Okay, okay…I have just finished this as my last self-produced media project of 2009 and since I have SO many friends here, I wanted to share with all of you 1st…WHOOPEE~ …everyone exclaims in unison! LOL~

Seriously, this might be considered market research for a grander multi-media plan I have swirling in my thick skull…

Please be kind, yet constructive in your ravenous attacks on my attempt at spoken word poetry for the new decade…

Thief in the temple as read by the author, Scott Palmer

Happy New Year to the wonderful members and readers that have made 2009 an incredible year for PlanetPOV!

The Planet officially opened in August 2009 with the 4 founding members, myself, KQuark, Kalima and KevenSeven.

As of today, we have 199 members (anyone know of someone who could make it an even 200 by tomorrow?),  448 Articles published and 22,330 Comments posted.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some impressive stats about our site with all of you since you have made this all happen. According to Awstats on our server:

Total Number of Visits This Month (Dec 2009):

11,416

Total Number of Pages Viewed This Month (Dec 2009):

636,042

Total Number of Hits This Month (Dec 2009):

2,011,382

We also have some remarkable results from Google Analytics. They provide baseline numbers for sites of similar sizes and we are far and away exceeding the norms. Before getting to the nerdy numbers, here is some fun info on who’s visiting The Planet:

Number of Countries with Visitors to The Planet This Month:

61

Countries with Visitors to The Planet This Month (in order):

1. United States
2. Japan
3. United Kingdom
4. Canada
5. New Zealand
6. Germany
7. Slovenia
8. Nicaragua
9. Philippines
10. India
11. Barbados
12. Hong Kong
13. Australia
14. (not set)
15. Singapore
16. France
17. Turkey
18. Malaysia
19. China
20. Ireland
21. Russia
22. Pakistan
23. Senegal
24. Spain
25. Denmark
26. United Arab Emirates
27. Iran
28. Nigeria
29. Taiwan
30. South Africa
31. Switzerland
32. Hungary
33. Sweden
34. Israel
35. Argentina
36. Ghana
37. Luxembourg
38. Kuwait
39. Slovakia
40. Kyrgyzstan
41. Italy
42. Poland
43. Latvia
44. Lesotho
45. Sri Lanka
46. Thailand
47. Norway
48. Serbia
49. Guam
50. Indonesia
51. Côte d’Ivoire
52. Iraq
53. Dominican Republic
54. Netherlands
55. Austria
56. Czech Republic
57. Puerto Rico
58. Egypt
59. Papua New Guinea
60. Vietnam
61. Jamaica
62. Mauritius

Er…anyone know where Mauritius is? Actually, if you’re curious:

Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar. And someone there reads PlanetPOV too!

Now for some nerdy stuff, according to Google Analytics, here are yesterday’s numbers for The Planet and the average for sites of similar size:

Page Views in a Single Day (Dec 30):

PlanetPOV: 4,572
Similar Sites:  395

Average Visitor’s Time on Site on Dec 30:

PlanetPOV: 21:32
Similar Sites: 2:23

Pages Viewed Per Visit on Dec 30th

PlanetPOV: 15.55
Similar Sites: 3.35

Bounce Rate on Dec 30th (Percent of Visitors who view one page then leave)

PlanetPOV:  00.37%
Similar Sites:47.77%

All of our numbers and viewership are phenomenal! People all around the world are interested in and reading what you write. Keeping in mind that 2010 is an election year, I’m anticipating even greater interest and growth in The Planet this year.

So we’re off to a roaring start in 2010, we have a lot of momentum and everyone reading this deserves to take some credit for that.

I wish each of you a very happy, healthy and productive New Year and sincere gratitude from all the founders for everything you’ve contributed to this remarkable community of remarkable people we call PlanetPOV.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

In perusing the headlines at HP, I stumbled upon a very interesting article by Congressman Eric Massa of New York. Apparently, the most recent personal attack on President Obama by a certain former vice-president has finally provoked a strong response from a Democrat. In the article, he also cites Senator Jim DeMint for his obstruction in the confirmation process for the head of the TSA.

“Bring It On” Dick Cheney and Jim DeMint

It is time, as Rep. Massa states, for Dick Cheney to “put up or shut up”. His critique is no longer valid, nor is it sought by anyone who recognizes the horrible mess left to our new president by Cheney and his cronies. Mr. Cheney no longer has any credibility on national security or any other subject for that matter.

