Divorce cakes
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
12,978,189-digit prime number discovered by UCLA researchers
yeah right!! I passed that number ages ago trying to fall asleep!
Los Angeles (CA) - Mathematicians at UCLA discovered the 45th known Mersenne prime with almost 13 million digits. The discovery makes the group eligible for a $100,000 prize, which was promised for discovering the first prime with more than 10 million digits.
 clipped from www.fotosearch.com
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Monday, September 29, 2008
lower house of the US Congress has voted down a $700bn (£380bn) plan
The vote followed a day of turmoil in the financial sector.
* Wachovia, the fourth-largest US bank, was bought by larger rival Citigroup in a rescue deal backed by US authorities
* Benelux banking giant Fortis was partially nationalised by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments to ensure its survival
* The UK government announced it was nationalising the Bradford & Bingley bank
* Global shares fell sharply - France's key index lost 5%, Germany's main market dropped 4% while US shares plunged after the vote result was announced.
As news of the vote came through, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange stood dumbfounded.
* Wachovia, the fourth-largest US bank, was bought by larger rival Citigroup in a rescue deal backed by US authorities
* Benelux banking giant Fortis was partially nationalised by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments to ensure its survival
* The UK government announced it was nationalising the Bradford & Bingley bank
* Global shares fell sharply - France's key index lost 5%, Germany's main market dropped 4% while US shares plunged after the vote result was announced.
As news of the vote came through, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange stood dumbfounded.
rank and file members of both the Republican and Democratic parties about the deal to use taxpayers’ funds to buy devalued assets of
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Cracking Wireless Security WEP in 10 Minutes
WEP cracking [In 10mins]
Kismet (any working version) you are going to want to load up your favourite live CD (i used Whoppix 2.7 final) or Linux OS, then stumble across a encrypted WLAN, use Kismet to do so. Make sure you have configured your kismet .conf file correctly to be able to use your card (locate your kismet.conf file and open with your favourite text editor, i used pico);
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Default Logins and Passwords for Networked Devices
Default
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Saturday, September 27, 2008
upgrade your laptop/notebook cpu
For instance, upgrading from a 1.66-GHz Intel Core Duo to a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 raised our laptop's WorldBench 6 score from 57 to 68. But this upgrade isn't as simple as most of our other notebook upgrades. buy a CPU that will work with your portable. In fact, some laptops have nonreplaceable, soldered-in CPUs. look at what CPUs have been sold with your laptop over the course of its life span, by googling "[your notebook model] CPU." We purchased a 2-GHz Intel T7200
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US stops selling gold coins, running out
wanna make money...look for small gold and silver commodities producers!
while the spot price is controlled by the futures guys the coin market is going bananas as the retail crowd buy up supplies… The U.S. Mint is temporarily halting sales of its popular American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can’t keep up with soaring demand as investors seek the safety of gold in these turbulent economic times.
soon start distributing available Buffalo gold goins through a similar allocation program.
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Burj Dubai
Burj Dubai - September Update! already the tallest building in the world with just a year to go to completion. Nothing demonstrates the amazing ambition of this city better than this iconic building which is the centre piece of the new Downtown area adjacent to the Dubai International Financial Centre, the scene of some more architectural gems.
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PAUL NEWMAN 1925-2008
Screen legend Paul Newman has died from cancer, aged 83.
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amusingly named places in USA and other
Little Horwood (England)
Nasty (England)
New Invention (Wales)
Puke (Albania)
Sexmoan (Philippines)
Shitlingthorpe (England)
Tittybong (Australia)
Wet Beaver Creek (Australia)
Windy Yet (Scotland)
Yak (Canada)
Nasty (England)
New Invention (Wales)
Puke (Albania)
Sexmoan (Philippines)
Shitlingthorpe (England)
Tittybong (Australia)
Wet Beaver Creek (Australia)
Windy Yet (Scotland)
Yak (Canada)
got its name from the sanitarium set up in 1882 to deal with tuberculosis patients
laden with innuendo Pennsylvania is rife with them, featuring places like Beaverdale, Blue Ball, Jugtown, and Intercourse for the sake of infantile chuckling Gayville (SD), French Lick (IN), Mud Lick (KY), Humptulips (WA), Shafter (CA), Woodie (IL) and Bushland (TX
Originally called Hot Springs town copied its name from a popular radio program in 1950
Home to the largest oil field in North America, are no horses
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what the colors mean on the gay flag
What does each color mean on the gay flag?
