The Defense Spending Bill that’s being bounced around the senate contains some very contradictory provisions. On the one hand it is a bill that is meant to provide funding for the defense of our country from external enemies who would destroy our freedom, on the other hand it contains provisions that seek to drastically erode those same freedoms from within.  One can’t help but wonder what sort of dictators would take advantage and use the weapons systems paid for with this bill to tighten the chains that are being proposed in the very same bill.

Libs hiding their agenda

As is their MO the demented democrats are hiding their most radical agenda in bills that sound patriotic and  have nothing to do with the things being inserted.  In this defense bill , somewhere in between funding the F-22 and the pay for Private GI Joe there are provisions for the so called “hate crime” legislation.

You guessed it there is a very good reason why this “hate crime” legislation  needs to be hidden in the Defense Spending Bill. These  “Hate Crime”  measures  are  by far the most radical to ever come up before congress . Among the things that it does, aside from extending the so called “protected status” to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation  and disability,  it also casts an exceedingly wide and unacceptable net in its definition of violence.

Violent Speech

Apparently violence also includes insults, such as name calling  or even speech that is not in itself offensive but can be interpreted as being offensive by any one of the endless classes of people on the “protected” list.

Do you want to advocate against homosexuality? Too bad you can’t or you’ll get charged with a hate crime violation.

Do you want to protest gay marriage? Too bad,  you can’t do that either you hate crime perpetrator you!

Do you want to go to a Tea Party? Too bad you are insulting blacks by protesting against a black President

Do you want to read the Bible? Well, you might be able to do that but only government, or homosexual  approved passages. Never again will you ever be allowed to read in a Church that “homosexuality is an abomination to God”  You’ll have to go and instead of King James Bible, buy the Homosexual Coalition Approved Bible or your church can and will  be sued.

One thing’s for sure the minute  this is passed a flood of law suits will be unleashed against talk radio and web sites such as this one.

Do Something!

Conservatives are targeting 14 senators to rally support for defeat of the bill. Here are a few of them with phone numbers and e-mail addresses please do your part and contact them to stop this bill:

Blanche Lincoln (D-AK)  Contact her at the senator’s official  site

Mark Pryor (D-AK) Contact him through his official site

Mary Landrieu, (D-LA) Contact her at the senator’s official  site

John McCain (R-AZ) Contact him through his official site

Lindsey Graham (R-NC) Contact him trough his official site

Judd Gregg (R-NH) Contact him through his official site

Source: Con Underground

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Just six percent (6%) of voters nationwide now expect their own taxes to go down during the Obama years. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 42% expect their taxes to go up while 40% expect little change. Another 12% are not sure.

This is the first time since last November’s election that the number expecting a tax cut has fallen to single digits. During Election 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. When he was elected, 22% expected a tax cut. That number has been trending down ever since.

Currently, 11% of Democrats expect a tax cut along with three percent (3%) of Republicans and another three percent (3%) of those not affiliated with either major party.

The number expecting tax hikes first topped 40% in mid-July and has remained there ever since.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters expect government spending to increase during the Obama years. That’s up from 54% when he was elected and 63% since Inauguration Day.

Only six percent (6%) expect the Obama administration to reduce government spending.

Seventy-one percent (71%) say the president’s policies have increased the size of the federal deficit.

Seventy-six percent (76%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will have to be raised on the middle class to cover the cost of health care reform, even though 54% think middle class tax cuts are more important than new spending on health care.

Other recent survey data shows that 76% now view the president as politically liberal. The number who consider Obama Very Liberal jumped from 28% just before he was elected to 48% today.

The President’s job approval ratings have slipped over the past two months as his honeymoon period has come to an end.

Source: Rasmussen Reports

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

The White House for the first time Sunday seemed to acknowledge that people across the country received unsolicited e-mails from the administration last week about health care reform, suggesting the problem is with third-party groups that placed the recipients’ names on the distribution list.

In a written statement released exclusively to FOX News, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the White House hopes those who received the e-mails without signing up for them were not “inconvenienced” by the messages.

“The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House Web site. The White House doesn’t purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all e-mails come from the White House Web site as we have no interest in e-mailing anyone who does not want to receive an e-mail,” the statement said. “If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the e-mail, we hope they were not too inconvenienced.”

The White House previously would not answer questions on how the e-mails landed unsolicited in so many inboxes. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday said he couldn’t give an answer until he saw who received the e-mails because he doesn’t have “omnipotent clarity.”

Yet the White House ignored repeated offers from FOX News to share with the administration such e-mail addresses, to help determine how the recipients ended up on the White House distribution list.

Shapiro said Sunday that those recipients can unsubscribe if they want, “by clicking the link at the bottom of the e-mail or (telling) whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore.” He said the White House is trying to correct the problem.

“We are implementing measures to make subscribing to e-mails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individuals’ behalf,” he said.

One possible reason for the confusion is that advocacy groups, when dealing with online petitions, are sending in their membership lists whenever they make contact with the White House – the e-mail addresses affiliated with those members could then become embedded in the White House distribution list. The White House indicated its Web site managers are going to seek out and block online petitions so that people can only sign up for information individually.

