OATH KEEPERS... http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/oath-keepers
Rhodes stood on the common that day before a crowd of about 400 die-hard patriot types. He spoke their language. "You need to be alert and aware to the reality of how close we are to having our constitutional republic destroyed," he said. "Every dictatorship in the history of mankind, whether it is fascist, communist, or whatever, has always set aside normal procedures of due process under times of emergency...We can't let that happen here. We need to wake up!"
He laid out 10 orders an Oath Keeper should not obey, including conducting warrantless searches, holding American citizens as enemy combatants or subjecting them to military tribunals (a true Oath Keeper would have refused to hold José Padilla in a military brig), imposing martial law, blockading US cities, forcing citizens into detention camps ("tyrannical governments eventually and invariably put people in camps"), and cooperating with foreign troops should the government ask them to intervene on US soil. In Rhodes' view, each individual Oath Keeper must determine where to draw the line.
Your Washer Is Watching You
How it works
In its most basic form, the smart grid allows utilities to read meters without sending out an employee; instead the meters send a reading back to the utility automatically. But Ontario's push into smart meters has been aimed at changing consumer behaviour, so the launch in that province goes further.
"The Ontario government wanted to get price transparency into the hands of the consumers," says Rick Stevens, director of distribution development at Ontario's Hydro One. "So we're building all the back-office systems to allow customers to get better price transparency through time-of-use rates, which is something we'll be rolling out in the next few months."
Many households with smart meters can already go online and log in to an energy-use account to see how much energy they used during a specific time period. By giving people more detailed information about their electricity usage, the assumption is that they will be willing to reduce their consumption or re-schedule it to off-peak hours when the rate may be cheaper.
Privacy concerns
Things get trickier from a privacy perspective if the system offers real-time statistics, since electricity use is a good indication of whether someone is at home at that very moment and what they are doing - if they're awake or asleep, for example.
Eventually, utilities will have the ability to allow consumers to see how their energy use compares to that of their neighbours, information that, if not sufficiently protected, could reveal many things about your neighbours' comings and goings as well.
Utilities promise this data will be encrypted and assigned an anonymous number that can't be tracked back to an individual customer. But the cyber security co-ordination task group that has been addressing smart grid privacy concerns in the U.S. has warned, "there is a lack of formal privacy policies, standards, or procedures by entities who are involved in the smart grid and collect information."
It added that, "comprehensive and consistent definitions of personally identifiable information do not generally exist in the utility industry."
Stevens, who has been in touch with Cavoukian and has read the smart grid report, says Hydro One has both hardware and software safeguards in place to preserve customer privacy.
"Hydro One's approach is to build security requirements right up front and put them into our tender documents so that safeguards are integrated as part of the overall design," says Stevens. "Privacy by design is what we live and breathe."
Smart appliances
Hydro One has policies in place that prohibit it from selling customer information to third parties. But the pressure for third-parties to access power-usage information will only increase.
Many companies are working on new products — electric vehicles, smart appliances and energy-production systems like solar panels — that have the potential to take advantage of the smart grid's two-way communication system to send usage information from individual appliances and devices to a central office where it can be accessed by the utility or by the user. Whirlpool Corp., for example, announced in January it would produce one million smart appliances by the end of 2011 and make all its appliances smart grid-compatible by the end of 2015.
Device-specific information would be useful to the consumer to get credit, for example, if they were feeding electricity back into the grid from solar panels or a windmill. Some appliances could adjust their own energy consumption according to the time of day or by monitoring what other appliances were running in the home.
This kind of information could help make a home more efficient in terms of energy consumption, but it would also be tempting information for marketers, governments and even thieves. The Future of Privacy report suggests that extensive information could be gleaned from the grid — everything from when you shower or watch TV to which appliances and gadgets you have in your home, and when you use them.
The report urges that any third-party access to the information should not be a deal between the utilities and the third parties, but between the consumers and the third parties. As well, third parties should agree not to correlate data with data obtained from other sources or the individual, without the consent of the individual.
"There always needs be a policy to provide levels of protection, or at least transparency, about how the data will be used," says Christopher Wolf of the Future of Privacy Forum. "It's not the technology that's bad, it's the use of the technology."
Stevens says it's hard to predict how smart appliances and vehicles will interact with the grid. For example, in the future you may be able to plug your electric vehicle into a friend's meter and, by keying in your code, have it billed to your account. This system could make it easier for a person's whereabouts to be tracked, but right now it's just an idea.
"It's not that we're not thinking about it — it's just that we don't build cars, so we have to watch the car makers to see where they're going," says Stevens. "We can't start building functionality because we don't know the requirements at this point."
Ontario privacy commissioner Cavoukian has been calling for companies, governments and other agencies to build their information systems with privacy as the default mode. "If privacy is to live well into the future, we can no longer rely on regulatory compliance. Smart privacy is about having a whole arsenal of protections. That includes having regulations, but they're not going to be enough for the future."
Read more: CBC NEWS
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Government Is Not Your Buddy!!!
http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/pagenum/all/
By Deborah Blum
Posted Friday, Feb. 19, 2010, at 10:00 AM ET
Detroit police inspecting a clandestine underground brewery during Prohibition.It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.
Before hospital staff realized how sick he was—the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom—the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season.
Doctors were accustomed to alcohol poisoning by then, the routine of life in the Prohibition era. The bootlegged whiskies and so-called gins often made people sick. The liquor produced in hidden stills frequently came tainted with metals and other impurities. But this outbreak was bizarrely different. The deaths, as investigators would shortly realize, came courtesy of the U.S. government.
Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.
Although mostly forgotten today, the "chemist's war of Prohibition" remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was "our national experiment in extermination." Poisonous alcohol still kills—16 people died just this month after drinking lethal booze in Indonesia, where bootleggers make their own brews to avoid steep taxes—but that's due to unscrupulous businessmen rather than government order.
I learned of the federal poisoning program while researching my new book, The Poisoner's Handbook, which is set in jazz-age New York. My first reaction was that I must have gotten it wrong. "I never heard that the government poisoned people during Prohibition, did you?" I kept saying to friends, family members, colleagues.
I did, however, remember the U.S. government's controversial decision in the 1970s to spray Mexican marijuana fields with Paraquat, an herbicide. Its use was primarily intended to destroy crops, but government officials also insisted that awareness of the toxin would deter marijuana smokers. They echoed the official position of the 1920s—if some citizens ended up poisoned, well, they'd brought it upon themselves. Although Paraquat wasn't really all that toxic, the outcry forced the government to drop the plan. Still, the incident created an unsurprising lack of trust in government motives, which reveals itself in the occasional rumors circulating today that federal agencies, such as the CIA, mix poison into the illegal drug supply.
During Prohibition, however, an official sense of higher purpose kept the poisoning program in place. As the Chicago Tribune editorialized in 1927: "Normally, no American government would engage in such business. … It is only in the curious fanaticism of Prohibition that any means, however barbarous, are considered justified." Others, however, accused lawmakers opposed to the poisoning plan of being in cahoots with criminals and argued that bootleggers and their law-breaking alcoholic customers deserved no sympathy. "Must Uncle Sam guarantee safety first for souses?" asked Nebraska's Omaha Bee. (Editor's Note: Must Uncle Sam kill his own brethren in order to make a fucking point????)
