I love to smile even when things in life can make us half go crazy.
So I thought to just post funny pieces in this blog because everyone desire to smile.
Just when you thought you had to have permission to crash a party someone always shatters that belief.........
Presidents Day, officially known as Washington's Birthday, is a federal holiday in the United States and is celebrated on the third Monday of February. In 2009, Presidents Day falls on February 16.
Although it has become known as a great weekend for sales, especially on cars, there's a lot more to the holiday. Presidents Day is a good chance to learn more about American History, civic responsibility and even U.S. Geography.
I'm not saying that you a going to be happy with what you are going to find when you start digging deep into America's History but it will give you a better insight of this countries guidelines and what they were based on and gives use an ideal about how to make changes for the better of us all.
Why should February 14th get all of the attention? Here are some things to do the day after Valentine's Day.
1. Water the flowers you receieved. You know that they will probabbly be dead tomorrow, but you just have to take care of them.
2. Find somewhere in your room for the bear he bought you even though you already have ninety nine bears and you really do not have any more room for bears.
3. Buy the candy and flowers that Kroger is selling for half off. While you are at it, buy some cards so you will be ready for next year.
4. Buy what you really wanted him to buy you.
5. Cuss your significant other out because he forgot Valentine's Day (just kidding)
6. Go to the bank (for some people it's payday.)
7. Delete all of the Valentine's Day related spam you received.
8. Sell that gift that you did not really want in an online auction.
9. Look for something to sell related to Valentine's Day so you can make some money next year.
10. Count all of the Valentine's Day cards you received and replace the Christmas cards that were on the mantle with them. (I know some of you still have Christmas cards on your mantle.)
Don't think that V-Day only comes and last once a year... if you do your just fooling yourself.
Here are a few Valentine's Day laughs I thought might put a smile on your face, hope you enjoy.....
Once Again....Happy Valentine's Day!
"There is a place you can touch a woman that will drive her crazy. Her heart!" - Melanie Griffith
"Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand." - Anonymous
"I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox!" - Woody Allen
The great question, which I have not been able to answer is, "What does a woman want?" - Sigmund Freud
"Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience." - Samuel Johnson
"An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her." - Agatha Christie
"What do you get when you cross Odie with the God of love? A stupid cupid!"
Meaning of Dreams
A young woman was taking an afternoon nap. After she woke up, she told her husband, "I just dreamt that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine's Day.
What do you think it means?"
"You shall know tonight", he said.
That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it. She found a book entitled "The Meaning of Dreams".
Guess Who?
A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter systematically pasting "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them. The guy's curiosity gets the better of him and he walks up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing.
The man says, "I'm sending out one thousand Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"
"But why?" asks the guy.
The man replies, "I'm a divorce lawyer."
Valentine for Osama
Little David comes home from first grade and tells his father that they learnt about the history of Valentine's Day. "Since Valentine's Day is celebrated for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," he asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone else a valentine?"
David's father thinks a bit, then says, "No, I don't think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a valentine to?"
"Osama Bin Laden," David says.
"Why Osama Bin Laden?" his father asks in shock.
"Well," David says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish boy could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit. And if other kids saw what I did and sent valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone anymore."
His father's heart swells and he looks at his boy with newfound pride and says, "David, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."
"I know," David says, "and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines shoot him!"
Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine's Day — and its patron saint — is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.
According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor's daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.
While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial — which probably occurred around 270 A.D — others claim that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to 'christianize' celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancient Rome, February was the official beginning of spring and was considered a time for purification. Houses were ritually cleansed by sweeping them out and then sprinkling salt and a type of wheat called spelt throughout their interiors. Lupercalia, which began at the ides of February, February 15, was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would then sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.
The boys then sliced the goat's hide into strips, dipped them in the sacrificial blood and took to the streets, gently slapping both women and fields of crops with the goathide strips. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed being touched with the hides because it was believed the strips would make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would then each choose a name out of the urn and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D. The Roman 'lottery' system for romantic pairing was deemed un-Christian and outlawed. Later, during the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of February — Valentine's Day — should be a day for romance. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. The greeting, which was written in 1415, is part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be popularly celebrated around the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was common for friends and lovers in all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. By the end of the century, printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began to sell the first mass-produced valentines in America.
