What If the Affordable Care Act Took the Spirit Airlines Approach?

I was thinking about this yesterday. I know the fact I was thinking is a scary thought! Have you ever flown on Spirit Airlines? I took a direct flight to Myrtle Beach from Chicago a few years back. They have a unique business model. They had the cheapest flight from Chicago to Myrtle Beach. It was significantly cheaper than anyone else. I like that. I just for purposes of discussion checked for a flight for one week June 10- 17th of this year. On Spirit Airlines you can do the trip for $46 each way. Expedia.com lists the lowest fare as $310 round trip that as far as I can tell is $100 more each way.

What they do differently than many of the other airlines is charge you for everything else. If you want to pick your seat, that might be say $15. If you want water, that might be say $4. They charge for bags, they charge for more than one carry on luggage. They charge for snacks. I have even heard that recently they started charging to print your boarding pass for you.

We passed a health care law making in mandatory to purchase health insurance. I am not sure how I feel about that, but what I do not like is all of the "mandates" that you have to pay for in the law. We have to pay for Preventative care (not the worst idea, but could be an option). We have to pay for maternity, regardless if we are beyond our child-bearing years. We have to pay for the morning after pill, we have to pay for abortions. Now, I am not saying I am for or against abortion, I just do not think insurance should pay for it.

With Auto insurance, many states have what is called State minimum liability. The bank, if you have a loan, will make you have a certain amount of coverage as well. That said there are still a lot of optional services, such as car rental or towing. You can have more liability coverage or a higher collision deductible. You pay for the additional services, sometimes they do not add much to the premium, sometimes they do.

Spirit Airlines makes it affordable to get from one place to another, and then they charge for "add ons"

Some health plans are that way, where you can choose to add prescription coverage or doctor visits. That all adds to the premium. Something the government should look at, if they are going to keep the healthcare law. The current law does nothing to address costs, as a matter of fact is adds costs almost everywhere.

Why not allow us to have an ala cart plan?

There are still some companies who allow you to add and delete coverage, but by looks of the new law, many mandates will continue to add to the costs of insurance. I wonder if anyone at Health and Human Services has ever flown on Spirit Airlines?

Obama Administration Says Alternative Energy Is a Win-Win, But It Hasn't Been So Far, Has It?

We've been told that it is a win-win to invest in alternative energy; we will have cleaner air and employ 5 million plus Americans in new clean energy jobs. And so, the Obama Administration spent enormous sums of taxpayer's money to make this happen, investing in alternative energy companies and funding a little bit of research here and there. Unfortunately, most of the companies have filed bankruptcy, so we didn't get really any new jobs.

All the new jobs in energy have come from the fossil fuel sector - natural gas, oil, pipelines, and service companies, no thanks to the Obama Administration, which actually tried to overregulate much of the sector to either drive them out of business or raise the cost to give the advantage to the alternative energy companies which failed anyway. Okay so, let's talk shall we?

You see, it's not a win-win situation when people cheat, attempting to hijack the flows of commerce. And these sorts of things are not just happening here in the US, we have the EU issuing carbon rules for airliners, why? So they can sell more Airbuses to everyone! When the EU did the carbon trading scheme, immediately there was fraud, surprise, surprise? Wonder why?

We had the Obama Administration spend $90 billion of taxpayer's money to companies run by friends and politicians, campaign contributors, all crony capitalism - corruption in my opinion. So far, most have all failed. We've had increased regulations to boost the price of fossil fuels so the alternative energy could compete and then our government has purposely abused power to put companies out of business through regulation.

Coal plants putting in clean coal tech were not issued permits, sued on their EIRs and lost 100s of millions with those real industry solutions to clean the air. The alternative energy people saw this as a threat. So, what do I have to say to those who promote alternative energies now you ask?

If you want to bring on clean tech, then do it, compete, and prove your worth, don't hijack the flows of civilization, power, politics, money, capital, tax dollars, commerce, and labor to do it. That's a lie, and if you live a lie and promote corruption, that's wrong. Free markets are right, they are honest. Compete. Don't tell me, show me.

All I've been showed so far is dishonesty from the AGW crowd, the socialists promoting this, for instance; the German Solar industry funding our politicians through back doors. China's dumping of solar products onto our markets, and the alternative mass media propaganda is a non-stop industry sector in and of itself. Enough already; I am not a friend of corruption, do it right or go home. This is why, I often stand against this agenda, but would love to have cleaner air, and power.

