History is one of my favorite subjects to learn about, so here’s a fun historical quirk about George Washington, who’s birthday we just celebrated as part of President’s Day. Hopefully you know that we traditionally celebrate our first president’s birthday on February 22nd. But he was wasn’t actually born on February 22. Huh? Here’s the story…
It sounds very strange to us now in our modern 21st century world, but back in the 1700’s the entire planet didn’t use the same calendar! This would be unthinkable for us today, but back then when communication (and everything else for that matter) moved very slowly, the fact that Great Britian and the American colonies were 11 days off from the rest of Europe evidently wasn’t that big of a deal. In 1750 though, British Parliament finally decided to change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, so now all of Europe would synch up and agree on what the date was. The Brits decided to implement the change in September 1752, but here’s the funny part: since on the old calendar they were 11 days behind the rest of the continent, to even things out they had to skip directly from September 2nd to September 14th that year! Like those 11 days didn’t even exist! And if that wasn’t odd enough, now to keep things correct historically, the dates of everything that happened before September 14, 1752 suddenly had to get pushed forward 11 days. So if your birthday used to be February 11th, it suddenly was now February 22nd! Such was the case with George Washington, who celebrated Feb. 11th as his birthday up until he was 20, and then had to get used to his new birthday of Feb. 22nd. How strange would that be, having your birthday change in the middle of your life? Well, I hope you enjoyed this random historical moment, now back to your current fast-paced life!
We seem to be living in the Twilight Zone these days. Obama announces a massive $275 BILLION bail-out for the small percentage of Americans getting their houses foreclosed on them. Essentially forcing the rest of us to pay for their bad decisions. If we’re really trying to spur the economy here, why are we rewarding those who are helping to bring it down in the first place? Schwarzenegger just raised taxes big time on us Californians mostly because the state wastes WAY too much of our money. What is going on here?
This reporter Rick Santelli gets it. Are you listening Arnold and Barack?? Stop taking our hard-earned money and giving it to people who don’t deserve it!! Stop rewarding bad behavior!! Watch the first 2 minutes or so of this video, it’s great. And notice how the in-studio reporter squirms at the fact that someone is actually daring to disagree with the massive new “stimulus” plan.
And like I mentioned, it just got a whole lot more expensive to live in California. Thanks a bunch, Arnold and state legislature for screwing us again. Raising our taxes right in the middle of a recession. Brilliant!
Crazy girl Katy Perry won a big award tonight at the Brit Awards (the UK equivalent of the Grammys). She beat out Beyonce, Pink, and others to win Best International Female Solo Artist. Congrats Katy!! Evidently she wasn’t feeling very well today though, so after she graciously accepted her award on stage, she promptly went backstage and hurled! Can I get a mop over here please?? At least she didn’t spew in front of everybody, you know that would have been an instant youtube fave! I hope you feel better soon, Katy.
I’m about to tackle a pretty heavy issue here. Things are about to get much more expensive for all of us here in California, and I feel it’s very important that we know why. I promise that I’ll try to explain it in a way that makes sense for those of us who don’t choose to follow these political topics regularly (which is most of us!). So here goes.
California is broke. How does a state as happenin’ as ours run out of money you may wonder? I mean, c’mon, we’re the state that all other states wish they could be, right? Beautiful beaches, snow-covered mountains, the movie industry, Disneyland, and a dynamic mix of ethnicities all contribute to the idea that is California. But lately that idea isn’t working so well. You may remember having heard things like “budget crisis” in the past, but what does it really mean for you and me? The budget our state is operating under this year way over-estimated how much income we would have as a state. Because of this, California is spending significantly more money than it is currently bringing in. So much so that we will be $40 billion in the hole by the middle of next year! Yeah, that’s a lot. It’s gotten so bad that we’ve actually started paying people with IOU’s (maybe your state income tax refund this year). Seriously. How did we end up $40 billion short? I’ll put it in a way that makes sense to you and I. Let’s say you made $50,000 last year. Being a typical American, you of course spent it all! You enjoyed everything you got for your money so much last year, you’ve planned to spend another $50k this year. But here comes the problem, suddenly you’re now only going to make $30,000 this year. Oh no!! That leaves a difference of $20,000 you didn’t plan on! What can you do? Well, you either have to find some other way to make that money, or you’ll have to cut 20 grand out of your spending this year. For California, that $20,000 is actually $40 billion, and now you can see what all the fuss is about. Our state got used to spending the tons of money it made over the past few years when the economy was great, but is still budgeted to spend the same if not more this year when the amount of money coming in will be far less.
