Friday, May 31, 2013

Muslims getting run over by The Great Karmic Wheel

I don't know of a single country in the world who hasn't had trouble from Muslim Radicals.  the Radicals are on a worldwide push for a global caliphate.  So, given the fact that I have the typical streak of human vindictiveness, this story made me smile.  I believe the term in German is 'schadenfreude'.
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More than 1,000 Muslims who fled Myanmar’s latest bout of sectarian violence huddled on Thursday in a Buddhist monastery guarded by army soldiers as calm returned to this northeastern city.
The army transported terrified Muslim families by the truckload out of a neighbourhood in Lashio targeted a day earlier by Buddhist rioters.

“We heard things could get worse, so we waved down soldiers and asked them for help,” said 59-year-old Khin Than, who arrived at the monastery on Thursday morning with her four children and sacks of luggage along with several hundred other Muslims.

The violence in Lashio this week highlights how anti-Muslim unrest has slowly spread across Myanmar since starting last year in western Rakhine State and hitting the central city of Meikhtila in March.

In Lashio on Thursday, Buddhist monks organised meals for the newly arrived refugees.

The rioting began Tuesday after a Muslim man splashed gasoline on a Buddhist woman and set her on fire. Buddhist mobs responded by burning down several Muslim-owned shops, a mosque and an Islamic orphanage. Roving motorcyclists continued the violence on Wednesday, leaving one person dead and four injured. 
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I'm guessing the Buddhists are willing to add another life to their karmic journey, to put the Muslims in their place.  I may become a Buddhist!
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Schteveo

Friday Funny...well, sorta!

OK, when I read the headline, I thought, "...I'm not much of a fisherman, but what a way to go!"  Then I read the article.  The headline is accurate, but misleading, IMHO.
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Beaver kills Fisherman


The fisherman wanted his photo shot with a beaver. The beaver had other ideas: It attacked the 60-year-old man with razor-sharp teeth, slicing an artery and causing him to bleed to death.


It was the most serious in a string of beaver attacks on humans in Belarus, as the rodents have turned increasingly aggressive when confronted by humans after wandering near homes, shops and schools.

"The character of the wound was totally shocking for us medical professionals," recalled village doctor Leonty Sulim. "We had never run into anything like this before."

Once hunted nearly to extinction in Europe, beavers have made a comeback as hunting was banned or restricted and new populations were introduced. In Belarus, a former Soviet nation between Russia and Poland, the beaver population has tripled in the past decade to an estimated 80,000, according to wildlife experts. That has caused beavers increasingly to wander into populated areas, creating more grounds for conflict.
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Yeah, it's a let down isn't it.  But there are SO many things to poke at here.

The beaver attacked and severed an artery..it doesn't really say WHERE, does it?.

Aggressive beavers?!  Nobody wants THAT!

The beaver population in Belarus has tripled in a decade.  Maybe they're aggressive from over population.  That or over copulation!

Beavers wandering around, into populated areas, causing conflicts.  Can't we all just get along?
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Schteveo

Thursday, May 30, 2013

A Look At A Deadly Virus


 The deadly virus i speak of is, political correctness. It has done more damage to our country and our society than perhaps any medical virus we've ever known. Worse than making us sick, it has made us weak. It was designed to squelch and demonize free speech and free thought, and because we are, generally speaking, a weak and gullible society, it has been far more successful than it's creators could have ever dreamed it would be.

"Understand that the goal of Marxism remains the same today as it did generations ago – pitting the proletariat (worker) against the bourgeois (rich) and forcefully redistributing wealth. However, via political correctness (or multiculturalism), this same goal is achieved by forcing those within society to surrender independent thought..."

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/05/political-correctness-what-it-is-and-where-it-came-from/

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Movie about Liberace and his gay lover is... Too Gay for theaters.

So HBO is running it instead!

Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra (which premieres Sunday, May 26 at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO) is as good as you've heard. It's a moving and beautifully made film that traces the clandestine half-decade romance between Vegas showman and pianist Liberace and his much, much younger live-in boyfriend Scott Thorson, who cowrote the 1988 memoir on which the film is based.

