Polly ticks

The 2 party system, lobbyists, Social Security, and the IRS should never have been developed to what they are today. Someday I will expand on this!
OK, in a few nutshells...
We have two strong parties...
Republicans are for preserving traditional social orders which often includes social stratification.
[Keep the rich rich, all others poor- my opinion]
Democrats are for equal rights and opportunities, workers, extensive social security and care, and the environment.
[But they don't have a sound financial plan]
...no other parties or platforms in the U.S. have evolved beyond a minority.

Social Security is a lottery! Will you live long enough? Or work long enough?
[Why do foreign born elders, who never worked here, recieve? - rhetorical quetion. Don't bother to explain it to me!]
Internal Revenue Service used to fund our military in times of war. Just as Savings Bonds grew from War Bonds.
[These two are NOT in the Constitution! Nor can we use our First Amendment Rights against them]

Lobbying is loosely the hold of special interests over law and decision-makers.

I suppose I can sum it all up in this way...
We live in a Constitutional republic that limits the government's power over citizens, supposedly. It also protects the minority from majority rule. That's why politicians have a career, and propositions are voted down, reappealed,or just misunderstood.
Power over all people in this Nation should not be in the hands of the few. We should be informed by Specialists and not Special Interest. We The People need to be heard in those lobbies. Stop the free ride of the small cadre of career politicians we were forced to choose from.

The following are excerpts from Wikipedia...

Republican Party
Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP. The party's platform is generally considered right of center in the U.S. political spectrum, generally used to describe support for preserving traditional social orders which often includes social stratification.

Democratic Party
The oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. It evolved from Anti-Federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party. The party favored states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests. In the U.S. political spectrum, the party's platform is considered center-left.
Equal rights and opportunity.
Regulate private enterprise in the interests of workers and consumers by ensuring labor rights, worker access to trade unions, consumer protections, and fair market competition.
An extensive system of social security (although usually not to the extent advocated by socialists).
A mixed economy consisting of both private enterprise and publicly owned or subsidized programs of education, universal health care, child care and related social services for all citizens.
Environmentalism and environmental protection laws; for example, funding for alternative energy resources and laws designed to combat global warming.

Lobbying is the practice of influencing decisions made by the government (in groups or individually).
"lobbying" loosely comes from informal meetings in the hallways (or lobbies) of Houses before and after debates to influence legislators.
One story states that the term originated at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, where it was used by Ulysses S. Grant to describe the political wheelers and dealers frequenting the hotel's lobby in order to access Grant, who was often found there, enjoying a cigar and brandy.

Social Security is a social insurance program funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). When initially signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his New Deal, the term Social Security covered unemployment insurance as well.

Internal Revenue Service
In July 1862, during the Civil War, President Lincoln and Congress created the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay war expenses (see Revenue Act of 1862, in contrast to U.S. government institutions that collected external revenue through duties and tariffs).

INWO
...Hold on, I think i see some men in black suits at the door.

The word

"In the Beginning there was the Word. And the Word was good."
[In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God]

There are only four instances of the word "religion" in the Bible. All four are from the New Testament, by the way. Hence, not mentioned before Christ.

Act 26:5 Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

Gal 1:13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it;
Gal 1:14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

The General Epistle of James 1 'Hearing and Doing the Word'
26 ¶ If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27  ¶ Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The written word

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. If you can raed tihs, psot it to yuor wlal. Olny 55% of plepoe can!

Does this work in languages other than english? And does this take into consideration typos (extra or missing letters?). Actually most ppl can still understand a sentence even if every word is misspelled, just by sounding right.

And did you know the most common mistype is teh instead of the?

ACCRDNG TO RSRCH AT R'DN'S UNVRST', IT DSN'T MTR W'T RDR THE LTRS IN A W'RD R, THE 'NL' 'MPRTNT THNG IS THT THE SNDS B N THE CRCT PLC. THS IS BCS THE H'MN MND DS NT RD 'V'RY LTR BY 'TSLF, BT THE WRD AS A WHL. F U CN RD THS, PST 'T TO UR WL. U R A GD TXTR.

This is how I see texting. Just use consonants and use the ' symbol to replace stressed vowels important to the structure of the word. It does take a couple of reads, depending on the character [no pun intended] of the sender. Someone sent me the Cambridge research quote, and I found it in my Jan 2010 blog entry. With today's apps, whole words can now be recognized by using just a few key strokes. So the recipient can see the correct words.

The Aughts

George Bush 43 as President and ending with Obama just starting. 9/11 began the War on Terrorism. Free trade and outsourcing, forclosures and credit crisis Leads to bail-outs, stimulus plan, and cash-for-klunkers.

Mad Cow disease, bird flu, and H1N1 become threats even as AIDS grows.
Katrina, Indonesian tsunami, and earthquakes in Kashmir and China, and a European heatwave were a few of the most destructive natural disasters.

We are now in the Attention Age with Broadband, WiFi, Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for news and information, commerce, and interpersonal communication.
Popular are HD and everything Digital. Flat screens and home entertainment. Ps2, Wii, WoW, and on-line gaming.
Hand-held and hands-free, GPS and G3. Smartphones, iPhone, to iPodTouch. Windows Me, XP, Vista and 7, and Mac OS X are released.
15 minutes of fame- where anyone can be on American Idol to Big Brother. TV commercials Mac vs PC, AT&T vs Verizon, Carl's vs McD- this used to be illegal, mentioning the other brand, but I think Pepsi taste test [vs Coke] started it all. Low cost plans, upgrade to this, 2 year contract, for new members only. Hundreds of channels, thousands of apps, free downloads for 99 cents each.
Thanks for listening, and if I bored you, click unlike and I will unfriend you lol!