Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Freaky Tale

I can't go without posting this on Halloween. It's not political, but it is incredibly cool.

Check out this site, DRKRM, a site by John Matkowsky. Anyone who watched the show sightings should know that name. He was the owner of a house outside of LA that came across the most unusual pictures. Here's the (true) story...

John Matkowsky moved into his dream house in 1985. Almost from the beginning he remembers hearing strange sounds, but the house was old and John figured that the sounds were just the normal creaking and groaning of aging floorboards and lath walls. Sometimes, late at night, he would feel a strange tingling sensation along his arms and neck, but the house was drafty. It was easy to dismiss the feeling as part of the price you pay for living in a house built in 1906.

Then, in 1990, the sounds and sensations intensified. John began to feel a presence. He would catch the barest glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, the shadow would be gone. There were loud bangs coming from a back room, but when John went to investigate, there was never anything there. "I felt sort of a sunburn on my arms. It was tingly, like a sunburn. That's how I would know there was some kind of presence here," John recalls.

Friends felt the presence, too. The Mt. Washington cabin was a favorite spot for weekend barbecues, and on one lazy summer afternoon, the presence crashed the party. John felt the now-familiar sensation of a sunburn and then, for no apparent reason, a blue porcelain salad bowl exploded nearby. John contacted the bowl's manufacturer, but the company could offer no explanation for how the bowl could have shattered into a million pieces.

Soon after that barbecue, John Matkowsky rented out part of his house to his friend John Huckert. Almost immediately, Huckert began to hear the strange noises. He saw the free-floating shadows moving across the floor, his desk, and the living room wall. Then, he felt the presence reach out of its world and into his.

"I was reading something at the desk, and I felt someone come up and place a hand on my shoulder. Of course, I turned around to see who it was and nobody was there. I got a sort of jolt of adrenaline. It made me nervous. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but when I tried to mask out all the possibilities for what could be causing it, there was nothing causing it."

...John Huckert was the first to see the ghost in its human form. "I've seen this older man standing over near the couch," he says. "I see him for hardly a tangible instant, and then when I blink, he's not there anymore."

These fleeting glances, strange sensations, and odd sounds were the only evidence of the ghost's presence until John Huckert received a Christmas present in 1991 that would change everything. His father gave him a Polaroid instant camera. That camera would produce some of the best evidence of a ghost ever photographed.

..."I suddenly felt a sense of anxiety," he remembers. "I'm not sure how to describe it, but I just felt this strange feeling and I got up and I took a picture of the room. Nothing happened, so I thought, that was really stupid. Then, the bathroom door opened by itself. I took a picture of the bathroom door and got this really strange-looking thing that was either scary or comical. John came home and he took one, then I took a couple more and we got four photos that day."

It seemed unlikely that the same camera that had taken pictures of the Huckert family's Christmas was now chronicling the appearance of a ghost. The two Johns suspected the film was defective. They bought a fresh cartridge of film and tried it, but the ghostly images continued to appear. It happened over and over, at all hours of the day and night, but only when the ghost wanted to appear.

...John Matkowsky showed several of the pictures to his friends at a professional photo lab in Los Angeles. They could not explain how the images had gotten on the film. They made negatives from the instant prints and examined them closely. It did not appear to be a malfunction within the camera. Still, many of the friends who visited the Mt. Washington house remained skeptical about the authenticity of the photographs.

When Ross Harpold came to the house for a party, he looked at the photos but remained unconvinced. Laughingly, Ross asked Huckert if the ghost was with them now. Huckert answered honestly that he did not know. Ross picked up the camera, asked "Are you here?" and snapped a picture. As the picture developed, the faint outlines of a word began to appear in the photograph. The word was "Yes."

John Matkowsky asked, "What is your name?" and snapped his own picture. Clearly and boldly across the face of the photograph the word "Wright" appeared. "He told us his name was Wright, but we still didn't believe it. We continued asking questions to the middle of the air in the living room. We asked him if he was a good ghost or a bad ghost, just really inane questions to begin with. Then he answered, 'Friend.'"

In the months that followed, John Matkowsky and John Huckert took nearly a hundred photographs on which ghost writing appeared. Usually, the response was in English, sometimes it appeared in Latin, but it was always a direct answer to a direct question. In response to the question "Where do you go when you're not here?" the answer was "Flux." When they asked who Wright was, he replied in Latin, "Et alia corpus delicti," meaning "Among other things, a murder victim."