During a press tour in January, Soderbergh explained how he was turned down by every studio he approached with his Liberace project because executives deemed it "too gay" to turn an acceptable profit:

Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town. We needed $5 million. Nobody would do it…They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after Brokeback Mountain, by the way. Which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us…[The people at HBO are] great and they're really good at what they do, and ultimately I think more people will see it, and that's all you care about. Studios were going, "We don't know how to sell it." They were scared.

The film does indeed have its share of gay love and intercourse, including a sweaty, grunting sequence in which Scott (played by Matt Damon) is taking Liberace from behind while the aging performer offers him drugs to take during sex. But the Hollywood rejection shouldn't have been all that shocking to Soderbergh and company. Hollywood and mainstream cinema have a long and well-documented history of not "knowing" how to "sell" and market movies featuring explicit gay sex to a wide audience. 

Seriously?  It has scene's of Matt Damon 'taking Liberace from behind'.  Is that 'all'?  Seriously?  Is that 'all' the studios had trouble with?  Matt Damon banging Michael Douglas 'from behind'!?  What a bunch of backwards twerps those studio types are!!  Why won't they spend their money to try to sell my gay sex scenes!? 

Maybe they aren't crazy about Soderbergh's 'vision' of  Thorson's book.  [hell, maybe they didn't know who Liberace is! or was.]

Personally, I don't pay MY money to get 'THEIR' vision of the world, regardless of who the they are!  Inter racial strife isn't entertaining to me.  And Hollywood doesn't know how to 'sell' us interracial couples?  Maybe because we're not going to the movies to BUY inter racial couples, not because Americans are racists, but because it's not ENTERTAINING!   

As I recall, one of the black directors had a flick out a few years ago about a family reunion, where one of the family men showed up with a WHITE girlfriend.  He caught a lot of heat for having ANY white chicks in the film, because it was supposed to be a 'black' flick!  How is that NOT racist [too]?  Neither is watching Michael Douglas taking one in the tail pipe!


And a short note to the creator of this crap.
  
Hey Mr. Sodomybergh, I don't want to see Michael Douglas banging Catherine Zeta-Jones 'from behind' EITHER.  It's not THE ANGLE that bothers me, it's that I, and most Americans, DON'T want to see ANYONE having sex.  That's not 'entertainment' to most of us, it's porn!

Just because you CAN film that crap now, and get it distributed, doesn't mean you should!
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Schteveo

We Are The World's Biggest Joke

 I've commented in the past about how, after we spend decades and hundreds-of-Billions to develop some super-secret weapons system, the ChiComs seem to put out an exact copy a year later, and for pennies on the dollar. Do they have some gigantic crystal ball in Beijing which shows them everything we're doing? Or, (and here's my pick) have we become so weak, lax, and basically stupid, that some 15 year old kid on the other side of the world can sit with a $50. Radio Shack laptop and simply walk through our most secret and "sophisticated" programs, at will. 

Just imagine what could happen if they truly wanted to do some real damage...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/confidential-report-lists-us-weapons-system-designs-compromised-by-chinese-cyberspies/2013/05/27/a42c3e1c-c2dd-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html?hpid=z1

Did the Japanese learn ANYTHING from losing WWII?

I am by nature the type of person who does not hate, despise or distrust any group of people, nor am I xenophobic.  Typically I address the idiots of the world on a one to one basis.  I guess the best example would be our conversations in the past about Muslims.

But having said that, many Japanese, and in many instances, the Japanese Government / Imperial Diet still refuse to acknowledge many of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army during WWII.  Proof of the pudding is the Mayor of Osaka is only in tepid water of remarks he made about the Imperial Army's use of "Comfort Women".
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Some historians estimate that 200,000 women were rounded up from across Asia to work as comfort women for the Japanese Army. Other historians put that number in the tens of thousands, and say they served of their own will. Japan formally apologized to the comfort women in 1993.

Mr. Hashimoto told reporters in Osaka on Monday that they had served a useful purpose. “When soldiers are risking their lives by running through storms of bullets, and you want to give these emotionally charged soldiers a rest somewhere, it’s clear that you need a comfort women system,” he said.

