any advice is greatly appreciated.i am having computer trouble

 1-not the monitor but the other part of my computer keeps shutting off for no reason.the hard drive.

2-i keep getting these things periodically saying i have low virtual memory.what is this.how do i solve it

3-also getting a message saying taskmanager needs to close.what is taskmanager.how do i solve this.

4-sorry for the dumb questions.tired and stumped.just got off work.

well we had the birthday party tonight for my two babies.they got plenty of presents and there was a big cake fight at the end with everyone getting smeared with cake including the children!!  i'll post the pics here in a few days babies willing.....

how do you think things would've differed if we would've had a democrat as president instead of a republican on 9/11/01.would we have ever went to iraq?  would we have found bin laden by now?  i would like to see your thoughts on this question.how do you think the state of the country would've been at this point?

happy birthday to baby sky and baby mike.skylar turns 2 today and lil mike will be one tomorrow!!!

 these are older pics but i'll take some newer ones and put em here soon.

Senator Bill Frist (R.- TN), doesn't want to be President -he wants to be Dictator.

Frist, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, used his position of power to ram through the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. He didn't even give the members of Congress a chance to read the bill.

They were told about it late Friday night, mere minutes before they recessed to campaign for reelection. Frist cynically attached his pet anti-Internet gaming bill to a completely unrelated bill dealing with port security, so no one would dare vote against it. No matter how you feel about Internet gaming, this is not the way laws should be made in this country.

The only good thing to come out of this fiasco is we now know what type of hypocrite Bill Frist is. Frist is one of the most active advocates of American values. Well, one American value is that people get to know what they are voting for. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he really cared about Internet gambling, he appointed himself the decider of how America should handle the issue.

But, in fact, Frist never showed any interest in Internet gaming until he decided to run for President. Having run political campaigns, I can tell you he first conducted polls and focus groups and hired campaign consultants. They told him that he could score a few points with his right-wing religious base by coming out against online gambling.

So Frist threw the idea of outlawing Internet gaming into a speech in Iowa, where the first presidential caucuses will be held in 2008. The post-speech polls and focus group must have been positive, because he next announced it as a legislative priority, even though almost no one else in Congress, or America, cares much about the issue. The bill immediately spooked the entire industry. Giants like PartyPoker announced that they would no longer take bets from the U.S. Frist actually managed to cause as much economic damage as an Islamist terrorist attack: billions of dollars were wiped out overnight, when online stocks fell more than 50%.

This was probably an overreaction, since the new law will not actually do much. The only new crime created is accepting funds for unlawful Internet gambling, defined as violating some other federal, state or tribal law. It doesn't make operators much more guilty than they already were. For example, David Carruthers, Chief Executive of BetOnSports, was arrested changing planes in Dallas, and served with a 27-page long indictment. Now the indictment would be 28 pages. On the other hand, Internet poker operators have claimed that they are not violating any federal or state law. If that is true, they are still not guilty of a crime.

This law is supposedly designed to stop money transfers. Bizarrely, banks and payment processors cannot be charged with this new crime. The federal regulators have 270 days to come up with new regulations for these money transferors. But the biggest players, Neteller and FirePay, will take the position that they are not subject to U.S. regulations, since they are not U.S. financial institutions. The only danger is that banks will be told they can't send money to these payment processors. Prosecutors can get injunctions to prevent Internet Service Providers from hosting gambling sites and affiliates, but these already are, or will be, on foreign servers.

Can anything be done about this new law? Unfortunately, no. Using its police powers, Congress can do just about anything to any form of gambling. It just would have been nice if they had read the bill before they voted.

Britain's culture secretary on Friday compared the U.S. crackdown on online gambling to the failed alcohol ban of the Prohibition as she prepared to host an international summit on Internet gambling next week.

Tessa Jowell warned that the U.S. ban on Internet gambling would make unregulated offshore sites the "modern equivalent of speakeasies," illegal bars that opened in 1920s America when alcohol was banned.

U.S. Congress caught the gambling industry by surprise earlier this month when it added to an unrelated bill a provision that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments for online gambling sites. President Bush signed the law Oct. 14.

The decision closed off the most lucrative region in a market worth $15.5 billion this year in "spend" value _ the amount gambling companies win from their clients, or the amount gamblers lose.

Several London-based Internet gambling companies and a handful in Europe and Australia subsequently sold off or shut down their U.S. operations, losing around 80 percent of their combined business in the process.

