Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Happy San Jacinto Day!


The San Jacinto Monument is 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument.


Remember The Alamo! Remember Goliad!

Today's the day we kicked Santa Anna's ass...April 21, 1836.
Birthdate of the Republic of Texas.

Click here for a link to a hi-resolution battleground map on TAMU website.

Time for a beer. Here's hoping we can have a second birth of the Republic!

H/T The Corner and The San Jacinto Museum of History

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Drop Stupak


We go hunting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ("da U.P." for my Texas kin). Unfortunately, we can't vote against Stupak. My brother-in-law does that for me.

The good news is we CAN and DO vote for Paul Ryan.

I like this bumper sticker.

H/T Gateway Pundit

Outrage at Tennessee Congressman's remarks

Oh boy...today's a two-fer. THE BOSS is pissed off...here's the video that set her off..



To: Congressman Steve Cohen
Tennessee – Democrat

Congressman,

I recently had the opportunity to listen to your interview on the Young Turks call in radio show.

Sir, I am appalled by the words that came out of your month and outraged at your thought process.

To reference Tea Party members as people "without robes and hoods" and “clones of the George Wallace fan club” to mention a few slurs that you spoke, is by far racist. To say nothing of your arrogance and hate speech towards anyone that does not agree with your views on healthcare.

Sir, you owe the American people a public apology and should be ashamed of yourself. How do you sleep at night? How are you able to able to keep food down with acid indigestion in your stomach?

At the very least you owe me a written apology, for I am personally insulted, hurt and distressed by your words and I am certainly not a racist.

I challenge you to discuss this matter face to face.

As I said: How can we be racists? Some of our best friends are white!

You've gotten on the wrong side of THE BOSS, my friend, and she's going to fax this to your office tomorrow.

H/T Weasel Zippers

Tingles selling BFD T-shirts

Sigh.

As THE BOSS said, "It's not a BFD, it's an STD...they want us all to catch it".

I got a nice laugh at that.

H/T Weasel Zippers

Saturday, April 03, 2010

I Read Blogs...

From THE BOSS:

I read blogs. Some of them are opinions of individuals, some are military, legal or tax related. I try very hard to read these blogs with an open mind and also to understand the other side's point of view. As we all know, knowledge is power; and besides, you never know when you might need a “fact” during a conversation.

On one of the tax blogs I was reading the conclusion of a paper and the last 15 words struck me like a bolt of lightning. I read them 3 times before I thought my head would explode. Here are those 15 words: “the notion that the tax code is founded on basic notions of fairness and uniformity.” The law professor who wrote those 15 words was trying to make the point that all persons need to be treated equally, and currently this one IRC (Internal Revenue Code) does not do that.

Here is how the key word “notion(s)” is defined:
· A belief or opinion.
· A mental image or representation; an idea or conception.
· A fanciful impulse; a whim.

Now let’s take these same 15 words and insert the first definition. It would read “the opinion that the tax code is founded on basic beliefs of fairness and uniformity” or it could be read using the second definition “ the idea that the tax code is founded on the basic concept of fairness and uniformity.”

I know you see where I am going with this. Here are those same 15 words using the third definition: “the whim that the tax code is founded on the basic impulse of fairness and uniformity.” Interesting, but not quite there yet, so let me give it one more try. Here is how it should read: “the opinion that the tax code is founded on the basic whim of fairness and uniformity.”

I like the fourth definition best. It is the correct perspective on the IRS/ IRC. “Why?", you ask? To give you a short answer: “because the IRC is over 75,000 pages long.” The IRS is a machine in the respect that they win 70% to 85% of the cases no matter what strategy the taxpayer takes. They have files, cases of paper and servers full of data to argue the other side. They have more attorney that the largest US Law Firms. Come to think of it, they are the largest US Law Firm!

In 1913 the tax code was 300 pages, moving up to 8,200 pages by 1945. By 1954 there were 14,000 pages, jumping to 67,500 pages by 2008. This is nuts! Today we hover somewhere around 75,000 to 80,000 pages, give or take a thousand.

Let me ask these questions, “How can there be fairness and uniformity?” when the IRS doesn’t even know and understand all 75,000+ pages? “How can the taxpayer get justice when they hire one attorney to go up against the largest law machine in our country?” While the taxpayer is struggling to pay one attorney to file a suit, write motions, research prior cases, the IRS does a data search and out spits a list of cases they’ve won. Reviewing the list, they pick the best ones, cut, copy and paste into a new motion and file it with the court. It cost them cents on the dollar versus the poor taxpayer who is paying hundreds of dollars an hour.

If there is to be fairness and uniformity we need a stepped Flat Tax, one form to fill out and less government with their hands in our pockets.

I married her because she's smarter than I am. So -- what she said!