Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cuties - Year 2

 

As always, I thank Wombat-Socho for his links in The Other McCain's weekly collection of Rule 5 posts "Rule 5 Monday: Apocalypse Edition."

A Marines Christmas Song

And Yet Still More Christmas Blues

Our Last Package Was Just Delivered

I know, I know, everyone else posted it; why shouldn't I?

Christmas Eve at the Beach

Twas the day before Christmas and down on the beach

The ships were still sailing, well out of reach

The fossils were strewn on the beach all at random

While Skye was charging about with abandon

Mama in her neckerchief and I in my cap

Were watching the eagles, who were trying to nap

When out on the the Bay, there arose a great quacking








I'm afraid that the rest of this poem is lacking...

About That Two Month "Tax Holiday"...

Much like overeating at Christmas time, you'll be paying it back by dieting later this year.

Under the terms negotiated by Congress, the law also includes a new “recapture” provision, which applies only to those employees who receive more than $18,350 in wages during the two-month period (the Social Security wage base for 2012 is $110,100, and $18,350 represents two months of the full-year amount). This provision imposes an additional income tax on these higher-income employees in an amount equal to 2% of the amount of wages they receive during the two-month period in excess of $18,350 (and not greater than $110,100).

This additional recapture tax is an add-on to income tax liability that the employee would otherwise pay for 2012 and is not subject to reduction by credits or deductions. The recapture tax would be payable in 2013 when the employee files his or her income tax return for the 2012 tax year. With the possibility of a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut being discussed for 2012, the IRS will closely monitor the situation in case future legislation changes the recapture provision.

The IRS will issue additional guidance as needed to implement the provisions of this new two-month extension, including revised employment tax forms and instructions and information for employees who may be subject to the new “recapture” provision. For most employers, the quarterly employment tax return for the quarter ending March 31, 2012, is due April 30, 2012.

I've avoided most of the discussion of the two month "Tax Holiday" fiasco, largely because I can't pretend I understand what's going on.  Let's see, the House GOP wants the holiday for a year, Obama wants the holiday for a year, but it's a great victory for Obama when Obama and the democratic Senate force the House to accept the holiday for only two months...  Nope, I still don't understand it. As Ace points out, it was a pretty strange hill for the House GOP to decide to die on. 

But clearly this add on tax is part of a move to change the nature of Social Security from an insurance plan, paid for by money specifically collected for Social Security, to a general welfare plan, with money coming from the general fund.  It was headed there anyway, now that the income for Social Security has fallen below expenditures.  They looked in the magic "Social Security Trust Fund Lock Box", but like a magicians chest, it had a false bottom, and all the money was gone.

Now, what happens if (really when) the "holiday" on Social Security is extended through 2012?  Will they bump up the "recapture tax" and collect it as regular income taxes?

The Lord Government giveth and the Lord Government taketh away; Blessed be the name of the Lord Government.

Rule 5 Saturday - Amy Adams - Ginger Extraordinaire

Actress Amy Adams is the subject of this week's Rule 5 post.

Born in Italy to American Mormon parents in 1974, Amy was the 4th of 7 children.  Her father was in the Army (which explains the Italian birth), and retired to become a restaurant singer in Castle Rock, Colorado.

After high school, she took a job at Hooter's to earn money to buy a car:

... there was definitely an innocence to my interpretation of what Hooters was about. Though I did learn, quickly, that short shorts and beer don't mix!"

Speak for yourself! Oh, she did...

She tried ballet, and gave up, then settled on musical theater saying that ballet was:

"too disciplined and too restrained and I was always told off in the chorus lines"

 and that her body was

"just wrecked from dancing all these years."

If so, I can't see see it.  Let me look a little harder...

Amy in "Psycho Beach Party" - 2000

She played a number of minor roles from 1994 to 2002, costarring in "Drop Dead Gorgeous" with Kirsti Alley in 1999 and "Psycho Beach Party" in 2000.  She also played TV roles in such noted masterpieces as "Smallville", "That 70's Show", and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Charmed."

She also started doing voice over work, with "King of the Hill."


 In 2005 she starred in "Junebug", the little known, but critically acclaimed story of a cheerful, talkative single pregnant woman.  The role of the cheerful, naive, but resourceful ginger has been hung on her ever since.

As Carina Chocano of Los Angeles Times noted:

"Adams is amazingly adept at playing smart playing dumb".

 

Amy et al in "Charlie Wilson's War"

In 2007 she took that role to the extreme as Giselle in "Enchanted", the half animated, half live action movie in which she portrayed a storybook princess.














 
 Also in 2007 She also did a bit piece as, well, one of Congressman Charlie Wilson's pieces in "Charlie Wilson's War."

In 2008, she starred as, well, the vivacious, naive, red headed actress in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day", which seems to have provided Miss Adams the ability to be herself, and get paid for it.  Sweet work, if you can get it. 






It also seems to have provided her an excuse to show a fair amount of innocent skin...












To prove she had serious actress cred, no doubt, in 2008, she starred as a nun, Sister James, in "Doubt".  What a waste...

She has also starred as a vivacious, well you know, Amelia Erheart in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian"

Standing Still - 2005 with Lauren German

She's currently has two movies ("On the Road" and "The Master" in post production and is in the midst of filming yet another "Superman" flick, in which she will portray the naive, vivacious Lois Lane, hopefully as a red head...

This week Ted features Laura Vandervoot as his 29th Weekend Woman.  Thanks to Wombat-Socho for listing this, and my other posts in this weeks Rule 5 compilation "Boxing Day Edition" at the Other McCain.

Three Day Weather Forecast: Looking Good!