FOX News viewers have said in some cases they received a copy of the president’s speech earlier this year in Cairo; in other instances they received health care updates.

Most recently, FOX News had received hundreds of e-mails from people who said they got an e-mail last week from senior adviser David Axelrod, even though they had never requested any communication from the White House.

In the mass message, Axelrod defended President Obama’s health care proposals and asked supporters to help rebut criticism circulating on the Internet.

Axelrod wrote that opponents are relying on tactics including “viral e-mails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies.”

“So let’s start a chain of e-mail of our own,” he wrote, inviting supporters to forward his message countering claims that Obama’s plans would lead to rationing, encourage euthanasia or deplete veterans’ health care.

But many people who thought they were not on any distribution list received the message directly from the White House, leading to accusations that the Obama administration was effectively spamming them.

“It’s not a function of the White House to get somebody’s e-mail address,” said Utah resident Lou Porta.

Porta, a Republican, said he received Axelrod’s e-mail even though he’s never accessed the White House Web site or asked for any communication from it on any topic.

The e-mail with Axelrod’s name on it, sent Thursday, came under a message from the White House. If it had come from Axelrod’s individual White House e-mail it would have been archived indefinitely under the Presidential Records Act. But messages from the more generic account may not fall under the same restrictions.

The Axelrod e-mail is just the latest move by the White House to raise privacy questions.
The White House earlier drew criticism for asking the public to send in “fishy” information on health care reform the public receive via e-mail or find on the Internet.

Critics worried how the White House would use that information and accused the administration of playing “big brother.”

Gibbs rejected the accusations and said the White House was not compiling a list of names.

Source: FoxNews.com

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Baltimore Gas & Electric is leading the way to electricity rationing, courtesy of President Obama.

The utility announced to day that it filed with local regulators an application to install 2 million so-called “smart meters” in the homes of its residential customers.

Smart meters allow local utilities to control electricity use in your home.

Using a $200 million Department of Energy grant — part of the $787 billion Obama Stimulus package enacted earlier in the year — BG&E plans to charge customers for the balance of the costs.

BG&E claims that benefits to consumers (about $5 per month) will amount to about three times the cost of the meters.

Not only is this benefit trivial, it’s pretty phony. It comes from you using less electricity or using electricity at less convenient times — things you can already do without the meter. What’s the benefit from doing less or being inconvenienced?

We don’t know about you, but we’re not interested in selling our freedom to use electricity as we choose — especially for a lousy $5/month.

Also, consider that, since smart meters allow two-way communication, each meter represents a node from which a hacker can gain entry to the grid and wreak havoc.

The ultimate purpose of the meters is to allow local utilities to ration electricity as demand is rising faster than supply, a phenomenon that can be traced to the greens blocking construction of new power plants and transmission lines. Rolling power outages are already being planned for the Baltimore-Washington area starting as early as 2011-2012.

Smart is the new dumb.

Source: Canada Free Press

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

It’s less tedious than forums. As any other type of website, forums have a specific organization scheme that users need to learn. Put in there signatures, private messages, subforums – and it’s not really the simples solution. Also, a forum you create has to start from scratch. From zero users to a community. What if you have both article comments and a forum – what will the user choose to do? With too many choice, he may just end up staying quiet.

It’s more effective than e-mail because you’re communicating to the community. While e-mail is personal, what happens when you get to much e-mail? What happens when you stop responding to people? Ok, so they might understand that you’re busy, but that’s not the right way to get your community going, is it? With microblogging, people know you’re around. They get it. The community is getting it’s feedback – in public.

Accessible everywhere - browser, desktop, mobile,… With all the tools and ways to access both Twitter or your own microblogging network, you choose the way you want to engage your readers. You might have 10 minutes on the bus perhaps. Just pull out your iPhone and get some feedback in. Never again will you want to share a thought with your readers and not be able to do so.  (Full article)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Which one is it?

The options in the title are for the question related to your content – be it on your blog, facebook, twitter or simply in an email that you sent yesterday.

“What will people do when they read your content?”

1. Skip [ and move on to the next one ]

2. Scan [ look for highlights or the key message and move on ]

3. Stop [ and think and probably thank you for triggering their thinking ]

4. Save [ and re-visit multiple times in the future ]

and/or

5. Spread [ touched by it  so much that they voluntarily spread it for you ]

Content from article via Rajesh Setty (full article).

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

By STEVEN D. LEVITT of Freakonomics:

I was drinking Tropicana orange juice this morning. The company has a clever marketing campaign. If you go to its website and type in the code on the Tropicana carton, Tropicana will set aside 100 square feet of rain forest to preserve on your behalf.

What’s clever about this?

I think corporations do not exploit the opportunities to bundle consumption of their products with contributions to charity as much as they probably should. I have no quantitative evidence on this; it is just a hunch. Typically, though, these sorts of corporate offers come in the form of “We will donate 3 percent of profits to X.” The share of profits is usually small, which doesn’t make the corporation seem generous.

The beauty of the rain forest offer is that 100 square feet seems like a lot. Once you think about it, it isn’t really much at all, but it sounds big. And if you are used to thinking about prices of land in cities, 100 square feet could be expensive.

