Mis-information

I received this article in a newsletter:

Tax Myth: PTs Are Tax Free

Dear A-Letter Reader:

You may have heard of a group of nomadic people who call themselves "PTs" and wander around the globe. These letters stand for, among other things, "permanent tourist" or "perpetual traveler."

The idea for PTs came form a reclusive writer who calls himself W.G. Hill. As the story goes, Hill read an article by Charles Schultze, an international newsletter writer, who advocated the concept of becoming a "permanent tourist" or "perpetual traveler" thus not having a permanent residence in any one nation or place. Hill expounded on this seductive idea with a series of books that lead many of his readers to believe falsely that they could somehow free themselves of paying US taxes by roaming the world and joining the PT movement.

The PT theory might have some validity if a person is a citizen of a country that imposes taxes on the basis of residence, such as Canada or the United Kingdom. Those lucky persons may be able to reduce their national taxes significantly by taking up residence in an offshore tax haven and returning to their original nations only for a limited time each year.

But the falsely attractive PT theory isn't valid for US persons (either US citizens or resident aliens) who, under American law, are taxed on the basis of their citizenship or alien status. The US person is subject to US taxes on his or her worldwide income, regardless of where on earth he or she lives. There is a modest exception to US income taxes for up to $80,000 each year for income earned outside the US, if the US person also lives and works outside the US for at least 330 days in any 12 consecutive months and meets certain other requirements.

There is a way by which a US person legally can become a PT of sorts -- but it takes careful, long range planning and a degree of courage and determination, as well as expert tax and legal advice. One leading offshore attorney, Marshall Langer, calls it "the ultimate estate plan" -- and that's expatriation. gally to benefit from the PT idea, he or she, first, must acquire a second citizenship from another country, preferably one that taxes only on the basis of actual residence, such as Canada. The second step is to cease to be a resident of the US and establish residence in another nation, hopefully a tax haven. Lastly, the US person must formally end US citizenship by signing a formal declaration at a US embassy or consulate in a foreign country, as prescribed by law.

And ending US citizenship doesn't always result in total freedom from the US tax laws and the IRS. The IRS claims tax jurisdiction over ex-citizens for a period of 10 years, but if you and your assets are long gone, they may have trouble collecting.

But becoming a PT candidate still has hurdles before reaching that tax free Nirvana. That's because most nations, even ones that are tax havens for foreigners, will tax residents on the income earned within their borders. Panama, a leading tax haven, imposes taxes on a territorial basis, so a foreigner can retire or live there comfortably on any foreign source income and it will be tax free. But if you earn money from work within in Panama, it will be taxed. So, if you're going to be a PT (or just live offshore) it will be necessary to accumulate substantial assets previously or to be able to live off your investments and/or pension income. (US Social Security is paid to Americans who live offshore, but not Medicare).

All things considered, becoming a PT and living a romantic, tax-free life is not as simple as it's been made out to be.

Vernon K. Jacobs, CPA, CLU
E-mail: jacobs@offshorepress.com
Web site: http://www.vernonjacobs.com

Why is this mis-information?

Look at the terms. I sent an email to the publisher of the A-Letter requesting that in future newsletters they define the term "US Person." Why? How many people really know what a "US Person" is?

So, what happens? The author of this article defines a tax code specific term, "US Person," with two other tax code specific terms, "either US citizens or resident aliens." What good does that do?

But, there is a reason. The author is a CPA. A professional with a vested interest in the status quo.

Point, be careful who you take advice from.

IRS: Liars, Thieves, Thugs, Cowards, and Hypocrites

Checkmate

Posted: November 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
– Henry David Thoreau

Bill Benson, for those who don't know, is the individual who holds the 17,000 court certified documents that prove beyond any doubt that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was never ratified. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service uses the 16th Amendment, supported by compromised federal judges, to defraud the American people of the fruit of their labors via the income tax.

All the American people ever see or read is the propaganda spewed by the Department of Justice's lackey U.S. attorneys is that the 16th Amendment was ratified, it is the basis for the IRS to collect taxes and any argument to the contrary is "frivolous."

Right now my dear friend, Bill Benson, is involved in a major court battle with the feds . Despite his very serious health issues, this lion is not about to give up the fight. I encourage everyone to read it. What this lawsuit by the feds against Bill amounts to is the complete and total destruction of free speech. It is designed to crush the truth and the First Amendment using the full force of the federal machine. This lawsuit is to keep the truth Bill has uncovered away from the American people.