U.S. officials have declined to participate in Tuesday's gambling summit in London, where lawmakers from 30 countries will discuss ways to regulate the industry, including the protection of minors and keeping the industry free of crime.

Officials from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, Malta, Costa Rica and Antigua and Barbuda are expected to attend.

Antigua in particular has been engaging in a strong defense of Internet gambling, one of the tiny Caribbean state's few economic success stories.

It argues that the U.S. ban is in direct contravention to a ruling by the World Trade Organization last year that the United States amend some of its legislation to permit Antiguan gambling operations to offer their services to U.S. citizens on a level playing field.

Mark Mendel, who leads Antigua's WTO legal team, said Friday that the summit would put further pressure on the United States to comply with the ruling.

"Ultimately, I think they are going to have to satisfy us," he said. Mendel said online gambling was vital to Antigua, whose only other industry of note is tourism.

Next week's gathering has been months in the planning and officials intended to discuss ways to stop criminals from defrauding online gamblers and to prevent sites being used for money laundering.

However, the new U.S. law is likely to be the focus of talks. Jowell said that regulating sites worked better than prohibition.

"America should have learnt the lessons of Prohibition," she said, noting that legislation that was meant to stop alcohol from causing harm in practice forced otherwise law-abiding customers into the hands of the bootleggers.

Under new British gambling laws, online operators have a "social responsibility" duty written into licenses and policed by the independent Gambling Commission watchdog.

It requires them to work to prevent underage gambling, give prominent warnings about addiction and inform users how much time and money they have spent on the site.

"Broadly speaking we have three choices: you can prohibit, like the U.S., do nothing or regulate, like we have," Jowell said. "I firmly believe we have chosen the path that will do the most to protect children and vulnerable people and keep out crime."

October 28, 2006 -- The voices talking so loudly against the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) on forums and blogs across are the internet will be leaving their keyboards on November 3-4 and will be headed to Washington D.C. to protest the latest US prohibition.

The purpose of the demonstration will be to gain press coverage from major news organizations such as Fox, MSNBC, and CNN (who have all promised to attend the event) in order to get the message out to the general public before they vote.

The message they are trying to get out to voters is that Republicans, led by the soon to be parting Senator Bill Frist, have begun a modern day prohibition by deceitfully attaching the ban to an unrelated piece of legislation on the last day of senate sessions.

The fact that they attached the bill to unrelated legislation about Port Security, an issue that was impossible for anyone to vote against, angered other politicians about as much as it angered the 25 million American citizens who participate in online poker.

"What could be a greater invasion of privacy than government telling you cannot play Internet poker in your own house?" congresswoman Shelley Berkley said. "This was a breathtaking abuse ... of power."

"The ban on Internet gaming was part of the Republican family values agenda. They passed it to pound their chests and talk about how they're protecting America's youth," Berkley said. "You got a bunch of ideologues running Congress. They're not interested in anything that has a modicum of common sense; they're only interested in a very narrow moral position."

Berkley insisted that the protest expressing dissent will surely be heard by politicians and other Americans before voting time.

Debbie Richardson, the person instrumental in organizing the protest against the ban, has reported to us that over 250 people have confirmed they will be attending and that many singular people said they will be bringing groups along with them.

Poker (for chips only) will be played in the streets as part of the protest. There have been rumors that celebrities who support poker may show up, and other speakers are confirmed.

"We think we have enough people who confirmed showing up for the event that could fill up the square behind the White House," and that many people, Richardson explained, will get noticed by the press.

"The more people show up for the protest the more interest the press will show," Richardson said. She also expects a large number of people to attend who have not confirmed.

The demonstators will be meeting at Washington Monument at 9 am on Friday, November 3. They will proceed from there to the White House and will be rallying in the park on Pennsylvania Avenue.

John Adam Belushi (January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an Emmy award winning American actor, comedian and singer most notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon's Animal House and The Blues Brothers.

Biography

Belushi was born in the United States to Adam Belushi, an Albanian immigrant who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of 15, and to Agnes. He grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton, Illinois, where he was a high school football player, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the College of DuPage near Chicago. Belushi's brother James Belushi is also a successful actor and comedian. He met his future wife, Judy, while a sophomore in high school, and stayed together with her until his death.

Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago, Illinois. Thanks to his uncanny caricature of singer Joe er's intense and jerky stage presence, he participated in National Lampoon's Lemmings stage show in 1972 (which also featured future Saturday Night Live performer Chevy Chase).

From 1973 to 1975 the National Lampoon aired The Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. When original director Michael O'Donoghue quit in 1974, Belushi took over the reins until the show was canceled. Other players on the show included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Belushi married Judy Jacklin, an associate producer of The Radio Hour. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour would be translated into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.