By my rough calculations, where I live it would cost about $130 to buy 100 square feet of land you could build on. Land is cheap in the Amazon, however. Some online sites say that for $100, they will set aside an acre of land in the Amazon for you.

So probably, the true cost to Tropicana of an acre of Amazon land is half of that, or $50. Given the number of square feet in an acre, I calculate that the land my daughter saved in the Amazon this morning was worth about 11 cents. When I asked my daughter how much she thought the land was worth, she said $20. When I asked my wife, she guessed $5. Whenever a company can give away something worth 11 cents that people think is worth $5, they are doing something right.

The most remarkable thing of all is that even after we figured out that the rain forest we saved would only cost 11 cents, we still felt good about the fact that there was this little patch of land as big as the room we were eating breakfast in that we had saved.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour insists a stimulus package is needed, but he says this isn’t the one.

“First of all, we could create as many jobs and spent about half as much of the tax payers money,” said Barbour.

This compliant has been the number one reason the president’s stimulus package didn’t receive the bi-partisan support he had wanted.  (Full article here)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

1. Because it’s easy to sign up for FriendFeed and even if you don’t use the service, signing up for it allows your work better exposure on one of the fastest growing communities on the web. 

2. Because by signing up for FriendFeed, your work will get better exposure across the internet.

3. Because FriendFeed is a superior platform for monitoring your Flickr and Zooomr contact photos.

4. Because FriendFeed is going to be big and when you sign up for it 6 months from now or a year from now you might not be able to get the domain there you want. 

5. Because if you like Twitter, you’ll love FriendFeed.

6. Because FriendFeed is a *kick ass* search engine. 

7. Because you can hide anything that you don’t want to see on the site. 

8. Because FriendFeed lets you get rid of your RSS reader.

9. Because the site is technically excellent, very rarely has downtime and loads very fast.

10. Because there is a *great* community of interesting people on FriendFeed.

(Read the full article here.)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I can’t wait to read the book!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

New data out today out today from the U.S. Census bureau suggests one out of every seven homes in the U.S. is vacant. Before you go thinking that a population the size of Beijing is suddenly homeless in America take another look at the numbers.  (Read the rest here.)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

As Broker/Owner of my company, I have set an unwritten rule not to hire part-time salespeople.  In my experience, and from what I’ve gathered from Brokers who’ve been working since before I was born, part-time typically means no time.  

This article, written by @juliekm, expounds upon this sentiment.  With the economy tightening each day, it’s becoming more and more difficult for this type of salesperson to survive:

Selling real estate is a tough job. Not only do you typically have to work with no pay for up to 6 months while building your business, you are expected to do it at the whim of others. I have answered calls in the early morning hours, finalized contracts at 11 pm at night, and shown homes on holidays. It is next to impossible to go on vacation and turning off your cell phone, ever, is not good for business. I can think of no other occupation in which one cannot set any standard of work hours without potentially hurting their income.

With that being said, it is no surprise that the number of licensed, board member agents out there is on the decline. From 2007 to 2008 the number of NAR members decreased 140,472 or 10.5%. In the big picture, this reality is probably a good thing. Many of those dropping out were casual realtors. Before the real estate market began to decline, every Tom, Dick and Harry were getting their real estate license.

—————————————————————————————————————

I am not opposed to casual, or part-time realtors. Many are very good. However, I believe that there is a good ratio of agents to homes in any given area. During the past 10 years that ratio got a little out of whack. There were simply too many realtors. I see the past 2 years as a time of readjustment of the profession. Which translates to less causal realtors, and more opportunity for full-time agents. Although the current real estate slump is very painful for many, it is perhaps also a necessary filtering of realtors – the good from the bad, and the serious from the dabblers.  (Read the full article here.)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

How about some good news for a change?

Plunging home prices and low mortgage rates pushed homebuying activity higher in December, according to a regular industry report released on Tuesday.

The Pending Home Sales Index, which measures the number of sales contracts signed, rose 6.3% in December to 87.7 after dropping 4% in November to a record low of 82.5.

The index was 2.1% higher than its December 2007 level.  (Read the rest here.)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

After collaborating with Jennifer Bagley on this project, a new and improved version of the Steeplechase at Waverly Place web site is now live.  Just to refresh your memory, Steeplechase at Waverly Place is Corinth, Mississippi’s first gated community.  Homes are developed by the Saddle Creek Development Group, a Southern Living Custom Builder.  

At the web site, you can browse some of the available floor plans (you can view more plans here), and take a look at the first phase of the development that consists of 13 available lots.  You may also visit my company page for a section on this project.

Special thanks are in order to Mrs. Bagley again for her tireless efforts to make this site superb.  More material will be being added/edited in the coming days now that it’s live.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

The idea that we can spend a trillion dollars and have nothing immediate to show for it, well that’s incomprehensible… unless you’re a Democrat. They are very use to spending money and getting nothing in return, like the recent $350B that nobody seems to be able to track. Notice how that bit of information has slipped to “page 16″. But those ornery devils keep asking for more money.  (Read the rest at The Black Sphere.)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite