Libyan Troops Issued Viagra?

Even in war, some things are just plain wrong. This man and his regime have to be stopped. They are terrorists and are terrorizing their own people, showing the world who they really are.

Libya: US Says Gaddafi Troops Raping, Issued Viagra - CNBC

The 91-Year-Old Woman Selling $60 Suicide Kits

A 91-Year-Old Woman Sells $60 Suicide Kits? I can't believe she got away with it as long as she has. She sold over 1600 "kits" to people contemplating the unthinkable. If Dr. Kavorkian can't do it, what makes Sharlotte Hydorn think she can do it.

Suicide is not the answer. Find ways to get help, don't just call it quits. Let people know how you feel and ask for help.

New Obesity Treatment Shows Twice as Much Weight Loss

According to Fox News, New Obesity Treatment Shows Twice as Much Weight Loss. It's a strange combination of drugs, especially since I took one of those drugs for migraines.

Doctors today aren't trying to cure the problem, they are treating it with expensive drugs, that, when taken away, will most likely cause all of your weight to come back double-fold. People can't afford to take the drugs that are altering their body's chemistry even more than the toxins they are dumping into their bodies everyday.

Learn how to restore your body's own ability to lose weight and maintain proper healthy function so you don't have to be dependent on prescription drugs and you will see a big difference. There are better ways to keep that weight off than drugs.

Can a tight budget help you pay off your credit card debts fast?

Can a tight budget help you pay off your credit card debts fast?
by Erica Smith

For most people in the US, the thought of following a budget brings devastating thoughts of penny-pinching and crunching numbers in their minds. Most Americans love to hate a budget and this is the most obvious reason behind the surging level of national credit card debt. No American uses a credit card payment calculator to determine his total debt amount while opting for an option that can make them debt free. According to most financial experts, a budget is the secret to financial freedom.

A budget is the base of all financial foundation and without it you're most likely to drown in credit card debt. As credit cards can trash your credit score and make you completely unworthy of getting new lines of credit, you must always make sure that you follow a tight budget to pay off your credit card debts fast. Here are some steps to follow in order to be able to pay off your credit card debts fast and become debt free.

1. Create a frugal budget that can be followed: You must create a tight budget that eliminates all kind of unnecessary spending on items that you can do without. Make sure you keep a close watch on the amount of money that you make each month and the way you're spending that money. See where each penny goes and make improvements if you think that you're spending in unnecessary places. Frugal living is the ultimate secret to financial freedom. Live within your means and follow a tight budget.

2. Save enough money: Without boosting your daily savings, it is almost impossible for you to pay off your financial obligations. With the rising commodity prices, it is pretty difficult for someone to make ends meet until he goes through a salary hike. The only way he can become debt free is by saving at least 10% of his monthly income. As per a survey done by some financial experts it has been seen that 2011 has seen a large number of individuals who have started saving 8% of their monthly income. This is a positive sign for the US economy.

3. Stop using your credit cards: If you want to get debt free sooner, you need to make sure that you stop using your credit cards. The more you use your cards, the more you dig yourself deeper into the debt hole. Lock them in your cupboard and go shopping with cash.

4. Trigger paying off your debts: As you gain positive results through your saving efforts, you must start triggering off your credit card debts one by one. You can start with paying off the high interest rate debt first and then concentrate on the accounts with lower rates. This will facilitate your debt repayment procedure.

Thus, after going through the concerns of this article, you must have been intrigued by the necessity of following a tight budget to pay off your credit card debts fast. Determine the debt amount by using a credit card payment calculator and save money according to your needs.

New Black Panthers gearing up for "National Day of Action"

Black Panthers gearing up for 'National Day of Action' -National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com Funny how anti-racist groups are some of the most racist people you hear about. Please stay away from these demonstrations and protests, especially if you are a clearance holder. Read the full article to see where they will be protesting.

The Problem with the United States Budget!

