Image by Wanda Wisdom Lavender Magazine announces it’s finally putting the sultry siren of podcasting, Wanda Wisdom on the cover. Arrives on newstands and online April 27th!
Zumba! ….. (296/365)
Image by Steve Tolcher
I was fortunate enough to be asked back to photograph another Zumba Charity event this evening.
This time around, it was the "Cash for Kids" Charity Zumba event in Everton Park, Liverpool.
The ladies (and gents) that took part in the three hour event, were all brilliant! Such energy, dedication and rhythm – and all in aid of a great chairty too!
Well Done to all those involved.
The rest of the photographs from the evening will be online within the next 24 hours ….. Stay Tuned!
Following an historic election, we take a moment to examine just what an Obama presidency will mean to the United States – what we have to look forward to, and how he will deal with our current financial crisis. And according Jim Davidson, some of the numbers just don’t add up.
One of Obama’s prime campaign planks has been his promise to mercilessly raise taxes on the “rich,” a group initially defined as those making more than 0,000 per year. This was later dropped to 0,000 per year, and more recently has been defined as those Americans making more than 0,000 annually.
Setting aside the precipitous downward slide in the definition of “rich,” there is ample reason to suspect that Obama’s tax changes portend much higher, if not confiscatory, taxes on the most productive Americans. Obama has strongly argued for higher taxes as a way of employing government to alter the pre-tax distribution of income, which he believes has concentrated too much of the gains from productivity in recent years in the hands of the very rich.
He seems to think that the ‘very rich’ are a closed caste of more or less fixed membership, which changes little from year-to-year. This figures in his concept of ‘fairness,’ which supposes that it is perfectly just to burden a small fraction of the population with a majority of the costs of running the Federal government. This was detailed in a New York Times article on “spreading the wealth” by David Leonhardt. He wrote of Obama:
“He would then pay for the cuts, at least in part, by raising taxes on the affluent to a point where they would eventually be slightly higher than they were under Clinton. For these upper-income families, the Tax Policy Center’s comparisons with McCain are even starker. McCain, by continuing the basic thrust of Bush’s tax policies and adding a few new wrinkles, would cut taxes for the top 0.1 percent of earners – those making an average of .1 million – by another 0,000 a year, on top of the Bush reductions. Obama would raise taxes on this top 0.1 percent by an average of 0,000 a year. ‘It’s hard not to look at that figure and be a little stunned. It would represent a huge tax increase on the wealthy families. But it’s also worth putting the number in some context. The bulk of Obama’s tax increases on the wealthy – about 0,000 of that 0,000 – would simply take away Bush’s tax cuts. The remaining 0,000 wouldn’t nearly reverse their pretax income gains in recent years. Since the mid-1990s, their inflation-adjusted pretax income has roughly doubled.’
“To put it another way, the wealthy have done so well over the past few decades, with their incomes soaring and tax rates plummeting, that Obama’s plan would not come close to erasing their gains. The same would be true of households making a few hundred thousand dollars a year (who have gotten smaller raises than the very rich but would also face smaller tax increases). As ambitious as Obama’s proposals might be, they would still leave the gap between the rich and everyone else far wider than it burdensome on the young entrepreneur who was making his first millions as it would on the aging plutocrat who actually had enjoyed the prosperity of the past-quarter century since Reagan cut marginal tax rates.”
An October 13 editorial in The Wall Street Journal clarifies the mysterious arithmetic of Obama’s sweeping claims to cut income taxes for millions who currently have no income tax liability and pay no taxes:
‘For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase ‘tax credit.’ Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:
“- A 0 tax credit (,000 a couple) to ‘make work pay’ that phases out at income of ,000 for individuals and 0,000 per couple.
“- A ,000 tax credit for college tuition.
“- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).
“- A ’savings’ tax credit of 50% up to ,000.
“- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as 5 a year, up from 5 now, and give these workers up to ,110 if they are paying child support.
“- A child care credit of 50% up to ,000 of expenses a year.
