YES those were my skinnier more spy and spritely days. NO its not an Irish jig I’m dancing,  it was the 80’s, I’d just seen Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and was practicing my Disco moves.

 

 

A Scene at City Hall in San Francisco

 

“Next.”

“Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license.”

“Names?”

“Tim and Jim Jones.”

“Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance.”

“Yes, we’re brothers.”

“Brothers? You can’t get married.”

“Why not? Aren’t you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?”

“Yes, thousands. But we haven’t had any siblings. That’s incest!”

“Incest?” No, we are not gay.”

“Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?”

“For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other. Besides, we don’t have any other prospects.”

“But we’re issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who’ve been denied equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman.”

“Wait a minute. A gay man has the same right to marry a woman as I have. But just because I’m straight doesn’t mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim.”

“And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just because we are not gay?”

“All right, all right. I’ll give you your license.

Next.”

“Hi. We are here to get married.”

“Names?”

“John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson.”

“Who wants to marry whom?”

“We all want to marry each other.”

“But there are four of you!”

“That’s right. You see, we’re all bisexual. I love Jane and Robert, Jane loves me and June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and me. All of us getting married together is the only way that we can express our sexual preferences in a marital relationship.”

“But we’ve only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples.”

“So you’re discriminating against bisexuals!”

“No, it’s just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it’s just for couples.”

“Since when are you standing on tradition?”

“Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.”

“Who says? There’s no logical reason to limit marriage to couples. The more the better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!”

“All right, all right.

Next.”

“Hello, I’d like a marriage license.”

“In what names?”

“David Deets.”

“And the other man?”

“That’s all. I want to marry myself.”

“Marry yourself? What do you mean?”

“Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return.”

“That does it! I quit!! You people are making a mockery of marriage!!”

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                        

Maybe they mean it’s not wearing any bottoms?         

In my house Molly takes them all to work with her! 

                                                                                                           

                                                                                         

Or our President and Government!                

 

 

 

THE LAW IS THE LAW So “if” the US government determines that it is against the law for the words “under God” to be on our money, then, so be it

And “if” that same government decides that the “Ten Commandments” are not to be used in or on a government installation, then, so be it.

I say, “so be it,” because I would like to be a law abiding US citizen.

I say, “so be it,” because I would like to think that smarter people than I are in positions to make good decisions.

I would like to think that those people have the American public’s best interests at heart.

BUT, YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I’D LIKE?

Since we can’t pray to God, can’t Trust in God and cannot post His Commandments in Government buildings, I don’t believe Government (Federal, State and Local) and its employees should participate in Easter and Christmas celebrations which honor the God that our government is eliminating from many facets of American life.

I’d like my mail delivered on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter. After all, it’s just another day.

I’d like the” US Supreme Court to be in session on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter as well as Sundays.” After all, it’s just another day.

I’d like the Senate and the House of Representatives to not have to worry about getting home for the “Christmas Break.” After all it’s just another day.

I’m thinking a lot of my taxpayer dollars could be saved, if all government offices & services would work on Christmas, Good Friday & Easter. It shouldn’t cost any overtime since those would be just like any other day of the week to a government that is trying to be “politically correct.”

In fact….I think our government should work on Sundays (initially set aside for worshipping God….) because, after all, our government says that it should be just another day….

What do you all think? If this idea gets to enough people, maybe our elected officials will stop giving in to the “minority opinions” and begin, once again, to represent the “majority” of ALL of the American people.

SO BE IT………..Please Dear Lord, Give us the help needed to keep you in our country! ‘Amen’ and ‘Amen’ Touché!

 

You Ever Have One of Those Days?

 

The Top 5 Signs Your Computer Has a Virus

5> Your screen saver now shows Pamela Anderson at home with
the flu.

4> Pus between the keys, pus in the optical drives, and pus
oozing out of the monitor — it’s either a virus, or Impish Dragon has been using it without your permission again.

3> Your web browser just tossed its cookies.

2> Dell customer service recommends the “nighttime, freezing, rebooting, up-locking, destroying, hosed-drive, deleted so
you can buy a new PC medicine.”

and The Number 1 Sign Your Computer Has a Virus…

 

1> Your dancing hamsters are all dead.

[ The Top 5 List www.topfive.com  Copyright 2000 by Chris White ]

 

 

 

Skechers To Pay $40 Million In Refunds To Settle Federal Charges Of False Claims That Shape-Ups Improve Appearance

 May 16, 2012 By George Gombossy CT Watchdog

 Consumers Who Bought Shape-ups, Other Toning Shoes Will Be Eligible for Refunds

 If you got sucked into buying a pair of Skechers Toning Shoes believing that they would help you lose weight, strengthen and tone your buttocks, legs and abdominal muscles, you can get a refund, courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission.

You can  submit a claim here.

It announced today that  Skechers USA, Inc. has agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that the company deceived consumers by making unfounded claims that Shape-ups would help people lose weight, and strengthen and tone their buttocks, legs and abdominal muscles

Besides Shape-ups, Skechers also made deceptive claims about its Resistance Runner, Toners, and Tone-ups shoes, the FTC alleged. Consumers who bought these “toning” shoes will be eligible for refunds either directly from the FTC or through a court-approved class action lawsuit, and  The settlement with the FTC is part of a broader agreement, also being announced today resolving a multi-state investigation, which was led by the Tennessee and Ohio Attorneys General Offices and included attorneys general from 42 other states and the District of Columbia.

“Skechers’ unfounded claims went beyond stronger and more toned muscles. The company even made claims about weight loss and cardiovascular health,” said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC’s message, for Skechers and other national advertisers, is to shape up your substantiation or tone down your claims.”

Connecticut was one of 42 states and the District of Columbia involved in the settlement. Connecticut consumers who have complaints about unsubstantiated health or advertising claims or any consumer matter should contact the Office of the Attorney General at  860-808-5400. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Saadi handled this matter for the Attorney General.

The settlement with the Manhattan Beach, California-based Skechers is part of the FTC’s ongoing effort to stop overhyped advertising claims, and follows a similar settlement with Reebok International Ltd. last year.

www.ftc.gov/skechers gives consumers the basic facts about the Skechers settlement and directs them to file for a refund if they are eligible.

Read the rest of the article here

This is 100% true! NO joke! I know for a fact several people have gotten their refunds already, including Impish!

(YES, that last part WAS a joke, they did not come in a  ‘3 toed Giant Lizard Extra Double Wide’ size!)

Kind of like our readership!

The Quote of the Decade:????

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, “the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.????? ~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

Pass it on ’till eternity.. (…it was so nice of him to give us this great quote for posterity!)  SO, USE IT!!!

SEX IN THE SHOWER

In a recent survey commissioned by President Obama, African-Americans have proven to be the most likely to have had sex in the shower.

The survey was carried out for Obama by a leading soap and toiletries firm. The results revealed that 86% of African-Americans said that they have had sex in the shower.

The remaining 14% said they haven’t been to prison yet.

Sort of brings tears to your eyes!

Impish was SUPPOSED to cover this topic Saturday and dropped the ball. No real surprise there, unless you count the fact that he actually dropped it as opposed to eating it!

The more observant of you may have noticed a few subtle changes here at DragonLaffs. Our boring green background has been replaced by (for the moment) a waving flag. The will hopeful continue to change with the season and holiday, providing I can locate appropriate graphics that work with WordPress’s free version, not generally so easy a task.

We have also instituted an extremely simple feedback mechanism for those of you who are comments section challenged/fearful or just short of time. You can vote your approval of individual issues now with a simple, single solitary mouse click!

The location is shown above and its in the same place for every issue. You can select from one to 5 stars when you vote how good the issue is. From this we can help to figure out what works and what does not so we can continue to improve the blog and grow our readership.

We ask that you take the micro seconds it requires to vote and do so for each issue. Help us make your DragonLaffs experience more enjoyable by voting every issue.

Impish kindly sent me the comments of Saturdays two guest rants ahead of their publication and asked me if I wanted to add any thoughts to them. We oft do this with hot button topics, larger issues or things that we fell quite passionately about one way or the other. Sometimes we’re in lock step sometime one of us chooses to play devils advocate to the other’s position. However this time I decided I was not getting Dragon conned into writing Impish’s Last Word for Saturday based on guest ranter Tom’s comments. I think my comments on abortion are sufficiently beyond the narrow scope of pro-life/pro-choice enough to warrant full coverage here in a Parting Shot.

In this particular case, I am very happy I am a Centrists instead of Liberal/Conservative or Left/Right Winged because both sides are full of crap right up to the eyeballs of their respective party animal icons when it comes to this subject!

They are pawns being used for deception in a game of much larger import. One side is being duped into doing the church’s bidding, though NOT for the reasons it thinks while the other side is defending the right answer, abet for an incomplete reason! Worst of all neither side understand the gravity of this war or what the REAL stakes are!

For 2000 plus years there was a thing called “Moon tea” to prevent the problem or to rid you of it. This was the norm it was universally accepted practice suddenly there is a new religion on the block, the Catholics and they need numbers for their church to survive & grow, so WHAM! everyone is WRONG for the last 2000 years about terminating unwanted pregnancies while God was hiding and not making his will &/or thoughts on the subject readily apparent. I have a problem with that sort of shit and by that I mean just how flexible and often Catholic doctrine and rules conveniently are as long as it favors the needs of the church.  If they don’t like it they’ll seek to have it outlawed, banned or otherwise regulated out of use. If they cannot make you forget about it they’ll drop a Holy Day on it and brand it as their own. IF their own rank and file balk at it, they’ll update it and relax it or “modernize” it to make it more palatable to them just so long as they maintain control over you. However that’s an entirely different subject from the one we are discussing today

The root of the Abortion issue being about the Pro-life/Pro-choice issue in analogous to the mistaken belief that the Civil War was fought about slavery. (Actually the root issue of the Civil War was that of State’s Rights for those of you who thought it WAS about Slavery. Slavery was simply the “Poster Child” issue the North chose because it was far easier to raise support for a war to abolish slavery than for one to in force the will of the Federal Government on the Governments of all the states. One sounds humanitarian, civilized and morally righteous while the other draconian, dictatorial and oppressive. Which one would you support?)

It’s in fact a cover for deeper issues meant to appease the limited intellect and whitewash the greater underlying issue hopefully making it more palatable the the unwashed masses because NOBODY  at the top of the two warring factions wants the light of attention shined on the REALLY issue, which is who gets to run your life because neither side thinks you are capable of doing it yourself and that you need to be protected from you even at the expense of the Constitution and your rights.

These two warring factions I am talking about are big brother the Federal Government or big brother the Catholic Church.

Everyone rages against Sharia law, especially the Vatican and the Catholic church which I find to be as hypocritical as I do comical. Why? Because what the Catholics want it basically the same thing– except instead of the Law according to the Koran/Mohammad as interpreted by the Imams they’d prefer the 10 Commandments/Bible as interpreted by the Vatican.

At least the Koran as been more or less unchanged since its writing some 1380 years ago. The Bible has between 8 and 12 versions depending on your source of information which includes various version revisions and translations. Additionally not all the alleged “books of the Bible” are included in the current Bible. The Old Testament portion of the Bible is not even of original Christian authorship but rather was plagiarized and altered to suit Christianity’s Doctrine from the Jewish Tanach.