John Belushi as Bluto Blutarsky in Animal House.

Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House.

As several Belushi biographies have noted, on John's 30th birthday (in 1979), he had the number one film in the U.S., (Animal House), the number one album in the U.S. (The Blues Brothers "Briefcase Full Of Blues") and Saturday Night Live was the highest-rated and a highly regarded late night television program. Being at the top of three different public media (T.V., movies, and music) is one of his foremost career feats, which tends to be overlooked in the wake of his drug exploits.

John Belushi (right) with Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers.

He left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi would make four more movies in his career, and three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with former SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.

At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including "Noble Rot," an adaptation of a script by former The Mary Tyler Moore Show writer/producer Jay Sandrich entitled "Sweet Deception". Belushi was working with former Saturday Night Live colleague Don Novello, (known for his character Father Guido Sarducci), on rewriting the script. In addition, Belushi was also considering the lead roles in "The Joy Of Sex", a comic adaptation of the Dr. Alex Comfort sex manual, as well as a part in a Louis Malle, movie Moon Over Miami. These projects were abandoned in the wake of his death.

Moreover, the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us were written (by Aykroyd) with Belushi in mind. The roles wound up being played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively. Aykroyd used to joke that the green ghost Slimer in Ghostbusters was "the ghost of John Belushi", given that he had a similar party animal personality.

[edit] Death

Belushi was known to indulge in substance abuse, which eventually cost him his life. Belushi was found dead on March 5, 1982, at age 33, in a hotel room at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was a speedball, an injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was accompanied by friends Robin Williams and Robert De Niro (at the height of their own drug exploits)^{[citation needed]}, who later left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of Cathy Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

The case was reopened two months later, when Cathy Smith, a former groupie for The Band and an ex-girlfriend of Gordon Lightfoot [1], admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. She was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain arrangement reduced the charges to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 18 months in prison.

Belushi's life is detailed in the 1985 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife Judy, Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, agreed to be interviewed at length for the book, but later felt the final product was exploitative and not representative of the John Belushi they knew. The book was later adapted into a feature film.

John Belushi is interred in Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark, Massachusetts. His tombstone reads "I may be gone, but rock n roll lives on."

The Grateful Dead song "West L.A. Fadeaway" is about Belushi's death. Belushi was a good friend to the band, especially Jerry Garcia. He even performed with them on occasion in the late 1970's.

His widow later remarried and is now Judy Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of her late husband, Belushi, is a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, was published in 2005.

The story begins as "Don" Vito Corleone, the head of a New York Mafia "family", oversees his daughter's wedding. His beloved son Michael has just come home from the war, but does not intend to become part of his father's business. Through Michael's life the nature of the family business becomes clear. The business of the family is just like the head of the family, kind and benevolent to those who give respect, but given to ruthless violence whenever anything stands against the good of the family. Don Vito lives his life in the way of the old country, but times are changing and some don't want to follow the old ways and look out for community and "family". An up and coming rival of the Corleone family wants to start selling drugs in New York, and needs the Don's influence to further his plan. The clash of the Don's fading old world values and the new ways will demand a terrible price, especially from Michael, all for the sake of the family.

i happen to glance at the blog page entries a few minutes ago.notice that sometime today i'm on pace for 100,000 blog views.i'd like to thank all the folks who tuned in and were hopefully entertained in some way by my creations.also noticed i'm also on pace to hit 10,000 posts sometime in the next few months also.you keep the milestones coming and i'll keep them coming.noticed todd is almost up to 50,000 members also.how 'bout a nice cigar!!

Prohibition II: Good Grief

When government restricts Americans' choices, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to profit from the paternalism.

Oct. 23, 2006 issue - Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans' behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.

For whatever reason, last Friday the president signed into law Prohibition II. You almost have to admire the government's plucky refusal to heed history's warnings about the probable futility of this adventure. This time the government is prohibiting Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks or credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling operations on a list the government will prepare.

Last year about 12 million Americans wagered $6 billion online. But after Congress, 32 minutes before adjourning, passed its ban, the stock of the largest online-gambling business, Gibraltar-based PartyGaming, which gets 85 percent of its $1 billion annual revenue from Americans, declined 58 percent in one day, wiping out about $5 billion in market value. The stock of a British company, World Gaming PLC, which gets about 95 percent of its revenue from Americans, plunged 88 percent. The industry, which has some 2,300 Web sites and did half of its business last year with Americans, has lost $8 billion in market value because of the new law. And you thought the 109th Congress did not accomplish anything.

