Going to Yosemite? Get Your Passport Ready! 969
rev_media writes to tell us that CNN has a few updates to the Real ID act currently facing legislators. The Real ID acts mandates all states to begin issuing federal IDs to all citizens by 2008. Costs could be as much at $14 billion, but only 40 million are currently allocated. Several states have passed legislation expressly forbidding participation in the program, while others seem to be all for it. The IDs will be required for access to all federal areas including flights, state parks and federal buildings. People in states refusing to comply will need to show passports even for domestic flights.
Re:Papers please! (Score:5, Informative)
Costs of passport (Score:4, Informative)
My passport cost me 97 dollars last time I got one, and not everyone has that kind of money lying around
Re:Finally ... a measure that's right on the butto (Score:3, Informative)
Funny thing though: you don't hear much about Swiss terrorists and their crime rates are extremely low...
Re:Outrageous (Score:2, Informative)
The thing is, hoping for representative in Congress with spine is a bit like, well, maybe hoping for a non-Catholic Pope. I don't know how Ron Paul happened, we can call him the exception that proves the rule, I guess, because other than him there isn't a backbone anywhere in the bunch.
But there's a good side to that. Spinelessness implies that they can be influenced. If they start hearing from enough constituents that white needs to be black, you can bet they'll be in there tomorrow introducing a bill to change the names of the colors. So, if you're really fed up and if you really want to change things, the way to do it is to get in there and start making noise. Hand-wringing on forums won't do it, we need deluges of messages landing on the website email handlers of the Congressweasels.
Fortunately, there's an easy way I've found to do that. Over at http://downsizedc.org/> they have a tool you can use to send a personal message about all these worrisome topics. You just put in your zip code, and it will automatically route your messages to the two senators and the one congressman who represents you. And using the tool doesn't automatically line you up for a bunch of spam, either, I can attest to that. Although you can, optionally, sign up for their own email alerts, which I've found to be useful.
I used to think that if I continuously yammered to Congress about stuff, they'd all just put me on their "bothersome twit" list, and everything I sent would be ignored. But that ain't how it works. The squeaky wheels really do get greased! For evidence, you can look down through the list of campaigns they've been pushing and see how many have success stamps on them. It's all on account of the growing group of bothersome twits like me!
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:1, Informative)
This time they spun it quite well, they got us to swallow it all bait and hook it's way down there this time. The timing was also quite effective, The nations youth and middle class are some of the most distractable Americans in history. We were gung ho for a war where we were A-OK with sending the poor only to fight without guns, body armor and ammunition. Most supported sending the poor in to die for no reason in a fight that had NOTHING to do with the attack on America. Hell most of the Reserves still going there today are still not being issued the equipment they need to survive and Americans on the whole are just fine with that.
America lost a big war, it has been brewing for decades, started in the early 50's right after WW-II and is on track by it's leaders.
All I can say is a few words of warning to the rest of the world. If you though Germany and Italy were dangerous in the 40's, just wait until phase 3 is finished here in the USA. You haven't seen a war as bloody as the one coming your way.
Phase 3 is whipping up a fervor of hate against the Muslims that is greater than the hate of the Russians was during the Cuban missile crisis. Pure racists are putting aside their hate of everyone else to focus it all on the Muslims and middle east. WE are spoon fed it in all our media. It's subtle but it's there. Americans are happily, no demanding their rights be removed to protect our selves.
Their plan is perfect. They have us clamoring to remove our rights. Isn't that incredible?
I warned you all, and no I am not trolling, I am a REAL american that sees what is going on, the Fake sellouts will tell you it's not that bad. They are planted or made to believe that way. They have been breeding out origional thought out of our children for 40 years now. Only the misfits that graduated from public school think differently.
Remember these words when the USA tries to bring "freedom" to your part of the world.
Re:You're kidding, right? (Score:2, Informative)
Algebra (Score:3, Informative)
The word algebra even has an Arabic root. [nodak.edu] Perhaps we should call algebra "Liberty Arithmetic" in the post-9/11 world.
-b.
Re:Round and round she goes.... (Score:2, Informative)
Military officers obey orders & procedures (Score:4, Informative)
But wait, we don't believe in conspiracies here. Hmm.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
> income
The low end of that, yeah. For 2007, per http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=164272
The gross would be higher, of course. But in that range, the difference is pretty slim. For example, in 2006 personal exemptions start to phase out once your gross is over 150,500 and are gone completely when your gross is at 273,000. That's if you're single. If you're married those numbers are higher by about $40,000. Similarly, most deductions phase out starting at a gross of $156,000 or so. See http://www.taxguideonline.com/ContentPages/ID_Pha
And as you said, that excludes FICA (medicare & social security), etc. Those add at least $6,000 to your tax burden once you're over $80,000 or so gross income (even ignoring the employer half). So really, you need only $250,000 taxable income to easily hit $75,000 in federal tax.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, they would start with Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. They've tried, and are even succeeding in some cases.
But the major thing they hate is our support for dictators in the Middle East that block their efforts towards establishing new theocratic states, either by democratic vote or by coup. The U.S., even though it's "committed to democracy", would rather have a friendly dictator in place than a democratically elected government that rejects the USA. This can be a messy argument (is a theocratic state truly free? etc.)