… and you can read about it on my Facebook page.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Runaway-Project/154930117857303?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts

I’m planning to produce an educational video that’s going to be called “Runaway!” It’s a narrative story about a slave boy named Blanche who has learned to read and write. He thinks he has it pretty good, even better, his master has promised him emancipation the day he “puts on the wooden overcoat.” That day comes without warning and… well, the title of the video is RUNAWAY! – you ought to be able to figure out the rest.

The project is educational has a red-state sensibility about it and will touch on themes of literacy, slavery, the Underground Railroad, and folklore.  It will be aimed at teens and pre-teens.  Right now, the Facebook page is less about the film story and more about the process I’m going through to go tax exempt and raise the cash.  So if you’re a Facebook user, I’d appreciate a visit to “The Runaway Project” page, and if you can’t hit the “like” button while you’re there, at least offer to friend me.

Thanks.

I live in a neighborhood that’s designated “historical.”  If I want to make any alterations to my property, I have to get a certificate of appropriateness from the City.  And that’s what’s key.  APPROPRIATE. 

I had to battle to paint my stoop.   In the final analysis, I got permission to use a brick red paint.  Had I asked for leave to paint it green or purple, the alteration would have been deemed inappropriate and my request would have been denied.

I don’t think anyone denies that Muslims have the right to worship, but they don’t have the right to build a facility for group worship in my neighborhood.  Neither do Christians.  All city dwellers are effected by zoning.  Up in the mountains, neighbors are restricted on the height of the structures they build because it’s not right to block your neighbor’s view of the mountians.  In our county, I think you’d run into trouble if you tried to build a day-school outside city limits  -  I think the concerns are ground water and fire protection.

This argument about the mosque got silly fast.  Us right-wing nuts need to remember that a person doesn’t have the right to build anything he wants on his property just because he wants to.

Democrat vs. Republican

Drive vs. Reverse

Detroit vs. _________________?

So Sarah Palin says Mr. Obama doesn’t have balls.  I mean come on.  Just because he might not have a birth certificate doesn’t mean he doesn’t have balls.  I’m sure he has balls.  He’s fathered children.  That’s prima facie evidence in anyone’s book.  Non usage isn’t evidence of non-existence.  If he doesn’t have balls it’s because of Bush.  Right wingers are so dumm.

Our President got elected by a coalition of government employees, people that depend on a government check, and ignoramuses.  If the ignoramus vote splits 50/50, there’s no way Mr. Obama wins.   

Now we see that a gang of conservative lawyers are challenging the constitutionality of the AHCA (Affordable Health Care Act of 2009).  They argue that the Commerce Clause doesn’t grant the government the power to require an individual to buy a product or service.  The government responds that the Act doesn’t really require anyone to buy, lookit, those that choose not to buy will be subject to a tax, Mr. Obama’s assurances that it’s “absolutely not a tax” notwithstanding.  Sort of like a sales tax for not buying.

Who are the people that won’t buy the insurance?  I’d think the largest group is going to be young adults, although insurance companies are going to permit parents to cover their children to age 27.   So as a practical matter the folks that will pay the penalty rather than buy the insurance will probably be age 27 to 39 or so.  The 39 number is arguable, but that seems to me to be about the time when advancing age starts to make people do the kind of things that the preachers are taking credit for. 

Of course, the government employees and the people that rely on entitlements all have health insurance.  It’s the ignoramuses that don’t.

I’m struck by the irony of this:  this band of conservatives lawyers are basically arguing that the AHCA is unfair to American ignoramuses to a degree that’s un- Constitutional.   Conservatives are carrying water for a group of people that split 90/10 for Mr. Obama and are too stupid to realize they had a target on their backs.   

Endnote:  evidently conscientious objectors can go without coverage and escape the penalty.  I guess that’s some really fundamentalist Christian sects, Quakers, and Muslims.  On the face of it, the Quakers offer the best package.  Seventy-two virgins sounds enticing but, my luck, they’d all look like Susan Boyle.

Me and the missus watched the last half of Avatar this morning, the film that promises to pay James Cameron $350 million.  You remember him, he’s the guy that called the BP engineers morons.  We watched the 2D version  -  it’s intended to be viewed 3D.

Did someone say “what’s it about?”  Well… just imagine.