Hot pink=sexuality,
red=life,
orange=healing,
yellow=sun,
green=nature,
blue=art,
indigo=harmony,
violet=spirit
great site for dinosaur illustrations!
my son loves this!!
Hawks courageous 2008 win!
THE HAWKS have just two fit players remaining on their interchange bench after midfielder Clinton Young left the field with an ankle injury sustained during the third quarter
He joins defender Trent Croad on the bench, after the backman aggravated an ankle injury in the second term clipped from afl.com.au
remarkable effort for Hodge, who copped a suspected rib injury in a heavy clash in last weekend's preliminary final win over St Kilda Clarkson, who has taken them on a steady upward path since being appointed 2005 season
10th premiership five flags from 1983 to 1991.
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Friday, September 26, 2008
The Bolivian Road of Death!
Down below across the valley is the winding Road of Death as seen from those stone cairns in the picture above
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Government to invest $4bn in mortgages
Government to invest $4bn in mortgages | The Daily Telegraph
THE Federal Government will invest an initial $4 billion to boost competition in the mortgage market, which has been stifled by the global credit crunch.
Through the Government's asset manager - the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) - banks and non-bank lenders will be able to tender their mortgage-backed securities, rather than waiting for financial markets return to normal.
"We need to have a competitive mortgage market so that people out there who are under financial pressure can get a fair go," Treasurer Wayne Swan said in announcing the move today.
"This is an important measure to introduce competition into the mortgage market over time.
"Boosting competition is something the government has been emphatic about."
The so-called Australian residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market - where banks can repackage existing mortgages in return for new funding - has practically dried up because of the extraordinary developments in financial markets in the past year, caused by the collapse of the US subprime market.
Retail banks now account for 90 per cent of all home loans, as non-bank lenders have had difficulties obtaining funding in global markets to provide mortgages due to the credit crunch.
Mr Swan said quarterly RMBS issuance has fallen to around just $2.5 billion since mid-2007, compared with $18 billion in the previous year.
"To reinvigorate the Australian RMBS market and support competition in mortgage lending, I will direct the AOFM to invest AAA-rated RMBS in two initial tranches of $2 billion each," he said.
Mr Swan said the Government's move was very different to what the US Government was trying to do with its $US700 billion ($A839.5 billion) bailout plan for the US banking system, which is proposing to buy up existing bad debts and lesser quality mortgage bonds.
TD Securities senior strategist Joshua Williamson doubted the Government would be willing to put taxpayers' funds at risk if the Australian banking system was in as much risk as the US system.
"It is not surprising that this initiative has come about after the RBA's positive Financial Stability Review," he said.
"The initiative appears designed to shore up mid-tier banks and non-bank lenders, and politically at least shore up the government against criticism that competition in the mortgage sector is diminishing as non-bank lenders find it harder to obtain funds in wholesale markets."
The Reserve Bank of Australia gave the Australian banking system a clean bill of health in yesterday's review, saying banks are profitable and well capitalised despite the ongoing global financial market meltdown.
Mr Swan said the RMBS move was a temporary initiative that responded to highly unusual conditions in international capital markets and their impact on Australia's mortgage lending market.
"I expect that the RMBS purchased by the AOFM will be held until redeemed or sold into the secondary markets as and when market conditions normalise," Mr Swan said.
He said the action followed legislation passed by the government in June which expanded the range of high-quality assets in which the AOFM can invest.
The money for the AOFM to invest in mortgage securities will partly come from a larger than expected budget surplus for 2007-08.
Mr Swan today announced the final budget outcome for 2007-08 was $19.7 billion, $2.9 billion larger than forecast in the May budget.
He said this was the result of lower than anticipated government spending rather than higher tax revenue.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
100+ New Sharks, Rays Discovered in Australia
clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com
 clipped from news.nationalgeographic.comSharks--such as the new Australian reticulate swell shark Cephaloscyllium hiscosellum--play an important role as top predators clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com
clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com
clipped from news.nationalgeographic.comclipped from news.nationalgeographic.comThe northern river shark is one of two freshwater species discovered during a recent research effort
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First World War.com - Vintage Photographs
First World War.com - Vintage Photographs
Vintage Photographs
Updated - Saturday, 27 May, 2006
This section of the website contains 3,900 archive photographs - of battles, politicians, royalty, army commanders, airmen and scientists among many other categories - chiefly taken during wartime. A number of photographs were also captured in the years leading up to war in 1914.
