Over The Top: School Suspensions for imaginary guns

There is no doubt that guns and bb guns and so forth are being brought to school.  And students who do such a thing should be suspended.

But beyond that, the world of education has taken things a bit too far.  It's one thing to be intolerant of guns.  A good argument could be made that even "playing army" or "cops and robbers" at school should not be tolerated.  But educators ( and I use this term rather loosely nowadays) have taken this just a bit too far.

I'm going to start following this from this point just to show how the public school system has become dysfunctional in this regard.  I begin to wonder how far they would take this.  For instance, if a child should admit that he was daydreaming about going hunting with his dad, would the administrators boot him out of the school??

There is no sense of....measure.  And I don't think we understand how bad this has gotten.

So, here's the first article that I think sums up the situation rather succinctly:

On Friday, seven year old Josh Welch found himself suspended from school for two days. The reason? Welch, a second-grade student at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Md., chewed a breakfast pastry in the general shape of a gun, Fox 45 reported.

Originally, Welch was trying to make the pastry look like a mountain, but that didn't work out too well.

"All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn't look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda," he said.

Capitol official: Obama wrong about janitors

O'Bama is such a liar. I don't think there is anything you can trust him on.

The Superintendent of Capitol tried to assure staff on Friday that employees will not receive a cut in pay as a result of sequestration, despite President Barack Obama’s claims to the contrary.

In a news conference earlier in the day, Obama warned that starting on Saturday “the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol” and “the janitors, the security guards” would face a pay cut. But in a letter to supervisors and building staff, obtained by POLITICO, superintendent Carlos Elias said “the current sequestration plan does NOT include ‘Reductions in Force’ or Furloughs. The pay and benefits of employees WILL NOT be impacted as per out current plan.”

Here's a video talking about how the whole sequestration was O'Bama's idea from the get-go.

Americans renouncing citizenship to become British thanks to tax rise

This is by far one of the most idiotic issues for Americans living abroad.  No one else in the civilized world is subjected to this.  I'm just surprised there aren't more renunciations.

Even if a US citizen earns all their income in Britain they are liable for tax in their home country which can lead to unusual tax situations arising, said Ms Gelon.

For example, US citizens are expected to pay capital gains tax to the US government if they sell a property in Britain which is their main residence, even though a similar tax is not imposed by the British Inland Revenue.

The US rules make concessions for tax paid overseas but there is still a risk that their citizens will be hit with a large tax bill, she added.

“Actually giving up your citizenship is dead easy - once you have an appointment with a consular official it takes a matter of minutes.

“But getting an appointment in London can take three months and that is largely because of the tax issues,” she said.

ROVE: GOP NEEDS CANDIDATES WHO REFLECT DIVERSITY

If this is true, then it's time for me to just take a back seat and never ever stand up for Republicans again.  The one reason I vote Republican is because the mostly Conservative ideas transcend race.  You can vote for the guy regardless of his skin color because he stood for smaller government or less regulations or lower taxes or some combination of all.  And because his ideas meant that regardless of YOUR skin color you could rise to the task and government would get out of your way for you to meet your destiny.

If they need a Hispanic candidate to attract Hispanics, then they are no better than the Democrats who play this race card every chance they get.  I would be insulted if they decided they needed to field an Asian candidate to get my vote.  I would vote for the Dem merely because of the audacity.

This all means that the message isn't getting through.  So, they decide that Hispanics are stupid and need "one of theirs" to run.  How insulting and demeaning.

Referring to the state party's deep losses in recent years, Rove said it needs to focus on larger themes of restoring jobs and reducing government spending.

He also said the party must recruit candidates who reflect the diversity of the country, and in particular, California. By next year, Hispanics will overtake whites as the state's largest demographic group.

But when the term "diversity" is used it NEVER means just race.  This all means Leftist ideas will find their way into the Repub Party. And at that point, the party will have left me, not the other way around.

Killing Golden Goose, California Taxes Capital Gains as Ordinary Income

I wonder how TX compare to this?  Oh yeah.  We don't have any capital gains taxes.

In fact, if you are paying up to a 33% combined federal and state tax on capital gains as you may be in California, you are paying more than virtually anyone else in the world. That will hit you in your pocketbook. Plus, experts say the impact is bigger than that. Such a high tax rate has long-term negative implications for the economy, for people save and invest less.

Meanwhile, they say, capital seeks higher returns in other countries. See The High Burden of State and Federal Capital Gains Taxes. Take a look at how we stack up:

Long-term Capital Gains Rate
Rank	Country/State	Capital Gains Rate
1	Denmark	42.0%
2	California	33.0%
3	France	32.5%
4	Finland	32.0%
5	New York	31.4%
6	Oregon	31.0%
7	Delaware	30.4%
8	New Jersey	30.4%
9	Vermont	30.4%
10	Maryland	30.3%
11	Maine	30.1%
12	Ireland	30.0%
13	Sweden	30.0%
14	Idaho	29.7%
15	Minnesota	29.7%
16	North Carolina	29.7%
17	Iowa	29.6%
18	Hawaii	29.4%
19	District of Columbia	29.1%
20	Nebraska	29.1%
21	Connecticut	29.0%
22	West Virginia	28.9%
23	Ohio	28.7%
24	Georgia	28.6%
25	Kentucky	28.6%

Wow. That's pretty steep.

Part 5 of 5 : California in Crisis: Green state chokes off its middle class

Last installment:

Local government smart-growth plans have made it next to impossible for developers to build single-family homes near job centers such as the Bay Area or Los Angeles. As a result, real estate prices along California's coast are among the highest in the nation, forcing many middle-class families to downsize or move elsewhere.

California's once-famous highway system is also failing to serve the state's population. According to the Federal Highway Administration, only 28 percent of the state's highways were rated in good condition in 2010. Another 48 percent of the state's highways were rated acceptable, while 24 percent were rated poor.

The highways are only expected to get worse. California's Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that $6 billion a year is needed to replace the degraded portions of the state's highways. But Gov. Jerry Brown has only budgeted $1.5 billion annually for this purpose.

It's official: Gas tax going up

Boy, you guys are so screwed.

The tax you pay on a gallon of gas will rise by 3.5 cents in California come July 1.

The state Board of Equalization voted 3-2 on Thursday to increase the excise tax about 10 percent, from 36 cents per gallon to 39.5 cents per gallon.

The increase is partly due to a $157 million shortfall in gas-tax revenue in fiscal 2012, and also a projection of less consumption by California drivers.

The state legislature switched its gas taxation system in 2010 so it could re-appropriate some of the gas tax money from road maintenance to other areas. It reduced the sales tax from 8.25 percent to 2.25 percent, but roughly doubled the excise tax to 35.3 cents. The excise tax has increased multiple times since, but previous hikes were by fractions of cents.

OK, so add 3.5 cents to this: