I want to go on record….

187/365 Pocket change

…and say that everything in Washington is royally messed up.  You know all of these cuts they are talking about?  Well, they aren’t real cuts…they are simply cuts in the rate of increase.  ARG!

Tonight, I wrote my Senators and Representative and urged them to vote NO on any debt ceiling bill that does not call for REAL cuts in the budget.  I urged them to support the Connie Mack Penny Plan.  1% real reduction in the federal budget!  1%.  1 penny on the dollar.

In summary, here is what it does:

  1. Reducing overall spending by $7.5 trillion over 10 years.
  2. Setting an overall spending cap of 18 percent of gross domestic product in 2018
  3. The Penny Plan balances the budget byCutting total federal spending by one percent each year for six consecutive years

If Congress and the President are unable to make the necessary cuts, the bill’s fail-safe triggers automatic, across-the-board cuts to ensure the one percent reductions are achieved.

Image from The Suss-Man via flickr

[Update 2013-01-09 07:10:07] I just noticed this is post 1776

Lydia

Lydia From Father Of Click

Lydia by The Father of Click

First off…I know I’ve been rubbish at posting while we’ve been here in the US.  I could make lots of excuses, but I won’t.

Anyway, while we were in Richmond, we ran into a friend at Short Pump Mall.  He’s a photographer and takes pictures of everything.  Like all photographers, he whips out his camera (an iphone) and tries to get Lydia’s picture.  Sometimes she shies away from the camera so he tried and tried and tried.  Eventually he stopped so I thought he just gave up.

Fast forward a few days….we run into him again.  THIS time he whips out his iPad and says he wants to show us something.  I figured he was going to show us the pictures of Lydia.  Sure enough, he did, but he showed us his blog too.  I never knew he blogged!

Anyway, go have a look around at his photoblog — The Father of Click.  Here is a link to his picture of Lydia.

back in the US

we’ve been back in the US 2days. we have our mobile phone situation sorted. I finished the final for a class I was taking this morning. right now I’m sitting at a Barnes and noble reading my kindle and drinking a cup of coffee. I’ll write more in a few days about bring back. thank you to everyone who prayed for us the past three years and on our trip back.

I can’t believe

in less than 1week we’ll be back in the US. that is incredibly hard to believe. I wonder what it will be like. I know one thing though … it will be difficult to leave our English friends for the summer.

If anyone says they can’t be married…

…speak now or forever hold your peace.  Would have been funny if someone actually spoke up.  Why do I say this?  Not funny for Kate and William, certainly.  But, for the same reason I say that I like sports teams loose.  For the crazy fans.  Sometimes other people make way too big of a deal over things.

[Update 2011-04-29 21:09:51] I’ve thought about this today and wanted to clarify….my comments here were directed at the people who watched NOT from countries within the Commonwealth.  Those in the Commonwealth should be interested….at some point in the future, the child of William and Kate will be their king.

Image from edwin11 via flickr