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I have said before...
those behind the faces of the politicians remain the same...a revolving door...same ole ch*t...with a different face...
Haven't heard such concerning NC...I shall look into though...since it is my home state...course...the maggots come from the state levels...and out state is no exception...
The Civil War...wish the true history of it was taught in school...
tis
Tell that to a...
Seal...
But before you do...look at the clock prior...then after...and let me know how long you were out...
tis
Amazing is it not...
The brillant minds/personalities within this country...many we have never/will never know of...
and look at the ch*t we have in our government (past/present)...
tis
Being this article...
was written by the former RNC...contradictions may be in order...
Any takers?
Let the political wars begin
By Richard N. Bond
The financial chieftains of the far-left of the Democratic Party met recently to discuss ways to win back the majority of American voters.
The elite group, comprised of several dozen millionaires, dubbed itself the "Phoenix Group," and is led by billionaire George Soros. Details of the group's deliberations were closely guarded, but reports indicate that the liberal financiers plan to fund multiple left-of-center groups in order to formulate a "new" party message.
This news ought to chill the hearts of loyal Democrats, in particular party moderates, in light of recent activity by one of the groups the millionaires have funded. Criticism of a centrist member of the Democratic leadership by MoveOn.org, recipient of $2.5 million from Mr. Soros in 2004, can be seen as the opening shot in an internal war that could cripple or even break apart the Democratic Party.
MoveOn.org's target was House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, one of 73 Democrats who supported bankruptcy-reform legislation. Mr. Hoyer, a 25- year congressional veteran, was the target of a critical $100,000 radio campaign funded by MoveOn.org as punishment for his vote to reform bankruptcy laws.
Mr. Hoyer is not the only Democrat to incur MoveOn.org's wrath. The group's director recently attacked the centrist Democrat Leadership Council (DLC) founded by then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. The DLC's leader fired back that Democrats should reject Michael Moore and the MoveOn.org crowd.
While Mr. Hoyer is impregnable politically, winning with 69 percent of the vote in his last election, the message MoveOn.org is sending is clear: Bipartisan cooperation is unacceptable.
These party elitists, led by Mr. Soros and his rich friends, are determined to win from the left or not win at all. The Howard Dean-led Democrats still refuse to recognize the reality of the curse of the northern liberal: Liberalism is a failed ideology.
Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt, there have been 15 Democratic presidential nominees. When Democrats have nominated a southern or moderate candidate, they have won the presidency five of seven times. When Democrats have nominated a Northern liberal, they have lost seven of eight times.
This internecine warfare is great news for President Bush and the Republican Party.
After George H.W. Bush was defeated in 1992, Republican Minority Leader Newt Gingrich, and my successor as Republican National Chairman, Haley Barbour, carefully laid the foundation for the Republican comeback in 1994. They did it by uniting moderates and conservatives around a positive agenda of which the now-famous "Contract with America" was just one piece of a well-coordinated strategy.
Absent from the GOP game plan were party purges, attacks on fellow Republicans, hot rhetoric between moderates and conservatives and other divisive tactics. And even through presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole lost in 1996, the Republican comeback was made complete by the election of George W. Bush and the continuing Republican control of Congress.
With their success, Republicans have shown there are many ways to revive a political party — a healthy debate on ideas, attractive new messengers, use of new technologies and greater grassroots intensity. The current liberal Democratic approach of punishing loyalists is not only counterproductive, but symptomatic of the elitism, arrogance and political immaturity of the limousine liberals determined to reshape the party of Jefferson.
These are the actions of a permanent minority, not an emerging majority.
Certainly Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean deserves a good deal of the blame for his party's disarray. Mr. Dean's aim is consistent with the Soros hijacking of the Democratic Party: Repackage lousy-tasting liberalism and expect fellow Democrats and the voting public to swallow it. Mr. Dean displayed the same far-left pandering in the operation of his post-presidential campaign's political-action committee, Democracy for America, when he coddled up to liberals and ignored party moderates.
And let's not forget the sorry record of non-leadership displayed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. In the past few months, 13 bills have passed the House with bipartisan support. Mrs. Pelosi voted against 70 percent of these bills. An average of 49 House Democrats (24 percent of Mrs. Pelosi's caucus) crossed their leader to vote in favor of legislation she voted against. Would it be fair to say the phrase "out of control" applies to Minority Leader Pelosi and DNC Chairman Dean?
Richard N. Bond is the former Republican National Chairman.
tis
Niters Everyone...
Peace...
tis
Alex...
Do you even try to understand what is written in the Bible...or is simply looking for things within it that back up your agruments as far as you wish your understanding to go...
And concerning the South/slavery...
http://www.slavenorth.com/exclusion.htm
and read everything within...
tis
Evening Ergo...
Hope all is well :)
How is it this Country manages to elect people (on both sides) that have no business doing what they are doing...
Was listening to M Savage tonight and he had the Union Leader of the Steel Industry on the program...conversation was interesting...seems both parties on pushing for this new trade agreement...
Ch*t blows my mind...
tis
I am with you...
On that one :)
tis
I do dislike Hillary...
But as with all in politics...D/R's...nothing will be done...
Simply a game played...
tis
Evening Mariner...
That would be one event I would gadly decline to see (mud pit)...
Maybe a debate of the minds would be better...I just can't imagine the two of them wearing thongs lol...
tis
"And oh'yeah "GO HILLARY"
If the Dems go with Hillary in 2008...
Then this country may very well see its first A-American female President...
Condi would defeat her...imo of course...
tis
Something to ponder...
What happened to history?
By Victor Davis Hanson
Our society suffers from the tyranny of the present. Presentism is the strange affliction of assuming we ourselves created all our good things -- as if those without our technology who came before us lacked our superior knowledge and morality.
We naturally speak of our own offspring in reverential tones. Do this or that "for the children" -- youth who are the most affluent and leisured in the history of civilization. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit will add a mountain of national debt. Yet contemporary "seniors" as a group, even apart from the largess of Social Security and Medicare, are already the most insured cohort in our society.