My point is that while the teaching of Mohammad expressed by the Koran are pretty much verbatim of their original internet (and therefore if one believes the word of Allah recorded as whispered in the ear/mind of Mohammad) sans shading revision adaptation or interpretation. The same thing cannot be said for ANY PART of the Bible. The Bible is simply what the hierarchy of the Catholic Church wants the word of God to be. Right there that makes Catholic Law suspect to me. We’ll not the fact that like Muslims who would openly impose Sharia Law on everyone Muslim and non Muslim alike while the Catholic Church seeks to do it in a Puppet Master fashion from the shadows by attempting to force the government to pass Canon laws under the guise of secular ones thereby accomplishing the same effect just under a veil pretense of Separation of Church and State. A separation I might add that the Church seems extremely bent on maintaining as a one way thing and pushing the boundary of to their benefit and most of America’s detriment as far as possible

The same effect as Sharia Law? YES. If an Anti-abortion law passed, every female would be legally required  to give up their right of self determination over  their own lives and bodies in favor of a law forced on them by the Catholic Church IRREGARDLESS of their religious preference, personal convictions and Constitutionally assured right of the separation of church and state, to say nothing of their right to worship as they choose and see fit! Sound familiar? Abet on a lesser scale (hey everything has to have a starting/tipping point) you have the same effect as Sharia Law. Laws and rule make by a religious faction, enforced by the state and applied to everyone Muslim or not.

WHAT IS REALLY AT STAKE HERE IS THE INTEGRITY OF THE CONSTITUTION (SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE) YOUR RIGHT TO WORSHIP (OR NOT WORSHIP) FREELY, AND YOUR “GOD GIVEN INALIENABLE RIGHTS, NAMELY LIFE LIBERTY (WHICH INCLUDES YOU RIGHT TO CHOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY AND COURSE OF ACTION) AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (PRESUMABLY THE FOUNDING FATHERS HAD YOUR HAPPINESS IN MIND NOT THAT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE MORAL MINORITY).

LASTLY I think that the issue is between the individual person, their conscience and their vision/version of God and NOBODY ELSE! SUPPOSEDLY we were given a thing (by God) called FREE WILL, the power to choose to sin or not to sin and we accept a price for this gift, having to answer for and accept the consequences of our actions and God’s judgment of them NOT Churches, States or Federal governments. Again that is SUPPPOSED to be between the individual and is God at his time of final judgment. Clergy are supposed to be there to help you make informed choices and council you while you do. NOT to legislate your choices right out the damned window in favor of their doctrine with wanton disregard for your religious preferences, beliefs, civil or human rights.

Sorry if this Parting Shot has sounded ‘sarcastic and bitter’ ( I put that there because we had a commenter that apparently does not know the meaning of the 3 “C’ words most oft used even by me to describe me in this blog, namely, caustic, cantankerous and curmudgeonly) but Big Brother in the sandals and coweled robe wavy his holy symbol frantically at me  demanding I respect him his religion and his right to Separation of Church & State when I suggest treating him as a corporation and making him not only pay taxes but subject to all the same political & election laws as corporations while he attempts to pass laws governing my life pisses me off as bad as big brother in the black governmental suit. In fact probably MORE so because at least I participated in the election of some those who wind up as Big Government Brother.

I AM THE LETHAL LEPRECHAUN and while I MAY be headed to hell in my custom coach worked hand basket, I’m going there for having exercised my GOD GIVEN RIGHTS OF FREE WILL AND SELF DETERMINATION not because some religious minority federally legislated my Constitutional Assured rights which I have fought to defend way! Sit still for this and ONE DAY you’ll be reading a headline like this:

Pakistan blocks Twitter amid blasphemy fears

Twitter closed after it refused to remove tweets promoting a page urging people to post images of prophet Muhammad

or this

Pakistan restores Twitter after a day of blocking

Pakistan restored their access to Twitter on Monday after blocking the popular microbloging site due to posting of content that deemed an affront to Muslims

or this

Pakistan censors Twitter: all may not be what it seems

Summary: Was the Pakistani Twitter shutdown just about squelching free speech over an art contest, or was there potentially something more?  https://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/pakistan-censors-twitter-all-may-not-be-what-it-seems/11265

(you REALLY want to skin that last one because there is current legislation pending in the US that could be used to make the same scenario painted in the article an actual fact here, but that again is a whole another subject for another time).)

However when you see that story here if we allow the Camel with the Cross on its nose to put its head in the tent of successfully legislated restrictions based on religious mores the story will NOT read ‘Pakistan’ it will read United States or ‘Catholic Church’ and the issue will not be Muslim religion either!

I strongly urge you to protect your God given Constitutionally protected rights from usurpation by the Moral Minority by belting the Cross nosed Camel SQUARE in the muzzle, keeping his nose, his head, his eyelashes or any other damned body part out of the tent of our personal freedoms before you find he OWNS your freedom!

Until we meet again Saturday for our annual Memorial Day Combined Lepra-Dragon-chaun Issue

Good Morning Campers!  What an issue we have put together for you today!  Lots of funny stuff, a couple of letters and comments from readers, stuff to make you laugh, stuff to make you mad, stuff to make you want to stand up and shout.  But, most importantly, we hope there is stuff here to make you want to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and send us back some comments, feedback, or rants of your own.  We look forward to hearing from you.

The poor dragon is working again this weekend.  I can’t remember the last time that I had a day off, but I’ve got a dozen irons in the fire and I guess someone’s got to take care of them all.  I keep telling myself, it’s a damn good thing I love my job.  I’ve said it so many times I’ve about got myself convinced.

Lethal Leprechaun needs to hurry up and win the lottery so he can afford to  hire me away from my current employer (The Dept of Defense) and we can afford to do this full time!

Ahhh, the things that dreams are made of…

And speaking of dreams, let’s get this dreamy issue on the road…

10 Political and Economic Imponderables that Should Drive You Crazy

2. Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and a federal workforce that is roughly 18% black when the black population is only 12%.

3. Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code — Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee — turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4. Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

5. Only in America would we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American citizens.

6. Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country’s Constitution be thought of as “extremists.”

8. Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of what a company that manufactures sports shoes and apparel (Nike) makes.

9. Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year for total spending ($7 million PER MINUTE), and complain that it doesn’t have nearly enough money.

10. Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their “fair share” by people who don’t pay any income taxes at all.

I was in a pub last night and saw two “girls of size” (as
Political Correctness now requires us to say) by the bar.
They both spoke with a very strong brogue accent, and making
assumptions about their origins I said,
“Hello, are you two girls from Scotland ??”
One of them screamed, “It’s WALES you freaking idiot!!”
So I immediately apologized and said……..
“Sorry, are you two whales from Scotland ??”
I don’t remember too much after that !!

And although we try very hard NOT to pick on fat people, (two reasons mostly, #1 because it’s quite impolite to pick on anyone because of a physical difference and #b, because I myself am quite the fluffy dragon) but we use any and all ammunition at had to chastise stupidity!

And I hear that song in the background….
”Me and Mrs…Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs Jones…
We got a thing…
Going on…”

This is great!  Lots of fun.  How to survive the coming robot uprising.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/how-to-survive-a-robot-uprising/

Stuff that you didn’t know, that you didn’t know

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work:
Alaska

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
(now get this…)

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven:
$ 16,400

The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour:
61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair..

The first novel ever written on a typewriter, Tom Sawyer.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades – King David
Hearts – Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds – Julius Caesar

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.

Q.. If you were to spell out numbers,
how far would you have to go until you
would find the letter ‘A’?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
A. All were invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?
A. Father’s Day

Today’s reader’s comments come from Tom, a long time reader of Dragon Laffs and one who is incensed enough to sent us his rant.  Take it away Tom:

I just heard the liberals pissing and moaning as usual. This time about abortion and what a good thing it is. They say abortion is a right and America needs it. A woman should have the choice.

Did I forget something? I think a woman does have a choice and so does a man. The unborn legalized murder victim has no choice. If you are old enough to Fuck, you are old enough to know what happens. I think it’s called reproduction and it wasn’t invented by liberals nor should it be aborted by them. If you can’t keep your legs together, or your dick in your pants, go to the doctor or pharmacy and get something called a contraceptive and shove it in, up, or over the right place. It just might prevent the killing of an unborn human and keep you from getting a disease that you probably are asking for anyway.

If you think abortion is such a good thing, ask your parents why they didn’t do it to you. Maybe they should have and you wouldn’t be thinking of spawning only for your own pleasure and destruction of life.

While I’m here I only want to ask one more question. If the Obama plan of spreading the wealth around is so good and working to improve America, why are 110 % more people on food stamps now and the country is broke? Okay that could be two questions. See it’s even affected my math skills. Awful ain’t it?

Tom, to start, let me say that I agree with you.  Whole-heartedly.  Although I do agree with a woman’s right to have a choice, the only times that I can see her exercising the abortion choice is for criminal or medical reasons.  To be more blunt, if she is raped, which produces a child or her life is in danger to continue the pregnancy, then she should have a choice in whether or not to allow the child to gestate to birth.  The original choice has been taken from her. Otherwise, she’s made her choice, by having sex and needs to accept the responsibilities of that choice.
But, the abortion battle, like the gay marriage (as we see it as a hot topic now) discussion will always be a hot topic around election time.  And you can bet that the side of the fence that one (a political one) falls on will have more to do with how many votes it will bring him, then it will with how he (or she) actually feels about it, not to mention what is truly right or wrong.
It is enough to make a sane person screw up simple math skills.
Thanks for the rant and thanks for writing in.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at Passport Control at Charles de Gaulle  Airport.

“Nationality?”, asks the immigration officer.

“German”, she replies.

“Occupation?”

“No, just here for a few days.”

This little thought was passed on to us by Danny M.  He said he is a friend of the author and this is one of his best little pieces:

I gave 20 years – the prime of my life – and it was a privilege. Can you give me and the other vets two hours? I went places I did not want to go, and did things I did not want to do – and did it all, not for $2.00/ gal gasoline, nor big screen tv, nor luxury SUV, or whatever – we did it to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

This is an election year. If you really want to support our troops, take two hours and read the Constitution before you vote. We gave a lot, some gave all – can’t you give two hours and read the damn thing?
Please?

· Scott Wasmer

What a great idea Scott!  You are amongst brethren here!  What if everyone spent the two hours prior to voting reading the Constitution of the United States?  Even if, like some of us, you’ve read it several times before?  It could make a wonderful difference.

My Dad sent this to me, and although I can’t say that I lived through and did ALL of these things, I can claim a majority…and I know for a fact, that there are several of you out there who can say the same, or more.

They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us are “Baby Boomers” getting ready to retire. Others have been retired for some time. We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once
were. We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together.

Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true. But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration. In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age. Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience. We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes. For those of you who don’t know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators. A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. Yes, we lived those days.

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many. But there are a few things you  need to remember before completely writing us off. We won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam . We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield.

We didn’t fight for the Socialist States of America ; we fought for the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag. We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America , and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing. We have lived what many of you have only read in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America .

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us.  We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it. It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us. We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep. There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

It was mostly the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic Congress. You fell for the “Hope and Change” which in reality was nothing but “Hype and Lies.”

You have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don’t like it after all. You make a lot of noise, but most are all too interested in their careers or “Climbing the Social Ladder” to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting. Many of those who fell for the “Great Lie” in 2008 are now having buyer’s  remorse.

With all the education we gave you, you didn’t have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the ‘Kool-Aid.’ Now you’re paying the price and complaining about it. No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, and less freedom.

This is what you voted for and this is what you got. We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty and you traded it for a paycheck and a fancy house.

Well, don’t worry youngsters, the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and in 2012 we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we’re going, and in 2012 we’re going to the polls by the millions.

