WE Blog

An exerpt From the Jan. 08 Harpers concerning Columbia:

The key to Uribe’s “revolution” has been an attempt at willful forgetting: his decision, soon after his inauguration, to negotiate peace deals with the nation’s right-wing paramilitaries, which agreed to demobilize 30,000 militiamen in exchange for little or no prosecution–this after decades of butchering Columbians, dealing drugs, and murdering union activists and left-wing politicians. Today, paramilitary-backed candidates often run virtually unopposed in elections, and one paramilitary leader claimed during the previous congressional session that they controlled 35 percent of the legislature.

The right-wing drug armies, which maintain control over large parts of the country, have essentially been allowed to launder themselves, which some of their ruthless former leaders now holding office or walking about as legitimate businessmen. This dissonance was well illustratd in January of last year when Salvatore Mancuso, one of the most brutal paramilitary bosses, appeared before a court in a properly sober suit to make a voluntary confession–without risk of prosecution of course–and surprised everyone by displaying a pleasantly professionl eight-seven-page PowerPoint presentation that detailed, with diagrams and mapse, the various civilians he’d kidnapped or killed.”

Bush’s friends. No wonder cocaine is cheaper than ever. More evidence of this administration’s real friends.

Same thing happened in Afghanistan with the heroin, remember?

Never mind, DK beat me to the punch.

WHAT?????? You mean there are people out there that can still afford to retire? Pretty sure I’ll get to work until I die!!

A reminder, now at 7 AM on Friday, today’s FULL MOON is just dropping over the west horizon here in Wichita. Later today, when the moon happens to be on the back side of the earth, the moon will be precisely on the opposite side of the earth from the sun giving the official time for the full moon.

But, no matter. The moon will look full for tonight and tomorrow night.

Tonight the Full Moon will rise at 7:58 PM so good time to see a magnified moon rise up over the eastern horizon.

Of course, yesterday, was the vernal equinox, the day which has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. This is the day the sun crosses the equator on its way northward to give us Spring and Summer.

Time to give a little thought to astronomy.

I notice we’re sure not hearing much about the school bond issue now that Brooks is leaving. The tax and spenders will never forgive him.

http://www.doc.state.mn.us/publications/backgrounders/documents/sexoffenderbackgrounder9-07.pdf

Evidence supporting my contention that sex offenders are an ever-increasing proportion of the prison population, though not quite for the reasons I expected.

originallly posted in wrong topic, sorreee.

And as michael blooberg pointed out, American Way, the only way to avoid this catastrophe is to import 30 million immigrants. Support the entitlements on the backs of foreign workers, who will be glad to do it in return for a better life. Immigrant labor could also revitilize our manufacturing base, and help us reclaim our title as world economic labor. And it’s right across the border.

Door King, the solution to one mans problem does not depend on slave labor from another man. The solution involves self-reliance and each person saving (investing) for their own future.

Too many live for today, and save nothing for tomorrow. In too many households, the man makes the financial decisions without including retirement savings - and certainly without considering those savings MUST provide for his widow who will live many years longer than himself. Couples must save for two life times, not just their own.

Even the growing number of women who ARE financially aware and have careers, are suffering from lower wages than their male counterpart. Hence, their retirement investings suffer.

It’s simplistic to try to think you can resolve a complex retirement situation for 77 million babyboomers by importing laborers.

It is also once again, passing the buck. No one is responsible, so everyone must pay.

“We have been afflicted with an every growing government cancer feeding off us financially.”

Oh Auntie Em, there is no place like home!

“Tax Freedom Day Arrived on April 24th in Kansas
Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. In 2007, Kansas taxpayers had to work until April 24th (ranked 28th nationally) to pay their total tax bill, six days before National Tax Freedom Day (April 30th). The Tax Freedom Days of neighboring states were: Nebraska, April 26th (23rd); Missouri, April 20th (40th); Oklahoma, April 12th (50th); and Colorado, April 28th (20th).

Kansas’s State/Local Tax Burden Above Average
Estimated at 11.2% of income, Kansas’s state/local tax burden percentage ranks 15th highest nationally. The national average is 11.0%. Kansas taxpayers pay $4,330 per capita in state and local taxes on per-capita state income of $38,732.

Kansas’ Individual Income Tax System
Kansas’s personal income tax system consists of three separate brackets with a top rate of 6.45%, kicking in at an income level of $30,000. That top rate ranks 22nd highest among states levying an individual income tax. Kansas’s 2004 individual income tax collections were $701 per person, which ranked 22nd highest nationally.

