You need to see this:

I saw this handy graphic the other day and just had to share.  You can click on the image on the right to see the original, full sized image.

The green represents income and the red represents debt.  Pardon the language in the 29 year old comment, but it’s very real.  The more income we have, the more debt we accrue because of the increased spending power.

The thing is, after we get into so much debt we find that we’re in a prison to debt—giving most of our earnings that are supposed to be working for us to someone else.

This nightmare has to end.

When a President starts to move through his agenda at a lighting pace and makes more press conferences, you can be certain that something is up—or down.  President Barak Obama is seeing his job approval rating slip just as he tries to take on Iran, Health Care and Climate Change all at a record speed.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That matches the lowest level yet recorded (see trends).  [Rasmussen Reports: Daily Presidential Tracking Poll]

This is newsworthy only because it’s beginning to indicate that the President is not as popular in his policies as he once was.  Though he may still be personally popular, the more this number goes down, the more the press will be able to feel safe in finding negative things to say about him.

The press is an amplifier.  While the polls are high, everything seems great and the polls continue to stay high.  As the polls fall, more stories about difficulties begin to emerge to drive them down further.

Look to see if the press starts to allow more critique of the plans Pres. Obama puts forth—one first step would be to get on the bandwagon of the current moves to force Congress to actually read what it votes on before it puts it to a vote.  I mean, it’s only logical, and would be an easy thing to get on board with, since it doesn’t mean you have to change your vote!

It used to sound so strange, but it’s getting to be more common.  Many people are finding their marriage partners online than at any other point in time in history.  Whether it’s someone that’s local or a distance away, people are looking to the Internet to find someone that matches what they are looking for at an amazing rate.

A Little History

During college, I was seeing a girl that I thought I was going to marry.  I met her at a summer music camp, and we dated (long distance) through my senior year and until November of the year I finished college.  I was pretty sure that I was going to marry this woman, and it was my advances (trying to arrange with her parents to talk about getting engaged) that separated us.

I was living in a small town in Upstate, New York.  Not many people that share my beliefs stayed in the area, and I was pretty much the only person left in my age group at my church.  So, what was I to do?

I was talking a lot on AOL Instant Messenger, and I found a girl that I asked out on it.  Two weeks after we had been chatting, we met.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Not Just Me

I’m not the only family member to find love online, however.  My cousin, the oldest on that side of the family, used eHarmony after trying courtship and other methods, and is now happily married.

The secret, I believe, is that dating sites allow you to find people that are more like yourself.  It’s like college, in that there is a big pool, and the bigger the pool the bigger the chance that you can find someone that you are compatible with.

Now, whether or not it’s better to find someone with variation so that you can be stronger through your differences, or to find someone with the same love for sock lint you do—that’s a topic for a different discussion!

How to Find the Right Site?

The neat thing is that there are sites that will give you the skinny on different dating sites out there.  For example, want to know more about Perfect Match or eHarmony?  It’s right at your fingertips.  They even tell you what kinds of people are on what sites, and what the highlights are.

Conclusion

In a society where marriage is falling apart, and being attacked, it’s important that you take the whole courtship or dating process seriously.  Make sure to take your time getting to know someone before committing to them for the rest of your life.  If you’ve spent more time researching what car to buy than you have getting to know a potential future spouse, then you haven’t spent enough time!

We’re having our June New Creation Apparel Skirt giveaway over at Is This Modest—and today’s the last day to write a comment, Tweet on Twitter, and or write a post and get in on this great Giveaway.

New Creation Apparel is a big sponsor of Is This Modest, and they have great quality material.

The giveaway is not just for U.S. based readers—it’s also for those from out of country.

So, what are you waiting for, click on the skirt on the right to read all the contest rules, and then get in for a chance to win!

I cannot wait.  My father recently purchased a computer to replace my sister’s current pc, and I’m getting her hand-me-down!  Why am I excited?  Because sometime last year I was able to get a 120-day evaluation copy of Windows Home Server, and I’ve been dying to try it out.  I just haven’t had a spare pc that met the minimum requirements.

Every home needs some sort of backup.  Computers will fail, they are subject to “the curse” as much as the rest of the world.  The question is, will you be prepared when they do?

