First, let’s talk about some of the reasons this extreme gap in incomes exists. Many on the bottom rung of the income ladder believe that the folks at the top got there by a combination of sheer luck and unfair advantage. There is certainly a ring of truth to the luck factor, and in rare instances perhaps someone got a break or two that wasn’t really deserved. But in most cases extreme wealth is created in the United States when someone with a great idea takes advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime, working mind-numbing hours to make it happen. Is that really a bad thing? In my opinion, no.

In America, the wealthy among us help support the lifestyles of the poor. Now you might be thinking “What kind of lifestyle does one living below the poverty level have anyway?” A good question to be sure, but ask most anyone living in North Korea, Cuba or rural China that question and they’ll probably say “One that I would LOVE to have!”

To be pefectly clear, living in relative poverty in the United States is no fun, and I’m not saying those folks should be happy about it. What I AM saying is trying to “fix” that “problem” by taxing the daylights out of the wealthy would do more harm than good. Like it or not, the wealthy “1%” as the OWS folks like to refer to them provide most of the jobs that the rest of us hold. Take away their rewards for achieving success and they’ll stop providing those jobs. After all, if the government slapped a huge pay cut (tax hike) on you would you still be willing to work just as hard on YOUR job as you do now? Probably not. I know I wouldn’t.

We Americans also have a huge “middle class” consisting of people who aren’t poor or rich, but somewhere in between. In every country where  the government has tried to wipe out income inequality, the middle class has virtually disappeared. A tiny portion of the population at the top became fabulously wealthy while the other “99%” fell into abject poverty. Real poverty, not what we Americans consider poverty to be. Is that what we want for our country? I don’t think so.

Capitalism, even with all its warts, is still far and away the fairest, most effective economic system ever tried for creating wealth and enabling a decent lifestyle for ALL the citizens. Yes, some will fall through the cracks. That’s where friends, family, churches, and to a certain extent the government should step in and lend a helping hand. And they do it pretty effectively in my opinion. But it never works out very well for the masses when a government tries to lift the poor by soaking the rich. The middle class always sinks into poverty right along with the those who are already there.

Be very careful all of you OWS’ers. God help us all if you ever get what you’re asking for. I would much rather live within the “99%” here in the good ole USA than the “99%” in some of the “fairer” nations around the globe.

Well, it was posted by a friend, so you go ahead and click the link. Everything seems fine for a while, but then a box pops up telling you that “Win 7 Antivirus 2012″ has detected several viruses and trojans on your computer. Meanwhile, a “scan” is taking place inside the box listing one virus and trojan after another as if your PC has been inundated by malware.

But there is a problem…You are then notified that your subscription to “Win 7 Antivirus 2012″ has expired and you need to renew it so that the software can remove the viruses from your hard drive. Well folks, the truth of the matter is that you never had a subscription for Win 7 Antivirus 2012 in the first place. In fact, no legitimate product by that name even exists.

True, your computer IS now infected with an insidious virus, but the virus is actually the Win 7 Antivirus program itself! If you go ahead and “renew” the subscription, you have not only just put a decent chunk of change in a crook’s banks account, you have also just given him your credit card or  bank account information forgood measure!

How did you get this virus onto your PC? By clicking on that link that your “friend” had posted earlier. But your friend isn’t really the person who posted it. Hackers (crooks) worm their way in and take over legitimate Facebook accounts, then use those accounts to post links to their malware. And since it appears that the link was posted by one of your friends, it’s only natural to want to click on it and see that “awesome video”. This has happened to three members of my extended family within just the last week!

The bottom line here is that you need to be very careful about which links you click on Facebook and which ones to steer clear of. How can you tell? Here are a few things to consider:

1 – Do you recognize the URL as belonging to a trusted, well-established website? A link to a page on yahoo.com or youtube.com will most likely be fine, but if it will take you to a website that you have never heard of before you might want to think twice before clicking on it.

2 – Make sure you are running a legitimate anti-virus software program such as Norton, McAfee, AVG, Avast, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc. And be sure to keep it updated at all times. Running an anti-virus package with an outdated threat database is only a little better than not running one at all.

3 - Always keep in mind the name of the anti-virus software package that is actually running on your computer. If you ever receive any kind of notification from a virus scanner going by any other name, you’ll know right away that you’re dealing with a scammer!

4 - Make sure you have a set of “Restore DVD’s” for your computer. Most new computers don’t come with them included in the box any longer, so it’s up to you to make a set of your own using the utility provided by the manufacturer. Just follow the instructions  provided. These fake anti-virus programs typically render your Windows “Restore Points” useless, so depending on the System Restore utility to save the day is no longer a valid option in case of an infection. In all likelihood you’ll need to do a clean install of Windows in order to get your computer running properly again, and you won’t be able to do that without a set of Restore DVD’s.

These fake anti-virus programs come with various names, but the two big ones are “Win 7 Antivirus 2012″ and “Vista Antivirus 2012″. They are extremely hard to recover from, so the best policy is to try your best to avoid them in the first place. Whenever you see a link on Facebook, be extremely careful about clicking on it. If there is any doubt whatsoever about the integrity of the website the link will take you to, DON’T CLICK ON IT!

