Dawn over Marblehead. Anyone who can remember grade school can remember how hard it was to sit still and no talking. Recess gave relief, you could run around, talk, shout, play ball games. All practicing parents know how hard it is to get young children to sit still. Young children are bubbling over with energy and they have to work it off by running around and shouting.
To run an effective grade school, you have to let the kids outdoors for recess to let off steam. Otherwise the kids are just too bouncy to absorb any kind of learning. Back in the day, we got two 20 minute recesses every day.
Modern "educators" think recess is a waste of time, and they have been advocating no recess schools, keep the kids noses to the grindstone all day.
According to a piece in today's Wall St Journal, some "educators" have wised up and are recommending a whole hour of recess every day.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Do I support a flat tax?
Today's mail brought a thick envelope marked "New Federal Tax Reform Information Enclosed". No return address, no indication of the organization doing this mailing. I didn't really believe it was from the IRS, despite the effort to make you think it was an IRS letter. So I opened it, and it was one of those "take a survey, send us a donation" letters that have been popular with the fund raisers.
This outfit, The Conservative Caucus, or perhaps Americans for Constitutional Liberty, I'd never heard of either before. They are advocating for a flat 10% income tax for everyone, no deductions except charitable contributions and mortgage interest. And they denounced the length and legalisms of the humongous Internal Revenue Code and the existence of the IRS
Thinking about it, I cannot go with them. The way I see it, we have three groups of people in the US, the well off, the ordinary working stiffs, and the really poor. And I think we ought to tax the well off somewhat more, and the really poor something less. In other words have three tax brackets. I think everyone ought to be liable for taxes, unlike the current setup where half the population owes NO tax, and the well off pay most of the Federal government's expenses. I think it is important that all citizens, even the very poor, pay something in taxes, just to let them know that the government benefits, of which we have so many, have to be paid for.
I do like the no deductions for anything, except charitable contributions. I'd even go so far as to eliminate tax breaks for dependents (children) and being married. I'd dump the mortgage interest deduction, especially deductions for mortgages on second homes. I'd get rid of capital gains. Income is income, doesn't matter where it comes from. I'd dump the earned income tax credit.
I'd declare all 75,000 pages in the Internal Revenue Code null and void, along with all rulings of the tax courts over the years. I'd abolish the tax courts. If the government has a beef with us taxpayers, let the government go to regular courts, like everyone else.
They advocating getting rid of the IRS. Well, we ought to skin 'em down a bit, but we have to have some government office to mail our tax forms to. Someone has to open the tax return envelopes and cash the checks. So we have to have something. On the other hand, we should remove the IRS's power to garnish your wages and seize your bank account. If the IRS has a beef with us taxpayers, they can take us to court, a real court, not a "tax court" where the judge is getting paid by the IRS. They don't need the power to bankrupt us on just their say-so.
This outfit, The Conservative Caucus, or perhaps Americans for Constitutional Liberty, I'd never heard of either before. They are advocating for a flat 10% income tax for everyone, no deductions except charitable contributions and mortgage interest. And they denounced the length and legalisms of the humongous Internal Revenue Code and the existence of the IRS
Thinking about it, I cannot go with them. The way I see it, we have three groups of people in the US, the well off, the ordinary working stiffs, and the really poor. And I think we ought to tax the well off somewhat more, and the really poor something less. In other words have three tax brackets. I think everyone ought to be liable for taxes, unlike the current setup where half the population owes NO tax, and the well off pay most of the Federal government's expenses. I think it is important that all citizens, even the very poor, pay something in taxes, just to let them know that the government benefits, of which we have so many, have to be paid for.
I do like the no deductions for anything, except charitable contributions. I'd even go so far as to eliminate tax breaks for dependents (children) and being married. I'd dump the mortgage interest deduction, especially deductions for mortgages on second homes. I'd get rid of capital gains. Income is income, doesn't matter where it comes from. I'd dump the earned income tax credit.
I'd declare all 75,000 pages in the Internal Revenue Code null and void, along with all rulings of the tax courts over the years. I'd abolish the tax courts. If the government has a beef with us taxpayers, let the government go to regular courts, like everyone else.