Justice Dept. Blocks Voter ID Law

Justice Department Blocks South Carolina’s Voter ID Law

The U.S. Department of Justice will block the voter ID provisions of an election law passed in South Carolina earlier this year because the state’s own statistics demonstrated that the photo identification requirement would have a much greater impact on non-white residents, DOJ said in a letter to the state on Friday.

The decision places the federal government squarely in opposition to the types of voter ID requirements that have swept through mostly Republican-controlled state legislatures.

Officials in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division found a significant racial disparity in the data provided by South Carolina, which must have changes to its election laws precleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, because of past history of discrimination. The data demonstrated that registered non-white voters were 20 percent more likely than white voters to lack the specific type of photo identification required to exercise their constitutional rights, according to a letter sent to South Carolina and obtained by TPM.

Because Justice Department lawyers reached the conclusion that South Carolina’s voter ID law would have the effect of suppressing minority voter turnout, they found it was unnecessary to examine whether that was the intent of the legislators who voted for the law. Cases based on intent to discriminate are usually more difficult to prove even though they don’t require the government to prove the effect was discriminatory.

Did the Justice Department just decide that it is legal to discriminate against minorities for purposes of obtaining a drivers license, purchasing firearms, buying liquor and tobacco?  It certainly sounds like it.  Or will they now go after the requirements to show ID for these purposes next?  I'm not holding my breath...

UPDATE: Aha! I beat Glenn Reynolds to the point!

Still More Christmas Blues

The Beach on Christmas Eve Eve.

After yesterday's cloudy skies we had a rainstorm last night, including a few flashes of lightning and some thunder.  As often happens, after a storm we had nearly clear skies this morning, and a bit of wind, just enough to keep my hat unstable.  It was only about 50 F but the sun kept us pretty warm.

Sometime in the past week, an old gill net drifted up on the beach. From the size of the barnacles on the floats, it has been in the water since last winter.  It did not seem to have any fish stuck in it, but according to Ray it had been collecting Sassay Shad for quite a while.  When we returned back from the walk, another beach rat had dragged up to the parking lot in anticipation of scapping it.

Fossil hunting was slow due to the wave action.  I finished with 14 teeth, including this good sized, but rather worn Snaggle Toothed sharks lower tooth.

Although obviously limping around all morning, Skye was still hot to get out.

No eagle today; it was not in evidence in its usual haunts.  However, we had a cormorant hanging out on the jetty, so I got a photo of it.  It's a little hard to take the picture into the sun, but by playing with "curves" in GIMP, I got some of the detail on the bird to show.

About Damned TIme

Approval of Reactor Design Clears Path for New Plants

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved a radical new reactor design on Thursday, clearing away a major obstacle for two utilities to begin construction on projects in South Carolina and Georgia. The decision, a milestone in the much-delayed revival of plant construction sought by the nuclear industry, involves the Westinghouse AP1000, a 1,154-megawatt reactor with a so-called advanced passive design. It relies more heavily on forces like gravity and natural heat convection and less on pumps, valves and operator actions than other models do, in theory diminishing the probability of an accident...

Westinghouse says that a combination of automatic systems and design features would keep the reactor safe for three days without human intervention and that its core could be kept from melting indefinitely with only minimal operator effort.

We need energy, and nuclear energy is one of the cleanest, best ways to provide new energy for the future.  If you don't like CO2 producing power plants, you should support nuclear power.

Spricket Explains SOPA and PIPA

It's the best explanation I've seen; maybe just because I stayed to watch the whole thing:



Yes, she starred in a post down the page a bit, but I found this at Jawa's first. Thanks to Wombat-Socho for listing this, and my other posts in this weeks Rule 5 compilation "Boxing Day Edition" at the Other McCain.

The Stupidest Thing Written This Year

Václav Havel: another side to the story

No one questions that Havel, who went to prison twice, was a brave man who had the courage to stand up for his views. Yet the question which needs to be asked is whether his political campaigning made his country, and the world, a better place.

Havel's anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women's rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first.

Thank God it was written by a Brit. I'd hate to think an American thought that.

Your Friday Monkey Dacking

Junior, don't touch the human; you might catch something.

More Christmas Blues

Another version:

Obligatory Bullfrog Plays Ant Crusher

Norks Not Totally Insane

Faced with the possibility of handing over the whole country, nukes, ginormous military apparatus and a serious starvation problem over to to a spoiled, 20 some year old four star general with no experience, the military leaders of North Korea blanched and decided maybe they should work into this a little more slowly:

North Korea's military to share power with Kim's heir

North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week's death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son will be at the head of the ruling coterie, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said. The source added that the military, which is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, has pledged allegiance to the untested Kim Jong-un, who takes over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since it was founded after World War Two. The source declined to be identified but has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the North's first nuclear test in 2006 before it took place.

The comments are the first signal that North Korea is following a course that many analysts have anticipated -- it will be governed by a group of people for the first time since it was founded in 1948. Both Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung were all-powerful, authoritarian rulers of the isolated state.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen... 

The Solstice at the Beach

We went down to the beach around 9:30 this morning.  It was partly cloudy, about 50 F and almost windless.  Looking north here, across the harbor channel toward the Gas Dock

 Skye was happy to get down there, as always.

I couldn't resist this picture because of the regular, scalloped shaped wash up pattern on the beach made by the waves (ship wake in all likelihood).  It was a pretty good day for fossils; I found over thirty, but mostly just jar fillers.

The eagle was in one of his/her favorite trees, practically posing for a photo.

 A bit more unusual, there was a loon hanging around in shallow water by the shore.  I'm accustomed to seeing them fishing in the power plant discharge in cold months, but seeing them from the beach is much rarer.

 Another shot, just because I don't get that many.

 The usual shot down the beach, pretty much catching the spirit of the day

Buffies playing in the harbor channel