Well, the answer is, he doesn’t. God always answers the prayers of His children – it’s just that sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes we ask God to give us something or do something for us (or for somebody else) that simply isn’t in His will, therefore he cannot grant that wish. After all, God knows what is best for His children, even when we do not. Many times we are spared from unnecessary suffering or hardships because our Heavenly Father had the wisdom and compassion to tell us no.

Other times, the answer might not be a simple yes or no – often it will be “not yet”. In Romans 8:28 we read, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”  You see, God has a master plan for each and every one of His children, and some of the things we ask for might very well fit into that plan, just not at the point in time in which we ask for them.

As a young child, I would occasionally ask my mom for an expensive toy, and her reply would often be “wait until your birthday” or “wait until Christmas”. And sure enough, when the appointed day rolled around, the toy that I had wanted so badly would be waiting for me when I got out of bed that morning. Her answer to my request hadn’t been yes or no, it had been “not yet”.

Unlike my mom, God doesn’t “answer” our prayers with words, He answers them with deeds – or the lack thereof. But rest assured, God always answers the prayers of His beloved children – always! We just have to be prepared to accept the answer He gives us and always remember that He knows what is best for us. Our kind, loving and supremely wise Heavenly Father always has a good reason when He says “no” or “not yet”. You can count on it!

Photo courtesy of Kay Pat.

Although I haven’t purchased a newspaper in years, I’ll occasionally pick one up when I see it laying on a table somewhere and check it out. Since I only read the good news and skip the bad, it usually takes just a minute or two to make my way from cover to cover.

Lately I’m finding find that I don’t read much of the paper at all because in most cases I have already read the stories online the day before.

By their very nature, unless they put out a special edition to get a jump on a major breaking story, newspapers publish old news. Most of them are only published once a day (during the overnight hours) which means that any news that breaks after the deadline won’t make it into the paper until the next edition is published. This process used to work just fine for the publishers because that’s what the readers expected, but not in today’s Internet world.

Thanks to the net, news stories are now published in real time by a plethora of “new media” sources. Nowadays one can choose between any number of bloggers, online news aggregators and the online divisions of traditional news outlets themselves to get their news within minutes of when the events take place, complete with virtually real-time updates as the events unfold. Those among us who still depend on printed newspapers for their news surely find themselves woefully behind their contemporaries when it comes to staying up on current events.

More than a few folks still take the Sunday paper strictly for the coupons, but even they are beginning to find that those same coupons are available online, free for the taking. All they have to do is print them out on their own computer printer.

Newspapers are getting ever more expensive to print and deliver even as subscriber bases are shrinking. To compensate, they do what any business would do – they raise their prices. Unfortunately for the publishers, that model is unsustainable because few people are willing to pay higher prices for an item that diminishes in real value each and every day. I predict that it won’t be long before the printed newspaper goes the way of the rotary telephone, and in my opinion the world will be a better place for it.

Let’s think for a moment just exactly what those “No Guns Allowed” emblems actually accomplish. First of all, they ensure that law-abiding citizens who obey the rules and have no intention of harming anyone will enter the building unarmed. A good thing you say? No, it really isn’t.

When law-abiding citizens leave their weapons at home or in their cars in order to comply with the law before heading into a building, that simply ensures that the only folks inside that building who are carrying a weapon are the very ones who would use it to injure or kill someone.

As a case in point, let’s consider the now infamous Virginia Tech shootings. If at least one of the law-abiding students or faculty members on the scene that day had been carrying a weapon, odds are that the death toll would have ended up being  two or three people instead of the better part of three dozen. The fact that everyone in those buildings except for the shooter  had obeyed the law that morning by leaving their weapons at home ended up costing 20-odd innocent lives. Likewise, the very presence of a sign banning guns in post offices ensures that someone intent on “going postal” will be able to do so in spectacular fashion.

More recently my home state of Virginia made it legal for people with concealed weapons permits to carry their weapons with them when they went into bars. Those opposed to the move predicted that murder and mayhem would rule the day once “guns and alcohol” were allowed to mix. Well, long story short, it didn’t. As a matter of fact, the number of violent altercations in bars actually decreased in the state during the year following the passage of the new law. Why? Because even someone who is drunk to the gills will think twice about starting something with someone who just might be carrying a gun to use in self-defense.

It’s really just a matter of common sense. Those who intend to use a gun to commit robbery or murder will simply ignore a sign stating “No Guns Allowed” and walk right in armed to the teeth with no fear of being stopped before the criminal act has been completed. After all, why should he have such a fear when he knows ahead of time that there will be nobody on the scene equipped to take him out once he starts shooting?

Emotionally, the idea of gun control makes perfect sense. After all, no one wants to see innocent people lose their lives at the hands of a deranged shooter. But logically it makes no sense whatsoever. The only proof we need is the simple fact that violent crimes always go up in a jurisdiction every time gun control laws are tightened while they decrease when similar laws are relaxed or abandoned altogether. Emotions deceive. Statistics don’t.

