In view of the political agenda, which is the center of debate in Congress and the state houses around the country Replica Tag heuer Watches, cutting budgets at a time of recession seems to me as logical as the way in which educational “reform” is being run — improving education by wrecking the teaching profession.

I would like to offer my own modest proposal to not just balance the budget but eliminate the deficit, not in ten years, or even five years, but in two at the most. (NOTE: Although the numbers for savings are imaginary, the politicians who believe that balancing a budget and reducing the deficit during a recession are more important than providing the vast majority of the American citizenry with a chance at a decent life are real.)

Reducing the requirements for teacher certification to a high school diploma (or GED) and hiring anyone at minimum wage (See #5) who can read a scripted lesson and be able to look at a camera in order to increase distance learning. Savings: $500 Replica Cartier Watches,000,000,000.

Closing all libraries, community centers, public parks, beaches, zoos, museums and other publicly funded cultural and recreational facilities and reopening only those that can charge enough of an admission fee to recoup any operating expenses. Savings: $100,000,000,000.

Eliminating any government subsidies for college education, including Pell Grants, low-interest loans, scholarships and any other financial support. Savings: $250,000,000,000.

Raising the retirement age for social security immediately to 75 and capping the age eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare to 65. Savings: $1,000,000,000,000.

Reducing the minimum wage to $2 an hour which would make us more competitive with China and India and cut costs for municipal, state and federal employees by pegging their recalculated salaries to twice the minimum wage. Savings: $2,000,000,000,000.

Eliminating the EPA, the Consumer Protection Agency, the Center for Disease Control and any other regulatory agency that impedes the God-given right of the entrepreneurs to bring prosperity to this country through their ability to create wealth — mostly theirs. Savings: $150,000,000,000.

Passing the XXVlll amendment to the Constitution to abolish the Xlll amendment so that slavery can be legalized again. Since it is already in practice in some states in the guise of “prisoner vocational training,” it can be easily adopted to wider uses in the “Worker Rehabilitation Camps” that will be built around the country to deal with “disruptive social elements” such as union organizers, the unemployed, the sick, and the aged. Savings: $1,000,000,000,000.

Eliminating government support for any publicly financed media such as National Public radio, and such cultural and health organizations as the National Endowment to the Humanities, the National Endowment to the Arts and Planned Parenthood. Savings: $500,000,000.

Using the newly legalized slave labor force to build the WRC’s that will provide the overwhelming majority of Americans with shelters, limited recreational facilities and isolation from the 10 percent of the population that will truly thrive even more than they have now when the budget is finally balanced. Savings: $500,000,000,000.

Total savings: $5,550,000,000,000. In two years the deficit would vanish! With a balanced budget the United States will return to fiscal solvency in a “New America” for those who make more money than they could ever need from those who never had enough money to afford what they needed. So we will go down in history as Athens, Rome, Spain and the British Empire have done before us.

My only alternative suggestion is to establish a massive WPA for the unemployed building and restoring our crumbling infrastructure, return the tax structure to what it was in the 1960s, lift the income cap on social security taxes and let income redistribution finally go in the right direction — downward, not upward.

A new year offers the opportunity to hit the refresh button and make a fresh start on something you’ve yearned to improve for a while Replica Cartier watches, but you have not yet transcended the yearning stage to get to lasting success. In previous blogs, I’ve explored the dynamic duo that enables us to change — first our motivation — a burning desire to improve health, happiness, or performance, and our confidence — a well-grounded belief that we have the ability to be successful.

Change doesn’t happen unless we have a good dose of both motivation and confidence working together. And we can’t let either slide even a bit. It’s important to charge and recharge our motivational and confidence batteries daily.

But what exactly are we working to change? One reason that change isn’t easy is that it has many moving parts. There are the destinations that we measure — objective numbers like the pounds on a scale, resting heart rate, fitting into the jeans we wore at age 25, or subjective numbers such as rating one’s stress level or peace of mind on a scale of one to 10.

