Have you ever wondered who were the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago and what became of them after?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn’t. So please, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and remember why it is called INDEPENDENCE DAY and silently thank these patriots.

Remember: Our freedom did not come free.  God bless America!!

A woman and two men, active in the anti-illegal immigration movement, are dedicated to watching for illegal immigrants. However, this particular trio were the lunatic fringe of a fringe movement.

They planned a home invasion of at the Southern Arizona home of a man with drug ties. Their goal was to take what they thought would be a sizable amount of money and drugs from Raul Flores.

Shawna Forde  (pictured above) was at the helm.  Forde was the leader of her own anti-illegal immigrant organization, the Minutemen American Defense (MAD), after being kicked out of more mainstream groups due to her reported instability.

Excerpt from Shawna Forde’s blog at the MAD’s web site, which drips with hypocrisy:  After they cross the border they are taking over area’s of our cities, neighborhoods, schools with their way of life witch is:

1 Corruption
2 Lie’s
3 Drug dealing
4 welfare fraud
5 stealing
6 Filthiness
7 Gang code of ethics
8 violence
9 no respect for existing Americans
10 Hate

While Forde accused Latinos of spreading hatred, Forde’s own racism and hatred led to a shocking crime.  Forde and her 2 co-horts dressed as law enforcement officers and then shot and killed 29 year old Raul Flores, his 9 near old daughter and wounded Flores’ wife.  They shot the little girl as part of their plan to leave no witnesses.  Flores’ wife was wounded, but successfully fought back and wounded one of her would be assailants, which ultimately helped authorities track down and capture Forde and 2 partners and charge them with first degree murder.

Hate groups frequently purport themselves as patriots and these groups need to be watched by authorities. If they can rationalize home invasions and murder, I shudder to think what else they might be able to rationalize.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, the bowl of Cheeros I had for breakfast this morning is now considered drugs.   Because of Gereral Mills claim that Cheerios soluable fiber combined with a low fat diet can help reduce cholesterol by 4% in 6weeks, the FDA says that Cheerios are a drug.

I would like to thank the FDA for taking the time to regulate this dangerous claim.  I feel so much safer now.

Personally, I would like to see them spend their time and money reducing salmonella outbreaks, so we know our produce and meats are safer.

Whether you have a single PC at home or run a large business, printing costs are simply too high.  The good news is that you can employ these money saving tips to reduce printing costs for your business and/or household.  An addtional benefit is that not only will you save money, but you will be reducing the environmental impact at the same time.

Tip 1.  Think before you print.  Many of us have developed a habit of printing emails and web pages so we can read them later.  This can be both costly and wasteful.  While you may still want hard copy of legal documents, you certainly don’t need hard copy of most emails or web pages.   Instead download a free pdf creator and save that email or web page as a PDF file.    In fact, you are still printing the document, but the output is a PDF file to be saved to your computer rather than hard copy.  It easy to organize PDF files as you can save them to a folder on your computer or to your desktop for later reference.

Tip 2.  Print Only What You Must.  How many times have you printed a web page or email and saw that the last page or two was almost blank and had useless information on it, so you tossed it in the garbage.  What a waste of paper and ink!  GreenPrint has a free software program that let’s you choose what to print and what not to.  For the average business with 50 employees, this program will save $4,510 annuallyin reduced paper and ink costs.   Also, includes a free PDF Writer (see Tip 1) that let’s you create PDF’s with a single click.

Tip 3. Refill and Recyle Your Printer Cartridges- Instead of buying new cartridges and tossing the old ones into the trash, recycle them instead.  While there are plenty of local shops where you can get ink refills, I have heard nothing but great things about EnviroInks.com and their prices are very attractive.  I just paid $70 to get my old HP LaserJet 4L’s cartridge refilled and I found the same cartridge and EnviroInks.com for $39.99.   They have free shipping on orders of $50 or more and your savings are increased when you return the old printer cartridge to EnviroInks using their pre-paid recycling mailers.

Tip 4. Use Recycled Paper.  Okay, this won’t likely save money, but we’ve saved you enough money on reduced paper usage and ink jet and laser toner usage that you can afford to give a little back.  When buying paper look to see what percentage of the paper is recycled (may range for 10% to 100%) and what processes they use to recycle the paper.  You can find a good selection of recycled paper at GreenLine Paper Company.

Tip 5. Recycle your waste paper.  Look at how much paper winds up in land fills:

Any other tips or ideas?  Please feel free to comment below.

US Drug Use Contributes to Murders of Over 6,000 People in Mexico

Back in the day, people said smoking pot was a victimless crime. While that may have been true then, today’s reality is a different story.

Consider the horrendous violence at the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the border towns that dot the US/Mexican border. United States demand for pot, cocaine, ecstasy and meth created Mexican Drug Cartels so powerful that they threaten Mexico’s political stability.

Mexican drug cartels use their drug profits to purchase guns and other lethal weapons from the United States to defend their drug markets, attack other cartels, bribe (or murder) local police and judges and generally wreck havoc on society.

As a result of this escalation in violence, more than six thousand Mexican people were brutally murdered in the last year alone. In these lawless border towns, hit men with automatic weapons rule the streets, while families hide fearfully in their homes unprotected by understaffed, underfunded and often corrupt local police.

Every April 20th, many Americans celebrated “4/20” by smoking some pot carrying on a tradition from a bygone era.  The story goes that 4/20 started back in 1971 with a group of teens from a high school in California that would get baked at 4;20pm. 

I hope that this 4/20 America’s youth will recognize that smoking pot or using drugs is no longer a victimless crime and that their behavior is endangering the very lives of impoverished Mexican families where it is no longer safe for children to play in the streets or to walk to the market to buy food.

We live in a global economy and the economic choices we make, whether buying weed or organic locally grown food, has a tremendous effect on the world we live in.  Use your money for good.  Do not support evil.

Okay, so I doubt there are any Ramones or Johnny Thunders fans that are going to get the sarcasm of this Post’s title.  BUT, today I was listening to NPR and they had this segment on talking about Africa and China.  While most of the Western world has been very cautious about investing in some of the less stable African nations, China is jumping in with both feet.   Awesome, right? 

Before we get too warm and fuzzy about how wonderful the Chinese are it is important to point out that the reason the West is restraining itself from investing in these counties is due to serious human rights abuses.   China, no stranger to human rights abuses itself, is investing in building factories, which is creating jobs and this is all generally well received by the recipient governments and local populations.  In fact, some African officials are now telling the US and it’s Western Allies that their money is no longer needed.

As it turns out China is not only investing in some business ventures in countries like Zambia, but they are also flooding their markets with Chinese goods.   And there is the rub.   The Africans claim that China produces two categories of goods, a higher quality level of good exported to the West and a much lesser quality of cheap goods dumped onto the African markets.  

Two African girls in a local market selling these Chinese goods are excited at the colorful sandals they see for sale.  But one whispers to the other that they will wear out and break within 2 weeks.  Although the sandals “only” cost $1 USD this type of poor quality is inexcusably wasteful and the Chinese government should be ashamed for exploiting impoverished nations to dump inferior goods onto.  

Assuming they are not supporting bad governments, I am happy that they are creating much needed jobs in these poor nations, but at what cost to human rights and dignity?

President Bush did his old oil buddies a solid today by proposing that offshore drilling be allowed in a half dozen areas that are currently considered off limits.  This will have to be taken up by President Elect Obama and his new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

In spite of a global decrease in demand for oil Bush is seeking to allow drilling in new areas off the coasts of California, Alaska as well as in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast.   It will be interesting to see how the Obama administration responds to this.