According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)
Approximately 85 percent of all valentines are purchased by women. In addition to the United States, Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages (written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400), and the oldest known Valentine card is on display at the British Museum. The first commercial Valentine's Day greeting cards produced in the U.S. were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland. Howland, known as the Mother of the Valentine, made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as "scrap".
Have a gracious Valentine's Day. May you be blessed enough to share it with that person who truley loves you.
Why did Jesus fold the napkin?....
An unusual approach to a biblical story ...Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection?I never noticed this.... The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which wasplaced over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.
The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that thenapkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stonycoffin. Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene cameto the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away fromthe entrance. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, andI don't know where they have put him!' Although she did not enter,she noticed that the linen wrappings were lying there, while the cloththat had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side Is that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes!In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you haveto understand a little bit bout Hebrew tradition of that day.
The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and everyJewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he madesure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it.
The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight,until the master had finished eating. Now if the master was done eating,he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and cleanhis beard, then he would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table.The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, thewadded napkin meant, 'I'm done'. But if the master got up from thetable, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servantwould not daretouch the table, because..... ..... The folded napkin meant, 'I'm coming back!
He is Coming Back.....
Sept. 11 widow Beverly Eckert, who lost her high-school sweetheart husband in the World Trade Center, was among those killed in Buffalo, N.Y., plane crash.
Beverly Eckert of Stamford, Conn., whose husband Sean Rooney died in the 2001 attacks, was one of the 50 victims of the Continental Flight 3407 accident.
Her sister Sue Bourque was at the airport awaiting official confirmation that Eckert had been on board. Officials investigating the crash have not yet confirmed Eckert was among the 44 passengers killed Thursday night.
"We know she was on that plane," Bourque told the Buffalo News, "and now she's with him."
Talk about female Chauvinist......
This was nominated as the world's best short joke of the year. . . . . . .
A 3-year-old boy examined his testicles while taking a bath.
"Mom", he asked, "Are these my brains?"
"Not yet," she replied.
With April 15 looming, it’s time to think seriously about filling out your 2008 Form 1040. In January, we told you about five favorable changes that could affect your 2008 return. Here are a few more key changes to note.
Possible Delays for Forms 1099-B from Brokerage Firms:
If you sold securities from a taxable account in 2008, you may notice that your brokerage firm Form 1099-B is taking awhile to arrive. This form tells you (and the IRS) the amount of sales proceeds you collected last year from selling securities such as stocks, bonds, and mutual fund shares. In the past, brokers had to put Forms 1099-B in the mail by no later than Jan. 31. But a little-noticed provision in last year’s stimulus legislation extended the deadline to Feb. 15 for this year and beyond. This year’s deadline is actually Feb. 17, because the 15th is a Sunday and the 16th is President's Day. Once you finally receive your 1099-B, make sure the reported amount ties into the proceeds used to calculate your gains and losses on Schedule D.
More-Generous IRA Contribution Rules:
In previous years, your adjusted gross income (AGI) may have been too high to allow you to make deductible traditional IRA contributions or Roth IRA contributions. Things have changed for the better.
Traditional IRAs:
For 2008, you can contribute more to traditional IRAs than ever before, and you have a better chance of making a tax-saving deductible contribution.
For the 2008 tax year, you can contribute up to $5,000 to a traditional IRA, up from $4,000 for 2007. If you were age 50 or older on December 31, 2008, the contribution maximum is $6,000 (up from $5,000). If you’re married, the same contribution limits apply to your spouse if he or she wants to fund a separate IRA. The deadline for contributions for the 2008 tax year is April 15. So you still have time.
Here are the other traditional IRA contribution ground rules.
* Once you turn 70½, you can no longer contribute to a traditional IRA. However, Roth IRAs are still fair game.
* You (or, if you're married, you and your spouse), must have had 2008 earned income from salary or self-employment that at least equals the amount you contribute to IRAs for 2008. Note: Any alimony payments you received also count as earned income.
For those who were covered by retirement plans in 2008, the AGI restrictions on deductible contributions are considerably looser than just a few years ago. In each of the cases below, these AGI restrictions only affect your ability to make deductible contributions to traditional IRAs. (You can make nondeductible contributions to traditional IRAs no matter how high your income.) Here's the breakdown.
