pamrich's Blog

I am a graduate of Texas Tech University.  I have to say GOOOOOOOO RED RAIDERS!!!!!!  The rivalry between the Longhorns and the Red Raiders has always been huge, but this year, it's even bigger.  As anyone who's gone to college in Texas knows, any school but Texas was always the baldheaded stepchild when it came to football, BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!  I say we have a barbeque to celebrate this big win -- beef, of course.

GOOOOOOOO RED RAIDERS!!!!!!  BEAT OSU!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all the eruptions last week about Senator Obama's pastor's videotaped outrageous remarks, I am wondering why the "powers that be" have not called for his resignation from the Senate and from the Presidential campaign.  Is there a double standard in this country?

Let's not forget that in the past few years, Tom Delay and Trent Lott were persecuted, forced to resign their positions in government, and almost tarred and feathered for what might have been comments taken out of context.  Their actions were not even close to the seditious, outrageous and downright treasonous rantings of this candidate's minister, but gone and out of sight of the public they are, their careers and their lives tattered and torn.

Geraldine Ferraro's comments regarding Senator Obama's success forced her resignation from management in the Clinton campaign.  Of course, the Clinton campaign people ran in the opposite direction when her comments were reported by the press. 

I have been checking the Fox 2 blogs and I really don't see anyone blogging about these issues.  Where is everybody?  If this person were a member of the Republican Party or, God forbid, George Bush or John McCain's minister had made these outrageous remarks, there would be *&%$# to pay! 

I know people support churches when they don't necessarily believe in everything those churches preach about.  Look at the number of people who support the most corrupt religion in the world, the Catholic Church, but when a United States Senator and Presidential candidate supports, through attendance and donations for many years, a minister who is preaching revolution against the government he wants to lead, this should be big news! and I would think most people have an opinion about it.

This looks to me like the commercial on TV about the 800-pound gorilla in the room.  As usual, no one wants to come out and talk about any that's deemed "sensitive".  What a bunch of hypocritical cowards we are.

I don't understand why the media is not all over this.  I'm sure a lot of you have heard that Congress is wrangling over passing the extension of certain tax credits which are due to expire AND extending the Alternative Minimum Tax exemption for the 2007 tax year.  What has NOT been reported is that, if Congress does not do its job and extend the credits AND the AMT exemption, tax filing season won't start until sometime after February 15th, 2008, as opposed to January 10th to January 15th, 2008 (the usual beginning date for filing season).

I have been in the tax preparation business since 1980.  My firm prepares thousands of tax returns, a large percentage of which are now e-filed instead of being mailed.  Usually around the first of February each year, the entire E-File system gets overloaded and goes down, delaying the Treasury Department's payment of tax refunds to the taxpayers.  If it's a minor breakdown or the system is just busy, refunds might be delayed only by a day or so, but if it's a big meltdown, refunds could be delayed by weeks or even months.  In the early 2000's, the IRS filing system went down for a few hours and, the IRS said in an e-mail to my firm, that about 200,000 returns were affected, delaying the refunds by about one week.  The result was that over 2,000,000 taxpayers' returns were affected, and some of my clients waited six weeks or more to get their refunds.  Of course, I lost quite a few of those clients because they blamed my firm for the delay.

I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or black, white, Hispanic, purple, legal, illegal, moral or immoral, but every taxpayer in this country had better get on the phone with his or her Congressman and threaten them with tar and feathers if they let this happen. 

What about the people who are counting on this refund to pay past-due mortgage payments so they can avoid foreclosure on their homes?  What about the people who have been laid off recently?  There are more layoffs than you think -- auto makers, big banks, mortgage bankers, real estate firms, etc.  Are they all going to live in tents?  What can these people do to survive?

I am sure that the members of Congress will try blaming the other party, then the Bush Administration, etc., but they have only themselves to blame for this.  It is my understanding that this situation has been developing since SEPTEMBER for Heaven's sakes!

