3 Ring Binder

"Today, people are beginning to understand that the government's account is overdrawn, that a piece of paper is not the equivalent of a gold coin, or an automobile, or a loaf of bread—and that if you attempt to falsify monetary values, you do not achieve abundance, you merely debase the currency and go bankrupt." —Ayn Rand, "Moral Inflation," The Ayn Rand Letter , vol. 3, no. 12, p. 1 For more information, please visit the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights .

As someone who found the " Chess for Girls " skit on SNL hilarious and as someone who likes to give color coded tool sets to young women heading off to college, I laughed when I saw this image in an email entitled "If Women Ruled the World". While I truly appreciate having the correct tool for every job, I have been known to occasionally fall prey to the heel and knife mentality.

Start by wanting to write about the original Iron Man (Giles Corey) with the intention of tying it to the release of the movie, Iron Man , today. Realize the poem attributed to Longfellow (albeit William Wadsworth Longfellow) is more interesting than the anonymous one in the Giles Corey link of yesterday’s post. Find out that Longfellow wrote an entire play on Giles Corey of the Salem Farms , but fail to locate the sought for poem. Find another play, Giles Corey, Yeoman , written by Mary Wilkins, free on Guttenberg Press. Go back, search more. Find peine forte et dure an interesting term in Law French. Seek to reaffirm the meaning of the Court of Oyer and Terminer . Again Law French . Seek to better understand Law French as a fascinating explanation to our court system and its history. Follow Fee Simple link (one used on the title of your property and mine), marvel at the etymology: Fee - A right in law to the use of land; i.e. a fief . Simple - in the unconstrained sense: 1) with...

In case you are interested in knowing how your Representative voted in yesterday's bailout proposal, see here . I wish I could know why they voted that way. Either yay or nay, I'm pretty sure it's not because they understand the destructive role of government interference in the free market - that's for damn sure! More likely, any legislator voting no on principle is more likely blaming the greedy capitalists . It's maddening.

This is not about Giles Corey , but rather in case your child asks, as mine did this morning, here are some things you might want to know about the unit "pound"and its seemingly disconnected abbreviation. pound (lb, lbm, or #) [1] a traditional unit of mass or weight. The Romans used a pound (the libra pondo, "pound of weight") divided into 12 ounces. All the countries of western Europe used similar units, divided into 12 or 16 ounces, until the advent of the metric system. 12-ounce pounds were common in Italy and southern France, but in Spain and northern Europe 16-ounce pounds became the norm. The word libra is used for this unit in Italy, Spain, and Portugal; in France it is called the livre . Further north, the Latin word pondo ("weight") is the origin of the names of the English pound, Dutch pond, Danish pund, German pfund, and Russian funt. In England, two different "pound" units became standard. The unit now in general use in the United S...

Not including the mother who appears to be getting a little aggravated by the young'uns' unruly behavior, only seven small turkeys remain (they're getting quite big). I had a hard enough time counting them, I can't possibly identify which has been lost, but I'm guessing it's one of the twins. The smart one. There was one who remained in my yard longer than the mother liked. She started squawking and the remaining turkey ran back and forth along the fence, apparently forgetting he had the power of flight. Here for your edification is a great little diagram of a full grown male turkey and how to tell the difference between a tom and a hen. Just call me Marlin Perkins.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to my congressmen on Tuesday. Dear Honorable ______________; The emergency bailout package as handed down from the Bush Administration for you to consider will not keep us from the biggest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression, but rather, will kick the can down the road. Government funds, which is to say taxpayer dollars should never, ever go to fund bad choices made by quasi-governmental agencies, public companies, or other taxpayers. This is precisely what you are now being asked to approve. We are no doubt stand on the edge of an economic crisis, but not one made by the taxpayers. It is the governmental interference in these financial institutions which caused the faulty mindset leading to the overextension and eventual collapse of these institutions. They knew they were too big to fail. When the government decides which companies are not allowed to fail, we all pay the price: both those who took the risk, and those of us who played i...