VoteKansas.org

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- The press bus took a wrong turn Thursday. And suddenly, everything changed in the official showcase of North Korean achievement....

GENEVA (AP) -- Swiss prosecutors say a painting seized in Serbia has been confirmed as a stolen masterpiece by French impressionist Paul Cezanne....

Perhaps you’ve heard about this sort of thing. The government, for your own good, is going to require you to buy certain things. No, I’m not talking about the Health Care Mandate. In Wisconsin they have a NAIS Mandate. Mandatory premiss registration, animal ID, etc. But, they are so generous. They’ll allow you to write off 25% of the forced costs from your tax burden.

Gee… So it still is going to cost you 75%. Since it is a government mandate it will be over priced because the vendors have a lock on the market. You know how these things go. Using some rough numbers, what should have cost $10 per animal is going to cost $20 but you’ll be able to deduct $5 making it so you’re only paying 50% more than you would have not spent had you been willing to spend it if it wasn’t a mandate. Confused?

But it is a mandate and you wouldn’t be paying it at all except that it is a mandate. So now you’re out $15 per animals. Oh, and did you know, surely you did as a farmer, that you’re only making or losing $5 a head? So now, with the government mandate, for your own good, you stand to lose $20 per animal instead of losing $5 per head.

Oh, one last detail, if you don’t get any profit then you don’t get to deduct that 25% of the cost of the mandated program which means you’re losing another $5 per animal for a total of $25 each. Oh, well, I guess you’ll just have to make it up in volume.

Remember: government is here to help you.

Among the bills [Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker] will be signing is SB396, which authorizes the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture to hire an independent agent to administer the livestock premises registration program and create an income and franchise tax credit for producers to cover their costs of radio frequency identification tags.

Under the bill, an income and franchise tax credit for 25 percent of the amount that a taxpayer paid in the taxable year for radio frequency identification tags for the taxpayer’s livestock located in this state and 25 percent of the amount that a taxpayer paid in the taxable year for equipment used in this state to read radio frequency identification tags on livestock. If the amount of the credit exceeds a taxpayer’s tax liability, the taxpayer does not receive a refund, but, instead, may carry forward the amount of any unused credit to subsequent taxable years.
-Wisconsin Ag Connection

NEW DELHI (AP) -- An Italian tour guide freed by Maoist rebels in eastern India on Thursday joked to reassure people he was well but said he lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) during his tough, monthlong captivity....

LONDON (AP) -- It may lack wizards and witches, but J.K. Rowling and her publisher are hoping her first novel for adults, "The Casual Vacancy," will have the magic touch....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai raised the prospect Thursday of holding presidential elections a year early to lessen the strain that could be caused by foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan at the same time he ends more than a decade as leader of a nation at war....

LONDON (AP) -- London's Metropolitan Police said Thursday it is investigating whether conversations on its Anti-Terrorist Hotline had been recorded by hackers....

LONDON (AP) -- She may not be able to match the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series, but J.K. Rowling has high hopes for "The Casual Vacancy," her first novel for adults. The title was announced Thursday by Little, Brown & Co. along with a brief plot synopsis for the book....

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A Ukrainian court on Thursday sentenced a top ally of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to five years in prison for abuse of office....

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- The press bus took a wrong turn Thursday. And suddenly, everything changed in the official showcase of North Korean achievement....

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A hundred years after the Titanic sank, two Swedish researchers say when it comes to sinking ships, the concept of male chivalry is "a myth" and more men generally survive such disasters than women and children....

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Four Swedes accused of plotting a revenge attack on a newspaper that printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad will go on trial Friday in Denmark, forcing the normally placid Nordic country to revisit an event it would rather put to rest....

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) -- South Sudan's president said Thursday that the nation will not withdraw its troops that this week entered a disputed border region with Sudan....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Men wearing Afghan police uniforms shot dead two NATO service members Saturday in southern Afghanistan, authorities said, the latest in a string of attacks on international troops by Afghan security forces or militants disguised as police....

BEIJING (AP) -- Shaken by the shooting deaths of two Chinese students near the University of Southern California, China is unlikely to slow its pace of sending its students to U.S. universities....

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- Mali's new interim president took office Thursday, returning the country to constitutional rule three weeks after mutinous soldiers overthrew the nation's democratically elected leader in a coup....

TOMILINO, Russia (AP) -- The Russian children's rights ombudsman says he wants an American woman who sent her young adopted son back to Russia to testify in a Moscow court....

LONDON (AP) -- Rupert Murdoch used his testimony before a U.K. inquiry on Thursday to portray himself as the victim, not perpetrator, of a cover-up over phone hacking - a bold claim unlikely to be accepted by those suing his company for invading their privacy....

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Four Swedes accused of plotting a revenge attack on a newspaper that printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad will go on trial Friday in Denmark....

CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos faced a dilemma. He was set to take center stage as host of this weekend's summit of Western Hemisphere leaders in this colonial-era port. But Washington's veto of Cuba as a participant was threatening to torpedo the meeting....