* If you’re unmarried, your eligibility to make a deductible 2008 contribution to a traditional IRA is phased out between AGI of $53,000 and $63,000.
* If you’re married and both you and your spouse were covered by retirement plans in 2008, your right to make deductible 2008 contributions to traditional IRAs is phased out between joint AGI of $85,000 and $105,000.
* If you’re married and only one spouse was covered by a retirement plan in 2008, the covered spouse’s eligibility to make a deductible 2008 contribution to a traditional IRA is phased out between joint AGI of $85,000 and $105,000. The noncovered spouse’s deductible contribution privilege is phased out between joint AGI of $159,000 and $169,000.
Roth IRAs:
The larger 2008 contribution limits for traditional IRAs (explained above) apply equally to Roth IRAs. After that, there are some important differences.
* If you’ve turned age 70½, you can no longer contribute to a traditional IRA, but you can still contribute to a Roth as long as you -- or you and your spouse if you’re married -- had earned income at least equal to what you contribute.
* The privilege of making Roth contributions for the 2008 tax year is phased out between AGI of $101,000 and $116,000 for unmarried taxpayers. For joint filers, the range is between $159,000 and $169,000. These ranges are considerably higher than just a few years ago.
* Being covered by a retirement plan (or not) has no impact on your eligibility to make Roth contributions.
Overall, for 2008, you have a better chance of being able to make the maximum Roth IRA contribution than ever before. Not only that, the maximum contribution amount is also larger than ever. The deadline to make a Roth contribution for the 2008 tax year is April 15.
New and Improved Alternative Minimum Tax Credit
As I explained in an earlier article (read the story here), you may be able to recover AMT amounts paid in prior years, thanks to liberalized AMT credit rules. If you’ve paid big AMT amounts in the past, this could be the single most important change for the 2008 tax year. To collect your rightful AMT credit, just complete Form 8801 (Credit for Prior-Year Minimum Tax) and attach it to your Form 1040.
Congressional leaders and the White House have crossed a first hurdle, tentatively agreeing to a $790 billion price tag on President Obama's economic stimulus bill.
The new price tag reflects a cut of nearly $50 billion from the Senate version.
Among the considered cuts to the bill, according to numerous Democratic aides involved in the talks, is a trim to Obama's tax credit -- $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple -- with a phase out beginning sooner than originally written: at about $70,000 per individual and $140,000 for couples.
Education construction, which was cut dramatically by the Senate compromise, has received a boost. But according to lead negotiator Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the money would only go to "modernization, not new construction."
Negotiators are trying to fast-track a compromise over competing versions of the massive economic recovery package. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was hosting meetings Wednesday in the run-up to what is known as a conference committee, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.
Republicans on both sides of Congress, though, are complaining that they've been left out of the talks. House Appropriations Ranking Republican Jerry Lewis claims the stimulus bill was cut in the "dead of night" to "bypass open conference negotiations on the 'stimulus' legislation and jam the massive bill through Congress."
The mix of measures intended to stimulate the economy is different in both pieces of legislation.
The Senate bill is about 42 percent tax cuts, while the House has about one-third tax cuts.
The three Republican senators who helped pull the Senate version over the finish line want their bill to prevail.
But that appears unlikely now with the smaller price tag being attached to bill.
Negotiators, who are hoping to reach an agreement as early as Wednesday, worked until nearly midnight Tuesday to find common ground between the House and Senate versions of the legislation.
Reid and other negotiators have said they want a first-draft compromise on the table for the lead-off meeting Wednesday afternoon. The plan is to wrap up the conference by the end of the day and bring it to the House floor Thursday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was optimistic.
"I'm hopeful and believe that we'll try to come to agreement on the differences that exist and have a bill by the end of the day that both houses can vote on," he told FOX News Wednesday morning.
But he criticized the Senate for passing a bill that costs about $20 billion more than the House version. The Senate passed an $838 billion spending and tax cut package Wednesday. The House passed an $819 billion version two weeks ago.
"The Senate bill will spend more money than the House bill. In addition to that, the Senate bill has the unfortunate status of creating less jobs than the House bill," he said. "The whole point of this bill is to create jobs, to get our economy moving."
He said there are "significant differences in some ways," but that the bills are still mostly similar.
