Weekly Open Thread

“You look like you have a temp… Here…let me feel your forehead…!

@OldT 2
@Skooks

-A man couldn’t ask for a better couple of guys to watch his six, and give some perspective.

Thank you.

Are they puppy dogs or wolves? I don’t care. I want them now, and for keeps!

Meanwhile Combat Ops are Done…

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/05/forces-help-repel-attack-baghdad-military-hq/

US Forces Help Repel Attack on Baghdad Military HQ

Baghdad has been on high alert since President Barack Obama declared the official end to U.S. combat operations on Wednesday, setting up more checkpoints, intensifying searches of people and vehicles and handing out more guns and bullets to troops guarding the capital.

The number of U.S. troops has fallen from a high of 170,000 to just under 50,000 this August; all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by 2012.

The remaining American soldiers have a noncombat role and mostly assist Iraqis in stabilizing the country. However, U.S. forces can still help Iraqi forces hunt down al-Qaida and other militants and can defend themselves or their bases against attacks.

Insurgents have intensified their strikes on Iraqi police and soldiers to mark the change in the U.S. mission.

I reckon that Op New Dawn is working as well as the Stimulus… 👿

Ok…this one’s important to be aware of. They want your money.

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/2010/ebsa082610.html

Here’s your Sharia Law, Koran BS, at work, Obama:

Vatican says stoning in Iran adultery case ‘brutal’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39015497/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/.

The hatred in the Muslim Koran is directed not only at the Jew and the Infidel, but also at the Muslim people. Stoning, cutting off of hands, feet and limbs. The Koran is primitive and brutal, as the Pope points out. In a modern world, the tenets of the Koran are those of an ignorant people, a shallow people, out of touch with reality in the 21st century and deadly without mercy; no compassion and no tolerance.

Around the world, many are celebrating 9/11 with the burning of the Koran and it’s hatred and it’s violence indoctrination. Burn the Koran.

In California, we will be voting for a new Governor to replace the Terminated, Arnold. And, recently on KNX radio station out of Los Angeles, I heard (and continue to hear) political advertising for former Governor, and current California Attorney General, Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown.

What’s nauseating about the commercials is their radical departure from the truth and attempt to highlight Brown’s “achievements”, which are lost on my ears.

1. The ads claim that Jerry Brown somehow saved California a certain expense due to his not moving into the, at the time, newly built Governor’s mansion. What a crock! Jerry Brown DID NOT save California taxpayers anything. The mansion was about to be completed, so it’s not as if he had spared us the expense. Instead, what he did do, is lay off perhaps a dozen workers at the governor’s mansion. A bit of savings? Or, added unemployment. The mansion was later sold, perhaps at a loss.

Besides the pro-rated cost to every Californian for the mansion was possibly not more than .25 cents per year for maybe 5 years. Arnold doesn’t live in a governor’s mansion, because there is none, either – so no big deal.

2. The ads claim that Jerry Brown saved the state bucks because he did not use the Governor’s jet airplane, as Arnold does daily. This is crap also. For in order to manage a state the length of California, a California governor needs to fly expeditiously from Sacramento to Los Angeles, where the governor also has an office, and back again. It is the height of ignorance and mismanagement of the state to think that the southern half of California does not benefit from the governor’s office in Los Angeles – and having the governor there alternatively.

3. And alas, Jerry Brown is running for governor of California for a THIRD time. He is running because the LAW forbidding a person from serving as governor more than twice didn’t pass until after Brown had served twice. If Jerry Brown is a considerate and modest person, why is he running again; for the spirit of the current law that forbids third terms was voted in by the people of the State of California. Although it is legal for him to run and serve again, Brown seems to be fighting the will of the people. And, if that is the kind of governor he would be; I say forget Brown.

Let’s elect a real working person with real executive experience, NOT Jerry Brown. Say no to the Democrat Obama-types who seem to think that you can manage government without some solid executive experience. Let’s vote for Meg Whitman. This is not a paid advertisement, it is an opinion:

http://www.megwhitman.com/.

The people in that group are fucking idiots. People who support them, are as well.

However, U.S. forces can still help Iraqi forces hunt down al-Qaida and other militants and can defend themselves or their bases against attacks.

How gallant of Obama to allow our troops to defend themselves, instead of insisting that they surrender and be beheaded. That Obama is finally getting it together.

ToothFairy: HI, I see it now, HE look MEAN, bye

Gibbs head-slaps DiNozzo for another silly remark.

“No, you don’t have a fever and yes, you do have to go to school today……”

Small businesses feel squeezed by Obama policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305391_pf.html

By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 6, 2010; 12

Last year, even as he struggled through the worst of the recession, Chris Upham said revenue at his District-based real estate and construction businesses doubled — allowing him to hire two agents.

But Upham said he hasn’t increased his staff thus far in 2010 and he doesn’t expect to for the remainder of the year.

That’s because his taxes rose sevenfold. And he said he anticipates they’ll increase again if the Bush tax cuts for people earning $250,000 and above expire at the end of the year.

