KWBaker

This is a remarkably well-done reimagining of The Masters in an infinitely more entertaining, putt-putt form. I would watch this. I would play this. I would wreck this.

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Your most compelling sports video of the year comes from ESPN, which caught these Phillies fans taunting Dan Uggla—then being rudely interrupted by Uggla's grand slam. It was brilliant enough (seriously, great job ESPN) but we took it a bit further with extreme slow motion.

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What is the connection between freedom and rising from the dead?

David Kalb can bounce two basketballs through a moonroof while driving a car, which to me is more awesome than scoring a three-pointer while driving the same car, but whatever. I guess that people love the scoring more than the bouncing.

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At this year's spring game, the Miami Hurricanes put a camera on linebacker Denzel Perryman's helmet, so as to show the rest of the world what a pain in the ass playing linebacker is.

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The Ford Mustang turns 50 this year. For it’s golden anniversary, they made a Special Edition model. Based off the 420-horsepower 2015 Mustang GT, this one gets a Performance Pack upgrade and lots of interior upgrades: a cashmere-stitched, leather-wrapped steering wheel, with similar details in the instrument panel, shift boot, door inserts, seats and center armrest. Choose either a six-speed automatic or manual transmission. Ford also gives you two color options: Wimbledon White or Kona Blue. Only 1964 of these 50th Anniversary Mustangs will be made.

For purchase information, Click Here

A toue (shepherd’s shelter) in the Pyrénées.

Submitted by Catherine Cussy.

Towering treehouse in the hills north of Santa Cruz, CA.

Submitted & photographed by John Watson.

More at The Radavist.

It is absolutely possible to beat the market, just as I’m sure it’s possible that someone could climb Mt. Everest in a pair of roller skates. It is so improbable, however, that it’s rendered a fruitless, if not counterproductive, pursuit. After 16 years in the financial industry and seeing countless great [...]

The only things worse than junk mail are paying taxes, having a colonoscopy, and passing a kidney stone. Yes, I hate junk mail that much. Junk email is bad enough, but at least thanks to the wonders of technology, most modern email clients are highly skilled at identifying and routing spam mail into a special spam mail folder that you can promptly nuke to the trash bin every now and then. Traditional snail-mail junk on the other hand? Not so easy. In 1775, the American government appointed the first postmaster General. Seems pretty long ago, but over in Europe, the...

Read the full article: Stamp Out Junk Mail: 4 Tips To Stop Unwanted Snail-Mail

Fox News, by Faith Mangan Posted By: KarenJ1- Thu, 17 09 2014 02:09:48 GMT Breckenridge, Colo. ' A contentious eminent domain case in which a local government sought to take private backcountry land for open space has been settled, with the landowners agreeing to a $115,000 sale. "To me, what just came out of it is, you can´t win, you can´t fight the government," landowner Ceil Barrie said Wednesday. She and her husband, Andy, owned ten acres of land perched at 11,000 feet elevation in Breckenridge. The property, with breathtaking views, was a private patch of land surrounded by White River National Forest. An old, uninhabited day'use cabin, an outhouse and a shuttered gold

[ Filed under Technology & in the Industrial Design category ]

All of our gadgets are getting smaller and more portable…except for the printer. Even the smallest printers are still as wide as a sheet of paper and thick enough to hold ink cartridges. They might be technically portable, but really, who would want to carry around such a bulky object?

The designers at Zuta Labs took a look at the traditional form of a printer and tried to boil it down to its essential functions. Basically, all a printer really needs to do is to deposit ink onto a piece of paper in the requested spots. It does what you could do with your hand and a pen. Couldn’t that be accomplished with a device much smaller than those bulky printers?

The Pocket Printer is what they came up with: a completely bare-bones version of a printer that still performs its job admirably. The palm-sized office tool is wireless and rechargeable, and a single ink cartridge can print over 1,000 pages. The current version supports Android, iOS, Linux, OSX, and Windows.

To use it, you just place the Pocket Printer at the top of a page. Using the attached smartphone app, you tell the printer what to print and it dutifully races across the paper from left to right, depositing ink just where you tell it to.