Each of the photos was originally published in the many illustrated publications which professed to tell the story of the war while it was underway, with varying degrees of accuracy and sometimes subject to censorship. Additional photos have been supplied for inclusion by site contributors.
Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way
How Sweden Solved Its Bank Crisis - NYTimes.com
Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way
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By CARTER DOUGHERTY
Published: September 22, 2008
A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic. Sound familiar?
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Swedish National Debt Office
Bo Lundgren, finance minister during the 1992 crisis.
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It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent.
But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United States Treasury. And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing.
Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.
That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.
“If I go into a bank,” said Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s finance minister at the time, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”
Sweden spent 4 percent of its gross domestic product, or 65 billion kronor, the equivalent of $11.7 billion at the time, or $18.3 billion in today’s dollars, to rescue ailing banks. That is slightly less, proportionate to the national economy, than the $700 billion, or roughly 5 percent of gross domestic product, that the Bush administration estimates its own move will cost in the United States.
But the final cost to Sweden ended up being less than 2 percent of its G.D.P. Some officials say they believe it was closer to zero, depending on how certain rates of return are calculated.
The tumultuous events of the last few weeks have produced a lot of tight-lipped nods in Stockholm. Mr. Lundgren even made the rounds in New York in early September, explaining what the country did in the early 1990s.
A few American commentators have proposed that the United States government extract equity from banks as a price for their rescue. But it does not seem to be under serious consideration yet in the Bush administration or Congress.
The reason is not quite clear. The government has already swapped its sovereign guarantee for equity in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance institutions, and the American International Group, the global insurance giant.
Putting taxpayers on the hook without anything in return could be a mistake, said Urban Backstrom, a senior Swedish finance ministry official at the time. “The public will not support a plan if you leave the former shareholders with anything,” he said.
The Swedish crisis had strikingly similar origins to the American one, and its neighbors, Norway and Finland, were hobbled to the point of needing a government bailout to escape the morass as well.
Financial deregulation in the 1980s fed a frenzy of real estate lending by Sweden’s banks, which did not worry enough about whether the value of their collateral might evaporate in tougher times.
Property prices imploded. The bubble deflated fast in 1991 and 1992. A vain effort to defend Sweden’s currency, the krona, caused overnight interest rates to spike at one point to 500 percent. The Swedish economy contracted for two consecutive years after a long expansion, and unemployment, at 3 percent in 1990, quadrupled in three years.
After a series of bank failures and ad hoc solutions, the moment of truth arrived in September 1992, when the government of Prime Minister Carl Bildt decided it was time to clear the decks.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposition center-left, Mr. Bildt’s conservative government announced that the Swedish state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks. Sweden formed a new agency to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization, and another that sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral.
Sweden told its banks to write down their losses promptly before coming to the state for recapitalization. Facing its own problem later in the decade, Japan made the mistake of dragging this process out, delaying a solution for years.
Then came the imperative to bleed shareholders first. Mr. Lundgren recalls a conversation with Peter Wallenberg, at the time chairman of SEB, Sweden’s largest bank. Mr. Wallenberg, the scion of the country’s most famous family and steward of large chunks of its economy, heard that there would be no sacred cows.
The Wallenbergs turned around and arranged a recapitalization on their own, obviating the need for a bailout. SEB turned a profit the following year, 1993.
“For every krona we put into the bank, we wanted the same influence,” Mr. Lundgren said. “That ensured that we did not have to go into certain banks at all.”
By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again.
More money may yet come into official coffers. The government still owns 19.9 percent of Nordea, a Stockholm bank that was fully nationalized and is now a highly regarded giant in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region.
The politics of Sweden’s crisis management were similarly tough-minded, though much quieter.
Soon after the plan was announced, the Swedish government found that international confidence returned more quickly than expected, easing pressure on its currency and bringing money back into the country. The center-left opposition, while wary that the government might yet let the banks off the hook, made its points about penalizing shareholders privately.
“The only thing that held back an avalanche was the hope that the system was holding,” said Leif Pagrotzky, a senior member of the opposition at the time. “In public we stuck together 100 percent, but we fought behind the scenes.”