We rarely mention our forebears. These were the millions of less fortunate Americans who built the country, handed down to us our institutions, and died keeping them safe.
Such amnesia about them was not always so. Public acknowledgment of prior generations characterized the best orations of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, who looked for guidance from, and gave thanks to, their ancestors.
We rarely do. We argue endlessly over the academic freedom of a Ward Churchill -- plagiarist and faker -- as he becomes famous for calling the 3,000 murdered on September 11, 2001, "little Eichmanns." Few in the debate pause, if just for a moment, to think of the thousands of now anonymous Americans blown apart over Berlin or on Okinawa to ensure we can freely embarrass ourselves over this charlatan.
Why do we not carry with us at the least the whispers of those who gave us what we have, from the Hoover Dam and Golden Gate Bridge to penicillin and relief from polio? In part, it is a simple ignorance of real history. The schools and university curricula today are stuffed with therapy -- drug counseling, AIDS warnings, self-improvement advice, sex education, women's/gay/Chicano/African-American/Asian/peace/urban/environmental/leisure studies. These are all well-meaning and nice -isms and -ologies that once would have been seen as nonacademic or left to the individual, family or community. But in the zero-sum game of daily instruction, something else was given up -- too often it was knowledge of the past.
What history we know we often judge as illiberal, forgetting we are the beneficiaries of past sacrifices and wealthy largely because of the toil of others who were far less secure. History is also not easy melodrama, but rather tragedy.
It was hard for women to be fully equal in the pre-industrial world of rampant disease and famine, when they had 15 pregnancies or so to ensure three to four children survived to keep the family alive. In the so-called intolerant past, 9 in 10 Americans worked on the farm until dark just to feed the populace; less than 1 in 100 do so now.
Before dismissing them as hopelessly biased, sexist, superstitious or prejudiced, at least concede that most of us sensitive suburbanites would collapse after a few minutes of scything, threshing, milling and baking to get our daily loaf.
To appreciate the value of history, we must also accept that human nature is constant and fixed across time and space. Our kindred forefathers in very dissimilar landscapes were nevertheless subject to the same emotions of fear, envy, honor and shame as our own.
In contrast, if one believes human nature is malleable -- or with requisite money and counseling can be "improved" -- history becomes just an obsolete science. It would be no different from 18th-century biology before the microscope or early genetics without knowledge of DNA. Once man before our time appears alien, the story of his past has very little prognostic value.
Finally, there is a radically new idea that most past occurrences are of equal interest -- far different from the Greeks' notion that history meant inquiry about "important" events that cost or saved thousands of lives, or provided ideas and lessons that transcended space and time.
The history of the pencil, girdle or cartoon offers us less wisdom about events, past and present, than does knowledge of U.S. Grant, the causes of the Great Depression or the miracle of Normandy Beach. A society that cannot distinguish between the critical and the trivial of history predictably will also believe a Scott Peterson merits as much attention as the simultaneous siege of Fallujah, or that a presidential press conference should be pre-empted for Paris Hilton or Donald Trump.
Reverence for those who came before us ensures humility about our own limitations. It restores confidence that far worse crises than our own -- slavery, the great flu epidemic, or World War II -- were endured with far less resources.
By pondering those now dead, we create a certain pact: We, too, will do our part for another generation not yet born to enjoy the same privilege of America, which at such great cost was given to us by others whom we have now all but forgotten.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050506-090931-9566r.htm
tis
Evening Trade...
Thanks for the update...
We have had some wonderful days here as of late...so I haven't had the level II nor the last sale pulled up and viewing...
Keep me updated w/what they relay...
tia
tis
Guess it does happen...
from time to time...
Firefighter Emerges From a Lost Decade
By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
(05-03) 13:39 PDT Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP) --
Nearly 9 1/2 years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He asked for his wife.
Staff members of the nursing home where Donald Herbert has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone.
It was the first of many conversations the patient had with his wife, four sons and other family and friends Saturday during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert's uncle Simon Manka said.
"How long have I been away?" Herbert asked.
"We told him almost 10 years," the uncle said. "He thought it was only three months."
Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2 1/2 months and has undergone therapy ever since.
News accounts in the days and years after his injury describe Herbert as blind and with little, if any, memory. Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings.
Manka declined Monday to discuss his nephew's current condition, or whether the apparent progress was continuing this week. The family was seeking privacy while doctors evaluated Herbert, he said.
"He's resting comfortably," the uncle said.
As word of Herbert's progress spread, a steady stream of visitors arrived at the Father Baker Manor nursing home in this Buffalo suburb.
"He stayed up 'til early morning talking with his boys and catching up on what they've been doing over the last several years," firefighter Anthony Liberatore told WIVB-TV.
Herbert's sons were 14, 13, 11 and 3 when he was injured.
Staff members at the nursing facility recognized the change in Herbert, Manka said, when they heard him speaking and "making specific requests."
"The word of the day was `amazing,'" he said.
Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.
"It's almost unheard of after 10 years," she said, "but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don't understand why."
Manka said visitors let Herbert set the pace of the conversations and did not bring up the fire in which he was injured.
"The extent and duration of his recovery is not known at this time," Manka said. "However we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name."
There have been a few other widely publicized examples of brain-damage patients showing sudden improvement after a number of years.
In 2003, an Arkansas man, Terry Wallis, returned to consciousness 19 years after he was injured in a car accident, stunning his mother by saying "Mom" and then asking for a Pepsi. His brain function remained limited, his family said months later.
Tennessee police officer Gary Dockery, who was brain damaged in a 1988 shooting, began speaking to his family one day in 1996, telling jokes and recounting annual winter camping trips. But after 18 hours, he never repeated the unbridled conversation of that day, though he remained more alert than he had been. He died the following year of a blood clot on his lung.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/03/national/a083034D27.DTL
linked from: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/
tis
Sounds good...
Niters...
tis
Evening Trade...