Then there are the things that we first learn how to do and then do consistently to reach our destination — new behaviors or habits such as adding more lean protein to breakfast or lunch to increase brain energy, or practicing 15 minutes of meditation three evenings a week to improve mental clarity, or doing an intense 20 minutes on an elliptical machine to relieve stress.

More fundamentally, what really must change — in order to acquire new habits that get us to our hoped-for destination — is our mind. Not just the new brain pathways that get laid down with lots of practice as we move from fragile and fledgling habits to don’t-have-to-think-about habits. What we think about ourselves, our limits, our opportunities and the forces that affect us also needs to change. As Einstein said: A problem cannot be solved at the same level that created it. It’s not possible to make lasting change in our lifestyles if our thinking isn’t also transformed.

So how does one drive to a new mindset? We each live in a box that has a ceiling set by the limits of our perspectives. Changing your mind starts with pushing a hole through the ceiling and poking your head up to see something new for the first time. Maybe it’s an “aha!” moment, or a discovery, a new insight, or an OMG realization. Eventually you’ve poked enough holes in the ceiling to rise up and reach an entirely new perspective. My primary goal as a coach is to help clients generate new insights; small changes of mind, that add up over time to equal an entirely new set of beliefs, thoughts and feelings.

You now ask, how can I coach myself to a new mindset? Let’s say that this is the year you want to remove 10 excess pounds of adipose tissue that got deposited on your frame as you fretted more than ever about work and financial stresses in the past year or two. You are hitting your head on your ceiling with a bunch of thoughts. Let’s examine how you might change them. Let’s say that the most limiting thought is, “I would love to be more fit and energetic but I do not have time to invest in getting and staying fit given my work and family responsibilities and my long commute.”

Now imagine your poking-through-the-ceiling thought is, “I do have time to invest in getting and staying fit.” What would it take to get you to think that thought?

Put on your scientist’s cap and start designing some thought experiments. One idea might be “I will get eight hours of work done in seven and a half hours if I use 30 minutes to exercise: 20 minutes to jog around my office building and yoga stretches for 10 minutes.” Another thought might be Replica Breitling watches, “I will drink only one beer on Friday and Saturday nights and wake up energetic for a 30-minute workout on Saturday and Sunday mornings.”

Once you move into a curious, experimenting mindset, and over time get to exercising three times a week, you will start to discover a lot of other things. You’ve replaced the “I don’t have time” thought with “I’m sleeping better so I’m less stressed at work and getting more done.” And you might find that your best ideas for solving intractable problems arrive out of the blue during your fast walks. Or that you’re more relaxed and focused in your conversations with your children.

By the time you’ve successfully completed the thought-shifting process, you can’t even imagine how you could have been stuck in the “I don’t have time” box you were just a few short months ago. You’ve changed your mindset. You’re outside your box. Enjoy the new horizon.

Senator Carl Levin speaking at the event on Sept 21 2011

Washington – Bills have been announced in both the house and the senate to introduce legislation awarding a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish born businessman Replica patek philippe watches, diplomat and humanitarian who is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II.  The announcement was made at a September 21st luncheon in the Capitol building attended by numerous congressmen, senators, spiritual leaders and notables including Swedish ambassador Jonas Hafstrom and Hungarian Deputy Chief of Mission Andras Bacsi-Nagy.  The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award that can be presented in the United States.

The two bills, S. 1591and H.R. 3001, are part of the greater Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration, a national campaign to highlight Wallenberg’s heroism in honor of his upcoming 100th birthday on August 4th 2012 and will also include renaming public streets and venues in his memory.

