After much sound & fury, 3.5 inches of snow

We had a Winter Storm Watch, hourly, in fact half hourly dire predictions of snow on the radio. It did start falling, about 24 hours later than predicted, and we got a light snowfall.

They are forecasting snow.

Six inches forecast for Northern NH. It hasn't started yet. Let's see how much we really get.

Corporate tax rate set by who cooks the books

Corporate taxes are levied upon corporate profits, not revenue. Profit is the money "left over" after expenses have been paid out of revenue. There are easily understandable expenses like payroll, rent, heat, light, advertising and so on.
Then we have depreciation, a biggy. And adjustable to suit the guy doing the books. What is depreciation? Suppose a company owns an expensive machine, say a blast furnace or a locomotive, or a CNC machine. These things have a definite service life, they wear out with use. Wise companies prepare for the day when an expensive replacement must be paid for, by setting aside some money each year so that there will be enough money to pay for the replacement. Otherwise the company will go out of business when the key machine wears out.
This set aside money, called depreciation, reduces profit. Set aside a million dollars, and reported profit goes down by a million dollars. So how much to set aside? Depends upon who I show the books to. When showing the books on Wall Street, I want to convince investors that my company is making lots of money, so I depreciate as little as I dare. When showing the books to the taxman, I want to show little profit to reduce my taxes.
Incidently, we would be better off if taxes were levied upon the books shown to Wall Street. Right now the IRS permits depreciation that the SEC does not. The books would be more honest if the desire to show a high profit on the street was balanced by the desire to show poverty to the taxman.
Obama released his corporate tax reform plan the other day. He is going to reduce the rate, (Hurrah) AND, in dozens of pages of obfustication, he is going to change the rules for depreciation. I read thru some of it. You gotta be a better lawyer and accountant than I am (I'm an engineer) to figure out if corporate taxes are going up or going down.
The economy would grow more, if taxes were predictable, and understandable. Obama's changes make taxes less predictable and un computable. After your expert and expensive tax accountant does the company's taxes, some IRS bureaucrat will demand more money. And he will point to some obscure paragraph in the 10,000 page tax code to support his claims. And the company will pay up because going to court is too expensive and too risky to be worth it.
Visualize a would be entrepreneur brainstorming his new idea. "And how much will our taxes be?" some one asks. "Who knows?" is the correct answer. "Is this business plan going to make any money?" someone asks. "Who knows." is the reply.
Question: is that startup company going to launch?

Under the smoking Koran

The riots in Afghanistan are not about a burned Koran. Those riots tell us that the Afghans hate our guts. Which makes any kind of nation building over there pretty much impossible. It's hard to win their hearts and minds when they really don't like us at all.
The only reason to keep the Army over there any longer is to prevent Al Quada from taking the place over.

Obama does NOT believe in Drill, Baby, Drill

I heard Obama on NPR just now. He was saying that drilling for more oil doesn't work. Instead we need to "use alternate energy". Yeah Right.
Tell me about running my oil burner on sunlight. Or wind.
Tell me about putting alternate energy into my car.
Tell me why we won't build Keystone XL.

At least we do the hospitality thing right

The man expected to become premier of China, Xi Jinping, did a year abroad in America as a young man. We must have treated him right back then, 'cause he still retains a warm nostalgia about the trip, according to the MSM.
It won't solve everything, but the world is a nicer place with a Chinese premier with a good warm feeling about the Americans, as opposed to one who hates our guts.

Why are they bailing out Greece?

The Europeans (mostly Germany) have poured E200 billion down the Greek rathole. After all this money, Greece will still give its bondholders a 70% haircut. It would be cheaper for Europe to just let the Greeks go broke. Greece would be unable to borrow, and would have to lay off civil servants, cut benefits, stiff creditors, and issue IOU's to cover its bills. This would be tough on the Greeks, but so what?
One unspoken reason for European generosity, is a fear that a Greek default will break their banks too. Euro bankers have bought staggering amounts of Greek bonds, suckered in by the high interest rates the Greeks promised to pay. If the Greeks default, all those banks will take a big hit. So why not hang the Greeks out to dry and put the Greek bailout money directly into your own banks? Why give the money to the Greeks and hope the Greeks will pay off their bonds? Putting the money right into your bank is less error prone, and less opportunity for sticky fingers to steal the money.
Another unspoken reason to bail out the Greeks, is the hope of making a killing. Plenty of Greek bonds have already been dumped for a song. Bondholders estimate the chances of Greece making payments as low (less than zero) and take advantage of getting a tiny bit of their money back, as opposed to losing it all. So Europe is full of speculators holding Greek bonds that they bought for a tiny fraction of their face value. These speculators are hoping for bailouts that let the Greeks pay off at full face value. If this happens, they get rich. Really rich.
One of the sticking points in the the wheeling and dealing between Greece and the EU has been this very matter. The Greeks want to pay off their bonds for what the bond holder paid for them, rather than full face value. I believe the Greeks won this point, which will save them a LOT of money.
At any rate, it's hard for an American to believe that Euro speculators have enough clout to get EU governments to use citizen's tax money to make them rich.
Is there some other hidden reason for bailing out Greece?