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I received this list of the perks that Congress votes for themselves in an email forward....Are these things really true?

I totally and absolutely resent every intrusion into my life from taxes to healthcare to what I eat and drink. We may as well be living in the era of serfs or sharecroppers, for that is all we are: beholden to the powers that are in control.

I've forgotten who to send this to for a prayer chain, so I'm doing it myself. If you will, please pray for FReeper Null and Void, who is having surgery today in Reno. He's due to report at 7. He'll be having surgery at maybe 9 or so, but please cover my dearest (agnostic) friend in prayer. Thanks so much. S.

The Federalist Papers have put together a great political qui: Are You a Democrat, a Republican or a Redneck?

I find most all vehicles interesting somehow -historically, artistically, or the technology- but was always more of a 'car guy' than into bikes. I've ridden a little but never actually owned a street bike of any sort. So forgive me if I'm out-of-it but I never even heard of the 1981-83 'Honda Motocompo' portable motorcycle until last week, just stumbled across it on the net.  Seems to have quite a following, and the dandy lil' 50cc scooter-ish thing was meant to be ordered along with new cars (in Japan) too, where it could be purchased as an option- it fit neatly...

Newhart (1982-1990) -Please forgive me but I actually like Bob Newhart's second major sitcom series -at the Stratford Inn in Vermont- more than the first 'shrink' series with Mary Tyler Moore, as good as that one was. In fact I think the 80s series Newhart is one of the most underrated comedy shows ever- watched it every week with friends when they were new, too funny. Interestingly, all 184 shows are -here- on this YouTube playlist. Cheers -This would probably make everybody's list, but honestly I never go back and watch them anymore... too much saturation I guess, and it just doesn't...

To see the Arctic death spiral firsthand, and to see the Arctic before it melted, I took a 17-day “adventure cruise” and learned an inconvenient truth: We can’t make it stop.At the top of the world, a great wheel is spinning. Circling the Arctic Ocean, a current called the Beaufort Gyre drives pack ice clockwise around the pole. It pulls warm Pacific currents through the Bering Strait north and west above Siberia, pushes into the East Siberian Sea and the Transpolar Drift, then rolls away from Russia and whips south against Greenland and the archipelagic frontier forming the rocky...

Some have a hard time accepting that criminals can be deterred from committing crimes. They don’t believe that potential mass shooters have second thoughts when faced with the prospect of armed citizens who can fight back. They seem to think that everyday Americans can’t help stop attacks. But it is getting hard to ignore that mass public shooters keep choosing to attack locations where victims can’t defend themselves. It’s little wonder that gun-control advocates resort to desperate tactics. There have been a series of articles from Politico, the Huffington Post, Slate, and the New York Daily News with similar...

Walmart's stock took a steep drop as the company announced that it was expecting lower profits. There are a number of problems Wal-mart has, such as its website and fulfillment not being quite as good as Amazon.com, but Wal-mart is primarily a brick and mortar store, not an internet company. The basic problem as I see it is that middle class people are afraid to shop there. If you look at reviews on Yelp one of the most common words used to describe Wal-mart is "ghetto". There is even a Yahoo question on this very topic: Why is every Walmart...

The AH-64A/D Apache and AH-64E Block III Apache Longbow (renamed Guardian) are four-blade twin-engine attack helicopters manufactured by Boeing. The Apache was originally developed by Hughes Helicopters in the 1970s (first flight on September 30, 1975), however, the company was acquired by McDonnell Douglas in 1984. In 1997, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing. The latest variant, the AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopter (originally designated AH-64D Block III), is powered by two General Electric T700-GE-701D turboshaft engines with 1,994 shp each. The AH-64D/E models are based on the original AH-64A, which was deployed in 1984 and first used in combat in 1989...

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is appealing to the U.S. government to take in 100,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year, along with an additional 100,000 from other countries. The population of Syrian refugees is overwhelmingly Muslim. In a message distributed via email, the USCCB is encouraging Catholics to submit a letter to their congressional representatives as well as to President Obama urging the government to "protect the lives and dignity of people in Syria, Iraq and in other countries suffering war, persecution and poverty." According to the pre-transcribed letter this is to be accomplished by...

