Which sparked a few rehashes of the Tsaernov (the bomber) case. In actual fact, the Russians tipped us off the the Tsaernov's were mixed up with Chechen terrorists, in fact had visited Chechnia and attended a terrorist training camp. US authorities botched the tip. Tsaernov was never investigated. The feds didn't bother to talk to the Cambridge police (Tsaernov lived in Cambridge). Fox News has been complaining that the Boston police were never notified. Forget that. Boston is another town. I doubt a Boston cop would even know where Webster Avenue is, let alone know anyone to talk too in the neighborhood. Whereas the Cambridge cops, local boys all, probably have a couple of guys on the force who went to high school with the Tsaernov brothers, or who lived on their street.
Anyhow, we blew a solid tip from the Russians.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Words of the Weasel Part 39
We have been hearing "investment" as a replacement for "spending" from Democrats. This morning I heard a new one from Steney Hoyer, House Minority leader. He talked about "disinvestment" where real people would have said "spending cut". Does "disinvestment" sound better than "spending cut"? Depends I suppose, on whether you believe in more spending or less spending.
What's the matter with Common Core?
Beats me. I took the trouble to find Common Core in the Internet. It's wordy. Written by Ed majors ignorant of Strunk and White. Since it was so wordy and so tedious, I just read the mathematics section. I didn't see anything terribly wrong there. It covered most of what I had in high school. It was a little watered down from what I remembered, but then I was lucky to attend a truly top flight high school and I was happy with math. It's probably not the end of the world to set the bar a tad lower for a national standard.
I've seen a lot of talk about who created Common Core. Some say it's a state effort, some say it's a federal government effort. This "origins" argument seems petty to me. Doesn't matter where it comes from, is it any good? Does anyone know? Has anyone contrasted Common Core with what New Hampshire does now?
I've heard a fair amount of opposition to Common Core coming from teachers. I tend to discount this, as many teachers dislike anyone setting any sort of standards to which they might be held.
I've also heard talk that Common Core is a conspiracy among the publishing industry to sell books and test materials. The sales pitch would be, "You need to supply your students with this up-to-date Common Core text book." "You need to buy these Common Core compliant tests." I suppose. I still remember beginning school years with teachers handing out well worn textbooks from previous years. I always felt lucky to get a copy that still had both covers attached to it.
Common Core seems to heating up. Someone on Fox News commented the Jeb Bush might be hurt politically by his support for Common Core.
I've seen a lot of talk about who created Common Core. Some say it's a state effort, some say it's a federal government effort. This "origins" argument seems petty to me. Doesn't matter where it comes from, is it any good? Does anyone know? Has anyone contrasted Common Core with what New Hampshire does now?
I've heard a fair amount of opposition to Common Core coming from teachers. I tend to discount this, as many teachers dislike anyone setting any sort of standards to which they might be held.
I've also heard talk that Common Core is a conspiracy among the publishing industry to sell books and test materials. The sales pitch would be, "You need to supply your students with this up-to-date Common Core text book." "You need to buy these Common Core compliant tests." I suppose. I still remember beginning school years with teachers handing out well worn textbooks from previous years. I always felt lucky to get a copy that still had both covers attached to it.
Common Core seems to heating up. Someone on Fox News commented the Jeb Bush might be hurt politically by his support for Common Core.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Why the Roman Empire Fell.
This chart by Dr. A.J. Parker shows the number of Mediterranean shipwrecks by date of sinking. The number of wrecks is proportional to the number of sailings. And the number of ship sailings is a measure of economic activity, especially so in an age when everything moved by water.
Most interesting is the dating. Notice the steady, almost exponential grow that starts 500-600 BC and keeps growing strongly until the first century BC. About then, the Roman Republic came unglued and the Roman emperors, Julius, Augustus and company take over. Notice also the decline in shipping that sets in at about the same time. By the time we get to Constantine, commerce is down by two thirds from its peak. In short, Constantine, who starts the retrenchment of the Empire, had only a third of the wealth to pay his armies and support his government that Augustus had at his disposal.