“- A ‘clean car’ tax credit of up to ,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.
“Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be ‘refundable,’ which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer – a federal check – from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this ‘welfare,’ or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a ‘Demogrant.’ Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.
“The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.
“The total annual expenditures on refundable ‘tax credits’ would rise over the next 10 years by 7 billion to .054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as ‘tax credits,’ the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.”
After all the sloppy definitions are parsed, one point remains clear. The top 5% of U.S. income earners, who presently pay 60.14% (2006 figures) of all income tax, are destined for a huge federal tax increase under Obama.
One of Obama’s specific proposals is to raise the capital gains and dividend taxes to 25%, which will sharply increase capital confiscation as increasing percentages of “gains” will reflect inflationary depreciation of the currency. In the U.S., an investor must pay tax on the difference between the sales price of an asset and it purchase price, with no adjustment for inflation. Consequently, when the tax rate and inflation are high, a large portion of the “capital gain” is illusory. Any asset that appreciates by less than the rate of inflation will result in its owner losing purchasing power and having to pay taxes on the illusory gains. At Obama’s higher tax rates, (he has suggested that capital gains and dividend taxes should be hiked to as much as 25%,) capital confiscation would result from modest levels of inflation.
And the Great Credit Crunch implies that inflation will be far higher than in recent experience.
Setting aside whether it is moral or equitable to force a small fraction of the population to essentially pay for the whole cost of government, much of which entails the shuffling of checks to purchase votes of various aggrieved groups, there is a bigger question. Can it be wise for the whole fiscal regime to stand on the shoulders of a small group, like a pyramid tottering on its point, so that any tribulation which undermines the prosperity of those who pay would promise to bankrupt the state?
It is a worthwhile question to ask if you have considerable assets. In light of the worldwide credit crunch, which has deflated assets of all kinds, the prospect of burgeoning prosperity at the magnitude required to enable one-in-20 Americans to become “Super Rich” benefactors of Big Government is vanishingly small. There won’t be enough rich people to fill the role assigned to them in Obama’s scheme. The result to be expected, in addition to confiscatory taxation, is a dramatic shortfall of revenues. This, in turn, implies surging deficits and deficit financing requirements that will rapidly swamp the capacity of the Treasury to borrow.
James Dale Davidson has enjoyed astounding personal success founding new companies in a variety of industries. A graduate of Oxford University, Mr. Davidson is also a renowned venture capitalist and the author of bestsellers such as Blood In The Streets and The Great Reckoning.
The New York Times is reporting that the corporate jet industry is preparing to fight ending tax loopholes for the rich that purchase their planes. Michael Shure explains. The Largest Online News Show in the World. Facebook: www.facebook.com Subscribe: bit.ly TYT Mobile: bit.ly Twitter: twitter.com www.theyoungturks.com FREE Movies(!): www.netflix.com Read Ana’s blog and subscribe at: www.examiner.com Read Cenk’s Blog: www.huffingtonpost.com Video Rating: 4 / 5
The Main Stream Media And the Void It Leaves Behind
There has been a lot of discussion recently about media bias. Liberals point to the fact that the media has become consolidated among a relatively few big corporations and therefore, has a bias to the right. Conservatives point to the fact that most people in the media, based on surveys, are registered democrats and vote consistently for the democrat candidate, thereby displaying a bias to the left.
In fact, neither of these claims proves media bias. It is ludicrous to say that because the media is consolidated among a few corporations that it is, therefore, biased to the right. Historically, corporations have donated as much to democrat candidates as to republican ones. There are as many democrats who run big corporations as there are republicans.
For example, according to OpenSecrets.org, these corporations all contribute significantly more to democrats than republicans; Comcast, General Electric, Boeing, Verizon, Capital Group Companies, Exelon Corp. In fact, most corporations hedge their bets and contribute just about the same amount to democrats as they do to republicans. For the ones that actually take a stand and make a point of going to one party over the other, most actually contribute more to democrats than to republicans! The idea that corporations are interchangeable with republicans is a myth.
