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Here’s a little bit of history for the books.  Tonight rather than watching the Vice Presidential Debates on your local network, watch it on Current TV and you can participate in the broadcast by twittering with the #current in your tweet.

How to PARTICIPATE:

1. Tune in on October 2nd at 9pm EST/ 6pm PST for the Live Vice Presidential Debate. Find Current TV on your local cable/satellite provider or come here to watch the live stream of our broadcast.
2. Make sure you’ve registered with Twitter to participate.
3. During the debates, chime in by including “#current” in your tweet. Example:

   "This discussion about universal healthcare makes me want to pop some pills! #current
   

4. We won’t be able to air every single tweet on TV, but you can see all of the #current tweets by searching #current on Twitter search.
5. If you have any questions about participating, send us a tweet @current.

Awesome. This will def. be a trying time for Twitter and I’m sure the most traffic at any given point the would need to endure. I wonder how many of these we’ll see tonight:
Hi Mom! #current

Taxpayers would get checks under economic stimulus plan

Things like this are just fantastic. Makes me happy to be middle class even. However it will probably go to the fact that I’ll need to scrap my HD DVD player and re-buy all my stuff in BluRay. *cries*

WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. taxpayers would get checks of several hundred dollars from the federal government under a plan to stimulate the economy, congressional and Bush administration officials said Thursday.

“Tens of millions Americans will have a check in the mail,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “It is there to strengthen the middle class, to create jobs and to turn this economy around.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “I’m looking for quick action in the House. I hope that the Senate will follow quickly so that we can put this money in the hands of middle-income Americans as soon as possible.”

Speaking a few minutes later at the White House, President Bush said the package will “boost our economy and encourage job creation.”

Sources on Capitol Hill and at the Treasury Department said the plan would send checks of $600 to individuals and $1,200 to couples who paid income tax and who filed jointly.

People who did not pay federal income taxes but who had earned income of more than $3,000 would get checks of $300 per individual or $600 per couple.

Democrats won’t give Bush ‘blank check’ for Iraq - Newsday.com

This story caught my attention on the typical newsfeed-grind today. I can’t recall a big mention of how democrats are exercising their new power on the nation until I read this; I find it funny that Bush is now on a shorter leash thanks to the Blue Ties. This easily could backfire just as well. You know, putting more in then the 500 Billion we’ve spent already to keep the fun going. The Democrats have already scheduled a month worth of hearings to see where the war is heading and how we plan on moving from here. As always I never know enough to have an opinion worth debating, but hey, I keep up where I can.

*shrug*

Democratic congressional leaders vowed yesterday to use their powers of spending and policy oversight to challenge President George W. Bush’s expected proposal this week, as part of a broad revision of Iraq strategy, for boosting U.S. military forces in the country by as many as 20,000 troops.

Calling Iraq a nation in “complete chaos,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats cast the anticipated plan as an escalation of the war that goes against the advice of senior U.S. commanders, rather than the significant change of course sought by voters, and said as a result they would treat the plan — and funding requests — with strong skepticism.

“If the president wants to add to this mission, he’s going to have to justify it,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” emphasizing that while Congress will not cut off funding, the White House will no longer have a “blank check.”

“When the bill comes … it will receive the harshest scrutiny,” she said, referring to a new supplemental spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that is expected to surpass $100 billion.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than $500 billion has been spent on the wars and terrorism-related expenditures around the world.

US to launch RFID passports on Monday - Engadget

RFID Passports on the way, wow. So either they developed a hack-proof method or this is only one more way to increase the security concerns from the current system. At least they wont cost the public all that much more. Like most government mandate “upgrades”, I assumed we’d be paying $150 now compared the the $97 currently to offset the Billions capitol hill doesn’t have in order to get this system in place.

Despite the various privacy concerns that have been repeatedly raised in regards to e-passports, the US is going ahead with their plans to launch the system this Monday. Not all newly-issued passports will be RFID-enabled, since mass production has been held up by the ongoing legal dispute over the technology. The first passports to be issued will be those produced during the pilot run of the project, but the full roll-out should be completed in about a year. Including the extra $12 security surcharge slapped onto passports last year, the new and “improved” models will cost $97, the same as they do currently. If you’re overly concerned about the security implications or potential apocalypse causation, you might want to nab a passport now, since traditional passports will be valid until their listed expiration date.

Ehh, at least mine is good ’till 2013. I figure that’s ample time for them to have rolled out a different system by then. Not to mention I’ll be 32 and I’ll still look 19 in my picture. I guess that’s better then being 25 and looking 16 on my drivers license.

