Steve Jobs dies

HERE is information on Steve Jobs, who died today.  There were things I did not admire about him, but it's very sad to see anybody die at 56 years old.  
May he rest in peace.  And, I hope there's something in his Buddhism which can comfort his family.  I really do.
z

Cartoons can sometimes say it ALL

If you can't see it, the TShirt says "Tax me please!" :-)

Completely off subject from the one above, but both were too good to resist posting..........clever, aren't they.

Have a great Wednesday.
z

Tattoos

What's with the TATTOOS lately?    There seems to be a growing amount of people whose entire bodies are virtually covered with tattoos.  I've seen so many people with tattoos up their neck, down both arms, between their fingers........who knows (who cares) where else?   I kind of liked the tiny tattoo here and there I used to see from time to time, but we're talking about really large, body-covering, dark-colored stuff now.

Sure, tattoos are personal and, really, what do I care?  But, it feels emblematic of something, or is it just a craze?  And, when the craze is over, then what do the people covered with them do?   There are many tattoo-removal shops in L.A....but the ones I see now are so large I wonder if it's even possible to remove them all?

The one to the left isn't too bad......to me, it's about the limit.  What do you think?   Doesn't it seem like a sudden explosion in really body-covering "art"?  "To each his own," of course......but.....what do you think?

z

Jobs Proposal .......interesting stuff here......

This is unusually long for my blog (I zone out on very long blog posts but this held my attention and I learned a lot), but PLEASE take a few minutes and read it.  And please send it to email friends if you agree with me;  I think it's important more and more Americans are informed of these facts:

Memo On The President's Jobs Proposal

TO: House Republicans
FR: Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, Whip McCarthy, and Chairman Hensarling
DT: September 16, 2011
RE: The President’s Jobs Proposal


In August, we released our fall legislative agenda focused on implementing two key aspects of our jobs agenda, the GOP Plan for America's Job Creators: regulatory and tax relief for America’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and employers. This week, we completed action on the first of those items: blocking the federal government's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from unilaterally telling businesses in what states they can and cannot open up for business. Also, this week the President sent Congress his proposed jobs bill. Having had a few days to review his proposal, we wanted to take this opportunity and provide you with some initial reaction.

Last week, prior to his address to a Joint Session of Congress, we wrote to President Obama to discuss potential ways forward on job creation. In addition to highlighting the numerous pro-growth jobs bills passed by the House and awaiting action by the Democrat-controlled Senate, we told the President: “While it is important that we continue to debate and discuss our different approaches to job creation, it is also critical that our differences not preclude us from taking action in areas where there is common agreement.” We stressed that “[w]e shouldn’t approach this as an all or nothing situation.”

We were hopeful that the President was interested in finding common ground as well. However, the White House and the President’s campaign demanded that the bill pass in its entirety. David Axelrod, the President’s top campaign advisor, told ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ that “We are not in negotiation to break up the package. And it’s not an a la carte menu.” Meanwhile, the White House Communications Director, Dan Pfeiffer, said, “The president said it 16 times, I’ll say it a 17th time today. He wants them to pass the American Jobs Act. That’s the piece of legislation he’s sending up.”

For the sake of 14 million Americans who are currently unemployed and the more than 4 million who have been unemployed for more than a year, we are pleased that the White House has begun to back away from that extreme. It is far more important that the focus be on delivering results for the American people rather than on the upcoming campaign. As the President himself said, “The next election is 14 months away. And the people who sent us here -- the people who hired us to work for them -- they don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months.”

We believe there are areas of common agreement, and areas worthy of further conversation where agreement -- assuming there are good faith discussions -- may be possible.

Areas of potential common agreement and areas worthy of further discussion include:

• Extension of 100 Percent Bonus Depreciation: The President has proposed extending through 2012 the ability of businesses to expense 100% of the cost of certain property they place in service. Bonus depreciation, which has historically been a bipartisan proposal, makes it easier for businesses to invest now in new machinery and equipment.

• Addressing the Pending Application of Withholding on Government Contractors: Under current law as of January 1, 2013, businesses that provide goods or services to federal, state, or local governments will have 3% of their payments for such goods or services withheld. The President has proposed delaying this requirement until December 31, 2013. In the House Republican Fall Jobs Agenda, we proposed repealing this onerous withholding requirement.