The saga began with ratification of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States.* High-minded crusaders and anti-alcohol organizations had helped push the amendment through in 1919, playing on fears of moral decay in a country just emerging from war. The Volstead Act, spelling out the rules for enforcement, passed shortly later, and Prohibition itself went into effect on Jan. 1, 1920.
But people continued to drink—and in large quantities. Alcoholism rates soared during the 1920s; insurance companies charted the increase at more than 300 more percent. Speakeasies promptly opened for business. By the decade's end, some 30,000 existed in New York City alone. Street gangs grew into bootlegging empires built on smuggling, stealing, and manufacturing illegal alcohol. The country's defiant response to the new laws shocked those who sincerely (and naively) believed that the amendment would usher in a new era of upright behavior.
Rigorous enforcement had managed to slow the smuggling of alcohol from Canada and other countries. But crime syndicates responded by stealing massive quantities of industrial alcohol—used in paints and solvents, fuels and medical supplies—and redistilling it to make it potable.
Well, sort of. Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable. The U.S. government started requiring this "denaturing" process in 1906 for manufacturers who wanted to avoid the taxes levied on potable spirits. The U.S. Treasury Department, charged with overseeing alcohol enforcement, estimated that by the mid-1920s, some 60 million gallons of industrial alcohol were stolen annually to supply the country's drinkers. In response, in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge's government decided to turn to chemistry as an enforcement tool. Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix. Others used bitter-tasting compounds that were less lethal, designed to make the alcohol taste so awful that it became undrinkable.
To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly.
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly.
The results were immediate, starting with that horrific holiday body count in the closing days of 1926. Public health officials responded with shock. "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol," New York City medical examiner Charles Norris said at a hastily organized press conference. "[Y]et it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."
His department issued warnings to citizens, detailing the dangers in whiskey circulating in the city: "[P]ractically all the liquor that is sold in New York today is toxic," read one 1928 alert. He publicized every death by alcohol poisoning. He assigned his toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, to analyze confiscated whiskey for poisons—that long list of toxic materials I cited came in part from studies done by the New York City medical examiner's office.
Norris also condemned the federal program for its disproportionate effect on the country's poorest residents. Wealthy people, he pointed out, could afford the best whiskey available. Most of those sickened and dying were those "who cannot afford expensive protection and deal in low grade stuff."
And the numbers were not trivial. In 1926, in New York City, 1,200 were sickened by poisonous alcohol; 400 died. The following year, deaths climbed to 700. These numbers were repeated in cities around the country as public-health officials nationwide joined in the angry clamor. Furious anti-Prohibition legislators pushed for a halt in the use of lethal chemistry. "Only one possessing the instincts of a wild beast would desire to kill or make blind the man who takes a drink of liquor, even if he purchased it from one violating the Prohibition statutes," proclaimed Sen. James Reed of Missouri.
Officially, the special denaturing program ended only once the 18th Amendment was repealed in December 1933. But the chemist's war itself faded away before then. Slowly, government officials quit talking about it. And when Prohibition ended and good grain whiskey reappeared, it was almost as if the craziness of Prohibition—and the poisonous measures taken to enforce it—had never quite happened.
Correction, Feb. 22, 2010: The article originally and incorrectly said that the 18th Amendment banned the sale and consumption of alcohol. It banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol, not consumption. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Open Letter to Iyanna Washington
Dear Iyanna,
I wanted to write you today to offer you a sincere note of thanks. With an apology.
You see, having grown up and also worked in several college towns in the United States, and also having started college but never finished it, I was laboring under the notion that as someone who had no college degree I was always a less-than... which automatically doomed me to being a have-not. You see, to me, a college education meant you were going somewhere, that you had a bright future, that you were intelligent enough to be educated, and to NOT have a college education meant that you were at best pond scum, and at worst, doomed to depend financially on a husband or wife for your daily sustenance.
I honestly wanted to thank you for your straight forward method of disabusing me of this notion.
In your dealings with the Epic Beard Man aboard the transit vehicle, you exhibited anything BUT the fact that you were a college student, unless that is what is being taught in college nowadays. I can guess that your major is not in law or criminal justice, because of the way you recorded Tyrone throwing the first punch, and then threatened to have charges brought against the Epic Beard Man for subsequently beating Tyrone to a bloody pulp, to say nothing of purloining his bag.
And "Beat His White Ass?" "Pinky?" From this I can determine that your major is also not in social work or psychology, for the way that you speak of a Vietnam veteran with obvious post traumatic stress disorder. Nor is it in math, because of the obvious way in which you were unable to put two and two together -- you were afterwards accusing him of the very racism that the whole Youtube community HEARD YOU UTTERING.
This leaves me to conclude that your major could be in science, as after all, you correctly identified the substance flowing out of Tyrone's face as blood.
Thank you for confirming what I had long held as a suspicion; that college education does not equal intelligence, moral superiority, class, moxie, or even worthiness to ask for the time of day from someone like me who does not have a college degree, but at least I know how NOT to treat my fellow human beings.
Now for an apology. I'm sorry that your parents, Sallie Mae, or whoever disbursed the funds for your tuition wasted the money.
Sincerely,
The Management
Friday, February 19, 2010
Open Letter to Tiger Woods
Dear Tiger,
Please shut the fuck up.
So you let the lust and hormones rage out of control and boinked every young filly from here to the Bahamas. So you betrayed your lovely wife, and in order to avoid paying half, apologized to everyone else but her. Guess what? We Don't Care.
There are more important things going down like the men and women putting their asses on the line in Afghanistan right now, giving their all, and if one of them goes down in a fight, it doesn't receive half of the media coverage that it should, and certainly not as much as your dumb sex kitten partaking ass.
It was an easier pill to swallow when you held your head up high with your winning smile and put a hole in one, I personally find it a lot more grating and annoying with your sad doe eyes and furrowed brow because you got caught putting one in a hole. We. Don't. Give. A. DAMN!!!!!
Do you not think that this issue in your life is handled better away from the camera's eye? Don't you owe it to your wife to try to handle this in private where it belongs? Don't you think we have more pressing issues than to listen to an apology that was probably drafted by some damage control speechwriter?
I tell you what. All is forgiven. Now get the fuck out of here.
Regards,
The Management
Was Andrew Joseph Stack crazy???
Remember, this is the man who, completely pissed off at the Internal Revenue Service, flew a plane into the office building where it was located.
The media, predictably, are going bananas over this one. Labels of "disgruntled", "angry", "disturbed", "narcissist", "DOMESTIC TERRORIST" (another name for US born and raised white man who went nuts) abound. His suicide note? "Anti government screed." "Anti-tax protest". "Extreme right wing conservative rant." The most chilling label of all: MANIFESTO. They are already painting him to be another Timothy McVeigh, or another Theodore Kazcinski (sic?) And getting ready to dismiss his complaint, his final word addressing to the conditions surrounding his decision to commit this terrible act, out of hand.
