Unintended consequences alert!

SUV tax break a marketing bonanza:

When Congress this year decided to allow small-business owners, doctors, lawyers and real estate salespeople to deduct up to $100,000 from their taxable income for the purchase of a luxury SUV [ed. note - it's not luxury SUV's, it's vehicles that weigh over 6,000 lbs.], Texas car-dealership magnate Jerry Reynolds could hardly believe his good fortune.

He took to the radio to spread the news, drafted a treatise for the Internet, and last week, the man known around Dallas simply as “the car guy” began advertising in the Dallas Morning News. “It’s a loophole,” the ad proclaims, “and this weekend, we can show you how to make that loophole big enough to drive a fleet of trucks and sport utility vehicles through it!”

The “SUV loophole” once seemed to be just a quirk in the tax code — deplored by environmental activists but ignored by most everyone else. Now it is shaping up to be a marketing bonanza for financial planners, accountants and auto dealers eager to snap up commissions and drive up sales of heavy vehicles, ranging from workhorse Ford F-250 pickup trucks to elite Hummer H2s, BMW X5s and Mercedes-Benz ML55s.

“It’s really been an eye-opener for people,” Reynolds said. “And it’s been fun, I’ve got to tell you.”

One of the best reasons for a flat tax is to cut out all the fooling around that goes on with the oddball exemptions and deductions. But since every politico loves to tinker with the tax code, I don't think the accountants and financial planners will have to worry about curtailed prospects any time soon. In the meantime - vroom!

It's early yet, but I'm already declaring Today's Hoot

I just flew in from the Shire...

...and boy are my arms tired!

There's no question about it, New Zealand is the same bucolic agricultural paradise at the ends of the earth, completely surrounded by a seawater moat that stretches a thousand miles in all directions it's always been.

And the modern day Hobbits that inhabit it are by and large as clueless about current events as any Took, Broadfoot or Sackville-Baggins was about the War of the Ring. I had many a strange conversation with people back home who were taken aback that I didn't agree instantly with their upper-sixth form political analysis.

"Now let's have none o' this 'ere going on about Dark Riders, and a Shadow gowin' in the East there Mr Frodo, my old missus won't 'ave any such talk in the parlour. What I want to know is, how is all this gallivanting about going to affect my prize-winnin' marrows eh?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't know what fancy notions you might 'ave picked up over there in Minas Tirith young Meriadoc, but round 'ere we just leave folks alone. Live and let live my Grandad used to say, and I expect that if those foreign folk were to know about the Shire, they'd just see we was peaceful folk and let us in peace. Stands to reason, don't it? We don't bother them, so why should they bother us?"

"Perigrin Took, you take off that ridiculous suit of mail this instant! People'll just laugh at you looking like that. And put that sword away, you'll be putting someone's eye out, waving it about like that. You've gone all addled since going off with odd foreign people, Rangers and whatnot. It'll all end in tears, and no mistake."

...

The more "sensitive" politics gets, the lower the bar is set for giving offence. It's now at such a pitch of hyper-acuity that I suspect a heavy storm might prompt a demand for reparations from the Maori on the grounds that they never had bad weather before whitey arrived.

Case in point. I was in the Bowen House office of a cabinet minister who shall remain nameless (he's actually a good egg, and I'd probably vote for him given half a chance). After ribbing me about being one of only 216 ACT voters in the Maori seat of Te Tai Tonga (he checked) we were having a good old natter when one of his staffers asked him to come and have a look at something on her computer.

It was this ad for 42 Below Vodka. Have a look at it now. Okay, that was pretty funny, wasn't it? Maybe some of the jokes are a bit New Zealand-centric, but there was nothing harmful there. But the Minister's staffer (who is white) wanted him (Maori) to see it in case he might be offended and might want to take some sort of action.

He thought (as I did) that it was a bit of harmless and amusing fun, while she stood there emitting That Marge Simpson Noise.

Much more by following the link.

Just Damn

Along with the first cup of joe this morning, I clicked on over to The Corner where they already have 3 items to get my heart started.

Some hyphenated "Americans" from Pakistan are opposing Bobby Jindal for governor of Louisiana because his parents came from India. Rod Dreher comments:

"I think it's a kind of unforeseen fear that if Bobby Jindal gets elected he might push things that are against the Pakistani interest," said Ashraf Abbasi of Port Arthur, Texas, who is president of the Pakistani-American Congress, an umbrella organization for Pakistani-American groups. Boy, it's hard to figure what the governor of Louisiana can do to hurt Pakistan. Halt Tabasco exports to Karachi? Ban the Neville Brothers from playing Mardi Gras in Quetta?

Maybe Ashraf's worried that Jindal would ban public displays of assholism.

Following that, there's a piece on the Washington Post suck-up to the late Joan Kroc:

"She was a bit of a news nut," said Dick Starmann, Kroc's longtime friend and spokesman. "She loved NPR and its unfiltered presentation of the news. . . . It wasn't liberal and it wasn't conservative. It was as objective as you're going to find."

Maybe if you live on the planet Moonbat. Too bad the old gal was senile.

Finally, Tim Graham notices some campus hijinks at Princeton:

In case you’re in danger of thinking that the campus isn’t the best place for time traveling back into Hippiethink, see a sad Princeton revival of that old CNBC show starring Phil Donahue and Vladimir Posner (or Poznir, if you’re feeling Russian). The old Soviet stooge insists to the student body that America has had a government-controlled media since the Vietnam era. In case you missed it, “all information” goes through a military review first before it’s deemed acceptable for public consumption. Donahue modifies that theory slightly, suggesting that Americans can’t abide anti-war views, so that his brand of far-left “truth”-telling just can’t get a fair hearing.