IDologylabs.com site is down also...under construction...
http://www.idologylabs.com/
Maybe they will be combining the two...we shall see...
When the ID site comes back up...would be worth checking out for those interested...
tis
Comments Anyone...
I know nothing of a Joseph Farah (credible or not)...ran across this the article and found it's contents interesting...
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Iran plans to knock out
U.S. with 1 nuclear bomb
Tests missiles for electromagnetic pulse weapon that could destroy America's technical infrastructure
Posted: April 25, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years.
By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry experts.
The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests to determine if its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight.
Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R. Graham, say there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation for the deployment of electromagnetic pulse weapons – even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or years.
Iran will have that capability – at least theoretically – as soon as it has one nuclear bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic ally of Iran, already boasts such capability.
The stunning report was first published over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.
Just last month, Congress heard testimony about the use of such weapons and the threat they pose from rogue regimes.
Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials reminded members of Congress that there is a glut of these missiles on the world market. They are currently being bought and sold for about $100,000 apiece.
"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., in the Washington Post a week ago. "No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters – al-Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels – and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."
The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated and capable of detonation at higher elevations – making them more dangerous.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country – knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
While Iran still insists officially in talks currently underway with the European Union that it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade U.S. military planners and intelligence agencies that Tehran can only be planning such an attack, which depends on the availability of at least one nuclear warhead.
Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian missile developments suggests Iranian scientists will move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear material shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.
Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.
"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."
Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear official said Europe must heed an Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.
The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, came as diplomats from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level meeting in London set for April 29. Enrichment produces fuel for nuclear reactors, which can also be used in the explosive core of nuclear bombs.
"The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian proposal put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment. "If yes, fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot continue," he said.
Some analysts believe Iran is using the negotiations merely to buy time for further development of the nuclear program.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Kyl, held a hearing on the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a nuclear attack on land, is not to kill people, but "to kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to the president during the Reagan administration.
Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think of no other reason for Iran to be experimenting with mid-air detonation of missiles than for the planning of an EMP-style attack.
"EMP offers a bigger bang for the buck," he said. He also suggested such an attack makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy less likely than would the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city.
A 2004 report by the commission found "several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication."
"EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
The major impact of EMP weapons is on electronics, "so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures," explained the report.
"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress.
The commission report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked' – upset, damaged and destroyed – electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe than the direct effects."
The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.
"What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter – they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety," explains the commission report. "Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter."
Graham describes the potential "cascading effect" of an EMP attack. If electrical power is knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial system breaks down, food, water and gasoline become scarce.
As Kyl put it: "Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order."
"American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations," the senator wrote. "When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment."
The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and – compared with the threat – relatively inexpensive.
"But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress, all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl, so far the only elected official blowing the whistle this alarming development.
Kyl concluded in his report: "The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43956
tis
Soros Foundation Given $30 Million by US Government
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 25, 2005
(CNSNews.com) - The Open Society Institute, a private foundation controlled by liberal billionaire and political activist George Soros, received more than $30 million from U.S. government agencies between 1998 and 2003. Last year, Soros donated at least $20 million of his own money to such liberal groups as Moveon.org, in a failed attempt to block the re-election of President George W. Bush.
Tax records the Open Society Institute (OSI) is required to file with the Internal Revenue Service list "FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES" as "Contributors" of amounts between $4.6 million and $8.9 million over a six year period:
* 1998 - $4,611,617
* 2000 - $4,934,678
* 2001 - $5,869,809
* 2002 - $6,138,125
* 2003 - $8,889,802
The amounts total $30,454,031. Records from 1999 and 2004 were not immediately available.
Cybercast News Service asked OSI to provide a detailed list of its funding from U.S. government agencies, the records from 1999 and 2004 and an explanation of how the money has been spent. The foundation did not reply to multiple requests for the information.
In an online document entitled Building Donor Partnerships, OSI explains how its various subsidiaries, called "national foundations," can get funding and other support from the governments in their home nations:
* Public financing can be used to co-fund, expand or ensure sustainability of programs initiated by the national foundation.
* When a government cannot provide funds, it can allocate land, use of facilities, media time or staff to a donor partnership.
* Governments can waive or reduce taxes and duties for efforts of the Soros foundations.
* Governments can publicize the programs or requests of the national foundation through official channels, often at no charge.
OSI has apparently applied this strategy in the U.S., as well. The foundation received 1.4 to 4.4 percent of its annual contributions between 1998 and 2003 from American taxpayer funding. Various State Department documents indicate that OSI has been paid to run what the department describes as "democratization programs" in a number of countries.
"The Open Society Institute receives funding from the United States," a State Department press statement declared, "and has spent close to $22 million in Uzbekistan in order to help build a vibrant civil society."
Another report explained that "The United States also supports organizations, such as ... the Open Society Institute ... working inside and outside the (Burmese) region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities."
A State Department Fact Sheet also described "an HIV/AIDS prevention program carried out jointly with the Open Society Institute and Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation that targets high-risk populations" in Central Asia. The website of the U.S. Agency for International Development also lists numerous projects conducted in cooperation with OSI.
On the "About Us" page of its website, the Soros-controlled foundation explains that it exists "to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights and economic, legal and social reform."
Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), told Cybercast News Service that any seemingly positive activities Soros-controlled groups engage in should be kept in perspective.
"Congress should keep in mind that this is the same organization that supports numerous hard-left radical activities in the United States and abroad," Boehm said. "The Open Society Institute gave $20,000 to the defense fund for Lynne Stewart, (who was) accused of working with the terrorists who planned the original World Trade Center attack."