Rep. Massa writes:

Vice President Cheney, Senator DeMint, it’s time for both of you to be held accountable for your failures and your poor decisions.

I challenge both of you to stand in the light of day and debate your record with me. Your partisan attacks are nothing but empty rhetoric and it’s time to declare that we can no longer stand by while you attack our President for working to protect our Nation and for having an honest dialog about what went wrong.

Let’s make a New Year’s Resolution to call out hypocrisy in 2010. Stand against it and any time that former Vice President Dick Cheney opens his hypocritical mouth to continue uttering blather, he needs to be challenged in a straight forward factual manner that will demonstrate the emptiness of his rhetoric.

Let us hope that the good Congressman has stoked the fire, that he has inspired others to speak out loudly. It is time for some good old-fashioned pushback! It is time to control the message! It is time to call out the hypocrisy!

My apologies to those more easily embarrassed as this poem is a bit …well….adult.  My intention was to titillate, not offend.  Perhaps a warm thought before the night ahead….Happy New Year to you all….

How I must confess my sins

From the gondola you stretched out your leg to rise.

Shod in slides and silk from toe to thigh

I stole a glimpse…a flash of flesh sublime

Your mask was transcendental.

You arose as a goddess supreme with a smile that made devils blush.

A feather and a sequin, your costume so seraphic

Lewd thoughts spun ‘round my filthy skull

Do masquerade my ossessione.

The air is thick with lust and the fire of Erasmus.

Our eyes meeting for a moment…a teasing glance upon the dance floor.

In a hallway under a flickering flame, I wrest you.

We fall upon coats and cloaks atop a chamber rest.

Gripping and twisting, we are one at long last.

Flesh upon flesh, profound passion is now our religion.

I am released and thrown to the stars with sweat slung away!

You stand before me with a piercing eye.

Through your jewels and feathers, I know what you won’t say.

The musicians play perfection down the hall.

Your gondola falls away into the haze of the steamy, moonlit night.

Scott Palmer -

WHILE you may still be preparing your lunch, other regions in the World are celebrating the new year already, among which are Tonga, Samoa, Japan, the Philippines, eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few.

So it’s hight time for you to shift into hight gear, get dressed, get your supper ready, get out the drinks and get seriously tipsy just in time to celebrate the demise of the past, exhausted and tired old year – and welcome the birth of a new, young, hopeful, energetic and – perhaps – better year for all mankind.

May all wars end, may all fools lean to understand and may the coming year prove, that hope CAN bring change.

I love you guys and chicks. Take good care of yourself in 2010 and, time and means allowing, take good care for one another, too.

Auld Lang Syne

Good luck, good love, good food and good wine to all you wonderful bloggers out there in the blogosphere (less Trolls!) from the big, bad Mogamboguru!

One of the things I love about the Internet is the vast amount of information and idea’s that we can access, especially all the conspiracy theory’s that abound… Since most of us seem to be politically aware we are all familiar with the ones that run their course everytime a politician sneezes… Every President has them and usually they are all about the same ole “who controls him behind the scenes”  “follow the money” and “he has secret male/female lovers”…  President Obama is bombarded with more than his fair share and they are different this time around in the fact they step beyond the same ole same ole challenging his legitimacy to serve… We are now dealing with people taking false information and fake documents into Court Rooms (Birthers) ,the rumor mill of his faith(secret Muslim) and even idiots going on air and flatly stating that he is secretly hates white people… All this aimed at distracting the public and in my view created out of fear that President Obama might actually be the one chance to heal the divide felt in this country…

These no talent political conspiracy hacks are taking all the fun out of ”Conspiracy”… Gone are they days it seems of the Secret Society New World Order Bilderberger Shapeshifting Reptilian Behind The Scenes Puppet Masters…  After watching the pathetic unimaginative attempts by “Orly” I find myself longing for the old guard Conspiracy Experts(David Icke, Jeff Rense,Alex Jones), at least these people have some imagination…

To conclude I would like to ring in the New Year with some good ole fashioned “Conspiracy’s” and change the Conspiracy Dialogue back to  having a bit of fun and at the very least a minor resemblance of intelligence… I will start by sharing a couple of links and I am looking forward to yours…