Kansas Levies Sales Tax above National Median; Gasoline Tax among Nation’s Highest
Kansas levies a 5.3% general sales or use tax on consumers, which is just above the national median of 5%. State and local governments combined collect approximately $908 per capita in general sales taxes, ranking 15th nationally. Kansas’s gasoline tax stands at 25 cents per gallon, which ranks 12th highest nationally. Kansas’ cigarette tax stands at 79 cents per pack of twenty and ranks 28th nationally. The sales tax was adopted in 1937, the gasoline tax in 1925 and the cigarette tax in 1927.

Kansas Property Taxes: Above Average
Kansas is one of the 37 states that collect property taxes at both the state and local levels. As in most states, local governments collect far more. Kansas’ localities collected $3,189,062,000 in property taxes in fiscal year 2004, the latest year for which the Census Bureau has published state-by-state data. At the state level, Kansas collected $57,554,000 in property taxes during FY 2004, making its combined state/local property taxes $3,246,616,000. That brings its per capita collection to $1,187, ranking 14th highest nationally. In FY 2002, Kansas was ranked 24th.”

Source: Tax Foundation

Too many live for today, and save nothing for tomorrow. In too many households, the man makes the financial decisions without including retirement savings - and certainly without considering those savings MUST provide for his widow who will live many years longer than himself. Couples must save for two life times, not just their own.

They live that way because they were promised social security, A.W. and immigrant labor is hardly slave labor. What might work is: you get a green card, you pay a ten percent tax for x years.

And I would point out good fortune, as has been my case, does not make a case for economic virtue. A sample of one is a scientific fallacy. Your personal experience are worthless when applied to the wider world.

“They live that way because they were promised social security,”

Well that is part of the problem Door King. No one promised us a rose garden. Social Security was NEVER intended to provide all our retirement needs.

It should provide for poverty level standards. If anyone wants MORE than that, they need to start saving/investing NOW. To believe in the government providing for all of lifes needs is a fairy tale. If you believe otherwise, you have been misled.

Boxlock, I enjoyed learning about Kansas
Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) system when I moved to this state many years ago.

When we purchased our property, we were provided the property tax estimates. This was a consideration in our selection of property.

Following our purchase, we received the annual property tax notice. Interesting, our property was now evaluated to match EXACTLY what we paid for our home.

I find this amazing. Had we negotiated for a lower sale price - our property taxes would be lower? What if we foolishly paid a million bucks for our average existing home? Would the county then appraise our home for a million bucks when it was not worth that amount?

Knowing we each have three appraisals on our homes:

State/county property tax value
Real Estate Value
Home Insurance (replacement cost) Value

we did some research.

Kansas is supposed to use the CAMA system to determine a homes property tax value - NOT sales price. Supposedly, we were told, CAMA was to take the “personal” opinions out of the evaluation and standardize throughout the state. We also heard the public was outraged when it first came out.

In short, I believe there are problems with a strictly automated system trying to allow for the many different circumstances involved in appraisal work. It always seems the county is quick to raise our property tax evaluation - but very slow to reduce it. Consider the current downtrend in national/state existing residential home prices.

At any rate, we protested, and won a lower appraisal. It is free for any to do, but it requires some investigating work, paperwork, and follow-up on the part of the homeowner.

The facts are most americans are too broke to save. Change that.

Beautiful post Tracy.

“The facts are most americans are too broke to save.”

Every financial planner will tell you to save.
Even as a teenage paperboy - I saved.

Our children are grown and gone, but we have taught them to save. As an example, our youngest, graduated from KU last year with two majors. She started off in her profession making barely enough to scrape by. I advised, and she complied with just investing the minimum in her 401K to get the company match. She also is slowly working to get her 90 day emergency cash fund. Yet, she still asks, “Dad when can I start investing?” The older children, like us their parents, started at the bottom. And all our kids started at jobs like you mentioned earlier. Those jobs are not careers, except for those who decide to stay in them.

The importance of starting to LEARN to save and invest EARLY cannot be overstressed. The compounding of interest should be a powerful incentive to start saving early. Even pennies.

For our children, it is even MORE important they save early because they are going to get hit with the bills (higher tax rates) which the boomers will force on the next generation. Why? Exactly because of Door King’s attitude. Boomers will NOT save, expecting a bed of roses from the government. When government cannot provide it - they will demand it. As a right.

To whine and cry, “I cannot afford to save”, is simply an excuse. The truth is: You cannot afford NOT to save.