Big brother certainly is an all wise and all loving parent, isn't he? "There's no problems with the way we are doing things, he was just a pathological narcissist who kept his true face hidden until the day of his death. Go back to sleep."
I'm not so ready to accept their explanation.
Do you remember (and those of you who have children will know what I am talking about) when your four year old would wake you up out of a sound sleep, where you were having a good dream about possibly making love to your favorite movie star or rock singer, and tell you there was a monster in her closet and it was staring at her. You get up, and go check it out. If you were like me, you'd flat out state there was no monster and go back to sleep. If you were a better parent, you would maybe get the plant mister, spray off a few blasts of "Monster Off" in the general direction of the monster infested closet, and then tell the child that the monster has departed, pat her on her back, give her a drink of water and then send her to bed. (Keep the little one happy. If she's not happy, nobody's happy!)
It's a lot like that. Maybe Stack was seeing monsters in his "closet" where none existed. Or his own skeletons maybe. (We all have them)
But what if there really WAS a monster in the closet? Something that had the power to rip open your chest, munch on your heart, and utter a loud belch as your eyesight faded and your ability to hear it went with it? What if those conditions really DO exist?
If indeed the government is now an out of control monster (replete with blue fur, googly eyes, and a stark raving mad appetite for confectionary cylindrical baked goods that it must have regardless of who it belonged to) do you reason with it that it is scaring the kids or do you beat it to death with a Jose Canseco baseball bat? Or do you just give the child psychotropic drugs and hope that the problem will go away? Keep us happy and it will all go away.
PuhLEASE.
I realize this is a very sloppy analogy and I apologize but I stand by what I say. I took the time to actually read Stack's blog post. What I saw was a normal man who had run afoul of the tax law which incredibly, continues to multiply and change at a pace staggering to even the most educated, brilliant, knowledgeable CPA who could find many a loophole out there. And kept running into that wall time and time again. And was eventually driven to the most heinous of acts. (Thankfully his family was NOT in the home when he burned it.)
And who owns this brick wall of legislation? WASHINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If anyone could write a book on the utter frustration of dealing with bureaucracy time and time again, only to be told "No", or "Not until..." or "Get this and that and a letter from the Pope" it is I. To lose one's family, and one's livelihood, and eventually even one's sanity, is a pain that might drive even the best of us to the grave, and to have to listen to "BEWARE OF THE CRAZY PEOPLE" when you know full well that they mean YOU is a downright insult... no, spit in the face.
I just can't believe that it's gotten that bad. That a man with a family would think to commit suicide over the far reaching overregulated tax law tripe put out by Congressional "leaders" is bad enough but he intended to take people with him. Crazy act? Yes. Crazy set of circumstances that drove him to do it? Absolutely. Crazy man?
I will be honest. I simply don't know. The only one who knew for sure what was going on in Andrew Joseph Stack's cranium was... Andrew Joseph Stack. And we will never know for sure, because he has been forever silenced by his own commission.
As for his "anti-government screed"? Sorry to say it, but that little piece of literature had all the markings of a man telling the truth. Which I will continue to do... but don't look at me to sacrifice myself to take my second revolution to the streets. I plan to be a thorn in your sides for a long time to come.
You see, media, politicians, bureaucrats, etc... I don't like you. You are fat, wealthy, think you understand pain... think you can cope with life's uncertainties, and you sit on your thrones with the Wall Street Journal in one hand and a sledge hammer in the other, ready to put it to everyone who disagrees with you. Until you are forced out of your foreclosed homes driving with all of your belongings across several counties with no idea where you are going to go next, you will never have a singular fucking clue. You are so blinded by your own self-importance that you have no right to label another as self-important, or pathological narcissist, or ANYTHING for that matter.
Live my life for a week. Then we'll see who runs around in a blind panic. You see, I have already learned to live on nothing. And I will be laughing at you until the cows come home.
And the media proves itself slanted against the Constitution once again
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seymour/2009/04/15/cnn-correspondent-claims-tea-parties-anti-government-anti-cnn
CNN Correspondent Claims Tea Parties 'Anti-Government,' 'Anti-CNN'
By Julia A. Seymour (Bio | Archive)
Wed, 04/15/2009 - 14:57 ET
CNN is finally covering the tea parties - by attacking the participants. After anchor Anderson Cooper made an obscene sexual joke about attendees, CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen rudely interrupted one of the protestors and slammed the event for being "anti-government," "anti-CNN," and "not really family viewing."
Roesgen asked a man holding his toddler, "Why are you here today?" The man started to respond saying, "Because I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was he believed people had the right to liberty and they had the right..."
But Roesgen cut him off, saying, "But sir, what does that have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes?" She continued asking questions over him as he asked her to "let me finish my point." One crowd member was heard to yell "shut up" to Roesgen.
When the man finished his statement about people having the "right to the fruits of their own labor" and "government should not take it," Roesgen began arguing with him again and other protesters began to get upset.
Roesgen backed away claiming that "you get the general tenor of this," tea party. "Anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox and since I can't really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing. Toss it back to you Kyra," Roesgen concluded.
Phillips followed by calling that assessment "a "prime example of what we're following across the country."
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seymour/2009/04/15/cnn-correspondent-claims-tea-parties-anti-government-anti-cnn#ixzz0fzcakJgJ
CNN Correspondent Claims Tea Parties 'Anti-Government,' 'Anti-CNN'
By Julia A. Seymour (Bio | Archive)
Wed, 04/15/2009 - 14:57 ET
CNN is finally covering the tea parties - by attacking the participants. After anchor Anderson Cooper made an obscene sexual joke about attendees, CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen rudely interrupted one of the protestors and slammed the event for being "anti-government," "anti-CNN," and "not really family viewing."
Roesgen asked a man holding his toddler, "Why are you here today?" The man started to respond saying, "Because I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was he believed people had the right to liberty and they had the right..."
But Roesgen cut him off, saying, "But sir, what does that have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes?" She continued asking questions over him as he asked her to "let me finish my point." One crowd member was heard to yell "shut up" to Roesgen.
When the man finished his statement about people having the "right to the fruits of their own labor" and "government should not take it," Roesgen began arguing with him again and other protesters began to get upset.
Roesgen backed away claiming that "you get the general tenor of this," tea party. "Anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox and since I can't really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing. Toss it back to you Kyra," Roesgen concluded.
Phillips followed by calling that assessment "a "prime example of what we're following across the country."
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seymour/2009/04/15/cnn-correspondent-claims-tea-parties-anti-government-anti-cnn#ixzz0fzcakJgJ
The Constitution Will Only Work for a Moral and Upright People
It is wholly inadequate for any other....
The Epic Beard Man AKA Tom Bruso, is a Viet Nam veteran who has been in the news before for being tased by cops at a sporting event. Notice now when it comes to blows, the younger male throws the first punch. Then Bruso proceeds to show him that it isn't nice to do that, by beating him to a bloody pulp. Bruso apparently is lucid enough to understand the concept of self-defense. The other folks? They not only started the fight, they stole his bag.
~~~IF YOU CANT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY SAY READ HERE~~~
Black man: AC Transit
White man: Lets get back to business. How much you charge me for a spit-shine?