Boehm said the numerous left of center political activities supported by OSI include "drug legalization efforts, pro-abortion policies and numerous other controversial causes." OSI tax records show contributions of:
* $4.41 million to the American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates,
* $500,000 to the Pro-Choice Education Project to launch a (pro-abortion rights) "public education and media strategy,"
* $100,000 to the Death Penalty Information Center, an organization that works against capital punishment,
* $100,000 to Catholics for a Free Choice, a religious group that advocates for abortion rights,
* $100,000 to the Pennsylvania Coalition to Save Lives Now "to support needle exchange programs,"
* $80,000 over three years to the Gay Straight Alliance Network, to promote "a traveling photo documentary exhibit by lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and questioning youth,"
* $45,000 to the Democracy Matters Institute "to bring the campaign finance reform movement to college campuses,"
* $50,000 to the Coalition for an International Criminal Court "to promote education, awareness and acceptance of the International Criminal Court," and
* $35,000 to the Abortion Access Project.
Boehm also criticized taxpayer dollars going to the Soros-controlled entity, because of the overt, partisan political activities Soros supports.
"George Soros also has been the 'Daddy Warbucks' of numerous left-wing political campaigns in the past year," Boehm said.
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Soros pledged millions of dollars from his own estimated $7 billion personal fortune to the failed efforts to derail President Bush's re-election bid through various tax-exempt political action committees such as MoveOn.org. Boehm described the expenditures as "the height of hypocrisy.
"Soros has bankrolled the groups that have lobbied for limits on political giving and for disclosure," Boehm said. "But he apparently believes that the law should only apply to other people, and not to himself."
Asked about the seemingly contradictory spending, Soros was unapologetic.
"I am not violating either the letter of the law or the spirit," he said before the 2004 election in an interview with Time magazine. "The letter, because the institutions that I'm supporting were there before I started supporting them, the spirit, because campaign-finance regulation has been designed to deny access to special interests, and by supporting these organizations, I gain no access."
On Jan. 18, 2005, NLPC filed a 41-page complaint against Soros with the Federal Election Commission. Boehm said at the time that Soros' multi-city, anti-Bush media tour was "possibly the largest off-the-books independent expenditure ever run."
"It's especially important that the FEC look at it, because it occurred the month before a very close election in key swing states," Boehm said. "Disclosure is the absolute heart of campaign finance law, and Soros' anti-Bush campaign could have potentially shifted the outcome of the presidential election."
Neither that allegation, nor any other formal complaint has accused Soros' Open Society Institute of using taxpayer funding to pay for anti-Bush political activities. Soros continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Regardless, Boehm believes the combination of Soros' left leaning ideology and partisan political involvement should make the federal government reconsider funding any organization he controls.
"It's hard to believe the State Department couldn't find a more credible organization to carry out these projects. There usually is not a shortage of non-governmental institutions seeking taxpayer money," Boehm concluded. "Selecting a group led by someone with such a strong political agenda, and which funds so many controversial ideological activities, is, well, short sighted."
Multiple calls to the State Department and United States Agency for International Development, which have both funded OSI, were not returned.
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=/SpecialReports/archive/200504/SPE20050425a.html
Is this group (or any similiar...be left/right/or center) really worth Our taxpayer dollars?
tis
Evening Mariner...
Something to consider...
A Rigged "Calculator"
Democrats harness false assumptions to generate projections that individual Social Security accounts would be losers.
April 12, 2005
Modified: April 12, 2005
Democrats have been using a web-based "calculator" to generate individualized answers to the question, "How much will you lose under Bush privatization plan?" For young, low-wage workers it projects cuts of up to 50% in benefits. And a $1-million TV advertising campaign is amplifying the claim, saying, "Look below the surface (of Bush's plan) and you'll find benefit checks cut almost in half."
In fact, the calculator is rigged. We find it is based on a number of false assumptions and deceptive comparisons. For one thing, it assumes that stocks will yield average returns of only 3 percent per year above inflation. The historical average is close to 7 percent.
The calculator's authors claim that they use the same assumption used by the Congressional Budget Office. Actually, CBO projects a 6.8 percent gain.
Analysis
The "Social Insecurity" calculator first appeared on the Senate website of Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
By our count, various versions of it are appearing currently on the websites of 16 Democratic senators and the website of Americans United to Save Social Security, which is a coalition that includes the AFL-CIO and Moveon.org. But it is an artful bit of automated misinformation.
To their credit, the authors of the calculator state their basic assumptions clearly for anyone wishing to read and analyze the fine print, which is more than we can say for a number of other web-based calculators we've seen. So, read the fine print we did.
Lowballing Stock Gains
One thing we found is that the calculator systematically underestimates the likely returns of investments. It says "The calculator assumes that your investments get a rate of return of 3 percent above inflation ," a figure most financial advisers would find absurdly low. As we've pointed out before , the stock market has averaged 6.8 percent above inflation for the past century .
Independent economists consulted by the bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board in 2001 said stocks might not do quite so well in the future, but their range of estimates was still between 5.5 percent and 6.5 percent -- or roughly double the figure used by the Democrats' rigged calculator. Peter A. Diamond, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told FactCheck.org, "values around 6.0% or 6.5% seem to me appropriate for projection purposes." John B. Shoven, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, wrote, "My own estimate for the long-run real return to equities looking forward is 6 to 6.5 percent." And the lowest estimate came from John Y. Campbell, Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He wrote that "A rough guess for the long term . . . might be a geometric average equity return of 5 percent to 5.5 percent." Compounded yearly over a working lifetime, even a 5 percent return would produce vastly higher benefits than a 3 percent return.
What CBO Says
To justify their lowball 3 percent figure, the calculator's authors state that it is "the same assumption used by the CBO for its Social Security analysis." That's not entirely true.
It's a fact that the Congressional Budget Office did publish a study of a proposed system of individual accounts in which it used a "risk-adjusted" figure of 3 percent for one part of its analysis. But in another part of the same study the CBO assumed that stocks would return an average of 6.8 percent. A series of 500 different computer simulations of possible future outcomes showed a very low likelihood that actual future returns would be as low as 3 percent, and a decent probability that returns would be even better than 7 percent.
The "risk-adjusted" figure is an arcane concept that we won't attempt to dissect here, except to say that it is essentially equal to the expected return on risk-free, interest-bearing Treasury securities. And by using that figure in one set of calculations, CBO was not predicting stock gains of a measly 3 percent over inflation. That would be a massive turn for the worst in the economy.