In September of 1992, John Matkowsky wrote Sightings a letter describing the bizarre photographs. He asked for help in determining what was causing the inexplicable phenomena. Sightings assembled an investigative team led by Kerry Gaynor, the noted UCLA parapsychologist, and Edson Williams, a photo analyst from the prestigious Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Both researchers examined the photographs, interviewed Matkowsky and Huckert, and determined that the best way to study the Ghost Writer was to conduct a series of controlled experiments inside the Mt. Washington house.

The Sightings team brought four Polaroid instant cameras and several sealed film cartridges shipped directly from Polaroid to the house. Each camera and each cartridge was logged and monitored to try to eliminate the possibility that someone was perpetrating a hoax. John Matkowsky was concerned that the Ghost Writer would not appear in this kind of crowded, expectant atmosphere.

Several test shots were taken and no writing appeared. Kerry Gaynor was openly skeptical. After more than four hundred ghost investigations, Kerry was no stranger to wild-goose chases. "In my line of work we spend a great deal of time waiting and watching and wondering and hoping. We don't experience phenomena very often, but when something happens, it's exciting. It's a moment of connectedness with the unknown," says Gaynor.

That "moment of connectedness" came several hours into the investigation. Marty Elcan, a friend of John Matkowsky's who had had several successful communications with the Ghost Writer, posed a question. "Are most spirits good spirits or bad spirits?" Marty asked.

As the film developed in the presence of the entire Sightings team, a cryptic message appeared. "There are numerous remedial lemurs." A lemur is a long-tailed monkey found mostly in Madagascar. Was the Ghost Writer playing a practical joke? John Huckert found the answer in a Latin dictionary. In Roman mythology lemurs are the night-walking spirits of the dead.

The excitement in the room was palpable. Nervous laughter masked the tension. Kerry Gaynor was impressed, but wanted further controls. "You have to establish a chain of evidence. You have to be able to observe the phenomenon from the beginning to the end. So, we have to load the film from a sealed pack, show that it's our camera. We have to fire it. We have to control the film as it comes out."

Following Kerry's suggestions, Sightings trained one of its video cameras on a new Polaroid brought to the house by photographic expert Edson Williams. A sealed film package was opened and a new cartridge was inserted directly into the Polaroid. A member of the Sightings team posed the question "Are you here for John or for the house ?"

A picture was taken. It was placed on a table in full view. After thirty seconds, a message appeared. "Genius loci." Kerry Gaynor looked up the word in the Latin dictionary. The exact translation of genius loci is "the guardian spirit of a man or a place." More pictures were taken in the same manner. The messages alternated between English ("Time travel," "Anything is possible," "John relax and learn") and Latin ("Ad litteram").

Edson Williams had never seen anything like it in his twenty years as a photo analyst. "I actually watched them eject out of the Polaroid. There was a moment where I thought, Oh, my God, and I was in one of the Polaroids, which made it even spookier. It made me feel that there could be something in the house."

Near the conclusion of the night-long investigation, Marty Elcan asked, "Wright, will you be with them for a long time?" The Ghost Writer replied, "Sed haec prius fuere." Translated, the phrase means "All this is over now." It was the last message the Ghost Writer would send.

Now, I need to stress these two points;
1) The cameras were brought in BY the Sightings crew, and the film was factory sealed and had delivered DIRECTLY from Polaroid.
2) I saw that Sightings special and they showed a SINGLE TAKE of them opening a factory sealed box, then tearing open the factory sealed wrapping, placing the new cartridge into the empty camera, asking the question, then about a second later taking the picture. 30 seconds longer into the single take, the image appeared with the writing on it. There were no breaks in the filming, and it showed the entire process from start to finish.

Matkowsky has an exhibition going on right now in LA about the encounter entitled Seeing Things, and be sure to check out the videos.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

From the Facebook group, "Stay in Iraq until the Job Is Done"


Caption: "Does anything really need to be said...The picture shows that this 82nd Airborne Division soldier has been thru Survival School and learned his lessons well. He's giving the sign of "coercion" with his left hand. These hand signs are taught in survival school to be used by POW's as a method of posing messages back to our intelligence services who may view the photo or video. This guy was obviously being coerced into shaking hands with Hillary Clinton. It's ironic how little she knew that he would so inform us about the photo---perhaps because she's never understood the military to begin with."

