Search This Blog

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Watch

Attended both Republican and Brian Hermanson's Watch Party last night. He won Republican primary for Kay-Noble County DA. Congratulations, Brian. And Thanks, Mark Gibson, for the many years of service and all the sticky problems you solved for us with folks who wouldn't pay their hotel bills, etc. over the years.

I guess we are getting out of business at the right time. According to http://www.foxbusiness.com/ the new Financial Reform Act is going to make all venders subject to 1099's on next year's taxes. I suppose for somebody who has never run his own business, this is foggy information. Well up to now, only contractors who perform services for over $600 have been required to recieve 1099 statements. Now any vendor, like the business your hotel buys toilet paper from, or the parts suppliers a repair business buys from must be 1099'd. So a typical small business run by a friend of mine estimates the number of 1099's his accountant sends out might go from 10 to 200. Oh, but there's more! When someone receives a 1099 they check to make sure the amount is precisely what they received, else you are in trouble in an IRS audit. How you account revenue (dividing it into goods and services) might not match how your payer thinks it might alot and you will both have to agree on the precise amount. What we have in the new law is a phenomenal headache for businesses. So much so, that Wall Street Journal doubts that the IRS could force compliance! And the heaviest burden will be with small businesses, like a guy working out of his pickup truck, who can't afford an entire department to check the numbers.

Also in another article by Fox Business, the SEC will no longer have to comply with Freedom Of Information Act. I guess they don't want any more stories about bureaucrats looking at porn on federal computers. But the serious part is that lack of disclosure in financial regulation is precisely how dictators take over their country's economies. Skullduggery is hidden.

The destruction of small business with the intent to consolidate the economy into large unionized firms, the takeover of business (GM and Chrysler) by stiff-arming the rightful creditors, the aim to bring about partial socialism that can be controlled by a central bureaucracy--these are primary techniques of fascism ( or union-ism, Italian -- Mussolini). I have to admit that the historian in me is sometimes just sick over oblivious Americans who don't have European or Latin American experience and don't think USA could ever be taken over by dictatorship. We shall see. Certainly if Obama is merely a do-gooding leftist, he is setting us up for the dictator to come. And yet I am heartened that so many like me are expressing dire concerns over the turn of events these last two years. How many times has someone said to me, "If we don't do something this fall, this may be America's last free election." Maybe it is time, if you have never been involved, to get active in politics. Otherwise you just have to watch.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Editorial for Newspaper

I wrote this for our newspaper. They publish about half of what I write...

It was a plumber who submitted the idea to cap BP's blowout. And an engineering firm determined a way to sever the mangled pipes and valves a mile deep under the sea. All across America there are people who fix things. Your refrigerator doesn't work? There's a guy you can call. There's a raccoon inn your attic? There are people who can fix even oddball things. We are a nation that fixes.

The government couldn't fix any part of the oil spill. First we watched a sad news conference given by a deer-in-the-headlights Admiral. With no training in petroleum engineering he could only give vague assurances. There were fire booms not purchased even though Congress had authorized money. Skimmers were waiting while regulators wouldn't approve. Our President got angry at BP but did little except try to shut down the entire deepwater drilling industry.

The same inability to fix seems to plague state governments. California may be the next Greece if they can't bear to fix their fiscal incontinence. Oklahoma's Tax Equalization Board couldn't predict the shortfall of revenue by a whopping 20% even though they could observe the recession that swept the rest of the country a year earlier. Educrats can only postulate a fix of our schools by demanding we spend more, like Texas and Kansas. Wouldn't "fix" be defined as spending less yet getting a better product?

Some plumber needs to figure out a way to fix government. It is coming. Our nation's founders fixed the problem of government that saw itself as a divine right entity with a mission to order every aspect of lives. But the founders saw a nation of men who believed in God who wanted them free. Government would be limited, not a master, but a servant. Have you ever looked at the list of signatures of those who signed the Declaration of Independence? I can't identify most of them. That is how it is meant to be. America was not meant to be a nation of professional politicians, but of folks who fixed freedom and then went back to their homes to live as ordinary, free preople. The struggle continues. We are those founders. Our job is to get involved politically and fix our government. We seek no name. We will work the job and go home free.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Free signs, free thoughts

Ha!! Since I have relatives who are in KS politics, they bequeath me signs! Friday I am off to fetch a couple dozen plywood signs from brother-in-law. (Thanks, Garry!) Of course they say BERGES for SHERIFF right now but we can overpaint them. On second thought, does our ever-popular Republican Sheriff Everette Van Hoessen have anybody running against him this year? I bet not. You know, what a fella could do is get his neighbors to post a whole bunch of these signs 'as is' all over their yards until the primary election. Ev could come out of his house in the morning and choke on his coffee. "What?! Who didn't tell me I had an opponent?!"

Now just a few random thoughts. Byrd died. Perhaps I can now get over this weird mental affliction that plagues me. Whenever I would see this guy on TV my brain, for some inexplicable reason would always think, 'term limits'. Isn't that odd? Second thing, I see where Hispanic voters in Colorado like the AZ law by 62-32%. Back in 2000 when we had an Hispanic foster daughter, Tony Conchos took us under his Hispanic Culture wing and there I first heard how controversial illegals are with Mex-Americans. Some see cousin Pedro; others, a lousy illegal giving them all a bad name. So I don't think Obama's ploy of suing AZ is going to win him that many votes. Now I often wondered why ordinary citizens near the border, with the help of a deep-pockets, couldn't control the flow. Say we put up a line of tazers that automatically intercept anything that moves through the back yard. Then call border security. Cruel? Well police in El Reno, OK are defending their tazing of an 86-yr-old woman last week. And just think a line of tazers would also be good for stopping Dems trying to get across the border going south after the November election.

Probably like me, you have for many weeks watched pictures of that converted supertanker-skimmer called the A Whale in it's dock. So why it hasn't been used? Sen. Jim Inhofe says that the Obama administration is holding up usage because there is a law that says no tainted seawater can be dumped in the Gulf. Since the A Whale skims oil and water, then dumps the water--ah, but wait, the return water is only 99.44% pure and can contain a thin film of oil--it returns a tiny amount of oil back into the sea. Thus it has had certification held up.

Growing up a deaf kid, I played drums in 3 bands. I couldn't understand the lyrics so I would do what deaf people always do. I made up words in attempt to construct the sentences. Maybe that is why Rush Limbaugh has ruined me with his hilarious parody songs. I can't listen to the real words without thinking the parody. My favorite was all the Democrat voices (Clinton, Kennedy, Obama, etc.) singing that Greenwood song, Proud to be an American. I laughed so hard at Limbaugh, I nearly wrecked my truck when they all started singing,
I'd be proud to be a Canadian/ 'Cause at least their health care's free.
And I'd rather be an Iranian/ 'Cause they all hate Bush like me.
And I'm gonna stand up!! / For illegals, and defend them to the day
'Cause there ain't no doubt I hate this land/ I hate the USA!!