Black man: what?
White man: How much you charge me for my Stacy Adams? Im going to a funeral on FridayYou said you [note: Stacy Adams are a brand of shoe.]
Black man: Did you get what I said just now?
White man: Yes
Black man: Whyd a brother gotta spit-shine your shoes?
White man: You offered!
Black man: I didnt offer you shit.
White man: Whatd you just say when you walked by me?
Black man: I said why, why a fuckin brother gotta spit-shine your shoes?
White man: You dont have to!
Black man: Why a white man cant spit-shine
White man: [interrupting] It could be a Chinaman! It dont matter!
Black man: Look dude
White man: I aint prejudice! What? You think Im prejudice!
Black man: [pointing toward front of bus] Take your ass back up there and get the fuck out my face right now.
White man: Why you being so hostile, man?
Black man: Cause. Im pissed off.
White man: Well its better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Black man: Take your ass up there right now
White man: [standing to go to the front] You aint scarin this white boy. Im 67 years old. You aint scarin me. You aint scarin me.
Black man: [now, also standing] Im 50.
White man: You aint scared of me. You aint scarin me.
Black man: Ill put my foot up your ass.
Older white man: No you wont! No you wont!
White man: You wont do nothin to me! [then something unintelligible]
Black man: Say it again! [then something unintelligible as woman who was filming talks over him]
Iyanna Washington: Say it again! Say it again, Pinky!
Someone off camera whom many allege is Iyanna Washington: Beat his white ass! Whoop his ass!
Another passenger: Leave him alone!
Iyanna Washington: It aint worth it, blood, it aint worth it.
Black man: Id put my foot up your ass.
White man: I see tough guys like you and I slap the shit out of them.
Black man: What?!
Another passenger: Stop it!
White man: Dont fuck with me! He hit me! He fuckin hit me!
White man: He fuckin hit me first! He hit me in the face! [unintelligible] self defense!
Iyanna: Open that shit! laughs
Iyanna: We can press charges, blood. I got in on videotape. Hes leakin.
Black man: That motherfucker hit me. No no no no no.
Another passenger: Did he break your teeth?
Black man: No. Bring an ambulance.
The Epic Beard Man AKA Tom Bruso, is a Viet Nam veteran who has been in the news before for being tased by cops at a sporting event. Notice now when it comes to blows, the younger male throws the first punch. Then Bruso proceeds to show him that it isn't nice to do that, by beating him to a bloody pulp. Bruso apparently is lucid enough to understand the concept of self-defense. The other folks? They not only started the fight, they stole his bag.
~~~IF YOU CANT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY SAY READ HERE~~~
Black man: AC Transit
White man: Lets get back to business. How much you charge me for a spit-shine?
Black man: what?
White man: How much you charge me for my Stacy Adams? Im going to a funeral on FridayYou said you [note: Stacy Adams are a brand of shoe.]
Black man: Did you get what I said just now?
White man: Yes
Black man: Whyd a brother gotta spit-shine your shoes?
White man: You offered!
Black man: I didnt offer you shit.
White man: Whatd you just say when you walked by me?
Black man: I said why, why a fuckin brother gotta spit-shine your shoes?
White man: You dont have to!
Black man: Why a white man cant spit-shine
White man: [interrupting] It could be a Chinaman! It dont matter!
Black man: Look dude
White man: I aint prejudice! What? You think Im prejudice!
Black man: [pointing toward front of bus] Take your ass back up there and get the fuck out my face right now.
White man: Why you being so hostile, man?
Black man: Cause. Im pissed off.
White man: Well its better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Black man: Take your ass up there right now
White man: [standing to go to the front] You aint scarin this white boy. Im 67 years old. You aint scarin me. You aint scarin me.
Black man: [now, also standing] Im 50.
White man: You aint scared of me. You aint scarin me.
Black man: Ill put my foot up your ass.
Older white man: No you wont! No you wont!
White man: You wont do nothin to me! [then something unintelligible]
Black man: Say it again! [then something unintelligible as woman who was filming talks over him]
Iyanna Washington: Say it again! Say it again, Pinky!
Someone off camera whom many allege is Iyanna Washington: Beat his white ass! Whoop his ass!
Another passenger: Leave him alone!
Iyanna Washington: It aint worth it, blood, it aint worth it.
Black man: Id put my foot up your ass.
White man: I see tough guys like you and I slap the shit out of them.
Black man: What?!
Another passenger: Stop it!
White man: Dont fuck with me! He hit me! He fuckin hit me!
White man: He fuckin hit me first! He hit me in the face! [unintelligible] self defense!
Iyanna: Open that shit! laughs
Iyanna: We can press charges, blood. I got in on videotape. Hes leakin.
Black man: That motherfucker hit me. No no no no no.
Another passenger: Did he break your teeth?
Black man: No. Bring an ambulance.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
IRS corruption drives man to do the unthinkable...
Entire text of Andrew Stack Rant:
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues” , I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommit... ) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml ).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010
(end rant)
Wow people. Just... wow. Unfortunately for him, and for most of us who feel the exact same way, he will be portrayed by the media as a "disturbed individual"... and his viewpoint (the one above) will be dismissed as the ravings of a terrorist. While I don't at all condone what he did, nor agree with the way he handled it, I certainly know what it was he was trying to say.
Now you see why I say that our governing officials need to account for ALL THE DAMAGE they have done. Because unless something changes, there will be more loose cannons such as Mr. Stack. There WILL be more.
P.S. I absolutely do not advocate violence against anyone working for the government or in a position of authority. What I advocate is a crucial change within the tax system that is more than just skin-deep. And STOP GIVING AWAY SO MUCH OF OUR MONEY TO PLACES LIKE HAITI!!!!!!!!!! They have Americans in jail FFS.
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues” , I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommit... ) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml ).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010
(end rant)
Wow people. Just... wow. Unfortunately for him, and for most of us who feel the exact same way, he will be portrayed by the media as a "disturbed individual"... and his viewpoint (the one above) will be dismissed as the ravings of a terrorist. While I don't at all condone what he did, nor agree with the way he handled it, I certainly know what it was he was trying to say.
Now you see why I say that our governing officials need to account for ALL THE DAMAGE they have done. Because unless something changes, there will be more loose cannons such as Mr. Stack. There WILL be more.
P.S. I absolutely do not advocate violence against anyone working for the government or in a position of authority. What I advocate is a crucial change within the tax system that is more than just skin-deep. And STOP GIVING AWAY SO MUCH OF OUR MONEY TO PLACES LIKE HAITI!!!!!!!!!! They have Americans in jail FFS.
An Understanding of Guns and Gun Control
Everyone older than 3 years of age has seen a razor blade. By itself, it is a thin piece of metal, with an edge that slices with surgical precision.