Oh, and it's legit.
The "not really all that pleased" assessment is evidently accurate although the picture originally appeared without any accompanying text, and the "coercion" caption was only added later to make the humor of the photograph more explicit; as the soldier pictured with Senator Clinton (who asked that we not identify him by name) told us that he employed the gesture to indicate that he was not a fan of the senator's and was not as appreciative of having the opportunity to meet (and pose with) her as it might otherwise appear.

Friday, October 26, 2007

I Rock!

My letter to the editor of Tennessee Tech's Paper, The Oracle, got printed!

The letter was in response to one of the editorialist's article about how a square pizza had a serving size of 1/5th the pizza, and he wanted an Engineering student to explain how to evenly slice the pizza. He then went on to talk about how it related to the Bush Administration and how there were no WMD's in Iraq.

Here's the letter.


Here’s how you slice a pizza into 5 pieces. Make 5 evenly spaced strips.

Or if you wanted to do it the hard way, take the length of one side and call that x. The perimeter is 4*x. Now divide that by 5 to find the length of crust for each piece. Make a point and then measure following the crust (4*x)/5 away to the next point. Keep repeating until you’ve made all 5 points.

Next starting from the center cut to each point. Math will prove that all the sections have the same area and the same crust length.

Also here’s a list of WMD’s either found in Iraq after the invasion in 2003 or were admitted to being produced by Iraqi officials in 2002, BEFORE we invaded;

Found:
At least 500 shells filled with mustard and sarin nerve agent

Admitted by officials in 2002;
3.9 tons of VX gas, but could have produced up to 200 tons 1/100 gram on the skin is fatal
Iraq admitted to manufacturing 790 tons of sarin nerve agent
Between 2,850 and 3,080 tons of mustard gas
Iraq admitted to making 2,200 gallons of Anthrax spores
520 Gallons of Aflatoxin, a chemical that causes liver cancer
5,300 gallons of BoTox placed in missile warheads. If inhaled in gas form, 1.42 x 10^ -11 of a gram is fatal

But I’m not holding my breath that either the list of WMD’s found, or this letter are going to be published.

Next.

-------
Sr. ME

YAF Interviews Left Wing Smear Artist

Be sure to watch the video at Hot Air. Jason Mattera caught up with Adam Kokesh, the guy who organized this smear against the YAF at George Washington University. In there he readily uses the term for an Islamic radical as a "Fascist Extremist," but still denounces the use of the term Islamo-fascist by public speakers.

On top of that, Just off the presses, Mere Rhetoric has shown that he is at it again with his fliers. This one claiming that Japan was about to surrender before the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb (Japan rejected the US offer to surrender 10 days before the bombing), that there has been a mass round-up of Arab-Americans, and the "torture" at Abu-Ghraib, all of which were caused by racism in fliers he posted at David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

And as HA explains, it's no surprise who Kokesh supports for president in 2008. And as of now, there is no word on what actions have been taken by the school for the smear against the YAF. The president wrote a letter about the incident, but did not mention that the Iraq Veterans Agianst The War were the organization who created the fliers.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Best Scam So Far

There's a new type of web scam coming out that I just got in my inbox. It's claiming to be a French company named "Financial Intelligence" offering a "regional agent" job in the states making $50,000/yr for just a few hours of work per week.

You click on the link and it takes you to a very fancy looking webpage that has all the appearance of a financial firm. Except I noticed one thing.

You know how this web address is gopandcollege.blogspot.com? Blogspot is the free hosting company, and the gopandcollege part is a free domain inside that main address. This site had the same appearance it was http://______.php0h.com.

So I decided to look into the web address before I even started to look at the main address, php0h.com. It was a free web hosting page. That made me suspicious.

So then I started to read the page.

For those interested, the following are the basic requirements:

  1. US Citizens and/or residents of the state.
  2. Should not be below 21 years of age
  3. Can dedicate at least 2-3 work hours/week
  4. With a working e-mail address and a telephone access


Then I read this last bit;
Should have a healthy checking account

Then I looked at the job description, and it just all went down hill.
  1. Receive funds or either from our company or from our partners to his bank account as approved by the Manager
  2. Make necessary processing of funds in accordance to our company needs.
  3. Create records of transactions and report the details of the same to the Manager.

