Babyspittle

This is an app that sounds useful.

It lets you avoid monsanto, or the koch brothers series of products.

Buycott

Prior to some simple changes yesterday, this site got more than 10,000 spam comments per day.

Today? none got through.

Suck it, spammers.

IRS scandal – they are REQUIRED to do due diligence on organizations that want tax exempt status.
And in the end, they refused that status to no tea party groups.
That is against the law.
The real scandal is that the IRS does not follow the law.

Benghazi – this is entirely fox fake news and (R) hysteria. There is no scandal here.

some older “scandals”

Green Investments – only 5 of 63 loans have failed. better rate than many commercial investment lenders.

Born in Kenya – monumentally stupid.

Bowed to other world leaders. Oh no! (R) presidents never did that! snicker.

Apologized for America – Nope. Fiction.

FY2009: 1.4 trillion
FY2010: 1.3 trillion
FY2011: 1.3 trillion
FY2012: 1.1 trillion
FY2013: 0.6 trillion

Those numbers look even better when you adjust for inflation (which I’m not going to do for you).

And what do idiot conservatives parrot?
“Obama tripled the deficit”

LMAO.

The deficit before Obama took office was 1.2 trillion.
The stimulus which got only 3 (R) votes, added about 150 billion to that first year’s deficit, and a bit more to the next two years, for a total near 800 billion before adding tax revenue generated as a result.

The deficit is expected to be 0.6 trillion for this year.

The deficit has been cut in half using nominal dollars.
Its even better inflation adjusted or deficit to GDP (10% to 4.2%)

This poll was in yahoo’s financial section, which you wouldn’t think would be filled with morons.

What would you like to see out of any potential tax reforms?

Make a flat tax (57173)
73%

Steeper sliding scale (8171)
10%

Increase the sales tax (2625)
3%

Raise corporate taxes (9914)
14%

Lets let an economist explain why a flat tax would be worse for the middle class and poor.

PAUL KRUGMAN: A flat tax would either (a) be much higher for most people than the tax they currently pay or (b) raise much less revenue than the current system.

I probably don’t need to explain why (a) would be bad.
(b) means a bigger annual budget deficit, which cons have pretended to fiercely care about since 2009.

Of course, this is another case of the right-wing propagandists at yahoo doing their worst.
“steeper sliding scale” .. wtf do they mean by that? I expect that means raise taxes on the rich to a more historically normal rate, but its hard to say. This is the answer that any rational adult would pick.

If you’d like to increase the amount you save each month, you’d either increase your income or reduce your expenses.

If there’s not an obvious way to increase your income, reducing your expenses typically isn’t hard.

Switching to LED bulbs can reduce your electricity expenses.

Soon, solar rooftop systems will be less expensive than grid power and there are companies like Sunpower and Solar City that will help finance zero down systems.

Grow your own food.
I didn’t realize, but a typical family can easily eat $200 of tomatoes per year.

Get some decent heirloom seeds, some decent soil, and maybe build a sub-irrigation container (like the earthtainer) – you’ll use less water and fertilizer.
For fertilizers, it may be best to go organic, but I’m a fan of simple and the slow-release fertilizers (like osmocote plus) would likely only need to be used once in a year.
As an alternative, Jack’s Classic has a good water soluble fertilizer and their own slow-release.

Or get some apple trees, which should provide fruit for years. My family has apples, oranges, lemons and more than typically don’t even get fertilized after established.

Typically I like food that other people have prepared.
But I do like food that I’ve grown, even if its typically a food I don’t care for (spinach).

Anything you can shave off your expenses helps, and growing your own food assures you’ll only be poisoned by the insecticides you use.

In the realm of safe investments, check out solar mosaic.
The yield isn’t much at 4.5%, but that’s a lot better than what you’d get having your money sit in a bank.
I think the yield ends up being closer to 3.5%, actually, after the site’s fee.
Plus, your money would help fight pollution.

Back in November, I recommended Sunpower (SPWR) and First Solar (FSLR).

At the time, SPWR was $4 / share.
Its now $15 / share.

If you’d invested $10,000 6 months ago, you’d have $37,500 today.

First Solar at the time was $24.
Its now $44.
You’d nearly have doubled your money, in 6 months.

These are american companies employing american workers and their product cuts down on the need to continue polluting.

90% of americans wanted background checks
90% of (D)’s voted for it
90% of (R)’s voted against it

and dumb, right wing nutty yahoo?
Near 50% approve of blocking background checks, or simply didn’t understand the legislation being voted on.

How do you feel about the Senate’s decision to block gun control legislation?
I agree with the decision (95769)
49%

I’m outraged (53839)
27%

It’s typical Washington politics (47568)
24%

OF COURSE, you’ll notice that yahoo’s right wing propagandists worked in two negatives with the one gun-nut answer.
The poll was geared to be favorable to the gun nuts.

We give more taxpayer dollars to the fossil fuel industry than any other country in the world.

This while we try to convince more rational, mature countries that we care about pollution.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/29/1791811/bombshell-imf-study-united-sates-is-worlds-number-one-fossil-fuel-subsidizer/

I am always amazed when one of my former friends parrots the stupidity they hear on fox fake news, or claims to be a “fiscal conservative” (as if that was a good moniker), or pretends global warming is a hoax.

I admit, before I started fact-checking the stupid crap coming from the right – I fell for some of it too.
That was before I cared.

So wouldn’t the answer be to simply spread knowledge amongst the idiot conservatives?
You would think.
But conservatives are generally offended by knowledge, as it conflicts when their deeply programmed beliefs (like “tax cuts are free”, lol), so its a struggle.

Conservatives are the anti-reality movement.