Supporters of the new law say it merely strengthens enforcement; they claim that Internet gambling is illegal under the Wire Act enacted in 1961, before Al Gore, who was then 13, had invented the Internet. But not all courts agree. Supporters of the new law say online gambling sends billions of dollars overseas. But the way to keep the money here is to decriminalize the activity.

The number of online American gamblers, although just one sixth the number of Americans who visit real casinos annually, doubled in the last year. This competition alarms the nation's biggest gambling interests—state governments.

It is an iron law: When government uses laws, tariffs and regulations to restrict the choices of Americans, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to make money from the paternalism. One of the big winners from the government's action against online gambling will be the state governments that are America's most relentless promoters of gambling. Forty-eight states (all but Hawaii and Utah) have some form of legalized gambling. Forty-two states have lottery monopolies. Thirty-four states rake in part of the take from casino gambling, slot machines or video poker.

The new law actually legalizes online betting on horse racing, Internet state lotteries and some fantasy sports. The horse-racing industry is a powerful interest. The solidarity of the political class prevents the federal officials from interfering with state officials' lucrative gambling. And woe unto the politicians who get between a sports fan and his fun.

In the private sector, where realism prevails, casino operators are not hot for criminalizing Internet gambling. This is so for two reasons: It is not in their interest for government to wax censorious. And online gambling might whet the appetites of millions for the real casino experience.

Granted, some people gamble too much. And some people eat too many cheeseburgers. But who wants to live in a society that protects the weak-willed by criminalizing cheeseburgers? Besides, the problems—frequently exaggerated—of criminal involvement in gambling, and of underage and addictive gamblers, can be best dealt with by legalization and regulation utilizing new software solutions. Furthermore, taxation of online poker and other gambling could generate billions for governments.

Prohibition I was a porous wall between Americans and their martinis, giving rise to bad gin supplied by bad people. Prohibition II will provoke imaginative evasions as the market supplies what gamblers will demand—payment methods beyond the reach of Congress.

But governments and sundry busybodies seem affronted by the Internet, as they are by any unregulated sphere of life. The speech police are itching to bring bloggers under campaign-finance laws that control the quantity, content and timing of political discourse. And now, by banning a particular behavior—the entertainment some people choose, using their own money—government has advanced its mother-hen agenda of putting a saddle and bridle on the Internet.

Gambling is, however, as American as the Gold Rush or, for that matter, Wall Street. George Washington deplored the rampant gambling at Valley Forge, but lotteries helped fund his army as well as Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth. And Washington endorsed the lottery that helped fund construction of the city that now bears his name, and from which has come a stern—but interestingly selective—disapproval of gambling.

It was a dubious maneuver, which not only prevented any real floor debate over the ban, but also attached an intrusive, unnecessary, big government measure to a bill that addressed important national security concerns. This meant that any senator who held the position that what Americans do with their own money in their own homes on their own time is none of the government's business couldn't vote against the gambling ban, lest they risk being smacked about the head with the "soft on national security" cudgel.

If Frist's move was underhanded, it was also wholly appropriate, given the way the GOP has handled this issue. The debate — to the extent that there has actually been one — has been marred by misdirection, red herrings, and a certain obliviousness among the bill's supporters to, well, reality.

The two Republican congressmen pushing the ban in the House of Representatives, for example, — Rep. Jim Leach and Rep. Bob Goodlatte — tried for months to sell the ban as an effort to exorcise the scourge of Jack Abramoff from the Congress and the Republican party, as if Abramoff were the reason the bill never passed in the first place.

In fact, the bill we now have is nearly identical to the bill Jack Abramoff would have wanted. The bill bans online poker, sports wagering and casino games, but doesn't touch state lotteries or horse racing (which, by the way, has in the past made some meaty contributions to Rep. Goodlatte's campaign chest).

Contrary to what Reps. Goodlatte and Leach would have us believe, the bill Jack Abramoff was pushing was also a prohibition on poker, sports wagering, and casino games. And it also contained exemptions for state lotteries, as requested by one of Abramoff's clients, eLottery.

It only gets worse from there. When the lobbying reform package fell apart, the Republicans tried a new approach, bundling the ban with flag burning, gay marriage, and a number of policies on the GOP social agenda as part of the "American Values" agenda. That's how it passed the House.

In the Senate, Frist first tried to attach the ban to a bill reauthorizing funding for U.S. troops in Iraq. When that didn't work out, he fell back on the last-minute port security bill.

