Naturalization Quiz.

There are a few stipulations to this capped gas policy. He says that the gas will be capped at a price a little higher than the going rate at the gas station, but if the daily price is cheaper than your capped rate, you can get it for the cheaper price. Most likely the gas won’t be capped much longer than 6 months. The only downside to this action is that the particular gas station you go to (Gulf, Citgo, BP, Shell, etc.) will have you sing up for their credit card. he claims that the margin is smaller nowadays for the gas station, but it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it.

This is a novel idea with a good purpose in mind. I’m glad to see that they are at least “trying” to accomodate the consumers and alleviate this gas price gouging problem. We’ll see if this idea even materializes.

via CNN Money

The Republicans in Congress want to pass a $100 gas rebate to offset the rising costs of gas. BUT, this opens up the possibility to “explore” for oil in the wildlife refuge in Alaska. I find this utterly ridiculous. Not only will this not happen, gas prices are just going to go up more in the coming weeks. Once the summer travel season begins, we will see airlines and gas stations go up in price. Oh, nevermind the fact that we have to air condition our homes. If the government REALLY wanted to do something, just drop the gas prices about $.10 cents a gallon and it will definitely offset the prices. Seeing it over $3/gallon is just visually expensive. Here in Maryland, the gas stations with prices in the high $2.90’s are already seeing shortages. Now hurry up and lower prices instead of this $100 gas rebate that we MIGHT receive in 6 months.

There have been opponents in the past against this tax and it has always been denied legislation. Now, that the companies are trying to find every way possible to save money, it is important to fight this tax. The IRS has to win the lower circuit court cases to defend the tax and they have been unsuccessful. Once the failures start to stack up, this tax will be history. Once this tax is gone, this may mean a refund to you. But will it actually be worth it to try for the refund?

Here are some quick numbers. Last year the government pulled in 5.9 billion in revenue from that tax and it will gain about 25.9 billion from 2006 to 2010. Congress passed a bill in 2000 to rid the country of this tax, but Slick Willy (Bill Clinton) vetoed it. Those numbers are quite staggering. Now should you claim some of that back for yourself? Not unless you have proof that you have paid out that excise tax (i.e. old phone bill receipts).

A $20 long distance bill will net you about $0.60 cents in a month, now let’s say you have 3 years worth of bills. You only have about $22 dollars. Now would that really be worth your time to get a refund? Who has all their old phone bills anyway? The rule with utility bills is to keep them about 6 months, just in case you need to show that you live at a residence or to prove income or identity. If 22 bucks is really worth it to you, then do it. Personally, I’ll just cancel my Netflix subscription.

Via CNN Money

Here is the scam. Many people are leaving their connections open so that if any illegal activity is going on on their IP address, they can claim that someone used their connection! I truly believe that if you aren’t savvy enough to lock down your wireless, you should be liable. I mean, who wants to leave all of their documents open to everyone that can see your router? Not me. You are responsible for all of your actions and putting a password on a router is quite simple. So if you are using someone else’s connection and downloading music, please realize that you may get the other person in trouble.

If you claim that you don’t have enough money to pay for internet, then cut out something else in your budget. Like the netflix account, or maybe even HBO from your digital cable. Internet is cheap. Just don’t get other people in trouble.

I believe that this will be the Roe v. Wade of our generation. Many of the judges found the indecency provisions unconstitutional and included in their decision a detailed, concise and surprisingly accurate explanation of the internet.

If it wasn’t for the civil activists the internet would be censored even more. Honestly, if the case had gone the other way, all of the content on the internet would be reduced to what would be appropriate for 12-year-olds.

“We started talking about 10 or 15 or 20 years from now, when there are no more airplanes for fighter pilots to fly and everything’s done remotely with unmanned vehicles. What’s going to happen to guys like us that want to fly fighters and pull 9 Gs and do all the things that we get to do now?”

Whitelaw says that each team will have to pony up some cash for one of the 11 rockets. The first two pilots have put down $100,000 for one of the rockets and each one will have to drop $500,000 and $750,000 each to race them. Each race will then, cost $450,000 to enter. Whitelaw says that this is a bargain compared to a NASCAR team which, on average, costs $18 million to own.

The RRL will be based in New Mexico and the city of Las Cruces has donated 10 acres of land and 10 hangars with a 50,000 square foot headquarters building. Even the Governor is billing this as the NASCAR league in the sky.

This is going to be quite interesting, but who is actually going to watch a league like this? I certainly won’t be interested and there won’t be fantasy leagues started with your fave RRL racer. Although, if they turned this into a dogfight, then I would watch. Even though this is a crazy idea, it just goes to show, what people do with their endless amounts of money.

I have a Western Digital 120 GB hard drive and it is quite loud. When I booted my PC I thought it was my power supply fan, but it was my hard drive. But this one that I bought still has a warranty on it. You can check your hard drive manufacturer’s website for your hard drive’s warranty end date. All you need is the serial number on the hard drive and voila!

I entered in my serial number and it says that I can have an advanced RMA or a normal RMA. The advanced RMA requires a credit card and the warehouse will send you a new drive without having you sending the drive back first and then they ship. I opted for the advanced RMA and now my drive is on its way. They just require you send your drive back within 30 days. No problem.

Moral of the story is, back up ALL of your data on CD-R’s or DVD-R’s. Saving your files onto another hard drive is insufficient. Once a month, is typically when I do it because CD-R-s are so cheap. I will report back on how quickly they ship me my drive.