• Small Business Capital Formation: The White House fact sheet accompanying the President’s speech includes a proposal to “reduce the regulatory burdens on small business capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection, including expanding ‘crowdfunding’ opportunities and increasing mini-offerings.” While the legislative proposal transmitted by the President failed to include any language to advance these goals, the House Financial Services Committee is in the process of considering legislation that (1) increases the threshold at which small companies are subject to full SEC regulation (the current threshold is nearly twenty years old); (2) increase the number of shareholders a company can have before triggering SEC registration; (3) remove the SEC restrictions on "crowdfunding" so businesses can use marketing, such as social networks, to raise capital from a large pool of small investors who may or may not be SEC accredited; and (4) remove SEC restrictions so businesses can use marketing to seek unlimited amounts of capital from SEC accredited investors.

• Incentives for Hiring Veterans: Current law includes employer tax credits for hiring disabled veterans (up to $4,800) and unemployed veterans (up to $2,400). These tax credits will expire at the end of 2011. The President has proposed expanding these credits. The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is considering a more comprehensive effort to assist returning heroes, examining the range of challenges they face entering the workforce, including the need for education and training assistance and to address other barriers to employment. We believe there is an opportunity to make meaningful and significant progress in this area.

• Unemployment Insurance System Reforms: The President has proposed a number of reforms to the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system, including “bridge to work” programs that allow the unemployed to pursue work-based training and enhanced reemployment assistance programs to target those most likely to be unemployed for an extended period of time. House Republicans recommended some of these very ideas to the President at the end of 2009. While the President links these reforms to a blanket extension of extended (up to 99 weeks) UI benefits and new federal spending, there is no reason we cannot move forward on these areas of agreement.

• Free Trade Agreements: The President stated in his speech that, “Now it’s time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for American companies to sell their products in Panama and Colombia and South Korea…” He also characterized this as a step that, “will require congressional action.” We agree. We will take action. But first, we need the President to take action and send us the agreements for our approval. We have repeatedly called on the President to unlock these agreements and clear the way for the creation of hundreds of thousands of new American jobs, while ensuring that we do not lose any more ground in our global competitiveness. In fact, last week we passed a bipartisan measure to extend the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). We hope this action, and pending action in the Senate, will allow us to move forward on all three agreements.

• Infrastructure Funding: The President has proposed $50 billion in “immediate” surface transportation funding and the creation of a new $10 billion national infrastructure bank. While spending to repair and improve infrastructure can play an important part in both short- and long-term economic growth, adding more money to the same broken system is more likely to produce waste and inefficiency than meaningful results. There are more than 100 federal surface transportation programs, many of which are duplicative or do not serve a federal purpose. Before spending new money, for example, we could act to end the mandatory set aside that diverts 10% of current surface transportation funds from roads and bridges to transportation museums and other “enhancements.” And the money we do spend ought to get to the job site faster. For example, of the highway funds provided over two and half years ago under the President’s stimulus bill, over 18% is still unexpended. In part, this is because of an overly complicated and bureaucratic approval process that everyone agrees ought to be fixed. Rather than adding more money to a broken system, Congress and the President should spend the next few months working out a multi-year transportation authorization bill that fixes these problems.

• Payroll Tax Relief: The President has proposed an extension and a significant expansion of the current payroll tax holiday. The President would more than double the amount of the holiday (up from $110 billion this year to $240 billion in 2012, including an expansion of this proposal to some of the employers’ share of these taxes), and would sunset the entire payroll tax holiday effective January 1, 2013. So while employees would see an additional temporary benefit from this proposal in 2012 (the President would modestly expand the current payroll holiday), they would experience a larger effective tax increase 12 months later when the payroll tax reverted back to its full level. There may be significant unforeseen downsides to large temporary tax cuts immediately followed by large tax increases. Compounding this negative effect is the scheduled increase in all individual tax rates, capital gain and dividend rates, and the elimination/reduction of various individual credits and deductions. In short, we are creating significant new uncertainty in an already uncertain economy. Moreover, the proposal increases general fund transfers to Social Security, something that needs to be carefully considered given the long-term challenges facing that program and the implications of those challenges for taxpayers. Finally, the President proposes to pay for this one-year expanded tax holiday by permanently limiting the ability of those earning more than $200,000 a year to take full advantage of their itemized deductions, including their charitable deductions. With over 40% of charitable deductions being claimed by those impacted by this proposed policy, the practical effect is a tax on and a reduction in charitable giving. This will negatively impact thousands of churches and non-profits. House Republicans are supportive of tax relief for working families and small businesses, but the temporary relief proposed by the President must not cause unforeseen harm to the economy 15 months from now and it shouldn’t be offset with permanent tax increases; and it shouldn’t come at the expense of the nation’s charities. That said, a commitment to honest and fruitful discussions between the White House and Congressional Leaders could lead to potential bipartisan agreement on a plan that avoids these downsides and provides tax relief for the middle class that encourages short- and long-term economic growth and job creation.
  
