How to properly address the bailout

BRILLIANT!! (and how far would $700 billion go?)

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U .S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.

Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads

Put away money for college – it'll be there

Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs.

Buy a new car – create jobs

Invest in the market – capital drives growth

Pay for your parent's medical insurance – health care improves

Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( 'vote buy' ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG – liquidate it.

Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can 'never work.'

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

2 Jerks Go to Church

We did a little video for Daybreak trying to encourage people to get involved. It is based on an SNL skit...we definitely are not the zombie kid.

My new favorite youtube - please watch 3 times

Olympic Basketball

It is almost 1am and the 3rd quarter is coming to an end in this highly entertaining gold medal game.

Couple thoughts
-Win or lose, this USA is awesome. They play hard. They play defense. They play together. They play with passion. They play defense. I know that they are the biggest and the best individual players in the world but Spain has 7 NBA players of their own and have been playing together since they were in the womb.

- I think the best USA lineup is Paul, Williams, Wade, Prince, and Bosh.

- Dwayne Wade is fast (and good).

- Pau and Marc Gasol are great players (Pau is better) but they are not going to join Dwayne Wade in People Magazine's Most Beautiful People in the World list.

- Kobe is starting to act like Kobe at the end of the game. We will see how it ends.

JB

The High Sierras - Day #2

Day 2 begin with a very unexpected surprise. At about 4:45am I woke up to the not so familiar sound of a bear about 50 yards from our tent. It was obvious to me that he was chomping down on the food that we had so wisely "hidden" from him the night before. I have never been scared of bears in the past as I have encountered them numerous times in Yosemite and Mammoth. But there is such a fear of bears by Jen (wife) and by Ryan (friend on the trip) and by Ryan's wife Lauren (who I think was convinced that we were going to be eaten) that I began to wonder as I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the bear if this was it. Were all the fears, which I had previously laughed, going to become prophecy.

All of the sudden I heard him about 10 feet from the tent. I woke Ryan up and told him there was a bear. He didn't believe me. Then it growled. He believed me. It came to within 5 feet of the tent. Then we heard it rummaging around one of the packs. We started talking and it immediately bolted. Bravely I got out of the tent and checked around the campsite. Convinced that he was gone we examined Ryan's pack. The bear had ripped through the rain cover on the pack and then had opened the top compartment and pulled out some wet wipes. This bear didn't rip the compartment open. It simply unzipped it. In fact, the bag and zipper were totally fine after the bear had left.

We had not even been in the backcountry 24 hours and we had already become victim of the brilliant bears of the backcountry. They are smart (more to come).

"No cookies left! No cookies left!"

This is all that is left of our bagels, granola bars, beef jerky, cookies. Stupid bear. Stupider humans.


The rest of the day was very relaxing. We read, fished, relaxed, and just relished in the beauty of God's creation.

The fishing was tough. Really windy. No fish caught. Spirits high though

Beauty!

We ended up moving campsites (because of the bear) but staying at Thousand Islands Lake. We found a great site with some coverage from the wind and a great campfire pit.

Cooking some din-din and enjoying the fire.


We had a great night around the fire talking about life and ministry and reading from God's word. We ended the night tired yet filled with God's goodness.

Before we went to bed we still had to deal with all the trash that was left from the bear. It wouldn't fit in the bear canister. Since we had trees around us I grabbed a stuff sack and threw the trash in there. I would use all my skill and hang it in a tree. We would beat the bears this night.


I laid down rested and peaceful. I would not feel that way in the morning.

"Live" coverage

Does it bother anyone else that NBC broadcasts "live" events at the Olympics that aren't really live. Supposedly they broadcast it live on the East Coast and then call it live 3 hours later on the West Coast.

I stayed up to watch the finals of womans beach volleyball. I saw that it was "live" so I jumped on ESPN.com to check some other Olympic results before the match. Wow was I excited when I saw that the match was already over.

Stupid NBC. Congrats anyway to May and Walsh.

The 'Dres

Our church made tickets available for the Padres game last Friday night. It was one of those "Christian" events where they had fireworks and testimonies after the game (how else are you going to get people to a Padres game).

It was a lot of fun to hang out with the church outside of the church (mmmmhhhh!!!).

Peter (new high school director), his wife katie, Stephanie (newer childrens director), her two little girls (cute!), and Jen and I all cruised down to go to the game together.

We got to downtown at around 6:30, walked toward the stadium, and then stopped at Rock Bottom Brewery for a quick bite to eat. We had a great meal hanging out, sharing stories, talking about life and ministry. As we were leaving Peter and I looked at a TV nearby televising the game and we realized it was already the bottom of the 6th.

We laughed and then took off for the game. We didn't get in our seats until the top of the 8th. We were one inning late and missed the only highlight of the game; the pirates scored 1 run in the top of the 7th and won the game 1-0. Really we only missed 1 inning because the first 6 were pretty useless.

We watched 2 meaningless innings and then the game ended. We then watched an entertaining fireworks show and went home. Great night!