California Is On Fire, And On A Personal Note…..Updated – Two Firefighters Killed

California firefighters are doing battle as we speak with some of the most ferocious fires in recent memory:

A wildfire is raging in the mountains north of Los Angeles, sending up huge plumes of purple-gray smoke and prompting the evacuation of more than 3,000 homes on the northeastern edge of the city.
The fire, which had scorched nearly 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) by late afternoon, also threatened key telecommunications facilities, including TV and radio transmission towers.

One of my two sons-in-law, Fernando Ruiz, is a California state firefighter (my other son-in-law, James Kent, is a police officer). Fernando and his crew are fighting these fires right now. My prayers are with those brave men and women as they put their lives on the line for the sake of the lives and property of those who are threatened by this horror.
If you would, throw a prayer to those firefighters. Their courage is beyond question, but a little extra prayer certainly wouldn’t hurt.They, all of them, could use it right now. God bless those guys.
Thanks.
UPDATE:
Two firefighters have been killed:

LOS ANGELES — Firefighters tried to hold back a wildfire from consuming thousands of homes and an essential communications center in Los Angeles County as they mourned two of their own who were killed when their vehicle was overrun by fast-moving flames and rolled down a mountain side.
[...]
Fire Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County, and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo “Arnie” Quinones, 35, of Palmdale, were killed in the crash, the department said in a statement. Authorities did not give a cause for the crash.
Hall was a 26-year veteran, and Quinones had been a county firefighter for eight years.

Damn.
My condolences and prayers for those brave men and their families.

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  • http://Array DINO

    But we shouldn’t have government involved in firefighting. We need to cut those budgets and stop giving your sons-in-law such good benefits. That’s what broke California. The private sector could do a better job of fighting those fires and it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers as much. Just as Robert108.

    Government is the problem.
    ———-
    That said, I don’t wish any harm to come to your family members. This shows how important government services are.

  • sayanything-4625

    NO. I understand that some people don’t want to pay any taxes.

    Mostly Democrats in Obama’s cabinet. Go rail at them!

  • ec99

    I lived in So CA for many years, and wild fires really were a way of life. This doesn’t dimish the enormous work of the fire fighters. What I never understood, though, is why people insisted on rebuilding on the same property. It was the same case for the habitual mudslides on the hills over Laguna Beach during the rainy season. People who lost their homes insisted on going back there.

  • sayanything-4625

    Yes, we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits.
    they deserve it.

    When their pensions are breaking the bank I would put it to you that its a little excessive. What do I know though. Being broke is a good thing right?

  • Pilgrim

    Can you just cut it out for just a minute, Dino?

    This isn’t about “benefits”. It’s about the men and women who are risking everything right now for others.

    Give it a rest, please.

  • sayanything-4625

    we shouldn’t have government involved in firefighting.

    What are you going on about now? You do know that most of the country IE the rural parts have these things known as volunteer fire departments. Its not like we will do without fire protection. That being said, I would not like to do without fire fighters. However, do you think we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits?

    Government is the problem.
    ———-
    That said, I don’t wish any harm to come to your family members. This shows how important government services are.

    See here you are pretending to be all lucid. Not three treads ago you said this.

    It’s government and we hate government so I’m not pledging allegiance to any land mass.

    So do you hate government or were you lying?

  • Mickey

    Dino,

    No one has questioned the importance of fire fighters. Get a clue. Too much government intervention into the private lives of citizens is unnecessary. Don’t confuse your personal weakness for entitlement as an open invitation for the government to run all of our lives.

  • sayanything-4625

    When their pensions are breaking the bank, I suggest we break the piggy bank.

    The liberal solution for everything, more taxes! You understand that people hiding money in offshore accounts is a reaction to high taxes. In general, once you start taxing over 30% people start hiding their money. Even you Dems. Why do you think Rangel hid half his assets. (They were in the US).

  • mudcat

    Problem is..the fucking, liberal, Obama ass kissing treehuggers have prevented local municipalities from reducing the amount of underbrush in the forests to safe levels. The Calif whackos are getting their homes burned down while they grove on the experience of watching weeds grow..