As small businesses try to plot their recovery, attention is turning to what many owners consider burdensome policies — higher taxes, new accounting procedures and health-care mandates. Even as the government tries to help with an array of small-business initiatives, many owners say the intervention is as much a hindrance to hiring as the faltering economy.

Their perceptions are important because the Obama administration is counting on small-business owners like Upham, whose ranks represent more than half the U.S. workforce, to jump-start the economy, much like they did after downturns in the early 1990s and 2001.

“We did well last year, hired two people, but the taxes ate through the income we had,” Upham said.

Upham said business picked up substantially with the Obama tax credit for first-time home buyers before dropping off when it ended. With the administration efforts, he said, he feels like he’s taking one step forward and two backward.

“It seemed like we were moving up, [and now] consumer confidence is down,” he added. “What I want government to do is not raise taxes — decrease them to allow us extra money for hiring.”

The White House appears poised to respond to a growing backlash from businesspeople about the crush of higher taxes. Among the ideas being explored were a temporary payroll-tax holiday and permanent extension of the expired research-and-development tax credit, ways to offset the impending elapse of tax cuts for the top 2 percent of households.

“I will be addressing a broader package of new ideas next week,” President Obama said Friday at a news conference held to comment on the Labor Department’s August unemployment data. The report showed weak economic growth — 67,000 private sector jobs added in August, down from 107,000 in July — and that the jobless rate ticked up to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent.

The conventional wisdom is that small businesses would be willing to expand their payroll if capital were more readily available to them. Small businesses suffered more in the credit crunch than their larger counterparts because they rely almost solely on banks for their financing.

Last year, the Obama administration allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to increase loan guarantees and to reduce borrower fees for small businesses, classified by the government as firms with 500 employees or fewer. The program proved to be wildly popular: Before the money ran out last spring, the number of loans approved soared 90 percent.

“There’s a direct correlation between access to capital and job growth,” said Molly Brogan, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association. “If people are able to get loans and financing, they’re able to grow their business and that includes creating new jobs.”

Obama, who wants to revive the program, last week urged Senate Republicans to support a Democratic proposal to cut taxes for small businesses and establish a $30 billion loan fund providing them easier access to credit.

“There’s one thing we know we should do — something that should be Congress’s first order of business when it gets back — and that is making it easier for our small businesses to grow and hire,” Obama said in a Rose Garden speech. “We know that in the final few months of last year, small businesses accounted for more than 60 percent of the job losses in America.”

Yet to date, existing loan programs haven’t yet spurred much hiring. Surveys conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Small Business Association show owners much less optimistic in recent months about their prospects of hiring and growing than they were late last year and earlier this year.

Even supporters of loans say the government investment likely won’t pay off until consumers start spending and business owners start feeling more confident. “If everyone is saving and not spending and their clients are hurting economically, small businesses have to be a bit more cautious” about hiring, Brogan said.

In the Washington region, hiring is picking up at small businesses experiencing an increase in demand for their goods and services. For Luc Brami, principal of Gelberg Signs in Northwest Washington, and Craig Savarick, director of executive recruiting firm Capital Search Group in Vienna, an incentive came in the form of an Obama initiative: a temporary exemption from payroll taxes on every unemployed person they hired.

“For four people we hired, it will be a $9,000 savings,” Brami said.

“We got a [tax] break and put it back into the company,” he added. “We can buy equipment and get a credit, too.”

In all, the administration has implemented about a dozen small-business programs, including a health-care tax credit; more opportunities for women business owners to receive government contracts; and cuts in capital gains taxes.

“Our view is that the financial crisis put multiple barriers in the way of small businesses and the appropriate policy response has to be aggressive and multifaceted instead of looking for one silver bullet,” said Gene Sperling, counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on small-business issues.

But Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, asserts that the initiatives coupled with numerous other new regulations are making owners feel overburdened, overregulated and less secure about the economy.

“They may see it as more interference,” Bethune said, “they see it as bureaucratic intrusion.”

Some business owners and advocates complain that some of the programs contradict one another. Stephanie Cathcart, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said benefits from the payroll tax exemption business owners use when they hire unemployed people are mitigated by provisions in the health-care overhaul law that reduce a tax credit when businesses hire.

“It’s counterintuitive,” she said. “Frankly, a lot of these initiatives fall short.”

Brogan of the National Small Business Administration said a new accounting regulation dramatically increases the requirements associated with providing documentation to the government on businesses’ vendors, a rule that on average will multiply the average number of 1099 tax forms an owner files every year to 86 from 10.

“This will take the money they’d spend to hire a part- or full-time employee and give it to accountants,” she said.

Dinesh Sharma, president of government contracting firm Washington Business Group in Chantilly, said he ruled out using the payroll tax exemption, believing the savings couldn’t justify the tens of thousands of dollars he’d spend in salary and health insurance for a new employee.

“We’re not large enough to hire someone just to take the benefit of a small tax break,” he added. “The burden is more than the benefit.”

That was a moving video, OT. The country driving scenes reminded me of the home I once called home. Thank You!