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nike dunk shoesI have been 50 years old for about ten weeks now, and already I have received five identical invitations to join AARP, the group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons. This wasteful barrage would be enough to make me hate AARP, except for the fact that I started hating AARP 30 years ago and never stopped. Let me tell you why. AARP is a tremendously powerful organization dedicated to taking money from people who don’t have much, and giving it to people who do. Now, before my fellow codgers start spitting their Metamucil, let’s remain calm long enough to study the facts. Take a look at Table 720 of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States. What this non-partisan, dry-as-dust document shows is the distribution of wealth by age group. As you might expect if you gave it much thought—or if you happened to study the silver-haired clientele of most luxury resorts, beachfront communities, cruise ships and five-star restaurants—the average net worth of Americans starts low and rises steadily through life. It reaches a peak among the cohort 65 to 74 years old before dropping again as the very old and very wealthy begin giving their money away.hermes birkin (You can tell that the post-75 drop mostly effects the very rich because it doesn’t produce a correspondingly sharp drop in the median level of wealth.) Anyway, according to Table 720, the average net worth among the 65-to-74 crowd was about $1 million per household in 2007, just before the crash. Given the drop in home values, it may be a bit less now, but it’s still a heck of a lot richer than the younger demos. Indeed, the median net worth of Americans over 55 is roughly two-and-a-half times as high as the median net worth of adults younger than 55. And yet, when everyone else can see that the federal budget is out of whack, AARP is all about spending more tax dollars on old folks, whether they need it or not. And what AARP wants, it usually gets, because AARP is among the most aggressive lobbies in the United States. Over the past half-dozen years, it has spent at least $20 million per year—and often much more—to shape government policy.replica coach handbags They’ve been at it for decades, spending from a nearly bottomless wallet filled with licensing fees they charge to insurance companies eager for the AARP endorsement. This influence helps explain why the federal budget has become a powerful engine for taking money from younger people and giving it to older, richer people. As this week’s warning from Standard & Poor’s made clear, this isn’t just a matter of current taxes paid by working Americans to support retired Americans. The cost of providing a safety net to people who don’t need one is saddling younger Americans with crushing debt and threatens to make their hard-earned dollars less valuable. They pay directly and pay again indirectly. AARP doesn’t seem to care. It has been a driving force behind two of the most expensive wealth transfers in recent history. In 2003, the organization backed the GOP’s unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan, which was sold with a price tag of $400 billion over 10 years. Coach BootsAccording to government financial statements, this program will cost more than $7 trillion above anticipated revenue over the next 75 years. Then in 2009, AARP threw its weight behind the Democrats’ health care plan—thanks in part to another giveaway tucked into the mega-bill. Under the 2003 drug plan, seniors who aren’t indigent were asked to shoulder the cost of their drugs above $2,830 and below $6,440. Along with deductibles and co-pays, this meant that seniors might be on the hook for roughly $4,500 a year. Beyond that, they were largely protected. Medicare rightly shields retirees from catastrophic drug costs—that’s what insurance is for, after all. coach outletWell, AARP couldn’t live with that, so its lobbyists began demanding an end to the “doughnut hole.” The Democrats’ bill gave it to them—putting another $135 billion on the tab.

cheap nike shoes storeTIME contract photographer Yuri Kozyrev is in eastern Libya, documenting the battle between Gaddafi loyalists and rebel forces. Though he’s been covering conflict for years, he said this is the most dangerous place he’s worked. “It’s like Russian roulette,” he said. “Nobody knows where the bomb will fall.” There were “helicopters shooting at us, rockets — it was heavy. There was no place to hide.” Kozyrev spoke to TIME as Libyan rebels, emboldened by allied airstrikes, pushed westward toward Sert, birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi. “When we reached the western gate outside of Ajdabiyah, the rebels told us tamam, good all the way to Brega. We followed the rebel trucks to Ras Lanouf. birkin bag As we pushed forward, more rebels stayed behind, camping on the highway.” “We have been chasing the rebels all day,” he wrote Sunday, from an abandoned, looted hotel in Ras Lanouf. The highway behind them was littered with crippled tanks, trucks, cars and stores of unspent ammunition. replica coach handbags“Gaddafi’s troops appear to have left in a hurry,” he wrote, “abandoning ammunition and disappearing without a fight.” However, the tables turned Tuesday as the rebels, pounded by Gaddafi missile fire, fled east – again. Coach Scarves“Gaddafi’s troops have been moving fast,” Kozyrev wrote in an email Wednesday. “They drive in trucks now. It will be hard to hit them by air strikes – if there will be any.”