The stark reality is if you do not save, you will be like the grasshopper and live in poverty, or die when hit with the worst.

Government’s social security will not provide anyone trips to the islands, a motor tour of America, or a second home in warm places. It will provide for the basics only, and that will be sparingly, at best.

Stop crying and whining and start savings.

The stark reality is that many Americans don’t get a chance to go to k.u. You are where you are through a combination of astutness, and fortune American Way, and you incessant attempts to apply your “sample of one” to the entire human races is ridiculous. You were able to save as a teenager because your parents did not need your income to feed you.

“You were able to save as a teenager because your parents did not need your income to feed you.”

You know nothing about me. My parents of HS education raised four children. We all had paper routes (some inherited from older sibling). At one point, one brother and I each had two routes.

My paper route opened other opportunites. I mowed lawns for customers in the summer and shoveled snow. As a 12 year old, I planted my first garden. I sold the excess to my paper route customers. I detassled corn and pulled button weeds out of of bean fields and other farm jobs. This money helped finance my first car. My parents were hard pressed to feed all of us. We knew if we wanted “play” money we had to EARN it. I bought school clothes beyond the basics the folks provided. When it came time for college, the folks helped the first two, but they basically got the loans/scholarships, or did it on their own. When it was my turn, I knew they couldn’t afford it. So I enlisted for the GI Bill. Later, I too lived with a wife and kids at the poverty level. I’ll stop my story here.

But I believe almost everyone has the same opportunities. There are exceptions.

And this will really tick you off: My children all graduated from college without any bills. My wife and I worked (me three jobs) to fund it without state aid.

Anyone know what’s happened to America’s savings rate over the last 7 yrs.? I’d venture a guess that along with disposable income, it has decreased substantially, especially for the working class.

The savings rate is dropping. Some of this is due to the feds not changing the formula. For instance 401K plans I believe do not count as savings, even though over the last ten years, most employers are moving to 401k type plans and dropping retirements. However, we are spending more as evidenced by our credit card debt.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/sav/20060308a1.asp

Gotta love that wall street casino:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/03/070203.asp

Odds of Winning: One in Five?
We often hear that 80% of managed mutual funds fail to beat the market as measured by the S&P 500. This statistic, however, cannot be taken at face value. In many years, it’s true that 80% of funds underperform the market, but the exact percentage of low performers changes every year. According to a study from Jeremy J. Siegel’s book “Stocks for the Long Run”, the number of funds that - over the 30 years from the 1970s to early 2000s - outperformed the S&P 500, excluding fees, varied between 10% and 85% from year to year. And between 1982 and 2003, there have only been three years in which more than 50% of mutual funds beat the market! So, while it’s not technically accurate to say that only 20% of funds outperformed the market, we can say that most of the time, a majority of managed funds will underperform.

Why people do not save more:

http://www.slate.com/id/2164050

The problem is how we tax investment gains. Over the past 80 years, the average annual return on Treasury bills (a proxy for savings accounts) has been 3.7 percent per year. Inflation, meanwhile, has averaged 3.1 percent per year. This combination has produced a “real return” of a paltry 0.6 percent per year. If you got to keep that 0.6 percent, you might still have an incentive to save: A $616 real gain on $10,000 in 10 years wouldn’t be much, but it would at least be $616 more than you have now. Unless you’re so poor that you’re exempt from taxes, however, or so flush that you can afford to lock up cash for decades in a tax-deferred annuity or retirement account, you won’t be keeping that 0.6 percent. You’ll be giving all of it—and probably more—to the government.

How does the math work? Let’s say your T-bills return 3.7 percent. If you stash $10,000, you’ll make $370 before taxes and inflation in the first year. Taxes are assessed on the nominal gain (before adjusting for inflation) instead of the real gain, so if you’re in the 15 percent tax bracket, you’ll then pay $56 to the government—and lose about $310 of value to inflation. In other words, you’ll eke out about a $5 real gain on a $10,000 investment (an 0.05 percent return). If you’re in higher brackets, meanwhile, you’ll actually lose about 0.5 percent of value every year. The only time you’ll generate real gains is when “real” rates of return are significantly higher than 0.6 percent (as they are now). But when real rates are negative, as they were a few years ago, you’ll be losing a lot more than 0.5 percent per year.

My God AmWay, you are saying people need to WORK for a living!

Scares the crap out of the Libs here.

Great news! Will the veto stand?

Whatsamatter DK, the kiddie porn sites blocked for ya?

