payers money. Now I hear that congress just passed a bill for the purchase of 3 top of the line private jets for themselves. Now you could get all over congress for that, but wait. They need a private jet that can fly nonstop to any point in the world when a committee such as the one Polosi and a bunch of reps took just recently for a meeting. If they had one of the new jets then, maybe they wouldn't have had to stop of in Italy for 7 days of rest before their meeting. But what do I know, I'm just one of those fools that need something like congress to take charge of my life.

HEALTH CARE AD - PHARMACEUTICAL

I enjoy picking apart TV ads. A current ad by the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufactures of America / Families (PRMAF) depicts a middle aged couple discussing national health care. It's basically an ad that promotes a government run single payer health care plan. I have my opinions about such a plan but I will not discuss it here since this is about the ad. So lets look at the ad and ask what does PRMAF gain from such an ad. Well, PRMAF represents a group of pharmaceuticals that benefit from Medicare, Part D. They are tapping into a huge group of people that they can sell their drugs to via the US Government which picks up much of the tab. If a single payer national health care plan is created, then the it becomes clear PRMAF will have another government agency to sell even more drugs to. This all boils down to one thing, profits (money money money & more money). Is it bad for a private company to increase profits, sell more products, after it would have the affect of putting more people to work. This all gets down this, what do ads really say to you? Do you just blindly accept what that say or do you look for the underlying theme of the ad? Add your two cents here if you wish.

NEVER BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's treasury secretary on Sunday said he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama's intentions about taxes. Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama's proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere.

'We have to bring those deficits down'During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly vowed "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime." But the simple reality remains that his ambitious overhaul of how Americans receive health care — promised without increasing the federal deficit — must be paid for.

Well there you are. The government spends like there is no tomorrow and then asks the working class to now pay for it with added taxes. Good old tax and spend again. Who do you trust more a politician, lawyer or used car salesman?

COKE TIME

Coke Time was an old radio show featuring good music. It was one of those 15 minute radio shows that filled in time where needed, but even so it was a great little show. You can view the content for either MP3 or regular CDs by visiting www.originaloldradio.com for MP3 or www.radioshowcds.com for regular CDs.

CLASSIC RADIO DRAMA

If you like drama of any kind, then you will love this 9-CD MP3 set. It features 40+ shows per CD and the total time for each CD 25+ hours. Why not try listening to the old radio drama shows while you jog, it's better than eBooks. View the content of each CD by visiting www.originaloldradio.com

"This Is Your FBI" was a very popular show during the Golden Age of Radio. The show aired on ABC radio from Apr. 6, 45 to Jan. 30, 53. The show was endorsed by Bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover in that it dealt with actual FBI case files. You can view list of the contents for this CD set at www.originaloldradio.com

CLASSIC RADIO COMEDY

Classic Comedy Radio is a 4-CD MP3 set featuring 240 comedy radio shows from the era of Golden Radio. Enjoy again the Abbott & Costello show, Fibber McGee & Molly, Our Miss Brooks, Amos & Andy, Blondie, Burns & Allen, Bob Hope, Jack Benny and many more. It's great to listen to while you jog, or on the long 30 minute + drive to work. You won't this set of CDs anywhere else on the internet. Check the content list for each CD at www.oldclassicradio.com

RARE TREASURES

This 30-CD MP3 set features over 1000 shows from the Golden Age of Radio. You cannot find this CD set anywhere else. It's only available at http://www.originaloldradio.com/. Rare Treasures has become very popular with those that enjoy the old radio shows. The set contains 2 to 8 episodes of a show that have survived over the decades. When you think you have heard of all the shows, this CD set will show you otherwise. Check the website and see content for each CD in the set.