nike dunk shoesForget the allegations that former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his family stashed billions of dollars abroad, much of it in Swiss bank accounts and real estate in London and Manhattan. The ailing Mubarak, reported to be suffering from heart problems, may be much closer to his money as he recuperates in the presidential suite of a pyramid-shaped hotel in the glitzy, sun-splashed Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh. Western diplomats and law-enforcement officials tell NEWSWEEK that many of the secrets of the Mubarak family’s wealth may be revealed along the palm-fringed streets of this town—Egypt’s equivalent to Orlando or Las Vegas, where sprawling Western-style luxury hotels, shopping centers, and Starbucks and McDonald ’s outlets stretch for miles along the coastline of the southern Sinai Peninsula. “You can be certain that—directly and indirectly, legally and illegally—the Mubarak family, especially Mubarak’s sons, have shared in the profits of the boom in Sharm al-Sheikh,” said a European diplomat who was based in Egypt until recently. hermes birkin bag“The family’s cronies own so much of it.” Prosecutors have just gotten started, but they have plenty of material to work with—including evidence emerging almost daily of how Mubarak’s government awarded lucrative contracts and real-estate deals to his closest friends. Investigators appear to be paying special attention to a multibillion-dollar natural-gas deal with Israel handed to a company run by a man often described as Mubarak’s best friend. The 82-year-old Mubarak, who preferred to spend his time in Sharm al-Sheikh instead of smoggy, overcrowded Cairo in his final years in office, fled to the Red Sea resort town once and for all after he was forced from power in February. He was rushed to a modern tourist hospital last week after complaining of chest pains that began—conveniently, perhaps—as he was being interrogated by Egyptian anti-corruption prosecutors. cheap coach handbags Investigators cut the interview short but also announced that Mubarak is now effectively under house arrest. (He was transferred to a military hospital late last week.) Over the years, Mubarak has made his home in Sharm al-Sheikh in a spacious villa in a large beachfront hotel complex, close to a championship golf course and hidden from street view by 30-foot-high whitewashed walls. Among his neighbors: Bakr bin Laden, a half-brother of Osama and scion of the family’s multibillion-dollar construction fortune, whose home is much larger and flashier than the ousted Egyptian leader’s. When the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt from Israeli control in 1982 under the Camp David peace accords, “Sharm,” as it is known to many Western tourists, was a sleepy fishing village boasting three small Israeli-owned hotels and a snack hut. Coach Boots Today, there are nearly 200 hotels and resorts, many of them owned by close friends and confidants of Mubarak, whose government made development of the tourism industry in the southern Sinai a national economic priority.

cheap nike shoes storeAs stoners toke today, April 20 — on what has become an unofficial holiday celebrating all things marijuana-related — there's good news and bad for those who smoke weed. The good? Support for marijuana legalization has risen steadily since 1990, when only 16% of participants in the General Social Survey supported adding buds to Budweiser on the national menu of legal intoxicants. Now, 45% of the public agrees — and the percentage in favor of freeing the weed only gets higher in younger members of the population. (More on TIME.com: "Why Pot Smokers Are Paranoid") The bad? New research by a scientist who works for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that growing indoor cannabis consumes about 1% of the nation's energy — making reefer is not exactly a green indulgence. birkin bag In fact, in terms of emissions of planet-destroying greenhouse gases, it's the bad-tripping equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million cars. Also, despite being illegal, marijuana is believed to be America's largest cash crop, valued at $40 billion annually. The ugly? There's still a legal requirement that every news story on this subject contain bad pot-related jokes. No word from our editorial masters as to when this edict will be lifted. (More on TIME.com: "Medical Marijuana Sales Grow to Rival Viagra's: New Report") replica coach handbagsBTW, if you want to know the origins of "420," check out this great piece by the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim. Hint: the Grateful Dead are involved, police codes are not, and it has nothing to do with Hitler's birthday.

