CliffyWorld

This is not an infomercial on buying homes for no money down, investing in stock options, or the procedure on starting an internet business. Frankly, obtaining 100 credit cards to use the maximum cash out credit to buy a house wreck to fix and flip, or second mortgaging your home to buy thousands of stock option contracts for high returns is way too risky for me.

I’m here to tell you about a great way to earn over 6 figures for hardly ever working and my advice is risk free! Actually, it’s not really a secret as the blog title implies. Any American can do it as long as they are over the age of 25 (some states require just being 21)

Here’s the plan: Run for Federal Office!

Let’s start with getting there. Why risk your own capital when you can solicit others to donate to your campaign? When your funds start running low, reserve several 5 star restaurants, invite high roller donators and request thousands of dollars a plate to replenish your stake. Eat good, drink top shelf and stay at the best hotels while travelling all over your state using other people’s money. As your campaign flourishes, more people, even major companies will want to give you money. You might have to promise them a couple of favors after you get elected but they will always take care of you as long as you play ball. Maybe you can get some free home improvements, company stocks or acres of real estate. What’s the big deal about getting invited to a Hawaiian resort to play a few rounds of golf and dining at the islands best Luau with a couple of pharmaceutical company big-wigs? They just want to help you enjoy life for only a few little favors later on. Sadly, if your path to the Capitol starts to wane and your opponent looks like the victor, don’t worry as he or she will have dinner parties to help raise enough money to pay off your debt. But why be pessimistic? You’re going to win and when you do WHOOHOO!

How long is the gig and what are your responsibilities?

A two year term for congress or a six year stint for senate with no term limits and if you fake out the public they will keep you in office forever. You will do nothing, lay low and never have to show up to vote. Once in a while you may have to splutter a useless soliloquy in the Capitol Rotunda while C-Span broadcasts the event to its audience of 3. You can dance, fart and boogie down without a care in the world as nobody will be in the hall to watch you. Another cool part of the job is causing gridlock and dissention. How much fun will that be? Watching your fellow co-workers yelling and blaming each other over nothing is really cool especially if you’ve started the disagreement.

What’s the pay and benefits for this job? How much vacation time do I get?

The current salary (2008) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $169,300 per year including medical and dental coverage. Time off includes about a week off for President's Day, a week for Memorial Day, a week for July 4 and two more weeks in April, the entire month of August and the week around Labor Day, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day and Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and personal vacation time of course. Per Diem is for 3 days because that’s how long your work week will be. Best case scenario, you will have to do nothing for only 120 days a year.

CliffyWorld's hero of the month is Congressman Dan Lungren from California's 3rd District.

Lungren lambasted the Congressional Majority for doing nothing to increase American energy production in the face of record gasoline prices. ‘Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something’ Lungren yelled.

Watch the Video, Click Here

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A few days ago the Food Channel hostess Rachael Ray was sited as a terrorist sympathizer by Fox News contributer and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. Shown wearing a black and white paisley scarf in a Dunkin Donuts TV commercial Malkin associated the wrap to a Keffiyeh, a secular symbol of Palestinian nationalism. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant [and not so ignorant] fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons. Dunkin Donuts was quick to pull the commercial off the airways.

Is Malkin over-reacting as a fashion terrorist or does she see something covert in this advertisement? Was the advertising agency purposely duping Rachael Ray into promoting it's agenda? Obviously Ray is not a terrorist nor had any idea of any misleading innuendos that could have been formulated by wearing the scarf. She innocently accepted the wardrobe to wear from an ad agency staff member.

France has taken religious phobia over the top banning all ostensibly religious symbols from public schools including head scarves, yarmulkes and crucifixes. Legislation may also bar turbans, bandannas and even beards. Gérard Mermet, France's "national psychiatrist" a sociologist who publishes very respected bulletins about his countries' state of mind suggests that France now suffers from a collective form of three mental illnesses: paranoia, schizophrenia and hypochondria.

There have been no decisions yet here in the USA on wearing Elvis T-shirts, Indian Beads, holistic crystals and magnetic bracelets. Women should definitely not wear gel bras if they intend to fly on commercial airlines.

The civilized world is suffering from "Persecutory Paranoia" the most prevalent type of paranoia. Defined, people make themselves believe that all those around them are their enemies, bent on harming them or even taking their life. In this delusion people of an aggressive temperament often turns dangerous killers.

Can a modern civilized nation survive continuous scrutinization of the wearing of religious artifacts or the way individuals dress to express themselves? Will we compile a unified table or chart to reflect what we wear against the likelihood of being a terrorist? The future of expresionalsm in modern societies could be very grim if we let this disease continue to take this course.

As a comedic end to this article, perhaps a consideration to delay our demise would be to shed our clothes and shave our bodies clean. Muslims would obviously reject this and stay the course. The ones that complain the most would likely be suspect and would be denied any acting or TV commercial jobs.

Your comments on this article are always appreciated.

Why do we celebrate Cinco de Mayo here in the USA? This question has spoofed Americans for many years. Is it because the Mexican population has swelled due to the lack of border security. Is it just another Hallmark greeting card day: "We're so glad you came. My lawn has never looked so good". "Because you're here my restaurant has profited. Now get back into the kitchen". Maybe we need some justification to get drunk after work, something many of us do anyway. Ponder you may, Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday.

Now for the history:

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "5th of May") is primarily a regional and not an obligatory federal holiday in Mexico. The holiday commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Although the Mexican army was victorious over the French at Puebla, the victory only delayed the French invasion of Mexico City; a year later, the French occupied Mexico. The French occupying forces placed Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico on the throne of Mexico. The French were eventually defeated and expelled in 1867. Maximilian was executed by President Benito Juarez, five years after the Battle of Puebla.

