I registered here in July 2010, recently separated and not yet divorced, looking for someone local. And I specified US only but as things would have it, through the poetry corner and some discussions on the forums, I ended up engaging in PM's with the lovely LadyBee42 from Ireland. Little did I know what was to come. And within a couple months, I began thinking maybe Ireland isn't so far, after all. We met for the first time in Waterford, Ireland in September 2010 for a week. Then again in November on the Outer Banks of NC for a week. Then she visited me for Christmas and stayed until March. Since then, it's been around three months together and three months separated with the separations getting more and more painful with each iteration.
Our Visa Journey (visajourney.com was an outstanding aid) began in February 2012 as we submitted the paperwork to start the K1 process. Now, almost a full year later, we are days away from her getting her K1 visa stamped passport in the mail and we'll be looking for the first flight out of Dublin the moment she has that passport in her lovely little hands.
I've never met anyone that I've been such fast friends with nor anyone I could be happier about spending my life with. There are lots of scammers on this site but also some truly amazing people and I am eternally grateful that there was some venue that allowed us to meet because I'm not one for irrational metaphysical musings, but if there is a soul mate, I am convinced that it's my fiance. She is truly a treasure to me.
It hasn't escaped our attention that the US has become Marxist, much to my dismay. I don't think any member of the Tea Party is unaware of this, either. It's unsettling, alarming and a lot of us are trying to turn that around.
It hasn't escaped our attention that the US has become Marxist, much to my dismay. I don't think any member of the Tea Party is unaware of this, either. It's unsettling, alarming and a lot of us are trying to turn that around.
That seems to be the nuts and bolts of what the republicans, in general, want. Raise the debt ceiling and meet our obligations, but include serious and immediate cuts to spending sufficient to keep our triple-A rating. And that's what democrats DON'T want. They want the cap to be lifted and lifted by a wide margin. They want to offset that with a trillion dollars in tax increases and three trillion dollars in gimmicks posed as "spending cuts".
The solution that passes both houses and gets signed will be:
* A large lift of the cap enough to let Obama spend throughout his term as he pleases. (democrats won't budge on this)
* A small set of immediate spending cuts (a bone they'll throw to republicans)
* A large set of "future" spending cuts that are all smoke and mirrors designed just to allow them to claim that "technically they're spending cuts". (spending cuts that aren't spending cuts, compliments of democrats).
And life will go on with not much chanaged except that the latter will probably still cause us to lose our triple-A rating, which is the biggest problem we're really facing.
Clearly, if God DOESN'T exist, then he WAS created, but whether it would have been necessary if he didn't exist is a bit of a stretch. Many peoples seemed to get along just fine without a monotheistic religion headed by God. And many seem to get along just fine today without it, as well.
If ignorance was killing people we wouldn't have to worry about human overpopulation problems any more. And hate might kill people but it takes them too long to die from any related high blood pressure issues to do the rest of us any good.
This was really cool and it's proof that if you make something large enough and light enough and can get it to go slow enough, solar energy can make it move.
It has an enormous 208 foot wingspan (over 60 meters), has a takeoff weight of only 4400 pounds, (around 2000 kilos), and can fly at the eye popping speed of 22 MPH (around 30 kmh).
It's proof that if you have enough engineering resources available, it is possible to engineer something so small and light and slow moving and impractical that even solar energy can power it. Proof that solar energy is the power of the future? Not-so-much. Carrying one person who has to go on a diet and empty out all the change in his pocket before climbing into the cockpit is a bit of a fly in the ointment.
It was a bit like trying to prove that you can power a lightbulb with nothing but gerbils on treadmill wheels. It's kinda cool that it is technically possible even if it's practically useless.
Mornin' Leigh! Sitting on the wharf right now killing time waiting for the Long Island ferry. Taking a couple days off for some fishing. Love my iPhone! Work hard - play hard!
p.s. Dadude... you do know that (a) you can't possibly own everything and even if you did, no one would put up with your crap if you acted like that. Someone would off knock you off. You're really arguing from the top of a mountain of rubbish.
People right now make good wages. They're actually treated quite well by all measures of the past. If you're not making what you want to make, go get a better job that pays more. If there aren't any, then you're already getting paid your full measure and you just need to adjust your expectations.
If you don't want to work for anyone else, go move into the wilderness and do your own thing. There are still very remote jungles around the world that would afford you a very nice opportunity to forage for food, yourself. Then you don't have to accept work from anyone else - you get your own food - or you starve - and you don't have rich people to blame.
The politicians are busy working on their careers, i.e. winning the next election. And yes, the wolf is at our doors. I work on that by trying to keep as many doors open as possible, which is why I'm on vacation from my regular job (doing lunch right now) but working in my shop at my home business doing production that aguments my income and provides me SOME alternative in case my other job evaporates like so many are doing these days.