It was a throwback moment at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday when Catherine Robb, the granddaughter of the late president Lyndon Johnson, was admitted to the court's bar. Her father Charles Robb, the former governor and U.S. senator from Virginia, moved her admission. It appeared that several justices recognized the presidential connection as she was sworn in to the bar. "It's something my father and I talked about years ago," Catherine Robb said afterward. "It was an opportunity for my father to move my admission—a special bond between us." Catherine Robb, 45, is counsel to Haynes and Boone in...

There’s a Way to Stop Mass Shootings, and You Won’t Like It.That’s right. You’re not going to like it because it’s going to require you to do something personally, as opposed to shouting for the government, or anyone to “do something!”You ready? Here it is:“Notice those around you who seem isolated, and engage them.”If every one of us did this we’d have a culture that was deeply committed to ensuring no one was left lonely. And make no mistake, as I’ve written before loneliness is what causes these shooters to lash out. People with solid connections to other people don’t indiscriminately...

Donald Trump wasn't about to let Democrats steal the spotlight Tuesday night. As promised, he live-tweeted the debate, though he was relatively restrained by Trump standards. Some memorable ones: • "Can anyone imagine Chafee as president? No way." • "Sorry, there is no STAR on the stage tonight" • "All are very scripted and rehearsed, two (at least) should not be on the stage." • "Sanders said only black lives matter - wow! Hillary did not answer question!" • "Wow, I am giving a speech on OAN. Much more exciting than debate!" he wrote, referring to One America News network....

Earlier this year, New York Times food critic Pete Wells was moved to write 841 words about breakfast sandwiches. It was a love letter of sorts, an ooey gooey ode to the most basic form of one of the most basic morning foods. But it was also a complaint: A new restaurant called BEC — short for Bacon Egg and Cheese — was about to open in Manhattan, and he was less than pleased. Breakfast sandwiches, Wells explained, are nothing if not practical, prepared quickly and eaten on the go, stuffed with modest ingredients and sold at a reasonable price....

Never has there been a time in history requiring that an individual be equipped with critical thinking skills more than now. The biggest problem that America is facing today is the inability of the vast majority of the citizenry to think critically. Matt Drudge went so far as to say that Americans are sick. Lack of the ability to think critically is a mental symptom that affects all people regardless of their level of education, economic status, age, race, ethnicity, sex, or political party (although it appears that liberals are more likely to lack such skills). If we are to...

Why Donald Trump bothered to issue an economic program is beyond me. It has some good things in it, like raising the tax on carried interest, but no one really cares about Trump’s economic plan — no matter his supposed expertise. He says he’s a businessman who knows about such things. His supporters don’t care that he’s a builder. They care that he’s a destroyer. The impetus for the Trump campaign is President Obama. He represents a historic, even cataclysmic, change in U.S. political life and, for some, what the United States is supposed to be about. One of the...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered free online courses for the last four years with one major downside: They didn't count toward a degree. That's about to change. In a pilot project announced Wednesday, students will be able to take a semester of free online courses in one of MIT's graduate programs and then, if they pay a "modest fee" of about $1,500 and pass an exam, they will earn a MicroMaster's credential, the school said. The new credential represents half of the university's one-year master's degree program in supply chain management....

"Guns — we're here to stay." Saturday Night Live took aim at the gun control debate with numerous segments throughout this weekend's episode. Host Amy Schumer was featured in a fake ad that began with people dealing with important moments in their life, all of which ended up centering on guns....

Former U.S. Treasurer and conservative commentator Bay Buchanan spoke to an audience of students and faculty Wednesday night about the importance of self-confidence and strong convictions in politics. At the Kennedy Political Union event, held in the SIS Abramson Founder’s Room, Buchanan told students she did not know what she wanted to do in college. Encouraged by her brother Pat, she took a leave of absence from graduate school to work on President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign, giving her the political bug that would shape the rest of her career. “There is such a level of excitement in [that] office...