The non-ratified 16th Amendment says:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Few people, especially those pushing alternative taxing schemes have little or no understanding of the importance of "apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." It is because of those carefully crafted words that the shadow government was willing to risk the fraudulent announcement of the 16th Amendment. They needed this amendment passed because the Federal Reserve Act was to be passed later that year (1913) and the income tax was created solely to feed the central bank. The late, great Vivien Kellems knew exactly the importance of those words:

Since a capitation means a tax of the same amount for every person, this provision makes doubly sure that all federal taxes must be at the same uniform rate for everybody. This limitation that direct taxes be levied by the Federal Government must be in proportion to a census and apportioned among the States in accordance with numbers, is the only provision in the Constitution that is stated twice ... "No capitation, or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census of Enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken." And in those two sentences our forefathers bound fast the hands of Congress and secured the liberty and freedom of the American people. How? By making it utterly impossible to levy an income tax ...

An income tax is certainly a direct tax, probably the most direct tax of all since it cannot be shifted but must be paid by the person receiving the income. By specifying that direct taxes must be levied in accordance with the number of people, not upon what they produced, as in the days of ancient Egypt, an income tax was simply out of the question. It cannot be levied upon a man, but must be levied upon what he receives ...

The supreme achievement of the combined brains of all those men were written into those two sentences and the freedom and liberty of the American people were secured in them. For in those two sentences the right of the free man to own something was made inviolate. This was his distinguishing mark, the only criterion of freedom in all the world, the right of the common man to retain for himself the fruit of his labor ...

But his power to levy direct taxes was limited by an ironbound restriction: that tax must be apportioned among the States in accordance with the population. Since all taxes were to be at a uniform rate, Congress simply could not penalize one section of the country, or one group of citizens for the unfair advantage of another ...

This was the most brilliant plan ever conceived for guaranteeing the freedom of a nation. It protected every person in his right to private property, rich and poor alike, and under this protection we built the richest, most powerful nation on earth. We achieved and maintained for the majority of our people a standard of living undreamed of before, the hope and the envy of the whole world.

The feds may have finally stepped in their lies so deep, they cannot escape without the truth being exposed. As Benson's brilliant legal counsel, Jeffrey Dickstein, points out:

As previously discussed, the United States can not prevail as a matter of law unless it can prove Benson "made or caused to be made false or fraudulent statements concerning the tax benefits to be derived from the entity, plan or arrangement" and that "he knew or had reason to know the statements were false or fraudulent." This requires the United States to prove the Sixteenth Amendment was properly ratified, because if it were not properly ratified, Benson's statements would not be false or fraudulent, they would be true, and the United States' action would fail.

Checkmate.

A Government of Laws

When I first read an alleged quotation from President Bush a week ago I doubted its accuracy. It was a shocker. Surely, I thought, this is a malicious distortion from someone who probably got some gossip third hand. No president would ever say, or even think, such a thing, I mused.

The exact quotation, by the editor of a publication called Capitol Hill Blue , was alleged to have occurred in the White House Oval Office attended by congressional leaders discussing the extension of the PATRIOT Act, in trouble because of its lack of constitutional safeguards. Many provisions of the Act, rushed through Congress only weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have caused so much concern that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have joined forces with prominent conservatives like ex-US Rep. Bob Barr and the American Conservative Union to oppose renewal in the harsh form Bush has demanded.

According to Capitol Hill Blue , Republican leaders told Bush that his unyielding push to renew the worst provisions of the Act without safeguards might fail (as, thankfully, they did in the US Senate last week) and could further alienate conservatives: "I don't give a goddamn," Bush is reported to have said. "I'm the president and the commander-in-chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," an aide in the meeting supposedly said; "There is a valid case that some of the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

Aside from the fact that I doubt that the President "screamed" at all, and that he, a born-again evangelical Christian, would say "goddamn" to a group -- until last Friday, I assumed he respected the Constitution, even though to me he always has seemed enormously ignorant about that sacred document and its meaning. (While he is not a lawyer, there really is no excuse for such ignorance in one who occupies his exalted position).

Now comes the stunning revelation, which he admitted last Saturday, that the President personally and repeatedly since 9-11 has secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read e-mails of people within the United States without obtaining judicial warrants as specifically required by law. That law grew out of the scandalous abuse by the FBI of Americans' civil liberties in the 1970s, curtailing domestic spying by US intelligence agencies and providing a system under which federal police agencies can covertly obtain warrants to eavesdrop on suspected spies (and terrorists too) in the US. This is the law that Bush has brushed aside.

As one US Senator noted, a president, this one or any other, has no power to disregard laws that he doesn't like or finds inconvenient. If he does, then the rule of law has ended in America. If Watergate established nothing else, it affirmed that a president is subject to the law, just as are all Americans. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act when it passed in 2001, reminded Mr. Bush that he is president, not a king.

