Firemen need police escorts to turn off nearly 2,000 opened fire hydrants.
Story here.
Just think what would happen in this country if we had a really serious problem. The natives are restless.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Everybody's Doin' A Brand New Dance Now: The Mussolini
LOCOMOTION
by Gerry Goffin and Carole King
Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now
Come on baby do the
I know you'll get to like it if you give it a chance now
Come on baby do the
It's easier than learning your ABC's
You gotta swing your hips now
Come on baby jump up jump back
Oh well, I think you've got the knack
Come on baby do the
Chug-a-chug a motion like a
Come on baby do the
Do it nice and easy now and don't lose control
A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul
Come on baby do the
Do it holdin' hands
Come on baby do the
There's never been a dance that's so easy to do
It even makes you
Come on, come on do the
(original lyrics here)
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Senator Saxby Chambliss Doesn't Tell The Whole Truth About Tax Loss Expenditures
On the Sean Hannity program today Senator Chambliss claimed that under Ronald Reagan tax loss expenditures were eliminated as part of a lowering and broadening of the tax base in 1986.
The top income tax bracket eventually fell to 28 percent for a very brief time as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 under Reagan's successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, who subsequently went on to break his no new taxes pledge, paving the way for tax increases under his successor, Bill Clinton, proving that broad low tax rates can be as ephemeral as any other part of the tax code.
The senator from Georgia today claimed that the current plan of his Gang of Six was proposing the scaling-back of similar tax loss expenditures enjoyed by taxpayers in the same spirit of Reagan. For example, the Gang wants to reduce the deductibility of home mortgage interest and charitable contributions in exchange for a lower income tax rate.
But the senator is pulling a fast one with the facts. Reagan didn't just eliminate some tax loss expenditures and reduce income tax rates in exchange. He in fact broadened at the same time the mortgage interest deduction in order to encourage home ownership, something entirely missing from the Gang of Six plan:
Prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86), the interest on all personal loans (including credit card debt) was deductible. TRA86 eliminated that broad deduction, but created the narrower home mortgage interest deduction under the theory that it would encourage home ownership.
I remember at the time how unfair I thought it was to lose the deductibility of credit card interest until I realized how an equity line of credit based on home ownership could and in fact did replace the role credit cards and other lines of credit had played in the tax equation before 1986. The change was also noteworthy because it encouraged the acquisition and use of secured equity instead of the use of mere credit secured only by income and creditworthiness.
Senator Chambliss' plan will eliminate tax deductibility of home mortgage interest without replacing it with anything to encourage home ownership.
And if there's anything America needs more right now, it's jobs and family formation to soak up the excess housing inventory. All Chambliss' plan will do is worsen the economic circumstances of current homeowners, who are already struggling with upside down loans and declining real estate values.
It's time conservatives recaptured the importance of home ownership as a social good. Unfortunately, the ideas of the Gang of Six do anything but. And whatever else they are, they aren't Reaganite.
Naked Scans To Be Replaced With Generic Silhouettes On Millimeter Wave Machines
So says The Washington Post, here.
A similar change for backscatter scanners is still in development and is not available.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Incompetent Airport Security Misses .32 cal Ammo TWICE
Both in the US and in the Bahamas:
It’s unclear how the bullet was not detected by security at Kansas City International Airport and in Nassau.
No, it's entirely clear. You're incompetent and your security is pure theatre, you miserable cretins.
There's more here.
Spending Cuts, Not Default, Are What Obama and Democrats Fear, and Loathe
American news organs appear to be incapable of the accurate formulation.
You won't find it put better anywhere than here:
Without agreement by August 2, the U.S. government will have to impose immediate spending cuts of about 44 per cent to stave off a default on its huge debts.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
House Defiant, Passes Cut, Cap and Balance 234-190
Presidential candidates Bachmann and Paul were among nine Republicans who voted against the plan because it raises the debt ceiling:
The measure, to be taken up by the Senate next, would impose statutory spending caps to wring $5.8 trillion in unspecified savings from the government over the next decade — twice the $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase that is allowed. Nondefense appropriations face a 30 percent cut from what the Congressional Budget Office now projects for the same period, and even SSI (Supplemental Security Income) payments for the elderly and disabled are exposed to across-the-board sequesters to enforce the reductions.
Read the rest here.
