Bloggers Legal Guide

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a "Legal Guide for Bloggers" and other writings that are very useful for understaning and working in the digital world.

ISP's: "Come Back With a Warrant !

EFF Sues AT&T to Stop Illegal Surveillance
Telecom Collaborated with NSA to Spy on Customers

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T Tuesday, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

The NSA program came to light in December, when the New York Times reported that the president had authorized the agency to intercept telephone and Internet communications inside the United States without the authorization of any court. Over the ensuing weeks, it became clear that the NSA program has been intercepting and analyzing millions of Americans' communications, with the help of the country's largest phone and Internet companies.

Reporting has also indicated that those same companies—and AT&T specifically—have given the NSA direct access to their vast databases of communications records, including information about whom their customers have phoned or emailed with in the past. And yet little has been accomplished by this illegal spying: recent reports have shown that the data from this wholesale surveillance has done little more than waste FBI resources on dead leads.

"The NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls and emails for 'suspicious' patterns, and it's the collaboration of US telecom companies like AT&T that makes it possible," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "When the government defends spying on Americans by saying, 'If you're talking to terrorists we want to know about it,' that's not even close to the whole story."

In the lawsuit, EFF alleges that AT&T, in addition to allowing the NSA direct access to the phone and Internet communications passing over its network, has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information—one of the largest databases in the world.

"AT&T's customers reasonably expect that their communications are private and have long trusted AT&T to follow the law and protect that privacy. Unfortunately, AT&T has betrayed that trust," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "At the NSA's request, AT&T eviscerated the legal safeguards required by Congress and the courts with a keystroke."

By opening its network and databases to unrestricted spying by the government, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of AT&T customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

While other organizations are suing the government directly, EFF is seeking to protect Americans' privacy by stopping the collaboration of AT&T with the illegal NSA spying program and making it economically impossible for AT&T to continue to give its customers' information to the government.

"Congress has set up strong laws protecting the privacy of your communications, strictly limiting when telephone and Internet companies can subject your phone calls to government scrutiny," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "The companies that have betrayed their customers' trust by illegally handing the NSA direct access to their networks and databases must be brought to account. AT&T needs to put a sign on its door that reads, 'Come Back With a Warrant.'"

Chocolate Does a Man's Heart Good

02.27.06, 12:00 AM ET
Forbes.com
MONDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Chocolate lovers, take heart: Dutch research suggests that eating or drinking cocoa appears to lower blood pressure and even reduce the death risks for older men. Since the 1700s, cocoa has been associated with healthy hearts, but only recently has scientific evidence backed up these claims, according to a new report in the Feb. 27 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

According to the study, cocoa contains flavan-3-ols, which have been linked to lower blood pressure and improved function of the cells lining the blood vessels.

In their study, researchers led by Brian Buijsse, of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, in Bilthoven, examined links between cocoa and cardiovascular health in 470 men aged 65 to 84 years. The men had physical examinations and were interviewed about their diet at the start of the study in 1985 and then again in 1990 and 1995.

The researchers found that over a 15-year period, men who ate cocoa -- including chocolate -- regularly had significantly lower blood pressure compared with those who didn't.

The sweet treat might even help ward off death. The researchers reported that 314 men died over the course of the study, with 152 of those deaths blamed on heart disease. Men who consumed the highest amount of cocoa were half as likely to die from cardiovascular disease, compared to men who ate little or no cocoa, the team found. In addition, men who ate the most cocoa were less likely to die from any causes.

For these men, the risk remained low even after taking into account other factors, such as weight, smoking, physical activity, calorie intake and drinking alcohol, the researcher"

The Essential Krugman: Graduates versus Oligarchs

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 27 February 2006

Ben Bernanke's maiden Congressional testimony as chairman of the Federal Reserve was, everyone agrees, superb. He didn't put a foot wrong on monetary or fiscal policy.

But Mr. Bernanke did stumble at one point. Responding to a question from Representative Barney Frank about income inequality, he declared that "the most important factor" in rising inequality "is the rising skill premium, the increased return to education."

That's a fundamental misreading of what's happening to American society. What we're seeing isn't the rise of a fairly broad class of knowledge workers. Instead, we're seeing the rise of a narrow oligarchy: income and wealth are becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small, privileged elite.

I think of Mr. Bernanke's position, which one hears all the time, as the 80-20 fallacy. It's the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group - that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don't have these skills.

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year.

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.

A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint.

Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well over $6 million a year.

Why would someone as smart and well informed as Mr. Bernanke get the nature of growing inequality wrong? Because the fallacy he fell into tends to dominate polite discussion about income trends, not because it's true, but because it's comforting. The notion that it's all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising inequality, that it's just a case of supply and demand at work. And it also suggests that the way to mitigate inequality is to improve our educational system - and better education is a value to which just about every politician in America pays at least lip service.

The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story.

Should we be worried about the increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats. Both history and modern experience tell us that highly unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt. There's an arrow of causation that runs from diverging income trends to Jack Abramoff and the K Street project.

And I'm with Alan Greenspan, who - surprisingly, given his libertarian roots - has repeatedly warned that growing inequality poses a threat to "democratic society."

It may take some time before we muster the political will to counter that threat. But the first step toward doing something about inequality is to abandon the 80-20 fallacy. It's time to face up to the fact that rising inequality is driven by the giant income gains of a tiny elite, not the modest gains of college graduates.

Bad News in Tennessee:
NetIBA - StormPay & the 12DailyPro Scammers

SEC Shuts Down $50 Mln Internet Ponzi Scheme
By REUTERS
Published: February 27, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators last week charged the owner of 12dailypro.com and her two companies with fraud for running a $50 million Ponzi scheme, according to a statement released on Monday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Charis Johnson, 33, raised more than $50 million from more than 300,000 investors by convincing visitors to the Web site that they could earn a 44 percent return on their investments in 12 days by looking at Internet advertisements. The scheme, which the SEC calls ``paid auto-surf,'' required users to buy $6 ``units'' -- up to a maximum of 1,000 units -- and to view advertisements from what were described as paying advertisers.

While investors were led to believe that their returns would be generated by advertising revenue, payments were made almost entirely from cash generated by other unit buyers in a classic Ponzi scheme, the SEC alleged.

The SEC also released a general warning on paid auto-surf schemes on Monday.12dailypro.com was the 352nd most highly visited site on the Internet, according to the SEC.

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StormPay: Payment Processor for 12DailyPro attacked

Payment gateway StormPay is recovering from a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) that has kept its web site offline for much of the past two days. The company, which provides online payment processing for thousands of e-commerce web sites, came back online Friday after a sustained attack that commenced last weekend. The DDoS on StormPay is the latest in a series of attacks on services that allow web merchants to accept credit cards.