Mmmm. This has scam written all over it, so just be warned that it's the same old Nigerian money scam, but with a technological twist. And just for the record, here is the REAL company named Financial Intelligence, located in California.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Slight Disinformation At Snopes.com

I recently got this e-mail, and decided to investigate it at Snopes, and was a bit confused. I looked at Snopes and they said that Canadians only pay 29% for federal income taxes, if they make over 120,000, compared to a total tax burden of 40-45% for Californians.

Note what I said there. JUST the Canadian Federal income tax is 29% for anything over $120,887. Well, JUST the United State's federal income tax rate is 28% if single, and 25% if you are married for the $120k range.

But let's look at the TOTAL tax burden for those living in Canada. I input 35 years old, making 119,999 (the max for the site) filing in Quebec as married with 1 kid, and here is what I got.


Notice that Alberta is the only province with a tax burden below $50,000. And in Quebec, you end up paying 51% of your income to the government.

If you file as a single male with no kids the taxes jump to $64,025 (53%)

But what about large families? I put in again, 35, making approx $120,000, and married, but this time with 4 kids. Tax burden in Quebec was still slightly over $60,000, and all of the provinces were still over $50,000.

*UPDATE* I sent an e-mail to snopes about the information, but rather than acknowledging on the site that Canadians pay over 50% of their wages in taxes this was the response I got;

The writer of the e-mail states that he is "in the 55% tax bracket." The
term "tax bracket" specifically refers to the rate at which an individual is
taxed due to a particular income level and therefore excludes other taxes
(such as sales tax) which are not based on income levels.

- B
Also, they changed their original post from stating that Californians payed 40-45% of their income to federal AND state (not just federal as in Canada) to stating that they pay an equivalent amount. Snopes, the additional 4% (Canadians pay 29%, Americans Pay 25%) of $120,000 that the Canadians earn is $4,800. That's hardly free.

Monday, October 22, 2007

One 9/11 Theory Killed

Ever since Casino Royale put the idea out there as a line in hte movie, I've been searching for truth in the claims that people knew of 9/11 beforehand and short sold their airline stocks. I recently found this article on Newsmax explaining the short selling of Airline Stocks before 9/11.

It states that in fact there has been only one documented case where anyone has presumed prior knowledge of 9/11 in any form of legal action, and that was an "impromptu outburst" against an Egyptian broker who profited $300,000 from a sell when he predicted "the Dow would soon drop from 9,600 to 3,000."

Not only does the relatively modest action belie some daring market conspiracy by those in touch with terror plans, but the pre-Sept. 11 market history is also consistent, more or less, with business as usual. Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a consulting company that does research on markets worldwide, has crunched the numbers and recently told Insight magazine:

"The market was in bad shape in the summer and early fall, and you know there were a lot of people who believed that there would be a sell-off in the market long before Sept. 11. For instance, American Airlines was at $40 in May and fell to $29 on Sept. 10; United was at $37 in May and fell to $31 on Sept. 10. These stocks were falling anyway, and it would have been a good time to short them.

The downward trend in the airline stocks was backed up in the pre-Sept. 11 trading picture.

Insight reported that there were repeated spikes in put options on American Airlines during the year before Sept. 11 (June 19 with 2,951 puts, June 15 with 1,144 puts, April 16 with 1,019 and Jan. 8 with 1,315 puts). In the same period, United Airlines had slightly more action (Aug. 8 with 1,678 puts, July 20 with 2,995, April 6 with 8,212 and March 13 with 8,072).

With United and American stock transactions, and across the board, there is an automated system called the CBOE Market Surveillance System, which automatically records information trades. The existence of this sophisticated surveillance system, designed to ferret out inside-traders, would have given federal investigators a pretty quick look at what, if anything, was untoward in the market just prior to 9-11.

All the more reason to wonder what’s going on and taking so long, say the experts.

And it is not just the SEC and FBI that is still mired in the 9-11 profiteering probe. Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain have their own investigations running.

Like their U.S. counterparts, nothing has been forthcoming.