When pressed later, he insisted that brothels “were necessary at the time to maintain discipline in the army.” Other countries’ militaries used prostitutes, too, he said, and added that in any case there was no proof that the Japanese authorities had forced women into servitude.

Instead, he put the women’s experiences down to “the tragedy of war,” and said surviving comfort women now deserved kindness from Japan.

Mr. Hashimoto is a co-leader of the Japan Restoration Association, a populist party with 57 lawmakers in Parliament. His comments followed those of a string of Japanese politicians who have recently challenged what they say is a distorted view of Japan’s wartime history. Last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seemed to question whether Japan was the aggressor during the war, saying the definition of “invasion” was relative.
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That was reported on May 13th, and there was some backlash, but yesterday, he basically doubled down on his feelings by saying many other countries had done this too.
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The issue existed in the armed forces of the U.S.A., the UK, France, Germany and the former Soviet Union among others during World War II.
It also existed in the armed forces of the Republic of Korea during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
If only Japan is blamed, because of the widely held view that the state authority of Japan was intentionally involved in the abduction and trafficking of women, I will have to inform you that this view is incorrect.
He went on to question whether the Japanese Government was involved in the system of taking, holding, and enslavement of the Comfort Women.

His popularity number have 'slumped', but if OUR political set up is any bell weather for how idiot politicians get treated or reelected based on 'numbers', he'll eventually become Prime Minister.  Given that last week or the week before Germany was touted as the Happiest Industrialized Country, and that PM Merkel has repeatedly referred to Germany as THE leader and Economic Engine of the EU, and as such their opinion should carry more weight, I'm hearing defenses of past events and remarks from countries who wanted to rule the world is a little off putting.  If these people are at or near the top, and they think like this, what does Hans the Plumber think in Hamburg or Yoshi the Plumber in Osaka? 

Listen, I don't dislike the Japanese nor the German people as 'entities'.

But I'm starting to question whether we used enough atom bombs during WWII.


Schteveo

Friday, May 24, 2013

And this double edged story was news to who(m)?

Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars — in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good. 


According to the College Board, in 1983 a typical private American university managed to provide a bachelor’s-degree-level education to young people just like you for $11,000 a year in tuition and fees. That’s in 2012 dollars. 


Instead, those of you at private colleges paid this year an average of $29,000.

And back then a public college charged in-state students just $2,200 a year in tuition and fees — in today’s dollars. You could get a full four-year degree for $8,800. Today that will get you one year’s tuition, or $8,700. 


Notice, please, we are not even counting the cost of all the “extras,” like room and board. This is just the cost of the teaching. 

It is, as a result, no surprise that total student loans are now approaching $1 trillion. They have easily overtaken credit-card debts and car loans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, total student loans have basically tripled since 2004.
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OK, to start with, let me say, I wasn't impressed with college grads 30 years ago. [that would be 1983 for those of you WITH a non-engineering degree achieved over the last 40 years]  So my laughing uproariously at ANYONE who is in debt tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars for a degree that isn't going to get a job, doesn't mean I'm cruel.  It simply means I can, with my high school drop out math skills and one year of 10th Grade "Consumer Math", figure out just how long, or how much per month, you'll be paying on student loans, while scrambling to get out of mom and dad's basement!

Screw a new car or an apartment, that stuff is for 40 year olds, who are Managers at McD's or Supervisors at Wal-Mart.  And getting married is a death sentence.  All that get's you is someone else's debt AND they won't like your friends or your mother!!

Worse still in my mind, is the fact that these people have 'won' trophies for just showing up since they were 4 or 5 in many cases.  They've fawned over and kissed the butts of Leftist teachers, Leftist professors and listened to and believed the Leftist utterances of actors and musicians since they were 12 or 13.  But the whole thing was a Ponzi Scheme, based on lies, built inside a house of cards.  When they finally get fed up, we'll most likely have a SHTF, TEOTWAWKI, Zombie Apocalypse melt down.

The question to me, is will they go after US, because they'll believe the actors, teachers, musicians and actors one more time?  Or will they backlash against those who fed them a line of crap for more than half their lives?