The attacks flooded StormPay with up to 6 gigabits a second of data, according to Barrett Lyon, chief technology officer of Prolexic Technologies, which specializes in DDoS defense and is working with StormPay to mitigate the attack. Lyon said the DDoS involved DNS amplification, using bogus DNS requests to cause Internet nameservers to inundate StormPay's web site with traffic.

StormPay has been mentioned in recent news stories after it froze the payment processing account of 12daily-Pro.com, a controversial service that pays users to view Internet ads. 12daily-pro.com is under investigation by the FBI and SEC, according to a front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription site). Many web hosting companies use Stormpay to process payments for recurring services, and its outages have been widely discussed this week on web hosting forums.

Prolexic's proxy-based defenses were effective against the attack, Lyon said. But the situation grew more complicated at midweek when the attack was expanded to StormPay's hosting providers. The stormpay.com site remained offline as Prolexic developed a defense strategy that could get StormPayback online while protecting the other providers' operations and customers. Lyon said the attacks were unusually persistent. "I haven't seen this kind of aggression in quite a while," he said.

In a DNS amplification DDoS, attackers use a botnet to send a large volume of requests to DNS servers, spoofing the target's URL as the "from" address on the request. Instead of responding to the machines in the botnet, the DNS servers send responses to the target, in this case stormpay.com. Because nameserver responses can be significantly larger than DNS requests, the attack can be amplified.

In a December advisory (PDF), the U.S cyberdefense agency US-CERT warned of an increase in DNS amplification attacks - also known as DNS recursion attacks. "These attacks are troublesome because all systems communicating over the internet need to allow DNS traffic," said US-CERT. "An organization could be used as a DNS recursion amplifier if its DNS server is misconfigured."

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Better Business Report on StormPay

BBB Reliability Report
The Better Business Bureau®
Serving Middle Tennessee
P.O. Box 198436
Nashville, TN 37219-8436

In Re:
StormPay, Inc
1690 Golf Club Lane
Clarksville, TN 37043
Telephone: (931) 647-8750
Fax: (931) 647-8970

Principal: Mr. Steve Girsky , CEO Incorporated: July 2003, TN
Entity: Corporation File Open Date: September 2002
TOB Classification: Online Payment Processor
BBB Membership: This company is not a member.

Principal Officer

Mr. Steve Girsky is the CEO of the company.

Customer Service Contact

Mr. Steve Girsky is the complaint contact person for this company and should be contacted at (931) 647-8750 before filing a complaint with the BBB.


Dated February 16, 2006
From January 1 through February 16, 2006, the Better Business Bureau has received 812 complaints from consumer stating that the company has frozen their online accounts and will not make available the funds in those accounts. While the company has been notified of each complaint filed with BBB, it has not answered or resolved

On February 16, 2006, BBB discontinued processing complaints with the company due to the company's failure to respond to complaint volume. Customers with complaints may continue to file them with BBB. BBB will forward all complaints to the appropriate regulatory authority.

This company first came to the attention of BBB by means of consumer inquiry in September 2002 and was operated by John R. McConnell, Jr. From September 2002 through May 2005, the company received 44 customer complaints concerning the company’s failure to allow customers to withdraw available funds, poor customer service and failure to provide laptop computers per the company's computer matrix program. These complaints were closed by BBB as unanswered and unresolved


On May 13, 2005, BBB received a telephone call from Steve Girksy indicating that he was the new CEO and customer contact. At that time, Steve Girsky requested all unanswered and unresolved complaints. Girsky provided the company's position on the previous complaints. 17 of the 44 complaints were closed as unresolved.

From May 2005 through December 2005, the company received 18 complaints concerning the company's failure to inform and follow up with its customers when it suspends accounts, failure to release funds in a timely manner and failure to resolve complaints directly with its customers. The company had responded to these issues by providing an explanation, releasing funds or by making refunds.

John R. McConnell, Jr. is also identified in BBB files as the registered agent of NetIBA on which BBB maintains a separate file which is available at your request.

On August 7, 2003, the Tennessee Securities Division of the Department of Commerce & Insurance issued an "Order to Cease and Desist" (file number 03-020) with TymGlobal, Inc., StormPay, Inc. and John R. McConnell, Jr.

The order states that TymGlobal and StormPay are under common ownership and/or control. TymGlobal operates an internet website which is registered to StormPay. On the internet website, respondents are operating a pyramid and/or Ponzi scheme promising large returns on investments for participating in the scheme. The order further states that TymGlobal has not registered any securities offerings with the Division pursuant to Tennessee Securities Act of 1980. Nor has the company registered with the Division as a broker-dealer, agent of a broker-dealer or investment adviser. Also, the respondent StormPay has not registered any securities offerings with the Division nor has the company registered with the Division as a broker-dealer, agent of a broker-dealer, or investment adviser. John R. McConnell, Jr. has not registered with the Division as a broker-dealer, an agent of a broker-dealer or as an investment adviser.

Potential investors were given the opportunity to invest in both partnership shares as TymGlobal as well as to participate in various Ponzi schemes. Respondents promised a high return. The offering of participation in the schemes sold by the respondents is an investment contract and thus, a security under the act.

The Division ordered the respondents TymGlobal, StormPay and John R. McConnell, Jr to cease and desist the conduct of a broker-dealer in the state of Tennessee until such time as it effectively registers with the Division. The order did not intend to prohibit lawful conduct of the respondents.

For additional information concerning this order, please contact Daphne Smith, Assistant Commissioner for Securities, State of Tennessee, Department of Commerce and Insurance, Suite 680, 500 James Robertson Pky, Nashville, TN 37243.

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More on StormPay and NetIBA

By now most of us know that StormPay and NetIBA were incorporated by the SAME person. Mr. John McConnell Jr is the registered agent, the principal officer, and the customer service contact of NetIBA. This man is also the registered agent of Stormpay. Steven Girsky is the CEO and Customer Service contact for StormPay. You can see my previous post on this at http://www.getpaidforum.com/forums/stormpa...ts-t425180.html (post #5).

Interestingly, these two men are also neighbors. From The State of Tennesee Comptroller of the Treasury, Real Estate Assessment Data website (http://170.142.31.248/ParcelList.asp or go to http://170.142.31.248/SelectCounty.asp?map...electCounty=063 and type Shadowbend in the Property Address Box):

MCCONNELL JOHN R
ETUX DEBORAH K
EDITED (to get the unedited address, follow the directions above)
CLARKSVILLE , TN 37043
EDITED (to get the unedited phone #, go to www.whitepages.com and type in John McConnell)

This is where John lives. From the data you can see he lives in a 2 story, 3,012 sq ft home he bought for $266,000. He also owns 4981 and 4990 Shadowbend (both plots of land).