So California has two options, either find a way to bring in an extra $40 billion between now and next June, or spend $40 billion less. How does the state make money? By taxing us the people. Sales tax, income tax, property tax, and whatever else they can think of to get more money out of us residents. How can the state spend less money? Either have fewer state employees on the payroll, or spend less on things like welfare, state parks, schools, roads, prisons, you name it. Now enter our two political parties. Speaking very generally, the Democrats are in favor of raising taxes to make up the $40 billion difference, while the Republicans are in favor of cutting back the state’s spending to make up the difference. Needless to say, they can’t reach an agreement. The governor, just trying to get something done, has come up with a plan that is about 50/50 in raising taxes and cutting spending, and this is what is currently being debated by our legislators in the capitol. Normally a compromise sounds reasonable, right? Well, let’s take a closer look at some of the new taxes being proposed in this plan.
The proposed new budget plan includes raising the tax on gas by 12 cents per gallon. Gas prices would immediately jump up those 12 cents, costing you an extra $2 or so every time you fill up. Sales tax would increase by a penny for each dollar, meaning you would now pay about 9 cents sales tax per dollar each time you purchase something. Buying a TV for $500 would now cost you about $44 in taxes, where before it would have been $39. Registering your car each year would now also cost more, and income tax rates would rise, so you would owe more money out of your paychecks to the state. All these things will take effect if the plan currently being debated is passed. So I pose the question to you… are you willing to pay all these extra taxes to help bail out your state? Remember, California is already among the top 10 highest taxing states even before any of these new taxes being proposed take effect.
Here’s my take (I know you didn’t necessarily ask for my opinion, so feel free to agree or disagree with me by leaving comments)… Why should we the people of California be penalized because our legislators can’t stop spending our money? I’m sure lots of the programs the government spends our money on are worth-while efforts and are well intentioned, but when the money is not there, they’ve got to go. I hate to use a cliche, but the rest of the country is “tightening its belts,” as evidenced by the high number of people that have lost jobs recently. Do our elected leaders feel they are so far above all of this that even while the rest of us cut back, they can just continue spending the way they always have, regardless of whether the money is there or not? I’ve got a big problem with that. Which is why I spent lots of time writing this blog, because in general I don’t think many people our age worry too much about this stuff. And normally that’s fine, but right now there are things going on in politics that will definitely affect your life and mine, and not necessarily for the better. So now you know. Should we take one for the team and each pay our part to get us out of this mess, or should the politicians be allowed to spend only the amount of money they’ll actually be taking in each year. Pretty easy decision if you ask me.
I keep getting lots of calls and texts from people wanting updates about Chris Brown and Rihanna, and from others who still haven’t heard exactly what happened over the weekend, so let me try to reconstruct the whole story from the beginning up til now as best I can.
Chris and Ri left Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy party in Beverly Hills just past midnight Sunday morning in his rented silver Lamborghini. They ended up parked at a place called Hancock Park, where witnesses heard lots of yelling and commotion coming from inside the car, so they called the cops. Rihanna was found with a bloody nose and lip, and very large contusions (swelling) on each side of her forehead. Chris was charged with a felony for “making criminal threats” which has a maximum sentence of 9 years in prison. He turned himself in to the LAPD around 7pm Sunday evening, and was released on $50,000 bail. He is due to appear in court on March 5. Rihanna checked into the hospital where she was treated and released Monday night.
There has been fallout for Chris’s career already, as Wrigley has suspended his gum endorsement for now, and the Got Milk people have also canceled his ads. Many radio stations around the country (including The End) have at least temporarily taken his music off of their playlists.
My question is, how long will it be before Chris Brown comes out and makes a public apology? Because every minute he delays just further hurts his career. Granted, we don’t know what happened between the two of them which caused their tempers to flare, and Rihanna could very well have had a part in that, but that absolutely does not excuse Chris for getting violent with her. But please remember that this is the part where you have to be wary about what you read on the internet. The tabloids are wildly speculating about what brought about their argument, including rumors about STD’s, but at this point they are nothing more than rumors and are not to be believed.
