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Going to Yosemite? Get Your Passport Ready!
rev_media writes to tell us that CNN has a few updates to the Real ID act currently facing legislators. The Real ID acts mandates all states to begin issuing federal IDs to all citizens by 2008. Costs could be as much at $14 billion, but only 40 million are currently allocated. Several states have passed legislation expressly forbidding participation in the program, while others seem to be all for it. The IDs will be required for access to all federal areas including flights, state parks and federal buildings. People in states refusing to comply will need to show passports even for domestic flights.
"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believe that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. " ~ an anonymous German Professor from 'They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1939-1945', by Milton Mayer
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If they require a passport to do some of those things like fly or enter public buildings, that will signifigantly impact poor people.
My passport cost me 97 dollars last time I got one, and not everyone has that kind of money lying around
Every Swiss home has an assault rifle, and it's expected to be operational. Also every man is expected to be proficient with those weapons.
Funny thing though: you don't hear much about Swiss terrorists and their crime rates are extremely low...
The Democrats recently elected to Congress have already showed their spinelessness. Just last week they voted to give the President sweeping new powers for warrantless spying on citizens -- just because he asked for it.
The thing is, hoping for representative in Congress with spine is a bit like, well, maybe hoping for a non-Catholic Pope. I don't know how Ron Paul happened, we can call him the exception that proves the rule, I guess, because other than him there isn't a backbone anywhere in the bunch.
But there's a good side to that. Spinelessness implies that they can be influenced. If they start hearing from enough constituents that white needs to be black, you can bet they'll be in there tomorrow introducing a bill to change the names of the colors. So, if you're really fed up and if you really want to change things, the way to do it is to get in there and start making noise. Hand-wringing on forums won't do it, we need deluges of messages landing on the website email handlers of the Congressweasels.
Fortunately, there's an easy way I've found to do that. Over at http://downsizedc.org/> they have a tool you can use to send a personal message about all these worrisome topics. You just put in your zip code, and it will automatically route your messages to the two senators and the one congressman who represents you. And using the tool doesn't automatically line you up for a bunch of spam, either, I can attest to that. Although you can, optionally, sign up for their own email alerts, which I've found to be useful.
I used to think that if I continuously yammered to Congress about stuff, they'd all just put me on their "bothersome twit" list, and everything I sent would be ignored. But that ain't how it works. The squeaky wheels really do get greased! For evidence, you can look down through the list of campaigns they've been pushing and see how many have success stamps on them. It's all on account of the growing group of bothersome twits like me!
You don't have to show proof of your ability to drive a car, a State ID works just fine, they're like $4 (here in IL).
FYI - The Spanish American War was concluded in 1898.
The word algebra even has an Arabic root. Perhaps we should call algebra "Liberty Arithmetic" in the post-9/11 world.
-b.
It's kind of hard to take an argument seriously when the arguer doesn't know the difference between abdicate and advocate. I mean, I even AGREE with you, except for the abdicating part. Just, please, please, please don't use words unless you are certain that you know what they mean. Please. Don't do it for me; do it for you. Unless you're trolling, I can't be bothered to check your history. In that case, by all means, continue.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Most the military takes what it does very seriously. Then there are the political officers. In the months before 9/11, the Cheney administration changed the procedure so that NORAD had to get permission from the Secretary of Defense before they could intercept an off-course airplane. Before the civilian air traffic controllers & NORAD did the intercept thing on a regular basis.
But wait, we don't believe in conspiracies here. Hmm.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
> Paying $75000 in federal taxes equates to making somewhere around $300000-500000 in gross
, 00.html you pay "$39,148.75 plus 33% of the amount over 160,850" as long as you earn less than $349,700. That means that to hit $75,000 tax your taxable income needs to be about $270000.
s eOut.html for some more numbers.
> income
The low end of that, yeah. For 2007, per http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=164272
The gross would be higher, of course. But in that range, the difference is pretty slim. For example, in 2006 personal exemptions start to phase out once your gross is over 150,500 and are gone completely when your gross is at 273,000. That's if you're single. If you're married those numbers are higher by about $40,000. Similarly, most deductions phase out starting at a gross of $156,000 or so. See http://www.taxguideonline.com/ContentPages/ID_Pha
And as you said, that excludes FICA (medicare & social security), etc. Those add at least $6,000 to your tax burden once you're over $80,000 or so gross income (even ignoring the employer half). So really, you need only $250,000 taxable income to easily hit $75,000 in federal tax.
Arguably, certain terrorists view Islamist theocracy as the only legitimate form of government. That would not be a very free state.
Sure, they would start with Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. They've tried, and are even succeeding in some cases.
But the major thing they hate is our support for dictators in the Middle East that block their efforts towards establishing new theocratic states, either by democratic vote or by coup. The U.S., even though it's "committed to democracy", would rather have a friendly dictator in place than a democratically elected government that rejects the USA. This can be a messy argument (is a theocratic state truly free? etc.)
-Stu