It all depends on who picks it up, as to what happens next. In the steady hand of a working man, a boxcutter can neatly and orderly slice through carpeting as he lays it in a room. In the hand of a surgeon, a scalpel can excise cancerous tissue and ensure that a woman will be there for her daughter's wedding day. In the hand of a businessman, a razor can give him a sharp, crisp businesslike appearance, giving him the edge he needs to provide for his family. In the hands of a bumbling oaf, it can slice the crap out of an extremity or amputate a digit, necessitating a trip to the emergency room. In the hand of a rapist it can become a weapon to keep his victim terrorized enough to not resist. In the hands of a murderer it becomes an angel of death. In the hands of the mortician, it conducts an autopsy that can bring the killer to justice. And so it goes.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were carried out with box cutters. But you don't see anyone jumping up and crying out for razor control. Why??
Because they are worried about gun control. By itself, a gun is an inanimate metal object with moving parts. Its sole purpose is to fire a bullet or other projectile to kill an animal or a human being. Do not look to me to shy away from telling the truth for that is exactly what it is.
As with a razor blade, dependent on who picks it up, is what happens next. In the hands of a policeman it can save a life. In the hands of the military it can be used to defend American freedom. In the hands of a criminal it can be used to commit crimes. In the hands of a law abiding citizen, it can become an effective means of defense against that man who broke in to rob you and rape your daughter.
It's this last category that they are worried about. They haven't come out and outlawed all weapons yet. (I stress yet). But God forbid that they let us have our Second Amendment rights without thoroughly scrutinizing us before hand. Background check this, talk to a judge about a permit that. Even that doesn't always work out... as the unfortunate people in Fort Hood soon found out, when an Army psychiatrist went apeshit and starting shooting up the place. Too bad that doesn't always work out, isn't it?
They are in fear because an armed citizenry is an unpredictable one!!!
Or take my dog. (Please!!! hahaha!!!) Nature equipped him with both his weaponry and his nonhesitation in using it. His fangs, his claws, his powerful body, his jaws, all work together to put anyone who crosses the line with him in a wretched state of woe. Normally, he is a peaceable, loving, friendly dog. But as he wields the power to bite and break bones doing it, he is unpredictable. (I've seen a dog bite before, inflicted on a family member who decided to take it upon themselves to abuse the dog in a nasty way, and it was ugly.)
We humans in contrast are equipped with flimsy nails, little to no hair on our body, varying amounts of physical strength ranging from brute force to couldn't open a pickle jar, and little else. Give a person a gun and he suddenly becomes more powerful than even a dog, able to kill instantly. He or she then becomes unpredictable.
And you need only pick up the paper to see that we are the most unpredictable mother fuckers alive. Which is why some (not all) police officers will skip the reasoning and the admonition part and go straight to the tasering.
Granted, some people should NOT be allowed to possess weapons. But it won't be long before they stretch that "some" to include us ALL. This is what they call "Gun Control".
Shades of Oceania. George Orwell, here we come...
The basics of a background check includes prior convictions, psychiatric treatment, etc. But what of the events at Fort Hood? The Army shrink was a Muslim who before he opened fire yelled "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) Will the background check be expanded to include religious beliefs? Political affiliations? NRA affiliations? Discordant thought patterns? Thought police?
Won't be long before we'll be saying, "I have a cellphone and I know how to use it..."
It all depends on who picks it up, as to what happens next. In the steady hand of a working man, a boxcutter can neatly and orderly slice through carpeting as he lays it in a room. In the hand of a surgeon, a scalpel can excise cancerous tissue and ensure that a woman will be there for her daughter's wedding day. In the hand of a businessman, a razor can give him a sharp, crisp businesslike appearance, giving him the edge he needs to provide for his family. In the hands of a bumbling oaf, it can slice the crap out of an extremity or amputate a digit, necessitating a trip to the emergency room. In the hand of a rapist it can become a weapon to keep his victim terrorized enough to not resist. In the hands of a murderer it becomes an angel of death. In the hands of the mortician, it conducts an autopsy that can bring the killer to justice. And so it goes.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were carried out with box cutters. But you don't see anyone jumping up and crying out for razor control. Why??
Because they are worried about gun control. By itself, a gun is an inanimate metal object with moving parts. Its sole purpose is to fire a bullet or other projectile to kill an animal or a human being. Do not look to me to shy away from telling the truth for that is exactly what it is.
As with a razor blade, dependent on who picks it up, is what happens next. In the hands of a policeman it can save a life. In the hands of the military it can be used to defend American freedom. In the hands of a criminal it can be used to commit crimes. In the hands of a law abiding citizen, it can become an effective means of defense against that man who broke in to rob you and rape your daughter.
It's this last category that they are worried about. They haven't come out and outlawed all weapons yet. (I stress yet). But God forbid that they let us have our Second Amendment rights without thoroughly scrutinizing us before hand. Background check this, talk to a judge about a permit that. Even that doesn't always work out... as the unfortunate people in Fort Hood soon found out, when an Army psychiatrist went apeshit and starting shooting up the place. Too bad that doesn't always work out, isn't it?
They are in fear because an armed citizenry is an unpredictable one!!!
Or take my dog. (Please!!! hahaha!!!) Nature equipped him with both his weaponry and his nonhesitation in using it. His fangs, his claws, his powerful body, his jaws, all work together to put anyone who crosses the line with him in a wretched state of woe. Normally, he is a peaceable, loving, friendly dog. But as he wields the power to bite and break bones doing it, he is unpredictable. (I've seen a dog bite before, inflicted on a family member who decided to take it upon themselves to abuse the dog in a nasty way, and it was ugly.)
We humans in contrast are equipped with flimsy nails, little to no hair on our body, varying amounts of physical strength ranging from brute force to couldn't open a pickle jar, and little else. Give a person a gun and he suddenly becomes more powerful than even a dog, able to kill instantly. He or she then becomes unpredictable.
And you need only pick up the paper to see that we are the most unpredictable mother fuckers alive. Which is why some (not all) police officers will skip the reasoning and the admonition part and go straight to the tasering.
Granted, some people should NOT be allowed to possess weapons. But it won't be long before they stretch that "some" to include us ALL. This is what they call "Gun Control".
Shades of Oceania. George Orwell, here we come...
The basics of a background check includes prior convictions, psychiatric treatment, etc. But what of the events at Fort Hood? The Army shrink was a Muslim who before he opened fire yelled "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) Will the background check be expanded to include religious beliefs? Political affiliations? NRA affiliations? Discordant thought patterns? Thought police?
Won't be long before we'll be saying, "I have a cellphone and I know how to use it..."
The Week In Stupid (February 11-18)
I promise to love, honor, cherish, and choke the shit out of you. Till death do us part. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35444345/ns/us_news/?gt1=43001)
LEWISTON, Idaho - A marriage got off to a rocky start after the 21-year-old groom from northern Idaho was arrested twice on his wedding night and charged with assaulting his new wife in nearby eastern Washington.
Court records show Nathan Lewis of Lewiston, Idaho, was charged Tuesday in Asotin County Superior Court with second-degree assault and interfering with a report of domestic violence.
The Nez Perce County Sheriff's Office in Idaho says Lewis was married Sunday and later arrested for drunken and disorderly conduct in Lewiston.
Police say that after Lewis was released on bail, he assaulted his new wife at a home in nearby Clarkston, Wash. The bride told authorities she was slapped and choked during the altercation, the Lewiston Tribune reports.