From the same site:
GIRSKY STEVEN C
ETUX CAROL L
EDITED (to get the unedited address, follow the directions above)
CLARKSVILLE , TN 37043
EDITED (to get the unedited phone #, go to www.whitepages.com and type in Steven Girsky)

Steven lives in a 2 story, 3,692 sq ft home he bought for $250,000.
According to google maps: Map Link, they live 168 ft apart; it takes about 4 seconds to get from one house to the other. blink.gif

Before filing a complaint with the BBB about StormPay, one should contact Steven Girsky at (the phone number is provided by the BBB at: http://data.middletennessee.bbb.org/common...tml?bid=2146166:

If you have a complaint about NetIBA, before filing with the BBB, you should contact John McConnell at EDITED . (Although this number has been edited out, it is a matter of public record provided by the BBB at this link: http://data.middletennessee.bbb.org/common...ml?bid=37017113. If you reverse search this number at www.whitepages.com, you find it belongs to NetIBA at EDITED .

Who owns EDITED (the NetIBA address that was edited out) you ask? This 2 story, 6,068 sq ft, 30 office building is owned by John R. Mcconnell! Imagine that! No, you're not seeing double, NetIBA is at the same address as StormPay, in the building owned by John McConnell. The only difference is the phone number.

My question: is it legal to call a business owner at home? Of course, you are almost certain to lose your account, rather than get anything resolved so I wouldn't recommend it! Additionally, according to the BBB, Steven Girsky is a lawyer working for Batson, Nolan, Brice, Harvey, & Williamson. However, Steven Girsky is not listed on their web page: www.bnbwg.com. Nor is he listed as a member of the Tennesee Bar Association. I don't dare speculate on this and anyone else inclined to do so should cease and desist! rofl.gif

Looking back at the Tennesee property records, I looked up S. Third St to see who owns the building where Steven is/was a lawyer. It's owned by BNBWG Realty. Hmm, Could those letters stand for Batson, Nolan, Brice, Williamson, & Girsky? Doing a search on google tells me I am correct. However, the BBB doesn't have a record of this company and the address is the same address as the attorney's office address. I guess BNBWG Realty doesn't do much business? huh.gif

Finally, according to the BBB, Stormpay has "an unsatisfactory record due to a pattern of complaints received. In the past 36 months, the company has received complaints specifically concerning the company's failure to inform and follow up with its customers when it suspends accounts, failure to release funds in a timely manner and failure to resolve complaints directly with company management. The company has responded to each complaint presented by BBB. However, the company has not eliminated the pattern of complaint. The BBB Definition of pattern: - More than 2 complaints involving the same allegations usually within 12 months that are significant in relation to the company's size and volume of business. YTD 2006, the company has received 8 complaints; in 2005, the company received 49 complaints; in 2004, the company received 6 complaints.

The proof is in the pudding folks. For all practical purposes, StormPay and NetIBA are the same company. Don't be ripped off by them! Additionally, If you are desperate to contact StormPay or it's owner, I believe you can find enough information here to do so. You might have to think outside the box a bit though.

All the information provided here is a matter of public record. I have provided the links where you can find the same information for yourself. Good luck & be careful out there!

Paying Taxes: Who Does It, Who Doesn't

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IRS Publication: Trends as Changes in Variance: The Case of Tax Noncompliance
Kim M. Bloomquist, Internal Revenue Service
Presented at the 2003 IRS Research Conference, June 2003

Recent research by Graetz (1999) and Schneider and Enste (2000) concludes that global tax evasion is on the rise. However, the authors differ in their assessments as to what is causing this trend. Schneider and Enste cite a rising tax and regulatory burden as the reason for an expanding shadow economy among OECD countries. Graetz sees the growing complexity of Federal income tax laws as the driving factor behind increased noncompliance in the U.S. This paper suggests a third possibility: Taxpayers simply may be enjoying greater success at evasion due to a decline in transaction visibility. U.S. taxpayer data show that nonmatchable income has grown from 8.7 percent of reported AGI in 1980 to 18.4 percent in 2000. Applying constant misreporting rates for matchable and nonmatchable income from the 1988 TCMP study, taxpayer underreporting is estimated to have increased from 3.6 percent to 5.6 percent of reported AGI between 1980 and 2000.

The decline in transaction visibility appears related to the trend of widening income inequality. In the last two decades, the top 5 percent of U.S. taxpayers with the highest reported AGI accounted for over 77 percent of the increase in nonmatchable income. Preliminary evidence is found for the hypothesized relationship between income inequality and a measure of tax noncompliance for a sample of 23 developed and developing nations. This finding supports the view that a widening variation in taxpayer incomes, and the associated decline in transaction visibility, could be contributing to the presumed growth in taxpayer noncompliance.

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Tax Cheats. "Historically, when income tax rates fall, so does tax cheating. But that is not what happened after President Bush started cutting taxes five years ago.

A new report by the Commerce Department found that Americans failed to report more than a trillion dollars in income on their 2003 tax returns. That was a 37 percent increase in unreported income from 2000. In a separate report, the Internal Revenue Service looked at both unreported income and improper deductions and concluded that Americans shortchanged the government by $345 billion in 2001 -- an amount almost equal to the projected federal budget deficit for 2007.

The report, released yesterday by the I.R.S. commissioner, Mark W. Everson, was the agency's first estimate in 15 years of the gap between what Americans owed in taxes and what they paid. The I.R.S. report concluded that proprietors of small businesses, investors and farmers cheated the most. Workers who had 99 percent of their wages reported to the government and taxes withheld from their paychecks were the least likely to cheat.

Mr. Everson acknowledged that the estimate is probably low because the I.R.S. looked only at individuals and small unincorporated businesses. It has not revised its estimates of tax cheating by corporations, large estates and by firms that do not hire their workers directly but instead contract with an employee leasing firm.

The ability of the I.R.S. to enforce the tax laws has steadily eroded in the last 17 years as its ranks of auditors have been trimmed by about a third, the tax code has become more complex and new laws have been enacted to protect taxpayer rights. [. . .]

Cheating on business income was ''a problem 50 times larger'' than cheating by wage earners, Mr. Everson said.

The biggest single revenue loss came from proprietors of unincorporated businesses, who typically file a Schedule C with their tax return, who shorted the government an estimated $68 billion in 2001. Cheating by partnerships, most of whose members are wealthy professionals or investors, was put at $22 billion, while cheating by landlords and those collecting royalties was estimated at $13 billion. In percentage terms, farmers cheated the most, the I.R.S. said, failing to pay the government $6 billion, or 72 percent of the taxes they should have.

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“Tackling The Growth of Corporate Tax Shelters”; Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, in remarks to the Federal Bar Association, Washington, DC, February 28, 2000.