Subprime mortgage primer
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four types of NAT
Got NAT?: Insight - Communications - ZDNet Australia
four types of NAT.
1. Static
Also known as inbound mapping, static NAT maps an unregistered/nonroutable internal IP address to a registered/routable IP address on a one-to-one basis. This is necessary when a network device needs to be accessible from outside the network.
Example: Your mail server has an IP address of 10.0.1.5 (a nonroutable IP address on the Internet). Your NAT device translates that address to 202.0.1.5 (a routable IP address).
2. Dynamic
Dynamic NAT maps an unregistered IP address to a registered IP address from a pool of registered IP addresses. Dynamic NAT creates a one-to-one mapping between unregistered and registered IP addresses. However, this mapping varies depending on the registered addresses available in the pool at the time of communication.
Example: An internal client has an IP address of 10.0.1.150. When this address tries to communicate with an outside network, your NAT device translates it to the first available address in the range of 202.0.1.50 to 202.0.1.100.
3. Overloading
Also known as Port Address Translation (PAT), single-address NAT, or port-level multiplexed NAT, overloading is a type of dynamic NAT that maps multiple unregistered IP addresses to one registered IP address by using source port substitution before it translates the network request.
Example: Your NAT device translates all internal clients to a single routable IP address, but it assigns each source session a different port before sending it to the destination IP address.
4. Overlapping
Overlapping NAT occurs when the internal IP addresses are routable but used on another network. The NAT device translates these addresses to unique routable addresses before forwarding the communication.
Organisations use this type of NAT when using the same routable addresses for internal clients in physically different locations on the network. You usually implement overlapping NAT using dynamic DNS.
Example: Your NAT device translates a client with an IP address of 202.0.1.50 (a routable address also used by a different client in a physically different location) to an address in the range of 202.0.2.50 to 202.0.2.100.
Don't worry that implementing NAT will cause a performance decrease on your network. An entry in the address translation table of your router takes about 160 bytes, and a router with only 2 MB of DRAM can process 13,107 simultaneous translations.
This should be sufficient for any small network. In addition, keep in mind that adding memory to your router can help if you encounter a problem.
When implementing NAT, most organisations usually prefer the Dynamic NAT approach. It creates a Layer-3 firewall between the internal network and the Internet.
This way, computers on the Internet can't connect to the internal client unless the internal client initiates the communication. Keeping hostile networks from connecting to your internal clients is a good beginning to securing your network.
what is double nat
---Most ADSL Modems support "bridged" or "half-bridge" modes, which disables all routing & network address translation in the modem. In the case of "bridged" mode you need to establish the PPPoE connection from the second router, if the second router does not support PPPoE then you'll need to use "half-bridge". Half Bridge works by the modem still doing PPPoE/PPPoA to get on-line, except that it pushes the Public IP Address onto the Ethernet connection so it can be used by the second router's wan interface.
You can still encounter some problems with packet fragmentation or other MTU related issues with a two router setup, but these can usually be resolved with a lot of tweaking and a lot of patience
You can still encounter some problems with packet fragmentation or other MTU related issues with a two router setup, but these can usually be resolved with a lot of tweaking and a lot of patience
Network Address Translation will not work properly when there are two levels of Network Address Translation. When you access something on the network, the second router will modify the packet to contain the originating address and the private IP address it was assigned by the first router as its public IP, the first router will then modify the packet to contain the Private IP address of the second router and its real public IP address, as you can imagine when this packet comes back from the destination the routers are going to get a little confused. solutio either replace both routers with a single unit that can connect to the Internet and route the traffic to the wireless and wired network, or turn the first modem/router into a bridged modem.
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English football statistics -
updated every week to bring you all you could ever want to know
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Satellite Images of Sandstorms
blowing from the west coast of Africa, reaches for miles out to sea Great sweeps of sand blow over the Canary Islands off the north African coast and far over the Atlantic. massive rolling sandstorm; boot of Italy is visible just beneath the clouds, great gusts of sand heading its way. Sandstorm blows over the Mediterranean and Cyprus. The Sahara sees a lot of sandstorms. over the Persian Gulf Sandstorm brewing over Beijing. Gobi Desert is another sandstorm paradise
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
sanstorms
run for your life!!!
taken at 8,000ft while flying over the Negev Desert in southern Israel. The sandstorm was moving at an incredible 70km/hr and rose up to around 1km hig sandstorm gathering over Kansas Sandstorms in Australia in Mali in the Askja and Sprengisandur regions. over El Paso, Texas beginnings of a sandstorm Utah A sandstorm gathers out at sea near Velvia, Fuji. Bet those guys on the boat are chugging along for dear life!