  There are also some aspects of the President’s proposal where it will be harder to find common ground. In addition to his proposed tax increases, we do not agree with the policies proposed by the President that are a repeat or continuation of spending from his 2009 stimulus bill. For example, the President has proposed:

• Payments to State and Local Governments: The 2009 stimulus bill included $53.6 billion in state stabilization funds under the guise of preventing the layoff of teachers, law enforcement officers, and other municipal employees. This band-aid approach masked over the true fiscal problems facing states and local governments. Some jurisdictions used the funds to provide one-time raises; others retained employees for a short-period of time, only to lay them off later. The President is proposing more of the same with an additional $30 billion in spending.

• Federal School Construction: School construction has historically been a state and local function. In his 2009 stimulus proposal, President Obama proposed approximately $20 billion for school construction, but the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the proposed funding.

• Neighborhood Stabilization Grants: The President has proposed a $15 billion initiative to rehabilitate and refurbish homes. This proposal is strikingly similar to the Neighborhood Stabilization Program which has already received $7 billion in funding. There have been allegations of misuse of funds and little evidence that the program delivered the promised results. Five Democrats actually joined with House Republicans in voting to terminate the program earlier this year.

• Tax Increases: As the President himself has said, “…you don’t raise taxes in a recession.” With respect to the tax increases the President has proposed to pay for this package, many in his party seem to agree.
  
  Consider these quotes from just one news story this week:
  
  “Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”
  
  “That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”
  
  “If we’re going to change something, we got to be sure that we do it in the total [tax reform] package, that they know what the rules of the road are,” said Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.).
  
  Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, from the oil-rich state of Alaska, said it was “frustrating” to see the president single out the oil industry after calling on the congressional [Joint Select Committee] in last week’s address to Congress to find savings. “When you start singling out certain industries, there’s an unfairness to it,” he said in an interview. “On the pay-fors, I have a problem.”

• Tax Deductions and Exclusions: The President’s largest proposed tax increase is, as he describes it, on “the wealthiest Americans.” Perhaps it would more aptly be described as a tax increase on charitable contributions, mortgage interest deductions, and municipal bonds for states, etc. The President proposes to limit the value of certain deductions and exclusions for those with income above $200,000 ($250,000 for a couple). All but three Senators opposed an even more limited version this proposal when it was voted on in 2009, hardly the type of bipartisan agreement the President has claimed is his goal. It is understandable why this proposal is so vehemently rejected by the American people. Consider the impact of this proposal just on charities: more than 40% of all tax deductible charitable contributions are made by families impacted by this tax increase. Raising taxes on charitable contributions will mean smaller contributions and fewer resources for churches, food banks, universities, and other non-profits. During a week when it was reported that an astounding one in six Americans are living in poverty, why would anyone want to essentially penalize soup kitchens, hospitals, and churches that provide essential services to those hurting the most? Finally, this tax increase is the linchpin of a nearly half-trillion dollar permanent tax increase to offset another round of temporary stimulus spending and other tax changes. We actually changed the Rules of the House this year to prevent the use of tax increases to pay for more spending, a standard this proposal would violate.
  
  Making Progress
  We don’t question the President’s sincerity when he says he has crafted the right prescription for economic recovery. We believe good people can have honest disagreements without having their morals or commitment to country being called into question. To be clear, we don’t agree with portions of President Obama’s proposal, and Republicans have a different vision for the steps that need to be taken to help our economy get back to creating jobs. We are, however, committed to passing legislation to implement the policies in the areas where agreement can be found to support job creation and long-term economic growth. Over the past several days, many of you have approached us with ideas for legislation that meets these goals. We will be working with you and our committees in the coming days and weeks to schedule as many of these items as possible for consideration. It is our hope that Majority Leader Reid, the Democratic Majority in the Senate and President Obama will realize that while an all or nothing approach might make sense to some political advisors and communicators, it comes at the expense of making progress for millions of unemployed Americans -- and that is a tradeoff none of us should make.

Z:  This morning, again, I heard either Obama or Carney (or both) talk about how the Right can't come up with jobs ideas;  Please, America........don't listen to the lies.
z

Smart Meters..............

Do you think this guy's overdoing it?  Do you know anything about the new Smart Meters?  A friend of mine in Las Vegas had one put on his home while he was on vacation last month with no warning.