"One very crude metric of the possible magnitude of such activities is provided by the U.S. General Accounting Office (2004), which documents that (i) from 1996 to 2000, approximately one-third of large U.S. corporations reported zero tax liability, (ii) that share increased steadily over the period, and (iii) by 2000, 53% of large U.S. corporations reported tax liabilities lower than $100,000. For these purposes, large corporations are those with a minimum of either $250 million in assets or $50 million in gross receipts."

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Corporate Audits Continue to Slump
"According to the IRS data covering the first six months of FY 2004, however, the annual pace of audits for all corporations has in fact continued to decline, so far running 26% below what it was in FY 2003.

A second kind of measure -- this one examining the actual hours expended on examining corporate tax returns -- produced a similar finding. They were running 30% below last year's pace.

And so far, IRS's success in uncovering additional taxes thought to be owed by corporations is also down. In fact, the latest available data for the first six months of FY 2004 show that taxes recommended by auditors are running 36% below the pace reported during the previous year.

These overall trends, however, conceal important differences in the patterns found for different sized corporations. The audit pace for smaller corporations, those with up to $10 million in assets, was significantly down -- by a margin of almost fifty percent. For the larger corporations, however, the audit pace came close to matching, and sometime exceeded, what the IRS had accomplished in the previous year.

The figures also suggest that the two divisions in the IRS which handle corporate audits may have adopted different enforcement strategies. Smaller corporations (assets less than $10 million) are handled by the Small Business and Self-Employed Division. Here, while the audit numbers fell the average length of audits rose. And the pace of additional taxes recommended after audit in the first half of FY 2004 actually was higher by 22% over the results in FY 2003.

The Large and Medium Size Business Division, on the other hand, has tried to hold the line on audit coverage by allowing the time allocated for each audit to slip. But, as noted above, potential additional tax revenue uncovered from these large corporate audits thus far has slipped -- down 38%. The Division also kept its coverage numbers up by concentrating more on the smallest corporations that fell under its jurisdiction -- those with assets sizes between $10 and $50 million -- which take less time to complete.

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Home Based Business Tax Avoidance Schemes

IRS Publications. The following publications may also provide assistance on these issues and can be found at: http://www.irs.gov

Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home

Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, & Car Expenses

Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business

Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax for Individuals

Any investment scheme or promotion that claims to allow a person to deduct what would normally be personal expenses and not ordinary and necessary business expenses should be considered highly suspect. As always, a business must truly exist prior to claiming any business expenses.

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Taxes and the Cayman Islands
The line between tax avoidance and tax evasion can sometimes be very fuzzy. For example, a technically legal corporation may frustrate an IRS attempt to re-allocate its income by taking illegal advantage of Cayman secrecy laws. Some active tax cheats also attempt to frustrate the IRS by employing a multi-tiered corporate structure by forming a corporation that then forms and owns another corporation, thereby moving the U.S. citizen further from the assets. This does not necessarily change the ownership of the assets, but it makes it more difficult for the IRS to prove the fraud.

The United States has an inherent interest in keeping capital located domestically. Access to adequate capital is necessary for increased revenue (and ultimately the taxation) of ongoing businesses. Congress recognized this when it exempted foreign capital from taxation. Perhaps if the United States lowered the tax rates on higher income levels, there would not be so many people trying to avoid taxation through complicated business structures and repatriation. Studies show that the temptation to cheat on taxes rises faster than the tax rate.

A flat tax rate with no deductions or credits ( and subsequently no loopholes) could solve that problem both by eliminating some incentive to cheat and by increasing the difficulty of cheating. One problem with eliminating deductions and credits, however, is that Congress would lose a lot of its power to control the use of capital.

Capitalism allows some people to become more wealthy and financially secure than their neighbors. The Internal Revenue Code levels the playing field somewhat by redistributing the resources of those with more to some of those with less. The government has a responsibility to all of its citizens. Another problem with the flat tax is that it could reduce government revenue."

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Corporate Tax Avoidance In the States Even Worse Than Federal

Citizens for Tax Justice 202-626-3780 • www.ctj.org Wed., Feb. 2, 2005 • Contact: Bob McIntyre

“The data in our report show in stark terms just how successful large, corporations have become at shirking their tax responsibilities to state and local governments,” said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice and an author of the study. “The companies have been abetted in this effort by America’s major accounting firms, used heavy lobbying and even threats, and often persuaded state elected officials to become their facilitators, too. As a result, individual taxpayers and purely in-state (usually smaller) businesses are paying a heavy price, in the form of higher taxes, reduced public services and unfair competition.”

BILL COSBY SPEAKS

at the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision, May 2004.

Study Finds Test Scores Not Lowered by Television
NY Times
By ELIZABETH JENSEN
Published: February 27, 2006

Does television rot children's brains? A new study by two economists from the University of Chicago taps into a trove of data from the 1960's to argue that when it comes to academic test scores, parents can let children watch TV without fear of future harm.

Matthew Gentzkow, 30, an assistant professor of economics at the university's graduate school of business, and Jesse M. Shapiro, 26, a research fellow, have waded into controversial territory that is usually the domain of psychologists and educators. "The notion that television has terrible effects on very young children is widely believed and discussed," said Mr. Gentzkow.

The result showed "very little difference and if anything, a slight positive advantage" in test scores for children who grew up watching TV early on, compared to those who did not, said Mr. Shapiro. In nonwhite households and those where English was a second language or the mother had less than a high school education, TV's positive effect was more marked.

Elizabeth A. Vandewater, associate professor of human development at the University of Texas and director of the Center for Research on Interactive Technology, Television and Children, praised the new study for adding "more evidence that television is not uniformly evil or bad," but said that it ignored "a host of evidence that shows that content matters a lot."

She said that "there is a huge body of evidence that educational television" can be good for children, as well as strong evidence that "violent content is related to antisocial aggressive behavior."

Bush Policies Are Weakening National Guard, Governors Say
NY Times
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 27, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Governors of both parties said Sunday that Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies.

Tens of thousands of National Guard members have been sent to Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed to deal with natural disasters and terrorist threats in the United States, the governors said here at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

The governors said they would present their concerns to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday. In a preview of their message, all 50 governors signed a letter to the president opposing any cuts in the size of the National Guard.

"Unfortunately," the letter said, "when our National Guard men and women return from being deployed in foreign theaters, much of their equipment remains behind." The governors said the White House must immediately re-equip Guard units "to carry out their homeland security and domestic disaster duties."

Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and chairman of the governors association, said: "The National Guard plays an incredibly valuable role in the states. What we are concerned about, as governors, is that when our troops are deployed for long periods of time, and their equipment goes with them but does not come back, the troops are very strained, and they no longer have the equipment they were trained to use."

Nearly one-third of the American ground forces in Iraq are members of the Army National Guard.

This month the Pentagon backed away from a budget proposal to reduce the authorized strength of the National Guard to 330,000 soldiers, from 350,000.