Similarly, to say that because most people in the media vote for democrats does not prove bias either. It is possible to vote predominantly for democrats (or republicans) and still be an objective reporter (possible but in practice, not likely). The only way to prove media bias is to look at what the media actually does – What does it cover? How much time does it devote to certain stories? How does it frame those stories?
It is clear that the Main Stream Media (MSM), which consists of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times and the overwhelming majority of print and broadcast media, including most of the entertainment industry in Hollywood as well as news magazines such as Time and Newsweek, devotes time to some stories and neglects others. The decision to neglect certain stories has created a void for those stories. An alternative media has sprung up out of necessity to fill that void. The alternative media consists mostly of Fox Cable News and talk radio. The internet has been successfully used by both the MSM and the alternative media.
Looking at actual stories, it is clear that the Jeremiah Wright controversy was not going to be looked into with any investigative zeal by the MSM. What the MSM failed to realize is that a large number of people cared about this story. People were enraged at the hatred this reverend demonstrated towards the United States and they questioned why a presidential candidate would sit in a church for over 20 years and listen to rants against the very country that the candidate wanted to be the president of!
Recent quotes pulled out of “Journolist” which is a listserve (think of it as a long email chain) show that journalists were actively seeking to bury the Reverend Wright story. These were not just people writing on a blog. They were journalists with the power to effect the editorial decisions of major newspapers, networks and magazines.
For example, Michael Tomasky, who writes for the Guardian, said to other members of “Journolist”: “Listen folks’in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy (ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos had the nerve to bring up the Wright issue) in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the (mainstream media) kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”
Who is Michael Tomasky to decide how to “serve the people”? A reporter’s job is to ask questions and to get at the truth. When a story is “uncomfortable” to your belief system, is it appropriate to bury the story and smear those who want to get to the bottom of it? Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent tried to create a climate of fear so that no one would dare talk about the Wright story. He said on “Journolist”, “Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” In fact, this very scandal is now a story in and of itself but don’t hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover it. If Fox news, however, threatened to arbitrarily smear people for talking about certain stories, the MSM would be on it and there would probably be a congressional investigation!
For many people, a “smoking gun” email chain wasn’t necessary to prove media bias in the MSM. People have observed this through the years such as in 1994 when Peter Jennings described the republican takeover of the house as a “temper tantrum”. Dan Rather was willing to put doctored documents on the air in an effort to put George Bush in a bad light. The funny thing about “Rathergate” was that it wasn’t much of a story, even if were true! It just goes to show what lengths reporters will go to in order to put someone they don’t like (conservatives) in a bad light. When Newt Gingrich received a bonus for a book he was writing while he was an active member of congress, the MSM criticized him endlessly for it but when Senator Clinton got an even bigger bonus the only thing heard was crickets. The examples are endless.
More recently the MSM has ignored horrific details in Obama’s healthcare bill and “stimulus” plan. They’ve misrepresented the situation of the Shirley Sherrod firing and slandered Andrew Breitbart for daring to post a video of the speech. Just for the record, days before Breitbart posted that video; the NAACP said that the Tea Party had racists in their group. This statement was given with no proof whatsoever but the MSM reported it dutifully.
Whatever context the Sherrod video was in, it showed that NAACP members were laughing when Sherrod spoke about “sending a white person to one of his own”. That is an outrageous statement and the reaction by members of the audience to the speech was telling. Yet no one in the MSM brought up that angle of the story. Now the MSM is talking about Sherrod as if she is a hero and Breitbart as if he is Satan. But Breitbart did a service to the truth showing that those who condemn others of racism should clean their own house first.
The alternative media has risen because of simple supply and demand. People on the left don’t seem to understand supply and demand when it comes to basic economics so it’s not surprising that they don’t quite catch the connection when it comes to the media. Bill Press, who wrote a book about bringing back some form of the “Fairness doctrine” to talk radio, said on an interview recently that his book was only concerned about talk radio and not about biases on television or newsprint. Yet one cannot talk about the success of conservative talk radio in a vacuum.
