two woment at soccer

I was listening to two women at my granddaughter's soccer game this Saturday, they were talking about the current “crisis” in the mortgage industry, it seems one of them was a realtor. The non realtor asked ”how are people buying houses?” the other responded that people had to have good credit and had to actually make the down payment, that they aren’t letting the seller make the down payment anymore. I was amazed, this seemed ridiculous to the realtor that people would have to have good credit to buy a house, the nerve of those lenders and their regulators.

Palin and a bridge

Gravina Island Bridge


wiki reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge

heritage foundation

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm889.cfm

In opposing Senator Coburn’s amendment to defund the bridge, one prominent Senator told a closed-door meeting of conservatives that the plan was simply impractical. Many of the earmarks, he claimed, are counted towards a state’s equity bonus and thus are part of the state-by-state allocation formula. Defunding the bridge, he said, would direct at most $75 million to Louisiana, with the remaining $148 million returning to Alaska as money the state could use at its discretion for road projects.

a washington post article from 2005

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001931.html

One of the Alaska bridges, dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere" by its critics, would connect one small town to a tiny island. It received $223 million in the highway bill that Congress passed this summer. The second bridge, named "Don Young's Way" in honor of its patron, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), received about $230 million -- but that is just a down payment on a cost that could hit $1.5 billion.

Coburn had wanted to shift all the money to the I-10 rebuilding project, which is expected to cost $500 million to $600 million. Because of restrictions in the way highway dollars are distributed, Coburn's amendment would have redirected $75 million to the Pontchartrain bridge while unfunding the two Alaska bridges.

juneau empire

search results



href="http://search.juneauempire.com/?scope=general&query=palin+Gravina+Island+Bridge&engine=Fast&x=7&y=8">
href="http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/101107/opi_20071011018.shtml

Terrorist Attacks

this first graph shows the number of deaths before 2001 on the lower line and the number between 1969 and 2003, the line was relatively level prior to 911 which is probably why Bush and his predecessors did little to stop the Arabs. the number of attacks would not change of course. Of course this exercise of trying to ignore 911 is the sillyness of your argument and the sillyness of your whole 911 was an inside job theory.

just for grins I added Beslam into the chart in 2001 on the lower line, Beslam would have happened with or without 911.

Iraq Dead

Here is a chart I made from Global Security's data

Obama What the hell is going on?

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/19/obama-mccain-feud-continues-over-us-policy-on-talking-to-despots/

this piece is full of quotes that sho obama to be soft on terror, and quite niave.

“Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union.
They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat
to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they
were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet,” Obama told voters in
Pendleton, Ore

the reason we were willing to talk to the Soviets is because they were sane

You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the
military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand
a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold
enough to go ahead and listen,” he said.

So what?

Jimmy and the boyz

It seems Jimmy is back, doing what every past president isn't suposed to do, anything. He is off to the mid east to talk to our enemies, thet is the Stae department's job num nuts! And liberals wonder why we call him the worst pres of our lifetimes

the money quote is this

Although he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, Carter outlined
distinct goals.
"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet
with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility
they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians
in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the
Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind,"
he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351109,00.html

text follows


WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.
Speaking from Katmandu, Nepal, where he and a team of observers from the Carter Center monitored national elections, Carter said the U.S. and other parties should not require "pre-requisites" before meeting with the terror group. Hamas has not renounced violence, regularly bombs Israeli towns near its stronghold of Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel's existence.
"Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them," Carter said in an interview taped Saturday but aired Sunday on ABC News' "This Week."
"I feel quite at ease in doing this," he said. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
FOXNews.com first reported Tuesday on an item in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat that said Carter was preparing an unprecedented meeting with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of Hamas who lives in Damascus.

A senior Hamas official confirmed reports of the meeting Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized his plans. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly, although a State Department spokesman said earlier that a senior official from the department had called the former president.
The StateAlthough Department says it advised Carter twice against meeting representatives of Hamas, which Washington lists as a terrorist organization.
"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said Friday, after reports of the planned meeting surfaced.
"The State Department made clear we do not think it's useful for people to be running to Hamas," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said after Carter's appearance. Hadley added the U.S. as well as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has sent a "very clear message to Hamas about what they need to do" to be included in peace talks.
he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, Carter outlined distinct goals.
"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.
Carter said he'd be meeting Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and others "who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East." According to the Carter Center, Carter's "study mission" was taking him to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan this week.
Carter, a broker of the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his conflict mediation as president and since.
Pressure to drop the meeting has come from his own party. Democratic Reps. Artur Davis of Alabama, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Adam Schiff of California and Adam Smith of Washington state wrote a letter to Carter saying the meeting could confer legitimacy on a group that embraces violence.
"I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said.
Carter also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games. Carter boycotted the Moscow Winter games in 1980 in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
"That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Beijing games to protest China's crackdown in Tibet. He did not address whether just the opening ceremonies should be boycotted.
In Nepal, where the Dalai Lama has lived since his ouster from Tibet, incomplete election returns show the country could turn from rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Taxes

