I sent this to six of my grandkids (young adults) today.

Funniest Commercial Ever

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.
Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation,
therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely
controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world.
No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by
conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by
the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

By:  Woodrow Wilson, 28th US President (1856 - 1924)
Date: 1916
Attributed:  In reference to signing the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

Reading the Basic 1 Year Adult Food Storage Supply on Cheryl's blog they allot 1 lb. of peanut butter.....ACK!!!  I go through that every week and a half to 2 weeks!!  Luckily I could live on beans and rice and split pea soup.....AND, of course, peanut butter.  We've been buying beans and rice by the bulk and going through them surprisingly fast.  My least favorite bean is lentil but husband LOVES lentil soup and he does whip up a a pretty tasty pot of it.  And today we're headed to Sam's where we'll look at buying a small freezer.  We've already got 250 gallons of water storage and a generator (a small quiet one) and are stocking up on TP and canned goods.  Are we nuts?  Well, if you think about it, everything will cost more next month, so why not stock up on necessities. 

We're off to the dentist in Flagstaff.....I KNOW he is going to say you need a crown and I'm going to tell him I can't afford that.....just do a patch.  I think many of our health professionals look at what's good for their pocketbook rather than our best health interest.

If you get any emails supposedly from a friend saying they sent you a message, added you as a friend, or sent you pictures from Tagged.com  JUST DELETE IT!!!  I got one from a friend and joined up to see the pics and then Tagged.com hijacks your address book and repeatedly sends emails to your friends.  It's like a virus.....just delete the email.  I can't believe I was so gullible....I usually check things like this out before doing anything, but that morning I had seen the friend who supposedly sent it to me ..... sigh

Here's what Wikipedia says about it.
Tagged.com is a social networking site that has had numerous consumer complaints lodged against it for its practices, and is regarded as a phishing and spamming site by consumer anti-fraud advocates.  Tagged.com provides a feature whereby users are invited to provide it with their email username and password, and it will then check their email address books for contacts and repeatedly send email invitations to people who are not yet on Tagged, claiming that they have been "added as a friend" or had photos of them tagged.   Once a user receives an email inviting them to "see photos", the email address is recorded and they are deluged with spam from other companies. 

Here's more information from Consumer Fraud Reporting:
Tagged.com

I bought a 24" iMac and love it.  I hunched over my laptop for years but now I can sit back w/o my glasses am very comfortable and can SEE.  There's a world of difference between a PC and a Mac but I'm learning.  AND I got a 25% discount from the neighbors nephew on a friends and family deal.  I was disappointed that it couldn't open my WordPerfect documents ...... mainly my recipes that I've been collecting over the years.  I still have my laptop sitting next to this huge screen and have to access it now and then.  I'm not much of a music gal but this has a marvelous iTunes program and I downloaded all my Enigma CDs.  The sound on this is marvelous.....almost like Boze speakers.   I'm having fun learning all the new neat stuff.  I wish there were an Apple store closer than Phoenix to get some free lessons but nothing is worth the 2 hour drive to that big, bad-air, congested city.

This is a long article but well worth reading.  Hopefully you aren't one of those saying "No problem".
Ruth

Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 861 May 29, 2009

THE "NO PROBLEM" MINDSET: GUARANTEED DESTRUCTION

Most people will not change. Too radical. Not going with
the flow. Not betting against the herd.

The best examples in the 20th century were Jews in Germany
in 1933. They stayed. This included Jewish bankers, all of whom
could have left. They thought they could deal with Hitler. They
did not read "Mein Kampf." They did not take it seriously.

About 7% did leave early: 38,000 out of 523,000. More left
after 1938. By 1941, about 160,000 remained in Germany. Then
emigration was closed by the Nazis. Earlier, it was encouraged.
The data are here.

http://www.garynorth.com/snip/867.htm

At some price, almost all could have left. There were
countries that would have let them in. They would have had to
learn a new language. They would have arrived in poverty. But
Jews had faced those options ever since the Assyrian captivity in
the eighth century B.C. So what?

They all would not have escaped the Nazis. Some would have
moved to other European countries that were overrun by Germany
after 1939. But they could have tried to get away. They stayed.
They refused to acknowledge the warning signals. "It can't be
that bad." It got worse.

