Strange News

75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

What a year 2012 has been! The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class. It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening. If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode. Just "tweaking" things slightly is not going to fix our economy. We need a fundamental change in direction.

Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic "adjustment" that America has ever gone through. We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones. Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion. So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be "just fine", just show them these numbers. They are a good summary of the problems that the U.S. economy is currently facing.

The following are 75 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe...

#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps. That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that "things are getting better".

#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of "Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming."

#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.

#5 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.

#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.

#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America "say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment."

#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline. According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration...

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.

#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were "middle income" back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

#21 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

#22 According to one survey, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

#23 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#24 The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.

#25 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#26 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

#27 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. Overall, there are almost 80 different "means-tested welfare programs" that the federal government is currently running.

#28 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

#29 Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans "not in the labor force" has increased by nearly 8.5 million. Something seems really "off" about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans "not in the labor force" only rose by about 2.5 million.

#30 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#31 According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

#32 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#33 Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#34 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#35 At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs.

#36 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#37 Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#38 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#39 One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.

#40 In the city of Detroit today, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty, and close to 50 percent of all adults are functionally illiterate.

#41 It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#42 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#43 If you can believe it, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.

#44 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#45 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

#46 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#47 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#48 The U.S. tax code is now more than 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare's works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

#49 According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.

#50 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#51 2012 was the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.

#52 Experts are telling us that global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.

#53 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

#55 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.

#56 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

#57 Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

#58 The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans combined.

#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

#60 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#61 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#62 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#63 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#64 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#65 U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.

#66 Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

#67 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#68 During fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget was spent on entitlements.

#69 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#70 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#71 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds. As I wrote about recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#72 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately$328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#73 Amazingly, the U.S. national debt is now up to 16.3 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#74 During the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated about as much debt as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.

#75 Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was originally created back in 1913.

Please share this article with as many people as you can. Time is running out, and we need to wake up as many people as possible.

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

Nuclear test veteran who flew through a mushroom cloud

It was the first time he had ever had to do so. But then, it hadn't exactly been a typical flight.

That morning he and his crew had watched Britain's biggest nuclear bomb explosion. They had then
deliberately flown their plane through the radioactive mushroom cloud it created.

Their job was to measure how successful the explosion had been.

When they got back, they were taken to a decontamination area, where they stripped off, handed in their radioactivity recording equipment and scrubbed themselves in the shower for half an hour.

"After that we all felt like a few beers, and that's exactly what we did," Pasquini says.

It was during the time of the Cold War, and although Britain's status as a world power was starting to fade, in 1947 it took the the decision to join the US and Russia as the third country capable of producing nuclear weapons.

In total, Pasquini flew through two mushroom clouds and saw three other nuclear tests from the ground

Then 60 years ago, in October 1952, Britain conducted its first nuclear weapons test, exploding a bomb inside the frigate, HMS Plym.

Others followed, but it was the nine tests - codenamed Grapple X, Y and Z - over the Pacific Ocean between May 1957 and September 1958 that confirmed Britain as a state with a nuclear weapon capable of obliterating entire cities.

The hydrogen bomb that Pasquini and his crew saw that day was Grapple Y which - at three megatons - is still the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested by the British.

He had no idea what he would be taking part in when he was sitting in a crew room back in England and he got the call to go to Australia to be a part of the 76 Squadron.

"I kicked it around for a few hours and thought, sure, Australia sounds interesting. I gave the guy a call again and said 'what are they doing?' and he said there's a Canberra squadron there and I said 'what do they do?' and he said, 'they do various things - they will tell you what they do when you get there."

I think I saw the face of God for the first time - it was just incredible, it blew our minds”
Joseph Pasquini Former RAF navigator

Radioactive particles

And so it wasn't until he reached Adelaide that Pasquini was briefed about the nuclear bomb tests.

"I didn't like it, but it was too late at that particular time," he says. "This was a kind of experimental situation and basically everyone that was involved in the tests was a guinea pig."

The military personnel involved in the tests were based on Christmas Island, which is a small dot on the map in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On the day of the test, Pasquini remembers being woken at about 02:00 in the morning, having breakfast and going to a briefing. He and the rest of his crew were in their aircraft by dawn. The weather was perfect, with only a few puffs of clouds in the sky.

The outside of the aircraft, he says, had been coated in a white wax that was supposed to capture any radioactive particles that could be washed off later.

Nuclear weapons

Nuclear bombs have only been used twice in history, both by the US on Japan

The first, on 6 August 1945, killed more than 100,000 people in the city of Hiroshima

Three days later, the second killed at least 40,000 people in Nagasaki

Was it right for the Americans to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

'Bomb falling'

His crew was one of five ordered to take samples of the bomb after it had exploded.

Flying at 46,000 feet, he says they were excited about what they were about to see.

"We were listening to the bomb aircraft counting down to drop time. As soon as they said 'bomb gone', 'bomb falling', we had to fly away."

They were about 35 miles away from where the bomb was dropped.

"It detonated at 8,000 feet. We had our eyes closed, but even with our eyes closed we could see the light through our eye lids. It took 49 seconds for the light to stop.

"As soon as that happened, we immediately turned back. Fortunately being in the navigating position, I had a little window and I watched the whole thing develop and spread and then start climbing.

"I think I saw the face of God for the first time. It was just incredible, it blew our minds away. These were things that had never been seen before, certainly not by English people."

When the mushroom cloud had passed over them, Pasquini looked up at the window above him and had another surprise - radioactive rain.

"It's the only time I've experienced rain at 46,000 feet," he says.