"We have no intention of cutting the number of Guard or Reserve brigades, reducing the number of Guard or Reserve soldiers, or cutting the level of Guard or Reserve funding," said the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican, said Sunday that he was still "very concerned." The administration may have set aside the proposal on authorized strength, but it has not restored money to the budget to pay for 350,000 Guard members, he said.

In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that "extensive use of the Guard's equipment overseas has significantly reduced the amount of equipment available to governors for domestic needs."

Since 2003, the report said, the Army National Guard has left more than 64,000 pieces of equipment, valued at more than $1.2 billion, in Iraq. The Army has not kept track of most of this equipment and has no firm plans to replace it, the report said.

Governor Kempthorne said the National Guard was bearing "a totally disproportionate share" of proposed cuts in the growth of the Army's budget over the next five years, even as the Guard's responsibilities at home were increasing.

Governors of both parties said a Pentagon plan to reorganize the Army National Guard would significantly weaken its ability to save lives and property at home.

After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, more than 40,000 Guard members helped evacuate storm victims, distributed food and water, provided emergency medical care, repaired homes and restored power.

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat, said: "The Guard played an awesome role. We should be increasing the number of National Guard combat brigades, not reducing it."

Two other Democrats, Govs. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, said the strength and resources of Guard units in their states were being depleted.

"We are not only missing National Guard personnel," Ms. Sebelius said. "We are also missing a lot of the equipment that's used to deal with situations at home, day in and day out."

Despite assurances from top administration officials, Mr. Vilsack said, "many of us are very concerned about what we're hearing, that the Pentagon, the administration, might reduce the resources for the National Guard so they can redirect resources to pay for more boots on the ground, more full-time military."

David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, who heads the Government Accountability Office, said the governors had some basis for their concerns.

"The Army cannot account for over half the equipment that Army National Guard units have left overseas," Mr. Walker said. "And it has not developed replacement plans for the equipment, as Defense Department policy requires."

It's Stupid...

To believe America can export constitutional democracy to the Arabian penisula which has been ruled by heriditary monarchs for millennia.

For G.W. Bush to threaten to veto any congressional action aimed at preventing the UAE from acquiring operational control of several US ports. It would be Bush's first ever veto.

For South Dakota lawmakers to assert their State can legally control women's pregnancies in contravention of Federal Law.

To continue arguing that the main reason America must remain in Iraq is because without the US presence, the country would descend into civil war.

For NTP to be successful in its legal case against RIM, despite losing their case at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

For the United States and Israel to cut off aid to Palestinians in protest to the results of a democratic election.

For 55% of American's to now call the Iraq War a 'Mistake' according to Gallup.

To confuse presentation skill with management ability.

For the Administration to brag about an 8% decline in their {2006 vintage at $737 Billion} estimated ten year cost of the prescription drug plan...while ignoring their initial cost estimate during passage of the bill at $400 billion.

For the Winter Olympics to descend into TV'land-style soap operas more involved in "human interest" aspects of sports than the actual performances.

Prepared Statement: Testimony of Google Inc. before the Subcommitte on Asia and the Pacific. US House of Representatives
February 15, 2006

Note: This prepared statement testimony provided by Google Inc. to the Subcommittee outlines Google's approach to providing services to Mainland China, and to the question of censorship of internet content by the Chinese authorities.

It's Stupid !

For Cheney to assert that the guy he accidentally shot was at fault for being in the wrong place.

For Chertoff to assert FEMA is doing it's job just fine, and then make a big deal of hiring 1,200 new employees.

For the White House to make the Cheney hunting accident the butt of jokes by Bush

For Islamists to riot, ransack, and threaten to kill those who played no part in defaming their Prophet

For Wal-Mart to establish a prohibition against the sale of Plan B in their pharmacies.

For Saddam and Milosivich to control the proceeedings at their trials

For Bush 43 to bring up information on a foiled terrorist plot that occurred in 2002, without providing that information to either the Mayor, Senators, or Governor of the State where it is alleged to have occurred.

For AG Gonzalas not to be sworn in prior to giving testimony to a House investigation panel.

For the Bush administration to present a budget that forecasts the largest deficit in history while simultaneously asserting that the economy is performing well.

For anyone to assert that Iraq is becoming less sectarian and more democratic.

For the UN to request the immediate full-bore assistance of the US in the Darfur genocide.

For anyone other than the principals themselves to be concerned with the marital circumstances of Cruise, Jolie, Spears, et al.

For Lay, Skilling, Scrushy, Ebbers, and others to assert they did nothing wrong, let alone illegal.

For Delta, GM, Oracle and others to dramatically increase their advertising spending while losing billions.

For Georgia legislators to vote 50 to 1 in support of teaching religion in public schools

For the media to acquiesce to the notion that facts have "sides"

For approximately 50% of the electorate to continue supporting the Bush Administration's agenda and performance

For Democrats to continue using Republican supplied propaganda and argument phrasings

For all of us to be so lame in still using stupid words and phrases like: "Cool" and "Going Forward".

For suburbanites to lament the presence of Latinos who helped make the building of their cheap houses possible

Infill

'McMansion' fury prompts zoning study
Franklin urges code overhaul as growth tool
By DAVID PENDERED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/15/06

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has stepped back into the controversial issue of big new houses in intown neighborhoods by calling for a sweeping update of the city's zoning ordinance. Franklin opened the door to new codes that could control everything from the "McMansion" phenomenon in some of the city's hottest neighborhoods to development in distressed communities along Atlanta's planned Beltline.

Franklin crystallized infill development debate last month by issuing a temporary ban on building big houses in some neighborhoods where there's been a surge of tearing down smaller homes to make way for larger ones. The moratorium expired and the Atlanta City Council voted last week against extending it.

Hope, Arkansas: Home of the 10,770 Empty FEMA Trailers

FEMA Trailers in Hope

Far from the victims of Katrina for whom they are meant, the furnished shelters crowd an airport, benefiting only the town of Hope, Ark.

LA Times, Jan. 12, 2006
By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer

At Uncle Henry's Smokehouse Bar B Que in Hope, Ark., the lunchtime crowd filled every table Thursday — all 10 of them. At City Hall, the phones were ringing off the hook. And out at the airport, a private pilot who just turned 45 said she didn't expect to live long enough to see things get back to normal. All because of the latest example of how federal, state and local officials have responded to Hurricane Katrina.

After the Aug. 29 storm left thousands homeless on the Gulf Coast, officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama began calling for trailers to provide temporary shelter. More than 100,000 were requested, and somebody decided to create holding areas for the trailers outside the hurricane zone.

Today, legions of wide-bodied mobile homes sit empty at Hope's Municipal Airport, a sprawling former military base. After all these months, storm victims can't seem to get the trailers, which are proving a mixed blessing to Hope and Arkansas.