  • carrick

    Dino:

    But we shouldn’t have government involved in firefighting

    Maybe you should pull that shit out from between your ears and get a brain. Nobody except a few hippie freaks like your butt buddy Anarchist Vegetarian Brain advocate against the existence of government.

    Of course firefighting is a legitimate function of (state) government. All one has to say.

    Being as fucking stupid as you are, do you manage to put your own clothes on, or do you have help?

  • Mickey

    Pilgrim,

    I have roots in California and I’m with ya all the way.

  • carrick

    Dino aka “shit for brains”

    That must be why conservatives have worked so diligently to destroy it.

    More fucking lame shit from the brilliant mind of
    You really got fucking nothing going on in your head, do you retard?

    NOBODY is decrying the existence of government except ironically your butt buddy Anarchist Vegetable Brain. Deal with it, fecal breath.

    You’re just afraid your grant will get pulled and you’ll have to find a real job.

    You’re just all pissed off because nobody likes you or thinks you are worth paying.

    You deserve yourself and the shit life you lead.

  • Pilgrim

    mudcat,

    You have a point, but do you think you could make it without portraying yourself as a hateful racist redneck gap toothed mouth breathing redneck tobacco chewing inbred web toed yellow fingered beer guzzling non thinking fool?

    Just asking.

  • Pilgrim

    Thanks, Randy.

    That was the point of this post. No political points were intended.

  • Warm Mountain

    I’ve been watching and reading about this for hours. I will add your sons-in-laws to my prayer list, Pilgrim. I know that you and your family are worried.

  • ellinas

    My prayers are with the firefighters and anyone that places his life in the front lines for the public good.

  • ellinas

    However, do you think we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits?
    Greg in Alabama on August 30, 2009 at 03:10 pm

    Yes, we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits.
    they deserve it.

  • Pilgrim

    Mickey, Ellinas….

    Thanks.

  • robert108

    Yes, we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits.
    they deserve it.

    Please explain that claim. The unions jack up the Dem politicians to give them political favors with those inflated pension benefits. Don’t blame the employee, blame the Dem politicians who use them as political footballs at our expense.

  • badlands4

    :( ((())) I will pray. I grew up in So. Cal and almost all of my family still lives down there. The Palos Verdes fires are right near some of my family, so I have been in big time prayer mode. I will add your sil to my prayers.

    It is hard to tell out here exactly where the fires are because the news tends to generalize the fire in a wider location, vs the specific point…kinda like a tornado warning for xxx county vs the specific town where the tornado is.

    ((())) Hot Shots are some of the best firefighters in the country, God Bless Them.

  • robert108

    Pil: My prayers are with you and yours, and with all the residents of southern CA. I’m north of LA enough to be out of that zone, but there is a faint smell of smoke in the air.
    Sorry all the leftie hater trolls have to try to politicize this tragic situation. Pay no attention to them. Let them stew in their own hate.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/homosexuality_is_wrong_-_a_compendium move_zig

    The effect of just about everything the Left does is destructive. Truly, they are like an AIDS virus — preventing the infected country or society from defending itself.

    Under the guise of environmental protections, thousands of more acres of land and thousands of homes have been burned because the Left refused basic forestry preventive measures like creating and maintaining firebreaks, culling drywood and underbrush that makes any stand of trees a forest fire in the making.

    Worse yet, by preventing citizens from clearing brush around their homes or denying firefighters the use of local streams to fight fires, many of which are far from other sources of water, such Environmental terrorists have caused deaths.

    We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down…”

    I’m no stranger to wildland fires. Longtime readers may recall that my own home had the threat of wildfires here in Chico, California this past summer, as did many Butte County residents who not only were threatened, but lost homes.

    They were labelled law breakers, fined $50,000 and left emotionally and financially drained.

    But seven years after the Sheahans bulldozed trees to make a fire break — an act that got them dragged before a magistrate and penalised — they feel vindicated. Their house is one of the few in Reedy Creek, Victoria, still standing.