It was then that the plane's internal measuring equipment maxed out, Pasquini says, exposing them all to high dosages of radioactivity.

He went on to fly through another mushroom cloud during the Grapple Z tests, and saw three other nuclear bomb tests from the ground, having been stopped from flying after receiving more than the recommended dose of radiation.

Feeling of betrayal

Now 79 years old and living in the US, Pasquini has battled cancer seven times.

The Londoner attributes his own illnesses and those of his children to the effects of the radiation exposure, as well as the cancers and illnesses of other nuclear veterans and their children.

The Ministry of Defence says that the cancer rates in the veterans of the nuclear tests are no worse than in normal members of the population, and a group of veterans recently lost claims for compensation at the Supreme Court because their case had been brought to court too late.

About 750 of the veterans and their relatives so far have decided to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Pasquini isn't one of them. The Official Secrets Act had meant that he wasn't able to speak about his experiences to anyone.

But after hearing about the cause of his fellow veterans and their families three years ago, he made contact and gave evidence to help them with their case.

Unlike the British government, the US authorities have paid compensation to their veterans of nuclear testing.
Pasquini feels betrayed that the British government hasn't recognised their sacrifice in the same way.

"We were doing it and we were all ready to die," he says.

4 firefighters shot, 2 dead, after responding to blaze - U.S. News

Four firefighters were shot -- two fatally -- as they responded to a large fire early Monday in Webster, N.Y., in the northwestern part of the state.
When firefighters arrived on the scene of the blaze around 6 a.m. ET, they were fired upon by one or more shooters, police and fire officials said.
The gunfire forced the firefighters to flee. The two firefighters who were hit but survived are being treated at a local hospital for their wounds.
SWAT teams are on the ground and helicopters are hovering in the air.
“I’m not aware of anything like this happening in Webster, obviously not a firefighter being fired upon,” Webster Fire Marshal Rob Boutillier said, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

U.S. Adults Estimate That 25% of Americans Are Gay or Lesbian

reality:
New survey: 3.4% of U.S. adults are LGBT

Give the Gift of Truth | LifeSiteNews.com

sick people.. and I'm not speaking about that girl

TSA claims sick girl tests positive for bomb residue - Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

DALLAS -

A 12-year-old girl in a wheelchair was detained for nearly an hour at DFW Airport while trying to get through security.

Shelbi Walser was traveling with her mother on Sunday for a trip that's become routine. The seventh grader lives with a genetic bone disorder and was on her way to Florida for another rare medical treatment.

She's never had a problem flying, but this time Transportation Security Administration agents claimed she had bomb residue on her hands.

"It was frightening. I kinda got mad," she said.

The agents would not allow Tammy Daniels to get close to her crying daughter so she started recording on her cellphone.

"Are you kidding me? We're going to get you out of here in a second, okay?" she said in the video.

"I said, 'What do you mean? What did you test her for?' 'Oh she tested positive for explosive residue.' Okay… at that point you would think they would test her wheelchair, but they did nothing. Everything just seemed to spiral out," Daniels said.

The mother and daughter said a bomb specialist showed up and several agents began talking on their cellphones all while other passengers were speaking up in support of the girl.

"There were people saying, 'Really? You're going to do this to her? Y'all have to take her somewhere private where she's not out in the public and everyone can see her,'" Shelbi said.

Daniels said the agents then suddenly told them they were free to go and offered no explanation about it being a false alarm or anything.

"It was a little much. I don't know what to learn from this one. Somebody, they need to go back to the drawing board on this one," she said.

The TSA responded to questions about the encounter with a statement that said in part, "TSA's mission is to safely, efficiently and respectfully screen nearly two million passengers each day at airports nationwide. We are sensitive to the concerns of passengers who were not satisfied with their screening experience and we invite those individuals to provide feedback to TSA through a variety of channels."

Riot Training - The Riot Training Experience Day. Book Online! | Wish.co.uk

There is nothing more embarrassing than turning up to police a riot and realising you haven’t grasped basic etiquette. Worry no more, as we now offer the UK's first Riot Training Experience.

In this full throttle experience, the mysteries, intrigues and fundamental steps of basic riot control will be revealed. Who runs at who, good/bad things to wave about and which way up to hold your riot shield.

The horror of Meth: Before-and-after pictures reveal shocking transformation in faces of users hooked on deadly drug

A new anti-drug advertisement shows the devastating physical transformation addicts experience after years of meth use.

The photos, that show a shocking Dorian Gray-like deterioration, were compiled from mug shots of drug users that were arrested repeatedly over the years.

The continued drug use caused horrific damage to the drug users' skin with sores and scarring - that can be caused by uncontrollable scratching during a hallucination when the addict imagines bugs are crawling under their skin.

Users also progressively began to look gaunt, brought on by malnutrition as the drug suppresses a person's appetite and the body can begin to consume muscle tissue due to the lack of proper nutrition.

The concept for this kind of ad was actually conceived in 2004, by Deputy Bret King from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon.

The officer began tracking mugshots of people who were brought in to police custody more than once.

Over the years he began to witness the physical transformation that occurred in methamphetamine addicts.

He decided to compile the photos for an anti-drug campaign in December 2004 - to educate children on the realities of the drug.

'I've made it my business to go through the mug shot system every day. I'll admit it: I'm looking for the most extreme faces,' he told The Oregonian in 2004 about the project.

The recent video and pictorial from Rehabs.com comes after a 2011 photo spread from the Oregon police, 'From Drugs to Mugs,' that shows the impact of all hard drugs including cocaine, heroin and meth.

'Everyone experiments at college or school and I want From Drugs to Mugs to show kids that everyone in those pictures started on cannabis, they didn't just dive head first into heroin.'