Just to be sure about that, we checked with the CBO's director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin:
FactCheck.org: Does CBO's use of a 3 percent "risk-adjusted" figure constitute a prediction by CBO that equities (stocks) will return only 3 percent in the future?
Holtz-Eakin: That's the way its been portrayed. That's wrong. We assume that equities will return 6.8 percent in the future.
ProtectYourCheck.org Ad "Life Line"
Announcer : It's just the tip of the iceberg that threatens your retirement. The plan that George Bush and his backers in Congress have to privatize Social Security. Look below the surface and you'll find benefit checks cut almost in half. Five trillion dollars in new debt. The retirement you're earning. . . taken away. For 70 years Social Security has been America's lifeline. Don't let their privatization plan cut it. Call Congress. The Social Security you earned isn't theirs to take.
"Cut almost in half?"
The same kind of skewed calculations are also being used in a current TV ad being run by a new organization, "ProtectYourCheck.org ," headed by Harold Ickes, the former Clinton deputy who ran the massive Media Fund campaign against Bush during the 2004 campaign. The latest ad says of Bush's Social Security plan, "Look below the surface and you'll find benefit checks cut almost in half." To back up that claim, the Ickes organization cites the CBO analysis using the "risk-adjusted" figure, ignoring other CBO projections using the more realistic 6.8 percent assumption.
What Cut?
Both the calculator and the ad also employ other misleading assumptions. Both assume that Bush's plan involves pegging the rise in future benefits to prices, rather than to wages as under current law. Because prices rise more slowly than wages, that would indeed produce future benefit levels that are lower than currently promised, essentially freezing benefits at the buying power they have today. The current system of "wage indexing" is expected to push the purchasing power of future benefit levels to nearly double what they are today over the next 75 years.
However, whether freezing benefit levels at their current buying power would thus constitute a "cut" is debatable, to say the least. In fact, Bush hasn't actually proposed "price indexing" or any other specific plan to restore solvency to the system. He has ruled out tax increases, implying he'd lean most heavily if not entirely on holding down benefit growth.
Compared to What?
Both the ad and the calculator use benefits promised under current law as their basis for comparison, but they fail to mention that current tax rates can't support those benefit levels beyond 2041. According to the latest projection of the Social Security trustees, benefits would then have to be cut 26 percent at that time, and that reduction would grow every year thereafter. Compared to the actual level of benefits that can be supported by the current system, Bush's supposed "cuts" would be much smaller.
Put another way, maintaining benefit growth at the level assumed by the calculator and the ad would require a tax increase, something not mentioned.
And For Whom?
The ad also fails to mention whose benefits would be "cut almost in half." Actually, no cuts are proposed for anyone currently getting benefits, something the ad fails to make clear. The calculator is better on this score. It simply won't work for anyone who types in a birthday before 1950. The ad, however, invites current retirees to believe that their benefits would be cut, which is false.
Even accepting the dubious assumptions of the calculator, getting it to produce a "loss" as big as 50 percent requires using a birthday of 2005. In other words, the only persons whose benefits would be "cut" by "half" won't be retiring for another 65 years or so.
An Uncertain Future
We take no position on whether individual accounts are a good idea or a bad idea, and nothing here should be taken as an endorsement or as opposition. Opponents are correct to point out that the future returns of investments are uncertain. In our Feb. 3 article we faulted President Bush for saying accounts "will" grow fast enough to provide a better return than the present system. Nobody can guarantee that. It is within the realm of possibility that for the next 75 years stocks will actually produce a miserable 3 percent return, as the Democratic calculator assumes. But history offers no support for such a pessimistic prediction, and neither do economists consulted by the bipartisan advisory board to the Social Security system.
Sources
John Y. Campbell, Peter A. Diamond & John B. Shoven, "Estimating the Real Rateof Return on StocksOver the Long Term," Social Security Advisory Board, Aug 2001.
"The Short- and Long-Term Outlook for Stocks," Knowledge@Wharton website, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania: 2 June 2004. (Free subscription required.)
Congressional Budget Office, "Long-Term Analysis of Plan 2 of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security," 21 July 2004 (Updated 30 Sept 2004).
"The 2005 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds," 23 March 2005.
Related Articles
Bush's State of the Union: Social Security "Bankruptcy?"
That term could give the wrong idea. Bush also makes private accounts sound like a sure thing, which they are not.
Social Security Ads: Risk or Protection?
Pro-Bush group's first TV ad states the problem correctly. But the AARP uses a misleading photo.
http://factcheck.org/article319.html
Now...I do not post this to make a one party look good or one party look bad...both will mislead us...
tis
Evening Cnp...
Just returned from a nice (though chilly) weekend at the beach with the little one...
Maybe in our lifetime...things will change...
Eventually the same revovling door behind the new faces that become the "Representatives of the People" will die off...and hopefully their siblings will wish not to follow in the footsteps of their Father/Mother's...
Sanity is out there...somewhere...
Hope your weekend was as grand as mine :)
tis
Evening Cnp...
I thought my question to Alex was void of any political comment...
I simply do not understand anyone who thinks the foundation of a Church should conform to their view of thinking...
Alex likes to make a mockery of Religion...so why should it matter to him who the Catholic's have chosen as their Pope...
Per your post...
"neocon wannabe big spending republicans"...wannabe I am missing the translation since you chose to place this word into the sentence...
"Why is it ok to torture prisoners?"...you mean such as this:
DEATH AT THE HANDS OF ISLAM
If there were ever a single incident to illustrate the merciless death culture of Islamic terrorism, this is it. Those of you who don't know who the enemy is in the war on terror, pay attention to this one.
Yesterday in Baghdad, Islamic terrorists (or "insurgents," as the media likes to call them) shot down a helicopter, killing 6 Americans, three Bulgarians and two people from Fiji. A video was released by "The Islamic Army of Iraq" showing the carnage and taking responsibility. But what is also shown on the videotape should tell you everything you need to know about who we're dealing with.
