EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008

SUMMARY OF THE “EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008”

I. Stabilizing the Economy
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) provides up to $700 billion
to the Secretary of the Treasury to buy mortgages and other assets that are clogging the
balance sheets of financial institutions and making it difficult for working families, small
businesses, and other companies to access credit, which is vital to a strong and stable
economy. EESA also establishes a program that would allow companies to insure their
troubled assets.

II. Homeownership Preservation
EESA requires the Treasury to modify troubled loans – many the result of predatory
lending practices – wherever possible to help American families keep their homes. It
also directs other federal agencies to modify loans that they own or control. Finally, it
improves the HOPE for Homeowners program by expanding eligibility and increasing
the tools available to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help more
families keep their homes.

III. Taxpayer Protection
Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for Wall Street’s mistakes. The legislation
requires companies that sell some of their bad assets to the government to provide
warrants so that taxpayers will benefit from any future growth these companies may
experience as a result of participation in this program. The legislation also requires the
President to submit legislation that would cover any losses to taxpayers resulting from
this program from financial institutions.

IV. No Windfalls for Executives
Executives who made bad decisions should not be allowed to dump their bad assets on
the government, and then walk away with millions of dollars in bonuses. In order to
participate in this program, companies will lose certain tax benefits and, in some cases,
must limit executive pay. In addition, the bill limits “golden parachutes” and requires
that unearned bonuses be returned.

V. Strong Oversight
Rather than giving the Treasury all the funds at once, the legislation gives the Treasury
$250 billion immediately, then requires the President to certify that additional funds are
needed ($100 billion, then $350 billion subject to Congressional disapproval). The
Treasury must report on the use of the funds and the progress in addressing the crisis.
EESA also establishes an Oversight Board so that the Treasury cannot act in an arbitrary
manner. It also establishes a special inspector general to protect against waste, fraud and
abuse

Source

Update: The Bill did not pass the Senate

Christian???

I really wish people would stop referring to these nutjobs as pastors or Christian. They may read the bible and may think they are serving God, but they are far from Christian.

Bush Economic Address

PETA Craziness

I am all for the fair and gently treatment of animals, but I think this is going a bit to far.

Read This Story

PETA has called on Ben and Jerry's to start using human milk in their ice cream, instead of cow's milk. Their claim is that cow's milk is only intended for baby cows and is not designed for humans. The also say that using human milk will lessen the suffering of cows and their babies.

Ok, as I said, I am all for the fair treatment of animals, but come on. We may be lessening the suffering of cows, but aren't we now adding to the suffering of new mothers and their babies. Who or What is more important, cows or humans? Apparently for PETA, the answer is cows.

Read PETA's letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
September 23, 2008
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President

The Truth about Teen Girls

I borrowed this from my pal, DC.

It is an article from Time Magazine about the negative effects of media on our teen girls. Every parent and youth leader needs to read this article.

Here are some excerpts:

* "Unless you're an adolescent male, you have already asked yourself this question, perhaps in the past few days: Is there something wrong with teen girls? Specifically, are they getting too sexy? Barely a week passes without a flash bulletin blinding us with news of another prominent preadult who is in the family way or showing off her underthings. Miley Cyrus, 15, seminaked! Jamie Lynn Spears, 16, pregnant! A bunch of Massachusetts high schoolers all having babies together! It's an epidemic!"

* "Girlhood sexiness seems to be everywhere: on TV shows and in movies, in advertising, in teen magazines and all over the Internet. Most disturbingly, it seems to be coming from the girls themselves: the way they dress, the way they text, the way they present themselves on Facebook and, oh, mercy, what they get up to at parties."

* "In one generation, girls seem to have moved from Easy-Bake to easy virtue."

* "In the past four months, there have been four weighty books published on the subject, with titles like Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children and So Sexy So Soon. Most of these treatises have a similar thesis: young girls are sexually loose because they're aping behavior they see on TV or read about in magazines. And as if on cue, the media deliver a new 90210 with an oral-sex scene in the first episode; Gossip Girl comes back with billboards promoting it as MIND-BLOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE ... and your daughter starts singing that alarmingly suggestive song about licking a lollipop."