This land does not belong to the man in the White House nor to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  It belongs to “We the People” and “We the People” plan to reclaim our land and our freedom. We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren. So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, Stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the “Grey-Haired Brigade.”

Footnote:
I am another Gray-Haired Geezer signing on. I will circulate this to others all over this once great country. Can you feel the ground shaking???

It’s not an earthquake, it is a STAMPEDE.

Thanks, Dad!

Some really outstanding pictures of the ground from the air.  Some pictures higher than others.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/04/images-of-earth-from-above/100283/ 

 

Wow, just realized how long it’s been since Diaman has sent us some of her delicious puns…sweetie, hope you’re doing alright.  Anyway, I dug these out from an older email.  And because it’s been so long, you get a double dose!

A good mystery is bound to have a novel ending.

Dental care in Panama is called a route canal.

Pencils could be made with erasers at both ends, but what would be the point?

I find that movies about submarines always go down well.

Riding the escalator is a step up from always walking on the same level.

A man at the watchmakers convention made a motion, but it died for lack of a second.

A lot of farmers have been starting online blogs and writing about their wheat. They’re cropping up everywhere.

A Golfer’s Diet: Live on greens as much as possible.

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, stop exaggerating!

It rained so hard here last night our whole town flooded.  The entire city was taken by storm.

A person who would make a banking joke is of no account.

The invention of a shirt fastener after the button was a snap.

I think this is an EXCELLENT idea!  I want one, too!

How’s that again?

yup, that’s what I thought you said.  Wonder why that is…

Well, when all else fails…

Okay, so I gave you lots to get excited about today.  I know that the abortion topic got me and Lethal talking quite a bit.  To the point that we are both looking forward to continuing the conversation when we have the chance.  But, you see, he and I enjoy spirited conversation between two peers who can agree and disagree on multiple of topics without resorting to name calling or getting angry with each 0ther.  And believe it or not, we enjoy it so much that we want you to get involved with us!

That’s not really hard to  understand, is it? 

Well, maybe it is…

It seems we have a difficult time getting you guys to get  involved, so consider this your invitation on a silver platter

So, what other excuses do you have?

 But first, a Legal Disclaimer from our legal advisors the Esteemed Law Firm of Dewy, Cheatum & Howe

 

Thank You Impish for that intro- though I have to say your Ed McMahon imitation needs a LOT of work.

Sheesh! Not even into my opening remarks and already a Legal Disclaimer! You’d think I owned the firm or something. If I’m offending that many people Liberals to need a  disclaimer I must be doing or saying something right!

Been a rough week for your poor leprechaun since last we chatted. Not only did we have heavy rains, some prolonged violent Thunderstorms and some very rough weather with extremely high possibility of tornado activity, but the weather has brought me 2 additional problems as well.

The rising water table is forcing Fire ants to seek shelter apparently…in my apartment!  For those of you that do not have them ( you’re very lucky!) or are not familiar with them, they are very small ruby red and their bites leave painful burning itching welts and they travel in mobs. I’ve applied poison to them twice now and the Complex has allegedly had Terminix deal with them twice. All this has done is cause them to move the mound entrance over 3 feet so far.

The second thing is thanks to all the pollen in the air and spring here in Texas being in full swing I’m turning into an Allergy meds zombie! 3 to 4 Benadryl per day have left me barely able to think and function at times! When I sleep its more like a coma than sleep and when I wake up Molly calls me catatonic until after at least 1/2 a pot of coffee. Sunday night she had to rewind the DVR twice during a movie because I nodded off and missed important things.

So quite understandably I nodded off at my desk Monday after my early morning allergy tablet, that is until I heard the sound of what I took for the worlds largest hot saw…..

Lethal: HEY! IMPISH! Your snoring woke me from my own office nap and you’re drooling on the paperwork!

impishdragon: Huh? What? Oh, sorry.

Lethal: Ooooo! I see the virgins decided to play dress up while you were asleep! <Mockingly> Very nice make up! Emo-Goth makes you look…so like a graphic novel illustration….like something out of a Robert E. Howard Conan pulp novel from the 30’s! Very…becoming.

impishdragon: Huh? < Impish’s standard look (of confusion) crosses his face >

Lethal: <snickering> Never seen Krylon spray paint used as make up before.  I have to say a few of those virgin should be culled out of the harem and sent off the to our Graphics Department some of them show serious talent and lord knows our opening banners could use a new infusion of fresh ideas and talent.

impishdragon: Nice. Thanks bunches. You’ll get yours…one of these days…eventually…someday…maybe…I hope…If there is any justice in the multiverse… and hopefully before I die so I get to see it.

Lethal: Hey! It’s NOT like I am responsible ( for once)! We don’t even HAVE any spray paint…that I know of that is, in the offices!

impishdragon: Yup whatever Dude. Going to spend the rest of the day in the hot pools. Soak the “makeup” off.

Lethal: <Starts giggling inanely & rapping as he heads back to his desk> “Virgin Girls! Virgin Girls! Watchca gonna do? Watchca gonna when they paint you? ” Dude that’s KRYLON PAINT, its Enamel based, Hot water…short of a power washer and some muriatic acid ain’t taking that off!. <Lethal does a double take, points at Impish’s lower gut and collapses into a proximal fit of alternating giggles and guffaws while holding his sides and beating his heals on the floor>

impishdragon: <frowning a this uncharacteristic behavior> Yeah, but I figure I’ll give it a couple hours before I try something else. Maybe see if any of the girls would like to come down to the pools to “scrub” my hide. Your welcome to join us if you can manage to unchain yourself from your desk.

Lethal: <Lethal stops laughing long enough to listen, TRIES to speak and collapses into uncontrolled laughing>

impishdragon: <frowning at Lethal rolling around in such an undignified manner in obviously uncontrollable laughter> What was so funny about that? You been taking hits on that tank of Nitrous Oxide again? You’d better share! Remember the office rule! No Bogarting!  Huff-Huff-Pass!

Lethal: Oh holy mother of us all, me sides! Dude artfully stenciled in International Orange about your vent is the Warning” DANGER! MICRO Bio-weapon with ultra sensitive hair trigger & SHORT fuse! <another round of giggling ensues>

impishdragon: Really nice. Sheesh.

Lethal: No thanks! I’ll pass on the communal bath! Your “bio-weapon” might wind up with shelleigh envy and then you’d just be more embarrassed and depressed than you already are!

impishdragon Okay. Talk to you later. I’m going to soak, sandblast and polish myself. <Starts to waddle out of the office.> Console myself with pies THATS what I need to do! This definitely will hurt less after a pie eating binge!

Lethal: <Suddenly starts howling with laughter while crying over the pain in his ribs> Nice ‘Wide Load” and “Explosive! Stay back 50 feet” signs on your haunches Dude! & that tribalized Bio-hazard symbol at the base of your tail…pure artwork! Don’t go yet! <panting to catch his breath> I…need … <pant> pictures… <pant/snicker> for viral blackmail…posterity and evidence! CLEARLY you have been defaced in an act of nap time vandalism! < more snickering>

impishdragon: Make sure you get some good pictures. I might need to sue somebody to recover the costs off all the pies its going to take to make me forget this. And if you don’t take the time to write this up for Lep Laffs for the readers to laugh about at my expense you’re crazy.

Lethal: Ahhh….JUST finishing the Parting Shot and issue IS pretty long. I can CC&P to you so you can do a Rodney Dangerfield- “I Don’t Get No Respect” type of thing if you want. Already took 2 light pokes at you…don’t want to hear wailing, gnashing of teeth and whining the mention of buses running you over.

impishdragon: No worries. Poke away. But you know, come to think of it, I haven’t taken a poke at leprechauns in quite some time.

Lethal: We’re too hard and small a moving target and we take our revenge more seriously than Sicilian Mafia Dons that’s why

impishdragon: You may have a point there. <exits to a chorus of outer office snickers and guffaws while muttering under his breath calculating the number and kinds of pie its going to take to compensate his bruised ego for this current indignity it has suffered>

<Lethal watches a few moments as his friend exits and checks to make sure the elevator doors close before turning to his secretary>

Lethal: Geeze Friday! When you said you were annoyed with Impish and going to help his virgins punk him I thought maybe shaving cream topped pies, redoing his private restroom in Barney motif or his Bedroom in Hello Kitty or something but DAYUM GIRL!

Friday: <Pausing filing her nails and looking up through her eyebrows at Lethal> I told you I was fed up with his “accidental” tail swats in the butt. You wouldn’t let me shorten the thing with my axe so what’s a poor demi-god girl from Valhalla to do? <She breaks down into uncontrolled giggles taking Lethal with her>

Lethal: OH GOD MY RIBS! Stop already or I’m going to need medical treatment! If he sees the one between his eyes that reads “Vacancy Inside” and mocks the Intel Logo before I get them wrapped I might break one laughing! Come on lets get out of here! I need to buy a couple Ace Bandages and some Ibuprofen… as much for me poor head as for me ribs. I’ll even buy you lunch you very naughty vengeful little thing!

Ok enough with the pre-issue giggle stories, we’ve a lot to cover today so lets get this wagon train loaded up and move ‘em out!

 

Yeah Obama you TRY taking away Impish’s or my coffee- I DOUBLE DEAD LIBERAL’S DOG DARE YOU! You’ll be back in Kenya picking the beans for it so fast you think the White House was a day dream! JUST YOU TRY IT BUB! I’m packing a caffeine addicted dragon and I’m NOT afraid to use him!

The new nun goes to her first confession. She tells the priest that she has a terrible secret and he tells her that her secret is safe in the sanctity of the confessional.
She says, “Father, I never wear panties under my habit.”
The priest thinks a while and says, “That’s not so serious. Say five Hail Marys, five Our Fathers and do six cartwheels on your way to the altar.”

    

 

   

New Mayan calendar: World not ending in 2012

Good news for those looking forward to Christmas, the world’s not ending in December 2012!

Archaeologists not working for some lame cable TV program have discovered a new, but really old Mayan calendar that extends our purchasing power into George Jetson territory.

The Mayans, best known for crackpot misinterpretations of their Mesoamerican scribbling, were obsessed with time, and some had theorized the ancient culture, who had not predicted Spaniards, had somehow predicted The End of Time.

Not so, says someone really smart about this sort of thing.

“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future,” said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher glyphs found in 2010 in the ancient Maya city of Xultun in northeast Guatemala.

The calendar, the oldest Mayan one ever discovered, features stacked bars and dots that count lunar cycles. It was likely drawn up in the 800s, about the time Pope Leo III (who used the more accurate Julian calendar) crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The original article on the discovery appears in Science magazine. LiveScience.com has a good write-up online.

 

Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn dies at 70; soul music bassist

• Donald “Duck” Dunn
  Musician. Born Memphis, November 24, 1941.
  Died Tokyo, May 13, aged 70

Soul rockers Booker T. and the MGs are seen in this January 1970 file photo, from left: Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper. (Associated Press / May 14, 2012)

DONALD “Duck” Dunn, the bassist who helped create the gritty Memphis soul sound at Stax Records in the 1960s as part of legendary group Booker T and the MGs, has been remembered as one of the best session musicians in the business.

Dunn died on Sunday while on tour in Tokyo. He was 70.

He contributed to In the Midnight Hour, Hold On, I’m Coming and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.

He also worked with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers as well as The Band’s Levon Helm, Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.

His friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour, said Dunn died in his sleep.

Dunn was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1941, and was nicknamed after the cartoon character by his father who did not want him to be a musician.

