Not all professional ball players in tax-funded stadiums working for huge salaries and private owners are male, and I regret this slip of the pen. (See Phoenix Suns Win.) The Phoenix Mercury Women's Basketball Team are not men, according to insiders who asked that their names not be used, but keeping with tradition, the women only get tiny salaries.
Tags: basketball, Phoenix Mercury Women's Basketball Team, women's basketball
Thanks to Larry Southwick, a Ph.D. economist who notes, "You are way low on the gasoline taxes. In NY (Buffalo), the excise tax is $0.239 per gallon, the U.S. Gov't. excise tax is $0.184 per gallon, and there is currently an 8.75 percent sales tax on the whole thing. If gasoline retails for $3.000, that implies a price of $2.336 before the combined tax, or 66.4 cents per gallon. Note that property taxes, profits taxes, and employment taxes have not been included here but are certainly important to the suppliers. Out of the final price, governments take directly 22.15%." The Uninvited Ombudsman again regrets the error (16 cents less than this calculation). (See Oil Company Gouging.)
Mr. Southwick goes on to point out, "From the Exxon annual report (2005), sales amounted to $370,680,000,000. From this, the after tax net was $36,130,000,000 or 9.75%. The taxes paid directly by Exxon were: excise $30,742,000,000, other taxes & duties $41,554,000,000, and income taxes $23,302,000,000. These add up to 25 79% of Exxon's revenues. Who is the exploiter?" The Uninvited Ombudsman had questioned the "news" media's burning concern that oil companies make between 8-10% profit, and failed to note that the government takes two-and-a-half-times more than the company earns.
Tags: gas taxes
The Arizona Republic newspaper report of 577,000 illegal immigrant arrests for 2005 is for Arizona only. The correct number for the full southwest border is 1,171,387. This was my oversight and I regret the error. (See "Border Patrol Arrests".)
Immigration reporter Daniel Gonzalez points out that many of the arrests are of people repeatedly attempting to sneak into America, so simply multiplying arrests by the Border Patrol estimate of how many get in for each one caught (between one in two and one in four), along with other factors, does not provide an accurate guess for illegal entries annually.
The lamestream media told you:
Mexicans illegally stream into America at unprecedented rates, looking for work.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Escaping lawless conditions in Mexico may be a greater factor in the vast exodus from that third world country than the search for low-paying jobs, a local paper inadvertently reports. Mexico City now has plans to ban sunglasses and hats in banks, because bank robberies are so common, and the perpetrators typically wear dark glasses and hats to hide their identities. If local officials here needed to implement and enforce dress codes to deal with bank robberies, I might emigrate too.
Tags: illegal immigration, Mexico
The lamestream media told you:
Concern over Spanish language versions of the National Anthem seems misplaced, since other language versions have been produced over the years.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
The Associated Press reports that these lines have been added to a remix set for June release: "These kids have no parents, 'cause of all these mean laws... Let's not start a war with all these hard workers, they can't help where they were born." The title of the Spanish version, Nuestro Hymno translates to Our Hymn. A literal translation of The National Anthem, often said to translate poorly if taken literally, would be El Hymno Nacional.
The lamestream media told you:
Security forces in the United States, lead by the National Security Agency, a spy unit, have collected the pin register calling data from phone companies nationwide.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Leaked news about secret security operations gravely threatens national security, but that is well known. This data, which already exists at the quasi-monopoly government-regulated tax-collecting phone companies, has been used for decades, on site at the phone companies, for numerous law enforcement and security purposes. The careful migration of the data from the companies to a central computer is the pot calling the kettle black.
By way of comparison, government-chartered banks, which provide detailed personal data to the government on a regular basis, under court orders that are handed out when requested by officials, goes on at such a great scale that banks maintain entire offices dedicated to nothing but government investigators, who work on site in bank skyscrapers, poring over the necessary files. The routine maintenance of these offices is not publicized when customers open new accounts. If government investigators want your data, the chances they cannot get it are slim and none. So fight that if you wish, not the media-kindled kafuffles of the day.
The lamestream media told you:
America's fifth largest city, Phoenix, using massive funding provided by the federal government, has successfully beefed up security, lowered it risks and exposure to attacks, and generally succeeded in goals of Homeland Security following the Sep. 11 attacks.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Phoenix officials are outraged that, because they have done well and implemented the very policies the money was provided for, they won't continue to keep getting the money, now that the work is done. Their funding from the 2006 Urban Area Security Initiative may be cut off in the 2007 funding cycle.
