Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
17 small business tax cuts that President Obama has signed into law
Here's the list of 17 small business tax cuts that President Obama has signed into law --
From the Recovery Act, HIRE Acts, and Affordable Care Act:
1. A New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit
2. A New Tax Credit for Hiring Unemployed Workers
3. Bonus Depreciation Tax Incentives to Support New Investment
4. 75% Exclusion of Small Business Capital Gains
5. Expansion of Limits on Small Business Expensing
6. Five-Year Carryback of Net Operating Losses
7. Reduction of the Built-In Gains Holding Period for Small Businesses from 10 to 7 Years to Allow Small Business Greater Flexibility in Their Investments
8. Temporary Small Business Estimated Tax Payment Relief to Allow Small Businesses to Keep Needed Cash on Hand
From the Small Business Jobs Act:
9. Zero Capital Gains Taxes on Key Investments in Small Businesses
10. The Highest Small Business Expensing Limit Ever– Up to $500,000
11. An Extension of 50% Bonus Depreciation
12. A New Deduction for Health Care Expenses for the Self-Employed
13. Tax Relief and Simplification for Cell Phone Deductions
14. An Increase in The Deduction for Entrepreneurs’ Start-Up Expenses
15. A Five-Year Carryback Of General Business Credits
16. Limitations on Penalties for Errors in Tax Reporting That Disproportionately Affect Small Business
And from the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act:
17. 100 Percent Expensing
An Orchestra of Elephants
An Orchestra of Elephants
| Mon Feb. 28, 2011 3:45 AM PST
Prateedah the elephant plays the drum.Imagine building a xylophone for a 6,000-pound mammal. Columbia University neuroscientist slash experimental musicianDavid Soldier (aka David Sulzer) teamed up with elephant expert Richard Lair, and did just that. At the Thai Elephant Conservation Center (TECC), in Lampang, Thailand, the two men taught elephants to play oversized xylophones, drums, chimes, and even harmonicas. An American expat, Lair had worked with Ruby, an elephant that had famously learned how to paint pictures. He already knew that elephants loved music. After meeting Soldier, he asked him to join the Thai Elephant Orchestra project, an endeavor that, beyond science and art, was intended to draw attention to the elephants' plight.
[LINK: An Orchestra of Elephants ]
Bonus LINK: Thung Kwian Sunrise < The elephants improvise the music themselves.
Who's Behind the Bills that Could Legalize Killing Abortion Providers?
First, it was South Dakota. Then Nebraska and Iowa. The similarly worded bills, which have quietly cropped up recently in state legislatures, share a common purpose: To expand justifiable homicide statutes to cover killings committed in the defense of an unborn child. Critics of the bills, including law enforcement officials, warn that these measures could invite violence against abortion providers and possibly provide legal cover to the perpetrators of such crimes.
That these measures have emerged simultaneously in a handful of states is no coincidence. It's part of a campaign orchestrated by a Washington-based anti-abortion group, which has lobbied state lawmakers to introduce legislation that it calls the "Pregnant Woman's Protection Act" [PDF]. Over the past two years, the group, Americans United for Life, has succeeded in passing versions of this bill in Missouri and Oklahoma. But there's a big difference between those bills and the measures floated recently in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa.
Billionaire Koch Brothers Next Target of "Anonymous" Hacker Group
Billionaire Koch Brothers Next Target of "Anonymous" Hacker Group
February 27, 2011 |
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The decentralized protest group "Anonymous" has a new target: no, it's not a middle eastern dictator, a major bank or even a bit player in the military-industrial complex.
It's none other than tea party financiers Charles and David Koch, who were being targeted, an open letter stated, for their attempts "to usurp American Democracy."
"Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin," an announcement posted to anonnews.org declared.
[LINK: The Raw Story ]
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The new Congress says
The new Congress says they're going to turn the government around.I just hope I don't get run over ... again.
Tea Party Leader Hatches Plan to Infiltrate and Sabotage Union Protesters in WI and Other States
Does the name Mark Williams ring a bell for you? He's the former Tea Party Express chairman who was ousted from the group last summer for publishing an unbelievably vile NAACP parody in the form of an "open letter" from Abraham Lincoln to the "coloreds," who wanted to "buy flat-screen TVs" with white people's money. (Happy President's Day!) Three weeks later, Williams was back in business at the helm of a new Tea Party group, the Citizens for Constitutional Liberty.
Now that you know what a class act this guy is, it will surely come as little surprise that this is the same Mark Williams who wrote a blog post over the weekend entreating his fellow Tea Partiers to infiltrate the union workers who are protesting in Wisconsin and elsewhere this week, with the goal of getting himself on TV so he can say embarrassing things to tarnish the movement.