Lewis is scheduled to be arraigned March 1.
Woman kills psychic over bad fortune (http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/tanya-nelson-found-guilty-of-killing-clairvoyant-over-bad-fortune/19362384)
(Feb. 17) -- A California Superior Court jury has found a North Carolina woman guilty in the bizarre murder of an Orange County fortune teller and her daughter because of a failed love spell.
The jury deliberated for less than an hour Tuesday before finding Tanya Nelson, 45, guilty of murder with special circumstances in the slayings of Ha Jade Smith, 52, and Anita Vo, 23.
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Sonia Balleste argued that Nelson was so angry at Smith for telling her a bad fortune that she traveled more than 2,600 miles to kill her.
Live Grenade Found In Serviceman's Car (http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/fort.hood.grenade/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29)
(CNN) -- An access point to Fort Hood in Texas was briefly shut down Wednesday after guards discovered a live grenade during a random vehicle search, officials said.
At about 9:15 a.m., guards alerted Fort Hood Emergency Services after finding the live munition and closed Clarke Gate for about 30 minutes, according to a Fort Hood news release.
Security at the Army post remains heightened following a mass shooting on November 5 that left 13 people dead. Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is charged with 13 counts of pre-meditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in the shootings. He is currently awaiting trial.
The single grenade, which is made for a Mark 19 40mm grenade launcher, was found inside a serviceman's car, Fort Hood spokesman Tyler Broadway told CNN.
There is an investigation under way to determine what, if anything should happen to the serviceman, Broadway said.
China Hates US!!! A Billion Chinese can't be wrong!!! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20100218/pl_bloomberg/amwsg_dkpv70)
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama goes into today’s meeting with the Dalai Lama on notice that it will anger China’s leadership and add tension to an already strained relationship.
That isn’t likely to fray economic ties secured by $366 billion of mutual trade and $755 billion in Chinese-held U.S. Treasury bills, according to analysts.
And the path to a more constructive overall relationship may lie in both sides dropping any pretense at friendship and acknowledging they are competitors as much as partners, said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“If China and the U.S. identified each other as rivals I don’t think they would be disappointed with each other,” Yan said. “Both sides pretend to be friends. Actually, they are not.”
China Owns US!!!
Largest Creditor
China surpassed Japan as the largest creditor abroad to the U.S. in September 2008, although it fell back to second place in December when its Treasury holdings declined for the second consecutive month, the Treasury Department said on Feb. 16. China allowed its short-term Treasury bills to mature and replaced them with a smaller amount of longer-term notes and bonds, the Treasury data showed.
The December reduction in China’s holdings didn’t prompt a sell-off in U.S. bonds as investors focused instead on an overall increase in foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries, which rose by a net $69.9 billion. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 3.66 percent on Feb. 16, according to BGCantor Market data.
The Obama administration is also convinced that the recent tensions won’t fundamentally change the countries’ relationship, said an administration official who asked not to be identified out of concern for Chinese sensitivities.
Federal Judge -1 TV Pitchman -Zip (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100218/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_trudeau_ftc_lawsuit)
ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A federal judge sentenced Kevin Trudeau to 30 days in jail on Wednesday after scolding the TV pitchman for inciting his fans to flood the judge's e-mail with testimonials in his favour.
Trudeau has long battled federal regulators over his marketing of alternative "cures" for obesity, memory loss, disease and financial ruin.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman chastised Trudeau last week when he learned the pitchman had urged buyers of his books to write to the judge's e-mail address with letters of support.
Gettleman saw it as a threat to his safety. Trudeau apologized and posted a message on his Web site to stop the campaign.
Trudeau was in court because an appeals court had thrown out a $37.6 million (24 million pound) fine and a three-year infomercial ban against him for violating the terms of a 2004 Federal Trade Commission settlement with his book, "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."
Gettleman has yet to decide on a revised punishment.
Have a footlong on us (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100217/od_nm/us_surgery_odd)
IVANCICE, Czech Republic (Reuters) – Czech medical staff are being disciplined after a foot-long surgical instrument was found in the abdomen of a woman who was operated on five months ago.
The patient, 66-year-old Zdenka Kopeckova, repeatedly complained of severe abdominal pain following a gynaecological operation at a hospital in the southeastern town of Ivancice.
"I said that nobody helps me and I cannot live like this till the end of my life. I'll get pills, have a glass of an alcohol and hang myself," she said after the spatula-like instrument was discovered a week ago and successfully removed.
Kopeckova is seeking compensation over the error, claiming staff initially tried to cover up the mistake by saying there was nothing they could do but recommend pain killers.
"I told the head surgeon that if I had no pain I would not be complaining. I'm not a hypochondriac," she said, adding she had requested an x-ray but was told this would needlessly expose her to radiation.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
And We Will Go A-Whoring Till the Cows Come Home
Even if you aren't a sports fan this is very interesting!
NBA or NFL?
36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 ... repeat 71
Cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21currently are defendants in lawsuits,
And
84 have been arrested for drunk driving
In the last year
Can
You guess which organization this is?
NBA Or NFL
?
Give up yet?
Scroll down,
Neither,
it's the 535 members of the
United States Congress
The same group of Idiots that crank out
Hundreds of new laws each year
Designed to keep the rest of us in line.
My pop sent me this one. And if I had had a cup of coffee I would have choked on it. Oh so true!!!!
NBA or NFL?
36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 ... repeat 71
Cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21currently are defendants in lawsuits,
And
84 have been arrested for drunk driving
In the last year
Can
You guess which organization this is?
NBA Or NFL
?
Give up yet?
Scroll down,
Neither,
it's the 535 members of the
United States Congress
The same group of Idiots that crank out
Hundreds of new laws each year
Designed to keep the rest of us in line.
My pop sent me this one. And if I had had a cup of coffee I would have choked on it. Oh so true!!!!
It's the Economy Stupid
One of the fastest ways to derail a presidential career is to point out the state of the economy... which we will go into in a second.
The presidential election of 2008 went as it did because people were sick of it. Tired of the gas prices, which in some localities had reached or surpassed $5 a gallon. Tired of the hemorrhage of jobs to overseas locations. (The majority of Americans lack the means to go chase them, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be hired over someone willing to work for peanuts in a sweat shop in Beijing somewhere.) Tired of the nonsensical rhetoric of the Republican party, and balking at four years at the prospect of a John McCain administration, whom they perceived to promise more of the same.
Now we have Mr. Hope and Change in office because "hope and change" were electrifying sentiments in 2008. Hope to most Americans means "Things will be better tomorrow". And "Change"??? "Hey, he's NOT A REPUBLICAN..."
And the discontent has mounted over the last 365 days. Severely. In one town, a billboard popped up with Bush Jr. on it, with the caption "Miss Me Yet?" It's truly gone downhill when the previous failed administration looks good in comparison with the current one. (I say failed, only to describe the Bush ADMINISTRATION. He didn't find Osama Bin Laden, changed his wartime strategic goal several times, and during his administration the economy tanked... I believe the man himself is a genius with an IQ that is off the charts and pushing his neurons into a borderline psychotic state...)