Besides the fact that printer is adorable and sort of hypnotizing to watch, the best part about it is that it is truly portable. This is a printer that you can really stick into your laptop bag and take with you anywhere. And in a world that’s getting more portable by the day, it’s about time printers caught up.

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[ Filed under Technology & in the Industrial Design category ]

[ Gajitz | Archives | Categories | Privacy | TOS ]

They may be even older, but 1914 marks the earliest year OED lexicographers could document these words in print.

It is interesting what people can justify when they think they are on the “good” team. A case in point are Anthony and Heather Podesta 2 lobbyists who are in the midst of a nasty and public divorce. Of course no one really cares about the ins and outs of the couple outside of a few hundred people who populate Washington between Constitution Avenue and Chevy Chase, but the dirt which has been floated down the public stream by the warring couple exposes the culture of privilege and hypocrisy which permeates much of “progressive” Washington and is of interest to us.

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Painted Star (Orthasterias koehleri)

Second wave

Birthday boy filming

Leslie bringing the bow back around

Freeing the ends!

The lovely photographers!

"the tour"

the throne

Most likely a Sea Lemon (Anisodoris nobilis)

Abundance everywhere

Filed under: Classics, Convertible, Technology, Videos

The steam-powered car is considered an old-fashioned relic in today's age, but in his latest video showing off his 1925 Doble E-20, Jay Leno demonstrates that at its best, steam provided a realistic challenge to the internal combustion engine. This car has some real provenance too. Famous industrialist Howard Hughes is counted among its owners, and Leno claims he liked it so much because it was the only car that performed as well as his Duesenberg.

While the Doble's four-cylinder compound engine makes only 150 horsepower, it produces a staggering 1,000 pound-feet of torque, according to Leno. That much power means that a transmission isn't necessary, and it directly drives the rear end.

For much of the video, Leno puts on his teacher's cap and explains step-by-step how the Doble's advanced steam engine works, and it's a very complicated piece of machinery, especially if your are used to internal combustion engines. One of the most interesting parts is the system's efficiency, because after being used in the engine, the gas is condensed back into water and heated again.

If you're a fan of engineering or mechanical systems, this is a fascinating video to watch, and it's amazing how functional the Doble makes steam power appear. In fact, it's almost possible to see steam as a realistic alternative to modern engines. Scroll down to watch Professor Leno give you an inside look at his idea of the pinnacle of the steam-powered automobile.

Continue reading Leno's steam-powered 1925 Doble E-20 is fascinating

Leno's steam-powered 1925 Doble E-20 is fascinating originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Concept Cars, New York Auto Show, Performance, SUV, Land Rover, Luxury, Off-Road

After teasing us for more than a month, Land Rover finally unveiled - in the flesh - its Discovery Vision Concept a couple days in advance of the New York Auto Show. The glitzy event took place on the deck of the USS Intrepid, now serving out its retirement as the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in the Hudson River in New York City. The venue was appropriate, as Land Rover and Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's commercial spaceline, have announced a long-term global partnership (thus explaining why a fullsize model of the VSS Enterprise suborbital spacecraft was in attendance).

Land Rover is touting the Discovery Vision Concept as "a vision into the future of Land Rover's new family of leisure vehicles." For the past decade, Discovery models sold in North America have been badged as the LR3 and LR4, but the Vision Concept marks the return of the Discovery nameplate to our soil. According to the British automaker, the Discovery is back to "redefine its territory in the leisure category." The concept is intended to represent a future family of Discovery-named vehicles that will boast the new design language an introduce new technology.

Speaking of technology, the seven-passenger Discovery Vision Concept is loaded with innovation, including Gesture Control, Remote Control Drive, laser headlights, Smart Glass, Laser Terrain Scanning and Transparent Bonnet. Most, if not all of the technology will trickle out over the next decade on Land Rover's production vehicles. Read more about the Discovery Vision Concept in the full press release below, and look for more of our pictures later this week when it arrives at the Javits Center.

Continue reading Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept bows early on the USS Intrepid

Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept bows early on the USS Intrepid originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PAPER: IS TRYING TO BE PERFECT MAKING YOU ILL?


