imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Saturday, April 23, 2005
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TODAY'S SNARK FIX
 | Superficial has some great snark: 1) Johnny "Knoxville and [Jessica] Simpson stroking one another's hands when the lights went down." 2) Brandon Routh is Superman: [A]ny chance you could ratchet back the gayness a tad on the new Superman. 3) Quentin Tarantino directs CSI |
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ALGORE UPDATE
 | Al Gore Builds Time Machine: Q: "Could we, perhaps, eliminate Joe McCarthy before he becomes Senator?" GORE: "That would be unwise. McCarthyism is an important ideological weapon helping us win just about any argument with right-wingers." |
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LUCKY DAWD NEWS DISCOVERS
 | USA Today's Left Wing Bias Creeps into the Sports Page: I don't mind if they hype their leftist agenda on the Editorial Page. do mind it when it appears in the Sports Section and is mixed in with NASCAR news. |
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Friday, April 22, 2005
GOTTA COLD
I'm just passing through to say that I've got a nasty ol' cold. My voice is so deep I sound like Lauren Bacall. Check back later as I may feel better to post something.
My animated gif kept shutting down, so I borrowed Professor Shade's.
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Thursday, April 21, 2005
GOING TO VENICE?
The Truth About Gondolas:
Let me start off by saying that the gondola rides in Venice can be described in two words: RIP OFF. ... Have you ever ridden in a canoe? Would you pay 120 bucks to ride in a canoe for a half and hour?
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CHIMNEY FIRE :)
Chimney Fire at Sistine Chapel; Nobody Hurt: (4/19/05) A small chimney fire began early this morning at at the Sistine Chapel in Rome. ... When the second blaze started crowds cheered. Such insensitive loudness in the face of tragedy, of course, could only come from vacationing American tourists, apparently Republican Red-Staters, once again putting American boorishness on display in front of refined Europeans.
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San Jacinto Day!
Thanks to the Sam Houston and his men in 1836, Texas celebrates its independence from Mexico.
SMILE, YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA
TEXTING UNDER THE INFLUENCE: After the official event, the group, including some married men, headed to a bar, where a cocktail waitress offered test-tube shots from her mouth and her breasts. The night got raunchy - and it was all captured on a cellphone camera. Back in New York, their high-tech hangover took the form of a damage-control Monday spent fruitlessly trying to get hold of the snaps.
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OLD DOG MUZZLED?
IN TOWN WITH BUBBA
Bill Clinton ... enjoyed a late- night feast with 10 pals, including [Jack] Nicholson, movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer and beautiful Canadian politician Belinda Stronach, a longtime close friend of Clinton. ... Bubba was on his best behavior around sexy Stronach,38. ... Clinton began spending time with her in 2002. They've been spotted together several times since, playing golf, attending horse races and charity events in the U.S. and Canada. The twice-divorced, bubbly billionairess ... credits him with inspiring her unsuccessful 2004 run for the leadership of Canada's Conservative Party.
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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
JASON MILLER REMEMBERED
Jason Miller, as the tortured Father Karras, and Max von Sydow in The Exorcist.
Go Irish: The Purgatory Diaries of Jason Miller
Go Irish: The Purgatory Diaries of Jason Miller is an intense one-man show that examines the soul in afterlife of the late Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (That Championship Season) and film and television actor (The Exorcist, F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood) Jason Miller. Stuck in purgatory until he can answer in a battered, loose leaf notebook, no less for the mess that his life became before he died of a massive heart attack in 2001, Miller walks us through the shattered detritus of his career and alcoholic existence, a deeply troubled man who turned his back on Hollywood and returned home to Scranton, PA, to become the town drunk.
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DEATH TO THE DEATH TAX!
Democrats and MSM Misleading Argument On The Federal Estate Tax
In the debate about repealing the Federal Estate Tax I have noticed that the MSM (and the Democrats) has taken to its usual misleading reporting in trying to frame the debate. As you know the House again voted for full repeal of the Federal Estate Tax last week and defeated a Democratic alternative to raise the "exemption" (the amountof the estate not subject to the Federal Estate Tax) subject to the tax.
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A good deal of my practice is Federal Estate Tax planning, which involves helping people avoid this unfair death tax. Any reporting of an exemption for a "couple" - the implication being a married couple - is technically correct in the strictest sense, but in reality there is not an exemption for a married "couple.
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First there is one important fact to keep in mind. Any money that passes from one spouse to another when the first spouse dies is entirely free of Federal Estate Tax.
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Therefore, the Federal Estate Tax comes into play only when the surviving spouse dies, and leaves their estate to their children or other beneficiary.
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So, when the first spouse dies and all assets go to the surviving spouse the "exemption" of the first spouse is not used, and when the surviving spouse dies he or she only gets the individual exemption. Everything over that is taxed, most at a rate of nearly 50%.
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I know what you're saying - "But wait, the MSM is telling me that there is a $7 million exemption for a "couple", so how could they pay $1.25 million in taxes when their estate wasn't worth $7 million?
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DRAINING THE PUBLIC TEAT DRY
Mark Steyn on the UKs National Health Care System:
The reason people don't have "control" over their health care is because the government has control over it. If you had control over it, you'd have the hip operation on Thursday. But instead your hip operation's controlled by the state, so it's pencilled in for October 2008, if the hospital hasn't been consolidated into some new efficient centralised regional hip facility 150 miles away, in which case it will be February 2011.
