Money is extremely necessary for anyone running for any kind of position in government. Recently congress changed it’s rules about how candidates can raise money and some people are calling this year “the year of big money in politics.” Here are a few reasons why.

New Ways to Donate

Political action committees can now take in limitless amounts of money while still acting like an extension of the candidate’s team. “Presidential candidates send a few top aides to set up a super PAC, then endorse it publicly, speak at its fund raisers, hang out privately with its biggest givers.”

Huge Donations From the Rich

There are more extremely rich people that are making ridiculously huge donations than ever before. For example,

Sheldon Adelson, the eighth richest man in America, donated $20 million to Gingrich.

Foster Friess, from Wyoming, donated $2 million to Santorum

“American elections haven’t seen freestyle spending like this since the post-Watergate reforms of the 1970s mandated disclosure of donors and limited contributions.”

Big Businesses Are Donating

so far in this election, big companies, businesses and organizations, according to the Center fro Responsive Politics, have donated almost one-fourth of the super political action campaign’s (PAC) money. One example is Target Corp. they donated $150,000 to a super PAC. If Google or Facebook decide to donate money to a certain group or candidate, they probably wont need any other donations (okay not really, but maybe).

Where’s the Money?

With more people and organizations giving out more money to more political groups and candidates, it’s no wonder this is the year of “big money. It leaves me to wonder, why some candidates have had to drop out of the political race due to money problems. I guess there were other reasons.

The sad truth is that most of the political ads that you see on TV or billboards do not portray correct information very often. Often the ads are based on facts or statements that have been taken out of context, exploited, and exaggerated. Other times they are based entirely on lies.

Some ad campaigns are actually not completely and outright false, but only a little ways off of the truth. The difficult part for us as media consumers is being able to tell these apart.

It is easy to just let yourself become lazy, skip the political caucuses and debates and just stay at home to base your votes on hearsay and these political ads. This is a very poor way to go about voting. You might as well not vote because you aren’t really getting all of the right facts.

Check Your Facts

There are a few ways to go about finding out the truth. You can listen to political debates and go to meetings and read unbiased information about what is going on in government.

There are also websites you can go on (be sure that they are reliable) that will tell you whether a certain political add contains any bits of truth. Don’t get caught up in the lies and misleading statements of the political advertising this next election.

Vote With the Truth

Basing your political opinion on the political advertising would be a great mistake. There are a lot of lies out there – don’t get caught up in their webs. The next you go to vote, be sure that you have all of the facts straight before you put in your vote.

Do you remember the last time that you were pranked on April Fool’s Day? Or how about the last time you pulled a prank on someone else on April Fool’s Day? Did your prank play out perfectly according to your plans? Or did you watch your prank unfold only to have it backfire on you?

April Fool’s Day is a day of pranks, laughter, and most of the time a lot of embarrassment. Nobody is exempt from the possibility of being fooled… not even a candidate in the running for the President of the United States.

Sunday morning was supposed to be Mitt Romney’s first campaign stop in Wisconsin just before the primary elections to take place on the upcoming Tuesday. Mitt Romney’s staff had informed him that he was scheduled to attend a pancake breakfast with enthusiastic supporters.

Mitt Romney’s staff did warn him to expect a big crowd at this breakfast. This may have been the understatement of the year.

The whole thing was planned out perfectly. There were back stage cues, secret service protection, and an enthusiastic emcee announcing Mitt Romney’s entrance.

Mitt Romney stood behind a black curtain with Senator Ron Johnson while the emcee announced Mitt Romney’s appearance at the “breakfast” filled with applause and praises of the presidential candidate. It was finally time for Mitt Romney to walk out on stage.

“The two of us go out there, and it’s completely empty,” Mitt Romney said. The room had some tables and other props set out, but there were no supporters as promised. Only a room full of Romney’s staff clapping, laughing, and recording the whole thing on video.

Mitt Romney said that “this is known as forgive, but remember.” Maybe next year he will remember to check his calendar before showing up anywhere.

North Korea has announced that they plan to launch a satellite into orbit next month in commemoration of their founder, Kim II Sung. In April, it will be a century since their founder’s birth. North Korea stated that it wanted to launch this satellite to “show off their nation’s power” and to show that their country “has proudly joined the ranks of developed countries.”

Why is this satellite launch such a big deal? This violates the deal that North Korea has made with the United States. North Korea had previously agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, place a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to allow United Nations weapons inspectors into their country.

In exchange for all of this, the United States agreed to give North Korea some much needed food supplies. The United States had made it clear to North Korea that any satellite launch would be a violation of their deal.

North Korea is known to have weaponized plutonium. In fact they are believed to have enough to create eight primitive atomic bombs. Uranium enrichment is another process that North Korea in known to be doing. That is another way to create atomic bombs.