'The Problem with the United States Budget' is an article by Jason Moser and his thoughts on the way the government is handling its responsibilities. He has taken several personal finance classes in college as well as creates budgeting materials for his own budget.

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Instead of figuring out how to trim the deficit with pointless cuts here and there that barely even scrape the dirt at the bottom of the deficit, how about figuring out how to bring in more revenue to pay off more debt each year!

In a Fox Business News article called 'Only in America: More Debt to Avoid Fiscal Meltdown', the government is contemplating a very critical decision on a catch 22 situation that could go bad either way. In one direction, the government will pretty much default on all of their debt and all of the world's powers will lose all confidence in our ability to pay them back. In the other direction, by increasing the debt limit, the government will be able to simply increase the deficit even more.

Congress is going about it all wrong. The financial think tank is thinking like a multimillion dollar business instead of like a family with a huge buget. Thought the United States is a huge government, it is still one budget. How difficult could it be to:

A. Stop borrowing money.
B. Stop spending more.
C. Raise more income.
D. Lower the debt.

Think about the budget from your prospective. What would you do with your personal budget if you were in a situation where:

A. Your income is $100,000.00
B. Your spending is $150,000.00
C. Your liabilities total $750,000.00
D. Your net worth is $250,000.00 not including this year's income

In this example, most of your earnings doesn't go to bills. You pay the minimum on all of your credit cards and loans and practically everything you purchase is on credit, not cash.

What would you do to solve the problem?

Well, the first thing you should do is shred every single credit card you have. Closing all of the accounts is not smart, but requesting lower limits doesn't hurt. Your credit score will go down if you close all of your credit card accounts at the same time. But, you must get rid of the source of credit, the cards and the numbers you use to make your purchases.

The second thing you should do is assess your budget and see where you are going wrong. The first problem is that you are spending more than you make. The second thing is that you owe more than you are worth. Those are the obvious problems. Now you have to dig deeper and find where you are spending that keeps widening your debt (eventually you will run out of credit). You are going out to eat way too much, you pay top dollar for the best services (doctors, dentists, lawyers, hair dressers, therapists...), you have to have the newest cars, largest boats, and biggest house. And the five i-phones for your household are a must. You have people cut your grass, prune the bushes, and even wash your car. You are rarely home, but all of the lights, televisions, computers, and appliances stay on constantly. And everyone must own a car in the house, sometimes two of them. Wow, there are a lot of things that can be trimmed down to control your spending.

Third, figure out exactly where all of your money is going. You must know all of your bill outflows as well as all of your miscellaneous living expenses. Bill outflows are your utilities, mortgage, auto loans, cell phone bill, store charge cards, credit cards, and personal loans. These bills generally have a minimum payment or a set monthly payment. You must know how much you must pay on all of these to not get behind. If you are paying minimum payments, you are owing more and more every year on interest alone. If you make interest only payments, your balance will never go up or down so the debt will never be paid off. For your miscellaneous expenses, you must know how much you pay for gas, food, entertainment, medical, health, and everything else that consumes your money each month.

Now that you know where all of your money is going, you need to make a budget plan to actually trim down your unnecessary expenses and bills at the same time.

Before I go on, you can see where this is going to get cumbersome with the United States Government. Can you imagine how many pages of income, expenses, liabilities, and assets the government has? How can anyone simply review the budget and come up with any kind of solution?

The forth thing you need to do is to get the entire family on board with the plan. If any one part doesn't do their part, the plan will quickly fall apart and the old habits will be reenacted. Discuss the plan with all parties and reach an agreeable decision. Getting a family of four or even ten is easy. Getting an entire congress full of democrats and republicans to all agree on the same budget is near, if not, impossible.

Once everyone is on the same page and agrees to the budget plan, you must take action on the budget plan. Your goals are to increase income, lower miscellaneous living expenses, creatively raise bill payments to pay the higher interest liabilities off faster while still paying down the other liabilities, and not incure any new debt until the original debt is paid off.