(Third column, 19th story, link)

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Originally constructed as a shelter for cyclists along a national tourist trail in Grunnfør, Austvågøy in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, this cabin is free and open to anyone who wishes to spend a night. 

Contributed by Trond Sjursen.

As tensions rose and a standoff ensued between Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents and Cliven Bundy and his family on April 11th and 12th, one thing was evident: through the Second Amendment, the Founding Fathers guaranteed that Bundy could be armed to protect his life and property.

KLAS-TV described a meeting between armed federal agents and armed Bundy family members during one of the highest points of tension.

No guns were misused nor were any used offensively. However, guns were present because of our Founding Fathers' forethought.

We do not have guns for the purposes of sporting or hunting--although guns are certainly fine tools for those activites. We have them, rather, because our Founding Fathers recognized a God-given right to keep and bear arms to protect our lives, families, and property. This right is not simply to provide protection from burglary or life-threatening attacks, but from tyranny as well--tyranny within or without our borders.

Whether tyranny was in practice in Nevada last week is something the facts will have to sort out. However, Bundy and his family were clearly able to stand on nearer-to-equal footing when faced with a myriad of armed agents because the ranchers were armed, as well.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.   Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

New figures by the Congressional Budget Office released on Monday reveal that over the next 10 years the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will double to 78%.

Over the last four decades America's average debt-to-GDP ratio was 39%. At the end of 2007, federal debt was just 35% of GDP. 

The CBO report says gross federal debt will soar from $17.7 trillion to $27 trillion over the next ten years. 

CBO warned of the dire consequences the nation's debt will have if gone unchecked. 

"Such high and rising debt would have serious negative consequences," says the report. "Federal spending on interest payments would increase considerably when interest rates rose to more typical levels. Moreover, because federal borrowing would eventually raise the cost of investment by businesses and other entities, the capital stock would be smaller, and productivity and wages lower, than if federal borrowing was more limited." 

The report added: "Finally, high debt increases the risk of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose so much confidence in the government's ability to manage its budge that the government would be unable to borrow at affordable rates." 

NOTE: This op-ed is apparently too hot for some editors to handle. Late last week it was accepted and posted on politix.topix.com only to be abruptly removed some two hours later. After several hours of attempting to determine why it was removed, I was informed the topix.com editor had permanently taken it down because of a strong negative reaction to it and because of “conflicting views from the scientific community” over factual assertions in the piece.

Fortunately, some media outlets recognize a vigorous scientific debate persists over humanity’s influence on climate and those outlets refuse outside efforts to silence viewpoints that run counter to prevailing climate alarmism. My original piece follows below.

The release of a United Nations (UN) climate change report last week energized various politicians and environmental activists, who issued a new round of calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the most fiery language in this regard came from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who called upon Congress to “wake up and do everything in its power to reduce dangerous carbon pollution,” while Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments in a State Department release, claiming that “unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy.”

Really? Is Earth’s climate so fragile that both it and our way of life are in jeopardy because of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions?

In a word, no! The human impact on global climate is small; and any warming that may occur as a result of anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions is likely to have little effect on either Earth’s climate or biosphere, according to the recently-released contrasting report Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, which was produced by the independent Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). 

This alternative assessment reviews literally thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support and often contradict the findings of the UN report. Whether the subject is the effects of warming and rising CO2 on plants, animals, or humans, the UN report invariably highlights the studies and models that paint global warming in the darkest possible hue, ignoring or downplaying those that don’t. 

To borrow a telling phrase from their report, the UN sees nothing but “death, injury, and disrupted livelihoods” everywhere it looks—as do Senator Boxer, Secretary Kerry, and others. Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts demonstrates that life on Earth is not suffering from rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels. Citing reams of real-world data, it offers solid scientific evidence that most plants actually flourish when exposed to both higher temperatures and greater CO2 concentrations. In fact, it demonstrates that the planet’s terrestrial biosphere is undergoing a great greening, which is causing deserts to shrink and forests to expand, thereby enlarging and enhancing habitat for wildlife. And much the same story can be told of global warming and atmospheric CO2 enrichment’s impacts on terrestrial animals, aquatic life, and human health.