Do they celebrate Cinco de Mayo in France? There are 16 official holidays in France in 2008. Cinco is not on the list. Should they celebrate? They did invade Mexico and occupy from 1862 to 1867. Think of all the fun they must have had during those years. Shouldn't they want to reminisce. Well, maybe not as Mexico most likely didn't provide them with high quality wine. Horse and frog were not popular menu items either.

Here in America many of our own holidays are forgotten such as Veteran's day, VE-Day, VJ-Day, D-Day, Flag Day, Pearl Harbor Day. We've combined and moved holidays around for our own convenience. President's Day could now insinuate the celebration of our favorite fellow, Willy Clinton instead of Washington and Lincoln. Big Box retail stores will flaunt big sales and take in windfall profits during Memorial Day celebrating:

WW2: 416,800 Millitary Deaths.
WW1: 116,708 Millitary Deaths.
Vietnam War: 58,217 Military Deaths.
Korean War: 36,940 Millitary Deaths.
Not counting the many wounded and civilians deaths.

So celebrate a Mexican holiday if you must. Those dead soldiers you fail to remember and honor gave you the right to do so freely. But don't feel too guilty. The Mexicans did kick France's ass.

Your comments on this article are always appreciated.

CliffyWorld receives emails from many readers including those from different countries. Your comments express similar concerns that are faced here in the USA such as product quality and safety, customer service, politics and current events.

Taking a break from writing this week's blog, we've decided to share some video links sent in by two viewers. One from the United Kingdom and one from New York City. After watching both I'm sure you will figure out which video came from what place. You will find these two videos informative and amusing as the individuals featured share many common views with others living in civilized countries around the planet.

Your comments on this article are always appreciated.

If an American happened to be gazing at the stars on Friday, October 4, 1957 they may have noticed an object crossing the evening sky. Radio listeners, too, may have heard a series of “beep, beep, beep” sounds coming from their radios. A momentous event had occurred in the region of the Soviet Union known as Kazakhstan-the Soviets had launched an artificial satellite into orbit around the earth. The satellite named Sputnik, Russian for “traveling companion,” transmitted the beeping sounds as it followed its orbit around the globe. Rather than celebrating this momentous scientific feat, Americans reacted with a great deal of fear. The event came at a period near the end of the McCarthy communist “witch hunts,” a time when schoolchildren were involved in “Duck and Cover” air raid drills, and citizens were encouraged to build their own civil defense shelters. It was widely believed that if the Soviets could launch a satellite into space, they probably could launch nuclear missiles capable of reaching U.S. shores.

Moments after John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president of the United States, he presented a speech that moved most of America. Even today, those that hear a re-play of his inauguration speech feel the same excitement that filled the air on that day in 1961. President Kennedy was an eloquent speaker who appealed to the younger generation of the United States. He wanted to develop a program that would send Americans to the moon first. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth."

The Kennedy administration began to push the race to the moon as a result of two main factors. First, the Soviet Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight that encircled the earth. This took place on April 12, 1961. The other factor that helped initiate the race to the moon was the belief of a missile gap between the United States and Russia. The communists seemed to be taking the lead in space. Two great powers became entangled in a struggle to prove which one was the superior. This struggle was not only between technologies, but also between democracy and communism.

The Mercury Seven was the group of seven Mercury astronauts picked by National Aeronautics and Space Administration in April 1959. Pilots, Test Pilots, Naval and Air Force officers, War heros, Aeronautical Engineers. Their popularity drew Hollywood into creating the movie "The Right Stuff (1988) Biographing:
Malcolm Scott Carpenter (Mercury-Atlas 7)
Leroy Gordon Cooper (Mercury-Atlas 9, Gemini 5)
John H. Glenn Jr. (Mercury-Atlas 6, STS-95)
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom (Mercury-Redstone 4, Gemini 3, Apollo 1)
Walter M. "Wally" Schirra (Mercury-Atlas 8, Gemini 6A, Apollo 7)
Alan B. Shepard (Mercury-Redstone 3, Apollo 14)
Donald K. "Deke" Slayton (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project)

Back in the early sixties I remember getting up extra early before I had to leave for school to watch the only newscaster who could report on a rocket launch, Walter Cronkite. So good was his reporting, Nasa awarded him a piece of moon rock. According to NASA’s February 16,2006 press release, the award was explicitly attributed to Cronkite “for his coverage of America’s space program”, and adds that he “is the best remembered journalist for his commentary and enthusiastic coverage of the historic progression of missions from the early Mercury launches, through the ground-breaking Gemini missions, to the Apollo 11 and subsequent moon landings.” Continues the NASA citation: “His marathon, live coverage of the first moon landing brought the excitement and impact of the historic event into the homes of millions of Americans and observers around the world.”

Today the space shuttle Endeavour took off at 0628GMT. There was very little coverage on TV and a small blurb on Google News. As this article is posted many people still don't know about the launch, it's mission and it crew. There seems to be little excitement or promotion for the space program. Most people couldn't even identify the name or the year of the Columbia tragedy occuring on February 1, 2004.

Beginning in late 2005, Dittmar Associates, a marketing research firm based in Houston, focused on space exploration and its perception by Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 years. The results found that young Americans are generally disengaged and cynical about the human spaceflight aspects of the U.S. civil space program. Most important concerns are jobs, the war, and relationships; space ranks near the bottom of the list of personal priorities. Maybe we should hand the space program off to the the producers of American Idol and have Ryan Seacrest host the launches.

Your comments on this article are always appreciated.