Man chews through belly-busting 20-lb. burger

21-year-old finishes meal in less than 5 hours, wins $400 and 3 T-shirts

The 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef is the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds. The mountain of beef is the product of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Clearfield.

Sciullo, 21, of Uniontown, said he was surprised he finished the sandwich Monday. "About three hours into it, things got tough," he said.

When asked what possessed him to eat a burger that big, Sciullo said: "I wanted to see if I could."

The burger included a bun, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish, pub owner Dennis Liegey said.

For completing the challenge in the under-five-hour time limit, Sciullo won $400, three T-shirts, a certificate "and a burger hangover, as I call it," Liegey said.

An outstanding plan!

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in
a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman

and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a ta x rate of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.

That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by
one of our candidates for President.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult US Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work." But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Kindest personal regards,

Birk

T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic

PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it's either good for a
laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!!

How the massive rescue package will affect you

Some will benefit from tax breaks, but impact on markets will take time

Four days after the Bush administration's financial rescue package ran off the rails in Congress, the House of Representatives gave the plan a second look and - after loading it up with a bunch of goodies - liked what they saw.

The plan, passed by the House and quickly signed into law by President Bush Friday, is supposed to jump-start the crippled credit markets and get the money flowing normally again to consumers, businesses, corporations and governments. But it remains to be seen whether it will work.

Here's a look at what may - or may not - happen next. 

Are my taxes going up to pay for this?
Over the long term nobody really knows, but in the short run, your taxes may actually go down. To get the bill passed, Congress loaded it up with more than $100 billion in tax breaks and other special provisions.

The biggest was a fix for the alternative minimum tax, a measure originally designed to make sure rich people paid their fair share. But over the years, millions of middle-income taxpayers have been mauled by the AMT beast. Many of those people will catch a break under the bailout bill.

Over the long run, though, those tax breaks will have to be made up with tax increases or spending reductions elsewhere. For decades, the rest of the world has been happy to loan its hard-earned savings to Uncle Sam to help our government fund its deficit spending. Those days are rapidly coming to a close.

Taxpayers also could be on the hook for some - but probably not all - of the $700 billion being used to buy up bad mortgage-backed investments, which the Treasury calls "troubled assets."

How, exactly, is this going to work?
That's still the $700 billion question. What Congress has done is to set up what amounts to a government-run hedge fund to buy up troubled securities that nobody else will buy because it is virtually impossible to figure out what they're worth.

The reason is that no one can predict how many more homeowners will default on the mortgages backing up these investments. Once they do default, it's even harder to predict how much the house backing the mortgage is worth.

Under the plan, the Treasury will buy these securities and hold them until credit and housing markets settle down, hoping that their value will increase. If so, Uncle Sam will make money. But no one has explained how the government will come up with the right price. Treasury officials have deflected any questions about what they call "implementation issues."

In theory, the program will jump-start a market for these "trouble assets," and private investors will then finish the job when they see what Treasury pays for the paper.

Are we buying a $700 billion 'maybe'?

Just by seeking aid through the government's bailout, financial companies could be putting themselves at risk. And we wouldn't know for months whether the plan was working.

What if they gave a $700 billion bailout and nobody came?

It's a real possibility. And it would doom the plan to rescue Wall Street with $700 billion in taxpayer money.

All the hearings and late-night meetings have focused on how to improve the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The modifications being considered would indeed do a better job of protecting taxpayers, ensuring someone was watching while the Treasury forked out the moola and giving taxpayers some stake in the companies they'd be bailing out

The proposals being discussed now, like the original plan, pretty much assume it'd work for the government to buy the busted assets that now choke the financial markets -- and that all that's left to question are details like how much the government would pay and who would manage the portfolio.

Throwing $700 billion at Wall Street, everyone seems to believe, would restore confidence in the financial markets, repair the balance sheets of U.S. banks and other financial institutions, and get the great national borrowing-and-lending machine back up and running so the economy would start creating jobs again.

But the odds are no better than 50-50 that even an improved plan could accomplish that near-term fix -- to say nothing of reforming the financial markets to avoid a recurrence of this crisis or a similar one. I expect Wall Street to cheer and global stock markets to soar if and when a deal is announced. Stocks could even rally through the end of the year.

"Reborn babies" are disconcertingly lifelike dolls that are created from vinyl and painted by hand. While popular with doll collectors, they are also sought after by grieving parents and nostalgic grandparents who are perhaps looking to fill an emotional void. Do you think this is a macabre and disturbing trend? Or do you think the dolls are works of art with the potential to heal though "cuddle therapy"? Share your thoughts here.

My day today as been ok have had some strange things happen at home and at work.

Found out mu 65 year old neighbor has been teling people that he thinks my 12 year old daugther is sexy so I really want to go home

and jack him up if you know what I mean.  Most of the customer today have been ok had a couple that was hard to get along with.