'So I ask the students at schools to look at these people and think about their actions, otherwise that could end up being you,' Deputy King said in 2011.

The Multnomah Sheriff's Office has also produced a heart-wrenching educational documentary to aid in its fight against young people turning to drugs.

'I want to be able to illustrate the connection between that first decision to use drugs and then down the road when it's a horrible mess,' King said.

Expanding their presentation, which is to be aired in high schools across America, the law enforcement officer and his team interviewed 300 adult inmates at Multnomah County's Inverness Jail.

In the 48-minute video, Drug Enforcement Administration officers are interviewed about how they find and arrest drug abusers.

Deputy King added testimony from Multnomah County jail inmates who had been arrested in burglaries and other crimes that have been linked to drug use.

It is Deputy King's hope that the video will show teens how easy it is to fall into drug habits.

Warning: disturbing images

Gary Norton, 75, who became a woman in sex change operation 23 years ago wants to be a man again | Mail Online

A pensioner is pleading with the NHS to turn her from a woman back into a man, after realising the sex change operation she had 23 years ago was a huge mistake.
RAF veteran Gary Norton, 75, underwent a full male to female gender reassignment - but says it left her trapped in the wrong body.
She's now ditched her wardrobe of women's clothes to live as a man again and is on the waiting list for a mastectomy.
The pensioner, who is legally and still physically a woman, says she is desperate to return to her birth sex before it is too late.

Gary has extended a desperate apology to her family, who disowned her after they discovered her secret life
Gary, who changed her name to Gillian after her wife and four children disowned her, says she knew the sex change was a mistake when she grew sick of doing her hair and make up and continued to be attracted to straight women.
She says: 'I'm a red-blooded man and always have been. I still can't believe this happened to me. I should never have been given the op. I tried to make a success of it, what else could I do?
'But I've been living a lie. The sex change was a huge mistake.
'I was vulnerable and I was given poor advice which has ruined my life. I don't want this to happen to anyone else.'
Gary, of Coventry, is pleading with doctors to turn her back into a man, claiming she should never have been operated on.
But her local Primary Care Trust have so far refused to fund a reversal.

Gary wants to warn others considering the operation and apologise to her family for the decision to change genders

Gary said she tried to embrace her new life by wearing clothes and make-up - but realised she had never wanted to be a woman
Now she wants to warn others considering the operation and extend a desperate apology to her family who have disowned her.
Gary says: 'Having a sex change was the biggest mistake of my life. It has left me isolated from my children and feeling like a social misfit. I would do anything to see them again.
'I'm lonely because I want a relationship with a woman but I can't have a physical relationship because I've got no equipment.
'I want to advise others to think twice, it's one heck of a mistake to make and as I have found out there is no going back.'
Gary's horror story began when she sought help for depression from her GP after being made redundant.
During the meeting she admitted to dressing in her wife's clothes for a secret thrill. She says she now realizes this was as far as she ever wanted to go.
But she claims her GP concluded she could have been depressed because she wanted to be a woman and advised her to start taking hormone pills.

After 23 miserable years spent as a woman Gary said she donated all of her dresses to a charity shop and stopped taking hormone pills
Gary says: 'I was desperate to be happy so I did as he said and started taking the pills. Before I knew it my beard had stopped growing and I grew breasts.
'I was fascinated and hoped feeling like a woman would make me feel better.'
But Gary didn't tell her wife of 25 years and their four children. ' I dressed as a woman in secret but in public nobody guessed. I knew they would be horrified and was too afraid to tell them.'
'My daughter got married months after I started taking the pills and I gave her away terrified that somebody would notice the father of the bride had grown breasts.
'Of course I bound them tightly under my shirt and prayed nobody would spot them.'
Six months on Gary's marriage ended in 1986 without her wife guessing the secret. It was only after she moved out that she found a box of women's clothes in the loft belonging to Gary.

Gary wants to have his procedure reversed, saying that he has been a 'red-blooded man' all along and the procedure left him feeling confused and upset
She says: 'I got a call from my son telling me they were all disgusted and wanted nothing more to do with me.
'I tried to call and wrote to explain but they never spoke to me again.'
Meanwhile her GP had referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed Gary as suffering from gender identity disorder and suggested she consider a sex change.
'I went along with it because I trusted them and thought they must be right even if I had never considered myself trapped in the wrong body before. Looking back I think all the female hormones had fuddled my mind.'
Now working as an architect she kept his secret by dressing as a man during the day right up until the surgery.
But on the morning of the operation in London in April 1989 Gary started to panic.
'I put it down to nerves, but even in the operating theatre a voice in my head said it was a mistake, but I felt it was too late to back out. I had gone too far. The next thing I knew I woke up a woman.'

She said the operation had essentially left her a lesbian and she has struggled with relationships ever since
But to her horror when she looked in the mirror, she didn't feel happy or content, just upset and more confused.
'I did my best to embrace it; I bought bikinis and nice dresses. I spent time on my hair and make up and always had lovely manicured nails.
'I wrote to my children to tell them, I hoped they would accept me but they didn't.'
'I was so lonely, especially because I thought when I was a female I might be attracted to men, but I still only fancied women and always have done.
'The operation had essentially left me a lesbian, something I had never considered and wasn't happy about.'
Within the first year Gary had grown sick of doing her hair and make up and even hated dressing in women's clothes full time.
'It was all so fussy and time consuming. It was then it hit me, I hadn't wanted to be a woman - I just liked dressing up as one from time to time for a thrill and it should never have gone any further.
'It was devastating. I was a man trapped in a woman's body and I was stuck with it. It was too late to do anything about it. I couldn't believe I had gone so far.