They advocating getting rid of the IRS. Well, we ought to skin 'em down a bit, but we have to have some government office to mail our tax forms to. Someone has to open the tax return envelopes and cash the checks. So we have to have something. On the other hand, we should remove the IRS's power to garnish your wages and seize your bank account. If the IRS has a beef with us taxpayers, they can take us to court, a real court, not a "tax court" where the judge is getting paid by the IRS. They don't need the power to bankrupt us on just their say-so.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Advice for New HS graduates soon to be incoming college freshmen
You want to think about what you want to do after you graduate college. I know that is four years in the future, which seems like forever. But college goes by quick and you will be out in the job market before you know it.
College is expensive, you or your parents, are paying for it. If you are borrowing the money to pay tuition, you have to pay it back after you graduate. You gotta have a job to pay off your student loans. Which means you need to pick your college major to make you employable. For instance a bachelor of science in electrical engineering, and you will have a decent job no problem. A bachelor of arts in gender studies, and you will be waiting tables for a long long time.
The best majors, looking toward making yourself employable, are the STEM majors, Science (physics, chemistry, biology) Technology (computer programming, premed), Engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil) and Mathematics (calculus, statistics, matrix algebra) Engineering, in addition to being decently paid, is interesting and satisfying. Engineering is a lot of new design work, and being the engineer who designs that new automobile, new handheld electronic best seller, new building, new aircraft, is very satisfying work. Beats the bejesus out of selling used cars.
STEM fields often require math up thru integral calculus and differential equations. In fact you may need that math under your belt in order to even understand the homework in your major. You want to find out what the mathematics requirement are in your chosen field, and sign up for those math courses ASAP, freshman year. Electrical engineering is probably the most math intensive. A simple two component circuit (a resistor and a capacitor) require a first order differential equation to analyze. Things like biology and computer programming are less demanding in the math dept.
If you just cannot warm up to a STEM field, consider the liberal arts. Traditionally there are seven liberal arts, English, History, Foreign Language, Music, Art, Philosophy, Theology. English ought to teach you how to write. Industry offers a lot of jobs to people who can write, specifications, instruction manuals, advertisements, articles about the product, endless written materials. History will also teach you how to write, and offers a broader field, all of human history, every age, every culture, which makes picking a thesis easier. English is limited to the works of a relatively small number of English authors. Picking a thesis in English literature that hasn't been written about a thousand times already is hard. Foreign languages are always useful to any company doing business overseas, which is most of them these days.
If you are a musician or an artist, Music or Art majors are rewarding. If you are not a musician or an artist, they won't do you any good at all. There are next to no jobs for music or art majors who are not themselves practicing musicians or artists.
Philosophy and Theology used to be big, back in medieval times, but they won't get you a job today.
One other major, which isn't STEM or an Art; that is education. If you want to teach in the public schools, you have to take the ed major. The ed major will get you a job, no problem. If you can stand the total boredom of the major, and you like teaching, go for it. The ed departments pretend that education is something that can be taught and will make you a better teacher. In actual fact, the ed major is endless chit chat about trivia. It's easy enough to pass the major, but most students find it REALLY boring. The best teachers I ever encountered didn't even have college degrees, let alone an ed major. They were good Air Force enlisted men pulled right off the flight line to teach in the base Field Training Detachment. They knew their subjects (jet engines, aircraft instruments, radar, nav electronics, hydraulics, what ever) backwards and forwards. And that's all you really need to be a good teacher. If you want to teach in the private schools, then you can major in something useful, the private schools are less hung up about the ed major than the public schools.
Then there are the majors that aren't sciences but want to be sciences, (sociology,political science, anthropology, economics, ecology, psychology) To be a real science you have to conduct experiments to validate your theories. Conducting experiments in sociology or any of them is not possible or totally unethical. The courses usually boil down to political indoctrination. And there are no jobs to be had with these majors.
Then we come underwater basket weaving majors. These won't get you a job (other than waiting tables)
Black Studies, Gender Studies, Men's studies, Any kind of Studies, art appreciation, aroma therapy, and others. Stay away. Total waste of four years and a lot of money.
Final word. Don't trust advice from guidance counselors, ESPECIALLY as to the requirements for your major. You have to get in ALL the required courses in order to win a degree. Find the college catalog, the current catalog, not one from last year. All the major requirements are in the catalog. Look them up, write them down (a spreadsheet is good) and sign up for them as early as possible. Don't trust a guidance counselor to steer you into the right courses, they don't know, and don't really care, not the way you care.