Why are these research findings and this positive perspective missing from the UN climate reports? Although the UN claims to be unbiased and to have based its assessments on the best available science, such is obviously not the case. And it is most fortunate, therefore, that the NIPCC report provides tangible evidence that the CO2-induced global warming and ocean acidification debate remains unsettled on multiple levels; for there are literally thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support a catastrophic, or even problematic, view of atmospheric CO2 enrichment.

Unfortunately, climate alarmism has become the modus operandi of the UN assessment reports. This fact is sad, indeed, because in compiling these reports, the UN either was purposely blind to views that ran counter to the materials they utilized, or its authors did not invest the amount of time, energy, and resources needed to fully investigate an issue that has profound significance for all life on Earth. And as a result, the UN has seriously exaggerated many dire conclusions, distorted relevant facts, and omitted or ignored key scientific findings. Yet in spite of these failings, various politicians, governments, and institutions continue to rally around the UN climate reports and to utilize their contentions as justification to legislate reductions in CO2 emissions, such as epitomized by the remarks of Senator Boxer and Secretary Kerry.

Citing only studies that promote climate catastrophism as a basis for such regulation, while ignoring studies that suggest just the opposite, is simply wrong. Citizens of every nation deserve much better scientific scrutiny of this issue by their governments; and they should demand greater accountability from their elected officials as they attempt to provide it.

There it is, that’s my op-ed. It’s what some people apparently do not want you to read. While the over 3,000 peer-reviewed scientific references cited in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts are likely more than sufficient to establish scientific fact in a court of law, they are not sufficient to engage the real climate deniers in any debate. The rise in atmospheric CO2 is not having, nor will it have, a dangerous influence on the climate and biosphere. But don’t take my word for it, download and read the report for yourself (available at www.nipccreport.org). Compare it with the UN report. You be the judge!

Dr. Craig D. Idso is the lead editor and scientist for the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).

The Social Security Administration has suspended a program which allowed to to seize thousadns of tax refunds in an effort to recoup previous over-payments made. They had previously identified about 400,000 individuals with old debts of approximately $714 million.

A 2008 change to the law allowed them to go back and collect monies owed beyond a previous ten-year limit.

Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said Monday she has directed an immediate halt to the program while the agency does a review. Social Security recipients and members of Congress complained that people were being forced to repay overpayments that were sometimes paid to their parents or guardians when they were children.

 Democratic Sens. Senators Barbara Boxer and Barbara Mikulski called the program "unjust."

Today, Boxer issued the following statement: "I am grateful that the Social Security Administration has chosen not to penalize innocent Americans while the agency determines a fair path forward on how to handle past errors."

To date, the agency collected $55 million under the program.

The Social Security Administration said it is suspending the program "pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law to refer debt to the Treasury Department. If any Social Security or Supplemental Security Income beneficiary believes they have been incorrectly assessed with an overpayment under this program, I encourage them to request an explanation or seek options to resolve the overpayment," said Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin.

There are several scenarios in which people may have received overpayments as children. For example, when a parent of a minor child dies, the child may be eligible for survivor's benefits, which are typically sent to the surviving parent or guardian.

If there was an overpayment made on behalf of the child, that child could be held liable years later, as an adult. Also, if a child is disabled, he or she may receive overpayments. Those overpayments would typically be taken out of current payments, once they are discovered.

Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle also issued an email stating, "We want to assure the public that we do not seek restitution through tax refund offset in cases when the debt in question was established prior to the debtor turning 18 years of age. Also, we do not use tax refund offset to collect the debt of a person's relative — we only use it to collect the overpaid benefits the person received for himself or herself."

Obama has Proposed 442 Tax Hikes Since Taking Office...


(First column, 5th story, link)

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Keeping track of your finances on paper can get very messy, very fast. Human error, disorganization, and misplaced files are just some of the problems you can encounter.

Instead of doing things the old-fashioned way, turn to Google Sheets to bring order to your messy filing cabinet. The following Google expense trackers and templates can help you manage all aspects of your finances.