So far, the only break in the silence has been the apparent impromptu courtroom outburst of assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Breen, who recently accused Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, an Egyptian-born stockbroker on trial in San Diego, with knowing in advance about 9-11 and capitalizing on the insider information by attempting to unload $300,000 worth of shares on Sept. 10, 2001.

In court Breen charged that on the afternoon of Sept. 10, Elgindy contacted his broker at Salomon Smith Barney and asked him to sell the stock, confiding in the broker that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon dive to below 3,000.



But leave this information to be "forgotten" by truthers, and people who believe that 9/11 was a giant scheme by the Jews.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

GOPAC Attracts The LA Times

Hehehehehe!

"Blistering USC-bashing rant" I love it! Here's the original, but I do have better rants.

I must say though, I hate it when people make fun of the south's reputation for being a bunch of slack jawed idiots.

As a Sr. Mechanical Engineering student at Tennessee Tech, I personally take offense to it, and I think so should every Georgia Tech Graduate. Yes there are the stereotypical southerners, but I swear they're all in Tuscaloosa!

Bush's Reason For Vetoing SCHIP

"But SCHIP helps the poor. Bush is hurting the poor."

Yes it does. But it can also be abused by people making over $100,000 per year. The National SCHIP cut off for earned income would be set at 300% of the poverty level. Only 10 states currently have percents that high, and Jersey has the highest at 350%. To get an idea of how much that is, there is a graphic of that level based on the number in a household over at the 2007 Federal Poverty Guidelines.

However, not included in that 300% are these;

Social Security
Capital Gains (ex. Mutual Fund Growth)
Ordinary Dividends (ex. Stock growth)

Nearly 1/2 of all American Adults, and nearly 60% of children live within the 300% range. That is far too many people to be considered a bill for the "poor." Reduce the cut off to 200%, then bring the bill back to the debate table. If individual states want to have higher cut offs, then let them do that on their own.

An Open Reply

I recently got 2 comments from likely USC/Pac-10 fans pissing on my SEC.

Dave said that the SEC teams never play any hard out of conference teams, and James had this to say;
let's take a look at what 'SC has done when they've played the SEC in the past two years: pasted the SEC West Champion Arkansas 50-14, then 55-19 AT RAZORBACK STADIUM. Auburn in '03? Oklahoma (granted, not in the SEC) in '04? USC has consistently beaten the tar out of the best teams from the SEC, ACC, and the Big 12, and you can ask them to do no better.

OK, first Dave, here's a look at out of conference teams that the SEC is playing this year alone;

Alabama vs Florida State
Auburn vs #2 USF, AND #25 Kansas State
Florida Gators vs Florida State
Georgia vs Georgia Tech
Kentucky vs Louisville
LSU vs #11 Virginia Tech
Ole Miss vs #16 Missouri
Mississippi State vs #9 West Virginia
Tennessee vs #10 Cal

That is 2007 alone. Let's see 2006 shall we?

Arkansas vs. #4 Southern Cal
Auburn vs. Washington State
Florida vs. Florida State
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech
Kentucky vs. #6 Louisville
LSU vs. Arizona
Miss. State vs. #10 West Virginia
Ole Miss vs #18 Wake Forrest
Tennessee vs. #14 Cal
Vanderbilt vs. #8 Michigan

Wow! Another 10 of 12 SEC teams step up to play hard teams.

The SEC requires 8 conference games out of 12 regular season games, plus you want one easy game for homecoming, and theoretically you want an easy game for week 1. That leaves 2 weeks to play a non conference team, if you don't include in-state rivals. Out of 12 SEC teams, at least 9 teams are playing a team that is ranked in the top 25, or was ranked in the top 25 in 2006. The only exceptions to that are Florida State and Georgia Tech. Florida State just dropped from being ranked #21 last week, and GT is Georgia's in state rivalry.


Second James, USC beat the then 4-7, 10-4, and now 3-3 Arkansas Razorbacks. They have NEVER been the best SEC team. And yes they beat the then 8-5 Auburn Tigers in 2003. I'll give USC their title in 2004 but then again, as you said that was against Oklahoma, a non-SEC team who fell to 8-4 the following year.