On the video, one of the Islamic goons finds a survivor lying in a ditch. The cameraman gives the order to shoot, and with that, the bloodthirsty bastard guns down the innocent survivor of the crash in cold blood. But that's not all...before he was executed, the man told the terrorists that his leg was broken. At that point, the merciless followers of Allah forced him to stand on it, spending his last moments in excruciating pain.
How many Muslim groups will we hear publicly condemning this atrocity, committed in the name of Islam? President Bush visited a mosque after 9/11 where he famously declared that "Islam is peace."
Death seems to be more like it.
These people will kill again .. and they will kill Americans ... and they will kill Americans in the thousands. The question is not if. The question is when.
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
"Why are massive deficits something to ignore?"...they should not be...but then I ask...why is it those that pay little/nothing in taxes are rewarded with nice refund if they have kids...
You'll enjoy this (maybe)...
GREENSPAN WARNS ON DEFICITS
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was up on the Hill yesterday testifying in front of the Senate Budget Committee. In his remarks, he voiced his concern about the budget deficit. For those of you in or out of government schools, the budget deficit is the amount of money the United States overspends every year.
At any rate, Greenspan is concerned. He says if the deficits go unchecked, they "would cause the economy to stagnate or worse." The Fed Chief also said "The federal budget is on an unsustainable path, in which large deficits result in rising interest rates and ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years." So now we know the problem....but what is ths solution?
Greenspan's remarks will be used to advocate raising taxes. Naturally, since we have a deficit, we need to get the money from some place. Right? Wrong. The entire problem with the deficit has nothing to do with taxation. The problem is excessive government spending. Think of it in terms of your family...if you spend more money than you take in, what do you do? You cut spending. But you're not the government.
Politicians in both parties...and Republicans in particular, love to spend money. The size of the federal government has doubled in the last 10 years under Republican Congressional control. President Bush is the biggest spender in the history of the Oval Office. Spending is being increased, not cut. And it's not likely to ever happen. The Democrats like to tax and spend, the Republicans like to borrow and spend.
By the way, there is a way out of this. If we ditched the income tax altogether and instituted the FairTax, revenues would likely increase because the economy would be unshackled and no one could avoid paying it.
again from: http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
"Why is it more important to cut Social Security
than to tax the rich?"...c'mon Cnp...the rich have taken advantage of loop holes for years...doesn't matter what laws are written...the rich will benefit...the IRS laws are written to keep the rich "rich" and the working Joe unaware of the benefits they may be able to take advantage of...
You may wish to read more on the SS debate...do you not realize that as long as the Fed controls your money (SS)...that it can be taken away at any time...yea...the AARP has it's comments...but didn't they make a nice return last year...in the market they are warning us about...
"Why do you follow in blind lockstep, deaf and delusional,
unable to criticize your own party ?
Do you believe Republicans do no wrong ?"
Again...you assume I am a Rep...chit...I am just hoping for the day that the moderates of both parties to return...or (even better)...a couple of other parties becoming serious runners...
Have a Great Weekend...
tis
I must ask...
Why do people such as you think that everything should change to your thinking...
tis
Evening Trade... (edited)
If by chance you speak with the company again...
Ask to whom Nite is selling for...
http://www.otcbb.com/asp/tradeact_mv.asp?SearchBy=issue&SortBy=volume&Issue=ssty&Month=3...
TIA...
tis
Nite has been...
bringing this one down...
Not sure he he is/was selling for...
noticed he is completely off the bid at the moment...
still on the ask though...
tis
Hopefully...
It is settling...
They are on the: Threshold Security List - Thursday, April 14, 2005
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/aspx/regsho.aspx
tis
Hey Bobs...
Hope all has been well :)
Nite is off the bid and sitting at .0065 for the moment...still on the ask though...
Have yet to figure out who Nite is selling for...
tis
Morning Capt...
They have some news today...
http://www.amtdrt.inlumen.com/bin/story?StoryId=CqL88qbKbmta1yJqYntG
COLUMBIA'S BIGOTRY
By CHARLES E.F. MILLARD
April 14, 2005 -- COLUMBIA University, only a few miles north of Ground Zero, treats young people who are training to defend this nation as second-class citizens.
You might think that, at a university where virtually every student and faculty member was directly affected by 9/11, there'd be respect and gratitude for ROTC. Reserve Officer Training Corps students, after all, seek to serve and protect their country and their community. Instead, President Lee Bollinger (who's also under fire over alleged anti-Semitism in his Mideast Studies Department) has said he allows ROTC recruiters at the Law School only "with regret," and ROTC itself is banned on the Columbia campus.
Fortunately, a few courageous Columbia students are willing to face not only the threats of our enemies around the world but also the venom of the Columbia administration.
Sean Wilkes, a neuroscience student at Columbia, does his ROTC duties at Fordham. Wilkes, a junior, wants to continue his family's military tradition — so every Friday morning he travels south to Fordham's Manhattan campus for ROTC classes, then turns around and travels north to Fordham's Bronx campus for ROTC "leadership labs" in the afternoon. Three times a week, he arrives for physical training at 6:30 a.m. in Central Park or at a Fordham campus.
"I have a strong desire to serve. I think the military is a noble profession," he told me. "Seeing your neighbor free and protecting the people around you" is why he joined.
Colleges should encourage this kind of idealism and the self-sacrificing ethic of service to others — but Columbia tries to keep it off campus.
At other schools, ROTC students receive regular course credit for their ROTC classes and conduct their other ROTC activities on campus. At Columbia, ROTC is barred; students who wish to add these activities to already demanding schedules may do so — but elsewhere, please.
Columbia banned ROTC in 1969, a few months after the height of the famous campus demonstrations against the Vietnam war and all things military. Yet that knee-jerk anti-military attitude doesn't apply to today's Columbia students: Two years ago, a student referendum to bring ROTC back to campus passed with 65 percent of the vote.