The pensioner is warning others about the procedure after his experience
In 1990 one year after the operation she wrote to her psychiatrist for help saying the operation had been a mistake and asked if she could have it reversed.
'He replied to say I needed to get on with it and embrace life as woman and make a success of it.
'What choice did I have?'
In the years that followed she took up modelling and dance classes, but no matter what she did Gary never felt like a woman.
'I passed well as a woman and those who knew said they all thought I had been born that way.
'But I always felt it was an act. I was pretending waiting for it to feel 'right' but it never did.
Eventually after 23 miserable years she had had enough of living a lie and took all of her women's clothes to the charity shop.
Last year she stopped taking pills to let her facial hair grow back and started dressing as Gary again.
'My breasts remained so I covered them up with baggy tops. I looked like a man again and felt like a man again. The relief was indescribable.
'I knew I wanted to the man I had been born in every sense and went to my GP to enquire about a reversal. I told him the operation had been a mistake. In my mind I was misdiagnosed and should not have been operated on.
'He prescribed testosterone and recommended me for a mastectomy. But he wasn't sure what could be done about my sexual organs.
'He wrote to the PCT but they said no funding would be available for a reversal.
'It's left me trapped. I date women but once they find out I have a female body it always ends.
'All I can hope is that my children read this and understand what I have been through. I'm so sorry that I ever went ahead with it. Having a sex change was the biggest mistake of my life and it's cost me dearly.
'Having to spend the rest of my days in the wrong body is bad enough, but it's nothing compared to the pain I feel for not knowing my children.'

43 People You Won't Believe Actually Exist

Lockheed CEO-Elect Kubasik Fired Over Improper Relationship With Subordinate

There was a lot of action in the defense sector Friday afternoon. Just a few hours after reports surfaced that CIA chief David Petraeus resigned because of an extramarital affair, Lockheed Martin announced CEO-elect Christopher Kubasik resigned due to a “close personal relationship with a subordinate employee.”
Kubasik was set to become Lockheed’s chief executive in January, replacing incumbent Robert Stevens. But an internal investigation revealed an improper relationship with an employee, which led to the board asking and receiving Kubasik’s resignation immediately. Marillyn Hewson, executive vice president of Electronic Systems, will take his spot.

“While I am deeply disappointed and saddened by Chris’ actions, which have been inconsistent with our values and standards, our swift response to his improper conduct demonstrates our unyielding commitment to holding every employee accountable for their actions,” said Stevens, adding “we have a strong leadership team and a robust succession plan that allowed the board and me to react quickly and appropriately to this situation. Marillyn is an exceptional leader with impeccable credentials and deep knowledge of our business, customers, shareholders and employees.

With the defense industry at a crossroads in the aftermath of the Presidential election, awaiting resolution of the fiscal cliff and the future of their relationship with the government, the sudden move at Lockheed comes as a shock. Earlier on Friday, news of former General David Petraeus’ resignation also shocked the sector. Reports indicated the highly reputed General, and up until then CIA chief, tendered his resignation to President Obama citing an extramarital affair, according to NBC News.

Lockheed hasn’t confirmed the exact nature of the “close personal relationship” Kubasik had with a subordinate employee, but he’s hardly the first chief executive to lose his job for it. A few years ago, Hewlett-Packard chief Mark Hurd resigned after being accused of sexual harassment by former actress, reality-TV personality, and HP marketing consultant Jodie Fisher. And in 2012, Best Buy founder and chairman Richard Schulze was forced to resign, accused of covering up an affair between former CEO Brian Dunn and a young, female employee.

be ready to laugh a lot..

When Catalan magazine editors Marta Sibina and Albano Dante created a YouTube video to publicly shame Catalan health-care adviser Josep Maria Via, they were fined 10,000 euro for defamation.

Not to be shouted down by Spain’s libel laws, the two responded by creating yet another video explaining why they were in the right.

In the original video, called the “Greatest theft in the history of Catalonia”, the pair decried what they see as “a lack of transparency in Catalonia’s public health-care system” and the apparent mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.
(Here’s Part 1 … there’s also a Part 2.)

After being fined for libel Oct. 23, they published a follow-up video in which Sibina and Dante say an independent audit confirmed their claims and found “enormous chaos” in the region’s hospitals, including 209,000 euro in clandestine payments to a local member of parliament.

They added that the libel fine poses a significant hardship to the couple, who run the Catalan Cafè amb Llet magazine independently.

“10,000 euro is a serious blow to a publication like ours, with only two workers who live exclusively off the publicity from local businesses who support us. We receive no subsistence from the government — no public money whatsoever.”

They end with this pledge:
“We want it to be absolutely clear that, far from shutting up, we will continue speaking out against the enormous level of opacity that shrouds our public health-care system.”

GlobalVoices reports that on Twitter, the hashtag #MésCafèAmbLlet (#MoreCafèAmbLlet) has been used in defense of the editors, as well as others like #volemlesdades (#WeWantTheData).

The allegations of corruption come at a sensitive time for the Catalan government, as regional leader Artur Mas has called for an early election Nov. 25 and seeks to gain an absolute majority to fight for Catalan independence.

Want to be Hungarian? Buy some bonds

* Ruling Fidesz proposes offering residency for major investors
* Condition is buying at least 250,000 euros worth of 5-yr bonds
* Chinese investors specifically targeted -lawmaker
By Marton Dunai
BUDAPEST, Oct 30 (Reuters) -

Lawmakers in indebted European Union member Hungary are waving the prospect of a passport at well-heeled foreign investors.