* "Middle school counselor Julia Taylor of North Carolina had a conversation with her sixth-graders last year that worried her. "A lot of them were watching The O.C.," she says. "I just remember the show's multiple sexual partners, the cocaine use, and then at the end, they drink, they drive, they set fires, but all is well! There are never any consequences."

* "What has complicated things recently is that girls are literally getting older younger. Their bodies are hitting physical maturity sooner, often before they are ready to deal with the issues of sexuality that go along with it. According to Jane Brown, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Twelve-to-14-year-old girls who start puberty earlier are more interested in sexual content in the media." Brown's studies found that adolescents whose media diet was rich in sexual content were more than twice as likely as others to have had sex by the time they were 16."

* "Should girls fear that they don't have the requisite hotness, there's a surefire way to overcome that: find a boy to sleep with. "They're subconsciously looking for love," says Amanda Ireland, another Gloucester teen. "They think, If I have a baby, I'll be someone. It gives them an identity." How can Ireland be so sure? She gave birth to daughter Haley, now 3, when she was 15."

Read More Here

What do you think we can do to stop this epidemic of teen girls giving themselves away. They are looking for love in all the wrong places. They want so bad just to hear someone say, "I love you," and the guys have figured this out.

"Staycation": The Weekend

On Friday, Steve said we were acting like an old married couple because we went out to lunch at 4pm, then at around 8:30 we went to Menards and Walmart, not because we needed anything, just to get out of the house and go for a walk. Friday was pretty uneventful. Steve did finish his Ohio State room.

Saturday was a bit of a rainy day. I got up and worked on some of my postcard scrapbooking. I haven't done much with them for awhile because I didn't have the space to spread out or the time. Saturday afternoon was football time. We watched most of the Notre Dame game and laughed to ourselves at all the people getting wet. We were a bit disapointed that they won, but it was a good game. The smell of all the barbeques outside made me want some, so Steve grilled barbeque chicken. We ended up making it on our George Foremen grill since it was raining pretty hard still.

Saturday evening was the Ohio State and USC game. Poor Ohio State did not do so well. We are hoping for a better game next week.

On Sunday, we got up for church. It was raining again. We had originally planned to join my parents at the B100 Birthday Bash after church, but it was canceled due to weather. I did have to go out and brave the rain though. I had to do some grocery shopping so Steve and I would have some food to eat. That is pretty important because Steve likes to eat. Aldi wasn't to flooded but I still got pretty wet running in and out. Martins was a whole nother story though. I pulled into the parking lot and felt like I was driving through a small lake. I named it Lake Martins. I picked a spot to park and started to get out of my car and realized when I opened the door that water was almost up to the door. So I decided to park somewhere else. I finally found a somewhat dry place to park that wasn't to far away. I got out of my car only to realize that in order to get to the Martins door I would have to walk through "Lake Martins." It was ankle deep and deeper in most places. I went in and quickly got the few things we needs and threaded back through the lake to get to my car. I was very happy when I finally got home. Once I got home, we stayed inside until it stopped raining. We got almost 11 inches of rain both Saturday and Sunday.
To end our vacation, we went for a nice walk and then went to bed.
All and all it was a relaxing "staycation."

"Staycation" Day 2

Yesterday, we got up a bit earlier than we did Wednesday. I had some left-over pancakes from the Pancake House for Breakfast. Steve went upstairs to finish up his "Ohio State Room." It looks really nice. Ill post pictures soon. While he was doing that I cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, and did some laundry. Yesterday was mostly a cleaning day but it was still relaxing. It is nice to have a nice clean apartment, well mostly. My sis came over around dinner time and hung out with us for awhile. That was fun. We didn't really leave the house much.
We wanted to go for a walk after dinner but I fell asleep while he was watching some old Superman TV show, so that didnt happen. We finally went to bed around midnight.