    Anger at government policies stopping residents from cutting down trees and clearing scrub to protect their properties is already apparent. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down,” Warwick Spooner told Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen at a meeting on Tuesday night.

    While our forests burn, our professional land managers continue to be hamstrung by a broken process,” said Martz, who was recently elected chair of the Western Governors Association. Martz said she’ll use Montana — and the Forest Service’s inability to quickly cut trees burned in the Bitterroot National Forest during the 2000 fire season — as “the best example of how badly the federal process is broken.”

    Martz said while the Montana Department of Natural Resources logged its burned timber, the Bitterroot National Forest spent $1 million and 57 man-years of work writing an environmental impact statement on its salvage logging proposal. “And after all that work, the federal government still ended up in court,” she said. “Fifty-seven man-years of work and $1 million later, and for what? It ended up being a mere 15,000 acres of salvage logging out of 307,000 acres burned.

    THOSE HORRIBLE FIRES AND GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
    According to a feature story in the Washington Times, and coverage in Insight, extreme Clinton/Gore Administration actions have made the disastrous Summer fires in the West and Midwest much worse than they needed to be. Funds budgeted for fire-fighting have instead been used for other purposes, especially continued aquisition of privately owned land. Once the fires began, they have been made much worse by fire-fighting restrictions, largely inspired by extremist environmental policies. Refusal to allow thinning by loggers in recent years has made the fuel potential much worse; but even during the desperate fight to stop the fires, extreme limitations have repeatedly tied firefighters’ hands. For example, firefighters have been forbidden to use bulldozers to create fire breaks, for they are associated with logging and will scar the earth. Rather, firefighters have been forced to cut the trees by hand; then, U.S.Marines have been forced to carry the downed trees away on foot, rather than have them dragged by heavy equipment and “disturb the ground.” Fire retardant chemicals could not be dropped in some places for fear of injuring animals and plants in streams. In one instance, firefighters were made to cease pumping water out of a stream because lower water levels were causing water temperature to rise, endangering the trout. As a result, the fire was not stopped and its heat completely vaporized the water in the stream, killing everything in it. In short, the hot, dry weather has made the natural fires bad; but Clinton/Gore environmental regulations have made them much, much worse.

  • mudcat

    My Dad was a fireman..Died in a fire in 1969 in Texas along with 2 other firemen. His 3 brothers were volunteer firemen here in Texas before the municipalities took over and started paying the firemen. My Dad was Chief for a few years , but then went back to just being a fireman. It pains me to see the great firemen in Calif giving their lives and LUNGS to the inbred liberals in calif..just because of their pissy treehugging agenda. There’s consequences for these Liberal whacko agendas. Good people die because of these assholes. Can’t seem to have anything but disdain for their sorry asses.

  • Buzz

    What a gravy job, you work like 2 months a year and get a shit load of cash, can’t we get some illegals to do it for a sixth of that?

  • Mickey

    mudcat

    You can’t fix stupid. The left is what it is.

    Vote them out of power in 2010 and 2012, and then make sure this mistake never happens again. Stay involved in politics. Use their tactics against them.

  • robert108

    Pil: No conservative begrudges govt employees who do actual work and service; the ones we don’t like are the army of useless clerks and drones who get bloated salaries and pensions for doing nothing. Real service should always be rewarded.

  • Pilgrim

    My admiration for firefighters has no bounds.

    Several years ago I jumped up an armed robber right after a robbery. Vehicle chase, he bailed out, foot chase, blah, blah blah. I cornered him in a dark area and disarmed him. The EMS and fire guys who responded per protocol were there when I led him out.

    The firefighters looked at me and said, “You’re crazy”. I was amazed. This was the same damn crew I had just watched break down a door of a fully engulfed burning house and go in and get the inhabitants out just a few nights before.

    I’m crazy?

    These guys have balls, man. God bless firefighters. Period.

  • docdave

    treehuggers have prevented local municipalities from reducing the amount of underbrush in the forests to safe levels.