“He thought I would become a drug addict and die,” Dunn said. “Most parents in those days thought music was a pastime, something you did as a hobby, not a profession.”

By the time Dunn was in high school, he was in a band with Cropper.

Cropper left to become a session player at Stax, the Memphis record company that would become known for its soul recordings and artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes and the Staples Singers.

Dunn soon followed Cropper and joined the Stax house band, also known as Booker T and the MGs.

It was one of the first racially integrated soul groups, with two whites (Dunn on bass and Cropper on guitar) and two blacks (Booker T. Jones on organ and Al Jackson on drums), and was later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The group had its heyday in the 1960s as backup for Stax artists. Dunn played on Redding’s Respect and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Sam & Dave’s Hold On, I’m Coming and Wilson Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour.

Booker T and the MGs had its own hits, including Hang ‘Em High, Soul-Limbo and, before Dunn joined the band, the 1962 instrumental Green Onions. In the 70s, the group’s members drifted apart.

Cropper and Dunn reunited when they joined Aykroyd and Belushi’s Blues Brothers band and appeared in the 1980 Blues Brothers movie. Dunn also did session work for Clapton, Young, Dylan, Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty, his discography notes. He received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2007.

He is survived by his wife, June, a son, Jeff, and a grandchild, Michael, said Michael Leahy, Dunn’s agent.

Carroll Shelby, Car Builder Who Added Muscle to American Racing, Dies at 89

Carroll Shelby, a Texas chicken farmer turned hot-rodder who went on to build innovative sports cars like the Cobra that challenged Europe’s longtime dominance of road racing as well as high-performance versions of production cars like the Ford Mustang, died on Thursday in Dallas. He was 89.

His death was announced by his company, Carroll Shelby International.

In the 1960s, Shelby raised the profile of American racing machines on the international sports-car circuit by packing powerful Ford V-8 engines into lightweight British roadsters, and by developing racing cars for Ford.

His Shelby Cobras proved worthy competitors to the likes of Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar and became prized collector’s items. Today they command six- and seven-figure prices.

“Carroll is sort of like the car world’s Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays,” Jay Leno, who owned three Shelby cars, told The New York Times in 2003. “Unlike so many racers, he didn’t come from a rich family, so he signifies that Everyman, common-sense ideal. When I was a kid, American cars were big, clunky things, until Carroll used his ingenuity to make them compete with European cars.”

In 1959, Shelby became the second American-born driver to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the brutal endurance race in France, co-driving a British-made Aston Martin.

But a heart ailment forced him to quit driving, and he founded Shelby American in 1962. It became one of the most successful independent sports-car builders of the era.

Shelby began building his Cobras in 1962 using the chassis and body of a two-seater from AC Cars of England.

Early prototypes broke apart because of stress on the fragile frames. “When you try to put 300 horsepower in a car designed for 100, you learn what development means,” Shelby recalled in a 2002 interview with Sports Illustrated. But the Cobra with the high-powered Ford engine proved a formidable racer, celebrated in pop culture when the Rip Chords recorded “Hey Little Cobra” in 1964.

The Cobra captured the United States Road Racing Championship series of the Sports Car Club of America in 1963 and won the Grand Touring world championship in the large-engine category in 1965.

Soon after Lee A. Iacocca of Ford introduced the Mustang in 1964, he asked Shelby to help create a high-performance version for racing. In January 1965, the first Shelby Mustang, the GT350, made its debut. Shelby also developed the Ford GT40, and the Shelby GT500 and GT500KR (the KR stood for King of the Road).

Carroll Hall Shelby was born on Jan. 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Tex., where his father, Warren, a rural mail carrier, became a car buff, making his rounds in a 1928 Whippet.

Shelby served as a flight instructor in the Army Air Forces during World War II, then worked in Texas oil fields and became a chicken farmer. One Sunday in 1952, as he told it, a wartime buddy drove up “in a little ol’ English car called an MG” and invited him to take a ride. He soon envisioned a world beyond his farm chores.

He entered his first race in 1952, driving in a quarter-mile drag meet, then won road races in the Southwest. But he was still working on his farm and practicing in striped bib coveralls because he did not have time for a change of clothes. They became his trademark outfit.

His fortunes took a turn in 1954 when he came to the attention of the Aston Martin team. He drove for the team that year at Sebring, Fla., and in Europe. In November 1957, driving a Maserati single-seater, he won a 100-mile race at Riverside, Calif., after spinning out on the first lap and then going to the back of the field. He was one of America’s leading sports-car drivers by then.

The Shelby-American team’s Ford GT40 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 and 1967. Those victories ended a winning streak by Ferrari that began in 1960, the year after Shelby teamed with Roy Salvadori of Britain to win in their Aston Martin.

Phil Hill, co-driving a Ferrari, was the only American-born racer to have won at Le Mans before Shelby, capturing the race in 1958. (Luigi Chinetti, who won in 1949, was an American citizen but was born in Italy.)

“Carroll desperately wanted to beat all the Europeans at Le Mans,” C. Van Tune, a onetime Shelby employee who was later editor in chief of Motor Trend magazine, told The Dallas Morning News in 2001. “He wanted to show all those fancy, highbred Euros in their slick racing suits that a chicken farmer from Texas could beat them at their own game.”

Shelby was a distinctive figure on the European racing scene of the late 1950s. “My wife was at Le Mans when he won,” David E. Davis, the founder of Automobile magazine, once told Vanity Fair. “And she said he was just the epitome of America — the overalls, the colorful language, the big mop of curly hair.”

 

You might be a liberal if . . .
You think that if someone is getting richer, someone, somewhere, must be getting poorer.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You think that protestors outside nuclear power plants are dedicated activists, but protestors outside abortion clinics are dangerous zealots interfering with a legal activity.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that more federal regulations will make your life better.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that even though the top 20 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of income taxes, that the rich are not paying their “fair share.”

You might be a liberal if . . .
You think that Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are mindless “dittoheads,” but you have never doubted anything that you heard from Michael Moore.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe in global warming today just as firmly as you believed in global cooling back in the 1970s.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that the network news is a better indicator of what “real” news is than talk radio, Internet news sites, and blogs.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that there was never, ever a problem with biased news coverage until Fox News went on the air.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that Mikhail Gorbachev deserves more credit for losing the Cold War than Ronald Reagan deserves for winning it.

You might be a liberal if . . .
Your parents gave you an acre of preserved rain forest for your first birthday.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You cannot name a single NASCAR driver.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You mentally subtract 100 points from someone’s IQ if the person speaks with a Southern accent.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You think that Dan Rather got a raw deal.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You panic if you discover that you’re out of chick peas.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You think that the phrase “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You pride yourself on your global awareness, global sensitivity and global outlook, but can’t name your state legislator or school board representative.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You are dedicated to helping the poor, the downtrodden and the less fortunate, but you have never given blood.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You have not seen “The Passion of the Christ,” and you don’t know anyone who has seen it.

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that a woman should make it on her own, without depending on her husband (except for Hillary Clinton).

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that professional, working women should never be judged on their appearance (except for Katherine Harris).

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that rich people should not be allowed to contribute so much money to candidates for office (except for George Soros).

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that government should make a special effort to hire members of traditionally oppressed groups, such as African-Americans (except for Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice).

You might be a liberal if . . .
You feel a deep sense of common cause with oppressed groups, such as Hispanic immigrants (except for Cuban Americans fleeing Castro).

You might be a liberal if . . .
You believe that a mother’s wishes for her child, especially a mother’s last, dying wish for her child, should outweigh the wishes of a father who had long before deserted his family (unless the child is named Elian Gonzalez).

 

On the Subject of What Needs Fixing & What You Want to See From Us

Steve says:

Thanks so much for another great mailing. I so look forward to them. I read every article as it’s not often I find those with the same beliefs.

Joseph says:

A note to Lethal, I personally wait with great anticipation for your posting of recipes. I love to cook and have printed and tried many of yours. Please continue, I am always looking for new ideas. My wife is from Colombia, so if I want American food, I have to cook it myself.

lethalleprechaun says:

Thanks Joe that makes 2 of us make cooks, well OK 3 if you can count what Impish does as “cooking”. I’ll probably not dump the feature entirely, just throttle it back to a once a month thing unless more people speak up about it. <<== HINT!

Ginny says:I didn’t missed your point, I like the mix of jokes, recipes, funny animations and videos. What is making you think a change is required?

lethalleprechaun says:

Well Ginny its like this, when you finish a performance time after time and largely hear nothing but the crickets you start to think your act has gone stale and you need to change and/or update it.

For the most part the words that I would use to describe the largest portion of our readership are ambivalent & apathetic. There are 426 people who follow the blog via e-mail (UGH! REALLY? Still? Grr!) and if you take the 3 day window of Wednesday-Thursday-Friday this week (which is how I generally gauge the blog hits for an issue- the day of and following 2 days) I had a very very good week and we can add another 315 readers to that total for a grand total of 741 readers. If just 5% of those readers commented that would be 37 comments. ONE PERCENT would be 7 or 8 comments. The issue despite a very high number of hits garnered NO COMMENTS! Exactly NO COMMENTS on a Parting Shot dealing with changing our system of Taxation, overhauling the Tax Code and proposed changes to the drains on our tax revenue. Not a single peep. Nothing but crickets. Hell, we didn’t even get booed by the Democrats or Liberals lurking in the shadows over it!

We have had 90,885 views of 444 posts at the time I write this since we first switched to the blog format. Yet we have had only 1112 comments in that time and probably a full ONE THIRD of those are from Impish or myself! IN POINT OF FACT THE TWO OWNERS ARE THE MOST ACTIVE COMMENTERS ON THE BLOG!! Now if this was YOUR blog and you were looking at THOSE results and returns, wouldn’t YOU think something was seriously wrong with it and required fixing and/or change?

We see other blogs where every post garners 10 or 12 comments on the topic(s) in the post and a rousing discussion of the presented issues, then we look at ours, wonder what we are doing wrong or what we need to change to achieve this in our blog. So far we have been unable to achieve the sort of success, notability and participation levels we have been shooting for since day one. NONE of these things are even at the levels they were before we moved to the blog format which is far more flexible, easier and quicker for us to create posts in and (allegedly) possesses the potential to reach a far larger audience because its not a closed group.

In truth had this remained a Yahoo e-mail group we would never be having this discussion because it took too long and was too difficult to create each issue and get it to appear the way we wanted to. Moving to the blog format helped save the publication as did the moving to a 2 day a week delivery. Our numbers are not near what they were in the Yahoo days and in fact have DECLINED from the beginning numbers post switch over despite us trying various new things.

If you were looking at all this staring you in the face Ginny wouldn’t YOU be asking what needs changing too?

Regarding Impish’s Last Word Last Week in DragonLaffs # 1273

Lloyd says:

Guys, you’re really not impressing me with your examples of injustice in your epilogue. I was a cop for 30 years and I can tell you from long first hand experience that our system of Jurisprudence has absolutely nothing to do with justice. What is has to do with is LAW. All kinds of law. Old English common law, Statutory law, Law of precedence, and whatever the judge thinks is law on any given day. What it amounts to is simply this; if your attorney is better read and sharper than the prosecutor then you will walk. If you are depending on a public defender, before you go to court pack your toothbrush and some Vaseline. I’m reminded of a joke from the 1960′s civil rights era. A young man is arrested for rioting. He has only one call so he calls the most expensive attorney in town. The attorney meets with him and tells him; “Now right up front Mr. Wilson, I want to assure you that under our system of justice; race, color, background and political affiliation make no difference at all, We are all equal under the law.” “Now, just how equal can you afford to be?” In the final analysis the courts always operate under the Golden Rule. He who has the gold, makes the rules. I have seen first time offender shop lifters get the max while kidnapper-murderers are made to write on the blackboard: “I was a bad boy and i promise not to do it anymore.” 100 times. Okay, so I’m exaggerating the last just a little but I think you get the point.

lethalleprechaun says:

Sadly Lloyd I am force to agree with you on one point, justice has become a purchasable commodity. One mainly about hype spin and marketing where the process is more about picking a jury that will get you the verdict you desire than uncovering the truth and guilt behind the matter. I also think the the criminals have more rights than the victims.