With this chart one can make a good argument that the freer and more democratic institutions of the Republic encouraged commerce and industry, whereas the policies of the emperors was hostile. It is generally agreed that the Empire fell when it was no longer able to pay the professional Roman Army that had kept the barbarians out for hundreds of years.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Fifty nervous heads, fifty loaded machine guns
Way back during the Viet Nam war, I was assigned to a jet fighter wing in Thailand. We were bombing North Viet Nam twice a day. We had a poorly defended air base, lacking even a perimeter fence and about 5000 young airmen on base. Some young troop wrote a letter to his Congressman saying "Here I am in a combat zone, and the Air Force won't let me have a gun." In those days, Congressman spoke loudly AND carried a big stick, and so orders came down from AF HQ requiring every unit on the base to draw enough M16's out of base supply to arm every man in the unit. More orders from the base commander, requiring each unit to build an arms room and keep the M16's locked up therein. I remember taking the squadron pickup truck up to Base Supply and loading 400 brand new M16's, still in cartons, and 1200 new magazines, all full of ammo, and driving back to squadron headquarters, feeling VERY well armed. Meanwhile the men had built gun racks out of Dexion, and a gun room out of 3/4 inch plywood, and all the guns were safely locked inside.
And they stayed locked up for the rest of my tour at Korat Royal Thai Air Base. And a good thing too. I can still visualize the scene if we had been attacked and issued all those guns. It would happen after dark, of course. The troops would take shelter in the numerous sand bag bunkers we had in case of attack. In each bunker you have fifty nervous troops, fifty nervous heads sticking up and looking all around, and fifty loaded machine guns. These were the old style fully automatic M16s, pull the trigger and BRAP, 20 rounds are gone. Sooner or later, someone's gun would go off, he forgets to put the safety on, he drops it, he's fiddling with it. BRAP. Over in the next bunker, they hear the firing. Someone shouts "They're over there, let 'em have it." BRAP. Someone else shouts, "They're shooting at us from over there." BRAP. I figure firing would continue until the last round was expended. Should I have survived that night, the next morning would have been bad. Bullet holes everywhere. All the aircraft shot up. All the hootchs full of holes.
Fortunately it never happened, but it could have.
So, when I hear that the military forbids the troops from carrying guns on base, I can understand where they are coming from.
And they stayed locked up for the rest of my tour at Korat Royal Thai Air Base. And a good thing too. I can still visualize the scene if we had been attacked and issued all those guns. It would happen after dark, of course. The troops would take shelter in the numerous sand bag bunkers we had in case of attack. In each bunker you have fifty nervous troops, fifty nervous heads sticking up and looking all around, and fifty loaded machine guns. These were the old style fully automatic M16s, pull the trigger and BRAP, 20 rounds are gone. Sooner or later, someone's gun would go off, he forgets to put the safety on, he drops it, he's fiddling with it. BRAP. Over in the next bunker, they hear the firing. Someone shouts "They're over there, let 'em have it." BRAP. Someone else shouts, "They're shooting at us from over there." BRAP. I figure firing would continue until the last round was expended. Should I have survived that night, the next morning would have been bad. Bullet holes everywhere. All the aircraft shot up. All the hootchs full of holes.
Fortunately it never happened, but it could have.
So, when I hear that the military forbids the troops from carrying guns on base, I can understand where they are coming from.
Silence gives assent
Something any candidate should understand. If the opposition slimes you, you MUST reply. The voters, most of whom have real lives to live, don't pay close attention to the political fray. Many of them still make up their minds while standing in the voting booth. When they hear an attack on a candidate, they assume it's just campaign skirmishing and don't pay much attention.
BUT. If the victim never responds to the slime, people begin to think "Gee maybe there is something in that slime. If it wasn't true, he would have denied it.".
Way back when, Mike Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts was running for the presidency against George Bush. Willie Horton, an ugly convict, was out of prison, on some kind of parole, and he committed another atrocious crime. Bush ran a bunch of TV ads claiming that the Duke was soft on crime. Dukakis never said anything. There were a bunch of things he could have said, but he decided to just say nothing. The mud stuck.
Just last time, Obama accused Mitt Romney of being a blood sucking vulture capitalist, who bought of companies, laid everyone off, canceled their health insurance, and stole the office furniture. Romney never said anything. Romney should have said "At Bain capital we financed the start up of this company and that company and these other companies. They are all still in business, They are employing umpteen thousand workers, with health insurance, and a combined payroll of a many zillion dollars." Romney didn't say a thing, and Obama's slime stuck.