Either way, it won't be pretty.
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Schteveo

Friday Funny - Can YOU figure the Formula for Miles Per Hour?

Here's a couple, who I think are recently married [there's writing on the rear, drivers side window], discussing HOW far you can drive in an hour.

I think he should have asked more questions BEFORE saying "I do".  Given her answer, her powers of observation and her math skills, unless he's as smart as Einstein, their kids are doomed.
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I wouldn't watch this too many times.  I think I've lost 4 IQ Points from watching it just once!
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She's QUITE Blonde and does math almost as well as Barbie..
Schteveo

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

This Could Be Serious

 Keep in mind that under our law, a ratified treaty has more force in law than a Constitutional amendment...

Obama Resorting to United Nations to Attack Gun Rights

As we relax after the failure of the gun-grabbing bill in the Senate, America’s enemies are attacking our fundamental freedom by more deviant means — with help from their fellow authoritarian socialists at the United Nations. Comrade Obama will sign the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty” early next month. Forbes has listed a few things this treaty would do to Americans:
1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.
2. Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).
3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).
4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.
5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.
Aligning himself with a hostile power against the USA by signing this clearly unconstitutional treaty would dwarf the many other scandals for which Obama should be removed from office.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

You do the Math...

This story says MORE about, uh, certain members, or groups, of our American Society than I could ever say, or have ever said.
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A 23-year-old Ohio man is facing a child endangerment charge after allegedly allowing his nine-year-old daughter to drive the family car, a 1998 Honda that the child lost control of after “achieving excessive speed” and drove into a tree.
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Wait, so what, he was teaching his daughter to drive.  We've all done that, or at least those of us with kids getting to driving age, so why is that child endangerment?  Wait, maybe HER age is the issue.  Here's the headline, let's see if you can catch it!  BTW, you've already gotten one hint.

(I scrolled the next line down so you don't get a hint, before you get to the link.)
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Father, 23, Arrested For Letting Daughter, 9, Drive Car


Uh, so how in the hell, does a 'man' of 23, have a 9 [NINE] year old daughter?  That's Nine, 3 x 3, 18 divided by 2, 3 to the second power!!!    

Well that's easy isn't it, he was bangin' around his school, neighborhood or wherever at 13 or 14 years old!  I get that it's not unheard of now, plenty of early teen sex is happening.  Even pre-teen consentual sex is happening  But, that poor kid, the daughter, is doomed, if her father is that damned stupid, and her mom can't be too swift either, IMNSHO!  And there's NO mention of mom.  

Or Pam either for that matter! 

I'll admit it, I'm a proponent of easier adoptions, and easier removals of children from bad homes.  So this story, among others I read weekly, shows me that our government is TOO powerful on one hand and too STUPID on the other.
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Schteveo

Thursday, May 16, 2013

It's Friday Somewhere


On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo 11 lunar module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.
His first words after stepping on the moon, "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," were televised to earth and heard by millions. But just before he re-entered the Lander, he made the enigmatic remark - "Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky."
Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival soviet cosmonaut.
However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or
American space programs.
Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the - 'Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky' statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.
On July 5,
1995, in Tampa bay, Florida , while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question about Mr. Gorsky to Armstrong.
This time he finally responded because Mr. Gorsky had died, so Neil Armstrong felt he could now answer the question. Here is the answer to "who was Mr. Gorsky":
In 1938, when he was a kid in a small mid-western town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor's yard by their bedroom window. His neighbors were Mr. And Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky,
"SEX! You want SEX?! You'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon".

It broke the place up. Neil Armstrong’s family confirmed this is a true story. Do pass it on, it's too choice not to be shared.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo! E' vi, STUPENDO! Magnifico!! Meravigliso!!!

I'm a HUGE fan of 'Spaghetti Westerns'.  

Yes I know some people would rather watch paint dry, but I love those things.   Those people who think that, well they suck, I like 'em, so bite me, it's my posting so, vaffan culo!  But I digress.  

The BEST, the top, THE greatest spaghetti Western EVER made was 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly'.  Here, below at the YouTube link, is one of the best renditions of the Ennio Morricone theme song to the movie I've ever seen!  And by the weirdest 'orchestra' I've ever seen for that matter.