The faculty is another matter. It took a year after the referendum before the faculty-dominated University Senate would even form a task force to study the isssue. After a year of town halls, email exchanges and committee meetings, the committee is deadlocked, 5 to 5, over whether to change the existing policy. The full Senate is set to decide on May 6.
ROTC opponents claim that they're not anti-military — that their opposition is solely related to the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. That's supposedly the one issue that has the committee deadlocked, because the policy doesn't match with Columbia's own non-discrimination policy.
One can only wonder: If (God forbid) terrorists launched an attack at Columbia, would these critics block the gates of 116th and Broadway to prevent the military from entering the campus because "Don't ask, don't tell" violates Columbia's anti-discrimination policy?
Keep in mind that ROTC students have their tuition partially paid by Uncle Sam; checks are sent directly to Columbia from the "Don't ask, don't tell" U.S. Army. Columbia has yet to send any of those checks back.
But the hypocrisy gets worse.
An official Columbia group, the Columbia Law School Center for the Study of Law and Culture, recently hosted a "teach-in" on this subject.
Professor Michael Adler, who supports the return of ROTC, hoped the center would allow for a debate on the issue. In an email (provided to me by an ROTC supporter) to Professor Kendall Thomas, the center's co-director, Adler noted: "The fact is that most of us who support the return of ROTC to Columbia would be willing to make common cause with the law students" on certain aspects of the "Don't ask, don't tell" issue.
Professor Thomas replied, "A teach-in is being planned, which I believe will be a more productive use of the law school's resources, and its members' time."
Thomas failed to explain how three hours of one-sided military-bashing would be "more productive" use of resources at a center of higher education. Debate is apparently inappropriate for the education of future lawyers.
Instead (as reported to me by an ROTC supporter who was present and took notes), students heard from the likes of Columbia anthropology Professor Rosalind Morris: "[W]e should not be inclusive or tolerant of an institution that structures violence as a war against homosexuality."
At the end of the one-sided event, a short statement from a group in support of ROTC was read out — along with an announcement that that this qualified as making sure all views had been heard.
In short, the official group refused to debate the pro-ROTC Columbians — then stooped to insulting the uniform that Sean Wilkes wears with optimistic pride. Sean's reaction? "The great thing is that people are free to express their opinions. We have freedom of speech and that is important to protect."
"The fact that they are able to [do that] is a vindication of my service."
Sounds like the kind of future leader Columbia should be proud of.
Charles E.F. Millard was a city councilman from 1991-'95 and president of the city Economic Development Corporation from 1995-'99.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/23189.htm
linked from: http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html
Tis
A read worth pondering...
April 13, 2005
Like It or Not, VAT's in Your Future
By Froma Harrop
Conservatives don't like it, nor do liberals. No one loves the value-added tax, but the VAT is looking better all the time. Expect to hear more nice things said about it in the months to come.
A VAT is basically a national sales tax. America doesn't have a VAT. European countries do, and they're not shy about letting it rip. Britain charges a 17.5-percent VAT on everything people buy. In Denmark and Sweden, the VAT is 25 percent!
Conservatives don't like the VAT because it's a politically easy way to raise taxes. And it greases the skids for big government programs. Europeans will be the first to tell you that their sales taxes are how they pay for universal health care, lush unemployment benefits and the rest of the dolce vita.
On the other hand, a VAT takes pressure off the income tax -- a tax that most conservatives hate like no other. It taxes consumption only and doesn't penalize investments. Some conservative reformers want to completely replace the income tax with a VAT.
Liberals don't like the VAT because the poor spend a bigger percentage of their income than do the rich -- so more of their income gets taxed. (However, the rich do tend to buy more stuff overall.) Furthermore, everyone gets taxed at the same rate: In Italy, the seamstress and the corporate lawyer pay the same $20 sales tax on a $100 baby carriage.
On the other hand, the VAT makes possible the generous government programs that benefit seamstresses more than attorneys. And it helps achieve other societal goals. For example, environmentalists who want high gas taxes to discourage fossil-fuel consumption need only wait for a European-style VAT.
Another thing: The income tax is rigged against ordinary people. Working stiffs have the income tax ripped every week out of their paychecks. Our Byzantine tax code lets rich people play with the numbers. Guided by daring accountants, business owners and investors can do creative things to lower their declared income and thus avoid paying income taxes. But they can't escape the VAT. When they buy their Learjet, Mercedes CL600 or Chanel suit, the VAT will catch 'em.
The VAT would also force members of the underground economy to share the burden. We speak of criminals, nannies, illegal immigrants and others who get paid off-the-books -- under the Internal Revenue Service's radar. The shadow economy is almost $1 trillion in size -- or about 9 percent of the U.S. economy. If there were a VAT, underground workers would start paying taxes whenever they purchased a lawnmower, disposable diapers or a flat-screen TV.
Small-government conservatives are probably the saddest new converts to the VAT idea. They bought into the theory that tax cuts would force reductions in government spending. Lower taxes, they said, would "starve the beast."
But the Bush administration's spending spree has them utterly demoralized. As an example of their despair, conservative economist Bruce Bartlett bitterly attacked President Bush for ramming a $23 trillion expansion of Medicare "down the throats of the few small-government conservatives left in the House."
Combined with lower taxes, the steroidal spending has sent federal deficits into a dangerous upward spiral. Eventually, the financial markets will force discipline on these reckless fiscal policies -- and in ways that may prove most unpleasant for the economy.
Responsible conservatives don't want an economic meltdown, so they are throwing in the towel. Bartlett wrote that he and other conservatives now "conclude that starving the beast simply doesn't work anymore." A VAT would be the best of the ugly alternatives.
And so we have shrink-government types promoting the very tax that Old Europe uses to support its cradle-to-grave programs. A minute of silence for small-government conservatives.
With memories of wrestling with form 1040 still fresh, Americans should be open to considering a vastly more simple way to pay taxes. It was in the name of both simplification and fighting tax evasion that most of India recently introduced a value-added tax. The tax is controversial, but it will stick.