Put on your Tin Foil Hats Planetiers  because it is a Blue Moon tonight and you know what that means…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/889951.stm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/beyond-fluoride-pharmaceu_b_398874.html

DISCLAIMER: The author of this post does not condone the practice of putting cutsie clothes on pets…

…to wish all of you a joyous New year

and to thank  you for the warm welcome

you have given me here at Planet.

abby

My alarm goes off every morning without fail; for better or worse, it has a battery backup.  My alarm doesn’t blare rock or  heavy metal, smooth jazz or classical.  Rather than be scared-out-of-my-mind-awake, I prefer “The Voice,” the soothing voice of  Carl Kassel on NPR’s Morning Edition.  Well, today was Mr. Kassel’s last morning news broadcast. Now what? What am I going to do?

Hear his interview with Renee Montagne and listen to his final broadcast:

Carl Kasell: After 30 Years, A Chance To Sleep In

Hey all!

It seems like a good time, as we head into the New Year to catch up on some blogging biz:

1. QUOTING ARTICLES

You are welcome to quote any articles that you want to in your Articles. However, we do need to respect copyrights so please limit your quote to about two average paragraphs.

Feel free to paraphrase any or all info in the source article in your Article.

Please include a link to the full article too for the benefit of members here and the original author and site who published it.

2. TECHNICAL QUESTIONS AND OT COMMENTS

We have recently set up a Help Desk. Any and all questions you have about the site, how to do something or if it seems something isn’t working properly, please post your question there so we can answer you swiftly and other members can benefit from the exchange.

You can go to the Help Desk by clicking the link that appears in the far right column, titled, “CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE HELP DESK”. You can also bookmark the link so it’s handy: http://planetpov.com/2009/12/24/help-desk . Don’t forget to check back at the Help Desk periodically for one or more responses!

Posting questions in other threads can disrupt those threads and we aspire to show all members here respect for the thought and effort they invest in their articles by keeping the discussion on the topic they’ve posted about.

As to OT comments, the occasional OT comments here or there are no big deal but when a whole OT sub-thread is spawned in the midst of someone’s post, it will be moved to Morning Blog and members are welcome to continue discussing that thread there.

3.  POSTS OR COMMENTS THAT VIOLATE THE RULES

As always, posts or comments that violate the rules will be removed. Along with them, all replies and conversations about such posts and comments will be sent to moderation and later removed unless a member asks us to post it in Speakers Corner.

Though we are averse to any censorship, our conclusion from experiences on other blogs is that both an inappropriate comment and discussion about it both accomplish the original blogger’s intent of disrupting a thoughtful discussion about the topic at hand.

As the types who post offensive or baiting comments are motivated by their need for attention and needing to feel that they have the power to affect others, we strongly feel that the best approach to protecting the integrity of this community and site is to simply wipe these posts and reactions to them, ignoring the existence of the original offender completely.

That really makes them crazy. Heh!

4. EDITING PUBLISHED POSTS

Due to an issue that arose with the recent version of Wordpress, we’ve had to temporarily limit members from being able to edit their published posts. We hope to resolve this issue swiftly.

UPDATE: The issue has been resolved, members can once again edit their published posts.

In the meantime, please email me at admin@planetpov.com with any changes you want to make in your posts and I will be happy to make them for you. Sorry about this, thanks for your understanding on this.

And thanks so much for helping to make this community and Planet a better place!

Media Matters for America has named Glenn Beck the 2009 misinformer of the year. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fear monger. This charlatan is a danger in ways that we don’t even seem to realize. Beck has been whipping people into a frenzy based upon nothing but sheer speculation, deliberate distortions, and childish association games. He has proven what a conman with a flare for showmanship can truly do. He is the right wing’s own Professor Harold Hill.

My favorite musical of all time is The Music Man. If you’ve not seen this most charming gem then I would encourage you to go rent it the next time you’re making it a “Blockbuster night.” It’s about a con man who makes his living stirring up people’s emotions by painting a picture of disaster and horror that will be the result of some new thing in their small town, and the solution to this new danger is always the item he is selling. The musical ends with him having a change of heart about swindling people after he finds that he’s fallen for a local librarian who’s sharp observations have figured out exactly what his game is.