Enjoy it.  Or I'll hang you from Tuco's tree, and I doubt Clint can shoot that rope for you, with his 80 year old eyes! 


THE UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN
 
 
   

Monday, May 13, 2013

We The People v The IRS, et.al.

 This is a great story for all those people (fools?) who actually think they still live in a free country. It's exactly what the people of Germany thought back in the early 1930's. Now, we find ourselves in the very same position they found themselves in. They had only the Gestapo to deal with. We have the IRS, DHS, EPA, ATF, FBI, TSA, and the HHS, to mention just a few. Their job is to do the very same thing the Gestapo did, "take complete and total control of the lives of every single one of us", and to crush anyone or anything that stands in their way. This is what Marxism is all about. Control.

Still think you live in a free country?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/13/irs-scrutiny-went-beyond-tea-party-criteria-broader-than-thought/

Sunday, May 12, 2013

She said WHAT!?

Since I first became aware of Barack and Michelle Obama, I have heard them make disparaging, and often, unfounded remarks about ANYONE or any GROUP who opposes their ideas or ideals.  They don't listen to anyone who isn't from their Leftist or Academic side of life.  [as if theirs a difference there!]  And they never talk to anyone who doesn't agree with them.  It's been a problem since he took the WH over.
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But in giving the Commencement Speech at Eastern Kentucky University today, Michelle suggested that the students find someone with different political beliefs, and talk to them.


Maybe what she meant wasn't talk TO someone, but talk DOWN to them.  That being their usual M/O.
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First lady Michelle Obama urged Eastern Kentucky University graduates on Saturday night to reach out to people with different political beliefs, saying the country would benefit from the conversations.

"If you're a Democrat, spend some time talking to a Republican," Mrs. Obama told about 600 education, business and technology graduates at the third and final commencement ceremony of the day. "And if you're a Republican, have a chat with a Democrat. Maybe you'll find some common ground, maybe you won't."

The first lady suggested that they visit senior centers to benefit from the experiences of people with plenty of "life experience under their belts." She also pointed them to religious congregations different than their own, saying they might hear something in a sermon "that stays with you." And she predicted they would learn something if they reached out "with an open mind and an open heart."

"And goodness knows, we need more of that," she said. "Because we know what happens when we only talk to people who think like we do. We just get stuck in our ways."
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So Michelle Obama was telling someone else to NOT get stuck in their ways.  That my friends, is RICH!.
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The White House said the first lady was drawn to EKU as part of her initiative to support veterans and military families. EKU has gained national recognition for its efforts to help veterans advance their education, including its Veterans Success Center, which provides one-stop-assistance for advising, counseling and job placement services.

A campus group took potshots at Obama administration policies ahead of Mrs. Obama's visit, handing out fliers bemoaning the challenging job prospects for the new graduates.

"Good luck landing your first job," said the flier from the EKU chapter of Young Americans for Liberty. "Only 47 percent of you will be able to find a job in your preferred field, so I hope you're still on good terms with your parents." 
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Yeah, she's really worried about veterans, or people having trouble finding jobs.  I'm guessing she got all that from her husband.  He's clearly been working his ASS off to help veterans and people without jobs since he got int office.
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These clowns are such hypocrites, that it's hard to see how they themselves DON'T see it.
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Schteveo
 
 

Friday, May 10, 2013

Phriday Phunny!!!

I KNOW MANY OF YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON THIS YEAR. 

WELL, HERE'S A LITTLE RECAP OF LAST YEAR.........


And could these be coincidences?    It seems like Cause and Effect to Me.

Alabama beat Arkansas,
and Arkansas fired their coach.

Alabama beat Tennessee,
and Tennessee fired their coach.

Alabama beat Auburn,
and Auburn fired their coach.

Then Alabama beat Notre Dame, and the Pope resigned.......

Darn, I truly wish the White House had a team!

Monday, May 6, 2013

Practice Makes Perfect?