In his own words:
Here is what I am doing in Sacramento, where they are holding a 5:30 PM event this coming Tuesday: (1) I signed up as an organizer (2) with any luck they will contact me and I will have an “in” (3) in or not I will be there and am asking as many other people as can get there to come with, all of us in SEIU shirts (those who don’t have them we can possibly buy some from vendors likely to be there) (4) we are going to target the many TV cameras and reporters looking for comments from the members there (5) we will approach the cameras to make good pictures… signs under our shirts that say things like “screw the taxpayer!” and “you OWE me!” to be pulled out for the camera (timing is important because the signs will be taken away from us) (6) we will echo those slogans in angry sounding tones to the cameras and the reporters. (7) if I do get the ‘in’ I am going to do my darnedest to get podium access and take the mic to do that rant from there…with any luck and if I can manage the moments to build up to it, I can probably get a cheer out of the crowd for something extreme.
Sacramento organizers, beware!
In fact, organizers all over the country, beware. Williams says he's been "flooded" with requests from Tea Partiers who want to participate in his ruse at protests in Iowa, Massachusetts, Colorado, and elsewhere. As he writes, "Chances are that because I am publishing this they’ll catch wind, but it is worth the chance if you take it upon yourself to act."
[LINK: AlterNet / By Lauren Kelley ]
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Michelle Obama's remarks on breast-feeding draw criticism from Palin, Bachmann
Michelle Obama's remarks on breast-feeding draw criticism from Palin, Bachmann
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, February 18, 2011; 9:29 PM
It began with a modest remark during a roundtable discussion with reporters: First lady Michelle Obamasaid she supports making it easier for mothers to breast-feed their babies, because "kids who are breast-fed longer have a lower tendency to be obese."
Within days, the sentence - and a new Internal Revenue Service policy offering tax deductions for breast pumps - had touched off a political firestorm. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) blasted the Obama administration for trying to impose a "nanny state" on mothers. Another potential 2012 presidential candidate, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, mockingly said the first lady was trying to compensate for high milk prices. The East Wing withdrew, issuing a brief statement calling the subject "personal."
[ LINK: The Washington Post ]
Friday, February 18, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A revolutionary idea...
The original artwork by Jim Fitzpatrick has been used on cola bottles, T-shirts and keyrings
The picture of the Marxist revolutionary, originally in red and black, became one of the most recognisable images of the 20th century and the artist who created it in 1968 has decided it is time to prevent it being used for "crass commercial purposes".
Jim Fitzpatrick originally allowed it to be be used copyright-free by revolutionary groups in Europe but the image has in recent years been appropriated by a host of businesses which would far rather make money than foment rebellions.
The Irish artist has applied for documentation to prove his ownership of the copyright of the image, showing a grim and determined Guevara wearing a beret with a single star, and said he intends to hand it over to the family of Guevara.
Defund Kentucky
Defund Kentucky. Cut it off the federal dole. Kentucky is a welfare state to begin with. The conservative Tax Foundation says the Bluegrass State received $1.51 back from Washington for every dollar it paid in federal taxes in 2005 (the most recent data I could find on the Tax Foundation's website.) We need to listen to the people of Kentucky. They don't want any more federal spending in their state—and they certainly must be appalled by the notion that they're a bunch of welfare queens, living off the taxes paid by blue states like California (which only gets 81 cents back on the dollar), Connecticut (69 cents), Illinois (75 cents) and New York (79 cents).
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
Iranian Lawmakers Call for Death of Opposition Leaders
Raouf Mohseni/Mehr News, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Members of parliament shouted slogans calling for the execution of opposition leaders in Tehran on Tuesday.
I wonder if there is any correlation between vitriolic rhetoric and extremists perpetrating acts of violence?
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Without notifying even her family in advance...
Global Post:
The European Union, the United States and international organizations have long expressed outrage and alarm at Iran’s high rate of executions and lack of due process in death-penalty convictions. The volume of these protestations duly rose in recent weeks along with the spike in deaths.
But the events of Jan. 29 in the north-central Iranian city of Semnan may finally shock the EU into doing more than fruitlessly lecturing the regime on respect for human rights. One of the victims of executions there has not only a face and a name, but a Dutch passport.
Without notifying even her family in advance, Iran hanged 45-year-old Zahra Bahrami, a citizen of both Iran and the Netherlands, for what it said was drug possession. Bahrami had been arrested in the sweeps of anti-government demonstrations following contested presidential elections in 2009. Her family vehemently denied the drugs charges. Dutch diplomats were not allowed to visit her as Iran does not recognize dual nationality.
The Dutch government was outraged, as were many Dutch citizens and lawmakers, who also questioned whether their government had done enough to try to rescue Bahrami. That remains under debate in The Hague, but post-execution actions were swift and furious. Diplomatic relations were immediately frozen. Dutch Ambassador to Iran Cees Kole was called home and the parliament has voted to try to sue Iran in the International Court of Justice for both blocking diplomatic visits and, if deemed possible, for the spree of executions.
May spur action? Well it is about damned time!!!
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