Obama Grasps at Straws, Seizes on Gang of Six Pricks Plan
Reported here:
President Barack Obama ... lauded a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that includes $1 trillion in higher taxes ... [S]tocks soared for the day, propelled by the deficit plan's emergence and Obama's decision to seize on it as well as by strong earnings reports.
And elsewhere, this:
"You're elected executive to lead. And I think it's incumbent on the president to put the plan out there. You cannot wait for members of a legislative body to lead. The executive has an obligation to lead."
-- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
And elsewhere, this:
"You're elected executive to lead. And I think it's incumbent on the president to put the plan out there. You cannot wait for members of a legislative body to lead. The executive has an obligation to lead."
-- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
Tim Pawlenty Draws Blood: How Bachmann is Obama All Over Again
And it's about time, too:
Speaking to reporters after a town-hall event [in Iowa] on a sweltering afternoon, Pawlenty did not hold back when asked whether the Minnesota congresswoman could win a general election if she were to become the Republican presidential nominee.
"I don't think the country is going to do that again," Pawlenty said in his characteristically subdued tone before twisting the knife. "They learned the lesson of big speeches and no experience with Barack Obama, and it didn't work."
More here.
More here.
Spending Every Year is Now Twice What it was When Clinton Left Office
When men lack self-restraint, restraint must be applied from the outside. That is the meaning of this moment.
For more from David Boaz, click here.
Sen. Tom Coburn is the Enemy of Every Traditional Family
"I’ve argued that Republicans should be willing to consider increases in revenue -- not through higher tax rates but through eliminating tax earmarks, such as that for ethanol, and other expenditure that misallocates capital."
"Tax earmarks" and "other expenditure" which "misallocates capital"?
Read "tax loss expenditures." In other words, the tax deductions which every nuclear family in the country depends on for its survival: mortgage interest, donations to charity, property taxes, state income taxes and the like.
THE GUY VIEWS YOUR TAX PAYMENTS AS THE GOVERNMENT'S CAPITAL. AND EVERY PROVISION OF THE TAX CODE WHICH DIVERTS YOUR MONEY BACK TO YOU HE VIEWS AS A MISALLOCATION.
If it walks like a tax increase and talks like a tax increase, it's a tax increase.
Federal Judge Rules One Hutaree Member Incompetent to Stand Trial
Due to either a mental defect or a mental illness, resulting in delusions.
Too bad someone can't intervene in this way on behalf of President Obama, an ideologue who suffers under the delusion that he is a pragmatist.
How Much of Your Money Market Fund is in the Repo Market?
Just days ago it seems we were worried sick about money market exposures to European banks who are in turn exposed to the PIIGS.
Overall US money market funds have had just under half of their assets in short term European investments, meaning that US cash savers in such funds are actually providing perhaps as much as several trillions of dollars in liquidity to Europe's stressed banks and sovereigns.
Now Jim Jubak thinks money market exposures to the repo market should also worry people, here:
My big worry is that the current slow erosion of faith in U.S. Treasurys will turn into a cascade of unanticipated consequences if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Treasurys play a unique role in the global financial markets. They aren't important only because they're jammed into so many global portfolios, including the portfolios of so many of the world's countries. They're also important because they serve as collateral on a huge percentage of the complex deals that use derivatives to shift risk around the globe. ...
Treasurys are used as collateral for cash loans in the repo (repurchase) market. In a repo agreement, the seller of a security agrees to buy it back from a buyer at a higher price on a specified date in the future. Repos are, in effect, short-term loans; they are used to raise short-term cash by banks and corporations. Central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, also use them to manage the money supply. To expand the money supply, the Fed decreases the repo rate at which it buys back government debt instruments from commercial banks. To shrink the money supply, the Fed increases the repo rate.
It's a huge market. Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates that 74% of primary dealer repo financing -- or about $2.1 trillion -- involves Treasurys as collateral. ...
Money market funds have big chunks of their cash in the repo market. (Anyone who remembers the problems that the Lehman crisis created for money market funds should regard any advice on using money market funds as a safe haven in the event of a U.S. default with extreme skepticism.)
Monday, July 18, 2011
North Carolina Dept. of Transportation A Little Hacked Off At Obama
For what reason, we do not know, but the sign displayed the message over the weekend and motorists pulled over to take pictures.
The story is here:
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