How to Find and Install More Google Sheets Templates

As you may already know, Google Sheets comes with a bunch of helpful add-ons and templates. Before we get to our list, it’s important to know how to locate the templates in the first place.

Head to the main Google Sheets page, and you’ll see a heading that reads Start a new spreadsheet. Under this heading, you’ll find the default template gallery that you can expand and scroll through. Clicking on any of these spreadsheets will create a new document using that specific layout.

Since Google Sheets alone doesn’t offer every type of template for personal finances, you can install handy Google Sheets add-ons and download pre-built Sheets to give you more templates. This list includes default Google personal finance templates, as well as templates from third-party sites and add-ons.

1. Monthly Budget by Google Sheets

When you own a business, have a family, or are an individual on a tight budget, it’s important to keep track of your monthly budget. You can find the Monthly Budget template in the default template gallery, and it’s easy enough for anyone to use.

This Google expense manager comes with bar graphs and statistics that allow you to visualize your savings or expenditures. Set your budget for the month, and input the amount of money you plan to spend on food, gifts, utilities, transportation, and any other expenses you might have. After you input your total income, the sheet will compare your budget to your total savings.

2. Credit Account Register by Vertex42

To obtain a copy of this template, you’ll have to download the Vertex42 Template Gallery from the G Suite Marketplace. After that, you can access several templates right from a blank spreadsheet.

Head to Add-ons on the top menu bar, hover over Template Gallery and click Browse Templates. Once the Template Gallery opens, click Personal Finance > Credit Account Register, and you’ll receive a copy.

This detailed template works just like a check register, except its just for credit card purchases. Enter your credit limit along with any balance you owe. You can also add any interest, account fees, and payments. The template will then automatically calculate your available credit and utilization ratio.

3. Home Expense Calculator by Vertex42

Planning on buying a new home? Use the Home Expense Calculator by Vertex42 to predict the total cost. You can access this template by downloading the Vertex42 Template Gallery add-on using the steps above. This template is perfect for first-time buyers, as it incorporates all the possible factors that go into buying a house.

Using this template, you can enter the price of the home, your down payment, the mortgage length, mortgage interest rate, your annual property tax, loan amount, and any home improvement costs. With all that data, the template will calculate your monthly payments and estimated taxes.

4. Savings Calculator by Vertex42

Vertex42’s Template Gallery is one of the best Google budget apps, and its pre-built Savings Calculator template doesn’t disappoint. This Google Sheets savings template makes it easy for you to figure out how much interest you can earn from your savings over time.

All you have to do is enter the length of time you want to invest, the initial investment amount, your deposit amount, and the interest rate. The template will then show you how much money you’ll have in that account after a specific range of time, along with a line graph portraying your savings information.

5. College Student Budget Template by Smartsheet

If you’re a financially-savvy college student, you might use Reddit forums for financial questions, but that’s not all you should use. Get a copy of the College Student Budget Template by Smartsheet to get a clearer picture of your finances. This template helps you keep track of all your expenses, not just your tuition and student loans. Plus, it can get you acquainted to the world of finances before you graduate.

This Google budget tracker separates your finances into three separate semesters. First, enter your income—you can add the money you receive from grants, scholarships, parents, and your own salary. You’ll then have to add in any expenses from transportations, school, daily living, entertainment, and health. The template will calculate how much money you’ll have left over, giving you an idea of how much you should spend each month.

6. Retirement Calculator by Arnexa

Retirement is full of unknowns, and it’s best to get your finances figured out before you take the leap. The Retirement Calculator by Arnexa gives you a detailed prediction of your financial situation after you retire. The template requires you to enter information about your age, your partner’s income, any pensions you’ll receive after retirement, your financial assets, and your possible expenses.

Using this data, the template will automatically generate how much money you’ll have after retirement—now you’ll know which expenses you can and can’t afford.

7. Wedding Budget Template by Brideside

While you can use wedding planner apps to keep track of the budget for your big day, you can also use Google Sheets to get a better idea of your budget. Brideside’s Wedding Budget Template lets you start planning your expenses by adding your estimated costs—this includes everything from the price of the couple’s attire, the ceremony itself, and the flowers.