Yes, take that, fuckers.
Enter Obama. He's not Bush, but any idiot can see, that isn't necessarily always a good thing.Started off as a wet-behind the ears junior Senator from Illinois. Hung out with the likes of Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright. If that alone doesn't scare the fuck out of you it should. Does he know what he's doing? Does he know what's in the Constitution? CAN he exist without imploding when giving a speech in front of sixth grade children without a teleprompter? For that matter, can he properly pronounce words like "Corpsman"?
These are all minor, minor flaws when compared with his stimulus package.. Corporate welfare had long been the domain of Republicans eager to find the back room deals from lobbyist funding for their campaigns, their pork barrel expenses and their pet legislation, the same type of "transparency" they are now bitching about from Democrats health care reform (funny how when you point a finger at someone you have three point back at you isn't it???) And for some reason, Mr. Hope and Change adopted it as his own policy, which normally enough would be viewed as a lame attempt at bipartisanship; after all, when you think about it, Repubs and Dems are the flip sides of the same old coin...
Except it completely antagonized and electrified every thinking, breathing, American with two brain cells to rub together, who had ever dealt with a bank, been a customer at a bank, gotten a loan from a bank, owned a credit card from a bank, and gotten anally raped by a bank... yes, this is your story and mine too.
The old adage "Don't live beyond your means" had been forgotten, laying in the dust, shot between the eyeballs, bleeding from an open head wound, and present at its own closed casket ceremony since the 1950's... when banks started encouraging its customers to "buy now, pay later" and mass mailing its credit cards by the millions in the 70's. I shit you not... this was before it was discovered that holding onto a credit card for emergency cases only was not only a good idea, it was mandatory for people to be able to hold their heads above water.
The ideal solution when one finds oneself in a hole is to toss the fucking shovel aside and STOP DIGGING. That would be the ideal solution. And restrict unnecessary expenditures (e.g. don't go out and buy a $50,000 car when a $1,000 one will do) And pay down on your debt until its paid off. Not the banks!!!
They spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent like crazy to attract new customers. Hey! Open a new checking account at XYZ Bank and we'll give you $500!!! No bullshit!!! And if you act now we'll throw in a credit card with 29.4 APR interest after your 12.5 APR is up... yah, no kidding.
Only when they found themselves teetering on the brink of financial extinction... only after they went hog fucking wild, and wound up with a severe dollar sign shaped hangover, did they yell for help.
In capitalist theory, any business that fails in its overall service to the customer should rightfully collapse, and leave the business of commerce to its more successful and competitive rivals. That's in Synapses' capitalist little imaginary world. In Obama's, it was to pump trillions of dollars in bailouts to these irresponsible bunch of thieving money whores whose bad financial planning had gotten them into this fix to begin with.
The government has been committing the same mortal sins as the banks have for decades. Spend more than you bring in, rape your customers for the difference, and when things get really out of control bad, ask someone else for a loan (insert name of foreign banks here) One thing that the government has that the banks lack is the power to confiscate income by force (IRS, taxes, any of that ring a bell?)
So basically after we woke up and found our very selves in the morass of financial destitution, being ejected from our foreclosed homes, stripped of our repossessed cars, having to sell off most of what we owned, just to be able to pay down our principal balance (to say nothing of interest accrued on our debt) and having our credit ruined, we no longer carried a credit card of any kind... from here on out, it was cash only, if you didn't have the money on you for it you didn't fuckin need it...
And who does the government bail out? Not you!!! And certainly not me!!! It was these supercapitalist morons who didn't understand that every dollar is based on a promise by the United States government that basically says, "You can exchange me for $1 worth of gold." Admittedly it is an empty promise nowadays, as there simply isn't enough gold to back up all of the dollars now floating around, and inflation has claimed the dollar's value, and there is no more gold in Fort Knox, bla bla bla...
In doing that, the government committed a massive act of treason. Going against every molecule of the American dream, every grain of common sense, every shred of capitalist venture, it declared one thing.
We have become Communists.
Now mind you, I am about to pull the blanket off of the whole thing so you had better sit down and prepare yourselves for one undeniable truth. Because its what Donald Trump probably already knows.
We do not need MONEY... Not physically, not emotionally, not even really socially. We need the things that money can buy. Food, clothing, shelter. Freedom from sickness and pain. Transportation, electricity, gas, etc. What good is money in and of itself? Can't eat it, can't wear it, it won't keep your home warm in winter. Can't even really wipe your ass with it. It's a medium of exchange, and that's it. Cave men used sea shells. Ancient historic civilizations used salt. Indians just traded this for that. When you free your mind enough to know that money is based on a promise, and isn't truly real, your ass will follow.
Its the belief in money that they use to continue to control people.
It's the economy stupid.
The presidential election of 2008 went as it did because people were sick of it. Tired of the gas prices, which in some localities had reached or surpassed $5 a gallon. Tired of the hemorrhage of jobs to overseas locations. (The majority of Americans lack the means to go chase them, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be hired over someone willing to work for peanuts in a sweat shop in Beijing somewhere.) Tired of the nonsensical rhetoric of the Republican party, and balking at four years at the prospect of a John McCain administration, whom they perceived to promise more of the same.
Now we have Mr. Hope and Change in office because "hope and change" were electrifying sentiments in 2008. Hope to most Americans means "Things will be better tomorrow". And "Change"??? "Hey, he's NOT A REPUBLICAN..."
And the discontent has mounted over the last 365 days. Severely. In one town, a billboard popped up with Bush Jr. on it, with the caption "Miss Me Yet?" It's truly gone downhill when the previous failed administration looks good in comparison with the current one. (I say failed, only to describe the Bush ADMINISTRATION. He didn't find Osama Bin Laden, changed his wartime strategic goal several times, and during his administration the economy tanked... I believe the man himself is a genius with an IQ that is off the charts and pushing his neurons into a borderline psychotic state...)
Yes, take that, fuckers.
Enter Obama. He's not Bush, but any idiot can see, that isn't necessarily always a good thing.Started off as a wet-behind the ears junior Senator from Illinois. Hung out with the likes of Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright. If that alone doesn't scare the fuck out of you it should. Does he know what he's doing? Does he know what's in the Constitution? CAN he exist without imploding when giving a speech in front of sixth grade children without a teleprompter? For that matter, can he properly pronounce words like "Corpsman"?
These are all minor, minor flaws when compared with his stimulus package.. Corporate welfare had long been the domain of Republicans eager to find the back room deals from lobbyist funding for their campaigns, their pork barrel expenses and their pet legislation, the same type of "transparency" they are now bitching about from Democrats health care reform (funny how when you point a finger at someone you have three point back at you isn't it???) And for some reason, Mr. Hope and Change adopted it as his own policy, which normally enough would be viewed as a lame attempt at bipartisanship; after all, when you think about it, Repubs and Dems are the flip sides of the same old coin...
Except it completely antagonized and electrified every thinking, breathing, American with two brain cells to rub together, who had ever dealt with a bank, been a customer at a bank, gotten a loan from a bank, owned a credit card from a bank, and gotten anally raped by a bank... yes, this is your story and mine too.