Proposed legislation listed on parliament's website would grant permanent residency and ultimately Hungarian citizenship to outsiders who buy at least 250,000 euros ($322,600) worth of special government bonds.

Hungarian passport holders are entitled to live and work throughout the European Union.

The move, backed by the ruling government party, is designed to attract new investors, especially from China.

Hungary has billions of euros worth of foreign currency debt maturing in the next few years and has explored a variety of ways to refinance.

Its plans include selling euro-denominated bonds to domestic buyers and trying to attract major new investors from Asia. Selling debt in western bond markets would happen only after tricky talks with international lenders wrap up, the government has said.

Budapest has asked for a financing backstop from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, but talks are dragging on and analysts see only a 50 percent chance of a deal.

The proposed legislation calls for the debt management office to issue special "residency bonds" to foreigners. Holders of at least a quarter of a million euros' worth of the paper would get preferential immigration treatment.

"The goal of the modification is to create the institution of 'investor residency' in Hungary," the lawmakers who put forth the legislation wrote in their proposal.

"The proposal ties gaining citizenship to buying bonds because it intends to aid state financing this way," they wrote. "Other investments from those applying for such residency could boost the real estate, retail and investment markets."

One of the authors of the proposal said Chinese investors were specifically targeted.

"The Chinese have articulated repeatedly that we should help their Hungarian investments," ruling party lawmaker Mihaly Babak told the daily Nepszabadsag. "If someone is a Hungarian citizen they have more (investment) opportunities."

"The condition of a preferential process is the purchase of 250,000 euros worth of bonds with a five year maturity ... We can attract capital from the so-called Third World this way and also finance reducing state debt."

a lot of topics to be ready in case of disasters.. check it

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too

If you need some help to swim, check that

Prison Planet.com » Ground under Fukushima Unit 4 sinking, structure on verge of complete collapse

Though the mainstream media has long since abandoned the issue, the precarious situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan is only continuing to worsen, according to a prominent Japanese official. During a recent interview, Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to both Switzerland and Senegal, explained that the ground beneath the plant’s Unit 4 is gradually sinking, and that the entire structure is very likely on the verge of complete collapse.

This is highly concerning, as Unit 4 currently holds more than 1,500 spent nuclear fuel rods, and a collective 37 million curies of deadly radiation that, if released, could make much of the world completely uninhabitable. As some Natural News readers will recall, Unit 4 contains the infamous elevated cooling pool that was severely damaged following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011.

According to the Secretary of former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the ground beneath Unit 4 has already sunk by about 31.5 inches since the disaster, and this sinking has taken place unevenly. If the ground continues to sink, which it is expected to, or if another earthquake of even as low as a magnitude six occurs in the region, the entire structure could collapse, which would fully drain the cooling pool and cause a catastrophic meltdown.

“If Unit 4 collapses, the worse case scenario will be a meltdown, and a resultant fire in the atmosphere. That will be the most unprecedented crisis that man has ever experienced. Nobody will be able to approach the plants … as all will have melted down and caused a big fire,” said Murata during the interview. “Many scientists say if Unit 4 collapses, not only will Japan lie in ruin, but the entire world will also face serious damages.”

Because there are 31 nuclear units of a similar type to Unit 4 in the U.S., the American government has been downplaying the disaster to protect its own reputation, alleges Murata. This is, in fact, the primary reason why so little has been reported on the severity of Fukushima following the disaster. The American empire, in other words, does not want the world, nor the American people, to know that there is the possibility of literally dozens of Fukushima situations occurring on American soil, should the right disaster situations arise.

You can watch the full 3:51 minute translated interview with Murata at the following link:
ç¦å³¶4è™Ÿæ*¸çˆå±åŠæ—¥æœ¬å’Œå…¨ä¸–ç•Œï¼ˆä¸*è‹±å *—å¹•ï¼‰4å·æ©Ÿå€’å£Šå±æ©Ÿ Unit 4 Crisis ENG SB - YouTube

Is it OK to hold credit card numbers in cookies? Santander?

From: auto62098873 () hushmail com
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:15:05 +0100

Santander are a joke when it comes to security. Fed up of two years of battling with them to fix issues any other bank 
would have fixed in seconds, things like XSS on login pages etc. Time to hit full disclosure with some of these issues 
in the hope they'll change their game and start to take their customers security seriously:



*Advisory Information*


 Title: Sensitive Data In Cookies 
 Date published: 2012-03-31 08:16:26 PM
 upSploit Ref: UPS-2012-0004
 
 *Advisory Summary*
 Santander's online banking stores a sensitive, including full credit card numbers, in its cookies putting this 
information at risk.
 
 
*Vendor*
 Santander (UK)
 
*Affected Software*
 Online Banking
 
 https://retail.santander.co.uk
(confirmed for personal online banking)



*Description of Issue*
 Santander online banking unnecessarily stores sensitive information within cookies. Depending on which areas of online 
banking the user visits this information may include the following:
* Full name
* PAN (Credit card number)
* Bank account number and sort code
* Alias
* UserID


Of particular concern is the full PAN, which PCI DSS states should be rendered unreadable anywhere it is stored.


Within Santander's "Security & Privacy" section they state that: "Santander's site-tracking cookies don’t contain name 
or address information". The use of cookies is therefore not in line with this policy.


It should be noted that the HTTPOnly flag is not used on any cookies exposing them to increased greater risk of 
exposure (for example through XSS) - such as the XSS which was present on the login page for ~1 year before being 
inadvertently fixed!!.


Additionally, whilst the cookies expire at the end of a session, they are not overwritten on logout. This mean any user 
who does not close their browser, even if they log out correctly, will still have these cookies present until they 
close their browser. Thus increasing the window for exposure.