 

Ignore him when he talks at your own peril! 

There see? Now its Official- PAY ATTENTION!

FBI issues warning on hotel Internet connections

FBI says malware lurking in hotel room connections, particularly overseas

The FBI today warned travelers there has been an uptick in malicious software infecting laptops and other devices linked to hotel Internet connections.

The FBI wasn’t specific about any particular hotel chain, nor the software involved but stated: “Recent analysis from the FBI and other government agencies demonstrates that malicious actors are targeting travelers abroad through pop-up windows while they are establishing an Internet connection in their hotel rooms.

The FBI said typically travelers attempting to set up a hotel room Internet connection were presented with a pop-up window notifying the user to update a widely used software product. If the user clicked to accept and install the update, malicious software was installed on the laptop. The pop-up window appeared to be offering a routine update to a legitimate software product for which updates are frequently available.

The warning was issued through the FBI’s partnership with the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s (IC3) and comes on the heels of a number of other warnings.

The FBI recommends that all government, private industry, and academic personnel who travel abroad take extra caution before updating software products through their hotel Internet connection. Checking the author or digital certificate of any prompted update to see if it corresponds to the software vendor may reveal an attempted attack. The FBI also recommends that travelers perform software updates on laptops immediately before traveling, and that they download software updates directly from the software vendor’s website if updates are necessary while abroad.”

Lethal here- As usual the Feds are a day late, a dollar short and left there ‘get a clue’ card in their other cheap ill fitting black suit. This is malware delivery system is WELL established in the US already. It is more prevalent along both borders, but you can easily find it (though I don’t know why you would WANT to) in any major tourist area.

 

The Legend of Onestone- The Indian With One Testicle

There once was an Indian who had only one testicle and whose given name was ‘Onestone’. He hated that name and asked everyone not to call him Onestone.

After years and years of torment, Onestone finally cracked and said,’ If anyone calls me Onestone again I will kill them!’ The word got around and nobody called him that any more.

Then one day a young woman named Blue Bird forgot and said, ‘Good morning, Onestone.’  

He jumped up, grabbed her and took her deep into the forest where he made love to her all day and all night. He made love to her all the next day, until Blue Bird died from exhaustion. The word got around that Onestone meant what he promised he would do.

Years went by and no one dared call him by his given name until a woman named Yellow Bird returned to the village after being away. Yellow Bird, who was Blue Bird’s cousin, was overjoyed when she saw Onestone. She hugged him and said, ‘Good to see you, Onestone.’

Onestone grabbed her, took her deep into the forest, then he made love to her all day, made love to her all night, made love to her all the next day, made love to her all the next night, but Yellow Bird wouldn’t die!

Why ???

OH, come on… take a guess !!!

Think about it !

You’re going to love this !!!

Everyone knows…

You can’t kill Two Birds with OneStone!!!

Oh! Wait! Was that warning sign supposed to go BEFORE the joke? My Bad! 

Guy explains to his doctor,
“Doc, when I got up this morning, I put on a pair of white gloves and started calling my wife Minnie. Then on the way to work I
couldn’t help singing ‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s off to work I go’, and when I got there I started calling everyone Happy, Grumpy, Dopey
and so on. What’s the matter with me?”
“That’s easy,” replies the doctor. “You’re having Disney spells.”

Must be North Korean Scientists!

Drafting Guys Over 60

I am over 50 and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You can’t be older than 42 to join the military. They’ve got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35.

For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. ‘My back hurts!

I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry.’ We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn’t even like to get up before 10 am . Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell.

Besides, like I said, I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however… I’ve been in combat and never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I’ve never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl.

He still hasn’t figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head. These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm’s way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty, rotten, coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

HEY!! How about recruiting Women over 50…in menopause!!! You think MEN have attitudes?? Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!!  If nothing else, put them on border patrol. They’ll have it secured the first night!

 

Man how times have changed! Now Impish get hollered at for bringing Wizards home, bounded, gagged and rolled up in a carpet!

 

 

Investigating the IRS: Why it gives billions to illegal immigrants!

INDIANAPOLIS –

Why are many illegal immigrants getting a bigger tax refund than you? Blame it on the IRS and a massive tax loophole that’s now being exposed by Eyewitness News.

13 Investigates has found the IRS is giving away your tax dollars to illegal workers and people who don’t even live in the United States – and the problem is costing billions!

We want you to see exactly where your money is going and why the IRS is allowing it to happen. From the homes of illegal workers in Indiana to the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, investigative reporter Bob Segall takes you behind the scenes of his three-month investigation to get answers.

 http://www.wthr.com/video?clipId=7054149&autostart=true

While that may have seemed like a good idea, it’s now backfiring in a big way.

Each spring, at tax preparation offices all across the nation, many illegal immigrants are now eagerly filing tax returns to take advantage of a tax loophole, using their ITIN numbers to get huge refunds from the IRS.

The loophole is called the Additional Child Tax Credit. It’s a fully-refundable credit of up to $1000 per child, and it’s meant to help working families who have children living at home.  

But 13 Investigates has found many undocumented workers are claiming the tax credit for kids who live in Mexico – lots of kids in Mexico.

“We’ve seen sometimes 10 or 12 dependents, most times nieces and nephews, on these tax forms,” the whistleblower told Eyewitness News. “The more you put on there, the more you get back.”

The whistleblower has thousands of examples, and he brought some of them to 13 Investigates. While identifying information such as names and addresses on the tax returns was redacted, it was still clear that the tax filers had received large tax refunds after claiming additional child tax credits for many dependents.

“Here’s a return right here: we’ve got a $10,3000 refund for nine nieces and nephews,” he said, pointing to the words “niece” and “nephew” listed on the tax forms nine separate times.

“We’re getting an $11,000 refund on this tax return. There’s seven nieces and nephews,” he said, pointing to another set of documents. “I can bring out stacks and stacks. It’s just so easy it’s ridiculous.”

20 kids = $30,000

WTHR spoke to several undocumented workers who confirmed it is easy.

They all agreed to talk with WTHR investigative reporter Bob Segall and a translator as long as WTHR agreed not to reveal their identity.

One of the workers, who was interviewed at his home in southern Indiana, admitted his address was used this year to file tax returns by four other undocumented workers who don’t even live there. Those four workers claimed 20 children live inside the one residence and, as a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax refunds totaling $29,608.

13 Investigates saw only one little girl who lives at that address (a small mobile home). We wondered about the 20 kids claimed as tax deductions?

“They don’t live here,” said the undocumented worker. “The other kids are in their country of origin, which is Mexico.”

He later explained none of the 20 children have ever visited the United States – let alone lived here.

So why should undocumented workers receive tax credits for children living in a foreign country, which is a violation of IRS tax rules?

“If the opportunity is there and they can give it to me, why not take advantage of it?” the worker said.

Other undocumented workers in Indiana told 13 Investigates the same thing. Their families are collecting tax refunds for children who do not live in this country. Several of the workers told WTHR they were told it was legal for them to claim the tax credit for a child who does not live in the United States. [Undoubtedly by liberals and Tax Advisors working for C.R.E.E.P. ]

IRS was repeatedly warned

“The magnitude of the problem has grown exponentially,” said Russell George, the United States Department of Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

And he says the IRS has known about the problem for years.

George has repeatedly warned the IRS that additional child tax credits are being abused by undocumented workers. In 2009, his office released an audit report that showed ITIN tax filers received about $1 billion in additional child tax credits. Last year, the inspector general released a new report showing the problem now costs American tax payers more than $4.2 billion.

“Keep in mind, we’re talking $4 billion per year,” he said. “It’s very troubling.”

What George finds even more troubling is the IRS has not taken action despite multiple warnings from the inspector general.

“Millions of people are seeking this tax credit who, we believe, are not entitled to it,” said the inspector general. “We have made recommendations to [IRS] as to how they could address this, and they have not taken sufficient action in our view to solve the problem.”

Other information obtained from the TIGTA audits include:  

· Claims for additional child tax credits by ITIN filers have skyrocketed during the past decade, from $161 million in 2001 to $4.2 billion in tax year 2010.

· Undocumented workers filed 3.02 million tax returns in 2010. 72% of those returns (2.18 million) claimed the additional child tax credit.

· In 2010, the IRS owed undocumented workers more in claimed additional child tax credits than it collected from those workers in taxes.

Agency responds – sort of

What does the IRS have to say about all this?

The agency sent WTHR a statement, defending its policy of paying tax credits to illegal immigrants.

Full statement to WTHR from the Internal Revenue Service

The law has been clear for over a decade that eligibility for these credits does not depend on work authorization status or the type of taxpayer identification number used. Any suggestion that the IRS shouldn’t be paying out these credits under current law to ITIN holders is simply incorrect. The IRS administers the law impartially and applies it as it is written. If the law were changed, the IRS would change its programs accordingly. The IRS disagrees with TIGTA’s recommendation on requiring additional documentation to verify child credit claims. As TIGTA acknowledges in this report, the IRS does not currently have the legal authority to verify and disallow the Child Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit during return processing simply because of the lack of documentation. The IRS has procedures in place specifically for the evaluation of questionable credit claims early in the processing stream and prior to issuance of a refund. The IRS continues to work to refine and improve our processes.

George disagrees with that position and believes the IRS should be doing more to prevent undocumented workers from getting billions in US tax dollars.

“The IRS is not doing something as simple as requesting sufficient documentation from people seeking this credit,” he said. “Once the money goes out the door, it’s nearly impossible for the IRS to get it back.”

Over the past month, WTHR has tried to ask the IRS more questions about its efforts to prevent abuse involving additional child tax credits.

Despite repeated phone calls, e-mails and a visit to IRS headquarters in Washington, the agency said none of its 100,000 employees had time to meet with 13 Investigates for an interview. An IRS spokeswoman said all staff were too busy because of the tax filing deadline in mid-April.

Apparently, the IRS doesn’t have time to respond to some tax preparers, either.

Last year, our whistleblower noticed dozens of undocumented workers had used phony documents and false income to claim tax credits. He reported all of it to the IRS.

“These were fraudulent, 100% fraudulent tax returns, but I got no response; absolutely none. We never heard a thing,” he said. “To me, it’s clear the IRS is letting this happen.”

The IRS tells WTHR it can do nothing to change the current system unless it gets permission from Congress. In other words, according to the IRS, closing the loophole would require lawmakers to pass a new law specifically excluding illegal immigrants from claiming additional child tax credits.

The big questions now: Is Congress willing to do that?

Lawmakers looking for a fix

“We’ve got to deal with it,” he said. “I knew this was a problem, but until hearing what you found, I didn’t know it was this severe.”

Rep. Burton and dozens of other House Republicans have co-sponsored a bill that would essentially authorize additional child tax credits only for US citizens. House Resolution 1956 would require tax filers to provide a valid social security number to receive an additional child tax credit.