Critics of the satellite launch think that this might be a test of military missiles disguised as a celebration of their founder’s birthday. North Korea disagrees. They say that is “an event to show how strong (their) self-reliant economy is.”

Other countries, such as Japan, Russia, and South Korea are also urging North Korea to stop this launch. South Korea has agreed to use what influence they have over North Korea to try to persuade them from launching this satellite.

Today, more and more people have the desire to become a United States Citizen. In order to become a citizen of the United Stated you have to go through a series of processes. One of the things you have to do is answer some questions taken from a list of 100 questions.

Did you know that a lot of natural born citizens have no clue what the answers to most of these questions are? Let’s see how much you know about our government and country. Here are some of the questions they are required to memorize.

Some Easy Questions

Q: What are the colors of our flag?
A: Red, white, and blue

Q: How many stars are there on our flag and what color are they?
A: 50. White

Q: What is the date of Independence Day?
A: July 4th

Q: How many states are there in the United States?
A: 50

If you missed any of those questions, you may what to study a little more before you go onto the more difficult questions. Here are a few examples.

More difficult Questions

Q: Which President was the first commander-in-chief of the U.S. military?
A: George Washington

Q: How many branches are there in our government and what are they?
A: 3, legislative, executive, and judiciary

Q: Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court?
A: William Rehnquist

These are just a few of the questions that they can be asked during their citizenship interview. To see how you can measure up against these new citizens, you can look up the rest of the questions on the internet.

Something that makes you feel unique and captures your individuality?

It’s hard to find a witty, clever, well-designed shirt.

But you did it.

And then you go to school, only to find that everyone else found that same shirt.

What Happened?!

The problem is that many of your peers have the same idea about humor and fashion, and they, too, wanted to propagate humor and individuality. But when everyone is telling the same joke, it stops being funny. How can you combat this?

Make Your Own

You might not think of yourself as a particularly creative person, but there are easy ways that you can customize every part of your attire. If individuality is what you seek, there is no other way to ensure that your outfits will have it without customizing.

Before you rush to your local screen-printing business (if you happen to have one in your area,) consider that the cheapest, highest-quality options might be right at your fingertips. Using an online custom clothing website has never been easier.

Where To Start

Firstly, even in the world of customized t-shirts and other apparel, there are the more “popular” and “mainstream” websites. These sites offer funny t-shirts, but the chances are good that someone in your school or workplace is already buying apparel there.

As we mentioned, the only way to ensure that your designs are totally different is to make them yourself. Think of something unique – an inside joke, perhaps, or a nickname and animation. Then find a website that will enable you to design your perfect clothing.

Why Stop There?!

Once you have gotten the hang of how the custom clothing thing works, you can personalize anything. There are websites that offer personalized hoodies, hats, pillowcases – even custom underwear! There is really no limit to special you can make your appearance.

These are also a great option for gifts. You can get your buddy a pillow case that references their favorite viral video, or your boyfriend/girlfriend a messenger bag with an inside joke printed on it. If you can think it up, you can find a way to make it.

In Conclusion…

Never again will you have to worry if your t-shirts or underwear are the same as everyone else, and you can rest assured that your gifts will be the most unique and hilarious.

Around 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, Army Private Francis Stueve sat down to breakfast with the rest of the 89th Field Artillery battalion, stationed at Pearl Harbor.

“As quiet a day as you’ve ever seen,” Stueve remembers now. “Beautiful sunshine, nothing going on.”

Suddenly, not far from his seat in the dining hall: bang, bang, bang.

“Somebody says, ‘It’s the Chinese New Year,’ ” he said.

But then, a bullet broke through the glass window of the dining hall. Another flew just past Stueve and knocked the butter dish off the table.

Japan’s official declaration of war would come a day later, after the loss of 160 aircraft, 12 ships and 2,300 Americans, according to the Library of Congress — 70 years ago on Wednesday. Stueve, now 94, can describe his experience as if it were happening now:

Bewildered by the bullet, Stueve, then 24, and a few other men ran outside.

“We’re looking at the clouds, and watched a Japanese plane that had its signals on,” he said.

It was common for American planes to practice maneuvers, Stueve said, but he soon realized the Japanese plane was bent on attacking his base and his fellow soldiers.

What would it have been like to experience the chaos and confusion on Pearl Harbor that day? The attack that launched us into WWII. We should all be grateful for the veterans who fought and died in that war.

“This is a tragedy for many lives, and it will take all of us some time to come to grips with the full magnitude of all the damage that has been done,” the university’s new president, Rodney Erickson, told the board of trustees on Friday.
“Healing cannot occur until we understand how responsibilities to these children failed and how we can prevent such tragedies in the future,” he said.

Kenneth Frazier, a Penn State trustee, will chair the university’s special committee looking into the child sex abuse allegations at the school. Frazier told the board of trustees on Friday that the inquiry will be “rigorous, objective and impartial.”