Please tell your friends and neighbors and PLEASE call your Congressional representatives!  They need to STOP spending most of their time getting reelected and do their jobs for a change.  If we start getting this information out to the public, Congress cannot hide from us any more.

 

My hubby and I are really getting sick and tired of working hard, being responsible, and paying our hard-earned money out for taxes and then finding out we get screwed in the long-run!  The latest fiasco is this:  My husband and I are self-employed and have been for about 40 years.  We started out with $750.00 because that's all we had.  We have paid our taxes, paid our employees' withholdings, contributed to their FICA, etc.  We have faithfully paid all our bills, and have tried to be responsible to our customers, our employees and our family.  My husband was diagnosed with asthma when he was about 50 years old.  He was then uninsurable because he was self-employed.  He could not buy health insurance at any cost.  We have lived in fear of his contracting some serious emergency illness for years.  Now, this year, my husband has turned 65.  He's still working and makes too much money to even think about collecting Social Security, but he did want to get on the Medicare insurance system, so he applied for that.  We thought it would give us some peace of mind for a change.  So -- here we go -- he gets his Medicare card in the mail a couple weeks ago.  We're happy.  This is way cool -- finally some insurance!  But wait!  Yesterday, he got a bill in the mail for the Medicare Part B insurance -- $535.00 for three months of insurance!  OK, we're not poor any more so we don't have a problem paying the bill, but why do WE have to pay for this when millions of no-count, lazy, government program-sucking, cheating "victims of society" get medical coverage in this country for nothing?  Then, to add insult to injury, you can swim across the river, drop your kid in MY country and get all kinds of welfare 'cause the kid's now an American citizen?  My brain's going to explode any minute!   Just had to blow -- I couldn't stand keeping it to myself any more.

I would like to know more about the situation with Chief George and the St. Louis City Fire Dept.  I don't know much, but I have gathered from the news that not enough promotions are being given to minority firefighters and that Chief George is the only person who can give these promotions?  Am I right or wrong?  Also, there is an issue of racially-biased promotions tests.  I would like to see a sample test and have the questions which are believed to be racially biased pointed out.  I was assuming these tests were grading basic knowledge and psychological stability, but I must be wrong.  I have heard of other tests which have been criticized as being racially biased, but I've never seen where anything like sample "biased" questions or scenarios were published.  Could somebody out here in "Blogsville" help me with this?

Was anyone watching Donnybrook-Your Turn last night and listening to the callers?  There was a woman named Diane who called in and commented about her Black sons wanting to do well for themselves.  I applaud that.  Then she said they would have a hard time because Black men have been and still are oppressed in Missouri.  She said that Missouri was still a Confederate State and that there was very little opportunity for her Black sons to succeed here.  Well, I was absolutely insulted!  This is till the land of opportunity -- if her sons really want to improve their circumstances, it won't be easy, but it can be accomplished.  Perhaps they could go to work for BET, Ebony Magazine, The St. Louis American, the Post Office, the Armed Forces, just to name a few.  How can they be oppressed that much?  The rest of the taxpayers will pay for their college education, there is Affirmative Action, the ACLU, the UNNCF, etc., etc., etc.  I am sick and tired of people whining about what they DON'T have and what they CAN'T do!  You'll find out you can do lots of things if you'll get up off your dead carcass and try something for a change.  If this woman thinks it's so daggoned bad here, SHE CAN MOVE -- I say get out if you don't like it.  But don't forget that the grass is never greener on the other side of the fence and you cannot run away from your problems -- they will follow you everywhere.  HOW INSULTING!

Well, somebody's got to start talking about this one, so I guess it'll be me and my big mouth.  Acquitted?  Are you kidding me?  I have LOTS of questions about this story, too numerous to go into here.  BUT -- how do you have time to shoot and kill two people in a pickup truck while it's rolling backward toward you when you say it was going so fast you were in fear of your life?  After you shot the two people, didn't the truck just keep on rolling?  Did you ever hear the word JUMP?  I guess a license to be a police officer includes a license to kill.  This young man may have been acquitted through the courts, but he will have to live with what he did for the rest of his life.  If he has any conscience at all, that's probably a more harsh sentence than putting him in jail for what he did.  And he's gotta face the guy with the big "G" on his sweatshirt later.  And heaven forbid the Department would put him back on the job after this.  The best thing he could do right now would be MOVE AWAY.  My guess is that he will be nothing but a target from now on, and he deserves that designation.  Probably he could move in with OJ -- at least they'd have something in common.  Two stone cold killers commiserating with each other and talking about how unfair life is.