The IRS provides illegal immigrants with an ITIN (individual taxpayer identification number) so they can file tax returns, but most undocumented workers are not eligible to receive a social security number.

HR 1956 has sat idle in the House Ways and Means Committee for almost a year.

However, language from the bill is now included in a package of proposed budget savings measures that House lawmakers are expected to consider in May. While the budget package may have enough support to pass the House, it is expected to die a quick death in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“This should not be a partisan issue because we’re all concerned about saving taxpayer dollars and not wasting them on fraudulent things like this,” said Rep. Burton. “But I don’t think Democrats want to deal with this with right now.”

Not all Democrats are opposed to limiting additional child tax credits to US citizens.

Last fall, Senator Claire McCaskill (D – Mo) sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman asking him to stop the agency’s payments of additional child tax credits to undocumented workers. “This is deeply problematic and must be remedied,” the senator wrote.

But few other Democratic lawmakers have voiced support for eliminating the child tax credits for undocumented workers.

Republicans plan to keep pushing the issue forward.

“This rampant abuse of hardworking taxpayer dollars is just wrong,” said Rep. Sam Johnson (R – Tex), who authored HR 1956. “It’s time we close this tax loophole and put a stop to the child tax credit sham.”

Rep. Burton agrees.

“I’m a taxpayer, and the thought of me paying for 24 people who are living in one trailer boggles my mind, especially when you tell me most of them are still living in Mexico. That’s unconscionable.” he said.

“Who’s going to help?”

Many undocumented workers see the issue very differently.

“It’s not taking advantage. I’m very thankful to this country for the help it gives me,” said an illegal immigrant in central Indiana, who decided to talk with 13 Investigates as long as we agreed not to reveal his identity.

The worker has lived in the United States for 14 years. He owns a home in Indiana, pays taxes and is raising three children who are all honor roll students. This year, he received a $9,000 tax refund that includes additional child tax credits – not only for his children who live in Indiana, but also for four nieces and nephews in Mexico.

The tax credits help him care for his young family members south of the border, and he says attempts by Congress to revoke the credits could have dire consequences.

“Who’s going to help them if they’re not eligible … to avoid them ending up in the drug mafia, begging in the street, being raped? What happens when they get sick?” he asked. “There’s a lot of things that could happen to them if you don’t help … When you come here [to the United States], to your family down there, you are their hope.”

Taking additional child tax credits away from undocumented workers would also have an impact on millions of children legally living in this country. Children of illegal immigrants who are born in the US are legal US citizens and, in many cases, those children would no longer be eligible to receive the tax credits under proposals like HR 1956.

But the inspector general insists refundable tax credits were never intended for illegal immigrants – let alone people who’ve never stepped foot in the United States.

“It’s being abused by people who are not entitled to use it, and that’s problematic,” George told Eyewitness News.

“It’s cheating the American taxpayer,” agreed Burton. “We all believe in humanity and humanitarianism, but we’ve got a $15 trillion national debt. We can’t subsidize the whole world.”

What can you do?

Congress may be voting on a budget measure in the coming weeks, and a budget reconciliation package now being considered in the House of Representatives contains language that would limit additional child tax credits to US citizens with a valid social security number. If you feel strongly about this issue – one way or another – now is a good time to let your lawmakers know

 

This proves to us we as a nation cannot afford to be divided any longer. We must unite. Congress knows there is a problem but they are not doing anything about it…FIRE EVERY INCUMBENT! Simply vote them out of office and send every new public servant to Washington with a mission. Fire every IRS agent that knew about this and did nothing. If we as a nation will not unite, it is all over except for the division of your possessions. COME ON AMERICA, WAKE UP!!!! The alarm clock is ringing and sleepy America just keeps on sleeping. It reminds me of a Proverb…Proverbs 6:9-11 in fact, here it is in the New King James Version: “How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep—So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, And your need like an armed man.”

This makes me sick!!!!!!! I work my butt of week after week pay thousands of dollars in taxes, struggle paycheck to paycheck and I’m “lucky” if I get a $200 refund. I may decide to become an illegal immigrant. I can use the extra money. Instead of paying I could be collecting.

The Flat tax/Fair Tax is the answer. Everybody pays their fare share, no deductions, no loopholes. Middle Income America would finally be able to stop supporting the country. (and getting raped by the liberals to do under the table shit like this we would not stand for above the table!)

Its not completely the ignorant voters, its also the Millions of potential (LEGAL may I add) voters who do NOT go vote as well….The Illegals ARE voting and who do you think they want to have in office those who let them come here and do what they do or those who will try to stop them? Easy answer right! Well then who should your vote be for? Another easy answer!!! GO VOTE!!! If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain!!! Do something to make changes!!! It will take ALOT of us to stop this, so we all need to vote tomorrow!!!

And clean out his rat-bastard liberal commie giving my taxes away friends and czars too!

How come the article fails to mention that this is not a “loophole” as much as it is knowing TAX FRAUD? In order for children to be qualified for the Child Tax Credit (and the Additional Child Tax Credit) each child must pass ALL SEVEN of these tests:

1. The child must be a son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them (for example, your grandchild, niece, or nephew),

2. Was under the age of 17

3. Did not provide over half of their own income.

4. LIVED WITH THE TAXPAYER FOR MORE THAN HALF OF THE YEAR.

5. IS CLAIMED AS A DEPENDENT ON THE RETURN.

6. Did not file a joint return for the year

7. IS A US CITIZEN, US NATIONAL, OR RESIDENT ALIEN (i.e. HERE LEGALLY!!!)

This is not a “loophole”, it is not a “mistake.” It is knowing, willful FRAUD. Fine. Pay out legitimate credits for dependents of illegals living here, but drop the hammer on those claiming dependents out of country (or not theirs in the first place). Fraud is fraud, and I’d be put in prison for claiming a dependent that wasn’t mine or did not live with me. LORD KNOWS if you or I tried this the IRS would be on us faster than I can fleece Impish at poker! WHY THEN is the IRS not taking their MANDATED PROPER PROCEEDURES against these people?

At LEAST require of these people an AUDIT even an amended return out of those whom they CAN actually pin down would save BILLIONS potentially! This is just another way of Redistributing the Wealth of the U.S.A. it is One world government stuff, You know the Socialist Utopian dream of Obama and his gang. I can hear all you whiney azzed liberal now tuning up to cry-

 “Unfair! Unjust! It’s NOT Obama’s fault it was going on LONG before he got here!” 

I’ll agree with that, to a point, it WAS going on before he got into office. HOWEVER it was discovered and became an issue and the apparent monumental proportions of the problem have it would seem been know for MOST OF HIS PRESIDENCY if one looks at the date on some of those reports. Yet he’s done nothing about this, no direction to Congress to fix this, no “Mandate by Executive Order” action NOTHING!

Why not? BECAUSE HE APPROVES OF THIS AND WANTS IT! THAT makes it his fault!

(BLESSING NOT VALID FOR: Democrats, Liberals, Bleeding Hearted Illegal Aliens Lovers, Actual Illegal Aliens, the Lame Stream Media, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, their entire combined staffs and the Obama/Biden Cabinet)

Good Morning Campers!  Hope everyone is doing well today!
Well, tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  That holy day that comes but once a year where we try to make our mom’s understand how much we love them and owe to them.  Well, thanks to Gracie for pointing out the following website to us, now you can figure out just exactly how much you owe your mother and it will balance out a complete monetary figure for you relating to the dollar value of the year of your birth.  It will take into account how much you weighed, how long she was in labor, how many drinks she missed by not partaking of alcohol while she was pregnant with you and much, much more.    Go here to work it all out, but watch the video first, it’s really great…http://acflr.org/

Personally, I came in owing my mom at $1,430.98…not sure if that’s good or bad.
We here at Dragon and Leprechaun Laffs Media Group would like to take this opportunity to wish all you mothers out there a happy, happy day! 

“Apparently, I’m supposed to be more angry

 

about what Mitt Romney does with his money

 

than what Barack Obama does with mine!”

I’ve never been spear fishing, but I’m fairly certain this isn’t how it’s done.

Wow.  Talk about a pain in the ass….that really does hurt just looking at it.  I think that was one ladies way of snagging a piece of ass.

Christmas cartoons in May?  There MUST be something wrong with that…or that’s how bloody far behind the dragon is!

 

“Hey, hey!  Buddy!  Can you spare a kibble?”

Paul writes in and says: Great Issue – as always – only improvement I could suggest is more of the same
And Ginny pipes in with: To begin with, thank you and Lethal for adding laughter to our lives twice a week. Your rant on the many terror plots makes us all so very aware….it isn’t over. As I’m sure most people applauded the killing of Osama Bin Laden just a year ago, but you had to know they will seek revenge. So in ending….what can you add or delete from Dragon Laffs…..absolutely nothing! You both do an outstanding job for our enjoyment and political issues to be addressed. Long live DRAGON LAFFS

And the first response to these fine comments comes from Lethal, he writes:

Lethal here~

Thanks for the kind words Ginny & Paul, they’re much appreciated but I think you both might be missing our point slightly. See the whole issue about what should we change, what do the readers want? started with me.

I had noticed that there are some things we do as features, my recipes for example that never garner a single comment here or in our e-mails. This lead me to think nobody is heeding my culinary advice. BELIEVE ME, you do not get to be as ‘fluffy” as Impish and I on your own cooking and do it badly. We both KNOW these recipes are damned good. Others that have received them and tried them outside the blog have told me so. We’ve even gone so far as Impish post photos in an issue of actually making one of my more unusual (abet tasty and mucho munchable) recipes, the Lasagna Cupcakes. Happy House o’ Dragon yes (until they ran out) peep one out of readers not. This has lead me to believe you readers are ambivalent about them at best or totally ignoring them (which means I am wasting my time) and therefore sans announcement drop the segment as a regular feature.

Reader comments to a blog are extremely important for many many reasons-
Obviously letting us know you liked or disliked something. We can’t fix it when its broken or keep it new fresh alive & exciting unless we have some sense of what it is you reader want. Guessing and trying new things blindly wastes a lot of our time. As you’ll recall we were forced to go to the twice a week format because we had so little time to devote to this. Impish and I are always trying to create the best blog we can but need to do that by making the most of the time we have available to spend on this. That means working smarter and from better intel not harder or blindly flailing around in the dark guesstamating what it is you’d like to see.
Creating (an oft mentioned as a point of our blog) meaningful dialog & discussion about a subject or idea.
Pointing out errors in facts, articles or logic presented.
A means of suggesting topic and items for coverage or things you’d like to see us tackle regularly.
Sharing a laugh (usually at a liberal’s expense and/or offering the opportunity for witty repartee
Gauging just how many people we are actually reaching and provoking to thought or action as opposed to how many people are reading the blog. An old Marine aviator once told me as he played duck and cover in a sandbagged foxhole where I was commenting on the wisdom of our being where we were with regards to the amount of heavy small arms fire we were taking “when the flack is the heaviest you know your over the right target” Winston Churchill said “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” While both of these are certainly true, it’s also important to know you have friends and allies, those tell you you are fighting the right fights, the important ones, the ones that matter and help to gauge your success in the battle.
SO as you can see, things like, “As you were fellas” & “Lay on MacDuff & liberal be he that first cries Foul! untrue!” or “Steady as you go helmsman” while much appreciated and nice to hear aren’t really what were looking for at this moment and are of little or no help with our annual review to make plans to freshen things up.