Questions about how university officials responded to reports of alleged abuse cost coaching legend Paterno and university President Graham Spanier their jobs. Paterno has been criticized for not calling police, but he has not faced any legal charges.

Paterno reported the allegations to his boss. Pennsylvania’s attorney general said it appeared Paterno had met his obligations under state law, but critics have said the coach should have reported the suspected abuse to police.

That perceived lapse led to the coach’s downfall. The board of trustees fired Paterno and university President Graham Spanier on Wednesday night.

Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley took over as interim head coach. McQueary won’t be at Saturday’s Nebraska game because of “multiple threats,” the university athletics website said Thursday night.

Steven Young, the Kansas City (MO) police chief and the man heading up the investigation suspected that the kidnapper entered the home through a bedroom window and left through the front door. While police and volunteers have canvassed the area, including a nearby landfill and city creek, there are no leads on the whereabouts of Lisa.

While tragic, this story took an unexpected turn when Young announced only three days into the investigation that the girl’s parents had stopped cooperating with the police. During the interim, Deborah Bradley, the girl’s mother, had failed a polygraph test she had volunteered to take.

According to Bradley, the authorities proceeded to accuse her of the crime. In her own words: “When they first questioned me,” she said, “once I couldn’t fill in gaps, it turned into, ‘You did it.’ And they put the picture down of her on the table and they said, ‘Look at your baby and do what’s right for her and just tell everybody where she is so she can come home.’ And I kept saying, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’”

Lisa’s parents deny that they stopped cooperating with the police, stating in a letter that “It’s just a lot of miscommunication, to be honest.”

This last Saturday, five days into the investigation, the parents of the abducted girl once again began to cooperate with the police.

My question is, if the parents really wanted to cooperate with the police, why all this drama? And how do you explain a failed polygraph test?

While many of us remember where we were when we heard that the twin towers had been struck, few of us actually know the data. Here are some statistics that represent, in a small, way, the magnitude of the loss:



Times the towers were hit: 8:46 a.m. and 9:02 a.m.

Time the burning towers stood: 56 minutes and 102 minutes.

Time they took to fall: 12 seconds.

Total number killed in attacks (official figure as of 9/5/02): 2,819

Number of firefighters and paramedics killed: 343

Number of NYPD officers: 23

Number of Port Authority police officers: 37

Number of WTC companies that lost people: 60

Number of employees who died in Tower One: 1,402

Number of employees who died in Tower Two: 614

Number of employees lost at Cantor Fitzgerald: 658

Number of U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom: 22

Number of nations whose citizens were killed in attacks: 115

Ratio of men to women who died: 3:1

Age of the greatest number who died: between 35 and 39

Bodies found “intact”: 289

Body parts found: 19,858

Number of families who got no remains: 1,717

Estimated units of blood donated to the New York Blood Center: 36,000

Total units of donated blood actually used: 258

Number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks: 1,609

Estimated number of children who lost a parent: 3,051

Percentage of Americans who knew someone hurt or killed in the attacks: 20

FDNY retirements, January–July 2001: 274

FDNY retirements, January–July 2002: 661

Number of firefighters on leave for respiratory problems by January 2002: 300

Number of funerals attended by Rudy Giuliani in 2001: 200

Number of FDNY vehicles destroyed: 98

Tons of debris removed from site: 1,506,124

Days fires continued to burn after the attack: 99

Jobs lost in New York owing to the attacks: 146,100

Days the New York Stock Exchange was closed: 6

Point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average when the NYSE reopened: 684.81

Days after 9/11 that the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan: 26

Total number of hate crimes reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations nationwide since 9/11: 1,714

Economic loss to New York in month following the attacks: $105 billion

Estimated cost of cleanup: $600 million

Total FEMA money spent on the emergency: $970 million

Estimated amount donated to 9/11 charities: $1.4 billion

Estimated amount of insurance paid worldwide related to 9/11: $40.2 billion

Estimated amount of money needed to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $7.5 billion

Amount of money recently granted by U.S. government to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $4.55 billion

Estimated amount of money raised for funds dedicated to NYPD and FDNY families: $500 million

Percentage of total charity money raised going to FDNY and NYPD families: 25

Average benefit already received by each FDNY and NYPD widow: $1 million

Percentage increase in law-school applications from 2001 to 2002: 17.9

Percentage increase in Peace Corps applications from 2001 to 2002: 40

Percentage increase in CIA applications from 2001 to 2002: 50

Number of songs Clear Channel Radio considered “inappropriate” to play after 9/11: 150

Number of mentions of 9/11 at the Oscars: 26

Apartments in lower Manhattan eligible for asbestos cleanup: 30,000

Number of apartments whose residents have requested cleanup and testing: 4,110

Number of Americans who changed their 2001 holiday-travel plans from plane to train or car: 1.4 million

Estimated number of New Yorkers suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder as a result of 9/11: 422,000