 
 *PoC*
 The cookies holding the most sensitive information include:
* rinfo
* NewUniversalCookie


On browsing to the "Credit Cards" section and selecting a credit card a cookie such as the following is set (credit 
card number obscured):


rinfo=/EBAN_Cards_ENS/BtoChannelDriver.ssobto?dse_operationName=viewRecentTransactions&cardSelected=5***************


The sensitive information in the NewUniversalCookie is base64 encoded, when decoded it is of the format shown below 
(sensitive data has been stripped):


NewUserPasswordCookie***************

http://tinyurl.com/santander-dpa Santanders Cookie Policy stating "cookies do not contain personal information, and cannot be used to identify you" http://tinyurl.com/santanderCookies PCI DSS v2.0: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/pci_dss_v2.pdf

All started as a comic, but researchers find is not a good comedy: they're doing it for fun:

English version in this link De como el informe sobre el accidente de Fukushima se basa en falacias y de como un español pudo demostrarlo...Sorry about the faulty translation

My grandmother always told me: Lies have very short legs.

And if it's true, but companies which are lying as NISA (the agency that is like our CSN but in a Japanese version), TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Company), the Japanese government and the powerful IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) I have been investigating since February.

In those cold months it appeared any doubts about the lack of network videos of the explosion of reactor 4 of Fukushima. This made me investigate the matter thoroughly. Trust me, if I say that I have read and viewing thousands of technique pages regarding the matter. And it has turned out very good results.

We're talking about economics, ECONOMY in style in the countries energy is like blood in people ... it is everything. And lies that we have believed are , truly, enormous, and people should know the truth ... after each draw their own conclusions do not judge here whether nuclear power is good or bad ... I just want that they don't lie anymore.

I have just ruined the official version, the report of the NISA and all the lies they have told about the explosion of reactor 4.

The investigation is here.

In the official report or powerpoint of NISA (the equivalent of our Spanish CSN) clearly state that hydrogen was channeled from the reactor 3 to 4 and that the pool of reactor 4 was unable to produce hydrogen as it was in good condition .. . said NISA report what you have here:

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20120605.pdf

On page 4 we can see this chart ...

In more detail ... they speak of an enormous amount of hydrogen has entered the system SGTS ... a small pipe system inside the reactor.

The SGTS is the reserve system gas treatment (Standby Gas Treatment System). This system "unreinforced" gas discharge containment reactor vessel including ... is an active system, the other the "hardened vent" or hardened vent is a passive system, remember that the reactor 4 had stopped and vacuum more than three months and therefore would not be the SGTS far enabled ... since it involves the release radioactive gases into the atmosphere ...

In the official report that you can download here we read:
(4) Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS, Unit 4

"... The cause of the blast at the reactor building has not been Clearly Identified Because of various Limitations for confirmation at the field ..."

"... On the other hand, at the adjacent Unit 3, It Is Assumed That a large amount of hydrogen was generated as a result of the core damage, and a part of it was released by the PCV vent line ... "," ... the exhaust duct of the PCV vent line is connected at the exhaust duct of Unit 4 before the exhaust pipe, and a stop valve to Prevent reverse flow is not installed at the emergency gas treatment facility. THEREFORE, That it is thought by venting the hydrogen discharged at Unit 3 May have flowed in ... "

"... As Mentioned above, the results of analyzing nuclides from the spent fuel pool and visual inspections have Revealed That Unit 4's spent fuel pool nearly undamaged Remains ..."

On p. 97 of that report back to remove the hydrogen flow diagrams, here is clearer.

In short, that the pool of reactor 4 is perfect and the hydrogen came through link sharing SGTS at the junction of the chimney vent (go fudge indeed , which recognize no check valve available: tragatochos

... and stayed as peaceful as possible.

I have disprove his alibi

In this interesting image that still has not produced the explosion in reactor 4 can be seen above the ventilation system of reserves, and given the great resolution of this picture we can look...

We find that the SGTS pipe leading from the reactor 3 with 4 ...
was already broken ... kaput ... inoperative!

HOW CAN MOVE hydrogen by a broken pipe, GENTLEMEN OF NISA, TEPCO, IAEA, JAPANESE GOVERNMENT AND OTHER liars?

Why they forgot mention in the official report SGTS pipe was already broken before the explosion in the reactor 4 There is definitely a small detail ...: roto2: It This is a basic detail that invalidates any subsequent assumption and demonstrates that the analysis has not been objective. You can skip looking so relevant.

Well, I think the mission of research has paid off ... now we just need someone with courage to echo this and forward it to the population.

The last photo which shows that the vent pipe on the reserve of reactor 3 is completely broken from another point of view. These photos and videos we show always reactor 4 destroyed as a silent witness ... until now

extracted from a video of RT:

Another perspective:

For those not yet located the pipes ...

I recognize that I'm used to interpret technical drawings and diagrams and is easy for me to locate them within the facility ...

We'll show you three pictures to see if you understand:

I would like to point out that the items 1 and 2 are the walls of the reactor 4. Three is the vent tower shared between reactors 3 and 4. The item 4 is SGTS tubing toward the reactor 3.

As you see in this picture came a suspicious smoke the pipe, the smoke as we can see by the photo below could only come from the reactor 4 ...

... because as I've shown the SGTS tube was broken after the explosion of reactor 3.

This last picture shows a comparison of the junction of SGTS of units 3 and 4 and the satellite photo ... unfortunately the picture resolution only show basic details to ensure that this is the same pipe. .