What this means to the taxpayer is that, no matter how well spent their money is, no end to the expenditures will ever be recognized by government officials addicted to a non-stop "flow" of funding. No solution to the money addiction is known.
Tags: Homeland Security, Phoenix, Urban Area Security Initiative
The lamestream media told you:
United Nations officials were deeply concerned about Iran's
reluctance to cooperate with international nuclear regulatory
inspectors, though the U.N. was unwilling at this point to endorse
sanctions against the nation. Meanwhile, the United States is
considering economic pressure toward Iran to promote nonproliferation
talks which have stalled. Iran, with little natural resources in
uranium but enormous reserves of oil, emphatically denies its nuclear
program has any goals except peaceful production of energy. Iran's
president, who has called for the extermination of Israel, was
greeted by massive outpourings of jubilant Muslim supporters on a
recent trip to largely Muslim Indonesia.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
According to leading experts speaking on condition of anonymity, Iran is rapidly developing nuclear weapons. They are probably pretty close to results. Although classified by the U.S. State Dept. as a nation that supports terrorism, Iran is actually a promoter of jihad, or global holy war against non-Muslim infidels. As a sovereign nation it is well within its power and interests to pursue these policies and develop the bomb, which is why it is proceeding, according to unnamed authorities. For nations that have already produced the bomb, to object to another nation producing it, is the height of hypocrisy, but a necessary and routine element of diplomacy that precedes use of force and other sanctions. If military force isn't brought to bear, the jihadis will have their nukes soon, experts believe.
Reuters and the BBC have adopted a policy to only use the word
"terrorist" in quotes.
Tags: Iran, Iranian nuclear program, jihad, political correctness, United
Nations
The lamestream media told you:
Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- Five people were killed when a man
walked into a church and opened fire with a handgun.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
A story in your local paper, about a psychopath a thousand miles away, is sensationalism, not news. Such stories are typically propagated by the Associated Press, and dutifully repeated locally with no critical review or input from local reporters. Since these almost always involve a firearm, critics claim it represents an anti-gun-rights agenda disguised as news. When compared with other wrongful or horrific deaths occurring close to home but which go unreported, the likelihood that it is a hoplophobic (gun fearing) agenda-driven story increase, industry observers say.
The Associated Press reported, several years in a row, that "medical
misadventures," a tasteful term for patients killed by doctor
mistakes, cause 100,000 unnecessary deaths a year, or 274 every day.
Even if this number is ten times too large, as some experts insist
(AP has not issued a correction), it still represents about 27 people
unjustly killed by doctors on a daily basis. This is more than five
times greater than the reported Baton Rouge deaths, occurs every
single day not just once, is at least as tragic, and much of it
occurs right near you, in hospitals and offices you may have been in
recently -- significantly increasing the relevance to local news
consumers. Still, the "news" media uniformly choose to report the one
rare incident, on the other side of the country, often for several
days in a row, leaving a not-so-subtle perception that the medical
profession is not an issue and guns are bad.
Tags: Associated Press, gun deaths,
hoplophobia, medical malpractice
The lamestream media told you:
President Bush has fallen to new lows, in political polls taken of
people whose primary source of news is the "news" media.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
If you were told, on Sep. 12, 2001, that four-and-a-half years later,
the Taliban would be overthrown and removed from Afghanistan, most of
al Qaida would be rounded up and killed, Saddam Hussein would be
deposed, Iraq would have held three free elections, written a
Constitution and formed a government, women in Kuwait would have the
vote, Syria would be tossed out of Lebanon after decades of abusive
occupation, free elections would be held in Egypt, Libya would
renounce the jihad, its efforts to obtain WMDs and be working its way
back into the international community, no new jihadi attacks would
occur on American soil, joblessness in America would be at new lows
and the economy would be stronger that at any time in our history,
you wouldn't have believed it.
Credit for much of this rests on the shoulders of the President, who
has unflinchingly pursued an agenda he believes in, and who is
ceaselessly ridiculed and demeaned by the lamestream media, which
also reports the poll results. Thanks to Republican National
Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who made these observations at the
NRA convention in Milwaukee. His remarks were unreported by the
"news" media.
Tags: George W.
Bush, Ken Mehlman
| See the archives below, or click through to an index of Page Nine posts at Gunlaws.com |
Recent Comments
Read the last 100 comments on one handy page here!