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“I applaud and commend our very own Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who along with Senators Kirk, Levin and Cardin Replica cartier watches, are leading the efforts in the Senate and Representatives Meeks and Hayworth in the House to see through the legislative process culminating in this historic occasion,” Ezra Friedlander, CEO of the Friedlander Group, which is heading up the Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration Commission, told VIN News.  “By the Congress of the United States conferring the Congressional Gold Medal to Raoul Wallenberg in honor of his centennial, we hope to generate pressure upon the Russians, forcing them to disclose his fate beyond a reasonable doubt. The Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration hopes that by focusing on this righteous individual in recognition of this major milestone coming up in 2012, we will finally bring closure to the fate of this great humanitarian”.

Wallenberg was recruited by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s War Refugees Board to protect Hungarian Jews and used his position as a Swedish diplomat in Hungary to save countless Jewish lives.  Creating fake passports, safe houses and using other creative means, Wallenberg saved the lives of 100,000 Hungarian Jews over a six month period.  Wallenberg disappeared on January 17th 1945, after arranging a meeting with a Russian commander to secure food for the many Jews under his protection and while the Soviet Union has offered several different accounts of Wallenberg’s death, his fate remains unknown to this day.  Wallenberg was named an honorary citizen of the United States in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, joining Winston Churchill as the only other person ever accorded that honor.

Also in attendance at the luncheon were Representatives Steve Cohen, Gene Green, Nick Rahall, Jerrold Nadler, Nan Hayworth, Michael Grimm, Gregory Meeks, Doug Lamborn, Dana Rohrabacher and Brad Sherman and Senators Carl Levin and Ben Cardin.

Below video from the event: Credit: Photos/Video by Shmuel Lenchevsky

During a month when the abortion and contraception debate peaked — again — you would’ve thought the Sunday political shows would feature a larger than usual roster of female panelists, strategists and experts.

Not a chance.

There were a total of four female guests during the entire month of February. This bears repeating. Out of 56 guests on the Sunday shows, only four were women. Four.

This statistic probably reminds you of Republican Rep. Darrell Issa’s contraception hearing two weeks ago in which his panel of witnesses was composed entirely of men who were summoned to discuss health care for, you know, women. In fact, on the following Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, the all-male Issa hearing was discussed at length by David Gregory, Paul Ryan and Chris Van Hollen, who we can assume are each biologically male. Smart booking choices.

Sadly, the men’s locker room on Sunday morning is a virtual bridal shower when compared to the increasingly aggressive He-Man Woman Hater’s Club known as the Republican Party.

We begin with the voice of the party, Rush Limbaugh. The “Spanky” of the club.

Yes, I get it. We shouldn’t pay attention to Limbaugh because he’s a clown. He’s nothing more than an over-drugged over-paid disc jockey who’s performing a loud-mouthed Morton Downey, Jr. routine for the much coveted paleoconservative “market segment,” as David Frum called it. All of this is true, but we can’t ignore the fact that he controls the radio with more than 15 million weekly listeners. So whenever he says something awful on our public air, it has a significant impact. For example:

“Why is contraception so important that it must be paid for by somebody else?” he demanded to know. He asked why contraceptives are “a must-have” in comparison to toothpaste, hotel rooms or a car. “Why are so many people afraid of birth?”

I wonder if it was the use of toothpaste to prevent pregnancies or if it was his alleged inability to achieve an erection that prevented him from having children during any of his three marriages. Speaking of which, I wonder if his health insurance plan paid for the Viagra he was allegedly trying to smuggle into the Dominican Republic several years ago. While we’re here, I wonder why he needed ED drugs in the Dominican Republic in the first place without any female partners with him on the trip. And if he was indeed planning to have anonymous sex (just guessing) in the Dominican Republic, I wonder whether he considered contraception to be “so important” during that potentially dangerous activity.

OK, I’m grossing myself out now. Moving on.

Over the last two days, Limbaugh reminded us in no uncertain terms of his legendary hatred of women. Since his show began in the late 1980s, he’s profited from attacking women and women’s issues practically every day. The term “Feminazis” only skims the surface of Limbaugh’s misogyny. Lately, he’s highlighted his professional class and morality by teasing and mocking the Obama girls. And here’s what he said this week about NASCAR driver Danica Patrick, who dared to express her support for the president’s contraception law:

“She was talking, Danica Patrick was talking about Obama’s contraception ruling. She was not speaking in general though it applies generally… She said, “I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for America.” … What do you expect from a woman driver?”