    Hats off to the brave fire fighters but mudcat and zig are both right. It’s the environ wackos that have create the environment for these cataclysmic events that put fire fighters in harms way. Yeah, fires are always going to happen in Cal in the dry season but with proper forest and brush management, the fires could be more easily controlled.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/homosexuality_is_wrong_-_a_compendium move_zig

    Pilg,

    Yup, those guys have their work cut out for them and it’s not just fires they are fighting sometimes:

    In 1970, Kent State had been the object of an intensive organizational drive on behalf of the Weathermen faction of the SDS. (FYI, that’s OBAMA’S CROWD) For over two years, a steady stream of professional revolutionaries appeared before student groups. Weatherman Bernadette Dohrn told them that there soon would be shooting on campus and admonished them to arm themselves for rebellion.[25] Another speaker was Jerry Rubin, who said: “The first part of the Yippie program is to kill your parents. And, I mean that quite literally, because, until you’re prepared to kill your parents, you’re not ready to change this country.”[26]

    The SDS on campus had distributed copies of what it called the “Organizers’ Manual for the Spring Offensive.” The manual said: “Beginning with guerrilla theatre actions in dorms, we can escalate to disrupting classes, street marches, quick assaults on buildings, etc., before moving to the major confrontation of the struggle.” [27]

    In an SDS pamphlet distributed among students in April of 1969, we find this blunt statement of intent: “We’re no longer asking you to come to help us make a revolution. We’re telling you that the revolution has begun, and the only choice you have to make is which side you’re on.” [28]

    The revolution at Kent State began in earnest on May 1, 1970. The date itself is significant. May Day is the international Communist holiday. A student demonstration was called to protest U.S. military action in Southeast Asia, and thus was the beginning of four days of violence. Unruly crowds surged through the streets breaking windows and setting fires. On campus, the ROTC building was burned to the ground. Firemen were struck by rocks from the crowd, and their fire hoses were cut.

    Trenton, 1968 – 15 firemen were treated at the strapped city hospitals for smoke inhalation, burns, sprains and cuts suffered fighting raging blazes – or at the hands of the rioters who threw rocks and bricks at them as they worked.

    Also, do you recall about the tradition of Devil’s Night?

  • Carol

    I am praying for the firemen who are so bravely trying to save lives and property in California. These are brave heroes who, as Mud says, risk life and lungs, for those who are threatened by the fires. Mickey’s Dad is a first class hero, never ever to be forgotten! I’m so sorry for his family’s loss.

    My advice to Dino is this. When your house is on fire or you’re being robbed… call a Democrat. (Darn, I wish I could figure out how to block that guy!)

    For Mud, Pilgrim, Mickey and all those who have families in the fire areas… forget what Dino and his like say here and know that the truly good people are praying for you as well as your friends and family in California.

  • ellinas

    Yes, we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits.
    they deserve it.

    Please explain that claim. The unions jack up the Dem politicians to give them political favors with those inflated pension benefits. Don’t blame the employee, blame the Dem politicians who use them as political footballs at our expense.

    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 03:59 pm

    Explanation below:

    Dino,
    I’ve been patient but I’m getting just a little tired of your punk ass running me down about my retirement. Read this:
    http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-33/1234765311267560.xml&coll=1
    I ended my career with three broken ribs in my back, a separated shoulder, and a screwed up neck. And that’s only one of several times in 20 years I’ve been hurt, shot at, threatened, and engaged in battle while “sitting on my ass eating donuts with a radar gun.”

    Shut up, punk.
    Pilgrim on August 29, 2009 at 09:19 am

    My admiration for firefighters has no bounds.

    Several years ago I jumped up an armed robber right after a robbery. Vehicle chase, he bailed out, foot chase, blah, blah blah. I cornered him in a dark area and disarmed him. The EMS and fire guys who responded per protocol were there when I led him out.

    The firefighters looked at me and said, “You’re crazy”. I was amazed. This was the same damn crew I had just watched break down a door of a fully engulfed burning house and go in and get the inhabitants out just a few nights before.
    I’m crazy?