The character in the film, as potrayed by Robert Preston, is a delighfully entertaining and sympathetic figure. This is in stark contrast to Glenn Beck who is neither delightful nor sympathetic, but the reality is that Beck has been playing the same game as the main character in The Music Man. Nevertheless, the reality of the two figures is the same. As Media Matters puts it:

Glenn Beck’s well of ridiculous was deep and poisonous before he launched his Fox News show, but the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States — and the permissive cheerleading of his Fox News honchos – uncorked the former Morning Zoo shock jock’s unique brand of vitriol, stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, making him an easy choice for Media Matters’ 2009 Misinformer of the Year.

When he wasn’t calling the president a racist, portraying progressive leaders as vampires who can only be stopped by “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers,” or pushing the legitimacy of seceding from the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis and fascists and “the early days of Adolf Hitler.” He wondered, “Is this where we’re headed,” while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin; decoded the secret language of Marxists; and compared the government to “heroin pushers” who were “using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state.”

The reality is that Beck has been looked upon by the left as ridiculously eccentric, but the reality is by far more serious. Many of us watch this con artist with bemused smirks and roll our eyes. The average viewer of Beck’s program often buys into his routine hook, line, and sinker. In fact the right wing views any of us who look upon Beck as a joke look upon us with the same attitude for exactly the same reasons. Jonah Goldberg’s cheer leading is a prime example:

[M]uch of the anti-Beck backlash (He’s an extremist! He’s paranoid! He’s hate-filled!) from the left is hard to take seriously. First, this is a crowd that lets Michael Moore and Janeane Garofalo speak for them, and that celebrated the election of unfunny man Al Franken to the Senate. If you think it’s racist to oppose Obama’s health care reform efforts, it goes without saying that you’ll think Beck is an extremist. This is what liberals always say about popular right-wingers, including Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley. For over 20 years liberals, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, have insisted that Rush Limbaugh is everything from an unpatriotic hatemonger to an enabler of domestic terrorism. It makes sense that they’d give Beck the same business.

You may be wondering if Beck is the “Music Man” then what is this Pied Piper of Hamelin selling? It seems the money is in using his influence to start a gold rush. Ironically, FOX News doesn’t seem to approve of this. As DailyFinance puts it:

Like other news organizations, Fox News prohibits its on-air personalities from making paid product endorsements. But it makes an exception for its commentators who are also radio hosts, who are allowed to perform live reads, says Joel Cheatwood, senior vice president for development.

“When we hired Glenn at Fox News, we hired him with the understanding that he had a well-established, burgeoning radio business, and we had to be accepting of certain elements of that,” Cheatwood tells DailyFinance, noting that Beck’s relationship with Goldline dates back to his time at HLN, CNN’s sister network.

The same understanding applies to Don Imus, who recently started simulcasting his radio show on Fox Business Network. (An MSNBC spokesman says his network has a similar policy in place, while a spokeswoman for CNN said only, “CNN/US anchors and correspondents are prohibited from participating in any paid endorsements of products and services.”)

But the exemption is meant only to apply to live reads, not to the kind of broader spokesmanship Beck, to all appearances, provides Goldline. In particular, Beck’s ubiquity on the Goldline website is not in keeping with Fox’s rules. A Fox spokeswoman said the network’s legal department is taking up the matter with Beck’s agent, George Hiltzik.

So what, if anything, has FOX News done to address this issue? Politico answers that question.

Beck endorses Goldline International, but last week, Fox requested that he clarify his relationship with the firm, prompting it to tweak its trumpeting of Beck’s endorsement. Goldline removed an identification of Beck as a “paid spokesman” from its website, but left the rest of the site – which prominently features his endorsement, photo and a radio interview he did with the company’s president Mark Albarian – intact.

Removal of the “paid spokesman” language from Goldline’s site brought his arrangement with the company in line with a network policy prohibiting “on-air talent from endorsing products or serving as a product spokesperson,” according to Joel Cheatwood, a Fox News executive.

“We asked for clarification. We got it. We’re satisfied. It’s a dead issue,” he told POLITICO.

On Thursday, the network also indicated it would ask Rosland Capital, another gold retailer, to remove from its website the logo for Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show, the O’Reilly Factor, which Rosland features along with an audio clip of O’Reilly urging listeners to buy gold because “The U.S. Dollar is under attack!”