The old adage "Don't live beyond your means" had been forgotten, laying in the dust, shot between the eyeballs, bleeding from an open head wound, and present at its own closed casket ceremony since the 1950's... when banks started encouraging its customers to "buy now, pay later" and mass mailing its credit cards by the millions in the 70's. I shit you not... this was before it was discovered that holding onto a credit card for emergency cases only was not only a good idea, it was mandatory for people to be able to hold their heads above water.
The ideal solution when one finds oneself in a hole is to toss the fucking shovel aside and STOP DIGGING. That would be the ideal solution. And restrict unnecessary expenditures (e.g. don't go out and buy a $50,000 car when a $1,000 one will do) And pay down on your debt until its paid off. Not the banks!!!
They spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent, and spent like crazy to attract new customers. Hey! Open a new checking account at XYZ Bank and we'll give you $500!!! No bullshit!!! And if you act now we'll throw in a credit card with 29.4 APR interest after your 12.5 APR is up... yah, no kidding.
Only when they found themselves teetering on the brink of financial extinction... only after they went hog fucking wild, and wound up with a severe dollar sign shaped hangover, did they yell for help.
In capitalist theory, any business that fails in its overall service to the customer should rightfully collapse, and leave the business of commerce to its more successful and competitive rivals. That's in Synapses' capitalist little imaginary world. In Obama's, it was to pump trillions of dollars in bailouts to these irresponsible bunch of thieving money whores whose bad financial planning had gotten them into this fix to begin with.
The government has been committing the same mortal sins as the banks have for decades. Spend more than you bring in, rape your customers for the difference, and when things get really out of control bad, ask someone else for a loan (insert name of foreign banks here) One thing that the government has that the banks lack is the power to confiscate income by force (IRS, taxes, any of that ring a bell?)
So basically after we woke up and found our very selves in the morass of financial destitution, being ejected from our foreclosed homes, stripped of our repossessed cars, having to sell off most of what we owned, just to be able to pay down our principal balance (to say nothing of interest accrued on our debt) and having our credit ruined, we no longer carried a credit card of any kind... from here on out, it was cash only, if you didn't have the money on you for it you didn't fuckin need it...
And who does the government bail out? Not you!!! And certainly not me!!! It was these supercapitalist morons who didn't understand that every dollar is based on a promise by the United States government that basically says, "You can exchange me for $1 worth of gold." Admittedly it is an empty promise nowadays, as there simply isn't enough gold to back up all of the dollars now floating around, and inflation has claimed the dollar's value, and there is no more gold in Fort Knox, bla bla bla...
In doing that, the government committed a massive act of treason. Going against every molecule of the American dream, every grain of common sense, every shred of capitalist venture, it declared one thing.
We have become Communists.
Now mind you, I am about to pull the blanket off of the whole thing so you had better sit down and prepare yourselves for one undeniable truth. Because its what Donald Trump probably already knows.
We do not need MONEY... Not physically, not emotionally, not even really socially. We need the things that money can buy. Food, clothing, shelter. Freedom from sickness and pain. Transportation, electricity, gas, etc. What good is money in and of itself? Can't eat it, can't wear it, it won't keep your home warm in winter. Can't even really wipe your ass with it. It's a medium of exchange, and that's it. Cave men used sea shells. Ancient historic civilizations used salt. Indians just traded this for that. When you free your mind enough to know that money is based on a promise, and isn't truly real, your ass will follow.
Its the belief in money that they use to continue to control people.
It's the economy stupid.
Welcome to the Synaptic Dissident Blog
It's time that someone stood up for the little guy who repeatedly gets smacked down by all the stupid laws, regulations, codes, statutes, taxes, agencies, bureaucracies, and the like, despite his repeated attempts to get back up and make something of himself.
That little guy that the poster is standing up for is you, my friend. Mark my words. The man that everyone likes to call "Big Brother", yes, those fuckups inhabiting the halls of Congress, the White house, the Supreme Court, the state governors, the State Senates and the like still have exorbitant amounts of power to screw up your life, keep tabs on you, even in some cases to incarcerate you for reasons less than pristine.
We realize that a simple blog won't right all the wrongs in the world or even on the political front... our aim is to be informative, factual, and in some cases, entertaining. While we won't bore you with conspiracy theories such as "Obama is controlled by reptilians" WE WILL focus on what we deemed to be fucked up beyond belief and bring it to your attention. Right, Left, Moderate, Republican, Democrat - all of that crap has absolutely no meaning here. They are still rubbing their naked bodies with millions of hundred dollar bills filched and fleeced from you and I, while issuing their ill-thought out edicts to us all about what to believe, where to work, where to find healthcare, what to think, what to say, what not to say, and how much of our earnings we get to keep.
We plan to post entries such as "The Week in Stupid" including actual quotes from some of these mentally handicapped bozoes. We promise to check our sources carefully.
If some of these media whores get ousted from office, good!!! It needed to happen. I can promise you that with some of the bullshit laws they have passed, the Revolutionary War was fought over less than this. I promise you that much.
One thing we will NOT encourage is to blast any ONE president or politician. In our humble eyes, all are guilty of the same retarded policies that have led to the gradual crumbling of the foundation of that which made this country great and the chipping away at the basic right once enjoyed by all Americans: The right to be left alone. The last truly great President was Abraham Lincoln.
And it all went downhill from there.
So stay tuned folks as we bring you what you have all been dying for: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH WITH NO BULLSHIT!!!!
That little guy that the poster is standing up for is you, my friend. Mark my words. The man that everyone likes to call "Big Brother", yes, those fuckups inhabiting the halls of Congress, the White house, the Supreme Court, the state governors, the State Senates and the like still have exorbitant amounts of power to screw up your life, keep tabs on you, even in some cases to incarcerate you for reasons less than pristine.
We realize that a simple blog won't right all the wrongs in the world or even on the political front... our aim is to be informative, factual, and in some cases, entertaining. While we won't bore you with conspiracy theories such as "Obama is controlled by reptilians" WE WILL focus on what we deemed to be fucked up beyond belief and bring it to your attention. Right, Left, Moderate, Republican, Democrat - all of that crap has absolutely no meaning here. They are still rubbing their naked bodies with millions of hundred dollar bills filched and fleeced from you and I, while issuing their ill-thought out edicts to us all about what to believe, where to work, where to find healthcare, what to think, what to say, what not to say, and how much of our earnings we get to keep.
We plan to post entries such as "The Week in Stupid" including actual quotes from some of these mentally handicapped bozoes. We promise to check our sources carefully.
If some of these media whores get ousted from office, good!!! It needed to happen. I can promise you that with some of the bullshit laws they have passed, the Revolutionary War was fought over less than this. I promise you that much.
One thing we will NOT encourage is to blast any ONE president or politician. In our humble eyes, all are guilty of the same retarded policies that have led to the gradual crumbling of the foundation of that which made this country great and the chipping away at the basic right once enjoyed by all Americans: The right to be left alone. The last truly great President was Abraham Lincoln.
And it all went downhill from there.
So stay tuned folks as we bring you what you have all been dying for: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH WITH NO BULLSHIT!!!!
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