    These guys have balls, man.
    God bless firefighters. Period.
    Pilgrim on August 30, 2009 at 05:22 pm

  • ellinas

    Pil: No conservative begrudges govt employees who do actual work and service; the ones we don’t like are the army of useless clerks and drones who get bloated salaries and pensions for doing nothing. Real service should always be rewarded.
    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 05:29 pm

    Give us a few examples of govmint jobs “the ones we don’t like” that you would like eliminated.
    No generalities. Specifics.

  • Brent

    Unionized state employees act belligerently (such as by oppressing private firefighters paid for by insurance companies and by trying to gut volunteer fire departments) and they take the taxpayers to the cleaners.

    That said, someone has to fight the fires, be they unionized state employees or not, and we should wish them safety and hope that the fires are quickly contained.

  • robert108

    Little e: Let’s start with all the wasteful social spending programs; fund only welfare for truly needy people, and make the govt employees do rigorous means testing, to determine who the truly needy are.
    Eliminate the Dept. of Education, since it educates no students.
    That’s a start. Do you have any ideas, or are you just sniping at your betters?
    Let’s see you hold up your end of a real debate, if you can.
    Any counter argument? Something in your own words, preferably, not just some leftie boilerplate talking points.

  • ellinas

    I asked:

    Give us a few examples of govmint jobs “the ones we don’t like” that you would like eliminated.
    No generalities. Specifics.

    And you answered:

    Little e: Let’s start with all the wasteful social spending programs; fund only welfare for truly needy people, and make the govt employees do rigorous means testing, to determine who the truly needy are.
    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 07:36 pm

    Now let’s try again.
    Give us a few examples of govmint jobs “the ones we don’t like” that you would like eliminated.
    No generalities. Specifics.

  • ellinas

    Eliminate the Dept. of Education, since it educates no students.
    That’s a start. Do you have any ideas, or are you just sniping at your betters?
    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 07:36 pm

    Ummm….OK.
    Is that all you got?

    Your statement, Do you have any ideas, or are you just sniping at your betters? has nothing to do with anything.
    Why are you patting your self on the back over your unsubstantiated claims?

  • ellinas

    When their pensions are breaking the bank I would put it to you that its a little excessive. What do I know though. Being broke is a good thing right?

    Greg in Alabama on August 30, 2009 at 07:21 pm

    When their pensions are breaking the bank, I suggest we break the piggy bank.
    No more hiding of assets in offshore locations.
    Incorporating in the Cayman Islands should be a no no.

  • robert108

    Nice cherry-pick to lie, little e; now why don’t you deal with everything I said, instead of just the part you cherry-picked out of it? When you say “unsubstantiated claim”, are you claiming that the D of E actually does educate any students?
    Can you answer in your own words? Can you actually make an argument, rather than simply trying to snipe at what I say?
    You have yet to enter into any debate here, even though you have whined about others not debating.
    Are you finally going to live up to your own words?

  • ellinas

    When you say “unsubstantiated claim”, are you claiming that the D of E actually does educate any students?
    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 08:24 pm

    When I say unsubstantiated claim, I mean this:

    Do you have any ideas, or are you just sniping at your betters?
    robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 07:36 pm

    Once again: Why are you patting your self on the back over your unsubstantiated claims?

  • carrick

    Robert108:

    Eliminate the Dept. of Education, since it educates no students.

    Well the USDA raises no crops, should we eliminate them too?

  • DINO

    Nobody except a few hippie freaks like your butt buddy Anarchist Vegetarian Brain advocate against the existence of government.

    That must be why conservatives have worked so diligently to destroy it.

    You’re just afraid your grant will get pulled and you’ll have to find a real job.

  • robert108

    Little e: You have yet to make an affirmative argument for any position here; instead you try to ignore the facts and logic of my position. That’s known as sniping.
    It’s what you do, since you never make any affirmative argument for anything here. You just troll and snipe.
    I don’t expect you to be honest enough to admit what you do, since I have caught you lying countless times, proved it with your own words, and you keep lying and denying.
    Until you make some sort of affirmative argument, I’m done with you.