Now how easy is this? Very, very painful. But necessary to avoid financial collapse. Some people will simply bail out and take the bankruptcy road, trying to erase all of their debt that way. This may work to an extent, but it is backfiring on you in the long run when companies raise their interest rates or prices to make up for the lost money from your bankruptcy, of course costing you more every month.

Unfortunately, our government can't just bail out and file bankruptcy. But they can do something about the debt in question. But unfortunately it will take some time to go through the thousands of financial statements and pages of budget proposals to even think about a solution. Here's some quick fixes the government could do to help in some of the budget areas:

A. RAISE MORE INCOME! Create a FLAT TAX! Here's some statistics from a CBO Study: "Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed), according to the CBO study released Thursday, and households that earned between $34,300 and $352,900 paid 66.7 percent of all federal taxes.

"Households in the top 1 percent for annual income (those earning more than $352,900) paid a healthy 28.1 percent of all federal taxes, but households in the lower income brackets paid relatively little. Those earning less than $34,300 paid only 5.2 percent of all federal taxes, and those earning less than $20,500 carried almost none of the federal tax burden (just 0.8 percent of the total) in 2007." That's a pretty large spread of tax burden among the income levels.

From low income to super wealthy, everyone pays the SAME tax rate every year for every dollar they earn. This is easy. Go to the IRS, erase every computer hard drive they have, get rid of every tax program out there, and start over. The 14EZ form will be super easy for everyone; 4 lines total. One for total income, one for the amount you were actually taxed throughout the year (which should be 15% lets say for all earned income from a job), a line for how much tax you should owe based on all income sources, and how much you still owe. Nothing more. Sign it, send it in and you are done. Simple as that. If someone doesn't pay their taxes, put them in jail or make them pay double to stay out of jail.

Another thing they can do is stop importing oil and other commodities that we have readily available right here in this country. Exporting is highly encouraged, but no more importing until spending is under control. This may hurt the world economy right now, but they aren't really watching our backs right now.

B. STOP BORROWING MONEY. If you look at the rate at which the United States borrows money, you would fall over dead. They need to stop. If they have to borrow money, just like with normal every day citizens, then they don't need it. If they don't have enough to attack a country, they shouldn't attack the country.

C. STOP BAILING OUT BANKS AND OTHER COMPANIES. Worrying about the economy and trying to be the do all save all is what is killing this country's economy. Stop giving away billions to failed companies. They failed because they didn't run their business correctly. This is what really added to the deficit in the past three years, especially when none of the companies are really paying it back.

D. STOP WASTEFUL SPENDING. This is a big one that the government put themselves in trying to help businesses who provide items via a stock system. When the government shops around for the lowest price, it's not necessarily the lowest. If you buy a toilet seat a Lowe's, you may pay $22.00. The government, because the item is tracked with a special stock number, will have to pay around $200.00 for the same toilet seat. Get rid of the stock system all together and purchase everything on the open market. Stop paying hundreds for dollars.

E. FIRE SOME OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. I know this will hurt the job market at first, but there are way too many people working in the government that are really considered unnecessary. By unnecessary, I mean sit on their butts all day everyday not really doing anything. With all of the pay increases for all of these government employees (including military), the amount of people (too many people) that get paid isn't supporting these increases in the overall outlook of the budget.

This is a great start that will definitely help the United States in their quest for a lower deficit. What is trimming four trillion dollars off of the country's fourteen trillion dollar deficit, especially over a twelve year period. Our country has to do something right now as the debt continues to grow through interest payments alone before all of the other nations in the world who we owe debt to bail out of the dollar and leave us high and dry to lick our wounds.

6 Year Old Brings Gun to Kindergarten in Texas

Gun control freaks are going to jump all over this one but there is only one set of people at fault for this one. A 6 year old boy in Houston, Texas brought a gun to Kindergarten, accidentally dropped it and shot himself as well as two fellow students. Is it the child's fault who is barely old enough to spell his name?

No, it's the ignorant parents that left the gun laying around in the first place.