What would have happened if there were 20,000 indiginous tribal people populating Earth when another, more agressive, tobacco smoking peoples arrived from the sky seeking resources?  And what if the indiginous people were twice as big and more athletic and far more spiritual because the trees and fauna on Earth were all connected in a neural network that made it bigger and more powerful than a brain?  And what if the conciousness of a couple of the sky people could flip flop back and forth between sky-bodies and indiginous-bodies?  And what if the indiginous people, men and women alike, had pony tails that serve as phallic connectors that allow them to commune with Mother Gaia to drive away the sky people after the sky-guy in his indiginous body does the obligatory Knute Rockne slash Woody Guthrie speech ?  (“This land is ours!”  [Cheers from crowd.])  Well.  One thing sure, the outcome would have been different.

Like all great movies, Avatar leaves us with some moral ambiguity.  It seems a bit selfish if not downright churlish for Earth to be set aside and preserved for the benefit a mere 20,000 individuals if an entire life form is left to extermination, after all, only the eco-scientist smoked tobacco.  I came away hoist on the horns of a conundrum.  Isn’t it OK to share the wealth?  To spread it around a little?  Why should so few have so much?

This movie has given me the blues.

So we got some good news today.   The government failed to show a “likelihood” that irreparable injuries will come about if offshore drilling resumes.  Appeal denied. 

Reminds me of a joke.  A kid asks his father “can you tell me the difference between potentially and likely?”  His father sez “Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars. Then go ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Come back and tell me what you’ve learned.”

The kid is puzzled, but asks his mother. “Mom, if someone gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with Robert Redford?”

“Don’t tell your father, but, yes, I would.”

He then goes to his sister’s room. “Sis, if someone gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with Brad Pitt?”

She replies, “Omigod! Definitely!”

The kid goes back to his father. “Dad, I think I’ve figured it out.  Potentially, we are sitting on $2 million bucks, but in all likelihood, we’re living with two sluts.”

Big Hat Salazar says he’s gonna drop another dime on the gulf drilling industry but it looks like to me like he’s still got a huge obstacle in showing the “likelihood” of another spill that would cause irreparable damage.

He got his teeth kicked in on the appeal but only 2-1.  I suppose the appeals court judge has a lifetime appointment, but I wouldn’t want to spend a lifetime in Louisiana if I made a ruling like that.

So says Diana West at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/24/media_leave_south_park_creators_out_to_dry_105305.html

Now for something more sophisticated… to the tune of “[We'll have] Manhattan”:

We’ll have Mohammed
Mullahs  
And Ayatollahs too
It’s lovely to subdue
The Joooo

It’s very fancy
On old Damascus Street
You know
The camels charm us so
When balmy breezes blow
To and fro

And tell me what meat
Compares
With goat meat
In July
Sweet pushcarts
Gently gliding by

A car bomb
We pray will spoil
Two rabbis and one moyel
We’ll kill a Hebrew
And whip ourselves with joy

“A second inquiry has cleared climate researchers at the University of East Anglia of allegations that they distorted the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming. ‘There was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda,’ an independent panel of scientists said in a report submitted to the university on Monday.”  The New York Times, April 14, 2010  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/science/earth/15briefs-Britbrf.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“They are not near Baghdad. Don’t believe them…. They said they entered with… tanks in the middle of the capital. They claim that they – I tell you, I… that this speech is too far from the reality. It is a part of this sickness of their plan. There is no an… no any existence to the American troops or for the troops in Baghdad at all.”   Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, a/k/a “Baghdad Bob,” Iraqi Minister of Information, April 5, 2003.

Last, but in no way least, the Great and Power Wizard of Oz:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZR64EF3OpA

Saw this: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWBT01379520100413?type=marketsNews  and decided to post somethng I wrote back when Lawrence Summers was still at Harvard…

In 1997, the Senate began to reform IRS. 

Former Commissar Peterson testified that verbal attacks on IRS encourage events like the Oklahoma City Bombing. 

The testimony of former Commissar Lawrence Summers (now president of Harvard University), stressed the importance of avoiding criticism of IRS agents. 

The Senators heard that pressure to produce at IRS makes it a terrible place to work. 

What will we do?

I won’t keep you in suspense.  The lasting consequence of reform was this finding: tax collectors suffer from stress-related disabilities.  Our wonderful lawgivers hobbled any defense of the federal government to phony disability claims by revenue agents.  And now it’s a cry of treason for a citizen to denounce the altruism of IRS agents. 

The revenue agent, the unceasing victim. 

Anything wrong with this picture?  Sure.  It’s baloney.  The revenue agent deserves to suffer.  His lack of integrity is the problem with the IRS.  He’s the most rapacious creature known.  He robs the rest of us.  He always has.  He always will.  Wasn’t Jesus condemned for befriending harlots and publicans?