Wedding expenses add up fast, and failing to plan for this can result in spending more than you intended. This Wedding Budget template will let you know if you’ve stayed within your budget, or if you went a bit overboard.

Google Expense Tracker Templates Keep Finances Simple

As you can see, there are all kinds of creative and useful ways to use spreadsheets to manage your money, and you don’t have to start from scratch to get it done. Browse through the templates section in Google Sheets and load in a pre-made template. This way, you can spend less time creating a budgeting spreadsheet from scratch, and spend more time making money!

Need more help managing your money? Check out these personal finance YouTube channels for more advice.

Read the full article: 7 Money Management Tools in Google Drive You Should Start Using

Ron Haskins, co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, has written a sobering and important essay for National Affairs on marriage, parenthood, and public policy. I thought it might be useful to highlight data from the Haskins essay, in order to understand just how profound the changes in family composition have been over the last four decades. 

Marriage Rates

In 1970, 83 percent of women ages 30 to 34 were married. By 2010, that number had fallen to 57 percent.

For almost every demographic group, whether broken down by age, education, or race and ethnicity, marriage rates have declined nearly continuously since 1970. Marriage rates for 20- to 24-year-olds, for instance, fell from 61 percent to 16 percent, a decline of almost 75 percent in four decades. The rate for 35- to 39-year-olds declined by 25 percent, from 83 percent to 62 percent. (The only exception to the pattern of decline was for women with a college degree or more. After a modest decline of about 11 percent between 1970 and 1990, the marriage rate for college-educated women stopped declining and even increased by about 1 percent between 1990 and 2010.)

Non-Marital Birth Rates

The non-marital birth rate among all demographic groups has increased from 11 percent to almost 41 percent over the same four decades. In 2010, 72 percent of births to African-American women were out of wedlock. The Hispanic rate was 53 percent, a 50 percent increase over 1989 (when data on Hispanic birth rates first began to be collected separately from non-Hispanic whites). The rate for non-Hispanic whites, which stood at 16 percent in 1989, had increased to 29 percent by 2010, a larger increase in percentage terms than for any other group over that period.

Teen pregnancy rates have declined almost every year since 1991, and the number of teen births has declined by more than 50 percent since that time. The problem of non-marital pregnancy is now greatest among adults in their 20s and 30s.

Married-with-Children Households

Over the four-decade period, the percentage of married-with-children households declined by well over a third to just 51 percent. By contrast, the percentages of all three other types of households increased: married without children by 72 percent, single with children by 122 percent, and single without children by 165 percent.

Single Parent Households

In 1970, 12 percent of children lived with a single parent at any given time; over the next 40 years, that number increased by 124 percent, rising to 27 percent of children in 2010. Over the course of their childhoods, as many as half of all American children will spend some time in a single-parent household.

Child Poverty

According to the Census Bureau, in 2012 the poverty rate among children living with only their mother was 47.2 percent; by contrast, the poverty rate among children living with their married parents was 11.1 percent, meaning that a child living with a single mother was almost five times as likely to be poor as a child living with married parents.

As the Haskins essay makes clear, there is a high human cost to children in particular when marriage collapses–in terms of high school dropout rates, delinquency, crime and incarceration, drug use, mental illness, suicide, poverty, idleness in later years, and more. “If we want to address the challenges of income inequality and immobility,” he writes, “we must address one of the main causes – non-marital births and single parenting.”

Mr. Haskins, in reviewing programs tried at all levels of government, finds that the results have been mixed and, for the most part, hardly encouraging. We are dealing in a realm of human behavior where the positive effects of public policy look to be quite limited. What will be required is a substantial shift in social mores–in how we view the institution and purposes of marriage, the duties of parenthood, our commitments to one another, and even human fulfillment itself–and there’s little evidence that is about to occur anytime soon. 

In 2000, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was asked to identify the biggest change he had seen in his 40-year political career. Moynihan responded, “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world.” This change has occurred in “an historical instant,” Moynihan said. “Something that was not imaginable 40 years ago has happened.”