  • robert108

    BTW, you have yet to justify your claim that any govt employee “deserves” a
    $125,000/year pension. What’s your affirmative argument for that particular amount?

  • 2Hotel9

    Why do idiots in California keep planting trees, grasses, shrubs, flowers that CAN NOT SURVIVE IN THAT CLIMATE?

    Look at the historical records of human settlement in the region. As far back as the first Spanish settlements there are accounts of wildfires. It is a semi-arid climate, all the shit idiots in California can not survive there, they grow rapidly during wet periods, then die and dry out and burn during the other 90% of the year. Fucking morons deserve to have their shit burn down.

  • 2Hotel9

    Another point. Why are these idiots still building with HIGHLY FLAMMABLE MATERIALS?!?!?!?!

    Again, fucking morons deserve to have all their shit burn down.

  • mudcat

    The fact is..only a very few california whackos control the environment. Typcally, a handful of GREENIES sue over some silly shit like a snail darter and the stupid, ultra liberal officers of the calif court grants the law suit. Calif needs to eliminate its liberal judges. this is where the whacko conspiracy starts. The judges think the people in Calif aren’t capable of the right decision.

  • 2Hotel9

    They keep replanting things that can not survive in that invironment, so obviously they ARE NOT capable of making the right decisions. Just as their local governments and judiciary can’t, either.

  • Buzz

    You understand that people hiding money in offshore accounts is a reaction to high taxes

    NO. I understand that some people don’t want to pay any taxes.

  • mudcat

    Most people who work hard for their money resent the govt giving away THEIR money to worthless people who won’t work. If the Govt. is in effect “Stealing” their money to give to the deadbeats…by all means it should be hidden.

  • 2Hotel9

    So, buzzy admits he is a tax evader. Good job, stupidass.

  • Bat One

    I understand that some people don’t want to pay any taxes.

    Buzz,

    Please explain how putting my money in an off-shore account reduces my taxes. I know its a great disappointment to those of you on the Left, but we don’t tax assets in the US, we tax income. So again, how does putting my money in a Cayman Islands bank reduce my tax liability?

  • ellinas

    BTW, you have yet to justify your claim that any govt employee “deserves” a $125,000/year pension. What’s your affirmative argument for that particular amount?robert108 on August 30, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    The $125,000 dollar figure was brought up by Greg in Alabama
    and it concerned firefighters:

    “That being said, I would not like to do without fire fighters. However, do you think we should pay them 125,000 a year in pension benefits?”Greg in Alabama on August 30, 2009 at 03:10 pm

    From firefighters you went to “any govt employee.”
    I never made an argument that any govt employee should get $125,000 dollars a year in pension benefits, only the ones that place their life in the front lines for the public good.
    You moved the goal posts, and are arguing against yourself.

    However, if by “any govt employee” you also include those that place their life in the front lines for the public good, here is the answer you are so desperately seeking:

    LOS ANGELES — Firefighters tried to hold back a wildfire……they mourned two of their own who were killed……..down a mountain side.

    &heellip;

    Fire Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County, and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo “Arnie” Quinones, 35, of Palmdale, were killed in the crash, the department said in a statement. Authorities did not give a cause for the crash.

    Hall was a 26-year veteran, and Quinones had been a county firefighter for eight years.

  • ellinas

    The liberal solution for everything, more taxes!
    Greg in Alabama on August 31, 2009 at 04:35 am

    The conservative solution to the salary, pension and benefits of those that place lives in the front lines for the common good is……a pittance for salary, and the poor house upon retirement.

    In case you did not know, their salaries, pension and benefits are payed with taxpayer money. They (firefighters in this case) contribute a sizable amount of their salary toward benefits and pension.

  • ellinas

    You understand that people hiding money in offshore accounts is a reaction to high taxes. In general, once you start taxing over 30% people start hiding their money. Even you Dems. Why do you think Rangel hid half his assets. (They were in the US).

