Daily Archives: January 25, 2012
FollowWarren Buffett’s Secretary Makes Between $200K-$500K Per Year
 |
| Buffett’s Impoverished Secretary |
This is according to Forbes and spotted by an alert 5th Listener!
Money shot:
Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.
The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
How many people would sign up right now to fill the spot for the unfortunately treated secretary?
Me too.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Oregon Community College Backs Off "Free Speech Zones"
http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/5304
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Six-foot ‘speech zone’ deep-sixed at Oregon college
Chemeketa Community College revises policies after interaction with ADF attorneys representing pro-life students
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
ADF attorney sound bite: David Hacker
SALEM, Ore. — Chemeketa Community College has revised its policies so that students may engage in free speech beyond a single six-foot folding table that served as a “free speech zone.”
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys represent two Christian students, one of whom was stopped from handing out pro-life literature and displaying pro-life signs outdoors on campus by security officers. Caleb Pearson was told that he would have to get permission from campus officials if he wanted to continue sharing his message, which–if approved–could only be communicated in a small indoor “free speech zone” that consists of a six-foot folding table.
“Pro-life students shouldn’t have to get a permission slip to share their beliefs on campus,” said ADF Legal Counsel David Hacker. “Making free speech the exception rather than the norm and then corralling it to a limited area is unconstitutional and contrary to the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that a university is supposed to be. We appreciate the college’s efforts in working with us to revise its policies and rectify this problem.”
Daniel A. Hill, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, sent a letter to CCC about the constitutional problems with the college’s speech policies in March of last year. Since then, ADF attorneys have interacted with campus officials to bring about the needed changes to the college’s Free Speech Guidelines and a speech code contained in the college’s Student Rights and Responsibilities policy.
In October 2010, campus security approached Pearson while he was distributing pro-life fliers and displaying informative signs about abortion at an outdoor location on campus. Stopped from sharing his message and told to leave, Pearson was directed by the officers to go to the student life center, where he could seek to get his signs approved if he desired to exercise his constitutionally protected rights at the campus’s designated indoor “free speech zone” table. He was also told by an officer that he was prohibited from wearing a pro-life T-shirt on campus that displayed a message similar to his signs.
Under the old Free Speech Guidelines, students had to obtain a permit to use a six-foot-long table at a very confined area inside the student life center’s “free speech zone” one week prior to their expected activities, and they were only allowed to reserve the zone two days per semester, with additional days subject to availability. The new guidelines still allow students to reserve the table but now also allow students to speak outside spontaneously without having to obtain approval.
The college’s Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy has been revised to eliminate its problematic speech code that prohibited “offensive” or “derogatory” speech. Such restrictions are often abused to suppress religious, pro-life, or other forms of speech that officials may consider to be “politically incorrect.”
Banned by OMSI: Meeting Tonight!
 |
| SHILO INN AT AIRPORT |
The meeting that OMSI didn’t want to touch! The presentations by three scientists about “man made global warming” and the flaws in that theory.
I’ll see you there! The doors open at 5pm and the presentation starts at 7pm at the Airport Shilo Inn.
Sponsored by the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Paying More to Find Out What’s in Portland’s Slop Buckets
Now that Portland’s social engineers have cut in half the number of times our garbage is picked up, charged us more for it and made us scrape our plates into our government slop bucket, they finally want the answer to these questions:
Was this a good idea? What’s in the slop bucket?
And now we get to pay more to find out.
An alert 5th Listener has pointed me to this request for proposal from the City of Portland to do a study on our slop buckets.
You might ask yourself right now: didn’t they know what they were doing before they started getting involved in our food scraps? C’mon, dupe! This is the City of Portland for cryin’ out loud, where good intentions are all that really matter–never mind the cost to the taxpayers what the idiots want or if it works.
Let’s just back the truck up here for a second and discover how we got here.
The City of Portland says it’s been talking about this program and planning it since 2007. I have no doubt that some group of citizens from some agitation group funded by some foundation probably has been talking about this since 2007. That doesn’t make the program thoroughly vetted, however.
Obviously. Because if it had been would we now have to pay someone to find out what’s in our slop buckets after they said they KNEW what was in our slop buckets?
First the city claims that about 30% -70% of our garbage is food scraps. Mine sure isn’t. I’ve challenged Mayor Sam Adams on this statistic but he just talks louder and won’t tolerate legitimate questions. I take this to mean that Sam’s just making it up again like he did “facts” on his plastic bag ban.
Looking at the City website on the matter shows social engineers believe 75% of our garbage could be recycled in some way. Maybe that’s what the Mayor meant. Considering their fuzzy math in the past, I don’t take this as truth either.
The City claims that its pilot program was a smashing success. That’s not true. Mayor Adams claims that 87% of the participants were gobsmacked–absolutely delighted!– by the slop bucket plan. That’s the way he touted it in the media.