Locally, some people are upset that the trailers are not being moved to where they're needed. "It has employed quite a few people, but it's not about Hope," Mayor Ramsey said. "It's about folks in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama."

"All of us think it's not right for them to be sitting out there and not where families need them," said Janice Skipworth, general manager of the Super 8 Motel, which filled with Katrina evacuees after the storm. "I stand behind my government no matter what, but this is kind of wrong."

City Bakery owner Randall Ross agreed. Months after the hurricane, "it's dang sure those people are in need now."

With the rainy season at hand, some local officials feared many units would sink into the mud. But FEMA plans to lay down a 290-acre bed of gravel for them to rest on, at a cost of $6 million.

Why haven't the trailers been sent to those who need them? Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), a graduate of Hope High School, asked that question as he toured the airport Thursday with FEMA officials. "It cost $431 million and they're all sitting there, 75% of them literally parked in a cow pasture," Ross said in a telephone interview. "They are brand-new, all totally furnished, and yet people have been living in tents for five months in a row. It just makes you sick to your stomach."

FEMA says it has been stymied by federal regulations, such as one forbidding trailers to be positioned in flood plains — which rules out much of the area hit by Katrina — and by officials in Louisiana, where the need is greatest. After Katrina, FEMA ordered 135,000 trailers, most supplied by large national manufacturers and some acquired from local dealers, she said.

"We have a lot of trailers in the supply line. The challenge is where to place them," she said. Only eight of Louisiana's 64 parishes have welcomed them, she said. "You can't plug a trailer into a tree."

On Thursday, a rumor spread around town that FEMA was selling the trailers, $1,000 for 10. City Clerk Carol Almond had to tell callers she had no information on that.

At the Hope airport, the trailers are beginning to sag. Some people believe the trailers are there to stay. Jeannette Collums, who just had that 45th birthday, said pilots have taken to asking controllers for permission to land at the "Hope Municipal Trailer Park."

Katrina Report: "A Failure of Initiative"

American Progress Action Fund
Feb. 13, 2006

House investigators released a draft Katrina report yesterday titled, "A Failure of Initiative."  The report tells us what we already know: "Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare." As the administration remains obsessed with brandishing its national security credentials in time for campaign season, the report's conclusions paint a troubling picture. President Bush's security team failed during one of our country's worst natural disaster, despite receiving more than adequate warning about the storm. "It remains difficult to understand how government could respond so ineffectively to a disaster that was anticipated for years, and for which specific dire warnings had been issued for days," the report said. "This crisis was not only predictable, it was predicted." Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who is hesitant to question Bush's national security credibility said, "And next time, God forbid, it could be a terrorist attack, and there's not going to be a warning from the weather service. We got a lot to do, and we better do it together and quickly."



REPORT CRACKS ADMINISTRATION'S SECURITY FACADE: President Bush has claimed his administration "understands our obligation to protect you, to protect the American people." Bush's closest allies turn to national security whenever Bush is threatened politically.  "And with an important election coming up," Vice President Cheney said recently, "people need to know just how we view the most critical questions of national security, and how we propose to defend the nation." "The Bush White House has not been shy about its political use of an event, the 9/11 terrorist attacks," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Now, President Bush faces increasing pressure to prove that he is on top of his game as the nation's protector in chief, against both terrorists and natural disasters." But as the House Katrina report found, "Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time." 



LESSONS OF 9/11 REMAIN UNLEARNED: "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th," Bush promised in 2002. Yet Katrina demonstrated how the administration remains saddled with a "pre-9/11 worldview" which made them "deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong" about how to deal with Katrina. The storm "exposed the U.S. government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," with "poor communications among first responders, a shortage of qualified emergency personnel and lack of training and funding" still plaguing the federal government's disaster response. 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean (R-NJ) found during his latest assessment that "a lot of things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the President or by the Congress." Similarly, the administration is not doing what it needs to do to prevent another Katrina.



ADMINISTRATION UNINTERSTED IN ACCOUNTABILITY: The House report "lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council." In response, the White House did what it always does - express confidence in those who have failed. White House spokesperson Allen Abney said Bush retains "full confidence" in Chertoff and the rest of Homeland Security's leadership. "The president is less interested in yesterday, and more interested with today and tomorrow," Abney added, "so that we can be better prepared for next time."

The 0.6% Renter's Rule

"If you can rent a home for anything less than 0.6 percent of its purchase price, you are likely to be further ahead as a renter. If your rent is above that 0.6 percent level, the balance shifts in favor of owning, unless you are planning to move around a lot."

Note: As applied to the typical home valued at $185,000, the monthly rent must be below $1,110.

The 2007 Federal Budget

The President's Budget: A Preliminary Analysis
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Feb. 10th, 2006

{Subsection: What Caused Deficits to Return?}

Despite claims that the main culprit in this fiscal deterioration is “runaway domestic spending” or growth in entitlement spending, the primary reason for the change from surplus in 2000 to the deficit in 2005 is lagging revenues. In 2000, the surplus equaled 2.4 percent of GDP. In 2005, the deficit equaled 2.6 percent of GDP. This is a negative swing in the nation’s fiscal position of 5.0 percent of GDP.

During this period, revenues declined from 20.9 percent of GDP in 2000 to 17.5 percent of GDP in 2005, a drop of 3.3 percent of GDP. Thus, 66 percent of the downturn in the fiscal situation since 2000 (some 3.3 percent of GDP out of the total deterioration of 5.0 percent of GDP) is attributable to the drop in revenues.

Moreover, revenues in 2005 were lower as a share of GDP than the average for the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, or the 1990s. By contrast, total spending was 20.1 percent of GDP in 2005, up 1.7 percent of GDP from 2000 but lower than in any year from 1980 through 1996.

Similarly, data that the Office of Management and Budget released in conjunction with the budget shows that increases in domestic discretionary, international, and entitlement spending (including the prescription drug benefit) account for only 28 percent of the cost in 2006 of legislation enacted since January 2001. Tax cuts account for 36 percent of the cost of that legislation, with the remaining 35 percent attributable to increased funding for defense and homeland security.

Although increased spending for domestic programs has played a relatively modest role in the return of deficits since President Bush took office, the President’s budget puts virtually the entire burden of budget-tightening on those programs.

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Over 50% of the American Population Have No Assets to Invest
From US Treasury Report: General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2007 Revenue Proposals

"One third of all Americans have no assets available for investment, and another fifth have only negligible assets."

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Note: According to the Financial Services Fact Book: the 2004 homeownership rate was 69%; the median sales price for a single family home was $185,200; and the median monthly expense for the home was $1,253; median income for a family of four was $65,093 in 2003; thus 23.1% of gross income went to homeownership.

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According to a report at Global Security.org, the US spent $466 billion dollars on military defense in 2004, or almost half of what the entire world spent in the same period. This does not include funding for the wars in Afganistan and Iraq, (estimated at $120 billion), nor for domestic security agencies.