That’s not all. Last week, Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke spoke to an informal gathering of congressional Democrats about the Jesuit college’s refusal to cover birth control as part of its health insurance plan. Fluke told lawmakers that contraception can cost a law student up to $3,000 and a classmate recently lost an ovary because she couldn’t afford the contraception drug that would’ve prevented the recurrence of ovarian cysts. (How many “potential lives” were lost when that ovary, and its lifetime supply of unfertilized eggs, was removed?)

Here’s what Limbaugh had to say about Fluke’s testimony.

“What does it say about the college coed Susan [sic] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

The most popular radio talker in the world just called an ordinary citizen a slut and a prostitute in front of 15 million people. 15 million Americans tune in specifically to hear him say horrendous things like that. Many of those listeners fancy themselves to be “dittoheads,” meaning they blindly “ditto” everything that comes out of his increasingly slurred yapper.

And that’s not even the worst part of this reinvigorated conservative war against women.

In state legislatures from North Carolina to Pennsylvania Replica Breitling Watches, Republicans are pushing laws that force the usage of transvaginal ultrasound probes to be inserted into the bodies of women who are in need of an abortion. It’s a form of state-mandated rape and it’s being mandated by the so-called “small government party.”

And while Virginia and Alabama Republicans backed away from the transvaginal transducer, North Carolina already has a law on the books, and Pennsylvania is getting ready to pass its version of the transvaginal law. All of these states, irrespective of whether they keep or jettison the transducer, will continue to sanction the use of ultrasounds on women as means of intimidating them against having the procedure. Remember during the health care reform debate when Republicans blew a gasket over Medicare paying for end-of-life counseling? They said it was somehow shoving government into a private matter between doctors and patients even though it simply made this voluntary discussion affordable. But now they’re doing exactly that — shoving government into a private medical decision in the most literal sense imaginable.

Your modern Republican Party has decided that a one percent increase in taxes for multi-millionaires is an impeachment-worthy high crime, but the state-mandated insertion of an electronic device into the vaginas of women who are ostensibly struggling with the most difficult moments of their adult lives is a perfectly acceptable exercising of government power. (By the way, these are the people to whom Ron Paul — the self-proclaimed guardian of liberty — would hand the reins of, well, everything.)

Well before these new laws were introduced, including the personhood laws dictating that life begins at conception and therefore outlawing many forms of birth control, hundreds of women across the country were convicted and sent to prison because they had miscarriages. More than 300 women in South Carolina. 40 women in Alabama. Illinois prosecuted a woman for manslaughter after she gave birth to a stillborn baby. As of June, 38 states had passed “fetal homicide” laws. The consequences? Pregnant women who are suffering from drug addiction or mental illnesses are afraid to seek prenatal medical attention for fear of being arrested. It’s increasingly evident that being pregnant and in distress is almost as bad as being an illegal immigrant in America.

If Republicans were really interested in making it easier for women to carry pregnancies to term, they would pass laws to make the process safer and more affordable. Instead, they’re criminalizing it. We can only assume they’re not truly interested in fetuses or zygotes or babies who Replica Cartier Watches, by every other piece of Republican legislation, are on their own once they’re born. They’re simply interested in dominating and oppressing women because they believe women are genetically incapable of making difficult and otherwise very private life choices. Listen to Limbaugh’s rants — unburdened by the demands of politically correct language — and the truth emerges. Women are sluts and prostitutes. They hate their own biology. They’re dingbats who can’t drive. The words of the de facto leader of the Republican Party, preaching to millions of dittohead acolytes.

Again, why else are they passing these barbaric anti-woman laws and not laws that make pregnancy — laws that make womanhood — easier? We can only draw the conclusion that the Republican Party hates women.

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