Behind the scenes of the dazzling light shows that spectators ooh and ahh at on the Fourth of July, are carefully crafted fireworks. Whether red, white and blue fountains or purple sparklers, each firework is packed with just the right mix of chemicals to create these colorful lights .

Inside each handmade firework are small packets filled with special chemicals, mainly metal salts and metal oxides, which react to produce an array of colors. When heated, the atoms of each element in the mix absorb energy, causing its electrons to rearrange from their lowest energy state to a higher "excited" state. As the electrons plummet back down to their lower energy state, the excess energy gets emitted as light .

Each element releases a different amount of energy, and this energy is what determines the color or wavelength of the light that is emitted.
For instance, when sodium nitrate is heated, electrons in the sodium atoms absorb the energy and get excited. When the electrons come down from the high, they release their energy , about 200 kilojoules per molecule, or the energy of yellow light, according to the website of the University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.

The recipe that creates blue, for example, includes varying amounts of copper chloride compounds, while red comes from strontium and lithium salts.

Just like paints, secondary colors are made by mixing the ingredients of their primary-color relatives. A mixture of copper (blue) and strontium (red) makes purple.

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.  Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan":

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. If there are more than that, randomly select them by their social security number, then…  Pay them $1 million a piece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.  Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR.  Forty million cars ordered – Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes…

Mr. President, while you're at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!

I researched it just a tad and here are the various meanings and uses for the word: "oughta"

ought – slang form "oughta" which is "ought to"
1. Used to indicate obligation or duty: You ought to work harder than that.
2. Used to indicate advisability or prudence: You ought to wear a raincoat.
3. Used to indicate desirability: You ought to have been there; it was great fun.
4. Used to indicate probability or likelihood: She ought to finish by next week.

Usage Note: Unlike other auxiliary verbs, ought usually takes to with its accompanying verb: We ought to go. Sometimes the accompanying verb is dropped if the meaning is clear: "Should we begin soon? Yes, we ought to." In questions and negative sentences, especially those with contractions, to is also sometimes omitted: "Oughtn't we be going soon?" This omission of to, however, is not common in written English. Like must and auxiliary need, ought to does not change to show past tense: "He said we ought to get moving along." · Usages such as "He hadn't ought to come" and "She shouldn't ought to say that", are common in many varieties of American English. They should be avoided in written English, however, in favor of the more standard variant ought not to.

Hope you weren't bored, well, you "oughta" be enlightened.     – * – Azzy