Whoa, déjà vu! It's been more years than I care to think of since I last saw that Communist flack and his buttboy, Phil. It's good to see that they're playing the "big venues" with their dog and gerbil act.

Dustbin of History Alert!

Communists picket Matrix premiere to celebrate revolution

Communists picketed the Moscow premiere of The Matrix: Revolutions to celebrate the jubilee of the Russian revolution.

A group of 32 youngsters wore red T-shirts, Soviet army helmets and Matrix-style dark glasses outside the Pushkinskiy cinema.

Snappy dressers!

They each held up neon-lit letters which spelt out the slogans "We are NEO-communists" and "Destroy the Matrix".

According to Communist Party ideologists, the Matrix series' central hero Neo is a genuine communist, reports Kommersant.

Oleg Bondarenko, Communist party youth movement leader, said there was "no difference" between Neo and Lenin as revolutionaries.

Lenin knew Kung Fu?

Follow the link for a photo. They look like a reincarnation of Devo.

Thanks, Mrs. Kroc!

End NPR subsidy: Windfall can replace federal funding

JOAN KROC, widow of McDonald’s tycoon Ray Kroc, has just given National Public Radio the power to set the American taxpayer free.

I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE: (via Res Ipsa Loquitur) There are more details on the NPR money laundering budget here. While NPR itself apparently only gets about $1M of taxpayer money annually, the "member stations" get $86M.

But the best part is:

Meanwhile, a hoax news release credited to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) circulated at several news Web sites yesterday, calling for NPR to "turn away this blood money," and for "Americans to boycott NPR programs since they will be bought with the slaughtered carcasses of billions of sentient beings."

The satiric release stated, "Because the bequest amounts to about twice NPR's annual budget, public radio stations will cease fund raising during NPR programs and Congress will withdraw all taxpayer funding."

PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said his group did not issue the release.

Bwahahaha!

Pot, Kettle, Black

Kerry blasts Dean on gun control:

CONCORD — Sen. John Kerry charged yesterday that Democratic Presidential primary rival Howard Dean is proving himself to be an unprincipled “flimflam artist” on gun control, as well as campaign finance, Social Security and Medicare.

Just because you're an idiot, doesn't mean you can't play the race card

Tuesday's election was enlivened by the presence of Barbara Blackmon, a black trial lawyer who was the Democrat candidate for Lt. Governor in Mississippi. She's most famous for the innovation of asking her incumbent opponent, Amy Tuck, to sign an affidavit saying that she had never had an abortion. This was not received well by the populace.

But wait there's more - Losing Miss. Candidate Blames Racism

JACKSON, Miss. - Democratic challenger for lieutenant governor Barbara Blackmon, who is black, said Thursday that her race is the reason she lost to the white Republican incumbent.

"It is my belief as well as the belief probably of over 300,000 voters of this state that if my pigmentation were different, I would be the lieutenant governor of this state," Blackmon, a state senator, said during a news conference at her campaign headquarters in Jackson.

Logic's not her strong suit, but she did get over 300,000 votes if that's what she means.

Blackmon won 37 percent of the vote to 61 percent for Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, according to unofficial returns.

Hmm, the incumbent Democrat governor (who is white) lost 53 to 45%, the Democrat candidate for attorney general (who is also black) lost by 52 to 46%, and Babs lost by 61 to 37% percent.

There's a pattern here all right and it's that when it's a bad election for Democrats, candidates who are idiots and Democrats have a real problem.

Also neat were her election eve pronouncements that despite the early results, God would eventually make her the winner. Having had a couple of days for her defeat to sink in, she then opined that her loss was similar to the Pharisees and the Sadducees rejecting Jesus Christ. No word on UFOs yet.

What he said

Joseph Farah at World Net Daily - No more women near combat:

The news that Jessica Lynch was raped and sodomized by her Iraqi captors underscores just one of the many reasons women don't belong in combat or anywhere near combat.

There's only one way to prevent this tragedy from occurring in the future – and that is to stop the ridiculous, politically correct social engineering that places young women in harm's way in America's military conflicts.
...
It's considered unfashionable to make such statements anymore, so I guess I'll have to be the one to say it: Women don't belong on warships, let alone in command of them. Women don't belong in the cockpits of fighter planes and bombers that can be shot down over enemy territory. Women don't belong on the front lines in any military capacity. There, I said it.

It's Weasley

The asshat brasshat was flapping his gums in New Hampshire yesterday and the delusions were coming fast and furious. My favorite:

Clark insisted his early release as Supreme NATO Commander of the Allied Forces by Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen was not a firing.

“I was suddenly called and told I would have to give up command early. I was told at the time I was not being fired. I was told at the time it was just an administrative matter,” he said.

Yeah and Bubba was just "ministering to a troubled young person".

Keep your hand on your wallet!

Report: Arafat funnels $100,000 PA aid monthly to wife:

Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat transfers $100,000 from funds directed to the Palestinian Authority to his wife Suha who lives in Paris along with the couple's daughter, according to an investigative report conducted by CBS television show 60 Minutes, to be aired Sunday accross the United States.

According to the report, Arafat has accumulated in his private accounts more than $800 million from aid originally appropriated to the Palestinian authority.

Too bad the taxpayers in the developed world have nothing better to do with their money.