Democratic officials say that while numerous details remain to be worked out, a major expansion of an existing tax break for homebuyers, approved in the Senate last week, would likely be jettisoned. There was also pressure to scale back a Senate-passed tax break for new car buyers, according to these officials, and to drop a provision limiting compensation for top executives of companies receiving federal bailout assistance.
Obama's negotiating team was insisting on restoring some lost funding for school construction projects as talks began Tuesday in hopes of striking a quick agreement, but by late in the day it appeared resigned to losing up to $40 billion in aid to state governments.
House Democratic leaders, though, promised to fight to restore some of $16 billion for school construction cut by the Senate.
The GOP moderates also want the final bill to retain a $70 billion Senate plan to patch the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, for one year. The provision would make sure 24 million families won't get socked with unexpected tax bills during the 2010 filing season.
The AMT was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy people pay at least some tax, but it is updated for inflation each year to avoid tax increases averaging $2,300 a year. Fixing the annual problems now allows lawmakers to avoid difficult battles down the road, but economists say the move won't do much to lift the economy.
House leaders are tempering expectations that they'll restore many of the cuts.
"You cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the effective and of the necessary, and we will not," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Republican continue to oppose the stimulus package, almost unanimously.
Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, Okla., told FOX News that the bloated the measure would pass no matter what.
"I don't think they'll vote against it even if it is significantly changed," he said.
As we think we know how peoples thoughts operate... from babies, toddlers, pre-teens, teens, young adults, adults, middle aged adults, elders, ect) starting as young as 11 then ongoing into their later years.
The the most humble point to make is that ..... we just don't know how people truely think because we are our own person with our own thoughts. These days more and more childern and young adults are doing things that we as humans thought couldn't not happen, such as crimes of a so-called adult nature. This is being played out like a video game... all over the world.
Something is going on with the youth as our time passes toward the future and whatever it is we as people need to take the time out of ours semi-selfish lives and see where as a society have we fallin' short.
In this piece of news this young man is 18 but what-do-you-bet, that the issues started awhole lot younger than that and who says that the news that provided this source doesn't have the entire story, "which is usally the case".......
Getrude Steuernagel was devoted to her son, nonetheless, even when their world shrank as Walker's severe autism seemingly cut them off from many aspects of a normal life. Now, Walker, 18, is sitting in a jail cell, accused of beating his mother to death, while her friends and family members struggle to understand why -- an answer that may never come. "There really weren't any clues in the house," Molly Merryman, a friend and Kent State University associate professor, told ABCNews.com. "I think it's always something we'll wonder about and never know." Steuernagel, a political science professor who had penned opinion pieces on her son's autism for the university's Daily Kent Stater, was found severely beaten in their Kent, Ohio, home Jan. 29 after university employees called police when she failed to show up for work. Portage County Sheriff's Office Major Dennis Missimi said Steuernagel, 60, was found on the kitchen floor. Walker was in his room. "They approached him. There was a slight scuffle that ensued when he was taken into custody," Missimi said of Walker's arrest. Errol Can, an attorney in Kent who has been hired to represent Walker, said he had no comment on his client's case. Rushed to the hospital, Steuernagel died Friday without regaining consciousness. Summit County Medical Examiner Investigator Gary Guenther told ABCNews.com that the office was still waiting for medical records and tests on tissue samples before ruling on Steuernagel's cause of death. But Monday's autopsy revealed "multiple bruising" on her head and chest as well as brain trauma. Initially charged with attempted murder along with assault on a police officer, Missimi said he expects Walker's charge to be upgraded to murder. The police officer he allegedly assaulted was kicked in the face and has returned to work.
I need to boost my networking up, my blog has went blahhh since I've been in a world of pending status situations but here I am slowly getting back in that old "leather chair" saddle, placing my hands on the keybord riegns, typing like lighting into the dust arena with is known as blogging. Ohhh..., how I missed being on the home range of enlightened oppinions.
So in order to help with the boost I decided to start rounding up traffic with the help of BlogUpp! I found them to be a good plus saving me precious blogging. Advantages such as No signup. No email and privacy exposure,No ad submission and no efforts, No animation and annoying ads, Multilanguage support, Cheat-proof and fair sharing, WordPress platform and alike friendly, Targeted readers reach, Welcome bonus for everyone, and Best de facto exchange ratio (10:9) and more.
BlogUpp! is a great start from a long hiatus.
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