Duplicated birthdays on iCal due to iCloud

It's rather simple:
I had iCloud installed on my Mac about 6 months ago. Everything has been working smoothly between my iDevices Address Book and Calendars except for the infamous DUPLICATED BIRTHDAYS.
I tried turning off the preferences for birthdays in the Calendar app on my Mac, then on again, but that just wouldn't work.
Note that when I use the Address Book app on my Mac, I make sure I marked the "All in iCloud" option, so I don't get to see duplicated contacts on that particular app; which by the way works just fine with the Calendar app: no duplicated contacts on that either. EXCEPT for the infamous DUPLICATED BIRTHDAYS, of course.
I know that for me to get rid of these duplicated birthdays all I need to do is to delete all the contacts "On my Mac" in the Address Book app, for those are already up in the cloud, but I'm just afraid of doing that. You know... something goes wrong one day with the cloud and I'm in trouble.
But if that's the only option, please let me know.
PS: Don't come up with answers regarding programs I have to install to get rid of these duplicated birthdays. I ain't installing sh*t. Plus, I'd like to know if there's an EASY way to safely backup my contact information in case I have to delete all the contacts "On my Mac" and let only those that are "In the cloud".
Thanks in advance,
Sylvio Quadros
Salvador, Brazil

Well, MadisonP, I already have a TimeCapsule which backs everything up. Does that count when it comes to birthday contacts?
and btw, sorry man, but I don't base my decisions on "worthing a shot" or not. If I wanted to gamble I'd go to Vegas.
Time Machine backs up all data on your computer (unless you have changed its preferences to perform otherwise).  This includes the contents of the Address Book which is the source of the Birthday calendar subscription in iCal as you noted in your post.  Its always good to have a separate backup just in case: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4910 (which is also a bit easier to restore from than a Time Machine backup)
The behavior you describe is not normal function for iCloud and iCal.  I haven't experienced it myself.
Your proposed resolution of removing the contacts from the On My Mac section seems logical given your description of the behavior.  I see little harm in doing so, as long as you have a backup of your data.  If you want to reassure yourself that your data is valid before you delete it, you can take your backup file into a new user account.
If the backup file restores into the new user and all your data is there, then you know your backup is good so you are free to try your proposed solution.

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