Fox’s concern was that O’Reilly’s endorsement of Rosland was specific to the radio show he no longer does, and Rosland is not a sponsor of his television show.

Rosland spokesman Steve Getzug said the company had not heard from Fox but was already “in the process of pulling the reference down as part of an overall update of Rosland’s website.” He called the O’Reilly endorsement “dated” and said “it’s been a while since the company has updated its website.”

Beck’s critics have not suggested that he was actually influencing the price of gold, which had been rising steadily until this month, by encouraging his fans to buy coins from Goldline.

But some financial analysts and precious metals experts did tell POLITICO that potential gold investors would be wise to look into bullion or exchange traded funds intended to track the price of gold, rather than the coins sold by Goldline and a handful of other firms that advertise on Beck’s shows and those of other conservative talkers. That’s because those firms focus on collectible or antique coins, which they sell for many times the value of the intrinsic gold and promote as being exempt from a potential government seizure of gold like that which occurred under Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. Beck has suggested that gold coins are a good buy now because President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are steering the economy towards disaster.

And that feedback loop – Beck stoking fear of economic collapse, hyping gold as a hedge against collapse, and endorsing a company selling gold – prompted liberals from the watchdog group Media Matters to MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to Comedy Central’s faux-news hosts Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to allege a glaring conflict of interest.

It’s also intersting to note how many other right wing radio show hosts endorse gold too. Consider this other article from Politico:

For years a certain strain of conservative thought has held that there was one sure hedge against economic depression, civil disorder and liberal rule – gold. Now that belief has led to a kind of harmonic convergence between ideology and commerce.

Anyone tuning in to conservative talk radio or Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck shows is bombarded by commercials for gold, mainly in the form of collectible coins, with announcers intoning that inflation and deficits caused by big government spending are devaluing the dollar and making gold the best investment money can buy.

The dire tone sounded in the ads often echo the occasionally apocalyptic economic forecasts of the shows’ hosts, many of whom have endorsement contracts with the gold retailers, appear in their ads, or have had their executives as guests to trash the economic course set by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, and to preach the attractions of gold.

“There’s a natural synergy between conservative talk radio listeners and gold,” said Michael Smerconish, a Philadelphia-based conservative-leaning talk show host who signed a deal to endorse Goldline International, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based retailer when his show entered syndication in January.

And it’s become an increasingly profitable synergy for everyone involved – the retailers, the networks and an array of hosts including O’Reilly and Beck, as well as radio talkers Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Miller, Fred Thompson and G. Gordon Liddy.

This year, Goldline boasted it had become “the exclusive gold and precious metals company” of both Levin’s show and the one hosted by Thompson. Other Goldline endorsers include Beck, Ingraham, Miller and Lars Larson.

It would seem that Glenn Beck has indeed followed the path of Professor Harold Hill. However, instead of playing the nickel-and-dime games of selling instruments for boy’s band, Glenn Beck has struck gold! It makes me wonder what other advertisers are benefiting from the fear mongering we see on the right wing. How many other cons are the being sold to viewers of FOX News and listeners of right wing radio? Are they really crazy? Like a FOX!

McClatchy is running a story this morning asserting that the recent terrorism attempt is going to raise some further obstacles to closing Guantanamo:

Likely casualty of air plot: Obama’s Guantanamo plans

At the center of the issue is the fact that two Guantanamo prisoners, released by the Bush administration in 2007, have been identified as responsible for planning the failed attempt to set off an explosive on Flight 253.

The Obama administration is already dealing with a number of legal entanglements that block the closing of the facility, as well as political opposition from the right. And as it turns out, nearly half of the 198 captives at Guantánamo are citizens of Yemen, 40 of whom have been scheduled for release.

With the likely outcome that, with more Yemenis returning home from Guantanamo, at least some of them will join forces with radical elements in their home country, Mr. Obama faces a difficult situation.

My opinion is that Guantanamo should be closed. It is an affront to the U.S. legal system, and creates problems — spectacularly demonstrated by the recent bombing attempt. Where we have a legal case, we put the person on trial. Where we don’t, we need to release the detainee. The Guantanamo situation is a similar to what happens when we put innocent or harmless people in jail, only to have them criminalized by their environment. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. And we do allow those people return to society.