For 40 years, Meredith and Luther Ricks did everything the right way. They worked hard, saved carefully and raised a family in their modest Lima home. They were poised to enjoy their retirement years in peace.

Despite their four decades of hard work, however, an absurdly unjust law has turned their hope for the American Dream into an outrageous nightmare at the hands of the Cleveland FBI.

Both of the Ricks spent their careers at the Ohio Steel Foundry, eschewing lavish spending to save for a comfortable retirement. Not trusting banks, Meredith and Luther kept their life savings in a safe inside the house.

Last summer, two violent intruders broke into the Rickses’ house. Luther and his son fought with the burglars. After his son was stabbed, Luther broke free, got his gun and saved the family by shooting one of the intruders and scaring the other off.

When Lima police arrived, the Ricks’ nightmare should have been over - but it was just beginning.

The police entered the house and discovered the family safe. Because a small amount of marijuana was inside the home - used by Luther to ease his painful arthritis, hip replacement and shingles - the officers decided to confiscate Meredith and Luther’s entire life savings, more than $400,000.

Shortly afterward, the FBI got involved - not to help the stricken family, but to claim the money for the federal government.

Such is the result of civil forfeiture laws, which represent one of the most profound assaults on our rights today.

Civil forfeiture can apply to virtually any property: cars, houses, boats and, as the Rickses’ case demonstrates, even money. The property can be seized merely on suspicion that it was used in connection with a crime or resulted from criminal activity.

The police did not charge Luther for the shooting - he acted in self-defense - or for the small quantity of marijuana he used as medicine. Under civil forfeiture, the government can confiscate money or property without proving that a person is guilty of criminal misconduct.

While criminal forfeiture requires that a property owner be found guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, civil forfeiture does not require that the owner even be accused of a crime, much less convicted. The government proceeds directly against the property it wants to take, which means owners are not entitled to any of the protections they would receive if they were accused of a crime.

This bizarre practice was not widespread in the United States until alcohol prohibition and has been used extensively since drug prohibition stiffened in the 1970s and 1980s.

The FBI’s adoption of the Lima police’s forfeiture is not unusual - the federal government regularly seizes property that was originally confiscated by local authorities and then splits the resulting profits. In Missouri, for example, authorities were recently caught turning forfeitures over to the federal government in order to avoid a legal requirement that proceeds go to schools.

The abuses don’t stop there. In the 1990s, police in Louisiana were stealing innocent people’s property by fabricating drug crimes. They used the proceeds for ski trips to Aspen.

Civil forfeiture is now a nationwide epidemic with proceeds from federal civil forfeiture alone reaching hundreds of millions of dollars each year. This is part of a larger trend over the past several decades of weakened property rights protection.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Kelo case that government officials can use eminent domain to buy your home, business, church or farm and then hand your property over to another private entity so long as the new owner promises to generate more tax revenue with your land.

Importantly, a nationwide backlash is under way. Ohio leads the country with a historic unanimous ruling in 2006 by the state’s Supreme Court that reined in the awesome power of land confiscation. Forty-two states have now reformed their laws on land grabs, making it harder for governments to take your property to boost their tax revenues.

We desperately need a similar backlash against the abuses of civil forfeiture. Thankfully, Meredith and Luther Ricks are fighting back. With free legal help, this week they filed a notice with the Cleveland office of the FBI, demanding the return of their life savings.

Governments should protect, not plunder, our property. Common sense and justice demand that the rampant abuse of civil forfeiture must end.

Ewing is the assistant director of communications for the Institute for Justice, the nation’s leading legal advocate for property rights.

© 2008 The Plain Dealer
© 2008 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.

CapnAmerica
Posted March 21, 2008 at 9:19 am |
“Boxlock–
Thanks for supporting our staunch Democrat on the County Commission, Commissioner Gwen Welshimer.”

Even DemLibs get it right once in awhile…not often of course, but the law of averages puts them on right side of a few ideas. Usually very simple ones.
Lowering taxes is a very Un-DemLib concept and it is that, that I support.

Whatsamatter DK, the kiddie porn sites blocked for ya?

You should know, Mr. Max. Because all allusions to kiddie porn on this board arose from your own mind. Pointing out that sex offenders are the fastest growing segment of the prison population during a discussion of prison population does not make the person who points it out an afficianado of kiddie porn.

Here is another point on the subject I wish to make, since you brought it up.

What is statatory rape. It is almost by definition a charge of rape when no rape occurred, otherwise they would call it rape. Yet the penaltes are the same for someone who while drunk has sex with his sexually precocious cousin as for someone who crawls through a bedroom window to force himself on a virgin.

