Since political debates on this site are so common and debate over the budget is very common, here's a handy link to detailed information on the 2007 Federal Budget: http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-federal-budget-2007   Highlights:   Below is federal spending and federal tax receipts by year:  

I have a confession to make. I generally enjoy the company of left-wingers to right-wingers. It's true.  I love to have lively debates but the main observation I have about left-wingers is that they tend to at least think about things more so than the average person.  Sure, most of their opinions are poorly thought out (grin) but I enjoy talking to people who have thought about more than what they've eaten today, what they hope to eat tomorrow, and what they've eaten in the past which ...

  Here are some pictures from this past year!             Captioning: My turtle Cuddles who celebrated his 20th year living with me this year. Ashley on the tramponline. Take a close look at the "family picture"... The toy in the garage at the cottage. Debbie in New York. Alex at Comerica Park. Stupid me and my stinging bees. My hot wife poses in the car. Ryan gets a ba...

For years I've read how two big problems have kept skinning from becoming truly mainstream. The first problem was that the myriad of programs necessary to get adequate results was too complicated, too unreliable, too bloated, and too hard to keep up to date. The second problem was that actually getting quality themes was too difficult, that even after people managed to get the combination of WindowBlinds, IconPackager, and other such programs cobbled together that it took too much effort...

For the first time ever, my main desktop machine is also a laptop. I never thought that day would come. For the past 3 years, my desktop PC has been what I thought as a very powerful Pentium 4 based Dell XPS system.  But after getting a new ThinkPad T61 laptop, I did some benchmarks and discovered that the ThinkPad was substantially faster than the Dell (other than in the hard drive area where both are roughly equal). During the holiday, I plan to work on computer AI in Galactic Civil...

I always plan to do little reviews on the books I read.  Unfortunately, time usually prevents me and still prevents me.  I tend to read a lot of magazines (US News and World Report, Games for Windows, PC Gamer, eWeek, Information Week, Entertainment Weekly even) and of course masses of on-line stuff. But at night, when I'm starting to wind down, I like to read books. In a given week I'll typically read about 2 books. When things at work aren't stressful, I'll read closer to 3 de...

  If you have 75% of the below attributes (and be honest) you are probably a gifted person. [ ] Are you a good problem solver? [ ] Can you concentrate for long periods of time? [ ] Are you a perfectionist? [ ] Do you persevere with your interests? [ ] Are you an avid reader? [ ] Do you have a vivid imagination? [ ] Do you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles? [ ] Often connect seemingly unrelated ideas? [ ] Do you enjoy paradoxes? [ ] Do you set high standards for yourself? [ ] Do y...

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/002-0593763-7135257?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Politically+INcorrect+Guide+to There's some interesting books coming out of this series in which the authors defend some of the minority views on different issues. The problem I'm having with the series is that even on issues I agree with, some of their arguments are really weak or (in my opinion) deceptive. Thus, I lose faith in the parts that I'm not as familiar with. For ...

If I could imagine the perfect on-line retailer it would have to be Amazon.com.  The only thing they're missing is some sort of iTunes-like manager for going through the store more quickly and making purchasing and getting to information better. I find that even if I don't buy anything, the site is still incredibly interesting purely as a community.

I don't know about you but when I read car reviews in most car magazines I have to resist the urge to tear my eyes out. The reviews are so filled with a combination of over the top drooling or over the top petty contempt.  I remember reading a review of the 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo in which the reviewer said the car didn't have enough animal passion.  What the hell does that mean? So this year, I bought a Porsche 911 Turbo.  I've always wanted one but never thought I'd be ab...

Dilbert author, Scott Adams, recently announced he would be blogging less and would no longer post about controversial topics.  His rationale was that blogging produced little in tangible income but negative reaction to his controversial blogs had the potential to tangibly decrease his income from lost readership. I can relate to that. I often will get an email from someone saying they'll never buy a product I'm associated with because I've offended them with one of my blogs. ...

If I had more free time (and I hope to acquire this free time in the future as my schedule lightens up in early 2010) I would like to make something that does this: A device that you would connect to your main power box in your house and then sends a wireless signal to your PC telling you how much power your home is using in real-time. This data could then be shared, in real-time with on the net to a friendly website that would display with graphs your monthly power usage and compare it ...

The problem with our governmental tax system in the United States is that it has slowly been morphed into a coercive charity organization. Below is a chart of the 2007 federal budget courtesy of the CBO:   If you look closely, "health" and "income security" (not to be confused with social security) now make up 25% of our budget and grow year after year. Those programs are essentially government charity programs in which we take from one person to give to another. ...

As the end of the year approaches, I decided to take a look at my schedule for the past year.  For the past 51 weeks, I've averaged working 56 hours per week. If it weren't for my summer vacation, it would have been a higher average.  Assuming that average will hold for the last week (and it will despite it being the holidays) I worked 2912 hours last year give or take an hour or two.  If you divide that by 8, which is the number of hours a normal American works and I worked ...