Part of that curiosity led me to some interesting discoveries I had no idea about before… Or at least I didn’t realize they were as serious as they actually appear to be.

My journey down the rabbit hole started with this blog post from Ryan Moran where he talks about his perspective on the economy. It’s very insightful and I agree with him completely:  http://ryanmoran.org/?p=49

Ryan’s post leads to a disturbing video on YouTube about the North American Union: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBo4E77ZXo (about 9 minutes long)

Granted, some of the stuff in that video screams “conspiracy theory”, but the rest really had me sitting on the edge of my chair with a screwed up (worried) look on my face.

So, after listening to that video and what it said about the Real ID Act of 2005, I decided to go researching on my own… How did I not hear about this before??  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act

One of my co-workers just received a new passport this week, and it ACTUALLY has an RFID chip embedded in it! The Real ID thing was supposed to take effect in May of THIS YEAR, but was postponed until 2009/2010 because they didn’t have all the infrastructure in place yet to make it happen. I also read some stuff that implies it’s not fully funded.

So anyway… The first stage of Real ID (which apparently is well underway) is to embed chips in our drivers licenses, passports, and/or force everyone to carry a “Real ID” card which also has an embedded micro-chip or barcode on it. The NEXT step, potentially years from now, will be to require that every person get a RFID microchip (already being manufactured and used in infants, elderly people, and animals — http://www.verichipcorp.com/content/solutions/1117564579) embedded under their skin.

You won’t be able to do anything without that chip. And think of the implications if someone breaks into the system. They could disable hundreds, thousands, millions of chips and virtually shut down the world economy with the push of a button! The government will also have that level of control. With one click, they can stop your ability to transact any business, or go anywhere without being tracked.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is some scary crap!

I’m not making this up either. Do your own research…

• http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/index.html
• http://www.ncsl.org/RealID/
• http://epic.org/privacy/id-cards/

…there’s a lot more out there where this stuff came from.

Incidentally, here’s the voting record for the Real ID Act of 2005 — http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00117

Senators Obama, Biden, McCain and Clinton all voted FOR it. 

On a slightly different topic, but certainly related, pull a dollar bill out of your pocket or purse and see who signed it (Secretary of Treasury).

Unless it’s brand spankin’ new money, then the signature is that of John W. Snow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Snow) - previous Secretary of Treasury and named chairman of the board at Cerberus Capital Management on October 19, 2006.

So what you say?

Cerberus currently owns Chrysler which will certainly benefit from the 25-50 BILLION dollars about to be handed over to the auto industry by our government. Cerberus also owns a 51% stake in GMAC, and I was scared to look into what else they own.

So, who is the current Secretary of Treasury…???  Oh, that would be Henry Paulson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson), former CEO of Goldman-Sachs. They of course will benefit greatly by the 700+ BILLION bailout plan about to be approved by our government. Oddly enough, it’s called the “Paulson Plan” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulson_Plan) which states, “actions of the Treasury under the act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Wow! Unbridled, unchecked power for our Secretary of Treasury and former CEO of one of the largest bank holding companies in the world.

Conflicts of interest? Good Ol’ Boys club?? I think so!!!

Oddly enough, former Goldman employees head, or are in positions of power for, the New York Stock Exchange, the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury Department, the White House staff, and firms such as Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Hmmm…. Some of those names sound vaguely familiar…

I’d love to hear some of your thoughts. Drop a comment - PLEASE! Tell me I’m crazy!

A few of my vices:

• Surfing the ‘net & reading blogs/forums
• Watching TOO much TV
• Checking email a bazillion times per day
• Laying around doing a whole bunch of nothing

So check out the post (blurb below) and see if you can benefit from some of the tips…

What are micro-addictions? They are those annoying little habits that prevent you from living the life you truly want. They are small enough to go unchecked, but bothersome enough to get in the way of you living your fullest potential.

Link:10 Unbeatable Tips for Overcoming Micro-Addictions | Zen Habits.

It’s not 100% complete, and I still want to tweak the settings a little bit to get it just the way I want it. I also need to figure out how I want to organize & categorize all my pictures. NextGEN lets you create picture galleries, and then your galleries can be assigned to a particular album. Of course you can have multiple albums, and each album can have one or more galleries.

Sounds like too many decisions! :-)  Anyway, let me worry about all that…

You go check out the pictures and then let me know if you have any feedback.

My wife’s 25-year class reunion is this Saturday and she went out yesterday to get all dussied up. Hair cut & color, new dress, jewelry cleaned, nails done, face lift, tummy tuck - the works! (OK, I’m kidding about the last two)

She looks great, but I was left wondering…. What the heck do us guys do? I don’t need a new dress, and I don’t really care what my jewelry looks like. Besides, I only wear a basic wedding band. And I kinda like the dirt that cakes up under my fingernails — gives me something to munch on in a pinch.

Well, I had to do something!

Ah ha!!!  I headed to the “Just For Men” section at the drug store and picked up a box of Liquid Sexy.

Roughly five minutes and a quick shampoo later……… Check out the amazing transformation for yourself:

Before “Just For Men”…..

After “Just For Men”….

I KNOW!!!!!!  I still can’t believe it myself — and I’m the one staring in the mirror!