Can this Meter do all that the man suggests?  If not, does it establish a bad trend, anyway?

What's with the SMART METER?   I hadn't heard of one till my Vegas friend emailed me this on Monday.

Gad, I always felt so free and safe in this country.......what the heck happened?   Is this a SMART idea or a threatening IDEA?  

z

"Behead Bankers"...that's Roseanne's cure.....

The loons seem to be coming out from under their rocks.....Check out Roseanne Barr's comments in the video:

She's running for President of the United States AND Israel "it's a twofer," according to her, dontchaknow.
Her estimation of the "Occupiers" of Wall Street these days is that they are "really COOL young people who have really DEEP THOUGHTS" (Wow, man...)
She feels anybody who makes over $100 million should be arrested and if they won't go to "the reeducation camps" (not 'a' reeducation camp, but she says 'the' camps....which ones?) then they should be "beheaded."  (She's not been covered on CNN TV NEWS with this yet, has she?  I wonder how long it would take for CNN to cover a Conservative suggesting anybody ought to be 'beheaded'? :-)  While this blog keeper knows this is probably hyperbole mixed in with a little wishful thinking on her part, it's still not a good thing to say, is it?)

She will make war illegal because, after all, there are no threats to Americans in this world, right? :-)
I have two favorite parts just for the sheer irony in this video;  One is that she insults the bankers for being "immoral."  Have you ever watched an episode of ROSEANNE?  Nobody finds giving her 14 year old birth control pills immoral, right?  Not if Roseanne approves.   Nobody thought her sister having sex with every man within earshot was immoral, right?  Stealing from her employers wasn't immoral, right?  Teaching her kids how to beat the system by cheating in one way or the other during nearly every show wasn't immoral, right?  etc. etc. etc......Some of you won't have found her show immoral.  FINE!  Let's just say some of us find her immoral just as much as she, and maybe you, find successful people immoral.   Fair enough?  Are we allowed?

Second, she actually mentions "how things are CONNECTED!!!"   Obviously, she's either never watched Glenn Beck's amazing and horrifying connecting of the Obama/Sunstein/Jones/SunBank/Geithner family (and a thousand other subjects), DOTS, right?   Beck's a Conservative, so HIS DOTS can't be logical or true no matter HOW much research he shows, is that it?    Is it "moral" to ignore his dots?  I think not.  If we had a curious media of fairness and true investigation, those dots would be getting MUCH larger press than "Occupying Wall St", that's for sure.

So, what're your thoughts about Roseanne?  (By the way, I still watch her very funny show from time to time, I'll give her that;  she finally even began to act pretty well by the fourth year or so)  I hate to give her too much time here, and I figure that she's using "beheadings" loosely, I'll give her that, but the rest?   Just how utterly naive can what she thinks is "deep thought" get?
z

The Phantom Conservative suggests...........

How about a new tax called the “National Debt Solution Tax”.  A flat 1% tax on all retail sales, tied to a balanced budget amendment with teeth.  This is kind of a National Consumption Tax and every penny goes to paying off the national debt and the idiots in Congress cannot move these funds around or tamper with this tax.  This would be handled by a whole new government agency, NOT THE IRS.  This is a very fair tax to the poor and the super rich.  Yes, food stamps would be excluded and maybe home purchases.  Let's say that I am a middle class American and I go to buy a car that costs $20,000: I pay $200 bucks.  Donald Trump wants to buy a $600,000 Maybach Mercedes, so he pays $6,000.  A poor person buys a $1,500 junker, they pay only $15.  I go to the store and get $100 buck of groceries, I chip in $1.00.  Someone should calculate how much this would generate and how fast it might start to bring down the debt or, if nothing else, cover the damn interest.  This is not the same as the Flat Tax that Herman Cain and others are recommending and have recommended over the years.  This is a special tax to solve a special problem and it would send a strong message to the rest of the world that the American people are going to step up to the bar and address the problem with their pocket book.  This would not bother me and, as stated, it would have to be tied to a balanced budget amendment.   I wish I had the numbers to calculate the financial impact of this.  This would not be on wholesale sales, only on retail sales or sales of goods and services to the end users.  Yes, even the attorneys and accountants would pay 1% for selling there services.  This is much better than the 1% transaction tax that has been bounced around, because many people do not have bank accounts and there is the entire underground cash economy that would avoid the transaction tax.  1% would not kill anyone!!!!!!!!!!, but Congress would be forbidden to ever increase this amount or use these funds for anything else that to pay the nation debt.