The president sought to justify his unconstitutional, possibly even criminal, action on the grounds that as commander in chief in the "war on terrorism" he has a duty to defend America against another 9-11. Thus he thinks he can simply waive a law he believes stands in the way of this goal. But this is a president who also claims many extraordinary powers; to hold persons captive in prison for years without charges or access to counsel, without allowing their families to know where they are; a president who condones torture in contravention of US and international law; a president who allows the Pentagon to create massive personal data bases on millions of innocent Americans; a president who advocates letting the military spy on citizens, who allows the FBI to grab bank and financial records in secret. One must wonder how many other Americans illegally have been eavesdropped on, for whatever reason the president feels justified.

The Fourth Amendment was written out of a revulsion against warrants that let British soldiers search anywhere they chose. It specifically requires government to demonstrate to a judge, and the judge specifically to find, the existence of probable cause of criminal activity on the part of the person whose property the government wishes to search. The Fourth Amendment commands that only a judge can authorize a search warrant. Certainly the President has no power to waive the Fourth Amendment or any other part of the US Constitution.

Perhaps, as The Los Angeles Times suggests, these astounding events may be "the tipping point in the American public's attitude, one that will cause the administration to reverse its encroachment on rights in the name of security."

We hope the US Congress and the courts will assert their powers against this presidential usurpation, and do so immediately, especially since the president defiantly has said he will continue to violate the law -- and the Constitution. The charges in the impeachments of both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were based on far less than is involved here.

For myself, as a conservative and as a former Member of Congress who swore to uphold the Constitution, I believe George W. Bush needs to be taught that the Constitution is a lot more than just "a piece of paper" -- that it's words are the embodiment and the central protection of our hard won liberties and freedoms -- and that no president can ever be allowed to ignore it at will.

That's the way that it looks from here.
BOB BAUMAN, Editor

Why ARE Men Happier?

Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can be President.

You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.

You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.

The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.

You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.

One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier!

Inflation

"Inflation robs a currency of its purchasing power until eventually it buys NOTHING. Before the fall of the Roman Empire, the government debased the currency by clipping the coins and adding less and less silver and gold. Inflation does the same thing to a paper currency as the paper becomes worthless and people lose all faith in the
fiat. Eventual collapse can be postponed by printing more and more "money" but eventually the day of reckoning finally arrives."

"The U.S. Treasury prints the $1 billion interest bearing bonds and sells them to the Federal Reserve Bank!! As security or collateral they offer the INCOME TAX collected from the taxpayers. The U.S. Treasury prints only the Principal . . . not the usury or interest."

How To Get Rid Of...

The Bushwacker's Political Prisoners

REVITALIZING THE MILITIA CAN PROMOTE MONETARY REFORM

Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
December 12, 2005 NewsWithViews.com

Political theory identifies the two greatest powers of government as The Power of the Purse and The Power of the Sword. Therefore, if any powers will serve, these two powers ought to be capable of being worked in tandem to save America from the greatest and most immediate danger facing her: namely, the collapse of the monetary and banking systems--or scams, if you prefer the language of hard-nosed, unabashed realism--that now plague this country.

Read the article here...



Updated and revised Christmas Card List 12/12/2005

I wish this list was of all the criminals in the judiciary and their cronies in the IRS instead of our fellow fighters for Freedom who never broke any REAL laws.

Updates are in blue

Let them know they are in your thoughts and prayers

Irwin Schiff 05-20489-U
c/o Las Vegas Detention Center
3200 Stewart Ave.
Las Vegas, Nevada 89101


Cynthia Lynn Neun
c/o 274586 MCC-45
North Las Vegas Detention Center
2332 Las Vegas Blvd., North, Suite 200
North Las Vegas, Nevada 89030-5957


Richard Michael Simkanin
30383-177 Unit F
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 7000
TEXARKANA, TX 75505-7000


Walter Allen Thompson
15089-097 AIA
TAFT CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
PO BOX 7001
TAFT, CA 93268


Bonita Lynne Meredith 24001-112
FCI VICTORVILLE MEDIUM II
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
PO BOX 5700
ADELANTO, CA 92301


Larken Rose
Reg. No. 58421-066
USP Canaan - Satellite Camp
Waymart, PA 18472



Franklin W. Dean
R3R16 169787
P.O. Box 17800
Pensacola, FL 32522-7789


WALTER BURIEN 107699
MIDDLESEX COUNTY ADULT CORRECTION CENTER
POST OFFICE BOX 266
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ 08903


Steve Swan
PO Box 415
Candia, NH 03034


WALTER M MAKEN
Register Number43135-061
Location UNKNOWN IN TRANSIT ?