Here we go again!  This is just another indication that it's all about the money and not about the kids.  Why are the teachers so afraid they'll lose their jobs?  Isn't there a shortage of teachers in Missouri or has that been cleared up?  Oh, maybe this is it -- I could be wrong -- but isn't there something about testing or recertifying the teachers when the district is taken over by the state?  Well, now, we wouldn't want to have to prove we're still competent to teach the kids, would we?   Don't let a bunch of flowery words and frightening comments lead you away from the central issue here.  It's all about the money and the power.  Again I say the whole district should be closed.  Give the kids who really want to go to school vouchers to attend other schools.  If the district is left open, this problem will never be solved.  If you don't believe me, look at East St. Louis District 189 from (at least) the 1970's until now.  It's the same old stories and the same people (or their descendants) over and over again.

We went out to Grant's Farm Sunday and saw Magic, a 5-1/2 week old Clydesdale.  He is so cute and so playful.  He would gallop toward the fence and stick his head between the slats on the fence so we could pet him.  The weather was really nice and it wasn't too warm so the animals were all out having a good time. 

We had not been to Grant's Farm in quite a number of years and I began to think that, even though a lot of us live in St. Louis, we a lot of us don't take advantage of the attractions we have here.  People from all over the world come to St. Louis to see what we take for granted and won't take the time to visit. 

I'm from a small city in Texas where we didn't have a world-class zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the Arch, the Art Museum, Forest Park, the Brewery, etc., so I've always been kind of an explorer around here. 

Please don't take this beautiful, historic area for granted.  Go see what's out there and teach your kids something about where they live at the same time.

P.S.  Also, other cities don't have a large bumblebee on their morning show, either. Just be careful he doesn't go around polinating everything!

I heard about this on the news a couple of hours ago and am horrified, to say the least.  I had friends going to the University of Texas in 1966.  (I'm from Amarillo, Texas.)  The whole city was in a state of panic because almost everyone had friends or family in Austin at the time.  Please pray for everyone involved.

I remember we had a murder on campus when I was a freshman at Texas Tech and there were guards in our dorms and on the campus for about three months.  That scared all of us.  I can't imagine how murders of this magnitude would have affected us.

I've really never had to think about it before, but I suppose we should look into some sort of campus-wide warning system.  College campuses are wide open to visitors and something really does need to be done about campus-wide communication -- maybe incorporate it into the tornado siren system? 

 

I am a tax accountant and have two offices, one in St. Louis County and one in St. Charles County.  I am tired of looking at numbers!  I want a day off!  I want to see my house in the daylight!  I want to go to the grocery store!  I want to read the newspaper!  I want to be normal again. . .or as close to normal as a geek-type engineer turned tax account can get.

I have learned over the years that the work doesn't grow legs and walk away so I have been leaving earlier, like 9:00 or 10:00 and arriving at the office at 8:00 or so in the morning.  The work still seems to be getting finished.

Has everyone filed already or done extensions?  I hope so. . .if not, you'd better do something by Tuesday or Uncle will send you a nice love letter later.

I'm almost finished with my cross-stitch piece, Lavender & Lace Angel of Love -- took me about 6 months but it's really pretty.  When tax season is over and I have my life back, I stitch a LOT, like 2 to 4 hours every day.

Hubby and I also like to visit all the neat towns around here.  They all have something about them that's unique and remarkable.  Does anybody have any favorites?  If so, let us know and we'll visit them.

We are also baseball CRAZY!  GO CARDS!!!!!