The Armenians went through the same thing. The Turkish
massacres of 1895 were a foretaste. Most stayed behind. Then
came the genocide of 1915.

NO PROBLEM!
Look back at the economy in October 2007. The Dow was at
14,000. The banks were booming. Real estate was down a little,
but the experts gave no warning. They were wrong. All of them.

The U.S. government is running a $1.8 trillion deficit this
year. Federal tax receipts are down 34%, which means that the
deficit will go above $2 trillion. No one cares. No one says,
"This is the end. The American economy will never again be what
it was."

Think "2007." Would you have believed that Chrysler and GM
were both headed for bankruptcy. In October 2007 GM shares were
at $43. Now they are at $1. There was an industry called
investment banking. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman
Sachs were not part of the commercial banking system. To
survive, a few made the transition in September 2008. Some did
not make the cut.

Merrill Lynch is gone. Bank of America and Citigroup were
bailed out by the government. They would have gone under. They
sell for a fraction of what they did in 2007.

And what do most people say. "No problem."

There is no problem for which their answer is not "no
problem."

Medicare will go bust. Social Security will go bust. "No
problem."

The unemployment rate keeps rising. "No problem."

When people refuse to face reality, because reality is going
to be more painful than anything they have experienced, they look
for signs that the problems they cannot avoid without changing
are really not that bad. They look for offsetting good news.

They think the status quo ante will return. The U.S.
government is about to spend another $30 billion to buy a dead
carcass of a company. It has already spent $20 billion. "No
problem."

The government will let the company stiff bondholders for
$27 billion in exchange for 10% of the company, 72% owned by the
government and 17% by the United Auto Workers medical insurance
fund. "No problem."

Bondholders were originally told that it would take a 90%
vote to authorize this. The government has changed the rules.
It will determine after the May 30 vote by bondholders what
percentage must approve. "No problem. The details are here:
http://www.garynorth.com/snip/866.htm

The company will never return to what it was. "No problem."
People will not buy as many cars as before from a company run by
the government and the United Auto Workers. "No problem."

The Dow rose 100 points on the rumor that the largest
bondholders will accept the deal. The deal is a disaster, but
investors are in "No problem" mode. Somehow, the wipeout is less
of a wipeout.

Who is going to buy a GM car instead of a Japanese car? Here
is a company that is about to break its contracts with thousands
of its dealers. "No problem." Yet buyers are expected to trust a
GM warranty.

Oldsmobile is gone. "No problem." Pontiac is going. "No
problem." Cadillac sells its cars with an ad of a flash model
putting the pedal to the medal. Hot stuff! The company thinks
people with money will not see through this ad. The Cadillac
division has lost its way. "No problem."

The price/earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is over 120.
Traditionally, 20 was regarded a sell. The investor pays $120 on
the hope that the stock will retain a dollar of earnings, and pay
investors some minimal percentage of these earnings as dividends.
 "No problem."

We are watching the investment world adopting a lemming
mentality that has always produced losses. "This time it's
different. No problem."

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
The Conference Board announced that consumer confidence is
up to 55. The 50 figure is neutral. Yet consumer confidence is
a lagging indicator historically. When it rises, the stock
market usually falls.

The indicator is a reflection on what the stock market has
done recently. To use consumer confidence as a justification for
buying stocks is nonsense. This is like saying, "I will buy
stocks because the public is confident, which based on the fact
that stocks have risen." If that strategy worked, stocks would
never stop rising.
Even hard-money newsletter readers are beginning to doubt
that the recent good news is in fact "less worse than expected"
bad news. This is the stuff of dreams that do not come true.

Readers look at the reports, and the reports look awful:
falling home prices, rising unemployment, an astronomical Federal
deficit. But the media say we are close to a bottom -- the
bottom of a crash that none of them forecasted.

Readers think, "by the standards of late 2007, what we are
seeing daily was inconceivable. Optimists speak of a slow, weak
recovery. Pessimists speak of hyperinflation and depression
simultaneously. But as the chorus proclaims "No problem," the
public mindlessly picks up this refrain.