If you have a gun, keep it locked up. Don't even tell your kids you have it, which means don't play with it in front of them. If they do know about it, there are locks you can buy to prevent the trigger from being pulled. If you want your 6 year old to know you have a gun, TEACH them about the safety rules. They are in the learning stage of their life. They will understand. Show them what the gun can do, that it's dangerous. Then tell them to stay away from it. Previous rules apply. Lock it up.

I have been around guns all of my life and I understood at a very young age the importance of gun safety. I never played with the guns in my house, even though I knew where they were and how to get to them. It's all about being open with them and teach them how to handle the gun, when to handle the gun, and set the rules of the house.

It's not the gun that kills, it's the idiots who own them that kill.

Support NRA and your constitutional rights before these idiots totally ruin it for everyone.

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

The following is the best debt clock in the world. Shows all of the important numbers our budget is facing in the United States. U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Nicolas Cage Arrested!

Actor Nicolas Cage and his third wife Alice Kim had a little spat 16 April while in New Orleans. Click the link above to read more and post your comments on my blog.

Damage Reports in the Hampton Roads Virginia Area

Damage reports in the area on Wavy 10. Storms cruised through the entire Hampton Roads area this evening causing severe damage by high winds and tornadoes. The lightning here in Chesapeake, VA was constant for a good hour. Lots of much needed rain too.

Nearly Half of U.S. Meat Tainted With Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Scary but true, almost half of the meat and poultry in the stores have deadly bacteria, most of which is resistant to antibiotics. Very interesting article, Nearly Half of U.S. Meat Tainted With Drug-Resistant Bacteria covers an intense study done on the subject. To set you at ease, this bacteria is easily killed with proper food management.

Post your thoughts to this article below.

Two Major Soaps Canexed by ABC

Two major soap operas are being cancelled by ABC. 'All My Children,' 'One Life to Live' will be no more this coming fall and winter. The world really is coming to an end. I remember when these shows were chugging along when I was a kid...at least 30 years ago. Daytime drama will never be the same.

Express your thoughts.

The Guy Who Says He Owns 50% of Facebook Just Filed a Boatload of New Evidence—And It's Breathtaking - CNBC

The Guy Who Says He Owns 50% of Facebook Just Filed a Boatload of New Evidence—And It's Breathtaking - CNBC. I love this article. Why on earth wait almost six years to file a lawsuit. He claims he forgot about the contract, but how do you forget something that is in everyone's face for three or four hours a day? I guess it has to be greed then. He only apparently invested $2000.00 in the development of "the face book" project. But 50% (or more) share of the company six years later is worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

Post your comments.

The Debt Bomb Is Coming Due!

CNBC Money and Politics Blog — Larry Kudlow: The Debt Bomb Is Coming Due — CNBC.com US Economy and Politics - CNBC. The real truth is not to increase your credit limit, it's to lower the spending to lower the balance on your current limit. What happens when most people raise their credit card credit limits? They tend to spend more money and misuse that credit. What do you think the government will do if they raise the debt ceiling (credit limit)?

Post your comments on this story.

Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems - CNBC

Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems - CNBC. This is a great article but is very lacking in its evidence or how Natural Gas is damaging to the environment.

What about the process used to extract it from the earth and how it is damaging the water tables?

Gas Prices Hit 30-Month High In Philadelphia

Funny how when oil prices start going down that gas prices continue to raise. I guess once oil started climbing, it has started a ball rolling for everything else to raise it's prices. Average gas prices here in the Hampton Roads Area of Virginia are around $3.70 per gallon. Gas Prices Hit 30-Month High In Philadelphia.

What are the average gas prices around your neck of the woods? Please post a comment letting us know the State, City and price of gas.

Slash Your Tuition Costs

Want to learn How to Slash Your Tuition Costs? The end of the school year is nearing and your children are graduating from high school. Next step...college. But with the economy in the middle of a roller coaster ride, inflation and tuition prices going up, and wages seeming like they are going down, how on earth can you afford to send your education wanting child to the career path of their dreams?

