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Travsite.com: February 2008

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Washington DC Madness

2/24/2008
Here are some photos of us acting retarded in our Nation's Capitol. We went to Washington DC for a week after our trip to New York for Christmas.

While we were there, I got yelled at by the Secret Service at least 3 times and we went through about 30 metal detectors. Good times! View our photos of Washington D.C. Don't miss the photo of Jessica holding a live giant cockroach!.

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Obama for Change: What Could Go Wrong?

2/13/2008
It looks like Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, so I figured that it was time to look into all of the hype. Some say that Obama's "Hope for Change" is nothing but non-specific puffery, but today I learned otherwise. I went through Obama's Blueprint for Change and narrowed his hopechanging ideas down to the following categories: Create, Increase, Provide, Require and Allow.

If you thought the Federal Government was large, inefficient and overbearing before....

Create

  • create an energy-focused youth jobs program
  • create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages
  • create a law to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers
  • create a credit card rating system
  • create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses
  • create a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules
  • create a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans.
  • create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that will make tuition at the nation's community colleges completely free and will cover up to two-thirds the cost of tuition at the nation's public colleges and universities.
  • create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education
  • create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
  • create of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions
  • create a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize
  • create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund to fill a critical gap in U.S. technology development.
  • create a number of incentives for local communities to invest in their biofuels refineries
  • create a competitive grant program to award those states and localities that take the first steps to implement new building codes
  • create a Global Energy Forum
  • create a new program to identify and train the next generation of farmers.
  • create a 10 percent universal mortgage credit to provide tax relief to homeowners who do not itemize
  • initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems , provide a $1.5 billion fund
  • launch a Children's First Agenda that provides care, learning and support to families with children from birth up to five years old.

Increase

  • increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies.
  • increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture
  • increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training
  • increase the minimum wage, index it to inflation
  • increase the Earned Income Tax Credit
  • double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs
  • expand FMLA to cover businesses with 25 or more employees
  • increase funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
  • expand and improve programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors with quality volunteer opportunities
  • double science and research funding for clean energy projects
  • double fuel economy standards
  • quadruple Early Head Start

Provide

  • provide capital for farmers to create value-added enterprises
  • provide $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure,
  • provide assistance to the domestic auto industry
  • provide retooling tax credits and loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers
  • provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices
  • provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families
  • provide potential borrowers with a simplified, standardized borrower metric (similar to APR) for home mortgages

Require

  • require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources
  • require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022
  • require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025

Allow

  • allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs
  • allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children's academic activities
  • allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses
Barack's "Plan to Expand" is so large that I couldn't even get through the entire document. Sorry guys.

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Dorking Around in the Wrightwood Snow

2/10/2008
Jessica's mom is in town, so we spontaneously drove up to Wrightwood to check out the snow. Here are some embarrassing photos of us goofing off.

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TV Dog

2/02/2008
Our strange dog loves to watch TV. I'm kind of concerned. This is a photo of him watching a dog show today. Is that normal? Also, why is our TV so old?

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