One thing I know for sure… I’m gonna be a hit at the reunion. I just hope nobody looks at my fingernails.

P.S. I can’t recommend Just For Men highly enough!

Now, I already read quite a bit, but I’ve been known to start a book and then never finish it. Or I’ll start two or three other books in the mean time, and keep jumping back and forth between them all. Needless to say, this doesn’t make for a lot of progress. I also spend a lot of time mindlessly and needlessly surfing the ‘net or watching TV (despite my past attempts to quit).

So Nick’s post was just the motivation I needed to get focused on becoming a more active reader.  I found his post on Aug 26th and have actually been reading at least one book a week since then.

As a matter of fact, I also sorted through my book collection and rid myself of the ones I’ve already read or just didn’t want anymore. After a bit of research, I signed up with PaperBackSwap so I could trade all these books with other book lovers in the world. To date, I’ve sent out about 12 books and received four. But I also have credits to get eight more books of my choosing — all for free! Here’s a link to my own PBS bookshelf.

I’ve rambled enough… Just head over to Put Things Off and read Nick’s 7 reasons for becoming a regular reader. I think you’ll enjoy the read (pun intended). And then, if you want to save a bunch of money, sign up at PaperBackSwap and start listing books from your collection that you’d like to trade.

There are over 2.4 million books currently in the PaperBackSwap database. Who knows - I might be requesting one from your bookshelf someday soon!

One thing that really twisted my brain in is the Appendix where it discusses a brief history of Kabbalah… It talks about stories in the Bible, and particularly, the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments. Essentially, it is explained as a code that has nothing whatsoever to do with the literal meaning of the Biblical verses.

For instance, the most common misconception is the concept of Ten Commandments. God does not command, and God does not dictate. Nor does God punish and reward. A wonderful analogy used is this:

If one sticks their finger into a wall socket and electrocutes oneself, it is illogical to say that electricity punished the person.

Wow! Just think about that for a minute…. I mean REALLY think about it.

I have believed, for some time now, that the stories of the Bible are mostly symbolic and have a much deeper meaning that most people aren’t even close to being able to comprehend. Folks generally think in literal terms and want things to be all cut & dried with a pretty bow on them. It’s just not that simple when it comes to spirituality and enlightenment. I wish it were…

Anyway, I’m barely half way through the book, so I can’t really write a review just yet. But I’ll no doubt be back later with more thoughts.

By the way, I’m not a Kabbalist or anything like that. In fact, I’m not associated with any particular religion or belief system (although I definitely believe in God). Just open minded and searching for meaning in a crazy world - pretty much like everyone else! 

If you’ve been a regular Mauder.com visitor in the past, you already know something crazy happened tonight. Sure I know, I hadn’t updated the site in over a year and it had become another one of those useless stagnant blogs. But still… It was my baby.

OK, sure. I was disgusted with my baby.

The “Money Matters” theme has been a bust for a long time and I just couldn’t bring myself to write another soulless post. The sad truth is, nobody really cares about their money. Well, that’s not entirely true. People DO care about their money, but most people aren’t willing to do what it takes to secure their own financial future.

I felt like I was preaching to an empty church. Sure, I got a few comments here and there thanking me for an insightful/helpful/interesting post, but they would always end with something like, “As soon as things settle down, I might give that a try.”

Exactly! You know just as well as I do that things never “settle down”, and if you’re not a little more committed than “I might give that a try”, then you may as well go back to the couch and keep watching The Price is Right. 

So, what now? Hey, that’s a great question!

I gave Mauder.com a clean sweep, found a cool (free) Wordpress theme, and started over from scratch.

No more trying to please the masses. I just want a place to post my random thoughts, preserve fleeting ideas that pop into my head, share things I find/read about/recommend, record great quotes (which I LOVE to read), discuss impactful books I’ve read, and generally contemplate the lint gathering in my bellybutton.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Here is an off-the-cuff list if things I’m interested in which translates into topics you’re likely to see here at one time or another:

• Money / Personal Finance / Debt Reduction / Investing
• Personal Development / Life Success Strategies
• Time & Task Management
• Computers & Computer Storage (SAN’s)
• Making Money / Affiliate Marketing (online or offline)
• Organization / De-Cluttering
• Outdoors / Hiking / Biking / Geocaching / Animals
• Health / Nutrition / Fitness
• Spirituality / Religion / Metaphysics
• Politics

Those last two, religion and politics, are things I typically don’t like to discuss, and certainly won’t argue about. I’m open minded and intelligent enough to realize I don’t know everything and don’t have all the answers (not even close).

Oh, and did I mention I ABSOLUTELY LOVE to read?

Well, there you have it. Mauder’s Money Matters has been written into the history books, and now it’s just plain ol’ Mauder.com - Random thoughts from a 40-something computer guy perplexed by life, money, health, success, politics, spirituality, and more…

I’ll hope you’ll subscribe to my feed and stop in once in a while to see what I have to say. Please check out my blogroll too (over there to the right) — it’s a list of all my favorite blogs/sites that I pretty much visit every day.

See you soon!

P.S. Don’t panic if my Wordpress theme changes from time to time. I’m a tinkerer by nature (and I have A.D.D.) so I like to rearrange the furniture every once in a while. 

Today is a new day. You will get out of it just what you put into it. … If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.

- Mary Pickford