What do we do with Guantanamo prisoners? Do we release them and suffer possible consequences of our bad decision in opening the facility in the first place? Do we add a potential 40 additional radicals to al Qaeda’s ranks in Yemen? Or do we continue to hold these people without legal grounds?

Good morning everyone. We hope that this will be the place you come to when you wake up early before you leave for work. The place you visit when you wake up late or just a place to meet and chat in between breaks from serious topics and discussions.

Feel free to talk about your interesting news story finds, your funny stories, photos or a slice of your lives. This is your space, come here to relax and unload. We welcome you with open arms. Enjoy.

BTW this blog is open to one and all, not only the early risers. It will be moved to “Speakers Corner” at 9 am EST every day and return to the front page every morning at 5 am EST.

Bearing in mind that weekends are a time for catching up with family matters and a long awaited extra hour or so under the warm bedcovers, I’ve decided that “Morning Blog” will run on weekdays from Mondays through Fridays at the same time as stated above. Thanks a bunch.

Because of time zones and other tiny things, I can’t put this MB on the Home Page, forgive me, you know where to find me, right?

Most, if not all, of us here are familiar with the argument some terrorists give in defence of their attacks upon the West. It’s our foreign policy. And you can’t deny that our foreign policy, especially of the last 8 years, has been a disaster. (‘Disaster’ is a strong word, but when you think about GWB’s foreign policy, even a word like ‘disaster’ underdescribes it.) By ‘our’ I refer to the foreign policy of both America and the UK.

That said, I believe that some, even many, terrorists leap on that as an excuse to blow things and people to smithereens. I believe that even if our foreign policy had been different, some of them would still be planning and plotting (and mixing lethal chemicals), because of something they don’t have, that they want.  The question is: what is it?

Here is one possible answer. Over here in the UK and about 3 years ago, the Muslim Council of Britain convinced Tony Blair that if he would just change his foreign policy, he would not have to worry anymore about big bombings in London. They worked on him for a long time, and the early withdrawal from Basra is thought by many to be an example of Tony Blair heeding that advice and modifying his foreign policy. Not as much as the MCB would have liked, but it was a start.

But lo and behold, he had no sooner satisfied the Muslim Council of Britain on that, than they suddenly decided that our domestic policy needed a do-over. Yes indeed. And the upshot of that , is this: we now have 85 Shariah law courts in the UK and just over 2000 Madrassas. (You can find more on this by simply Googling things like ‘Shariah law in the UK’ and ‘Madrassas in the UK’, etc. You will find many articles, most of them alarming.)

You can imagine what it’s like trying to have two conflicting systems of justice, in one country.

Not to put too fine a point on it: it just doesn’t work.

The Madrassas do work, unfortunately: little children are taught that jihad is a good thing and killing Jews is an even better thing. Not in all of them, mind you, but in some. About a month ago the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was taken to task in the House of Commons for providing funding (out of British taxpayer money) to a certain Madrassa, without so much as investigating what was being taught there. At the same time, he was taken to task for not putting an extremist Islamic group, called Islam4UK, on the ban list. It is true that the person taking him to task was the leader of the opposition, David Cameron; but it is equally true that neither Gordon Brown nor any of his cabinet ministers ( a few appeared on the BBC and Sky that very night), denied it. They could not, because it was true.

My point, in giving a possible answer as to what they want, is that some of these terrorists and those radicals that support them, want to subsume our culture under theirs. (Holland is another example of this kind of thing.) They are not interested in living side by side with another, differing culture. They want power. The more they get, the more they want….and, sadly, with both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it would seem that the more they want, the more they get.

It’s called appeasement. Anything, anything at all, to prevent another big terror attack…or another ’spectacular’ as some say these terrorists like to call them.

I am sorry about the foreign policy that may have exacerbated the situation, but I am just as sorry that political cowardice, on the part of the New Labour, has led to the UK becoming, in some areas, anyway, almost unrecognizable as it continuously gives in, and gives ground, to the demands of over-enthusiastic Muslims. (I think I put that last rather kindly. I’d have preferred a different adjective, but never mind.)

Negotiation is one thing, but ‘peace at any price’, appeasement, is not the answer. I am hoping that President Obama does not go down this road, no matter what may happen. It’s not a road you can easily turn around on.