Let’s take care of Inky (Enky seems to be the more used spelling, I will make the change). Here is Rosen’s page and the IRS page I assume he got the information from, there is also a reference to another group, don’t have a clue who they are, you can bet they are anti tax. As far as I know Rosen and Knarly are the only two relevant in this thread that have an economics degree. I can use the four functions on a calculator, but anything over about 9th grade math and I’m stumped.

http://www.koaradio.com/pages/shows_rosen.html?feed=119739&article=2777167

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html

Now to the taxes:

Let me start of by saying I don’t know where you got the idea I was against taxes in general. I’m not. When I used to backpack a lot there was an adage; take all the things you absolutely need, all the things you would like to take but don’t need, and all the things you don’t need at all and put them in three piles. Take the first pile, put it in your pack and leave the rest home. When it comes to all the things government can provide us I think we all agree there are some things government has to provide. National defense, police protection, a court system, a minimum level safety net for the poor, that type if thing. On the other end of the spectrum is the ultimate goal of communism, where the government controls all our lives from cradle to grave. None of us are advocating either of those extremes, we are discussing what we are going to take from that middle pile for our backpacking trip.

My want for corporations to pay no taxes is no more realistic than your hope for a world without war, I realize this, it is a utopian dream, but what the heck. If this dream were to come true, it would not be to reduce taxes out alone eliminate them. Individual taxes would have to be increased to make up the difference. The purpose of my wanting to eliminate corporate taxes is that I consider them to be a “hidden” tax, and I hate hidden taxes, don’t tell people their tax rate is 20% when it is 40% when everything is included, they need to look at their paychecks and see 40% taken out.

I’ve explained how the tax structure works in simplified terms and at Knarly’s request I am trying to keep this short, so ask questions. (after finishing, I realize I failed to keep this short, keep reading, it’s worth it)

To Knarly’s question about the summer cottage we refer to as a “research facility” (RF). In the United States we have a voluntary tax reporting structure, you fill out a few rather broad categories on your tax return. Random audits are done to determine some baselines and if your return falls within those guidelines no one questions it. What keeps everyone honest is the realization they may be picked for one of those random audits. So we all keep boxes of documentation in our file cabinets. The answer to you question is I don’t think it would make any difference one way or the other. In today’s system the RF is billed as, well, an RF. Some of the best ideas come after a couple scotch and waters in the hot tub they say. Unless an IRS agent pours over the documents for a month no one is going to know. In my system no one cares if the company owns the RF, but if it is not really being used for legitimate research it should be listed as wages to someone. If it isn’t then it will still be up to that pesky IRS agent to find that it wasn’t. Crooks will find a way to skirt the law. What I like about this idea is it eliminates “corporate welfare” there is nothing to deduct if there is nothing to deduct from. I have seen so many corporate decisions foolishly made for tax reasons. I have seen truck loads of perfectly good components destroyed because the company didn’t want to pay taxes on those items. That is a “green” problem we can address with a stroke of a pen.

What money isn’t used for legitimate expenses and isn’t used to pay dividends simply sits in an account ready to be used if a new drug looks promising or a new form of energy can be developed. I don’t care if a company has billions in its coffers, leave it there. But of course greed from any number of people including investors, politicians trying to buy a vote, and folks smart enough to run a company will never let that happen. It’s utopia.

And so it goes…..