 

SO.....THE PHANTOM would like your opinion (he's a good friend of mine) and so would I......GO FOR IT.   thanks.

z

Today near Munich

At the beautiful Starnberger See (Lake)....
by Ms Z
z

Sunday Faith Blog..........

"Word Of God Speak"

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay
The last thing I need is to be heard
But to hear what You would say

Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You're in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak

I'm finding myself in the midst of You
Beyond the music, beyond the noise
All that I need is to be with You
And in the quiet hear Your voice

Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You're in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay 


This gives you a whole different appreciation of being in church, I think.  It did me, anyway.  If you don't go, try to get quiet and think of the lyrics........He's there with you and that quiet helps so much, but singing this in church is an amazing feeling.  I wish you could hear the harmony I do on the bridge of that song and I can't imagine how Mercy Me, the group which recorded it, missed it...

...“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm  46:10
Have a quiet, restful Sunday........listen for Him.
Z

Holder lied, people died...........

Gunrunner: Cash For Cartels

 Posted 09/27/2011 06:42 PM ET

Scandal: New documents reveal the Department of Justice lied to Congress and show how U.S. officials bought guns with tax dollars and then made sure no one stopped their transfer to Mexican drug cartels.
The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it.
We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved.
According to documents obtained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), agent John Dodson was ordered to buy semiautomatic Draco pistols and was provided a letter by ATF group supervisor David Voth authorizing FFLs (federal firearms licensees) to sell Dodson the guns without filling out the required form.
A copy of the letter obtained by David Codrea of the Gun Rights Examiner tells dealers to "accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62X39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson" to be used "in the furtherance of the performance of his official duties."
Scribbled on the letter is this note: "Picked up guns 6/10/10. Paid cash."
According to Fox News, Dodson then sold the guns to known illegal buyers who took them to a stash house. Voth disapproved Dodson's request for 24-hour surveillance and ordered the surveillance team to return to the office.
Dodson stayed behind, against orders. A week later, when a vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons to their ultimate destination, he called for an interdiction team to move in, seize the weapons and arrest the traffickers. Voth refused, and the guns disappeared without surveillance.
Again, Fast and Furious was no botched sting operation. The ATF simply didn't "lose track" of thousands of weapons. We believe this was a planned and premeditated attempt to further the administration's gun-control agenda and its claim that violence in Mexico was our fault.
Voth was "jovial, if not giddy, but just delighted about" such guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, according to Dobson's testimony before Rep. Darrel Issa's House Oversight Committee.
"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," Dodson testified to the panel. "It was so mandated."
Another ATF agent, Olindo James Casa, said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."
Fast and Furious let members of the Sinaloa Cartel buy in excess of 1,900 weapons over a one-year period starting in October 2009, according to a document dated last January. What information we have comes from ATF documents and agent testimony. The Justice Department has stonewalled Congress on this issue.
Guns linked to Fast and Furious were found at the scene where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010 at the hands of an illegal immigrant working for the Sinaloa Cartel just 10 miles from the Mexican border near Nogales, Ariz.
Asked by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren about ATF's insistence that this was just a botched sting, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley responded: "It's a lie — it's a lie — and just to make things clear for your listeners: The ATF ordered this ATF agent to purchase these guns and in turn sell them, and supposedly track them.
"But he was a lone wolf in the operation — they wouldn't give him any help for 24-hour surveillance.
"There's something sinister going on. They're doing everything they can to avoid the issue; they want to stonewall us and string us along," Grassley said of the Justice Department's statements and lack of promised cooperation.
Attorney General Eric Holder's "I know nothing" imitation of TV's Sgt. Schultz long ago evaporated with the discovery of a speech he gave to local authorities in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 2, 2009, giving credit for Gunrunner to himself and the Obama administration.
Holder told the audience: "Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion."
A two-year-old C-SPAN video shows Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, who would resign nine months later after less than a year's service, telling reporters at a Justice Department briefing of major policy initiatives to fight the Mexican drug cartels.
"The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels," Ogden began, "and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration's comprehensive plan."
Ogden said the administration's plan, at the president's direction, included the ATF's "increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner," of which Operation Fast and Furious would be a part.
The mainstream media have shown little interest in this matter, salivating instead over the recent execution of cop killer Troy Davis while ignoring the government-run operation that killed agent Brian Terry.
Fast and Furious should spark our pursuit of the truth, even if the trail leads to the Oval Office.

What do YOU think of this? Will the truth ever come out?  Why aren't sworn testimonies all over the media? (Ya, imagine ME asking THAT?)
z