Who ever volunteered for a community project and found himself working elbow-to-elbow with an IRS agent?  A glass blower?   Maybe.  A preacher that parts his hair?  Or a feminist that has orgasms?  Perhaps.  But never a revenue agent.

IRS looks the other way while its agents extort the rest of us.  We submit impotently to unconscionable acts of IRS agents.  And we pay him, a case study in mediocrity, far better than any comparable workingman, indifferent to his cost to government. 

Cost to the government?  You decide.

In Kordopatis v. US, (DC Pa, 1/13/97), IRS exacted a $6,000 penalty tax out of Kordopatis.  Kordopatis’ ladyfriend owned part of a failed dress shop–she failed to pay all the employee taxes.  Kordopatis, not an officer, director, or shareholder, had no authority to sign checks or hire/fire employees.  He loaned money to the store, and on one occasion, he and his ladyfriend locked her co-owner out of the store.

Kordopatis won and recovered his $6,000 from IRS, and presumably, his legal fees.  That would be $25,000, minimum.  That cost is surely matched by another $25,000 cost, the salary of the government lawyer, in theory, an advocate for the interests of the government.

In Kordopatis, IRS went to war with no law and no facts supporting its position.  IRS paid the salary of some peephole artist to investigate and make the unprovable determination of Kordopatis’ liability.  The case passed supervision and review, but even then, any number of IRS appeals and several government lawyers could have ditched the case.

Did the peephole artist get fired for wasting $50,000?  Or his supervisor?  Or the reviewer?  Or the appeals officer?  What happened to the ostensible advocate for the Commonwealth?  I’ll bet not a one got a stern talking to.  $50,000.  That’s a lot of money, ask anyone at the DNC.

The government suffers these kinds of losses because of the revenue agent’s prolific lying.  If any fraud holds a candle to a cop, it’s the common variety revenue agent.  Any revenue agent that tells you otherwise is lying. 

Johnson v. Sawyer (77AFTR2d 96-2383) displays an even more outrageous example of profligate waste and fibbing when nothing is at stake.  Mrs. Johnson kept goofy business records for her high-profile husband.  Johnson underpaid his tax by $3,475.  To protect his wife, Johnson paid the tax and plead guilty to a criminal charge for one year, subject to strict measures to avoid publicity, agreed to by the US Attorney’s office.  He received a six-month probated sentence, and no fine.  High school kids get stiffer penalties for smashing pumpkins on Halloween, or for peeing on bushes in the park.

Five days later, on April 15, Johnson learned that the press was needling big shots in his company about his conviction.  IRS had released the news to 21 area media outlets, stating falsely that Johnson plead guilty in two years, altered documents, and falsified deductions.  Two days later, over strenuous objections from Johnson and the US Attorney, IRS issued a regional news release.  What possible rationale could they offer for violating the plea agreement?  IRS theorized the “no publicity” agreement bound only the US Attorney, not IRS.  Johnson, a highly decorated WWII veteran, lost his job. 

A jury awarded Johnson $6,000,000 in actual damages, plus $3,000,000 in punitive damages, for intentional and malicious IRS conduct.  US appealed.  In the process, the US attorney suborned false IRS testimony.  According to the appellate judge “… the opposite was true.”  (Judges attend charm school to learn to say “the opposite was true” where common men say “it’s a goddamn lie.”)

$9,000,000, plus interest for 15 years, plus the cost of compensating the ostensible advocate for US.  Some people don’t pay that much alimony.  The IRS appealed again.  Johnson doesn’t think he’ll ever see the money.

Finally, consider the bungled high-jacking in the case of US v. Williams (75 AFTR2d 95-1805).  Ms. Williams planned to divorce Mr. Williams, who fell behind in paying the employee taxes at his restaurant.  In the property division, Mr. Williams transferred his interest in their house to Ms. Williams.  Ms. Williams assumed $650,000 in debts.  Six months later and single, Ms. Williams contracted to sell the house.  A week before closing, IRS notified Ms. Williams and the purchaser that IRS claimed liens on the property of $41,937.  The purchaser threatened to sue Ms. Williams if she failed to close, so Ms. Williams paid the tax under protest and filed a claim for refund.

IRS denied Williams’ claim, so she sued.  While admitting the tax was lawlessly collected, IRS theory was “Ms. Williams can’t sue.  She’s not the taxpayer, her ex was.”  IRS argued that the law denies Williams standing because that would open the government to rampant abuse at the hands of parties who volunteer to pay taxes they don’t owe.  Read that last sentence over until you understand it.  Abuse by taxpayers who owe nothing… incredible.