For me, so far I’ve been blessed.  I’ve either upgraded, or have been able to get the stuff I’ve needed to off before a hard disk was unreadable.  I don’t believe I’ve ever lost anything, but with digital photography and more documents being written on computer, I’m now starting to wonder what I’d do in a fire.

Now, the most secure place to store your files in terms of location is to have some kind of Online Backup.  Online backup guarantees that you’ll have access to your files anywhere, and if something were to happen to your pc you’d be able to access the things that were important to you from another pc.

Online backups are great, especially for those of us with fast internet connection speeds—for you can be backed up in the background when you’re not using your computer.

IDrive has a full featured version giving you 2GB of space for free, and they bust that up to 150GB for $4.95/month.  That’s a small price to pay for peace of mind!

How are you backing up your computer?

One of the biggest problems that you have when you are in debt is worry.  All of a sudden you find that you have many things to worry about, especially if something doesn’t go as planned.

• You worry about having money to pay for X
• You worry about having money to pay off your bill
• You worry about how much interest you’re paying

The thing of it is, there are ways to get out of debt, and if you cannot do it on your own, there are people and places that can help.

Whether it’s reading a self-help book or getting help with debt consolidation, there are many avenues that can help you to get out of debt and lose the worry.

Debt consolidation companies abound, but should be well researched before choosing their product.  Many of them can cut the amount a person owes, negotiate changes in interest rates, stop creditor calls and actions against you and give you free advice.

The danger is twofold:

1. These services they have to make money, so they may negotiate one rate and charge you more, or their fee might be something that will hurt.
2. These services will effect your credit rating, because you’re not paying back the amount you promised per the terms of the agreement.

Now, while I would strongly urge you to consider using a method where you budget and plan your way out, if you need help then do your research and find the best company for you.

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When it comes to sex, America is considered prudish compared to the rest of the world.  The rest of the world sees itself as liberated, without the moral boundaries that some in the States still cling to.

From England, we read this shocking piece of news:

More than 450 teenagers below the age of 14 terminated pregnancies between 2005 and 2008, including 23 girls aged 12, the statistics from the Department of Health disclosed. Over the same period, 52 teenagers terminated four or more pregnancies before they reached their 18th birthday, as the total number of “repeat terminations” hit record levels across England and Wales.  [Telegraph – Scandal of the girls as young as 12 having abortions every year]

I would argue that a society’s attitude toward teen sex has a direct correlation to teen pregnancy.  Now, most people will say they are against teen pregnancy—hence why this article is titled “scandal”.  We all agree that we do not want teen pregnancies, both for the health of the mother as well as the child.

The problem is that we’re inconsistent in that the society glorifies and encourages a sex saturated environment in which experimentation and random coupling are seen as great things.  Our movies and television shows glorify this culture, and rarely show couples dealing with sexually transmitted diseases.

Society knows that sex leads to babies, but they also want the pleasure that’s involved with intimacy.  So they seek to justify their inability to practice self control with a panacea—they require sex education.  This is so that, instead of educating that sex outside of a monogamous relationship (read “marriage”) is wrong, they can feel good giving their children enough to make them dangerous.

It’s like giving a child a loaded gun, and saying, “Hey, here’s how you pull the trigger, and here’s the safety.  Now, this gun won’t do anything without the safety off, so don’t turn it off.  But feel free to go play with this gun with your friends.”  No parent would do this with their kids, but we’ll give them some birth control and let them go out and sleep around knowing that they’re “this close” to contracting an illness they’ll either have for the rest of their life or kill them.

Is that knowledge really that beneficial without the moral guidepost, or does it do more harm than good?

Advertisement: Weekend Kindness Building Relationships, one person at a time.

A group of six dozen paleontologists recently paid a trip to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky to see what they presented.

"The real purpose of the museum visit is to give some of my colleagues an opportunity to sense how they’re being portrayed," said Arnold Miller, a professor of paleontology at the University of Cincinnati, which is hosting the conference. "They’re being demonized, I feel, in this museum as people who are responsible for all the ills of society."

