Bali - Island of fun

On one September 07 afternoon I receive an IM from Shaz – ‘Prachi, there is no place in the world where we can go on a vacation this december’. I have known SS, Shaz for 11 years now and three of us toghether have never been on vacation, so 06-07 New years we wanted to go vacation – but don’t know where. We started planning in Oct 06 - where to go – Europe, South America, Egypt…. and then and circled back to where we started from. Emails\phone calls, Google searches, taking advise from everyone but all we got was either too expensive or cold or just not feasible. Finally – some wise soul suggested Bali. We booked our tickets, hotel etc - “FINALLLYY”. We started looking in to Bali- what to do there , where to go, what to wear etc we were really excited

Bali – beautiful weather, beautiful beaches, good looking Aussies ( Bali has loads of them) and everything is really cheap. While in Bali we went -

Scuba Diving – my first dive ever – 20 feet under water for 20 minutes in the world different world is “the” most exhilarating experience.
Surfs Up – first time – it looks simple as all you have to do is get on the surf board – and it is simple you can easily on the board but what took is 3 hours is balancing on the board for more than 10 seconds.
Full Body Massage for 2 hours – Ahhhhh…Need I say more
Around Bali – The Volcano, Lake , Rice plantations and the restaurant over looking the volcano is must see.
Shopping – Wood carvings, Bali Jewelry, Batik painting ,
Bali NightLife – Partied every night!! The night clubs and restaurant in Bali have better ambience and beautifully laid out theme than most places DC.

Ticket to Bali - $800
Hotel – 4 nights and 3 days - $ 600
Water Sports - $100
Restaurants and Bars - $200
Sight Seeing - $100
4 days of FUN with people you love the most (I mean Shaz and SS Ofcourse!! and the Aussies) – Priceless

Thanks Guys for everything!

Good girl !!!

New Hillary Clinton ad airing in Iowa , featuring Dorothy Rodham.

"Dorothy"
TV :30
DOROTHY RODHAM: What I would like people to know about Hillary is what a good person she is.
She never was envious of anybody—she was helpful. And she’s continued that with her adult life with helping other women.
She has empathy for other people’s unfortunate circumstances. I’ve always admired that because it isn’t always true of people.
I think she ought to be elected even if she weren’t my daughter.
HILLARY CLINTON: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approved this message.



http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/12/

Who is paying more ?

At conversation over dinner about tax cuts most people agreed that the high income groups are always favored by Bush (rich gets richer). Tax cuts interests anyone who gets paid but who amongst those has Bush really favored. Lets look at some facts here - post Clinton and 2005 Bush Tax cuts. As Cato puts it - "A good way to find out is to look at average tax rates over time i.e total federal income taxes divided by adjusted gross income" - the figure ( courtesy Cato) shows the comparison.

If you look at the Taxes as a percentage of income for different income groups - the top 1% pay almost 25 % for their income as taxes and the lowest income group pay around 5% of their income as taxes. Bush tax cuts have significantly impacted the top 1% but in reality it just balanced the Clinton tax raise in 2000 where as we move towards the lower income groups the difference in percentages of Bush tax cut is lower than the high income group - but that is to Balance the 2000 Clinton tax cut.

I am in for "tax-cut" - ofcourse I like to keep more of what I earn , but before we claim that tax cuts have benefitted the top 1% , lets get the facts right