Just for comparison, here is USC's regular season out of conference schedule for the past few years;

2007;
Idaho (1-6) WAC
Nebraska (4-3) Big 12
Notre Dame (1-6) IA

2006;
#12 Arkansas (10-4) SEC
Nebraska (9-5) Big 12
#11 Notre Dame (10-3) IA

2005;
Hawaii (5-7) WAC
Arkansas (4-7) SEC
#9 Notre Dame (9-3) IA
Fresno State (8-5) WAC


USC had one year where they played truly tough out of conference teams, but in the past 3 years they have NOT played the BEST of the ACC, the Big 12, or the SEC. The last conference champ they beat was Virginia Tech in 2004. Before that it was Colorado in 2002. The SEC played 3 conference champs in 2006 regular season; USC, (PAC 10), Louisville (Big East), and Georgia Tech (ACC)

And yes, I can ask USC to do better. How about not losing to UNRANKED teams in their own conference. USC has had 3 strait games against unranked teams be decided by 7 or less points. I'm predicting that USC will stomp Notre Dame (as has everyone else), get pounded by the Ducks, beat O State and Cal, then lose to Arizona State to finish 9-3.

News To See

First off, the case that Rush is selling with the original papers of Harry Reid trying to get Rush Limbaugh fired are on sale for just under another 24 hours.

The last bid was at over $131,000!! Every penny of that money is going to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. On top of that, Rush is going to match that dollar amount himself. So already, the MC-LEF is going to get a check for $262,000.

PLUS, Rush has sent invites to each of the signers to also match the donations. Not surprisingly, none of the democrats have agreed to donate.

*UPDATE* The final bid was by a Betty Casey at $2,100,100. Rush is going to match every penny of that, giving a total of $4,200,200 to the MC-LEF. That is amazing.


Secondly, the New York Times had a massive sell off of 10.4 million (7.4% stake) shares which dropped the stock to a 20 year low. The AP credits the price drop to readers leaving the paper to go to internet sources. I've been watching the NYT steadily decline from over $50 per share in the 2002-2004, as numerous accounts of bias in the paper leaked out.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Illegal Immigration Red Flag

From The Washington Times, via Drudge;
A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of Tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by THE WASHINGTON TIMES...

The Custom's and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveller was infected, but it took Homeland Security officials seven weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution... DEVELOPING...


The crap is about to hit the fan...

Will Someone Please Ask This?

Although savvy enough to work a blog, I am not tech savvy enough to create a video for youtube as a possible question to ask presidential candidates. Will some one please post one or both of these questions and send a link here?

"Some Republican, and most Democrat candidates believe that an immediate withdrawl from Iraq will cause a stop in the sectarian violence in certain regions of the country. My question is, if elected president, would you follow that ideology, and how would you react if we withdraw and the violence increases?"

Or this question;

"Non-interventionism is becoming a popular concept now because it is the concept of not involving ourselves in the rest of the world's business. As president what would you do to prevent the world from coming to us as it did on December 7th, 1941, and Sept 11, 2001?"

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

GOP & College Dilemma

I've been pondering something since I realized that I am now a senior at Tennessee Tech;
What am I going to do with this blog after I graduate? After all I won't be in college anymore so there will be no need for me to be "GOP & College."

So what to do. I love blogging, and want to continue blogging after I graduate, but I want this page to continue to be run.

Therefore GOP & College is opening to current conservative college students who would like to post on a blog.

Send me an e-mail letting me know you're interested, and if you have a blog currently, send me a link to it as well. If I think you'd be a worthy candidate then I'll send you an invite to be a co-writer at the page, with the opportunity to become sole owner of the blog after I graduate.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

I Just Cand't Get This Out Of My Mind

I just can't get over the fact that Democrat candidates are pro partial-birth. It is a disgusting procedure that happens only after 28 weeks of gestation. Democrats claim that "It needs to be available in case the pregnancy threatens the mother's health."

First off, no case in medical history has ever been recorded where that was the case. And here's a little factoid for you Democrats;

Over 80% of premature babies born at week 28 SURVIVE!

Over 90% of premature babies born at week 32 SURVIVE!

NO EXCUSES!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Harry Reid And Senate Dems Dooped By Frost Parents

Halsey Frost claims a combined income of for his family of $45,000 per year for his wife and 4 kids. I sympathize with his 2 young kids who were injured in a car accident.

What I don't sympathize with is the fact that they are drawing government assistance for their medical bills.