Thanks to a discussion on NPR yesterday, I became aware of a little provision in tax law that in the age of the wealthy consolidating greater wealth, is an abomination.

Due to the Bush changes to the Estate Tax(or as the Repub propagandists call it, the “Death” Tax) and because The Senate has failed to act (The House has done their part), in 2010, the Estate Tax is fully repealed then comes back into existence in 2011.

“Huh?”, you might respond in a far more eloquently way than that.

Allow me to describe this…how do they say…”bull shite”? The changes to the Estate tax can be simply summed up by the simplest newspaper, USAToday:

At the time (just before the bill was passed in 2001), estates valued at $675,000 or higher were subject to the tax. And they were taxed at a rate of 55%. This year’s exemption threshold is $3.5 million, and the tax rate is 45%. The levy brought in an estimated $26.5 billion in gross collections in 2008, according to the IRS.

The levy is set to disappear for 2010. Barring any agreement to extend or change the 2001 law, the tax is scheduled to resurface in 2011 at a rate of 55% on estates valued at $1 million or higher.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2009-12-28-estate-tax-expire_N.htm

There are conflicting accounts as to why this was structured the way it was. To force Congress to act on making the reduction to 45% permanent (looking far better than 0%)? To make the financial impact of the bill look different by backloading the biggest benefit which would instead allow the wealthy to manipulate the situation legally and escape taxes on a far more massive level than imagined? To get the public acclimated to the wealthy paying zero in estate tax?

The arguments against the Estate tax were and are mostly all bogus. The big canard was how family farmers lost their farms and will lose their farms because of it. Unfortunately for those propagandists, that claim spurred people on to study this and discovered that no family farm has ever been lost due to Estate tax. Whoops! Back to the Lying Board!

The concept of an Estate Tax used to be universally appreciated by Dems and Repubs, the idea seemed reasonable that those who benefited most from a society, at a time when they were no longer around to buy private jets or gold-plated toilets, would be required to give back substantially to the stability and growth of that society.

It was only realatively recently, when the GOP and many Dems were literally bought and kept in their protective wrappers by the wealthy and their corporations, that the POV of that sociopathic person named “corporation” became enshrined.

“Why should the wealthy have to share their money with anyone? Hey, you rednecks and overly-religious loons…it’s The Government trying to take away YOUR future money! Yep, one day you will of course be a multimillionaire and then when you die in your gold-plated La-Z-Boy, it will be too late for you to stop this theft of your money! You need to be able to protect more than a lousy $1.35 million! I mean, that’s chickenfeed!”

The thing is, by upping the income tax and the Estate tax on the wealthy, we could have a backdoor way of recouping a lot of taxpayer money that has been stolen and manipulated out of our pockets. Somewhere between 95% and 97% of this nation do not and will not have estates that are worth more than the previous threshold of $1.35 million going to a couple ($675k to an individual). And even if one did, the tax was only on the amount above that.

Now, here’s the screwjob on how things will work in 2010 if there is no Estate tax. Capital gains taxes would apply. These are down to 15% (these should be raised hugely too!) and there is NO exemption. So, if you are a farmer who dies and leaves a family farm worth 200k, though that would’ve been exempt under Estate tax laws, in 2010 you would owe the government $30k. Even on an estate worth $1,000, you’d have to pay the government $150. However, if you’re wealthy, instead of paying $45 million on $100 million inheritance, you only have to pay $15 million, a $30 million tax cut for you!

There are those in the Senate who say that they will pass a bill in 2010 that is retroactive and continues The Estate tax in that year. We’ll see. However, I strongly doubt that they will raise it back up to 55% and will instead allow the Bush giveaway to the wealthy of that 10% to stay…awaiting the day when a Repub Congress and Pres can knock it down another 10% and another 10% until it is negligible.

The bottom line on this is USAToday simple: The less the wealthy pay, the more the non-wealthy will pay. Or our infrastructure will go unfinanced and will crumble. Or the U.S. will be forced into a death spiral of deficit spending.

It comes down to the wealthy forking over their fair share or further oppression of taxpayers and the decimation of our society and economic strength as a nation. And in light of what they did to our economy, this lobbying of theirs underway to block paying ANY Estate taxes in 2010 is their way of saying, “Let them eat cake…and send them the bill for ours!”.