    Greg in Alabama on August 31, 2009 at 04:35 am

    None of us likes or wants to pay high, or low taxes. Yet the vast majority pays anyway.
    Not everybody is able to hide their money in offshore accounts.
    Because they disagree with the tax rates, is not an excuse.
    The ones that hide their money/assets in the USA are sooner or later caught, Evidence of that, is Rangel.
    Too bad the government can’t catch all the cheats and make ‘em pay through the nose.

  • Bat One

    Not everybody is able to hide their money in offshore accounts.
    Because they disagree with the tax rates, is not an excuse.

    ellinas,

    So, what percent of those who have off-shore accounts do you assume do so because “they disagree with the tax rates”? What proof or documentation do you have to substantiate your claim?

    Once again, for your benefit, the US does not tax assets. The US taxes income. So how does putting money in an off-shore account reduce my tax liability? If my W-2, or 1099, or Schedule-K says I made $250,000 last year, how is my tax liability reduced when I put money in a Cayman Islands bank account?

  • robert108

    None of us likes or wants to pay high, or low taxes.

    False! Economic history demonstrates that most people are OK with tax rates not exceeding 20%, total. Most people consider that as much as the govt deserves for what it does for them.
    When govt gets greedy, and wants more than it deserves, people go into avoidance mode. However, as Bat points out, putting money in offshore accounts isn’t in that category. They just want more return than they can get in the govt-rigged US markets. The more Obama attacks the private sector, the more that solution is needed.
    Contrary to your false statement, people are OK with an appropriate(low) rate of taxation, which is why President Bush’s tax rate reductions resulted in an increase in revenues to the Treasury.
    It’s simple economics.

  • ellinas

    ellinas,

    So, what percent of those who have off-shore accounts do you assume do so because “they disagree with the tax rates”? What proof or documentation do you have to substantiate your claim?
    Bat One on August 31, 2009 at 07:49 am

    Bat,

    Your above question should be directed to Greg In Alabama,
    for he is the one that made this claim:

    You understand that people hiding money in offshore accounts is a reaction to high taxes. In general, once you start taxing over 30% people start hiding their money. Even you Dems. Why do you think Rangel hid half his assets. (They were in the US).
    Greg in Alabama on August 31, 2009 at 04:35 am

    I was merely responding to his statement.
    Sorry Bubba.

  • Bat One

    e,

    Coward!

  • ellinas

    Once again, for your benefit, the US does not tax assets. The US taxes income. So how does putting money in an off-shore account reduce my tax liability? If my W-2, or 1099, or Schedule-K says I made $250,000 last year, how is my tax liability reduced when I put money in a Cayman Islands bank account?
    Bat One on August 31, 2009 at 07:49 am

    Are you going to claim people have foreign bank accounts because the interest rate payed is more favorable than that payed by banks in the USA?
    Surely you know that the US taxes interest income.
    Surely you know that the US taxes income from foreign investments.
    If income from a foreign investment is parked in the Caymans, or Switzerland and not reported either by the owner of said account, or the bank how is Uncle Sam gonna know?
    But you already knew this. The purpose of your question was/is to obfuscate.

  • robert108

    As usual, ignorant little e has no affirmative argument for anything; he is just a sniper troll, trying to garner attention from his betters by being annoying.

  • ellinas

    e,

    Coward!
    Bat One on August 31, 2009 at 08:14 am

    Why? Is it because I directed you to the one that made the claim, or is it because I left the keyboard alone for a few minutes in order to enjoy my breakfast?

    The coward here my friend is the one that does not ask the ones that made the claim.
    Once again: Sorry bubba, you are a sorry bubba.

  • ellinas

    As usual, ignorant little e has no affirmative argument for anything; he is just a sniper troll, trying to garner attention from his betters by being annoying.
    robert108 on August 31, 2009 at 08:19 am

    There you go again. Making unsubstantiated claims.