I’ll post another update tomorrow if I find out more. In the meantime, I’m curious about your thoughts about this whole sad episode. Leave your thoughts in the comments if you’d like.
The Grammys are this Sunday, so it’s time for some predictions! First off, I think they picked a great bunch of nominees for Song Of The Year. “American Boy” by Estelle & Kanye, “Chasing Pavements” which is a slightly jazzy tune by Adele (the only one of the bunch we didn’t play on The End), “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, and “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay. Tough to choose, but I think this one’s going to Coldplay. Vida was easily my favorite song of ‘08, such a great tune both musically and lyrically. It’s a very odd mix of New Artists, but I think they’ll give the nod to Adele (sorry Jonas Brothers fans!). I think Leona Lewis will snag Female Pop Performance, and Jason Mraz deserves Male Pop. I’ll take a stab at Record and Album Of The Year tomorrow. Feel free to make your own picks in the comments! If you want a full list of the nominations, click here.
I talked about this yesterday on the radio and it’s a little freaky! By the end of this year, malls in big cities around the country will have video advertising screens that check you out as you’re walking by. It will determine your age, gender, and even ethnicity, and then pick certain advertisements targeted specifically at you! Whoa! Very sci-fi sounding, but coming soon to a mall near you (will probably hit San Francisco way before Sac I would imagine). So if I were to walk by the screen, it might show me an ad for a new line of razors, or sports apparel. If you’re, say, a 24-year old female, it may show you an ad for cosmetics or maybe shoes. What do you think? Brilliant idea? Or a little too spooky? The computer is supposedly accurate at reading gender 85-90% of the time. Like I said, that’s not too shabby, considering I can’t even tell 10-15% of the time!!
We were all very excited to vote in Barack Obama as our 44th president, so how has he done in his first 2 weeks in office? The answer… sadly, not great. He has already hit a speedbump because three people he appointed to serve in his administration in various capacities have now had to back out due to shady things in their past. Sure, that’s not Obama’s fault, but unfortunately it does reflect back poorly upon him. He also seems to be having a tough time finding any Democrats to appoint to high-level positions that actually pay their taxes honestly. Our new Secretary of the Treasury cheated (oh sorry, made mistakes) on his taxes. Now he’s the boss of the IRS telling us we better pay our taxes on time! Right. In addition, Obama’s appointment for Sec. of the Dept. of Health & Human Services also cheated on his taxes, although at least that guy backed out (one of my aforementioned three). Don’t you find it a bit ironic that the political party that makes its living from raising our taxes doesn’t seem to find the need to pay them themselves? When our leaders behave this way, it doesn’t exactly inspire the rest of us to be the best we can be. And that’s very sad. Here’s to hoping that Obama’s next couple weeks go better than his first!
Did we just found out this seaons’s Top 36? Since no one can keep their mouths shut these days, the inevitable leak has happened once again. This list of names circulating around the net claims to be the 36 AI contestants which survive Hollywood week. I found a site which has their pictures as well, so check it out if you want, or else just wait and watch the show to find out for yourself!
It sounds very strange to us now in our modern 21st century world, but back in the 1700’s the entire planet didn’t use the same calendar! This would be unthinkable for us today, but back then when communication (and everything else for that matter) moved very slowly, the fact that Great Britian and the American colonies were 11 days off from the rest of Europe evidently wasn’t that big of a deal. In 1750 though, British Parliament finally decided to change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, so now all of Europe would synch up and agree on what the date was. The Brits decided to implement the change in September 1752, but here’s the funny part: since on the old calendar they were 11 days behind the rest of the continent, to even things out they had to skip directly from September 2nd to September 14th that year! Like those 11 days didn’t even exist! And if that wasn’t odd enough, now to keep things correct historically, the dates of everything that happened before September 14, 1752 suddenly had to get pushed forward 11 days. So if your birthday used to be February 11th, it suddenly was now February 22nd! Such was the case with George Washington, who celebrated Feb. 11th as his birthday up until he was 20, and then had to get used to his new birthday of Feb. 22nd. How strange would that be, having your birthday change in the middle of your life? Well, I hope you enjoyed this random historical moment, now back to your current fast-paced life!