So, for all the eco-entrepreneurs out there; go produce it and when you can compete, I will not only buy it, I will fund it (people like me), and I'll go back to work as an entrepreneur to make it happen.

As the coordinator for a think tank, I've seen the butcher job business plans come across my desk with promises, most of these plans are merely trying to cash in on the free-flow of government subsidies, tax credits, and guaranteed loans. Most of these plans aren't worth the paper they are written or the digital power point presentations for their own promotions. That's my view, what's yours?

Ranger Rick Magazine - For Kids Who Love Nature

What magazine should you get for your kids that they can enjoy the entire year? Like most kids, mine love nature. So after looking into things, I found that Ranger Rick Magazine might be areally good choice. The number one rated nature magazine for kids, Ranger Rick Magazine has garnered many awards. In addition, it is affordable and fun.

Dating back to 1988, Ranger Rick Magazine has received many awards and honors for their work as a nature magazine aimed at kids. In 1988 the magazine took home the EdPress Golden Lamp Award as the best overall educational magazine. In 1991, Ranger Rick Magazine was recognized as a National Magazine Award finalize for their special issue on frogs. EdPress awarded Ranger Rick again in 1992 with its Distinguished Achievement Award then with their Golden Lamp Honor Award in 1993; EdPress also honored the magazine in 1998, 2001, 2002, and 2003. In 1996 Ranger Rick Magazine got the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, and then did so again in 1999 and 2003. All of these are based on the work Ranger Rick Magazine has done for children and for nature.

Many parents will tell you that if you buy your child a $20 toy, he or she will likely have lost, broken, or grown tired of it within a month. However, for that same price, you can get a one year subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine, which is a monthly publication. Children will look forward to its arrival every month and if you have more than one kid, there will be competition to get to it first. It is better than a $20 in that they will play with it for a year, plus it is an educational publication. There are fun nature facts, activities and articles in each edition that children can appreciate and enjoy.

Ranger Rick Magazine is also a fantastic resource for improving reading skills. The children will enjoy reading it and the text is targeted at elementary children. They will grow their vocabulary with nature words and definitions that they can use. When students know something is useful to them, they are much more likely to retain the information.

If you have children who love animals and nature, then you may want to consider Ranger Rick Magazine as a gift for them. They can learn from it, improve their reading skills, and will actually enjoy it every month of the year. It will be the best $20 you have spent for them in terms of education [http://www.exeterdaily.com/category/home-news] and entertainment all wrapped into one.

AdSense Application Tips

Google AdSense can bring a lot of additional income from your website, but a simple search around on the Internet and you will see that getting approved is far from easy.

So what kind of things do you need to do to make sure that your application gets approved?

Well you need to have original content and lots of it. Typically if you are running a blog I would suggest that around 60 to 80 posts is a good idea and that they are all your own work. If you just cut and paste articles from another source on to your blog then it is highly unlikely that you will get approved as it will simply look like a made for AdSense site.

It is also a good idea to add an "About us" page, and put a brief bio of yourself up on it, as this shows that you are human and it is not just a spammy blog made with the sole intention of making money from ads.

Adding a "Contact us" page will not do any harm to your application either and will enable anyone from Google that reviews your page to check that the contact details you have applied with are the same as the ones on your website.

You also need to ensure that none of your content infringes any of Google AdSense's policies as you are not allowed any references to porn, violence, race hate etc. If your site has user-generated content then this is something that you will carefully need to manage, both for the initial application and continued compliance, to avoid a ban.

Your site also needs to look reasonably good visually and you should think "If I was an advertiser would I be happy seeing my advert on it?" If the answer is no, then you need to work on the look of your site until you are happy with it. That is the kind of thing that Google thinks about when deciding if your site should be approved for an AdSense account.

Lastly it is vital that you have an AdSense compliant privacy policy and this is one of the things that many website owners forget, yet it is mandatory that your site has one and this has been the case now for over two years. Fail to have one and your application can be rejected, or if you already have a site and it is found not to have one then it could result in a ban.

It may take you a little while to ensure that your site follows these guidelines, however taking the time to follow them is likely to see your AdSense account approved and not rejected. It is also worth noting that it is notoriously hard to get approval once your site has been rejected.