OK.  I insisted that revenue agents cost the government money, that they are liars, blackmailers, high-jackers, rogues and extortionists.  These three cases corroborate that hypothesis.  The only question: are the conclusions hastily made?  Or are the cases exceptional, or drawn out of context? 

My thirty years experience says no.  These three cases simply repeat a theme that percolates out of tax cases.  Inexorably, one concludes that he, the malevolent revenue agent, grasps no idea except that it damages his enemy; that he has an incurable hatred of taxpayers.  Why this simian rage?  Simply because the revenue agent perceives that a regular citizen is having a better time than he is. 

H. L. Mencken attributed the same idiosyncrasies to farmers.  But here on the foreskin of the 21^st century, the revenue agent far outstrips the farmer when it comes to venality.

Like Mencken’s husbandman, the revenue agent is not against alcohol.  He uses alcohol, but he drinks alone.  He only puts down the use of alcohol when it stimulates cultured communion.  The revenue agent would outlaw the civilized use of alcohol.  Why?  He repudiates the form most agreeable to the common man, but inaccessible to him.

Our representatives bestow egregious authority on a brotherhood of philistines.  Only federal judges have more power than revenue officers, so unconscionable acts lie within the means of windowpeekers.  People often call revenue agents Nazis, and it’s easy to see why.  Once the Nazis obtained the means, the unspeakable also soon fell within their tastes and mores.  Why does the revenue agent continually assault the American public with his degraded ethics?  Because he can.

These brainwashed snitches never own up to personal responsibility for their envious savaging.  IRS ingrains in them a catchphrase to dislocate their brains: “Each taxpayer should pay his fair share.”  In other words, a taxpayer should pay his fair share because his share is fair, being equally and equitably laid on, as we all know, by Title 26 of the US Code. 

Any rational man asks, “If fair share is such a praiseworthy goal, what gives with all he targeted benefits?”  And why would Chief Justice Rehnquist have remarked in Williams, that fairness is “a factor not usually of great significance in construing the Internal Revenue Code”?

The revenue agent spins the prayerwheel and chants the mantra, by doublethink disobliged to reason and logic. Emancipated from intellectual honesty, his cerebellum fills with misty daydreams, musings of utopia, where each citizen pays according to his ability, as defined by IRC§61 and regulations, rules and procedures promulgated thereunder, under penalties of perjury, subject to examination and verification.  A kingdom comes… where substance champions over form, except where form champions over substance, if it benefits the sovereign, in the discretion of the IRS, as determined by the examining revenue agent.

Millions of schedules, billions of columns, furrows in a field sowed to give forth a harvest of early retirement, nay, disability retirement.  The pious publican plows onward, tilling in the dusty footsteps of the mule, the subservient taxpayer. 

But the path rises to meet the footfall of the revenue agent.  It’s OK to whip the mule if he stumbles.  He’s rented.

Here’s a part of what Reuters said yesterday at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0517093120100405

“Subsidies would help poorer people buy coverage, and states would set up exchanges to allow individuals and small groups shop for insurance.

“People who do not comply would be levied penalties, and if they don’t pay them the penalties could be taken out of their tax refunds.

“‘There has been some insinuation about how we are going to approach our job,’” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said after speaking at the National Press Club.

Under the new law, the IRS cannot seize assets or levy fines, so Shulman said refunds were the most obvious option to collect penalties.”

Working poor people don’t have enough income tax withheld to amount to a hill of beans.  They file tax returns to get the Earned Income Credit.  So cutting through the fog of Washington speak, what the Commisar of IRS is saying is that IRS is going to snag a guy’s earned income credit if he doesn’t have coverage.

Is it just me?  Or does this new health plan seem regressive?

I guess if a guy like me wants to be President, then it’s the decent thing to do to tell the people that he expects to give him financial support just exactly how he plans to get there from here.

The first thing I’m going to do is to run in Iowa. I’m not sure if I will run as a Democrat, an Independent, or if I will change my registration to Republican.

Initially, I’ll be a one-issue candidate. I’ll promise to remove the Department of Agriculture from Washington DC and plop it down in Des Moines, once elected, by executive order. Probably the best way of getting the word out is on the small town radio stations that do the farm reports. I can do those radio interviews from my home here and save a lot of money. The accident of my birth in Iowa gives me the imprimatur to stake out my claim as a favorite son and land some otherwise tough-to-get interviews on those rural radio outlets.

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