Although most kids born in the last 10 years don’t realize it, much of our daily lives used to revolve around that raggedy old book with all the names and numbers in the front and those weird-looking “yellow pages” over in the back. If we needed to find an old friend’s phone number or “search” for a local plumber, we pulled out “the book” and let our fingers do the walking. And trust me, if they had a telephone, and back then some people didn’t, you were virtually guaranteed to find them listed.

But my, how things have changed. These days if you’re one of the few who still use the phone book, good luck finding someone’s name and number listed in it. Years of being interrupted by telemarketers at dinner time and the ever-present prank calls by the kids down the road led most folks to request unlisted numbers soon after those “features” became available. Of course all of those unlisted numbers made the printed phone book pretty much useless for its primary purpose, so fewer and fewer people kept using it. Today, most folks just keep one around to look up a business in the yellow pages on occasion.

But now even the yellow pages are becoming more irrelevant as each day passes by. Need to find a dentist in Macon, Georgia? Simply do a Google search for “Macon, Ga Dentists” (substitute your own town or city) and you’ll immediately be presented with a long list from which to choose, complete with phone numbers, addresses and even maps to their locations!

Want to find the phone number for a friend who lives in another state? Well, you can if their number is “listed”. Simply visit one of the many popular “Whitepages” websites, type in your friend’s name along with the city and state in which he/she lives, and you’re in business. Several “matches” might come up if your friend has a common name, but all you have to do is call everyone on the list until your friend answers the phone (you do have free long distance on your cell phone, right?).

Back when I was growing up it was a big deal when the new phone book showed up in the mail each year. Some folks would spend hours leafing through it just to find out which of their friends and neighbors had gotten a phone (remember, not every household had one back then) and to see if there were any new business listings in the yellow pages. Those days are now gone. Homes with land-line telephones are becoming fewer every day, and cell phone numbers aren’t listed in “the book” at all. And with fewer businesses all the time paying for an expensive ad in the increasingly irrelevant yellow pages, the reasons for keeping a phone book on the shelf at all have pretty much evaporated.

What got me thinking about all this was the shiny red phone book that arrived in the mail the other day. We haven’t had a land-line telephone for years so we haven’t been receiving phone books, but for some reason we got one the other day. I guess the phone company just wanted us to have one for old time’s sake. Thanks CenturyLink!!

This video needs no introduction…

The entire meteor episode only lasted for a second or two, but it was remarkable nonetheless. I hope somebody somewhere just happened to have a video camera running at the time because it sure would make a terrific news story!

The guys and gals up in Redmond are well known for making arbitrary and often senseless changes when “upgrading” their products, but this change takes the cake. What were they thinking?

If all of that sounds surprisingly familiar to you, it should. Why? Because the very same “body of experts” who predicted back then that we were all facing a grim future of bitter cold, ice and famine are now sounding the same shrill alarm about the perils of “global warming”. In other words: same problems, different cause.

The term “global warming” was jettisoned after the “experts” lost all credibility due to the revelations of the fraudulent research and collusion they were practicing (not to mention the public’s ability to simply look out the window and see snowfall after snowfall piling up on the ground). But you have to give those folks credit – they simply will not give up. And why should they? After dropping the label “global warming” and replacing it with “climate change”, how could they possibly be proven wrong? After all, the earth’s climate has been “changing” for eons, and it’s certainly not gonna stop any time soon. But here’s a news flash for the alarmists: Climate changes are perfectly normal occurrences in nature, and there is nothing we could do to prevent them (even if it was in our best interests to do so, which it isn’t).

The fact of the matter is that the earth’s climate goes through cycles of heating and cooling, heating and cooling, heating and cooling… We have had at least two ice ages that we know of, and probably more. And there will likely be another one coming sooner or later. What caused all of that ice to form in the first place? Global cooling. And what caused most of it to melt? Global warming. In other words, climate change!

A particularly humorous episode that brings the folly of all this global warming nonsense to light occurred not too long ago. It seems that an airplane that had been missing in Antartica for decades has turned up beneath a patch of melting ice. The climate change experts were all over it of course, claiming that the fact that enough ice has melted to reveal that plane proves that the earth is heating up. But when you think about it, all this episode really proves is there was just as little ice sitting on that part of Antarctica decades ago as there is right now. Otherwise, the plane could not have been sitting where it was – it would have been sitting on top of all that ice, not under it!

The reality of “climate change” is that it is indeed real – and 100% natural. Our planet’s climate is in a constant state of flux, heating up and cooling down, then repeating that cycle at various intervals. The activities of man have nothing to do with it. But the very existence of the “climate change” industry (funded by millions of dollars per year in grant money) depends on making the public believe that we really are causing it. And perpetuating that fraud has become a pretty difficult thing to do in recent times. The straws the “experts” have left to grasp at are becoming ever weaker and fewer in number.