CALIBER TYPE; Acceptable Bullet Weight Range
  • 9MM Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 90 -105
  • 10MM Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 100-135
  • .357 SIG Caliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 100-115
  • .38 SPL Caliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 110-
  • .380 Auto Caliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 70-75
  • .40 S&W Caliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 100-135
  • .45 Auto Caliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 155-
  • .223 REM aliber Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 50-55
  • .308 WIN Caliber Jacketed, Reduced Hazard; 165-168
  • 12 Gauge Steel Shot Target Load, Reduced Hazard; #7
  • 12 Gauge #00 Buckshot Full Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 8 PELLET
  • 12 Gauge #00 Buckshot Reduced Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 8 PELLET
  • 12 Gauge #00 Buckshot Full Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 9 PELLET
  • 12 Gauge #00 Buckshot Reduced Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 9 PELLET
  • 12 Gauge Rifled Slug Full Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 1 OZ
  • 12 Gauge Rifled Slug Reduced Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 1 OZ 
  • 12 Gauge #4 Buckshot Full Recoil, Reduced Hazard, Frangible; 27 PELLET
  • 12 GAUGE #4 Buckshot Reduced Recoil, Reduced Hazard; 27 PELLET
If you think that's a shopping list for Brother Poots's 4th of July yard party, you'd be close, but wrong. It's actually a list of what the Dept. of Homeland Stupidity is trying to get their sweaty little hands on. By the Millions! All for practice, of course.

If there's a bright side to this, it would have to be the thought that, with hundreds-of-Millions of rounds to "practice" with, our govt. agents must be really terrific shots! 

Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/05/dhs-on-the-hunt-for-millions-of-rounds-of-frangible-ammunition/#ixzz2SXSoAlIb

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Get Ready To Bend Over. Again



Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

The most destructive Obamacare tax increases are just around the bend
Asked about Senator Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) recent “train wreck” comments, President Obama today said, “A huge chunk of it [Obamacare] has already been implemented.” Unmentioned was the wave of destructive Obamacare tax increases that will begin to hit Americans during the next tax filing season and beyond:

Starting in tax year 2013:

Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income:  A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This tax hike results in the following top tax rates on investment income:

Capital Gains
Dividends
Other*
2013+
23.8%
43.4%
43.4%
*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations.  It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income.  It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. (Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93)


Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase:

First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/Employee
All Remaining Wages
Employer/Employee
 
Pre-Obamacare
1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self employed
Obamacare
1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employed

(Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2,000-2,003; 87-93)


Obamacare Medical Device Tax:  Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year.  In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986)


Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).  Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI.  Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 - $400 per year. To learn more about this tax, click here.  (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995)


Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax:  The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.
Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389)
 


Starting in tax year 2014:

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax:  Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press:  “Most would be in the middle class.”
In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

Americans liable for the surtax will pay according to the following schedule

1 Adult
2 Adults
3+ Adults
2014
1%AGI/$95
1%AGI/$190
1%AGI/$285
2015
2%AGI/$325
2%AGI/$650
2%AGI/$975
2016
2.5%AGI/$695
2.5%AGI/$1390
2.5%AGI/$2085
(Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337)


Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax:  If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for all full-time employees.  This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3,000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). (Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346)


Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers:  Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year.  The tax phases in gradually until 2018.  Fully imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993)



Starting in tax year 2018:

Obamacare Tax on Union Member and Early Retiree Health Insurance Plans:  Obamacare imposes a new 40 percent excise tax on high cost or “Cadillac” health insurance plans, effective in 2018. This tax increase will most directly affect union families and early retirees, who are likely to be covered by such plans. This Obamacare tax will be levied on insurance policies whose premiums exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family.  Middle class union members tend to be covered by such plans in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956)

Friday Funnies, A Day Early

Two young businessmen in Florida were sitting down for a break in their soon-to-be new store in the shopping mall.

As yet, the store's merchandise wasn't in – only a few shelves and display racks set up.

One said to the other, "I'll bet that any minute now some senior is going to walk by, put his face to the window, and ask what we're selling."

Sure enough, just a moment later, a curious senior gentleman walked up to the window, looked around intensely and rapped on the glass, then in a loud voice asked, "What are you selling here?"

One of the men replied sarcastically, "We're selling ass-holes."

Without skipping a beat, the old timer said, "You must be doing well. Only two left."