Read the article and post your thoughts.

Alcohol is 'a major cause of cancer'

Alcohol 'a major cause of cancer' according to extensive research conducted throughout Europe. If you are a heavy drinker, please read this article. Post your views on the subject. Share any stories you know of people who drank a lot who were diagnosed with cancer in the throat, stomach, colon, or liver.

Hard Work Won't Kill You...Think Again!

Working Long Hours? Watch Out for Your Heart! I love studies like these that explore the link between work habits and your health. In this study, they believe that working more than 8 hours a day can lead to a higher risk of heart problems.

Do you think your job could kill you? Let's here your thoughts.

Opponents of Gun-Free Zones at Universities Find Unlikely Hero in Nevada Woman

Opponents of Gun-Free Zones at Universities Find Unlikely Hero in Nevada Woman. The debate to keep and bear arms escalates in college campuses where victims of heinous crimes who legally purchase guns and have a concealed gun permits are told they still can't carry their guns.

Please post your thoughts on this matter.

To check out the gun laws in your state, visit NRA-ILA Gunlaws Website.

Democrats, Republicans agree on a budget deal

Democrats, Republicans agree on a budget deal. About time they agreed to something, even though it's not the entire budget. From the article, it read "Democrats and Republicans narrowly averted a partial shutdown of the federal government Friday night, agreeing on a budget deal and short-term funding extension". Did you catch the keyword there - EXTENSION?

Betty White BLASTS Lohan, Sheen

Betty White BLASTS Lohan, Sheen! You go girl! You know it's bad when the Great Betty White has to say something bad about anyone. But she is so right when she explains how they are ungrateful and unprofessional.

What do you think?

Trump Sends Investigators to Hawaii, Gains in GOP Presidential Primary Poll

Trump Sends Investigators to Hawaii, Gains in GOP Presidential Primary Poll. Could it be true? Will Trump run for President of the United States in 2012? This isn't as far fetched as it sounds, but what does Donald have to gain by running?

According to the article, Donald Trump hopes Obama can produce a real birth certificate, but why would he send investigators to Hawaii to investigate this matter?

Post your thoughts about Donald for President and the Obama citizenship question.

'Real Housewives of D.C.' canceled -- for real this time

'Real Housewives of D.C.' canceled -- for real this time - From Inside the Box - Zap2it. I can't believe I'm posting this, but I want some well rounded news from all corners of the headlines. My point of this post is to solicite response on the question: "How real is the reality of reality shows?" For those of you who follow all of the "housewives of ______" and other reality TV shows, how many of you think this is a true depiction of their lives?

Shutdown would take away $32 million a day from national parks

Shutdown would take away $32 million a day from national parks. Here's an interesting point to ponder during a potential Government shutdown. In the midst of budget problems and growing debt, let's just take away income pouring into the budget to pay our debts to try and solve the problem.

If the Government shuts down, so will the National Parks that bring in nearly $32 million dollars a DAY.

Please post your comments. This affects a lot of people right there in Montana with Glacier National Park.

Markets Weigh Two Government Shutdowns, One Bad and One Awful

Markets Weigh Two Government Shutdowns, One Bad and One Awful - CNBC.

I will use this as the virgin post to my new blog, Five Cents Worth. This article is about the looming US Government shutdown expected if the lawmakers can't resolve their differences and agree on our nation's budget. The FY 2011 budget, proposed back in July 2010 by the President, has been delayed six times so far since October 2010, historically the most in one year. For the past thirty years, the budget has only been delayed one time per year.

So, what are your thoughts on this matter.

Why do you think it's taking so long to resolve the nation's budget? Well, what is there at stake here? What's the BIG picture that they don't want everyone to know? Is it more than just the HUGE deficit the country has? Is it about losing the financial edge in the global economy?

Be nice! (This isn't to bash Democrats or Republicans). This is to present your opinion on what is really going on.