In addition to invoking Abramoff, the ban's supporters frequently invoked the "for the children" canard, and relayed anecdotes about problem gamblers who frittered away their kids' college education with online wagers. In truth, there has yet to be a significant peer-reviewed study of online gambling habits, and whether they're more or less conducive to addictive behavior (there have been studies of state lotteries, however, and most show them to be among the most addictive forms of gambling).

Most online wagers are made in poker rooms. Poker is a game with some element of chance, but with a significant component of skill. Good poker players will turn a profit, which is why lots of people make a living playing the game (as opposed to say, slot machines or roulette).

Poker professionals — three of whom came to D.C. earlier this year to speak against the ban — argue that the game isn't really gambling at all. At the very least, it's not a particularly addictive form of wagering. Of course, some (like me) would argue that the nature of poker is beside the broader point: preventing people from playing games of chance simply isn't a legitimate function of the federal government.

At the very least, there are surely items on the DOJ's agenda that ought to be of higher priority — fighting terrorism, for example.

Reps. Leach and Goodlatte, along with Sens. Frist and John Kyl, frequently used the words "untaxed" and "unregulated" when describing the estimated $12 billion Americans wager each year online. But they're "untaxed" and "unregulated" because Congress made online gambling illegal in the first place, pushing gaming sites offshore.

In fact, the major gaming sites are begging to be both taxed and regulated. They'd much rather set up shop in the U.S., pay U.S. taxes, and be subject to U.S. laws and regulations. They'd rather carry the seal of legitimacy that comes with being recognized and incorporated on U.S. soil. Were online gambling legalized and regulated, we'd likely see trusted names like Harrah's, Bally, and MGM get into the business.

Despite all of the dire warnings from the ban's supporters about fraud, graft, and preying on minors, this bill will actually make all of those problems worse. Many of the major gaming sites are publicly traded, and/or incorporated in countries like Great Britain or Canada. They are taxed and regulated, just not by the U.S. government.

Before this bill was rushed through the Senate, cautious poker players or sports bettors could choose to patronize companies that are subject to market regulation, or are incorporated in countries that respect the rule of law. Most of those sites also have vigilant child-protection measures in place, and some even have stopgap features players who know their own weaknesses can use to limit their betting. Watchdog groups have sprung up to monitor the fairness and integrity of these sites (private, non-government regulation — imagine that!).

Immediately after the ban passed Congress, many of the major gaming sites announced they'd no longer do business with U.S. customers. Most I'd imagine were intimidated by the U.S. Department of Justice's recent penchant for plucking foreign gaming site executives out of U.S. airports and tossing them in prison, despite the fact that their businesses were legal in the country where they were incorporated, and where they were citizens (think of the implications there for Americans traveling abroad)

So once the major gaming sites stop doing business with U.S. customers, who is that going to affect? The problem gambler? The curious minor who swiped his parents' credit card?

Not likely. The people who are going to be affected by the ban are the millions of Americans who play online poker recreationally — and responsibly. But that $12 billion per year is going to simply dry up. Problem gamblers and minors will still be able to find places online to make wagers.

Any attempt to prohibit consensual activity is going to create black and gray markets. The legitimate, law-abiding gaming sites may now be out of reach for Americans, but that'll create a niche for truly unregulated sites. These sites will be far more prone to fraud, won't much care about the age of their customers, and customers who are defrauded will have no recourse.

There's also no telling who's behind them. But it's probably a safe bet (pardon the pun) to say that the people operating black market, blatantly illegal gambling sites will include a significant criminal element.

Some say the GOP pushed this ban to light a fire under family values voters. Others say their intent was more nefarious — to protect established gambling interests from online competitors. There may be some truth in both of those explanations, though I think the main motivation for the bill was simply the moral aversion to gambling held by its chief sponsors — Goodlatte, Kyl, and Leach — and a desire to impose that moral rectitude on the rest of the country.

What does seem clear is that none of the people behind this bill were interested in thoughtful debate, any serious consideration of the bill's implications or consequences, or the principle of a limited, "leave us alone" federal government.

Polls show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a federal ban on Internet gambling. Industry experts estimate that some 15-20 million Americans wager online each year. The overwhelming majority do so responsibly. This largely apolitical group could well get politically motivated the first time they try to log on, and are told their small-stakes poker game has now been outlawed by the Republican leadership in Congress. If this was a political move, there's a pretty good chance it'll backfire, and cost the GOP more votes than it wins them.

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