That latter example I suspect Max, pretty well sums you up, given your ilk’s propensity to peer through the bedroom windows and into the wombs of others.

Boxlock,
We don’t agree often, but I’m with you on your email to the County Commission.
Of course with arrogant assholes like Winter and Unruh (on the advice of his secret committee), it’s not gonna happen.
Southsiders, work Norton as hard as you can. It’s the best chance we got.

OHH MYYYYY — Now the Cons are trying to define what people should hear/do when they go to Church on Sundays…. Oy vey!! What?? If we dont preach the RIGHT WING party line, we are not doing what is right?? LOL What a crock!!

ALL three candidates are demanding a full investigation into the passport breaches of ALL of the candidates — Wonder who might have something to gain from the breaches??

FBI files collected by someone during the Clinton era.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/01/14/hillary/

HUD — THAT LINK IS 10 YEARS OLD!!

So when do you think it happened?

BTW, nothing illegal was ever found/proved.

Regular
Posted March 21, 2008 at 11:01 am | Permalink
#
Max
Posted March 21, 2008 at 10:58 am | Permalink

Whatsamatter DK, the kiddie porn sites blocked for ya?
——————
lmao!

You’re a sick F**k —- you think kiddie porn is funny? Pervert — back under your rock maggot

Yup, nothing wrong with taking 1,000 FBI files to the White House.

Shit, 3 Passports is nothing compared to that.

Oh Chas, a sick f**k is someone who posts obituaries on a blog in order to flame another blogger.

Also, a sick f**k is someone who writes on this blog about the sensual aspects of pictures of teenage girls.

Picture this…

It’s a beautiful spring day in May 2009. Air Force One lands at Andrews Air Force base. President Obama comes down the stairs and walks directly to a podium with several microphones. He speaks.

“I have just returned from my meeting with the President of Iran and I have here a document signed by the President declaring that he will stop all nuclear ambitions and will no longer threaten his neighbors or the free world. I can declare peace in our time…”

Neville Chamberlain, 1939, declaring a treaty with Adolf Hitler stating that Hitler would no longer attack his neighbors or seek war against England and declaring peace in our time.

I wonder how many millions will be dead 6 years after President Obama makes this treaty???

“I wonder how many millions will be dead 6 years after President Obama makes this treaty???”

No treaty can be approved and signed into law without the consent of the US Senate.

Dumbass.

Oh, Israel can stand alone for many years.

They have nukes. They have submarines with nukes. That’s a great deterrent and may be the main reason why Israel exists today.

Even if Iran gets their nukes, will they sacrifice themselves in order to take Israel out? The madman in power there just might do that, but who knows?

Let’s just do nothing and wait and see!

I’m not a real pastor though I play one on this blog.

Max — There is apparently one small FACT about the UCC that you dont know about… LOL… The UCC was the FIRST mainline denomination in this Country to adopt a Resolution that the Judaic Covenants are equal to the N.T. Covenants — Thus they SUPPORT the equality of the Jewish Community with the Christian Covenant…. There is NO Anti-Semitism in the UCC… except for what YOU keep trying to put there, from the Denseness, and perversion of your own MIND!!

They have nukes. They have submarines with nukes. That’s a great deterrent and may be the main reason why Israel exists today.

The primary reason Israel exists today is because of decades of Military aid and other financial assistance from the U>S / western world . Secondary is their own tenacity ….

Do we want a president that thinks going to war is ever funny or a joke — puts him in the same league as Regular who thinks kiddie porn is funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkTFVIxMQs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm5JTf7jZs&NR=1

$

‘BLAMING ENVIRONMENTALISTS FOR KATRINA: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW!’
http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2005-09-13a.asp
“Save Our Wetlands v. Rush - 1977
BOTTOM LINE: There was widespread local opposition. This project risked replacing one major threat with another. A Federal Judge demanded that the Army Corps provide more info, it never did, and it abandoned the project years later on its own.
…
Mississippi River Basin Alliance, et al. v. H. Martin Lancaster — 1996
BOTTOM LINE: The project was 100 miles away from flood area and wouldn’t have made any difference with Katrina. Conservation groups never opposed raising the levees; just the heavy handed way in which the Corps was going to do it. And it wasn’t just conservation groups; even the LA Legislature had concerns. The case was settled one year later but the Corps never had the funding to move ahead on the project.”

http://geo.ya.com/kotimare/ bleper