"We have nothing to fear but . . . fear itself!" Yet as FDR
delivered those words, Hitler was consolidating power in Germany.
Stalin was beginning the purges. A quarter of the U.S. work
force was unemployed. But Roosevelt began the refrain: "No
problem." Four years later, unemployment was still 20%. The
Federal deficit had ballooned. Happy days were not here again.

Your friends don't want to hear your pessimism any more.
They don't want to change. They will refuse to change.

In 1934, Ludwig von Mises realized that Hitler, an Austrian,
would seek to bring Austria under German hegemony. He warned
Jewish economists to leave. They had been his students at his
famous seminar in Vienna. Fritz Machlup believed him, and came
to the U.S. So did Gottfried Haberler. Mises went to
Switzerland as a professor, leaving his great personal library
behind. He fled to the U.S. in 1940, after France had fallen.
He never got a full-time teaching job again.

A few listened. Most did not. "No problem."

HEARING, THEY WILL NOT HEAR
People count the costs of making a change. This is wise.
Jesus taught:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth
not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have
sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath
laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all
that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man
began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what
king, going to make war against another king, sitteth
not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with
ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with
twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a
great way off, he sendeth an ambassage [ambassador],
and desireth conditions of peace (Luke 14:28-32).

In short, count the costs. This is what people have refused
to do. They have counted the cost of doing something radical.
It's high. They have counted the immediate cost of doing nothing
new. It seems low. They prefer doing nothing.

But what about the long term? What about:
1. Retirement (no Social Security or Medicare)
2. The Federal Deficit ($1.8 trillion this year)
3. Federal Reserve's monetary base (doubled)
4. Falling house prices
5. Rising unemployment
6. The war in Afghanistan (forever, until our defeat)

"No problem!"

How do you reason with these people? Answer: you don't, if
you value your time and your privacy. If you turn out to be
wrong, you will be ridiculed or at least treated as a child. If
you are correct, you will be hated. You will also be hit up for
money. If you are a Christian, you will be told you are
heartless. You will become a line of credit for those whose
mantra was "No problem!"

They don't want to change. They will not change. They will
not listen to you.

And when things turn out much worse than even most
newsletter writers are forecasting, you will be hated. Are you
prepared for this?

Do you have a real plan to deal with what is obviously an
unfolding disaster: rising government ownership, massive
deficits, rising unemployment, falling house prices, busted
retirement pensions, rising interest rates (falling corporate
bonds), and Federal Reserve inflation on a scale never seen in
American history?

Or do you think you can delay. "No problem!

CONCLUSION
We live in today's world. It's bad, but it's not a
catastrophe. We must keep our heads above water.

A Tsunami is coming. In such a scenario, you have got to
get out of the water and off the beach. But few people ever do,
unless they have seen a tsunami. Few have.

Allocate some percent of your wealth to tsunami-avoidance.
Do it quietly. Do not discuss this with your big-mouth brother-
in-law.

What do you really think is likely to happen? Not what you
would prefer will happen.

Think, "General Motors in October 2007"

Think Chrysler, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers.

No one saw it coming. It came.

Problems. Big, big problems.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College and has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College  and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press. Dr. David Kaiser  History Unfolding   I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening.. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it.. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two. We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back. Why? We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine.. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.   We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?    We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?   We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman.. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?   Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x  ten... And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.   And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big asWasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it.Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)   Mr.. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?   I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.   This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life.. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again. And that is only the beginning..   As a serious student of history,  I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now. And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,     How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... .. .. change. And the people surely got what they voted for   If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books..   So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.   Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.   As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..   I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.   I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.   David Kaiser     Jamestown , Rhode Island United States

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Letter:  Stacy Kramer was an angel among us.

Editor:

Stacy Kramer was a testament to the way one ought to live their life. She lived her life to the fullest, with a husband and children and an entire community that loved her.

She devoted decades to teaching the young of our community, and she taught them brilliantly. As an educator for several decades I can attest to the fact that Stacy was the best teacher I ever had the pleasure of working with.

In her dying, she felt compelled to ease the minds of those around her. She comforted us at a time when we all struggled with how to comfort her. As someone said, "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." She is woven into the lives of many people over many generations in this community, and her life has greatly enriched us all.

"I've seen angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives." Stacy Kramer was just such an angel. Thanks be to God for sending her to live among us.

John Tavasci Jr.
Clarkdale