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Budget Plan Assumes Too Much, Demands Too Little
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 7, 2006

"This budget is not going to happen," said Stanley E. Collender, a federal budget analyst at Financial Dynamics Business Communications. "Of all the budgets I've seen recently, this is the one going nowhere the fastest."

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2007 budget proposal reaction
Compiled by Bill Nichols
USA Today

Comments from lawmakers serving on the committees that will have the most impact on the final spending and tax plan:

• Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee:"I applaud the president for continuing his efforts to restrain federal spending and further reduce the deficit ... to fund our nation's priorities while making the fiscally responsible decisions needed to put our financial house back in order."

•Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee: "President Bush's new budget is nothing new. It represents the same reckless fiscal course the Bush administration has followed for the last five years." "I regret the President is not providing the leadership that is desperately needed in this country to face up to our long-term fiscal imbalances. We will all pay the bill, and the American people will find that this has been a time of absolute denial."

•Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee: "I agree with making tax relief permanent. By encouraging small-business investment and giving consumers more of their money to spend, we've helped the economy.

• Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee: "The president's health budget proposes payment reductions for many Medicare providers — except for private health plans, which are some of the most generously compensated of all. ... Seniors simply must not lose access to the health care they need."

• Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, chairman of the House Budget Committee: "As we continue our efforts to control spending and reduce the deficit, the president's proposal provides a solid starting point ... by focusing on our most pressing needs."

•Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee: "A budget is a statement of moral choices, and this budget makes the wrong choices, cutting education, Medicare and Medicaid and barely funding the bold initiatives that the president set out in his State of the Union."

•Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee: "I commend the president for proposing restraint in the growth of entitlement programs. If we are serious about fiscal restraint, we must look beyond cutting discretionary spending, which makes up only about a third of the federal budget."

• Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee: "Bush's budget proposal is a guide to how the American public is paying for tax cuts that are skewed to benefit the wealthiest Americans. ... This isn't fiscal discipline; it's telling the American people that government isn't for the public, it's for the privileged.

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Take From the Poor, Give to the Military
Posted on Feb. 7, 2006
By Robert Scheer

Where would the Bush administration be without terrorism? Like the Cold War before it, the “war on terror” is a conveniently sweeping rationale for all manner of irrational governance, such as the outrageous $2.77-trillion budget the president proposed to Congress on Monday.

Without terrorism, how could Bush justify to fiscal conservatives the whopping budget deficits that he has ballooned via his tax cuts for the wealthy that he now seeks to make permanent? Without terrorism, how could he convince government corruption watchdogs that the huge increases in military and homeland security — 7% and 8%, respectively — aren’t simply payback to the defense contractors who so heavily support the Republicans every election cycle? Without terrorism, how could the president get away with blindly dumping $120 billion more into the war in Afghanistan and the bungled occupation of Iraq that the Bush administration had once promised would be financed by Iraqi oil sales?

In order to pay for the money pit that is Iraq, the Bush budget demands draconian cuts in 141 domestic programs, led by a $36-billion cut in Medicare spending for the elderly over the next five years. This from a president reelected after promising to expand rather than curtail healthcare services to seniors.

Many of the other proposed cuts are equally obscene, such as the termination of $1 billion in child-care funds over five years, and the complete elimination of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program that provides food assistance to low-income seniors, needy pregnant women and children.

These attacks on the social safety net for the most vulnerable members of our society are not only patently unfair, in light of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, but the simultaneous blank check for the Pentagon cannot be honestly justified by the fight against terrorism. And although the president insists that it is unpatriotic to question his strategies in fighting terrorism, let me risk his opprobrium, and that of the pseudo-conservative bully boys that shill for him in the media, by doing just that.

To begin with, we must remember that this “war” was launched against an enemy, still mostly at large, who on Sept. 11 accomplished phenomenal destruction and suffering with armaments no fiercer or costlier than some box-cutters. Their key weapon, in fact, was suicidal fanaticism.

Yet, rather than sensibly investing in aggressive global detective work, collaborating with our European allies, engaging meaningfully with an independent and skeptical Arab world, and working to protect vulnerable U.S. sites such as nuclear power plants, our leaders decided to turn logic on its head and make ignorance about the enemy into a virtue, slash civil liberties and recklessly invade a major Muslim country that had no connection to the attacks.

In other words, our response to Sept. 11 has been almost completely military in nature, granting the Defense Department an excuse to increase spending by 48% in just four years. Yet, despite all this spending, and the loss of life that has accompanied it, our standing in the Muslim world has been in free fall since we invaded Iraq, we have never captured or killed Osama bin Laden or his top strongman, we don’t know how to “fix” Iraq or Afghanistan, and we have greatly strengthened the hand of our rivals in Iran.

We don’t even know, as the Sept. 11 commission report revealed, much of anything about the 15 Saudi hijackers and their four leaders from other parts of the Arab world who committed the Sept. 11 attacks. We do know, however, that they weren’t from Iraq, weren’t funded by Iraq and weren’t trained by or in Iraq; nevertheless, the huge elephant in the Bush budget is the war and occupation of Iraq, now approaching its third anniversary, not the effort to dismantle Al Qaeda.

“Since 2001, the administration … liberated nearly 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan,” boasts the Bush budget document. Ah, but if they have been liberated, then why the need for an additional $50-billion emergency “bridge funding” in 2007, itself coming on the heels of a supplementary $70-billion budget request last week? The answer provided by the report is that Iraq is far from being stabilized and that in Afghanistan “enemy activity has increased over the past year.”

Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership in Congress is still unwilling to challenge the necessity of “winning” the war in Iraq and, as a result, its complaints about cutting needed domestic programs are framed exclusively as an argument against making Bush’s tax cuts permanent. It is a losing argument, because it leaves Bush as both the big spender and the big tax-cutter once again, posturing as the savior of the taxpayer when he is in fact quite the opposite for all but the wealthiest Americans.

Britney Spears obviously learned some things from Madonna. 

Immigration: Latinos In America

Note: So much of the public discourse about immigration of Latinos into America depends on the circumstances of the speaker. The view of the low-skilled white worker is generally one of "they are taking our jobs", the view of the suburban home-based business person is "they are a god-send for helping my business meet it's aperiodic labor needs", while the labor intensive businesses know "our business couldn't survive without them".

To the State/County/Local Government they "are a drain on our resources"; while to the Federal Government they are "an important human resource necessary for the American economy" and they "help keep Mexico a functional democracy".

For the immigrants themselves, little has been written in the Anglo media. Do they consider themselves as illegals, as bandits who have "beaten the system"? As a drain on American society or the American economy?

