Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- Online bookings fuel tax debate
- The National Mall: A Location-Aware App-Album
- Fireworks shows need new environmental review
- Sarah Palin rolls into the spotlight
- BIZARRE ‘DANCE PARTY’ PROTEST AT JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ENDS WITH VIOLENT ARRESTS
- SEN. MCCONNELL: RYAN MEDICARE PLAN IS ‘ON THE TABLE’
- Lawsuit Filed Against Texas School District to Stop Prayer During Graduation
- Mysterious fund allows Congress to spend freely, despite earmark ban
- DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz Has No Clue That Illegall Immigrantion Is A Crime
| Online bookings fuel tax debate Posted: 30 May 2011 05:50 AM PDT
(Brunswick News (GA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 30–Online travel companies have become a staple in the hospitality arena. For customers, this means discounted hotel rooms and more affordable vacations. But for some hoteliers and communities as a whole, the websites may be doing more harm than good. Discount travel websites such as Expedia.com and Hotels.com do not pay bed taxes at the same rate as traditional booking strategies. Hotels sell rooms to these sites at lower prices, with the sites only paying a bed tax on the lower purchased rate, rather than paying taxes on the price consumers pay for the room. For example, if a online company buys a room on Jekyll Island for $80, it will then sell the room to a traveler for $100. But instead of paying the 5 percent bed tax on the $100 sum, the online travel company (OTC) only pays for the price at which they purchased the room. The OTC then pays $4 on the hotel-motel tax, pocketing that extra $1. Occupancy taxes, or a bed tax, are used by the county to advertise and promote area tourism. Fewer collected taxes could equate less marketing for the coast’s top industry of tourism. “This is a large national topic because many communities are losing large amounts of funding from lower taxed rates,” said Scott McQuade, president of the Golden Isles Convention and Visitors Bureau. To read more, visit: http://business-video.tmcnet.com/news/2011/05/30/5541860.htm |
| The National Mall: A Location-Aware App-Album Posted: 30 May 2011 05:45 AM PDT By Duncan Geere, Wired.com Two musicians from Washington, D.C., who go by the name Bluebrain have put together a location-aware album called The National Mall. It comes in the form of an iPhone app, which you download to your handset and then open up while you're standing in the National Mall — the green space between the Lincoln Memorial and Capitol building. As you move around the area, the music changes. "For example," Ryan Holladay, one half of Bluebrain, told Wired.co.uk, "Approach a lake and a piano piece changes into a harp. Or, as you get close to the children's merry-go-round, the wooden horses come to life and you hear sounds of real horses getting steadily louder based on your proximity." It'll be available soon on Apple's App Store, and iPad and Android versions will follow in time. It's the first in a series of location-aware albums that will focus on different places. The next will be in New York's Prospect Park, and then there'll be one running the length of the Highway 1 coast road in California. To read more, visit: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/05/national-mall-location-aware-album/ |
| Fireworks shows need new environmental review Posted: 30 May 2011 05:41 AM PDT By Mike Lee and Christopher Cadelago, Sign On San Diego What started as a battle over fireworks shows led to a sweeping legal victory Friday for environmentalists that could stymie a wide range of events needing city permits, from the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon to birthday parties held at parks. "According to the strictest interpretation of this, jumpy-jumps and everything else would be subject to environmental review if this ruling stands," said lawyer Robert Howard, who represented the La Jolla Community Fireworks Foundation in the case. "It's a breathtaking ruling." California Environmental Quality Act • Its origin can be traced to passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The next year, the state Legislature passed its own version and Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it. • Projects that need discretionary governmental approval and could have an environmental impact generally require review under the law, unless an exemption applies. • Public agencies are entrusted with compliance, which is enforced by the public through litigation. Source: California Natural Resources Agency Related New precedent: Pollution permits for fireworks Fighting over Fourth of July fireworks Attorney sues to halt Fourth of July fireworks Struggling to permit fireworks Fireworks debate flares in Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Linda Quinn said La Jolla's annual Fourth of July fireworks show requires evaluation under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. The case, filed by the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation in Encinitas, targeted San Diego's approval of the La Jolla event but eventually drew in a broad swath of city permits. San Diego officials said they issue about 400 special-events permits annually, along with up to 20,000 park-use permits for smaller-scale gatherings — most of which would now need environmental assessment. To read more, visit: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/27/fireworks-shows-need-environmental-review/ |