[The Olympian – Scientists study foes’ ways at Creation Museum]

Obviously, there are two different worldviews at work here, and one trip to the museum wasn’t going to change the mind of these people who had built their livelihood on evolution.  But it was the one comment that Ken Ham found in an early version of the AP story that is of interest:

Christine Janis, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, said most of the arguments addressed at the museum she’s heard countless times before. What she found most troubling was the crowd. More than 750,000 people have visited in two years, and Janis is concerned the Creation Museum’s version of human history is the only one they’re getting.

“They’re out-breeding us, that’s for sure,” Janis said.

[AP, Hat Tip Ken Ham]

This remark drips with the disdain that these people have for people with a different worldview.  It’s not enough to believe that they, alone, are the keepers of all knowledge, it’s now correct to look down on those that disagree with you as somehow less educated and set to doom civilization because they are “less evolved” or something.

And that’s one of the biggest problems atheism has—that it’s not just a belief system, but it’s one that’s militant and is out there to declare that every other belief system is wrong.  And because you don’t know that you’re wrong, you’re pathetic.

There is no freedom except to be free from religion—because religion means accountability to Someone, it means rules that aren’t of our own making, and it means belief in something you cannot see or test.

Yet it was true freedom brought about by founders with a Christian worldview that made this country what is was, and hopefully its undoing will still take some time.

Adultery is wrong.  It’s wrong if the couple is separated.  It’s wrong if there is or is not a law against it.  It’s wrong if there are or are not children.  It’s wrong on multiple levels.

• It’s a breaking of a promise, a vow.
• It’s sharing something that was meant to be specifically for the promised individual.
• It violates a trust.
• It can destroy a family.

In the case of Gov. Sanford, his position should not exempt him from the law, just as it should not have emboldened him to break it.  For in this case, Gov. Mark Sanford did break the law.

South Carolina Law

According to South Carolina’s Code of Laws, Title 16 – Crimes and Offences, Chapter 15 “Offenses Against Morality and Decency”:

SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication.

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.

SECTION 16-15-70. "Adultery" defined.

"Adultery" is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person. 

[Daily Kos (emphasis theirs)– Adultery is a crime in South Carolina!]

That means that he violated the law.  Now, I’m not sure what grounds a person would have to have to bring a suit before the court.  I’m sure Mrs. Sanford could bring a suit, though from her statement I doubt she will.

Mrs. Sanford’s Statement

I really appreciate Mrs. Jenny Sanford’s statement.  I appreciate it for a number of reasons:

• She starts out saying that she loves her husband, and focuses on his accomplishments.
• She rightfully says that her greatest accomplishments are her children.
• She asked him to deal with what was going on separate from the children in order to help him decide what he wanted to do for the sake of the children.
• She’s willing to forgive him if he’s willing to work toward restoration with humility and repentance.
• She’s grounded in faith.

She’s a total class act, and I pray that this family will be able to see healing and weather this storm.

What Should Happen?

Should Gov. Sanford lose his job?  There was a law broken—adultery—but there has been no indictment filed.  Therefore, he’s not under investigation by the police, though he admits he’s guilty of a crime.

Obviously, if someone was able to get a hold of him to get him to come back because of the media firestorm, he wasn’t unreachable, therefore I reject the whole “he left the state without a leader.”  He was gone for a week, there were people in his administration that could react, and he was reachable, but did not want to air this dirty laundry in public—as he was in the process of dealing with it himself.

Do I think that “if you can’t keep your commitment to your wife, how can you keep your commitment to your state?” is a proper question?  Sure, it’s a good question, but I’m not sure that it warrants removal—perhaps a confidence vote or wait until the next election.

I mean, it’s up to members of that state to decide whether they trust him, not for me to rain down judgment from afar. 

If he were the Governor of my state?  I doubt all politicians ability to keep the promises they make, or to accurately represent me, so the question of “will he keep his promises to the state” seems spurious at best.  It’s reaching.

Taxpayer funds to go to Argentina?  Was he there for a government purpose, or was it only for the mistress?  If it was only for the mistress, pay the funds back.

See, I understand human nature—we’re all sinners, we all fall prey to it, and but for the grace of God I could be in the same position.