Bloomberg.com: Fed Futures Suggest an August Rate Increase for the First Time

Man, this never seems to stop. Just yesterday I was talking to Val about how tough money can be and how the cost of living for everyone in my generation in the good ‘ole US of A is so damn hard. Her sister called at lunch and told her they were cutting the work hours for that position. So at $25 an hour, now she can only afford her car payment and 1CC bill a month. And that’s living at home. We’re not going to talk about trying to “live” on one income like your’s truly. And thats the thing, at least I was talking to Tim about it too. With two or more people in a household you can justify all these costs.. food for more then just you, and rent for 2 people to live, etc.. it makes sense. Throw 2 paychecks in the mix and it’s like magic! I feel like at the end of the month some of these nice things I spend my paycheck on like cable and DSL and even the simple ones like magazines and an occasional LA Times for my girl.. just aren’t worth it. Not if I ever want to have a savings again like I used to before college.

Check out this article I found below. I heard it being talked about on Good Day LA this morning and had to read up on it.

June 14 (Bloomberg) — Interest-rate futures are suggesting for the first time that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in August after U.S. consumer prices excluding food and energy rose more than forecast for a third consecutive month.

The yield on the federal funds futures contract for August delivery climbed about 6 basis points to 5.355 percent at the Chicago Board of Trade, putting the odds at about 52 percent for an increase of the central banks’ key rate to 5.5 percent. Traders had put the odds at 21 percent yesterday.

Today’s government inflation report convinced traders that the Fed will increase borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point to 5.25 percent when policy makers meet June 28 and 29. Expectations for a June rate rise have climbed since Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s June 5 comments that signs of inflation are “unwelcome.”

“They definitely have shown their hand that they’re worried about inflation,” said Peter Yastrow, an interest-rate broker for Man Financial at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, of the central bank’s policy makers. “Everyone is so focused on the inflation ball.”

Futures are agreements to buy or sell assets at a set date and price. Contracts on interest rates are settled in cash. Fed funds futures settle at the fed funds effective rate, which is the average of all overnight rates for the month.

…

An increase in the Fed’s target to 5.5 percent by August would raise the average overnight rate in that month to 5.44 percent. The rate on the fed funds futures contract is derived by subtracting the contract’s price from 100. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Go figure, I suppose I’ll just have to become a famous photographer on the side and work nights and weekends telling people to saycheese. heh

So call me old fashioned, but I just don’t see this happening.. well, not in ten years. Anyone who lives in the city or has visited can probably agree with me. Granted I don’t live there, but this just seems like more of a 20 year project to me, and not all at once. I mean they’ve been working on just the downtown area of Long Beach now for what 15 years and that’s just a portion of a city one-hundredth the size?

This is Tomorrowland—a new city, a city larger than San Francisco, built on top of the city we know. In ten years, New York City will be transformed in ways we can only guess at. But in the pages that follow, you will explore our best guess, based on the plans, the dreams, the cornerstones, and the rising steel in nine city neighborhoods, spread over all five boroughs. In 2016, we won’t be able to be so parochial anymore—one Times Square isn’t going to be enough to fulfill the entertainment needs of that bigger, younger, more diverse population, and you’ll be talking about the lights on 125th Street. Fresh Kills will be three times the size of Central Park. If you imagine the city as a play—every neighborhood has a role—a lot of understudies are finally going to be called onstage.

Travis, we’ll just need a report and photo diary.. that’s all there is to it.

FOXNews.com - Bush Advises Graduates to Avoid Becoming Enslaved by Technology

STILLWATER, Okla. — President Bush advised college graduates on Saturday to use technology but not become enslaved by it.

“Science offers the prospect of eventual cures for terrible diseases — and temptations to manipulate life and violate human dignity,” Bush said during commencement exercises at Oklahoma State University. “With the Internet, you can communicate instantly with someone halfway across the world — and isolate yourself from your family and your neighbors.”

The nation’s young generation will wrestle to resolve these dilemmas, he said.

“My advice: Harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology. My advice is that science serves the cause of humanity and not the other way around,” the president said.

Bush highlighted recent economic gains and told the graduates that an improving job market is giving them more job opportunities.

“The job market for college graduates is the best it has been in years,” he said. “This economy of ours is strong and so you’ll have more jobs to choose from than previous classes and your starting salaries will be higher. And the opportunities beyond are only limited by the size of your dreams.”

Interesting point, I will say. I mean I look at this two ways. 1: I’m a child of the web, therefore I adapted and found how to use it in my life to my advantage. I bank online, not over the phone or in the branch (but so do 75% of the country), I read whitepaper manuals rather then books, I read my news online and glance at the paper, I index important documents so I can search them later, rather then filing them in a pile at the corner of the room. In all these cases it’s to my advantage, where as I don’t believe I’m a slave to technology I do feel the need for it and like an addiction, I need it when I don’t have it.

That said, 2: I am addicted to technology. I need email, I need my RSS feeds, I need to look at photos every day and I can’t afford to take 4 rolls of film daily, it’s much easier to download the DNG (digi neg) from my overly-expensive digital camera. So in that sense, there is some truth to what he’s saying and I have to agree.

I mean hell, for the first year of dating my girl I didn’t know her number, I just knew I could hit a key on my cell and she would answer. Scarry, but true.