Indeed it has. (The trends that concerned Moynihan have, in fact, accelerated.) The historian Lawrence Stone said the scale of marital breakdown in the West since 1960 has no historical precedent. It is unique. And as a civilization we seem unable, or at least unwilling, to do much of anything about it.

I love heating my house with my fireplace and wood stove. Its carbon neutral, it targets the heat where I want it, and somehow it just feels warmer then forced air heat.

I don’t love dealing with firewood. I don’t like storing it, trying to keep it dry, and I especially don’t like going outside when it is freezing cold to bring an armful inside.

That’s where Eco Bricks come in. They are compressed hardwood sawdust bricks that you burn in a fireplace just like logs. They are kiln dried and bug free, so they can be stored inside. Since they are kiln dried, they always light easily.

BTU wise, the company says that a pallet of Eco Bricks are equivalent to a full cord of hardwood firewood. Where I am, a pallet runs $235, which is roughly the same as a cord of firewood.

Since these things are so dense and dry, some care must be taken not to over-fire your fireplace or stove. I’ve been using them for three winters, and haven’t had any problems yet.

I’ve got about a half pallet in my basement queued up. I’m looking forward to my first fire of the season.

-- Clark Case

Eco-Brick pressed sawdust fireplace fuel
Find a local retailer here

Sample Excerpts:

[Enjoy this video of a one-hour Eco Brick burn. - Mark]

All four Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--record Jesus Christ’s “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. As Holy Week begins in 2014, the story of the first Palm Sunday from the Gospel of Matthew:

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your kind is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

The disciples went and did as Jesus has directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

Matthew 21:1–11 (quoting Zechariah 9:9) (ESV).

Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,

Two. Billion. Hours.

That’s how much time people in the Land of the Free waste each year preparing and filing their tax forms to the IRS– roughly 13 hours for each of the ~150 million individual returns filed.

And if you’re doing your own taxes this weekend, it may certainly seem like you’ve spent that 2 billion hours yourself just preparing your 1040.

To put this number in perspective, two billion hours is roughly the time it would take to walk to Uranus and back… which is a bit ironic given where you’d probably like to tell Mr. Obama to go stick his tax forms right about now.

Now, I’m not going to tell you today that taxes are illegal. Nor will I tell you that you don’t have to file.

I think taxes are morally reprehensible. Taxes rob an entire population of its financial resources in favor of a tiny political elite that has a long-term track record of incompetence and deceit.

Unfortunately, though, this humiliating exercise is forcibly perpetrated at gunpoint. So not filing your taxes can lead to very bad consequences. Just ask Richard Hatch.

As you may recall, Richard was the very first winner of the reality show Survivor.

What you probably don’t know is that Richard spent several years in prison on charges of “attempted tax evasion.”

I was astounded when he told me that ATTEMPTED tax evasion is a crime in the Land of the Free. It sounds more like Thoughtcrime.

People are brainwashed into believing that taxes are a ‘privilege’, and the “price we pay for civilized society.”

But if the society is so civilized, and it’s such a privilege, then why do they have to threaten people at the point of a gun?

It’s because the value proposition is completely upside down. Whether in the US, France, England, Spain, or Italy, people pay out the nose for taxes… and get very little in return.

It’s like forking over fifty bucks for a Big Mac– it doesn’t make any sense. There has to be a balance between how much you pay and the value that you receive.

And everywhere you look these days, that value is in serious decline.

Increasing chunks of governments’ budgets are going just to pay interest on the debt… not to mention absurd domestic spying programs, or destructive wars to go (as George Carlin joked) “drop bombs on brown people” in foreign lands.

Think about it as you write that check to the government– are you getting any value?

A few hundred years ago, the Founding Fathers certainly didn’t think so. As Samuel Adams summed up in 1764, taxes made the colonists “tributary slaves” to the British government.

And the taxes that they were paying were almost nothing compared to what people pay today. They would be astounded to find citizens in “free societies” paying 40%, 50% of their -income-, plus property, estates, sales purchases, imports, etc. to a massively bloated government.

Let’s go back in time together and explore this further in this week’s Podcast Episode: Taxation without Consideration.

You can listen to or download it here:

http://www.sovereignman.com/podcast/005-taxation-without-consideration-14089/