Inmate look up

The Banking Scam

Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits (money), and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." Sir Joseph Stamp, President of the Bank of England during the 1920's.

How to get rid of credit card debt...

Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'

By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”


© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

Nothing to Fear But Fear

At his First Inaugural on March 4, 1933, newly elected US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, surrounded by the economic wreckage of the Great Depression, addressed the deep pessimism of America that stood in the way of recovery when he intoned: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

I wonder if you have considered how "fear" has assumed a major role in politicians' advocacy of American public policy since that terrible day of September 11, 2001?

A columnist, Ross Gittins, writing about anti-terrorism for the Australian digital news service, The Age, addressed what he calls "The fear game, our latest sensation."

He makes the point that "We are more likely to die on the road than be killed by a terrorist act." He wrote: "It's well known to psychologists that humans have a tendency to overestimate small risks while underestimating big risks. The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is very much lower than the risk of being killed on the road. Yet after the attacks of September 2001 in America, many people switched from traveling by air to traveling by road, presuming it to be safer." According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the odds of an American dying in a terrorist attack are about one in 88,000.

One important point that has been neglected in all the talk about terrorism is an obvious one: many groups have an interest in exaggerating the threat of terrorism. Governments and politicians recognize the natural tendency is to unite against an external threat, and for them this has made anti-terrorism a windfall gain. As Gittins, says, "most politicians haven't resisted the temptation to play up the threat rather than calm us down."

American politicians, from the President on down, are managed by experts who focus on public perceptions, They need to use the media to manage those perceptions, and so they are more concerned to be seen responding to the public's media incited worries than to fix the problem. This explains in part how the PATRIOT Act, an overt assault on Constitutional liberties, was rammed through the US Congress only weeks after 9-11. Only later did we learn how devastating this law was to our freedoms. Even now the Act's extension and expansion is justified by a supposed need to give police and security agencies the powers they say are needed to protect us. (Did you ever hear of a policeman or FBI agent who said he needed less power?)

So the politicians use fear to pass bad laws, the police and FBI use fear to justify bigger budgets and more powers, and the commercial news media that loves to sell its claptrap with fear, aids and abets these phony fears. More government, more police, more TV and newspaper coverage. Indeed, there is now in American what might be called an Anti-Terrorism Establishment, typified by the 9-11 Commission, that is willing to sacrifice the US Constitution, our rights and liberties and certainly, our privacy.

Today, December 7th, is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew America into World War II. There we had a clear enemy, and yet our politicians unnecessarily sacrificed the freedom of Americans, including those of Japanese descent, who were rounded up and interned without due cause. It seems that America never learns from history, and we will again live to regret that ignorance of the past.

That's the way it looks from here.

BOB BAUMAN, Editor
The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter

Where Is He Now?

"Under the gold standard a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation." Quoting Alan Greenspan from Ayn Rand's 1966 book Capitalsim: The Unknown Ideal.

How To Get Rid Of...

Little Red Hen - Modern Version

Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat.

Who will help me plant it?"

"Not I," said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. And so she did.

The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.

"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread."Who will help me bake the bread ?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.

"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.

"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share.

But the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow.

"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.

The pig just grunted in disdain.

And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

Then a government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly," said the agent. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand."

But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the "party" and got her bread free.

And all the Republocrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared.....as long as there was free bread that "the government" was paying for.

Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.

Hillary got $8 million for hers.

That's $20 million for memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything.

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT?

Waiting for World Domination

Notes From Michael Masterson's Journal: Waiting for World Domination

The Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl Contest. That was the name of the American Idol knockoff that captured 400 million viewers in China this year. Hunan TV in Changsha is producing one blockbuster hit after another, primarily by importing and reprocessing American pop culture for "the nation's increasingly trendy youth," as The New York Times put it.

You can't stop American culture, especially the quick-and-easy, schmaltzy-glitzy stuff that is manufactured in Hollywood, Nashville, and wherever it is that they produce ghetto entertainment. America's way of amusing itself is ubiquitous, irresistible, and subversive (see Word to the Wise, below) - as any good fundamentalist, Arab, or Christian, will tell you.

We don't need to invade and plunder to conquer. That only breeds pockets of stubborn resistance, which costs us billions of dollars and thousands of lives. It would be much easier to sit back and let the entertainment industry do its thing. Third-world cultures and second-world economies will collapse from their own weight. It will take a few years, but it will happen.

Early To Rise