But they need it right?

Not so fast. The husband willingly declined getting medical coverage for his family and claims that health insurance would cost them over $1200 per month, which is higher than their mortgage payment.

However, insurance bloggers quickly countered that by stating that insurance plans could be found for roughly $425 per month to cover the whole family.

But that's not all. They live in a town home with over 3,000 square feet, and all 4 children are sent to private school at Park School for the price of $20,000 per year, EACH.

The address previously stated that the two children in the accident get a reduced tuition, but the math still doesn't add up.

You can't have $20,000 per year tuition for even just 2 kids, and pay a $1200 per month mortgage. That just don't add up.

In order to live at their standards of living, the Frosts need to earn at least $95,000 per year to live at the standard of living that they claim to have. Here's why I think that.

You have at least 2 kids attending the school where tuition is roughly $20,000 per year, plus I'll assume the other two's "discounted rate" is 1/2 of standard tuition. So for 4 kids, that's $60,000 in private school tuition alone. Plus you have a $1200 mortgage for each of the 12 months in a year.

So you have a total of I'd assume $74,400 in children's tuition and the house alone. That doesn't include the mortgage he is paying on the $160,000 warehouse he bought in 1999, or things like gas, groceries, and other yearly expenses. Has anyone found the tax returns for this family?

Everything about this family stinks of taking advantage of the government. What's even worse is that the SCHIPS program allows people to make up to $82,000 per year of combined income before losing eligibility for the program. Everything about this story just stinks to high heaven. I just wish the kids who genuinely were injured in the accident hadn't been brought into the spot light for all of this.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

A Story Worth Noting

Wyatt has a hot report coming from Philly that is bound to hurl even more mud at the Philly PD.

Wyatt points out that when police were called the mother stated that the 15 year old was attacking her with a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other. Upon arriving at the scene, the Philly police department also reported visual confirmation of him carrying the weapons.

After that he ran back inside and swapped out the knife and hammer for the iron.

Also noted in the story was this juicy bit of info buried at the bottom;

Timbers was a ninth-grader at the CEP Miller Alternative School, a school for students with discipline problems, according to the Philadelphia School District. Neighbors on Brill Street told CBS 3 they have previously seen the teen carrying knives on several past occasions.

On several occasions. You are talking about a possibly violent teenager who charged at police officers with a very heavy iron. Imagine the force of being hit by a 5-7 lb chunk of plastic and steel (WHICH COMES TO A POINT AT THE TOP I MIGHT ADD) at say 25-30 mph.

That's going to hurt, and will certainly break almost any bone in the body. I believe that the Philly officers had every right to shoot, and that it was a mere stroke of bad luck that the lone wound to the shoulder was fatal.

Slightly Weird...

Check out this story from the AP (emphasis mine);

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago
DEARBORN, Mich. - All eyes were on newcomer Fred
Thompson Tuesday as nine Republican presidential candidates
faced questions in their sixth major debate of the 2008 campaign.

The debate focused on economic issues, but most of the attention was on
Thompson, the veteran actor and former Tennessee senator who was making his
debut debate appearance a month after becoming a full-fledged candidate.

A late entry into the race, Thompson was looking to set himself apart
from the crowded field as well as to counter a perception that he's unprepared
to be president.

...The debate was set for 4 p.m. EDT in Dearborn, Mich.,
in a state that's home to the struggling auto industry and that has the highest
unemployment rate in the country. It was 7.4 percent in August; the nation's was
4.6 percent.


As of right now it IS Tuesday at 4 PM Eastern Time, and this story was written in the past tense almost an HOUR AGO. I know there was a rehearsal of the debate last night, but this is talking about the actual debate itself, and even continues the past tense language when describing the actual debate. Is it just me or is this a little more than slightly weird?

**UPDATE** The Yahoo! News site moved, but Forbes has the article verbatim, and their time stamp is even earlier. One full hour before the debate began.

Again, just kind of weird.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Will Franklin Gets The Tax Codes Just About Right

He makes a lot of good points. Like the "Men at a bar" fable.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
...The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

However, he ends it a different way. He ends it that the 9 other guys get mad that the wealthiest guy saves $10 (16% savings) and beat him up. In the story I heard the wealthiest 2 guys just up and left, leaving the $100 tab to the other 8 people.