That sounds like a lot, huh? Except that fewer than 20% of the participants responded to the government survey and the government survey provided mostly answers that only allowed gradations of “satisfaction” with the program.
Of the 2000 people “participating” in the pilot program, 391 turned in their government garbage/slop bucket survey. Even the “politifact” reporter said the gradations of satisfaction tilted toward the positive (here). I wrote about the poll here.
It looks like this food scrap plan was meant to satisfy the “aspirational”** nothing-to-see-here-it-means-nothing 2009 Climate Action Plan. That’s the same document that brought us the “plastic” bag ban. Don’t bother looking at it, this plan isn’t in it.
Here’s the claim, however:
Approximately one ton of carbon dioxide emissions is prevented for each ton of food scraps diverted from landfill. A fully implemented residential program (assuming food scrap capture rate of 75 percent) could prevent the release of almost 22,000 tons of CO2 each year.
Of course what they don’t say is that CO2 isn’t a driver of “man made global warming” AND if you further read about the ‘greenhouse’ effect, METHANE gas is a more serious consideration than CO2. What’s the by-product of rotting food scraps and garbage? Methane.
Portland: Where so called leaders who tell us how to live instead of accommodating the customers.
**
(This dismissive ‘aspirational’ feint was used by the newspaper of record to dismiss the huge role the County wants to take in food delivery in the Multnomah Food Action Plan (here). A blogger, tipped off my reporting on the food plan here, here, here, here,) was politifacted on one of her assertions when the Politi”fact” reporter airily dismissed the plan as ‘aspirational.’ )
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Occupy Portland Calls for Direct Action Against…Us?
Warren Buffett’s Secretary Makes Between $200K-$500K Per Year
|
| Buffett’s Impoverished Secretary |
This is according to Forbes and spotted by an alert 5th Listener!
Money shot:
Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.
The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
How many people would sign up right now to fill the spot for the unfortunately treated secretary?
Me too.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Oregon Community College Backs Off "Free Speech Zones"
http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/5304
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Six-foot ‘speech zone’ deep-sixed at Oregon college
Chemeketa Community College revises policies after interaction with ADF attorneys representing pro-life students
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
ADF attorney sound bite: David Hacker
SALEM, Ore. — Chemeketa Community College has revised its policies so that students may engage in free speech beyond a single six-foot folding table that served as a “free speech zone.”
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys represent two Christian students, one of whom was stopped from handing out pro-life literature and displaying pro-life signs outdoors on campus by security officers. Caleb Pearson was told that he would have to get permission from campus officials if he wanted to continue sharing his message, which–if approved–could only be communicated in a small indoor “free speech zone” that consists of a six-foot folding table.
“Pro-life students shouldn’t have to get a permission slip to share their beliefs on campus,” said ADF Legal Counsel David Hacker. “Making free speech the exception rather than the norm and then corralling it to a limited area is unconstitutional and contrary to the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that a university is supposed to be. We appreciate the college’s efforts in working with us to revise its policies and rectify this problem.”
Daniel A. Hill, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, sent a letter to CCC about the constitutional problems with the college’s speech policies in March of last year. Since then, ADF attorneys have interacted with campus officials to bring about the needed changes to the college’s Free Speech Guidelines and a speech code contained in the college’s Student Rights and Responsibilities policy.
In October 2010, campus security approached Pearson while he was distributing pro-life fliers and displaying informative signs about abortion at an outdoor location on campus. Stopped from sharing his message and told to leave, Pearson was directed by the officers to go to the student life center, where he could seek to get his signs approved if he desired to exercise his constitutionally protected rights at the campus’s designated indoor “free speech zone” table. He was also told by an officer that he was prohibited from wearing a pro-life T-shirt on campus that displayed a message similar to his signs.
Under the old Free Speech Guidelines, students had to obtain a permit to use a six-foot-long table at a very confined area inside the student life center’s “free speech zone” one week prior to their expected activities, and they were only allowed to reserve the zone two days per semester, with additional days subject to availability. The new guidelines still allow students to reserve the table but now also allow students to speak outside spontaneously without having to obtain approval.
The college’s Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy has been revised to eliminate its problematic speech code that prohibited “offensive” or “derogatory” speech. Such restrictions are often abused to suppress religious, pro-life, or other forms of speech that officials may consider to be “politically incorrect.”
Banned by OMSI: Meeting Tonight!
|
| SHILO INN AT AIRPORT |
The meeting that OMSI didn’t want to touch! The presentations by three scientists about “man made global warming” and the flaws in that theory.
I’ll see you there! The doors open at 5pm and the presentation starts at 7pm at the Airport Shilo Inn.