When things are tough, all you can do is work harder and be smarter.
So how much time do you spend corresponding with political representatives to lobby for what you want? What suggestions have you offered them to help stabilize the economy?
My input to them has been to take their bloody hands out of the pockets of business because it's business that puts people to work, not governments.
Carbon Tax - It's just another way for special interests to extort money, with the government being one of the greediest of the special interests.
I remember my grandmother telling me when I was a kid that they'll tax the air you breathe if the could figure out a way to meter it. This amounts to the same thing - a new, creative way to steal.
YOu'd be wrong. Growing up dirt poor and having, at one time, spent days not knowing for sure if I'd have a roof over my head to sleep in, I get the picture very well.
The great thing about capitalism is that the only limit to your potential is yourself. The bad thing about capitalism is that you have to live within your means and very possibly be quite jealous over people with much greater means than you managed to afford yourself in your lifetime.
I'm still fighting hard to do what I can to NOT end up homeless and without resources. And that means working more than just one job. I just don't have a lot of sympathy for people who spend their energies trying to complain their problems away when we're living in a society that allows you to do for yourself and be productive.
In prison you are guaranteed three square meals a day and a cot. That's security. You don't have that security in the free world, but I'll choose freedom over security. Call me crazy.
Investment is risk. What part of that don't you understand? And that has nothing to do with you getting exactly what you're worth when you're getting whatever you can get someone to agree to pay you for your services. It's like we're not even having the same discussion. I'm trying to discuss reality and you're so happily bent on demonizing business that you're completely missing the point of what I said.
What "homeless middle class"? If you don't have a roof over your head, how can you be "middle class"? What? Quit paying your mortgage and got kicked out on the street or something? You can't afford rent and you're "middle class"? What the hell are you doing with your money if you're middle class and homeless?
I get the feeling you want more out of life than you have. I also get the feeling that you feel you deserve not because you've earned it, but just because you're you.
People who think they deserve more should ask themselves WHY they deserve more. And when they have the answer to that, they can go out and market themselves properly because they know what it is they're selling. And if you can't find a buyer ready to pay you more for whatever it is you're selling, then guess what..... You aren't really worth more.
If you feel you deserve more, go out and renegotiate your wages. Charge more for your services. Charge more for your product. If you can't get more, then you aren't worth more.
I have to question either the reading comprehension or the intellectual honesty of anyone who thinks the US is a model of corporatism by the definition provided.
Corporations are not our political representatives. Nor do they have any jurisdiction. They cannot try you. They cannot imprison you. They cannot make you work nor dictate any aspect of your life. If you sell your goods and/or services to them, hourly, salaried or piece work, that's your business and your contract and you may withdraw from that contract at any time. Corporations existing in our society is not by any wild stretch of reason, to be equated to "society being organized into professional and industrial corporations serving as organs of political representation".
The pinko hatred of corporations runs deep and it has nothing to do with corporations controlling our lives. It has everything to do with pinko greed and a desire to slay the beasts and eat their flesh until nothing but bones remain, leaving the country to starve to death with their beasts of burden nothing but bleached bones upon a devastated countryside.
Proofs of what? That democrats have been known to give winos cigarettes to vote? That they round up people and bus them to the polls and tell them who to vote for? That dead people vote for democrats all the time? You don't pay any attention to the news, do you?
Lots of people believe in ghosts. Spirits that are still hanging around in the world of the living but invisible and able to pass through walls. I'd imagine a bunch of them are fighting for standing room in Angelina Jolie's boudoir at changing time.
gardenhackle Forum Posts (2,067)
February Wedding coming for me and LadyBee42
I registered here in July 2010, recently separated and not yet divorced, looking for someone local. And I specified US only but as things would have it, through the poetry corner and some discussions on the forums, I ended up engaging in PM's with the lovely LadyBee42 from Ireland. Little did I know what was to come. And within a couple months, I began thinking maybe Ireland isn't so far, after all. We met for the first time in Waterford, Ireland in September 2010 for a week. Then again in November on the Outer Banks of NC for a week. Then she visited me for Christmas and stayed until March. Since then, it's been around three months together and three months separated with the separations getting more and more painful with each iteration.Our Visa Journey (visajourney.com was an outstanding aid) began in February 2012 as we submitted the paperwork to start the K1 process. Now, almost a full year later, we are days away from her getting her K1 visa stamped passport in the mail and we'll be looking for the first flight out of Dublin the moment she has that passport in her lovely little hands.
I've never met anyone that I've been such fast friends with nor anyone I could be happier about spending my life with. There are lots of scammers on this site but also some truly amazing people and I am eternally grateful that there was some venue that allowed us to meet because I'm not one for irrational metaphysical musings, but if there is a soul mate, I am convinced that it's my fiance. She is truly a treasure to me.
Thank you, CS. Very, very much.