We have therefore two clear events here:

The concealment of the breakage of the SGTS pipe prior in the explosion of reactor 4 which is difficult to support the explosion of said reactor claiming the hydrogen gas injection from the reactor 3.

The mysterious absence of even a single video of the explosion of reactor 4, even though it was the last reactor blowing up in the Fukushima disaster and therefore all media and all government agencies would have it in front of his lens.

I hope that those mysteries become revealed one day for the good of all.

http://www.bballheadlines.com/hint-to-american-girls-gasols-are-spanish-tweets/

They play in America, get money there, pay taxes there.. buy in Olympic Games they play for Spain..

Continuing to live with your parents after you turn 18, or moving back in with them after graduating college…isn’t that the antithesis of manliness?

That’s certainly how the regular spate of “What’s the matter with the menz?” articles portray it. The fact that the number of 25-34-year-olds who are living with their parents has doubled since 1980 (it now sits at 22%), and that more men in that age group than women have moved back home (22% versus 18%), is often used as evidence that young men are willfully refusing to grow up these days, and have gladly traded their manly independence for a chance to play video games in mom and dad’s basement.

While there are definitely cases of 20 and 30-something men living at home in order to prolong their adolescence, to say all men in this situation are lazy moochers is to paint the picture with far too broad a brush. The reasons for the increase in the number of young men moving back in with their parents are much more nuanced and complex, and include both cultural and structural changes:
■Higher education costs. Back when your Baby Boomer parents were in college, a semester of school cost just a few hundred dollars, and it was easy to graduate with little to no debt. But since 1980, college tuition has increased between 1 1/2 and 2 times the inflation rate each year. Today students can graduate $25-$100k in debt, double that if they go on to graduate school.
■Dismal job market for young people. Since the 1970s, real income has declined for young people, and the job market has gotten more competitive. The current recession only made things worse. The first decade of the 21st century constituted one of the toughest job markets for young people in recent history. Today just 54% of adults between the ages of 18-24 are employed. The recession also hit the paychecks of young people more than any other age group.
■Increased education requirements. Fifty or sixty years ago, a man could get a decent paying job with just a high school education. Today’s job market typically requires candidates to not only have a college degree, but often an advanced degree as well. Because schooling is now both more expensive and lengthier, it’s taking young people longer to become financially independent.
■Increased housing costs. On average, your parents and grandparents probably spent only 1/3 of their income on housing. Today 1 in 4 Americans are spending more than half of their income putting a roof over their heads. With housing costs up and paychecks down, getting a place of their own has become much more difficult for those in their 20s.
■Decreasing generational gap. The rift between Baby Boomers and their GI generation parents is the stuff of pop culture legend. Boomers and GI’s often had completely different tastes in music, dressing, and values. Boomers couldn’t wait to leave home, and their parents were glad to see them go. These days, many of the Millennial generation get along great with their parents and consider them friends. Parents and children listen to the same Jack Johnson songs and sit down to watch Boardwalk Empire together. And because many Boomer parents worked full-time when their kids were growing up, they aren’t sick of their offspring yet and like having more time to spend with them.

So suffice it to say the phenomena of young people moving back home is more complicated than “Young men today are lazy and unmotivated.” And as we mentioned in our series on the history of the bachelor, far from being the recent anomaly the media has made it out to be, living with your parents well into your 20s was the norm for young men for much of history. It was in fact the post-WWII period, with its flush economic prosperity and robust governmental housing and educational subsidies which allowed young men to strike out and settle down early, that was the real aberration. It should also be noted that multi-generational households have long been, and continue to be, the norm in many other countries and cultures; the peculiar American fixation with having your own homestead is in many ways a ******** of our frontier history.

Now all of this isn’t to say that it’s always a good idea to move back in with your parents and that you should feel comfortable living with them indefinitely. Or that living on your own isn’t a very worthy goal. Rather, it is to point out that stigmatizing a young man’s decision to move back home as always unmanly is misguided. Like many things in life, if you do it for the wrong reasons, and you do it immaturely, it’s unmanly, while if you do it for the right reasons, and in the right way, it can be, if not overtly manly, at least dignified. What are those right reasons and behaviors? Read on.

Friendly Advice on Moving Back in with Your Parents

Have a good reason for moving back in. This is numero uno in importance when figuring out if moving back in with your parents is the right decision for you. You should have a specific, sensible reason as to why you’re returning home (or haven’t yet left). Your reason shouldn’t be vague like “I need time to get my life back together.” How do you know when you’ve gotten your life back together so you can move out? Vague goals lead to vague results. Most American parents don’t mind housing their adult children so long as it’s furthering an important life goal for them. If you’re trying to save money so you can go to school, great! If you’re trying to save money so you can backpack through Europe, not great.

Don’t let standard of living trump autonomy. Another of the reasons sociologists give for young adults returning to the nest in greater numbers is that today’s young people value lifestyle over autonomy. It was the opposite for young adults in previous generations; while young Baby Boomers and Gen Xers were willing to slum it for a few years if it meant living independently from mom and dad, today’s young person seems more willing to sacrifice privacy, freedom, and autonomy if it means they can still buy new clothes, own expensive consumer electronics, and eat out instead of subsisting on ramen noodles.

But I believe becoming a man still means seeking autonomy over creature comforts. So related to the point above, this means your reason for moving back home shouldn’t be to use the money you save on rent to maintain the lifestyle you grew up with. That’s a recipe for thwarting your journey to becoming a man; having to live frugally, budget, and make sacrifices helps you grow up. If you’ve got money for video games and drinking at the bar, you have money to live on your own.