And I most whole heartedly agree.  While we love to hear “good job, fellas” and the like, right now we need honest feedback from you guys letting us know what ELSE you’d like to see, what would you like to see more of, what would you like to see less of?  You need to put fingers to keyboards and let us know your honest feelings.
As to the rest of it, well, I couldn’t have said it better then the green one.  I look forward to seeing the responses to this (probably on Monday since I have killer hours this weekend) and be able to talk them over with LL and see where we’d like our future paths to take us.
Cheers,
Impish Dragon

You know, we talked last week about the state of the world and how we can’t take our eyes off the targets of global terrorism and the threats that other countries have on our lives and our livelihoods, now tonight I read how some poor woman in Florida, fired a warning shot because she was in fear for her life from her husband and she is going to spend 20 years in jail (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/justice/florida-stand-ground-sentencing/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn) Oh, come on people, really?  This is right?  This is justice?
Okay, then how about these paragons of justice from this month’s Reader’s Digest:
Before his term came to an end in January, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour granted clemency to a man convicted of murdering his wife in 1993.  The felon, David Glenn Gatlin wasn’t the only violent offender to be released.  Barbour also freed three other murders, all of whom had worked, while prisoners, at the governor’s mansion.  Barbour insists his decision was “based on repentance, rehabilitation, and redemption, leading to forgiveness.” – Biloxi Sun Hearld
or, how about the kids who sued their mother for sending birthday cards without gifts?
A convict sued a couple he kidnapped for not helping him escape.

and on and on and on…. http://www.rd.com/slideshows/thats-outrageous/   What is wrong with this country?  We need to do something about it.
And our chance is coming in November.
Vote your conscience.

 What?! Everyone in the whole damned neighborhood has been planting flowers and stuff that they’ll have to water twice a day or it will be dead inside 3 weeks. Beautification they call it,  I call it a waste of time, money and a great way to suffer hay fever and a sore back.

My solution? I rounded up about a dozen illegally migrant mythical forest creatures and a hand full of fairies, went to Lowes & the Garden Center. I had it all delivered to the gate of the Estate and promised 6 large pizzas, a gallon of Hawaiian Punch for the migrants and a can of Red Bull for each of the faries (it gives them wings!) when the work was completed.

The fairies having no sense of proportion, and hoping for a tip on top of their pay (in the form of additional pizza)  plus already buzzing around at warp speed from the single can of Red Bull I let them share went a little over the top with the flower bed what can I say. I’m not complaining though, the thing waters itself, its down wind so I don’t have to snort the pollen and live on Benadryl constantly. Plus I understand 2 of the illegally migrant Gnomes have taken up residence in it someplace and are paying rent by tending it.

 

 

 

 

Witch of the South
You all remember that in the movie “The Wizard of Oz”, the wicked witch of the East was killed by the falling house, the witch of the West stalked Dorothy and was killed by water, and Glenda, the Witch of the North helped Dorothy get home.  There is no mention of the witch of the South. Here’s what she would probably be like:
CLOTHING –
West: Black hat and cape
North: Pink formal dress
South: Tube top and spandex
NOTABLE FEATURES –
West: Green Nose
North: Flawless Beauty
South: Beehive Hairdo
FAVORITE DRINK –
West: Potions
North: Morning Dew
South: Moonshine/Mint Julep
FOOD –
West: Apples from talking trees
North: Poppies
South: Moon Pies
HOUSE –
West: Large black castle
North: In the sky?
South: Why else would tornados be attracted to mobile homes?
TRANSPORTATION –
West: Broom
North: Bubble
South: Pink Cadillac (That was a yellow bricked ROAD, not a sidewalk)
FRIENDS –
West: Flying Monkeys
North: Munchkins
South: Hound Dogs
DESIRES –
West: The ruby slippers
North: For Dorothy to learn her lesson
South: A full mouth of teeth
FEARS –
West: Water, a house falling on her
North: She’ll mess up her hair
South: Revenuers
WEAPONS –
West: Ball of fire
North: Snow
South: Shot Gun
FAVORITE SAYINGS –
West: I’ll get you, my pretty
North: There’s no place like home
South: Ya’ll ain’t from around here, are ya?
DEALING WITH PROBLEMS –
West: Make Dorothy wait until the sand runs out on the hourglass
North: Make Dorothy run all over Oz looking for the Emerald City
South: Just click them heels, Darlin’, and get yourself home.

 

Bank of America Allegedly Drops McMillan Gun Company For ‘Political’ Reasons

McMillan Group International, a company that manufactures firearms and accessories, is claiming that Bank of America asked them find another bank for “political” reasons.

The company, whose different entities have been doing business with Bank of America for more than twelve years, says it has never made a late payment, and never bounced a check.

On Thursday, the Director of Operations Kelly McMillan explained on McMillan’s Facebook page:

Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking [of Bank of America] came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an ‘account analysis’ meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent 5 minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last 5 years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.

At this point I interrupted him and asked, ‘Can I [possibly] save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath?  What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.’

‘That is correct’ he [said].

I replied ‘That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a 2nd Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business.  You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?’

‘You have to do what you must’ he said.

‘So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?’

Mr Fox confirmed that it was.  At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.

The Daily Caller is reporting, in addition, that the bank representative remarked, “We have to assess the risk of doing business with a firearms related industry.”

Many ask, what risk would that be?  Are there really enough people who would refuse to do business with Bank of America over having McMillan as a client that it justifies discontinuing the decade-long relationship?

And when the representative allegedly agreed that the motivation was “political,” did he mean among clients and executives, or government officials?

As a bank that received $20 billion in the bailout, many are outraged that the company seemingly finds constitutional rights a professional liability.

McMillan has thanked the public for its support over Facebook, writing: “I know this is not about McMillan. It’s about the possibility of losing our freedom and right to keep and bear arms. If this had happened to any other company I am sure all of you would have been on their web page shouting your allegiance to the cause.”

The company assures its clients that many competing banks have offered their services, and Kelly McMillan is looking to see whether the company can stop accepting Bank of America cards.

McMillan Group International  [Facebook where announcement was made (you don’t have to sign up or in to see it)] https://www.facebook.com/McMillanGroupInternational/posts/10150946905673368

Bank of America Denies a Small Business for Making Guns?

Kelly McMillan, McMillan Group International director of operations, who claims Bank of America denied doing business with the company because it manufactures guns. http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1618082676001/bofa-denies-a-small-business-for-making-guns

Am I the only one that the irony of a bank calling itself “Bank of America” refusing to do business with a company focus ton helping Americans exercise their Second Amendment rights?

Bank of America is NOT all THAT solvent that it can afford to lose the accounts of 4 million small business owners. I personally use them for my small business as well as my personal banking. That is about to change By the time you read this on Wednesday 05/09/2012 I will already have begun to process of separating myself both bossiness and personally from Bank of American. I will tell them bluntly that I could over look the constant nickel and dime charges and the regular increases in fees but I refuse to overlook them attempting to squash my Second Amendment rights like this for POLITICAL reasons.

Please consider doing likewise. please see that you pass this information along to as many others as possible. Banks understand one thing money and the power it brings and wields.  Lets wield the power of our money and bring it to bare on Bank of Americ and express our displeasure and disgust in their business practices by decimating their bottom line.

 “You can call us rednecks if you want-we’re not offended, because we know what we’re all about. We get up and go to work, we get up and go to church, and we get up and go to war when necessary.” — Jeff Foxworthy

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you know gender is a social construct, but have no idea where electricity comes from.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think the “evil” of Stalinist regimes is overstated and the tyranny of the American regime is never stated enough.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe portraying Bush as the Joker is political satire, but portraying Obama as the Joker is racist.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . if you believe Glenn Beck is an extremist because Keith Olbermann told you so.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . if you think America is a cesspool of fat lobotomized WalMart Jesusbots who have the gall to question your patriotism.

Code Pink Activist

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe in the separation of Church and State; Mosque and State, not so much.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe that hurricanes are caused by people, and that crime is caused by the environment.

U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Station, Berkeley California

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think that treating all people equally, regardless of race, is racist.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you burn tons of carbon to attend a global warming conference that only sanctions the cleanest nation on Earth.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe in having dialog with your opponents, and that they’d better shut up during this dialog.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think everyone would agree with you if they were open minded, and you refuse to listen to any other possibility.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe that a mosque should be built at Ground Zero, but Jews shouldn’t build apartments in East Jerusalem.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . if all your political arguments contain the phrase, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe that Pro-Life violates right of privacy, but you want to tell people they can’t eat french fries.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe that immersing a crucifix in urine is fine art, but depicting the prophet Mohammed is insensitive.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think the problem is that Obama is just too darn moderate.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you spend your day telling people that a border fence can’t work, then drive home to your gated community.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think Sarah Palin was too inexperienced to be VP but that Obama had plenty of experience to be President.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think the Right needs to be rounded up in camps to prevent them from acting like Nazis.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think credit card companies are evil when they lend money, and mortgage companies are evil when they don’t.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you believe education is A) the single most critical key to our future, and B) impossible to measure.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think people have too many kids, and that those kids need to pay for your Social Security.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think the Government should be obsessed with race, but no one else should ever mention it.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think banks earning money on interest is wrong, but paying interest to China on the national debt is just peachy.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you think subsidies are an entitlement, tax cuts are a gift, and liberty is a controlled substance.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you totally hate haters, and wish those violent bastards would just die.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you’ve ever worried about the threat of Tea Party violence during a Dick Cheney heart attack thread on Kos.

You might be a liberal if . . .
. . . you are running low on Valium this weekend due to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally.

 

 

The managing partners of Dewy Cheatum & Howe, (a whole owned subcideary of Pot o’ Gold Ponzi Schemes & Enterprise Worldwide) is proud to announce a new arm of its Specialty Division of Legal Firms:

 

 

 

Who Said That?

Who Said That? This is a fun quiz….Listed below are 10 direct quotes. You have to guess which American politician said it. Your four choices are: Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Former VP Dan Quayle, President Barack Obama, and Former President George W. Bush…

Ready? Here you go!

1)”Let me be absolutely clear…Israel is a strong friend of Israel.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

2) “I’ve now been in 57 states I think one left to go.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

3) “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

4) “What they’ll say is, ‘Well it costs too much money,’ but you know what? It would cost, about. It it it would cost about the same as what we would spend. It. Over the course of 10 years it would cost what it would costs us. (nervous laugh) All right. Okay. We’re going to. It. It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about hold on one second. I can’t hear myself. But I’m glad you’re fired up, though. I’m glad.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

5) “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice , savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

6) “I bowled a 129. It’s like – it was like the Special Olympics, or something.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

7) “Of the many responsibilities granted to a president by our Constitution, few are more serious or more consequential than selecting a Supreme Court just ice . The members of our highest court are granted life tenure, often serving long after the presidents who appointed them. And they are charged with the vital task of applying principles put to paper more than 20 centuries ago to some of the most difficult questions of our time.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

8) “Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

9) “It was interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian, wheeling and dealing.”
A.. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

10) “I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.”
A. Barack Obama
B. Dan Quayle
C. Sarah Palin
D. George W. Bush

Sorry, this was a trick quiz…All of the correct answers are the same person. Each of these quotes are directly from President Barack Obama. And now you know why he brings his teleprompter with him everywhere he goes…even when talking to a 6th grade class.

And some members of the media continue to insist he is, “The smartest man ever elected to the Presidency.” Yeah Right!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Obama administration official says al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden wanted to see President Barack Obama assassinated.

Gee, who would have ever imagined that 31% of Americans or 63 million people (Republicans) would ever have something in common with the most notorious terrorist mastermind of modern history?