There's no great mystery over this. "Waiting" is built into the concept of a government health service: As my own non-government doctor put it, making idle chit-chat as his fingers explored my fleshly delights, "When the government runs the system, every time you get operated on, it costs the government money.
So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets - salaries, buildings - it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs." The janitor and the janitorial services consolidation review consultant expect their cheques promptly on Friday; you're the one who can be postponed.
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Free citizens of advanced western democracies are increasingly the world's wrinkliest teenagers: the state makes the grown-up decisions and we spend our pocket money on our record collection.
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HORROR STILL A HOAX
'HORROR' FIGURE SLAMS PICTURE
THE former owner of Long Island's "Amityville Horror" house says the makers of the blockbuster fright flick defame him by suggesting that he tormented his family and hacked his dog to death with an ax.
George Lutz, who's portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the MGM remake that was the nation's No. 1 movie at the box office last weekend, is fuming about unsettling scenes which, he says, make him look like a bloodthirsty maniac.
"I think it's beyond brutal, and it's quite an accusation to make about someone that is being portrayed in a movie based on a non-fiction book," Lutz tells movieweb.com. "It's appalling that someone would do this to a living person. This kind of fiction touches real lives."
Except that that "non-fiction" book was based on a hoax.
In 1979, a lawyer named William Weber confessed to his part in the hoax during a paranormal radio show hosted by author Joel Martin. Weber had been the lawyer for convicted killer Ronald DeFeo and he admitted that he and George Lutz had concocted the story of the haunting over a few bottles of wine. Webers motive was to get a new trial for DeFeo, using a "Devil made him do it" defense. According to Weber, Lutz merely wanted to get out from under a mortgage that he couldnt afford. His business was in trouble and he needed a scheme to bail him out.
Kaplan found ample proof, outside of the glaring confession, that the story was a hoax. He gained access to the house on many occasions and found that the so-called Red Room, where the book claimed occult ceremonies took place, was nothing more than a small pipe well that gave access to them if they needed to be repaired. No demonic facehad ever appeared on the bricks inside of the fireplace. He also noted that the original front door of the house (blown off its hinges in the book) was still in place and intact. In addition, he found a writer for the local newspaper that had also been suspicious of the story. After some searching, the columnist discovered that the Lutzs had returned the day after fleeingfrom the house to hold a garage sale. He also charged that during their 28-day nightmarethat never once called the police for assistance, something that would have been commonly done under the circumstances. The list of things that did not happen in the house went on and on and to Kaplan (and to most everyone who listened to his rational arguments), the evidence for an Amityville Hoax was overwhelming.
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Monday, April 18, 2005
SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A NUT
You Are A Hazelnut Tree |
 You're a charmer with a killer sense of humor. You are very demanding, but you can also be very understanding. No matter what, you always make a lasting impression - you're quite popular. Passionate, you are an active fighter for social causes and politics. In general, you are moody, honest, a perfectionist, and very sexual. |
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I’M ROOTIN’ FOR YA, BABE!
Blogger Breakup Babe, known in real life as Rebecca Agiewich of Seattle, began blogging on 8/12/02 with the following:
One day I'm going to be a famous writer and every boy who’s ever wronged me is going to regret it. There'll I'll be on the back of my book, gazing out at the world with soft yet cynical brown eyes, my long hair just the slightest bit windblown, looking unbearably brilliant, beautiful, and rich.
Hot damn, if she didn't sell her book!
(11/10/04) I have some good news for you. I do not want to brag. I do not want to gloat. I do not want to prance around the rainy streets of Seattle, exulting because after years of hard work and frustration and discouragement and rejection and perserverance [sic]: I SOLD MY BOOK. TO RANDOM HOUSE.
Oh, dear, this was bound to happen:
(4/17/05) You will be happy to know that I have reached a milestone in the writing of my book: writer's block.
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[N]ow that I am at the crux of my story, I find that the plot is not working. I don't know why. It sounded so good when I said it out loud after three glasses of wine, but things have gone awry. I think I'm forcing too many crises on my poor little character. Trying to make her f*ck up one too many times. I'm writing scenes I don't believe in. And yet, I can't see my way out. I keep banging my head against the same wall, too freaked out by my impending deadline to step back and say hmm...how can I do this another way?
Most bloggers are writers at heart and can appreciate her dilemma. I'm rootin' for ya, Babe! Can't wait to promote your book.
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FAIRLY EVEN INTERVIEW
The world is his laptop
I expected a fast talking, in-your-face, liberal-baiting American. But after two minutes in his company you realise that Drudge is a loner.
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"No, I'm not gay. I was nearly married a few years ago. And no, I'm not a right-wing Republican," he replies without batting an eye. "I'm a conservative and want to pay less taxes. And I did vote Republican at the last election. But I'm more of a populist."
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[H]e sounds disillusioned and says that the "din" is growing into a cacophony: "There's a danger of the internet just becoming loud, ugly and boring with a thousand voices screaming for attention." He is no fan of the blogging phenomenon (weblogs linking sites): "I don't read them. I like to create waves and not surf them. And who are these influential bloggers? You can't name one because they don't exist."
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[H]e does not believe that the internet will be the end of newspapers: "The internet feeds off the main press and the main press feeds off the internet. They're working in tandem. I think what will happen is that newspapers will be printed throughout the day so you get different editions like in the old days."