And we are stuck with Obama for three more years.
Motto of the story, when they slime you, you gotta fight back.
BUT. If the victim never responds to the slime, people begin to think "Gee maybe there is something in that slime. If it wasn't true, he would have denied it.".
Way back when, Mike Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts was running for the presidency against George Bush. Willie Horton, an ugly convict, was out of prison, on some kind of parole, and he committed another atrocious crime. Bush ran a bunch of TV ads claiming that the Duke was soft on crime. Dukakis never said anything. There were a bunch of things he could have said, but he decided to just say nothing. The mud stuck.
Just last time, Obama accused Mitt Romney of being a blood sucking vulture capitalist, who bought of companies, laid everyone off, canceled their health insurance, and stole the office furniture. Romney never said anything. Romney should have said "At Bain capital we financed the start up of this company and that company and these other companies. They are all still in business, They are employing umpteen thousand workers, with health insurance, and a combined payroll of a many zillion dollars." Romney didn't say a thing, and Obama's slime stuck.
And we are stuck with Obama for three more years.
Motto of the story, when they slime you, you gotta fight back.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Turbotax
I hate doing my taxes. Boring. And, the amount of money taken by Uncle Sam is always a downer. And the mountains of paperwork, 1099, W-2, 140, Schedule A,B,D,E... X,Y,Z. Aargh!
For years I have been doing them with an Excel spreadsheet. But this year I gave up, I bought Turbotax, and got on with it. I have to say, Turbotax reduces the pain enough to justify the program's cost. It comes in four levels. Lowest and cheapest level only does fairly simple returns. I had to buy level 3 ($90) before the program would handle the capital gains you get when you sell some stock. The interface is pretty user friendly, like 100% better than anything you find in those IRS instruction sheets. The program offers to download your 1099 forms from your stock broker, but for this feature to work you have to have "opened" a web window, complete with username and password into your stock account. I never did that, fearing hackers would get in and steal everything I own. So I had to type in all the numbers from the 1099s. But that's not too bad, I touch type, once it's down, you are golden.
Turbotax urges your strongly to efile. I don't, 'cause when you efile, your return can go right into the IRS computers, and if you screwed up, those computers will be on your case for more money quicktime. If IRS has to hand key your return into their computers, or even just run it thru an optical scanner, they may not bother if your return looks reasonable.
Don't ask Turbotax to "print" your return. When I did so, it printed out 44 pages of return and then fell into a loop printing page after page of pure gibberish. Instead ask Turbotax to make a pdf file of your return. Then print it out using Adobe.
Turbotax understands all the obscure extra forms that you can file to get little tax breaks here and there. It did a couple of forms I'd never seen before and saved me bits and pieces of money.
For years I have been doing them with an Excel spreadsheet. But this year I gave up, I bought Turbotax, and got on with it. I have to say, Turbotax reduces the pain enough to justify the program's cost. It comes in four levels. Lowest and cheapest level only does fairly simple returns. I had to buy level 3 ($90) before the program would handle the capital gains you get when you sell some stock. The interface is pretty user friendly, like 100% better than anything you find in those IRS instruction sheets. The program offers to download your 1099 forms from your stock broker, but for this feature to work you have to have "opened" a web window, complete with username and password into your stock account. I never did that, fearing hackers would get in and steal everything I own. So I had to type in all the numbers from the 1099s. But that's not too bad, I touch type, once it's down, you are golden.
Turbotax urges your strongly to efile. I don't, 'cause when you efile, your return can go right into the IRS computers, and if you screwed up, those computers will be on your case for more money quicktime. If IRS has to hand key your return into their computers, or even just run it thru an optical scanner, they may not bother if your return looks reasonable.
Don't ask Turbotax to "print" your return. When I did so, it printed out 44 pages of return and then fell into a loop printing page after page of pure gibberish. Instead ask Turbotax to make a pdf file of your return. Then print it out using Adobe.
Turbotax understands all the obscure extra forms that you can file to get little tax breaks here and there. It did a couple of forms I'd never seen before and saved me bits and pieces of money.
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