Sponsored by the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Paying More to Find Out What’s in Portland’s Slop Buckets
Now that Portland’s social engineers have cut in half the number of times our garbage is picked up, charged us more for it and made us scrape our plates into our government slop bucket, they finally want the answer to these questions:
Was this a good idea? What’s in the slop bucket?
And now we get to pay more to find out.
An alert 5th Listener has pointed me to this request for proposal from the City of Portland to do a study on our slop buckets.
You might ask yourself right now: didn’t they know what they were doing before they started getting involved in our food scraps? C’mon, dupe! This is the City of Portland for cryin’ out loud, where good intentions are all that really matter–never mind the cost to the taxpayers what the idiots want or if it works.
Let’s just back the truck up here for a second and discover how we got here.
The City of Portland says it’s been talking about this program and planning it since 2007. I have no doubt that some group of citizens from some agitation group funded by some foundation probably has been talking about this since 2007. That doesn’t make the program thoroughly vetted, however.
Obviously. Because if it had been would we now have to pay someone to find out what’s in our slop buckets after they said they KNEW what was in our slop buckets?
First the city claims that about 30% -70% of our garbage is food scraps. Mine sure isn’t. I’ve challenged Mayor Sam Adams on this statistic but he just talks louder and won’t tolerate legitimate questions. I take this to mean that Sam’s just making it up again like he did “facts” on his plastic bag ban.
Looking at the City website on the matter shows social engineers believe 75% of our garbage could be recycled in some way. Maybe that’s what the Mayor meant. Considering their fuzzy math in the past, I don’t take this as truth either.
The City claims that its pilot program was a smashing success. That’s not true. Mayor Adams claims that 87% of the participants were gobsmacked–absolutely delighted!– by the slop bucket plan. That’s the way he touted it in the media.
That sounds like a lot, huh? Except that fewer than 20% of the participants responded to the government survey and the government survey provided mostly answers that only allowed gradations of “satisfaction” with the program.
Of the 2000 people “participating” in the pilot program, 391 turned in their government garbage/slop bucket survey. Even the “politifact” reporter said the gradations of satisfaction tilted toward the positive (here). I wrote about the poll here.
It looks like this food scrap plan was meant to satisfy the “aspirational”** nothing-to-see-here-it-means-nothing 2009 Climate Action Plan. That’s the same document that brought us the “plastic” bag ban. Don’t bother looking at it, this plan isn’t in it.
Here’s the claim, however:
Approximately one ton of carbon dioxide emissions is prevented for each ton of food scraps diverted from landfill. A fully implemented residential program (assuming food scrap capture rate of 75 percent) could prevent the release of almost 22,000 tons of CO2 each year.
Of course what they don’t say is that CO2 isn’t a driver of “man made global warming” AND if you further read about the ‘greenhouse’ effect, METHANE gas is a more serious consideration than CO2. What’s the by-product of rotting food scraps and garbage? Methane.
Portland: Where so called leaders who tell us how to live instead of accommodating the customers.
**
(This dismissive ‘aspirational’ feint was used by the newspaper of record to dismiss the huge role the County wants to take in food delivery in the Multnomah Food Action Plan (here). A blogger, tipped off my reporting on the food plan here, here, here, here,) was politifacted on one of her assertions when the Politi”fact” reporter airily dismissed the plan as ‘aspirational.’ )
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
Joe the Small Business Owner: CRC: Hey, Anybody Listening? Where’s the Money Being Spent?
Victoria I read through the report by Tiffany Couch, regarding the Columbia River Crossing project.
I was an accounting /finance major in college. My understanding is this is a very, very serious report. This is from a forensic accountant! The fact that a forensic accountant was called in is serious enough.
Her report is not mean spirited, but is a complete rejection of accounting practices (or lack thereof) of this organization. From the lack of financial statements and the other myriad of infractions, I think this is a serious issue, and involves a lot of money.
A report like this in the private sector, would be a called a qualified opinion, meaning, that is not up to generally accepted accounting standards. In that case, management would immediately begin an investigation of the infractions,
and/or either terminate the persons involved, and put in place procedures and policies that clearly outlined operating procedures, and the law regarding multiple bids for services rendered, and each person would be assigned dollar amount of limits of authority, and further provide a detailed list on financial statements (government formatted) to be prepared retroactive to the beginning of this entity. Further if actual fraud is involved the prosecution of those individuals involved should begin immediately. One of the remarks in the report is no journal entries to track items for an audit trail? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME HERE!