Conservative talk radio has succeeded because there is a ravenous hunger for information. People are tired of seeing the MSM misrepresent who they are and what they believe in. They are tired of the condescension shown by the MSM to anything religious or patriotic. They are tired of having their views and beliefs belittled. Not only at news networks but in the movies, conservative characters are presented as evil. It may be one unnecessary line or part of the main theme of the movie but it is there more often than not. It may be at a concert where all you want is to hear the music but have to listen to the singer denigrating the things you hold dear to your heart.
People can say whatever they want. Free speech is a good thing but choice of where to get information is also a good thing. People have turned away from the MSM and flocked to other sources because their priorities of what is important are not the same as those held by people in the MSM. People in the MSM don’t seem to care. Those who don’t share their vision of the world and what is important are just mere troglodytes. The MSM will never change to satisfy the needs of their audience for information because that kind of information is “beneath” them. In the minds of people in the MSM, they have a “higher” calling which only they get to define and only they get to judge.
Howard Jacobs
MBA Marketing Pace University
I currently work for a large finacial institution.
I started the blog EndTheChange because I am outraged at the direction our country is going in. People who feel this way want to know “What can I do?” This blog is my little way of trying to set the record straight on the upside-down state of our country. http://endthechange.blogspot.com
“Evelyn Evelyn” are an exciting new songwriting duo comprised of the conjoined twin sisters Evelyn & Evelyn Neville. The girls have recently released their debut record (co-produced by Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls and Jason Webley), toured Europe (despite volcanic-hangups), and are about to embark on a tour of North America, along with Palmer, Webley and their manager/chaperone Sxip Shirey (The Great Sxiphisto). More information about how to order the record as well as where to get tickets for the tour is available NOW at www.evelynevelyn.com Tour Dates Are As Follows… USA & CANADA May 17 – Venue in Vancouver, BC May 19 – Showbox at the Market in Seattle, WA May 20 – Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR May 22 – Great Am. Music Hall in San Francisco, CA May 23 – Great Am. Music Hall in San Francisco, CA May 25 – Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles, CA May 26 – Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles, CA May 27 – Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles, CA June 1 – Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN June 2 – Park West in Chicago, IL June 4 – The Great Hall in Toronto, ON June 5 – Théâtre Corona in Montreal, QC June 8 – Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York, NY * June 9 – Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York, NY * June 10 – Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York, NY * June 11 – Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York, NY * June 12 – Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York, NY * June 17 – 9:30 Club in Washington, DC June 18 – Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, PA June 19 – House of … Video Rating: 4 / 5
musicfog.com Madison Violet performs for Music Fog in Washington DC at The Mansion On O St. (11
airboyd.tv (Original film audio out of sync) Vintage film showing the inside workings of an airline. Few cuts in the beginning but cleans up. It features a TWA Constellation named Star of Paris (N86511) which on February 5, 1946, inaugurated the first scheduled commercial air service across the Atlantic. The first flight from Washington DC to Paris, Charles De Gaulle airport was fourteen hours, 48 minutes. http www.twaflightattendants.com Video Rating: 0 / 5
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They come to Washington for varied and complex reasons—driven perhaps by some deep emotional commitment to an issue, or believing that their time in Congress can make their dream of the presidency a reality. No matter what their motivation or particular route, freshmen have three traits in common: they will be members of one of the most powerful deliberative bodies on the planet; they will have far less leverage and influence than they might have imagined; and finally, none of them—not even the most experienced political hand—will have any idea exactly what will take to succeed as a United States Senator.
In The Upper House, political analyst Terrence Samuel journeys inside the legislative arm of the government to discover what makes a modern senator. He gets to the heart of the Senate and follows the people—Harry Reid, Jim Webb, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Tester, Chuck Schumer, Bob Corker—and the institution through displays of dazzling power, bewildering helplessness, and sacred traditions both ancient and modern.