Linda Ellerbee

The good guys

By Michelle Malkin • February 12, 2008 08:27 AM
Update 1:49pm Eastern.
Thought you’d like to see this sign from the Pinkos as they amass in front of
Berkeley’s City Hall (hat tip - William Amos; source: CNN).
No need to question their patriotism anymore. They have none:

But wash that bad taste out of your mouth with this:

This needs to make headline news...not some of the other junk that makes the news these days!!! Like the Rosie O'Donell war of words...celeb weddings...who's not wearing undies...etc. Please pass this along. It's a tough, but heartwarming story...with a picture of John Gebhardt in Iraq. John Gebhardt's wife, Mindy, said that t his little girl's entire family was executed. The insurgents intended to execute the little girl also, and shot her in the head...but they failed to kill her. She was cared for in John's hospital and is healing up, but continues to cry and moan. The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair The girl is coming along with her healing. He is a real Star of the war, and represents what America is trying to do.This, my friends, is worth sharing with the WORLD! Go for it!! You'll never see things like this in the news. Please keep this going. Nothing will happen if you don't, but the American public needs to see pictures like this and needs to realize that what we're doing over there is making a difference. Even if it is just one little girl at a time. James Gates U. S. Navy

This from a site talking about the notariety Gebhardt has recieved

The chief was not alone in volunteering at the hospital. There were more than
800 different volunteers at the hospital during the time he was deployed to
Iraq, he said. Some of them volunteered so much that he mistakenly thought they
were assigned to the hospital.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123031670

The Ban

Well, it finally happened, much to the delight of my wife, her todo list and my unbalanced check book, I got kicked off Lies.com. now this didn’t come as a surprise to my wife, she’s lived with my passion for politics, my good natured ribbing of liberals and my bulldog nature for over a quarter century. She’s also a diehard conservative and knows how intolerant liberals can be. The only surprise to her is that I wasn’t banned in the first week.

So what did I do to deserve this fate? Did I use inappropriate language? No, not my style. Did I make racially inappropriate remarks? I’m not a racist. In fact our little high school here in Brighton was host to a contingent of former members of parliament and various ambassadors from around the world just yesterday. Their mission was to figure out how one of the fastest growing areas in Colorado with one of the most diverse ethnic, racial, and economic populations could coexist so peacefully. Was I rude? Nope, again not my style, I was brought up to not back down, but to respect others who respect you. No one is going to push me around physically, mentally, or verbally, I won’t be bullied, but I respect others. No, my crime was debating politics on a political blog. Hang ‘em high!! It is funny though, after only a couple hours Knarly was groveling for his pathetic life. Don’t do that my friend, you will be under the thumb of the man forever.

So what does Matt want? He hasn’t quite figured that out yet, he wants there to be rational discussions on issues, fine, he wants the discussions to be civil, fine. He wants the issues to closely follow the path he lays down and never deviate from the subject of the original thread. That is a reasonable request for a while but these discussions that last sometimes for weeks will inevitably morph into other areas. We’ve all been at parties where a few guys are in a circle shooting the bull and the subject starts out one thing and a couple hours someone recounts the evenings’ topics, and everyone wonders how we got from here to there.

What Matt wants, what most liberals want is for everyone to agree with them, but he wants to get there with a lively debate. How is this possible you ask? It isn’t. We have inadvertently slid into the bigger picture, liberalism can’t stand up to debate, not honest debate anyway. Matt wants to debate the relative evil of George Bush for instance

Amen to that. We shouldn’t have to be talking about the stupidity of this administration — we should be debating the kinds of policy issues that define the course of nations that don’t have enormous fuck-ups to deal with first.

This was the last post before the ban, so he was in the process of making the decision already. He doesn’t want to debate whether GWB is good or bad, he certainly doesn’t want to debate how good Bush has been, he has already decided that, which is fine, but now he is abusing his power to control the debate, and Knarly has folded like France. Mission Accomplished!


Right before I got cut off I was involved in a discussion with Enkidu. Here is his second to last post:

NorthernLite Says:
January 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I thought this particular quote from my calendar is on topic:
“See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
George W. Bush
Athena Middle and High School
Tuesday, May 24, 2005 in Rochester, NY.

and my response and his

so what was he talking about when he said this?

LOL. You name it buddy, he was talking about it.

My next response was going to be something to the effect that I had read the transcript of the speech and Bush had said this as a joke there was even the laughter note after that passage in the official transcript. Now of course I knew that before I asked what was the speech about, I baited NL, I was as sure he had not read the speech as I was that he wouldn’t. Liberals don’t research these things, if they did they would find out how they are being led down the primrose path like a bunch of lemmings. So why be so petty? Because this gets to the core of this Bush hating bunch, all their “evidence” of the evils of the man are false, dare I say Lies?