  • Web Smith

    I was a fire fighter and driver in the Calif. State Forestry for a couple of years. At the age of 19 I was driving a 9 ton truck loaded with water, up to six crew members, mostly in their teens and early twenties, hoses, axes, hoes, and other equipment. We spent most of out time pulling crisp bodies out of burned vehicles on mountain roads, but when we became involved in fighting a fire, it was very easy to run a truck off of a narrow, one-lane, barely maintained, fire road down a cliff. The smoke and borate and water from the bombers made it easier. Even though it wasn’t official policy, the old guys told us that when we couldn’t see, to abandon the truck rather than try to drive it though a fire and the best way to survive was to hold your breath as you ran downhill through a fire instead of trying to outrun it up hill. We received our directions from dispatchers far away from the fire who would often tell you to drive right into the inferno dead ahead or get you trapped above a fire that was racing up a hill like and sounding like a 747 taking off. We only lost one truck and no people in two years. It was amazing considering that each one our young dumb asses was prepared to run into a fire to save your dumb ass.

  • robert108

    Still no affirmative argument for anything, sniper e?

  • robert108

    BTW, sniper e, it’s “paid”, not “payed”. Learn to spell.

  • Bat One

    e,

    My question was directed at Buzz first, and then at you. Both of you asserted that people put their money in overseas accounts to avoid taxes. Buzz went so far as to say that this was done because people “don’t want to pay any taxes” which is little more than liberal class warfare hyperbole.

    Those of you on the Left conveniently assume that people put money into overseas accounts to avoid taxation, but I doubt that you can substantiate that claim to any great extent. No doubt some do. But there are other, far more pressing reasons for doing so. With interest rates where they currently are, your explanation might cover about two-thirds of a penny for each dollar deposited. The bank’s various fees will just about eat up the same amount as would the taxes you say they are avoiding, so your explanation really doesn’t make much sense, does it?

  • robert108

    Bat: Basically, economic freedom should permit US citizens to invest wherever they please. Obama is obviously seeking to destroy that freedom, and at the bidding of his union contributors, who view all money as theirs, and would force Americans to spend/invest their money with only union entities.
    It’s just more leftie totalitarianism and demonization of the opposition, in the Leninist fashion:

    http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/obama_as_leninoid_-_eliminating_the_opposition/

  • http://northerngleaner.blogspot.com/ Gene

    Pil, I choked up when I read the age of these fine men who died. I grieve over every son of this country at home and abroad who gives the last great measure of devotion to keep us safe and free.

    And thank you for your service sir.

    NOW, to he horticulture (biodiversity) question. Mr Hort here.

    I spent some time in the hills surrounding LA. I saw the huge undergrowths of shrub oak that would burn hot. And there were sages.

    The stuff people plant 2H isn’t the issue, the issue is people LIVE where there is this huge undergrowth that when people 200 years ago lived there would burn out from the undergrowth with regularity.

    Just like the Prairies of Dakota. Prairefires were God’s way of hoeing weeds, thinning out deer and fertilizing the ground.

    The problem is Smokey the Bear is WRONG. We have to have fires. In fact, they should not be fought. Development should be such that there is no need for firefighting.

    BUT I saw people who loved building a house right in the middle of a coniferous and Oak brush environment. When that burns, it burns hot and high.

    I know it sounds cruel, but the way to stop fires is to let her burn. It takes YEARS for the tinder to accumulate again and then let her burn again.

    Man has a way of getting in the way of a cycle that operated pretty well for millenia.

    If you don’t want a fire, build a 5 mile black dirt firebreak around your development and then build with less vegetation around your property. Kind of like downtown LA.

    No fire problems there.

  • 2Hotel9

    Gene, you nail it. Clear the brush, or don’t live there. Leave it where it is, where it can’t survive, and you are simply building a giant bonfire.

    Web, as a USFS firefighter way back when we were told to abandon equipment in a heartbeat. Trucks and gear and machinery can all be replaced, and never drive into a smoke wall you have no idea what is on the other side of, might be clear air, might be a solid wall of windblown cinder a 1/4 mile wide.

  • badlands4

    What a sad, sad update :(

  • sayanything-6955

    I don’t know a soul in cali, but I will ask God to send them a special blessing.

  • sayanything-2483

    NO. I understand that some people don’t want to pay any taxes.
    Buzz on August 31, 2009 at 04:50 am

    ]

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