I just got up. Steve is still asleep. We dont really have any plans for today. We have a coupon for the Home Plate Resturant so we might go there for lunch. I want to get the rest of the living room put together and hopefully get some more pictures on the wall. Damian was upset the last time he was over that there was a picture of the me and the Bridesmaids on our wall, but no picture of Steve and the Groomsmen, so I have to find one and put it up.

"Staycation" Day 1

Steve and I took a week off from both jobs this week for a vacation. We aren't actually going anyway. We just wanted some days to relax. Our "Staycation", as the media has been calling it, was pretty uneventful yesterday. Which is just the way we wanted it. We woke up at around 10:30-11ish and went out for Breakfast/Lunch at the Pancake House, which was very good. Then we went back home and took a nap until around 4. We then got up and I made some chili for us to eat tommorrow and Steve made some Hamburgers on the grill for us to eat for dinner. Steve then went to work on painting our spare room. He is painting the room in Ohio State colors. After dinner, we sat around and watched some TV and then Steve decided he wanted to make some Chocolate Chip cookies, so he did. They were really good.
Steve finished up the "O" in the spare room and I went to bed at around midnight.

Today, Steve is going to try and finish up the room and hopefully finish the living room too. Yesterday was a great relaxing day to start the vacation. I'm not sure what we will do today. We are sorta going to play it by ear.

Have Parents Completely Lost it?

Parental control crashing the cell phone party

I'm sorry but there is no reason that I can see that an 8 year old needs a cell phone. The Verizon guy said it could be helpful if your child is alone alot.
Do parents of 8 years olds regularly leave their child places alone...and I bet they will so surprised when their child is an alcoholic and pregnant before middle school. Maybe I'm crazy, but Steve and I both agree that we would never get our children a cell phone...because they don't need one while they are still living under our roof. Once they get a job and may be driving at night...then maybe, but they will be paying for it themselves. I and most people my age survived just fine through high school without cell phones. We used house phone, pay phones, friend's parent's phones...and we were just fine. My parents were always able to get ahold of me because they knew why I was. I didnt get a cell phone until after college and I got it for the free long distance mainly.

Perfect Christmas Present for Steve???

Ohio State Buckeyes Big Daddy Recliner from Baseline

Anyone need a Christmas present idea? I know it's a little pricey, but he's worth it, right? Doesn't it look so comfy?

haha...actually I found this while looking for new furniture. Steve and I decided that is the next big purchase we are saving up for. We have one couch that used to be my grandparents and it is falling apart and our other couch is small and I also got it used during college. We don't want expensive furniture, just something comfortable. We may buy "gently used" again instead of new to save money. We will just have to see how much money we get saved up.

There is a matching sofa too --->>>

Labor Day Weekend

It has been a pretty busy week. I bought Steve's Christmas present already. I put up pictures once I give it to him. Every since our roommate moved out, Steve has been working hard getting our spare room made up. He painted the walls. He talked me into letting him paint them in OSU colors. It actually looks really nice. He wants to paint a big 'O' on the wall with a Buckeye next. The apartment looks and feels alot better than it did before. It is not nearly as cramped. We have been moving boxes around and Steve rearranged the living room.

I had to work all weekend but i had a few big sale days, so it wasn't so bad. Saturday evening my mentor, Judy Gregory, was in town from Atlanta so Chris Infalt threw a party at her house. It was good to see everyone. Some of the people there I hadnt seen all summer. I love my Oasis family. On Labor Day, we had our Biggest Loser picnic. Even though Steve tried all weekend to leave a few extra pounds, Greg won first place by 2.8 pounds. Everyone did a great job. We are so proud of Greg. I think we do this contest again, because it was really fun.
Steve made ribs and bread for the picnic and they were really good. I unfortunetly had to leave the party early because I had to work at 6. We were so dead at work.