If you can get by with a very modest lifestyle on your own, then do it. Only move home if it allows you trade less autonomy in the short-term for more autonomy in the long term. Live as frugally as you’d have to if you were on your own, and put the money you save on housing costs towards things like education, health insurance, starting a business, and staying out of/mitigating debt. Especially that last one; some say living with your parents isn’t manly, well, going into debt isn’t manly either! Going deeper into debt for pride’s sake isn’t manly, it’s just dumb. I lived with my in-laws for three years in law school – the debt I incurred from tuition was large enough that it seemed foolish to add to it if other accommodations were available — and I’m not ashamed I did it. The arrangement wasn’t ideal, but it set me up for greater autonomy; besides my house, I’m now entirely debt-free.

Treat returning home as a privilege. In most states, as soon as you turn 18, your parents have no legal obligation to take care of you. Any support they give you after you’re 18 is a privilege and gift. Show some gratitude and humility and don’t act like you’re entitled to room and board. You’re not.

Treat your stay as temporary and have an exit plan. Before moving back in with your parents, establish a specific date when you’ll leave; you might even consider signing a contract with your parents to that effect. If you go in with an open-ended timeframe, you’ll never leave. Create a plan on how you’ll get the money and resources to move out by your established date, and share this plan with your parents.

Don’t fall into old habits. It’s easy to revert back to familiar family roles when you return to your childhood home. You’ll want to be taken care of, and mom and dad (especially mom) will want to take care of you. Nip those habits in the bud as soon as you move home. If you want to feel like a grown man while still living with your parents, you need to do as much as you can for yourself. Do your own laundry, buy your own food, clean your own room, and take care of your own problems. Your mom shouldn’t have to leave a post-it note on the counter to remind you of your dentist appointment. If you notice your parents trying to do stuff for you that you’re capable of doing yourself, kindly but firmly say: “I really appreciate your willingness to help me out on this, but I’d rather do it myself. I hope you understand.”

Redefine the relationship with parents from vertical to horizontal. One thing you can do to avoid falling into old habits with your folks is sitting down with them before moving in and having a “define the relationship” talk. For most of your life, your relationship with your parents has been vertical — they stood atop the family hierarchy, guiding, directing, and dictating how you lived your life.

Now that you’re an adult, your relationship to your parents needs to change to a horizontal one. Instead of engaging with your parents as a child, you need engage with them as fellow adults and on terms of mutual respect. Share your expectations and ask them what they expect from the new living arrangement and fight any urge to cry out “That’s not fair!” If what your parents expect is different from what you want, then you’ll have to find another living arrangement.

Once you’re back in with your folks, maintain that horizontal relationship by taking an active role in the household. Don’t expect your parents to take care of you, and do what you can to proactively contribute to your family. Speaking of which…

Contribute to the household. We’ve talked about it before. Men produce and boys consume. If you want to feel like a grown man, even while living with your folks, then actively contribute to your parents’ household instead of passively consuming their resources like a leech. Understand that moving back in with your parents will have a financial impact on them. Discuss with them how you plan on contributing to the household and mitigating some of the financial pressure.

If you can afford it, volunteer to pay at least a nominal rent. Not only will it help your parents offset the extra costs of having another person in the house, it will help instill some financial discipline in yourself. If your parents refuse the rent, you can still pay them a sum every month, so you get in the habit of doing so, and they can save the money to give to you when you move out to help you get on your feet.

Even if you can’t pay rent, there are lots of things you can do to contribute to the household: mow the lawn, clean the house, buy the groceries, cook dinner, run errands, etc. Take the initiative on this stuff. Don’t wait for your parents to ask you to do it. Oh, and you should still do those things even if you’re paying your parents rent, and you shouldn’t expect effusive praise. Think of yourself as a roommate in your parents’ home. Just as you’d share chores and food costs with your apartment roomies, you should share them with your parents.

Don’t take advantage of the situation. Even though your folks are also unofficially your landlords, the fact that you’re their kid, and not just an impersonal tenant, puts them in a tough position; if you don’t follow the agreed upon rules, they’ll be loathe to call the cops to evict you and they can’t ground you anymore. This leaves them with little enforcement power, so they’ll be relying on your sense of integrity when it comes to following through with what you said you’d do. Keeping your word is good practice for mature manliness.

Respect your parents’ views on conjugal visits. If you have a significant other in your life, respect your parents’ views on couples sleeping together before marriage and/or under their roof. You might think your parents’ are old-fashioned and being unreasonable by not allowing your lady friend to share bunk beds with you, but again, it’s their house and they can set any sort of conditions they want. If you don’t like them, you’ll have to get busy somewhere else, perhaps in the backseat of your car; a few of these vehicular groping sessions may be just the thing to motivate you to get your own place.

Keep your parents abreast of your schedule out of courtesy. You’re an adult now, so you’re under no obligation to let your parents know how you spend your time outside their home. But as a courtesy, let them know what your schedule looks like. It will help them plan out their week, and they’ll know where they can find you in case of an emergency. If you’re going to be out late, let them know so they don’t freak out when they hear someone rattling the front doorknob at 3 AM.

Think of yourself as a guest. If you’re not sure of what you should or shouldn’t do now that you’re living with your parents again, simply ask yourself: “What would a guest do?” Always ask permission to use and eat things that aren’t yours, and do what you can to make your presence interfere as little as possible with your parents’ regular routines.

Don’t live in limbo. Living with your parents may make you feel unsettled, leading you to put off getting your life together until it “really starts.” But life is going on right now, bud. Whatever you need to work on personally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, educationally…get to it. Your 20s are a terrible thing to waste.

A Man’s Guide to Moving Back in with His Parents…While Maintaining at Least a Little Dignity | The Art of Manliness

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