| Sarah Palin rolls into the spotlight Posted: 30 May 2011 05:36 AM PDT By Jordan Fabian and Jamie Klatell, The Hill Wearing all black, including a black helmet, Palin drew lots of attention from the crowd. There were some mixed reactions amongst on-lookers. Among the many signs in the crowd, one said “Sarah honors fallen heroes” on the front and “run Sarah run” on the back. But Kim Cransey, who came to D.C. from Zionsville, Pa., with the Sons of the American Legion, said she wasn’t happy with all the attention the politician was getting. “She has a right, that’s all I’ll really say,” Cransey said. “But she doesn’t have a right to be where she is in the lineup.” To read more, visit: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/163825-sarah-palin-rolls-into-the-spotlight?start=1 |
| BIZARRE ‘DANCE PARTY’ PROTEST AT JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ENDS WITH VIOLENT ARRESTS Posted: 30 May 2011 05:34 AM PDT By Scott Baker, The Blaze Adam Kokesh is the man that Michelle Malkin called "an anti-war smear merchant in GOP clothing." He now hosts a "libertarian" TV show for Russia Today called "Adam vs. the Man." Nothing like a high-profile stunt to boost viewership. Adam and company have professed outrage over the 2008 police action after a group of Libertarians stae a flash-mob dance event at the Jefferson Memorial. A later court ruling upheld police action: In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's opinion on the matter, Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote that dancing in the memorial is "prohibited because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration that the Regulations are designed to preserve." "Outside the Jefferson Memorial, of course, Oberwetter and her friends have always been free to dance to their hearts' content," Griffith writes. To read more, visit: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/bizarre-dance-party-protest-at-jefferson-memorial-ends-with-violent-arrests/ |
| SEN. MCCONNELL: RYAN MEDICARE PLAN IS ‘ON THE TABLE’ Posted: 30 May 2011 05:30 AM PDT From The Blaze WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Republican in the Senate says a controversial House Medicare plan is "on the table" as President Barack Obama and his GOP rivals wrestle over budget cuts to enact this summer. Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press" that he supports the controversial plan by Rep. Paul Ryan to transform Medicare into a voucher-like system in which future beneficiaries — those 54 and younger — would get subsidies to buy health insurance rather than have the government directly pay their doctor and hospital bills. But McConnell noted that there's a Democrat in the White House. That means that the Ryan plan is effectively dead for now. The measure by the Wisconsin Republican congressman also fell well short in a Senate vote last week. To read more, visit: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/sen-mcconnell-ryan-medicare-plan-is-on-the-table/ |
| Lawsuit Filed Against Texas School District to Stop Prayer During Graduation Posted: 30 May 2011 05:27 AM PDT By FOXNews.com A federal lawsuit was filed Friday by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State to prevent a Texas school district from allowing prayer during graduation, according to FoxSanAntonio.com. The group wants the school district to remove a student-led invocation and benediction, but the school district says that the remarks do not violate any laws or school policy, according to the Express. A school spokesman says the group is just trying to create a political debate. “It is sad that someone would choose the commencement exercises of the 50th anniversary of our school district as a forum for stirring political debate that threatens to needlessly cast a shadow of controversy over the pinnacle event of the class of 2011,” school board president Roland Ruiz told the paper. According to the Schultz’s attorney, they previously asked the district to stop public prayers during school events. To read more, visit: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/28/lawsuit-filed-texas-school-district-stop-prayer-graduation/ |
| Mysterious fund allows Congress to spend freely, despite earmark ban Posted: 30 May 2011 05:24 AM PDT By Cole Deines, CNN Washington (CNN) — The defense bill that just passed the House of Representatives includes a back-door fund that lets individual members of Congress funnel millions of dollars into projects of their choosing. This is happening despite a congressional ban on earmarks — special, discretionary spending that has funded Congress’ pet projects back home in years past, but now has fallen out of favor among budget-conscious deficit hawks. Under the cloak of a mysteriously-named “Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund,” Congress has been squirreling away money — like $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development,” $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies,” and more than $30 million for a “corrosion prevention program.” So in a year dominated by demands for spending cuts, where did all the money come from? To read more, visit: http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/28/mysterious.fund/index.html?hpt=T2 |
| DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz Has No Clue That Illegall Immigrantion Is A Crime Posted: 30 May 2011 05:22 AM PDT |
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