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12 Board Games to test & Increase Your Intelligence
Trivial Pursuit: Scrabble: Risk - Godstorm: Carcassonne Go: A strategic board game involving tactics, observation and cunning. Originating in China Settlers of Catan: This dice-rolling and trading game was really one of the first German-style board games Mancala: Belonging to a sub-genre of games usually referred to as “count and capture” games Arimaa: Invented in 2002 by an AI computer engineer, Inspired by the defeat of chess legend Garry Kasparov at the “hands” of the computer Deep Blue rensei: This strategy and observation game Shogi: The most popular “chess” variant that’s native to Japan Mahjong: Also known as Mah-jongg by the American association, this is a tactics, observation and memory-based game
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Liberals Fueled Wall Street Woes
Prudent best practices in lending fell by the wayside under pressure from liberal activists and "community organizers" who advocated "Change" to loosen lending restrictions to minorities. If you liked this "Change", you'll just love the "Change" the Trojan Horse has in mind for us.
Mortgage lending took that "reckless and unsustainable turn" because of regulation - regulation driven by liberals and progressives, not free-market "deregulators." Pushed hard by politicians and community activists, the regulators systematically and deliberately altered financially sound lending practices. The mortgage market was humming along just fine when, in the late 1980s, progressives decided that it needed to be "fixed." Their complaint: Some ethnic groups got approved for mortgages at lower rates than others. In reality, mortgage lenders were simply being prudent - taking care to provide mortgages to those who could best afford to make the payments. The shift began in 1989, when Congress amended the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants. clipped from www.nypost.comGone (as "arbitrary" and "outdated") were traditional lending requirements such as requiring a down payment or limiting mortgage payments to 28 percent of income.
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for Men - wear a tie but which knot?The " Pratt"
 clipped from www.tie-a-tie.netis tidy and fairly wide, yet not as wide as the Windsor Knot Awesome
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for Men - wear a tie but which knot?The " Four-in-hand"
Learn this knot and use it when you need to look good in a hurry or when you want to be fashionable and wear a tie with casual clothes. Try combining this type of knot with a dress shirt that has a narrow collar opening and is made from a softer material. A dress shirt with a semi-stiff collar layered under a denim or leather jacket would also look great with this knot. clipped from www.tie-a-tie.net
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for Men - wear a tie but which knot?The " half-windsor"
clipped from www.tie-a-tie.netIt works best with somewhat wider ties made from light to medium fabrics.
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for Men - wear a tie but which knot?
ties are part of being a grownup, and if you're like many people, it's better late than never when it comes to learning to knot one properly
most traditional knot for business meetings, interviews and anywhere else you need to look respectable clipped from www.tie-a-tie.net
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US gov't role in mortgage fiasco
Commentary: Bailouts will lead to rough economic ride - CNN.com
Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.
For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.
Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.
Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.
Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.
Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.
These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.
Don't Miss
* Obama blames lobbyists, politicians for crisis
* Commentary: McCain, Obama botching response to crisis
* Commentary: How to prevent the next Wall St. crisis
* In Depth: Commentaries
When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.
Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.
In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.
This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.
The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.
I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.
Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.
Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.
The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.
It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.
The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.
Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.
redneck
A Redneck passed away and left his entire estate to his beloved widow but she can't touch it 'til she's 14.
A new Redneck law was just recently passed. When a couple gets divorced, they are STILL cousins.
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signs
Chatta Mom's Jokes Archives
Sign over a Gynecologist's Office:
"Dr. Jones, at your cervix."
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In a Podiatrist's office:
"Time wounds all heels."
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On a Septic Tank Truck in Oregon:
Yesterday's Meals on Wheels
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At a Proctologist's door:
"To expedite your visit please back in."
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On a Plumber's truck:
"We repair what your husband fixed."
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On another Plumber's truck:
"Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber.."
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On a Church's Billboard:
"Seven days without God makes one weak."
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At a Tire Shop in Milwaukee:
"Invite us to your next blowout."