Do Americans know the second largest revenue stream coming into Mexico is from immigrants sending money back to relatives in Mexico? Or do Americans know that if it were not for immigration by Latinos, America's population during the past decade would have shrunk instead of increased. Or that Latinos are now the largest minority group in America, surpassing Afto-Americans? Or that about half of the land mass known as America was once owned by Mexico? Or that Mexico has one quarter the land mass of America, while the GDP per person is also one quarter of America's. How about the two million barrels of oil exported per day by Mexico with about fifty billion barrels of proven reserves.

Just limiting services, and scapgoating all Latinos, while building an Israeli-style "wall" on the border would suffice as a solution in the mindset of many, a much more robust accomodation must be made. As a nation, we have stuck our heads in the sand long enough on this issue.

The Infamous 12 Cartoons that Islamists Say Blasphemes Mohammed

Note: Maybe Islamists prefer these images of Mohammad from antiquity. Or are they attempting to assert that noone should or can rightfully create any representation whatsoever of Mohammad? If it's the latter, they will really need to reconsider their Sixth Century worldview if they expect to make any social progress in the 21st Century..

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"The utter hypocrisy is that Muslim countries regularly lampoon Christians and Jews in their comics while demanding the west refrain from any criticism of Islam."

"By threatening to kill those who insult them, the terrorists are demonstrating the vicious reality behind the caricature of Mohammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban better than any cartoonist ever could."

Administration to seek extra $70 billion for wars through 2006
BY MARK SILVA
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - The White House said Thursday that it will ask Congress to approve $70 billion in additional spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2006, bringing the overall costs of those conflicts to nearly $400 billion by the end of the budget year in September.

Thursday's announcement of a request for a supplemental $70 billion means the wars will cost about $120 billion for the 2006 budget year, the same as their cost in fiscal 2005.

Last month, the White House warned that war expenses and the cost of recovery from Hurricane Katrina would contribute to a federal budget deficit for 2006 that exceeded $400 billion. The White House promises a specific projection of the budget deficit next week. The record deficit, $412 billion, occurred in 2004.

FAQ: The Kama Sutra worm
By Robert Vamosi
Special to CNET News.com
Published: February 2, 2006, 3:48 PM PST

A computer worm is set to damage computer systems, starting midnight local time on Feb. 3.

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding this worm, especially because media organizations and antivirus vendors haven't decided on a common name. CNET has settled upon Kama Sutra. Its other aliases include CME-24 (US-CERT), MyWife (McAfee), Tearec (Panda), Nyxem (Sophos), Blackmal (Symantec, Computer Associates, Vet), and Grew (Trend Micro).

Kama Sutra contains a dangerous payload. On the third day of the month, it will overwrite certain files with an error message: "DATA Error [47 0F 94 93 F4 K5]." It is programmed to affect all files with the extensions .doc, .xls, .mde, .mdb, .ppt, .pps, .rar, .pdf, .psd, .dmp and .zip. These files--which include the default file formats for Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat applications--cannot be restored once they are damaged.

Kama Sutra affects all versions of Microsoft Windows. It does not affect users of Mac OS, Linux or Unix.

Windows users who receive sexually suggestive e-mail and proceed to open the attached file may find their systems infected with Kama Sutra. Unlike some e-mail worms, Kama Sutra will not automatically spawn; people must open the file first.

Larry McMurtry: Author, Novelist, or Writer of Generic Westerns?

"In defter hands, a novel like ''Zeke and Ned'' could have taken the measure of clashing cultures, but Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana (who previously teamed up for a novel about Pretty Boy Floyd) can't seem to move their story beyond television mini-series terrain." Review by: Scot Martelle - January 19, 1997

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A Texan Who Likes to Deflate The Legends of the Golden West
By Mervyn Rothstein

"I'm a critic of the myth of the cowboy,'' says Larry McMurtry. ''I don't feel that it's a myth that pertains, and since it's a part of my heritage I feel it's a legitimate task to criticize it.''

''If you actually read the biography of any of the famous gunfighters,'' McMurtry says on the phone from Texas, ''they led very drab, mostly very repetitive, not very exciting lives. But people cherish a certain vision, because it fulfills psychological needs. People need to believe that cowboys are simple, strong and free, and not twisted, fascistic and dumb, as many cowboys I've known have been.''

His criticism of the myths, he says, can be extremely unpopular, and meets with a great deal of resistance. ''Sometimes the resistance is total,'' he says. ''Some people read 'Lonesome Dove' as a reinforcement of the myth. They want to believe that these are very good men. They are clinging to an idealization, to the pastoral way of life as being essentially less corrupt than the urban way. And thinking otherwise threatens them, threatens the little comfort they've had.''

The worst effect of clinging to these myths is simplification, or rather oversimplification, he says, ''not merely of the experience of the cowboy, but of human experience itself, as lived in the American West or any other place.

''The myth of the clean-living cowboy devoted to agrarian pursuits and the rural way of life is extremely limiting,'' he says.

''You're dealing with a romanticization,'' he says. ''The flaws in the structure are rarely described, are rarely pointed out. I don't think these myths do justice to the richness of human possibility. The idea that men are men and women are women and horses are best of all is not a myth that makes for the best sort of domestic life, the best sort of cultural life. It's very exclusionary. It is a code that for all practical purposes excludes women. It shuts almost everything out except nature and work, and I don't think that's good.''

''I'm interested in how legends arise,'' he says. ''Take Billy the Kid. Here was a man, a boy, really, who had a short, commonplace life. How could he have produced a legend, and a bibliography with thousands of items in it? There's an element of sheer publicity in it. It was a time when the Old West was becoming very useful in popular fiction, for the exploits of Westerners were beginning to have importance in the national imagination.

''That moment'' - the 1870's and 80's - ''the West, which has been so glamorized in myth, was actually ending. The open West was gone, the cowtowns were becoming respectable, the mining towns were petering out. The ground for that body of myth was changing, becoming civilized, suburbanized. And more or less at the same moment, the popular press, as represented by the dime novel, was beginning to transform a very crude environment and an uncertain way of life into something heroic - which mostly it wasn't.

''It occurred to me in 'Lonesome Dove' that the men who drove the cattle up the trail were in the process of killing the very thing they loved. They knew it, and the knowledge lent poignancy to what they were doing, and their memories of it. And the point at which a certain way of life begins to die, and begins to be transformed into a very crude myth, is interesting.

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From Page to Screen: 'Brokeback Mountain'
Listen to this story... by Bob Mondello and Melissa Block
All Things Considered - NPR, December 9, 2005  

Director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain is the story of the love and friendship between two cowboys in the early 1960s. NPR film critic Bob Mondello reviews the movie, which opens Friday. Then, writers Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry discuss adapting Annie Proulx's 11-page short story into a two-hour film. They compare adapting the story to hiking a mountain: a challenge, but well worth it. McMurtry says it's the best material he's ever worked with as a screenwriter.