The Top 5 Euphemisms for “Breaking Wind”

[Notice how this subject comes right after a reference to Impish then feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding the segue way]

5> Steam-pressing the Calvins
4> Humming the theme from “Mr. Bean”
3> Entering the sphincter chat room
2> Exhuming the dinner corpse

and The Number 1 Euphemism for “Breaking Wind”…

1> Testing in the Levi Wind Tunnel
[ Copyright 2000 by Chris White ] http://www.topfive.com

125,000 Dominoes – Inventions – CDT 2010 (HD/3D)

This breathtaking video has one of the most intricate domino setups you will ever see. With 125,000 dominoes, you’ll be glad you’re not the person who has to clean it up!

 

 

 

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!

The iconic writer scolds the superrich (including himself—and Mitt Romney) for not giving back, and warns of a Kingsian apocalyptic scenario if inequality is not addressed in America.

by Stephen King | April 30, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

Chris Christie may be fat, but he ain’t Santa Claus. In fact, he seems unable to decide if he is New Jersey’s governor or its caporegime, and it may be a comment on the coarsening of American discourse that his brash rudeness is often taken for charm. In February, while discussing New Jersey’s newly amended income-tax law, which allows the rich to pay less (proportionally) than the middle class, Christie was asked about Warren Buffett’s observation that he paid less federal income taxes than his personal secretary, and that wasn’t fair. “He should just write a check and shut up,” Christie responded, with his typical verve. “I’m tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he’s got the ability to write a check—go ahead and write it.”

Heard it all before. At a rally in Florida (to support collective bargaining and to express the socialist view that firing teachers with experience was sort of a bad idea), I pointed out that I was paying taxes of roughly 28 percent on my income. My question was, “How come I’m not paying 50?” The governor of New Jersey did not respond to this radical idea, possibly being too busy at the all-you-can-eat cheese buffet at Applebee’s in Jersey City, but plenty of other people of the Christie persuasion did.

Cut a check and shut up, they said.

If you want to pay more, pay more, they said.

Tired of hearing about it, they said.

Tough shit for you guys, because I’m not tired of talking about it. I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing “Disco Inferno” than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar. It’s true that some rich folks put at least some of their tax savings into charitable contributions. My wife and I give away roughly $4 million a year to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts. Warren Buffett does the same; so does Bill Gates; so does Steven Spielberg; so do the Koch brothers; so did the late Steve Jobs. All fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer saying, “OK, I’ll write a $2 million bonus check to the IRS.” That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry.

Photos: Rich People for Higher Taxes

And hey, why don’t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.

The Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids, but they’re giving right-wing creepazoids. Here’s an example: 68 million fine American dollars to Deerfield Academy. Which is great for Deerfield Academy. But it won’t do squat for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where food fish are now showing up with black lesions. It won’t pay for stronger regulations to keep BP (or some other bunch of dipshit oil drillers) from doing it again. It won’t repair the levees surrounding New Orleans. It won’t improve education in Mississippi or Alabama. But what the hell—them li’l crackers ain’t never going to go to Deerfield Academy anyway. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.

Tired of hearing about it, they said. Tough shit for you guys, because I’m not tired of talking about it. I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them?

At the risk of repeating myself, here’s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don’t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme cap you’re wearing. If it says MADE IN AMERICA, I’ll … well, I won’t say I’ll eat your shorts, because some of that stuff is made here, but not much of it. And what does get made here doesn’t get made by America’s small cadre of polluted bloatocrats; it’s made, for the most part, in barely-gittin’-by factories in the Deep South, where the only unions people believe in are those solemnized at the altar of the local church (as long as they’re from different sexes, that is).

The U.S. senators and representatives who refuse even to consider raising taxes on the rich—they squall like scalded babies (usually on Fox News) every time the subject comes up—are not, by and large, superrich themselves, although many are millionaires and all have had the equivalent of Obamacare for years. They simply idolize the rich. Don’t ask me why; I don’t get it either, since most rich people are as boring as old, dead dog shit. The Mitch McConnells and John Boehners and Eric Cantors just can’t seem to help themselves. These guys and their right-wing supporters regard deep pockets like Christy Walton and Sheldon Adelson the way little girls regard Justin Bieber … which is to say, with wide eyes, slack jaws, and the drool of adoration dripping from their chins. I’ve gotten the same reaction myself, even though I’m only “baby rich” compared with some of these guys, who float serenely over the lives of the struggling middle class like blimps made of thousand-dollar bills.

In America, the rich are hallowed. Even Warren Buffett, who has largely been drummed out of the club for his radical ideas about putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to patriotism, made the front pages when he announced that he had stage-1 prostate cancer. Stage 1, for God’s sake! A hundred clinics can fix him up, and he can put the bill on his American Express black card! But the press made it sound like the pope’s balls had just dropped off and shattered! Because it was cancer? No! Because it was Warren Buffett, he of Berkshire-Hathaway!

I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

This has to happen if America is to remain strong and true to its ideals. It’s a practical necessity and a moral imperative. Last year during the Occupy movement, the conservatives who oppose tax equality saw the first real ripples of discontent. Their response was either Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake”) or Ebenezer Scrooge (“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”). Short-sighted, gentlemen. Very short-sighted. If this situation isn’t fairly addressed, last year’s protests will just be the beginning. Scrooge changed his tune after the ghosts visited him. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, lost her head.

Think about it.

Mr. King is quite right on several points but foremost his last one about Tea Partiers and their intense dislike of anything that dips into their pocket. Some of that dislike from where I sit is not unjustified, a great deal of it however certainly is. It is not permissible or conscionable to place the amassing of personal wealth over the REASONABLE needs of the Government. On the flip side Occupiers have a FEW (very few sadly) valid points. Continuation of the low interest student loans and the expansion of the Federal Education Grant System- {FOR THE DESERVING student with a decent academic track record.] Limits on the amounts Corporations can spend on elections, the return to “sound Money”

However the Tea Party and the Occupiers are about as diametrically opposed as you can possibly get (and likely will become a future teaching example of the concept). We here at DL/LL often mention how we take the middle ground, how we are Concintrists, seeing Pros & Cons in most points of the compass and wanting a Government that practices give and take compromise governing rather that partisan politics trench warfare in the aisles of Congress at the expense of the people they we sent there to represent.

This issue of tax reform is a prime example for our point. The is a very simple middle ground salutation to the problem and issue one that gives relief to the middle class while not overly gouging the upper class so they feel they are being penalized for being successful or rich. A compromise that goes a long way to smoothing out & leveling the tax field. Its called overhauling the fantastically overly complex and loophole ridden tax system and switching to a FlatTtax or Fair Tax.

Definition of ‘Flat Tax’

A system that applies the same tax rate to every taxpayer regardless of income bracket. A flat tax applies the same tax rate to all taxpayers, with no deductions or exemptions allowed. Supporters of a flat tax system propose that it would give taxpayers incentive to earn more because they would not be penalized with a higher tax bracket. In addition, supporters argue that a flat tax system is fairer because it imposed the tax on all taxpayers regardless of income.

 Definition fair tax

Proposed amendment to tax laws that seeks to abolish federal and state income taxes and replace it with a federal retail sales tax. This amendment was introduced under the Fair Tax Act of 2003

This is as opposed to;

Definition of ‘Progressive Tax’

A tax that takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income earners than it does from low-income individuals. The United States income tax is considered progressive: in 2010, individuals who earned up to $8,375 fell into the 10% tax bracket, while individuals earning $373,650 or more fell into the 35% tax bracket. Basically, taxpayers are broken down into categories based on taxable income; the more one earns, the more taxes they will have to pay once they cross the benchmark cut-off points between the different tax bracket levels.

Which is what we operate under now.

HOWEVER before I will happily accept a Flat Tax or Fair Tax ,the tax code needs to be overhauled the loopholes closed. What kind of loopholes you ask? Well, for one how about;

Illegal immigrants are filing tax returns and using a loophole to get back mega bucks in refunds.

Everyone who is employed (illegals too) must report income and pay taxes. Undocumented workers don’t have social security numbers so instead, the IRS supplies them with a ITIN which is an individual taxpayer identification number. This number allows them to file a tax return.

Now here comes the loophole. It is called the Additional Child Tax Credit and it is a fully refundable credit of up to $1,000 per child. It’s purpose is to help working families who have children living at home.

Many of these undocumented workers are filing for children that live in Mexico! The more dependents you have, the more money you get back. It’s like winning the lottery every spring. The whistleblower said that refunds of $10,000 are not at all unusual.  [ Don’t worry we’re going to get WAY deeper into this issue next week. That’s the problem with doing this only once a week, too many really good Parting Shot subjects can happen in any given week!]

Then there’s a few other things aside from the tax code that while not part of the code are from a certain point of view connected to the taxes we all pay.

• No tax deductions for non citizens! If you are a US citizen and live in a foreign country you get HAMMERED in taxes. Why are we giving non citizens the same benefits and breaks as citizens?
• Tax Churches! If religious organizations want to interfere in our governance and politics, lobby for laws to suit their religious doctrines which the rest of us regardless of our religious choices will be forced to obey once they become law. They lobby and contribute heavily to political campaigns to get their candidate elected to further their non secular agendas just as if they were large corporations so why not make them subject to the same rules and regulations as corporations. Their definition of separation of church and state  in one of abuse of the concept which gives them an unreasonable advantage and is certainly NOT what the Founding Fathers had in mind for the principle. I say take the gloves off and level the playing field.
• Reset the compensation packages for Congress to what they were originally intended to be- livable stipends for non permanent jobs. The Founding Fathers never intended for Congress to be a long term career for anyone. Congress has helped itself to our pockets and taxes for long enough. Show me any other profession where you can be a bunch of professional screws ups, keep your jobs and while failing to do the job award yourself a raise any time you want one. Raises  should follow a set Cost of Living Adjustment, Any changes to base salaries should be subject a vote by the populace at election time every 2 years.  You serve 2 years in Congress are a total screw up and off and you can retire with 1005 of you pay for life. However you can spend 20 years in the military, see combat be wounded exist under hardship conditions for months at a time and when you get out you’re LUCKY to retire on 505 and the same congress will be busily eroding your benefits package and your medical will be provided in over crowded disgustingly filthy substandard conditions! I say if its good enough for the men & women of our military its good enough for Congress who in a 20 year career undoubtedly had it much better off.
• Enough already with the Foreign Aid to hostile countries and those countries blowing smoke in our face about their harboring terrorists and their training facilities! You take our money, that comes with expectations & obligations. There is no such thing as free lunch of no strings attached money. Stop throwing our tax dollars into a bottomless money pit from which zero positive results are obtained.

<Whiningly> But Lethal! WE have treaties and International agreements where we are required to give the aid we agreed to!

Yeah? Like the other side of most of those agreements are keeping their ends of the bargains? Screw them all. Declare the treaties and International Agreements in abeyance and forget them. We’ll keep or money you keep your diseased squalor and your 3rd world 18th century way of life. Oh yea if you decide to prey on our citizen over it will use our 21st century technology to find you and make an ugly scorch mark out of you your friends, your family, your relatives, your clan/tribe, your village, province &/or ethnic region. Sorry Schmuck, you had your shot at the sugar cube now you get the lead filled stick.

See from where I sit in the middle of things the solution is easy to see. The bigger problem is the whole tax issue is a two sided coin. On one side how to FAIRLY and Reasonably obtain money form everyone and on the other fixing it so that government can do more with less from each of us.