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Drawing on interviews with United States senators who previously served in the House of Representatives as well as journalists and staff members, this volume provides a portrait of the two American Houses of Congress. It describes the important distinctions that separate the House and the Senate. .
Click Here to Watch the DJ Hero 2 Empire Mode Trailer: www.youtube.com DJ Hero 2 Behind the Music Trailer [HD] Developer: FreeStyleGames Release: 10/2010 Genre: Music Platform: PS3/X360 Publisher: Activision Website: www.djhero.com DJ Hero® 2 will transform living rooms into nightclubs letting budding beat chemists, singing sensations and all of their friends fire up two turntables and a microphone to experience their favorite music together as they’ve never heard it before. The follow-up to the award-winning, #1 new videogame IP of 2009, DJ Hero 2 delivers the ultimate way for gamers to come together with a host of new multiplayer modes that pit DJ against DJ in unique Battle Mixes, invite vocalists into the spotlight with scoring based on pitch and range detection and bring the party to life with jump-in/jump-out Party Play gameplay. Featuring the biggest dance, pop and hip-hop hits by the hottest artists everyone knows and loves remixed by world-class DJ’s in an all-new way, the game’s soundtrack delivers over 70 unique mashups only available in DJ Hero 2. Further immersing players into the music, the game offers a heightened level of creative input and allows everyone to add their own touch, directly impacting the beats they’re spinning with Freestyle scratching, cross-fading and sampling, performed at set points in the mix. Follow Machinima on Twitter! Machinima twitter.com Inside Gaming twitter.com Machinima Respawn twitter.com Machinima Entertainment, Technology …
more movie news, reviews and interviews on www.collider.com With The Twilight Saga New Moon getting ready to hit theaters on November 20th, Summit Entertainment has released an EPK for the media to use. If youre not familiar with the term EPK, it stands for Electronic Press Kit. An EPK is where the studio puts movie clips, trailers, and behind the scenes footage from whatever movie theyre promoting. Anyway, Ive taken the movie clips Summit released, as well as all the behind the scenes footage, and posted two videos after the jump. While the three clips have already been released over the past two weeks, the ten minutes of behind the scenes footage is all new. So if youve been waiting for Twilight: New Moon, youll really enjoy the footage of Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner on set. Heres the synopsis: In the second installment of Stephenie Meyers phenomenally successful Twilight series, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) delves deeper into the mysteries of the supernatural world she yearns to become part of-only to find herself in greater peril than ever before. Following Bellas ill-fated 18th birthday party, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and his family abandon the town of Forks, Washington, in an effort to protect her from the dangers inherent in their world. As the heartbroken Bella sleepwalks through her senior year of high school, numb and alone, she discovers Edwards image comes to her …
Splinter Cell: Conviction Behind Closed Doors Part 2 Trailer [HD] Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Release: 2/23/2010 Genre: Action/Stealth Platform: X360/PC Publisher: Ubisoft Website: splintercell.us.ubi.com Conviction is a story of how elite government agent, Sam Fisher, turned the bitterness of his past into the fuel to drive his quest for answers. For years, Fisher has been off the grid and on his own, chasing his daughter’s murderer. But the trail leads him to Washington DC the last place he ever wanted to see again. Now Sam must stand against vast, faceless enemies and battle the corrupt government agency that made him into the merciless warrior he’s come to be. Free from constraints, he must now outwit, outmaneuver, and outgun his enemies to get what he’s seeking the truth. You’ve never played a Splinter Cell like this before. And you will only be able to play it on the Xbox 360 or PC. TAGS: Splinter Cell: Conviction Behind Closed Doors Part Trailer [HD] machinima video game microsoft sony playstation gametrailers xbox360 xbox tgs street date announcement windows live pc ubisoft sam fisher pandora tomorrow chaos theory double agent navy seal special gun stealth weapon kill yt:quality=high FOR MORE MACHINIMA GOTO: www.youtube.com
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