Will also points out that in 2005 the top 1% of earners paid 39.4%, the top 5% paid 59.7%, the top 10% paid 70.3%, and the top 50% pay 96.9% of all income related taxes in the united states.

However what Will messes up is the statistic about the lower 50%.
He shows that although the lower 50% earns 12.8% of the wealth in America, and they pay only 3.1%


Will, you forgot that there is a percentage of people who pay $0 (or get money back) in federal income taxes;
41%

So the real statistic is that 9% of the US population pay 3.1% of the federal income taxes, with an average of only $2402.60 per household in net paid income taxes for the year.

The average amount of taxes paid by the top 1%? Over $756,000 EACH. That's 31,472% more than average for the lowest 9% of the country that actually pays a net income tax.

You know what's even more interesting? That since the Bush tax cuts in 2001, the number of "non-payers" has increased from 25% in 2001 to 41% in 2006. That means that means that an additional 21,760,000 households now pay $0 or get back money from the federal government.

Who says that the Bush tax cuts hurt the lower income earners?

Saturday, October 06, 2007

THE WHOLE WORLD NOW KNOWS IT!


THAT THE USC TROJANS


SUCK

The formerly 1-4 Stanford Cardinals beat the 4-0 USC Trojans with a corner fade into the endzone with 54 ticks on the clock left to tie the ball game and the extra point sealed the final score of 24-23.

USC had under a minute to attempt to get at least a field goal to limp away with the win, but after a sack for a 7 yard loss, a throw down, and finally an interception on 4th and 17, the USC Trojans finally got what they deserve.

When the announcement came at Tiger Stadium, the decibel level of the fans reached 115 dB, slightly lower than the dB of a rock concert/jet engine.



And to add insult to USC, Pete Carrol is such an arrogant ass-clown that he didn't even have the balls to shake the hand of the opposing coach. He immediately tucked tail and made a bee line for the locker room. What a pompus prick.

USC, you got your ass served back to you on a Redwood platter, and I can't wait to see you lose again later in the season when you actually face a decently RANKED opponent!

I can barely wait until tomorrow morning to hear the ESPN/ABC commentators reactions to their precious little baby getting beat.


GO SEC ALL THE WAY!

Phony Soldier Investigations

Even after 30 people have been arrested in the last year for lying about their service record, or completely making one up, there are 60 more of these phonies that are being investigated at the moment.

The phony soldiers do exist, and it would not surprise me if those are the ones that end up on TV for interviews.

A recent example is Chester Stiles, a child rapist who the Florida DA said he claimed to be a Navy SEAL. This exaggeration is terribly false, but the news was quick to eat it up. Stiles actually joined the navy in 1988 as a standard enlisted grunt. He was discharged in 1989 at the same level as an engine serviceman in Florida.

You know how much research was needed to counter his claims? A simple 2 minute phone call. The press quickly ate up the lie that he was a former SEAL without thoroughly checking out whether the allegation was in fact based on truth. They merely asked if he was in the navy, and published the article, some stating it "in fact" without any proof of legitimacy.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

USC; Over-Rated As Always


That is all.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Farewell Good Fellow

Cox & Forkum have officially called it quits on their editorial cartoons. John Cox will still publish his work at his site, but the site CoxandForkum.com will no longer be updated.

You will be missed greatly.

Candidate Quiz

There's a very good political quiz provided by VA Joe to see who your beliefs most match of the 2008 candidates.

Here's how I scored:

Mitt Romney (R) - 86.92%
Fred Thompson (R) - 86.15%
Sam Brownback (R) - 74.62%
Duncan Hunter (R) - 73.85%
John McCain (R) - 73.85%
Tom Tancredo (R) - 67.69%
Mike Huckabee (R) - 60.77%
Rudy Giuliani (R) - 58.46%
John Cox (R) - 57.69%
Ron Paul (R) - 48.46%
Christopher Dodd (D) - 39.23%
Hillary Clinton (D) - 38.46%
Bill Richardson (D) - 33.85%
Joseph Biden (D) - 33.08%
John Edwards (D) - 32.31%
Barack Obama (D) - 30.00%
Dennis Kucinich (D) - 26.15%
Mike Gravel (D) - 21.54%

Also, be sure to check out the VA Joe blog.