nike sb shoes This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in the leading Italian daily La Stampa. VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI isn't alone in his apartment at the Vatican. Four "guardian angels" help him, and recently there has been an addition to the personnel at his service. For the past six years, the Pontiff's Vatican apartment has been run by members of the Memores Domini, a lay association whose members practice obedience, poverty and chastity, and who live in a climate of silence and common prayer. (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI visiting America.) Loredana is the queen of the kitchen, which was renovated in 2005 with onyx countertops and gray shelves. She prepares meals on a big marble table for Benedict, who turns 84 on Saturday, and any invited guests. hermes birkin bagPasta dishes are her specialty, including pasta with salmon and zucchini, or rigatoni with prosciutto. She keeps in touch with the Vatican supermarket and chooses which vegetables to get from the garden of Castel Gandolfo, a papal retreat in the hills south of Rome. (See Pictures of Papal Style) Carmela helps in the kitchen, where she specializes in cakes the Pope has appreciated since his days as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. His favorites are strudel, tiramisu and tarts. Carmela also tidies the Pope's bedroom and looks after his wardrobe. (See the top 10 religion stories.) Cristina handles the apartment's chapel, where the Pope celebrates Mass every morning, and pitches in with some secretarial work. Finally, Rossella, the latest addition, handles the Pope's archives and the rooms of Benedict's two secretaries, Georg Gänswein and Alfred Xuereb. A social worker in a small community in northern Italy, Rossella was transferred to the Vatican to replace a woman who died in November after being run over by a car in Rome. A former colleague in her community, Ornella Galvani, describes Rossella as "gentle and always ready to help people." Until 2005, under John Paul II, the papal apartment was run by Polish nuns. The memores aren't nuns, do not wear religious garments, are laypeople and live in the world. But this isn't the first time that lay housekeepers are allowed inside the papal apartment. Coach Op Art HandbagsIn 1922, upon his election, Pope Pius XI demanded that his housekeeper follow him inside the Vatican. When he was told this might seem inappropriate and had no precedent, Pius cut it short: "I'll be the first one then," he was said to have responded. (See more international news in Global Spin.) Also part of Benedict's pontifical family is his aide Paolo Gabriele, who waits at the table and helps the Pope during trips and public events. A typical "Benedictine" day: The Pope's day begins at 7 a.m. with Mass; one hour later breakfast is served. At 9 a.m. the Pope goes into his private study, the one where he recites the Angelus prayer every Sunday, speaking from the window overlooking St. Peter's Square. hermes birkinHe does his work in the study, where another consecrated laywoman, Birgit, helps him in her role as secretary and typist — she can read Benedict's tiny handwriting better than anyone else. (See pictures of the Path of Pope Benedict XVI) Following Birgit in the study is Gänswein, the Pope's secretary, to discuss the day's agenda. Typically, the Pontiff works until 11 a.m., when audiences, or meetings, begin. At 1:15 p.m. lunch is served, with the secretaries and the memores sitting at the table with Benedict. After a brief stroll in the roof garden, the Pope rests, to return to his private study at 4 p.m. He says the rosary and then resumes his work. After a prayer, dinner is served at 7:30 p.m., in time to watch the 8 p.m. newscast on RAI, the Italian state broadcaster. An hour later, the Pope says good night and retires, though he works some more before going to sleep. The people surrounding him are in effect a real family for the Pope. Coach Colette HandbagsIn his recent book, Light of the World, Benedict said he hardly ever watches TV, though he made an exception when he watched with his "family" old black-and-white movies of Don Camillo and Peppone, Italian comedies portraying the playful clashes between the communist mayor of a small town and the local priest in postwar Italy.

cheap gucci outlet storeBummed you can't make it out to Indio for Coachella this weekend? Lucky for you it's 2011, and nothing of cultural significance ever happens that's not instantly livestreamed on the Internet. Coachella's YouTube channel, sponsored by Wrigley's 5 Gum, is probably the easiest place to watch the performances live. With three different channels, the livestreams capture a nice variety of acts, ranging from legends like Lauryn Hill, upstarts like Gayngs, the recently reunited Death from Above 1979, and even headlining mainstays like The Strokes. If you'd rather not use YouTube, Facebook will have a similar deal utilizing the same three cameras, but there's a three-tiered process to gaining access (involving a "Like" button, a "Share" button, and "Yeah, that's where I live"). U-Stream will be hosting CoachellaOasis about a mile away from the festival site, which will feature artist interviews by Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin (if you're into that sort of thing), and there may even be scantily clad celebrities bingeing in the background. nike dunk shoes (edit: Looks like that feed was from a dead 2010 link. Sorry about that. After flipping through U- Stream, it doesn't appear that there's anything worthwhile, unless you feel like watching opinionated video bloggers weigh in on the party. Which is cool, too.) Of course, there's always the Official Coachella website, but you already knew that. Gucci BeltsSure, you won't have the singong crowds, the zany freakshows, or even the occasional supermodel walking by, but hey, look on the bright side — at least you'll have air conditioning.