In sum, the VAT has proven an efficient way to collect revenues. No one has to love it, but just remember two things: A VAT makes everyone pay for government and lets government pay its bills.
©2005 Providence Journal Co. Distributed by Creators Syndicate
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-4_13_05_FH.html
linked from: http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
tis
First of all...
The Father/child support issue is total BS...child support is not/cannot be discharged in a bankruptcy...
http://www.supportguidelines.com/articles/art200212.html
Second...
I have not read the bill...so I ask...is there anything in the bill that moves the credit card (or lenders similiar) from unsecured to a secured creditor...h@ll...if they are still classified as unsecured...they may/may not get pennies on the dollars...they are the bottom of the barrel (so to speak)...
Third...
Am I incorrect in the assumption that the bill is designed to get more people in chapter 13 over chapter 7...if this assumption is correct...then I suggest the people making a big deal out of this to read the proceedings in a Chapter 13 filing instead of depending on the media/politicians...and their scare tactics...
http://www.google.com/search?q=bankruptcy+and+unsecured+creditors+chapter+13&sourceid=mozilla-se...
This does not mean I agree with the bill or its sponsors...but there are those that will take advantage of C-7...
Now if the office of the Trustee becomes tainted...then problems will arise...and as with anything in Gov...that is always a possibility...
ROFL...
tis
Capt..
buys are coming in on ssty for now...
tis
Capt...
Nite jumping on and off bid now...still on ask...
wonder if the bid support of .007 is gonna fall as well...
tis
Found this...
Sure Trace Security Corporation (SSTY- OTCBB) The term of this investor relations contract was one year, beginning May 15, 2004. Compensation was $8,000 U.S. a month which was paid as follows: $5000 US per month restricted (Rule 144) stock at $0.15 a share and $3000 US per month in cash. The restricted stock has been paid in advance in a total issuance of 400,000 shares. SmallCap terminated this relationship on March 15, 2005.
http://www.smallcap.ca/SmallCapDisclosure.htm
I cannot see this as being the only source though (selling)...
There was also a deal with canwest that was terminated...
Shall search more...
tis
All good...
Here...doing shared parenting with the little one now...get her every other week now...
Life is sweet :)
tis
Hey Bro...
Been awhile...
All well with the family I hope :)
tis
Evening Capt...
I have been watching last sale on this one for some time...
Nite appears to be the drive force down...
Is there a CD or S8?
tis
From Brootz...
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Every year the Citizens Against Government Waste publishes their annual list of federal pork-barrel spending. It's called the Congressional Pig Book. To get an idea where your hard-earned tax dollars are going, it's worth taking a look at what made this year's list.
In a list of some 14,000 pork projects, supported by politicians of both parties, the total tab for this year's spending is $27.3 billion. With a national debt in the trillions and an annual deficit of hundreds of billions, this is all the more outrageous because it's borrowed money. So not only are politicians buying votes with pork-barrel spending, but they're financing it. So now future generations will pay interest on today's pork.
At any rate, here are some of the projects that made the list:
* $3,000,000 for the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. That's interesting...I thought foundations were for private, charitable foundations. And since when is Cal Ripken's dad hurting for cash?
* $1.7 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center. With all the crap in Washington, you'd think they'd have all the free fertilizer they need.
* $100,000 for the Tiger Woods Foundation. Tiger Woods was the highest-paid athlete in the world last year, with earnings of $80 million. Why you and I need to kick in a hundred grand for his foundation is beyond me.
The list goes on and on. There are some that are outraged at the list of wasteful spending, but just pause and ask yourself. Do you expect your Congressman or woman to "bring home the bacon?" Perhaps you're part of the crowd that thinks government spending is free money, and everyone should get their "fair share."
Oh, and when it comes to government spending, there no longer is any difference between Democrats and Republicans. In fact, George Bush and the Congressional Republicans are the biggest spenders in this nation's history.
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2005
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
Some good reading in the RA section also...
tis
Morning Bull...
Been well...work has been a little damp these last few weeks...
Our state is wonderful...was reading up on Black/Morgan and company and their "dishing out the dough"...only in NC
Hope you and yours are well...
tis
Some articles...
A DISASTER FOR RACE RELATIONS IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Race warlords in Georgia are screaming. They are mightily upset. "Governor Perdue, don't sign this bill!!!!" Oh the humanity. This hideous and horrible bill is being cast by race pimps as "a disaster for race relations in the State of Georgia." One black legislator said that this new bill was "spitting on the grave of Martin Luther King, Jr." This bill is so bad that black lawmakers staged a walkout when the measure was debated earlier this month. They said that it could turn back the clock on civil rights. "It's an attack on the rights of minorities."
So, what's going on? Well, it seems that both the Georgia House and Senate have passed bills requiring all voters to show some kind of picture ID before they can cast a vote. [HB 244 / SB 84] Any one of six different types of picture ID will do. A driver's license will work, even if it is expired. The law provides for free state-issued picture IDs for anyone who wants one. Still, the race pimps aren't satisfied.
You know what's going on here, don't you? Voter fraud is a reality, and across this country most of the votes that are illegally cast are cast for Democrats. It is Democrats who are driving the demands that non-citizens be allowed to vote in local elections. It is Democrats who are even insisting that illegal aliens be permitted to vote in some areas. It is Democrats who have opposed each and every move, no matter where, to attempt to clean up the election process by making sure that people who vote are actually legally qualified to vote. It is Democrats who want felons to vote! They know that felons will, by and large, vote for Democrats.
I'll say it again. Most illegally cast votes are cast for Democrats. Democrats have been at the forefront of every move to loosen voting restrictions and to counter any attempt to combat voter fraud.
Now .. if you really want to hear Democrats howl ... make it easier for military personnel to vote. Military personnel, you see, usually vote Republican.
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
Rest are links...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/nyregion/30aids.html?
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20050330.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050325.shtml
Hope all is well...
tis