It appears to me, that financial clarity is SERIOUSLY LACKING, and procedures are either not in place, or not being followed. In any event there has been a lot of money spent here, and if actual fraud is indeed involved, then
this becomes a legal matter. In any event, I shall be watching , as I view this report as absolutely terrifying, that the States have spent these amounts of monies with this kind of a write up. Who in the world at the States are sending this organization these kinds of monies without any proper accounting? I am both speechless by this…and appalled by this. Note I did not have a dog in this hunt, so I had no foregone conclusion as to the legitimacy of this organization..but this, this is an outrage and an embarrassment.
I view this report as a complete rejection of the accuracy and legitimacy of the CRC, and I think it is very, very serious report. I think the Attorney Generals of both states should now be involved. This report is a blistering of this organization.
Joe the small business guy
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
State of the Union Transcript
Obama Cronies Big Winners In Blocking Keystone XL Pipeline
Ever since Barack Obama nixed the TransCanada Oil Pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf, many people, unions and Democrats included have been scratching their heads pondering why he would kill off so many potential private sector jobs during these dire economic times.
Yes I know it was all blamed on those evil Republicans, who pushed for a quicker decision after years of dragging it out, but what else is new from the Poseur in Chief? Everything is the fault of the Republicans according to Obama and his fellow Democrat Party leaders.
It seems now, with a new revelation, that some very wealthy people who have supported Obama and spoke on behalf of his policies that continue to bankrupt the country stand to make Billions of dollars off of this decision to kill off the Keystone XL Pipeline project.
A January 22, 2012 Bloomberg article tells us “Buffett’s Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial.”
That is multi-Billionaire Warren Buffet who made news last year with his claim in support of Obama’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy by claiming he paid less in tax than did his secretary, subsequently shown to be a spurious claim.
We now hear from Bloomberg,
“Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.”
With the denial of the pipeline, Canadian oil we import will come by trains that are currently operating at capacity carrying oil from the Bakken in North Dakota and Alberta at about 300,000 barrels a day. The Keystone Pipeline was projected to carry 700,000 barrels a day.
To meet the challenge, tank car production will have to rapidly increase to meet the increased output from the Bakken and Alberta. While that would mean jobs in that industry, shipping oil by rail instead of a pipeline will add $3.00 per barrel of oil to its cost.
Environmentalists were delighted to see the Keystone Pipeline denied as they feared it would increase the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity. Not realized though, is that shipping by rail will increase greenhouse gas emissions they constantly bray about.
What also must be considered is the “environmental impact” of train derailments compared to pipeline leakage. McAleer Law.com lists,
“United States train and railroad accident statistics estimate that almost every 2 weeks a train derailment leads to a chemical spill. Some of these spills are so serious that require the evacuation of local residents. The occurrence and frequency of train accidents has been escalating since 1997.”
The Department of Transportation informs us concerning pipeline safety,
“Pipelines are the safest and most cost-effective means to transport the extraordinary volumes of natural gas and hazardous liquid products that fuel our economy. To move the volume of even a modest pipeline, it would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of seventy-five 2,000-barrel tank rail cars every day. These alternatives would require many times the people, clog the air with engine pollutants, be prohibitively expensive and — with many more vehicles on roads and rails carrying hazardous materials — unacceptably dangerous.”
But, Warren Buffett and other cronies of Barack Obama don’t stand to reap Billions of dollars in profit off of a safer means of transportation like a pipeline.
John Hayward at Human Events tells us,
“As it happens, 75 percent of the oil currently shipped by rail out of North Dakota is handled by Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC… which just happens to be a unit of Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. What a coincidence!”
Fox News tells us,
“Killing the Keystone XL pipeline may help one of the world’s richest men get richer. North Dakota’s booming oil fields will now grow more dependent on a railroad the president’s economic guru just bought.”
Dave Boyer at the Washington Times says,
“Warren Buffett, whom President Obama likes to cite as a fair-minded billionaire while arguing for higher taxes on the wealthy, stands to benefit from the president’s decision to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.”
He continues,
“Mr. Obama often cites Mr. Buffett as an example of a civic-minded billionaire because the entrepreneur has said he should pay a higher tax rate than his secretary. Mr. Buffett and the president like to tell the story of how Mr. Buffett pays a 15 percent effective tax rate, while his secretary pays a higher rate even though she earns only a fraction of what he does.
The president has called his push for higher taxes on the wealthy the “Buffett rule.”
The secretary, Debbie Bosanek, will sit with first lady Michelle Obama in her box in the House gallery at Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech.”
Little doubt Obama will make prominent mention of Buffett’s cry to tax the wealthy more using Buffett’s secretary as a prop, all the while not mentioning how it is he who ensures selected liberal Billionaires such as Warren Buffet increase their bottom line in areas of investment so their tax payments remain low.
For all of the talk of how Obama is looking out for the “little guy” and how it is Republicans always favoring the super wealthy, we see this one decision of his benefitting a super wealthy person while keeping us “little guys” unemployed and dependent upon government.
OMG 2012
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com