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Mitten's fortune estimated at $280 million
What Mitt Romney Is Really Worth: An Exclusive Analysis Of His Latest Finances
Mitt Romney isn’t the richest person to ever run for President – Ross Perot had him beat by a factor of ten. And if he’s elected, inflation adjustments might favor sprawling plantation owners like Washington and Jefferson, or Kennedy if family assets counted. But there’s no denying that in terms of total dollars a President Romney would be the wealthiest White House occupant ever, and would be even wealthier had he not set aside a trust, now worth $100 million, for his 5 boys. So just how rich is he?
Forbes spent the past month trying to answer that question definitively. The core basis for our valuation comes from Romney himself – specifically, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosure forms, which he filed in August 2007 and August 2011, plus discussions with high-level Romney officials familiar with specific changes to his holdings since that last report. Of course, those disclosures, taken at face value, are about as concrete as a campaign promise, with vague asset ranges (“$1 million to $5 million”) and definitions.
Seeking to remove as much guesswork as possible, we assigned a value to every single asset Mitt and Ann Romney own – 184 in all across the couple’s two blind trusts, IRAs and outright holdings. Our core method: noting the shift in ranges between the 2007 filing, the 2011 filing and now (much of his wealth has been consistently held over the whole period). Comparing which assets changed brackets – or didn’t – with their underlying price fluctuation (or in some cases, a good comparable) over that period, we were able to get better estimates of where each fell in the range. Supplemented by a dozen interviews – from local real estate experts to private equity partners – we get a detailed look at the current state of Mitt’s money, pinpointing his net worth at $230 million, split between 9 different asset classes. Highlights include the sale of nearly all of his individual equities – he sold 71 stocks since his last disclosure – and a big move into cash. He now holds $16 million, up from $1 million in August.
more
http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2012/05/16/what-mitt-romney-is-really-worth/
Such Values- Man arrested for throwing Bible at roomie
Published: May 15, 2012 at 4:02 PM
PORT RICHEY, Fla., May 15 (UPI) -- Authorities in Florida said they arrested a man accused of throwing a Bible at the back of his roommate's head.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office said Steven Robert Moniz, 45, was arrested around 12:30 a.m. Saturday in Port Richey after his roommate, Kimberly Covas Shisgal, flagged down a passing deputy and said she had been struck in the back of the head with an unidentified object while taking out the garbage, the Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday.
Moniz told deputies he threw a Bible at Shisgal because she was shouting at him and had a knife in her hand. Deputies said they found a Bible with a bent cover on the kitchen table but found no evidence of a knife.
Moniz was charged with simple battery and taken to the Land O'Lakes jail in lieu of $150 bail.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/05/15/Man-arrested-for-throwing-Bible-at-roomie/UPI-52421337112130/
Wednesday Toon Roundup 2-The rest
Rights
2012
Bully
Repubs
War
British proposal to raise retirement age to 77
Jerry Brown
And a Girl Shall Terrify Them
By Charles P. Pierce on May 15, 2012
In his invaluable What Jesus Meant, historian and author Garry Wills reminds us that, during his time as a thoroughgoing Galilean religious nuisance, Himself did not take the time to make priests, create a "Church," or, certainly, devise in his own memory an inflated medieval anachronism like the modern papacy. I have found this helpful to remember whenever "faith" is used as an excuse by elements of organized religion to treat other members of the human race as inferior. Find another excuse. The Gospels are not your alibi.
We had another little somethin'-somethin' in that regard this past week out in Arizona. The baseball team from Mesa Preparatory Academy made it all the way to the finals of the Arizona Charter Athletic Association's tournament, where the Monsoons — and how cool is that, by the way? — were scheduled to meet Our Lady of Sorrows, a Catholic charter school from Phoenix that is run by the Society of St. Pius X, about which much, much more anon. As it happens, the Monsoons have a freshperson second baseperson named Paige Sultzbach, who is slick with the glove around the bag and who is also a female person. (Just for the record, Mesa's archery team is coed as well.) Paige was a softball player in junior high, but, because Mesa doesn't offer a girls' softball team, she tried out, and made, the boys' varsity baseball team, which is a formidable accomplishment for a 15-year-old. Her coaches and male teammates supported her, and good on them for doing that, too. This is the kind of story that makes celebrating the anniversary of Title IX worthwhile. Except that her opponents in the title game disagree, and they've dragged Jesus in as an accessory before the fact.
Despite the fact — or, the cynical heart would murmur, because of the fact — that Mesa and Ms. Sultzbach whacked them around twice this season, including an 11-3 pasting back on April 26, in their own ballpark, Our Lady of Sorrows forfeited the championship game rather than play against Paige Sultzbach, ace keystone-sacker and female person. (Being far classier than her opponents, Ms. Sultzbach sat out the two regular-season games at Our Lady of Sorrows in deference to her opponents.) Here is Our Lady of Sorrows's official excuse for not playing in the championship game.
"Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty," the statement read. "Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls."
This is all my left eyebrow, of course, unless you consider breaking up a double play to be some kind of sexual thrill ride. (OK, I know some TV baseball analysts who … but never mind.) But to truly understand it, you have to understand what the Society of St. Pius X is all about, and to understand that, you have to understand a little about the dead pope after whom the society was named. Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914, was a steadfast opponent of what was then called "modernism," and he accelerated the momentum of the Church toward conservative theology, a dynamic that did not exhaust itself finally until the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Which brings us to the society that bears his name, and which also sponsors Our Lady of Sorrows, which apparently thinks infield practice qualifies as foreplay.
more
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7929602/the-bizarre-case-paige-sultzbach-#8212-all-boys-team-forfeited-championship-rather-play-her
Hundreds of babies dropped off roof in India
By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press
Story Updated: Jul 31, 2009
NEW DELHI (AP) — Rights activists lashed out Friday at local officials who allowed hundreds of infants to be dropped from the roof of a mosque in western India in the belief that the fall — which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet — would ensure good health and prosperity for their families.
The ritual at the Baba Umer Durga, a Muslim shrine, is believed to have been followed for nearly 700 years, and each year hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, take part in the ritual.
Local officials told television news stations there had been no reports of injuries.
The infants, mostly under two years old, were dangled Thursday from the roof of the shrine near Sholapur, about 280 miles south of Mumbai, before being dropped about 50 feet onto a bedsheet held aloft by parents and other believers.
Television channels showed the babies screaming as they were shaken in the air before being dropped.
more
http://www.komonews.com/news/national/52209737.html?m=y&smobile=y
Grover Norquist takes role (as a wino) in next ‘Atlas Shrugged’ movie
By The Reliable Source
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, in his cameo role as a wino in “Atlas Shrugged: Part 2.” He’s got his own caption idea — what’s yours? (Justin M. Lesniewski )
Grover, we’re worried. This photo we’ve obtained of you — bleary, boozy, disheveled. It doesn’t look good. Want to tell us what’s going on here?
“Acting!” declared Grover Norquist, doing his best Jon Lovitz-as-master-thespian imitation.
Indeed: The conservative anti-tax activist was acting! — in, of all things, the next chapter of the big-screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
Norquist, 55, told us he was headed out to L.A. last week for a talk show appearance when the movie’s producers suggested he stop by the set to take a cameo role. Technically, he says, he was just an extra — “meaning you don’t talk, therefore you’re not part of the Screen Actors Guild, therefore they don’t have union problems” with the off-the-books casting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/grover-norquist-takes-role-as-a-wino-in-next-atlas-shrugged-movie/2012/05/14/gIQAkFqiPU_blog.html
(It's not acting if you are playing yourself!)
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