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On a Plastic Surgeon's Office door:
"Hello. Can we pick your nose?"
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At a Towing company:
"We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want tows."
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On an Electrician's truck:
"Let us remove your shorts."
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In a Nonsmoking Area:
"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
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On a Maternity Room door:
"Push. Push. Push."
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At an Optometrist's Office :
"If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."
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On a Taxidermist's window:
"We really know our stuff."
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On a Fence:
"Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!"
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At a Car Dealership:
"The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment."
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Outside a Muffler Shop:
"No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."
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In a Veterinarian's waiting room:
"Be back in five minutes. Sit! Stay!"
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At the Electric Company :
"We would be delighted if you send in your payment.
However, if you don't, you will be."
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In a Restaurant window :
"Don't stand there and be hungry, Come on in and get fed up."
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In the front yard of a Funeral Home :
"Drive carefully. We'll wait."
Counseling - Southern Style
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how to tell the sex of a fly
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Birth Order of Children
Google Image Result for http://chattamom.chattablogs.com/archives/seat%20belt%20wife-thumb.gif
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.
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Preparing for the Birth:
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.
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The Layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?
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Worries:
1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.
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Pacifier:
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.
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Diapering:
1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.
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Activities:
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, Baby Zoo, Baby Movies and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.
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Going Out:
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.
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At Home:
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child
isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children
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Swallowing Coins (a favorite):
1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!
Idle Thoughts of a Retiree's Wandering Mind
Google Image Result for http://chattamom.chattablogs.com/archives/seat%20belt%20wife-thumb.gif
I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
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I had amnesia once -- or twice.
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I went to San Francisco . I found someone's heart. Now what?
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Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
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All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
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If the world were a logical place, men would be the ones who ride side saddle.
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What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
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Someone told me I was gullible and I believed them.
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Teach a child to be polite and courteous and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
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Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
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One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
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My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
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I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
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The high cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
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How can there be self-help "groups"?
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If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
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Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
Throughout his career, Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890) attempted the paradoxical task of representing night by light. His procedure followed the trend set by the Impressionists of “translating” visual light effects with various color combinations. At the same time, this concern was grafted onto Van Gogh’s desire to interweave the visual and the metaphorical in order to produce fresh and deeply original works of art.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Over half of Americans believe in guardian angels
Also, political party was linked to religious beliefs, with 77 percent of Republicans saying they believed in heaven, compared to 54 percent of Democrats.
Those Americans who say they do not believe in God -- four percent -- as well as those who say they have no religion -- 11 percent -- were very close the figures in the 2005 survey.
In all 45 percent of Americans say they have had at least two religious encounters in their lives, the survey found, and conservative Protestants were more likely than Catholics or Jews to report religious or mystical experiences.
Those Americans who say they do not believe in God -- four percent -- as well as those who say they have no religion -- 11 percent -- were very close the figures in the 2005 survey.
In all 45 percent of Americans say they have had at least two religious encounters in their lives, the survey found, and conservative Protestants were more likely than Catholics or Jews to report religious or mystical experiences.
More than half of Americans believe they are protected by a guardian angel and two in three are certain that heaven exists, according to a study of US religious beliefs released Thursday.
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start your windows xp pc faster
feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option is enabled, but on some systems it is not
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Monday, September 22, 2008
Richard Dawkins' jaw-dropping talk on our bizarre universe
Richard Dawkins discusses the question of limits on human understanding. As a species we evolved to cope with the world within a particular range of physical dimensions. These determine our common sense view of the world. How far can the plasticity of our brains transcend this limitation?
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Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures
Divers raise a 4-foot-tall statue of a priest of Isis from Alexandria
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Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures
Egyptian hieroglyphics whole ancient city of Alexandria is just meters away from the shore
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Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures
marble head of Roman princess Antonia Minor, mother of Emperor Claudius, rests on sand
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Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures
Twin sphinxes flank a statue of a priest of Isis amid fallen columns
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Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures
A proposed underwater museum in Alexandria, Egypt, came closer to reality in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the design process with the Egyptian government. Fiberglass tunnels would connect aboveground galleries to the underwater facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places at the site of Cleopatra's now sunken palace.
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
How Motherboards Are Made: A Gigabyte Factory Tour
trip to Gigabyte's Nan-Ping factory in Taiwan showed us, there's a lot more to it. In fact,
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