Day: September 22, 2009

Some Kinda Hero

This is a sad story about a guy that just had to try and get his time in the limelight.  As reported in the AP:

A so-called war hero who claimed to have been wounded when he dived to shield a buddy from a grenade in Afghanistan is facing a court martial by the US Marines for making the story up.

Sergeant David W Budwah was allegedly never in Afghanistan, was not wounded and did not earn the medals he wore. Prosecutors say he accepted invitations to rock concerts, baseball games, banquets and other events meant to fete wounded servicemen. He allegedly bluffed his way into 33 events in 2008. Mr Budwah faces more than 30 years in prison and a dishonourable discharge if convicted next month.

Budwah joined the Marines in October 1999 and spent nearly all of the next six years with a radio communications unit in Okinawa, Japan, according to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, where Budwah has been stationed since February 2006.

The charges include making false official statements, malingering, misconduct and larceny. Budwah faces up to 31 1/2 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted on all eight counts at a trial set for Oct. 20.

It is time to BBQ this a/hole…..I will agree that ALL vets embellish there days as a soldier a bit….but few claim to be a “war hero”.  This story only diminishes the role of a real hero who does heroic acts in a nightmarish atmosphere.

We Need More Troops

First, the teacher in me weants to ask this question, who said the following?

“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while ……. security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,”

A) Washington  B) Westmoreland  C) McChrystal  D) Jackson

Since I am an old fart and a vet of southeast Asia I would have said Gen. Westmoreland….but I would have been wrong…it was the current commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. McChyrstal.

But will more troops necessarily mean a win in Afghanistan?  It did not in Vietnam.

A better question is, what is the mission in Afghanistan?  If it is to get Osama, then we are failing.  If it is to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, then with every drone attack that kills civilians, we are failing.  If it is to stop the flow of opium, then we are failing.  Just what is the mission?

Or maybe we are to bring democracy to a feudal state……that also is a bust….the last elections were so fraudulent that there is a massive re-count going on.  And we definitely cannot stop the corruption in the government…..so what is our mission?

Maybe it is the defeat of the Taliban……that is a glorious end but that will not happen anytime soon….why?…..the Afghans are staring to see us in the same light as they did the Russians 30 years ago.

Some where someone will have to let it be known just what the actual mission in Afghanistan is….as it is now…..few people know the actual mission scope or just what is the desired results……..will more and more troops actually help or hinder the situation?

I guess I will have to just wait and see what the next refinement of the Afghan mission is before I comment further.  But I would imagine that more troops are headed to the country and in doing so the amounts of deaths will also rise.

Taxation To Come?

All states are suffering for a budgetary shortfall….why?….basically they have given away all revenue to business and now needs to find ways to extend their income……good plan, but who will pay and who will benefit?

Well, California seems to have an idea as reported by the LA Times:

The most obvious thing about the big, complicated tax reform scheme that will go to the Legislature this week is that millionaires would save an average of $109,000 a year. Taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 would save $4. This is not a typo.

The plan, still awaiting a final draft, is the work of the grandly named California Commission on the 21st Century Economy, which held its final official meeting last Monday. But it’s been clear from the beginning that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in setting it up last fall, was aiming to do precisely that: enact big cuts for upper-income taxpayers and create what’s become a pea-under-the-shelltax system to make up the lost revenue.

Under the commission’s BNRT proposal, all California businesses would pay a tax, probably about 4%, on their net receipts, which would be calculated by subtracting the cost of the goods they’ve purchased from their gross receipts. That makes it roughly like a VAT, the value-added tax used in most of Europe, but not similar enough to be comparable. Under the BNRT, there would be no deduction for labor costs, not even for employee health plans.

That element alone creates incentives for firms to purchase parts from abroad and, depending on how the courts rule on a string of unsettled legal issues regarding taxation of out-of-state entities, maybe even from Oregon or New York, rather than making them with their own workers in California. “It appears to be a tax on employees,” wrote the state Chamber of Commerce and other groups. And because the tax is built into the price of California goods and services, it also could make them less competitive in other states and abroad.

Something to watch…..even though some states have found alternate avenues to gain revenue, this, if it passes, could be the future for other states that are in sad need of revenue.

My state is scrambling around trying to find new sources of revenue without hitting business……business is the life blood of the politicians of my state and the bane of the workers.  Anything they could do to drop the bulk of revenue responsibility onto the worker the better….business will never be asked to shoulder any responsibility.