College is expensive, you or your parents, are paying for it. If you are borrowing the money to pay tuition, you have to pay it back after you graduate. You gotta have a job to pay off your student loans. Which means you need to pick your college major to make you employable. For instance a bachelor of science in electrical engineering, and you will have a decent job no problem. A bachelor of arts in gender studies, and you will be waiting tables for a long long time.
The best majors, looking toward making yourself employable, are the STEM majors, Science (physics, chemistry, biology) Technology (computer programming, premed), Engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil) and Mathematics (calculus, statistics, matrix algebra) Engineering, in addition to being decently paid, is interesting and satisfying. Engineering is a lot of new design work, and being the engineer who designs that new automobile, new handheld electronic best seller, new building, new aircraft, is very satisfying work. Beats the bejesus out of selling used cars.
STEM fields often require math up thru integral calculus and differential equations. In fact you may need that math under your belt in order to even understand the homework in your major. You want to find out what the mathematics requirement are in your chosen field, and sign up for those math courses ASAP, freshman year. Electrical engineering is probably the most math intensive. A simple two component circuit (a resistor and a capacitor) require a first order differential equation to analyze. Things like biology and computer programming are less demanding in the math dept.
If you just cannot warm up to a STEM field, consider the liberal arts. Traditionally there are seven liberal arts, English, History, Foreign Language, Music, Art, Philosophy, Theology. English ought to teach you how to write. Industry offers a lot of jobs to people who can write, specifications, instruction manuals, advertisements, articles about the product, endless written materials. History will also teach you how to write, and offers a broader field, all of human history, every age, every culture, which makes picking a thesis easier. English is limited to the works of a relatively small number of English authors. Picking a thesis in English literature that hasn't been written about a thousand times already is hard. Foreign languages are always useful to any company doing business overseas, which is most of them these days.
If you are a musician or an artist, Music or Art majors are rewarding. If you are not a musician or an artist, they won't do you any good at all. There are next to no jobs for music or art majors who are not themselves practicing musicians or artists.
Philosophy and Theology used to be big, back in medieval times, but they won't get you a job today.
One other major, which isn't STEM or an Art; that is education. If you want to teach in the public schools, you have to take the ed major. The ed major will get you a job, no problem. If you can stand the total boredom of the major, and you like teaching, go for it. The ed departments pretend that education is something that can be taught and will make you a better teacher. In actual fact, the ed major is endless chit chat about trivia. It's easy enough to pass the major, but most students find it REALLY boring. The best teachers I ever encountered didn't even have college degrees, let alone an ed major. They were good Air Force enlisted men pulled right off the flight line to teach in the base Field Training Detachment. They knew their subjects (jet engines, aircraft instruments, radar, nav electronics, hydraulics, what ever) backwards and forwards. And that's all you really need to be a good teacher. If you want to teach in the private schools, then you can major in something useful, the private schools are less hung up about the ed major than the public schools.
Then there are the majors that aren't sciences but want to be sciences, (sociology,political science, anthropology, economics, ecology, psychology) To be a real science you have to conduct experiments to validate your theories. Conducting experiments in sociology or any of them is not possible or totally unethical. The courses usually boil down to political indoctrination. And there are no jobs to be had with these majors.
Then we come underwater basket weaving majors. These won't get you a job (other than waiting tables)
Black Studies, Gender Studies, Men's studies, Any kind of Studies, art appreciation, aroma therapy, and others. Stay away. Total waste of four years and a lot of money.
Final word. Don't trust advice from guidance counselors, ESPECIALLY as to the requirements for your major. You have to get in ALL the required courses in order to win a degree. Find the college catalog, the current catalog, not one from last year. All the major requirements are in the catalog. Look them up, write them down (a spreadsheet is good) and sign up for them as early as possible. Don't trust a guidance counselor to steer you into the right courses, they don't know, and don't really care, not the way you care.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Who gets blamed when Obamacare crashes and burns?
Fox News was discussing this on Sunday. Obamacare is driving insurance companies out of the health care business. Even with $2500 premium increases and $4000 copays, insurance companies are still loosing wads of money on policies sold thru the Obamacare exchanges. As a result, the companies are pulling out of the Obamacare business, leaving vast tracts of America without ANY Obamacare health insurance.
Who takes the blame was the subject of discussion on Fox. In actual fact, the MSM will write long tear stained stories about how it's all the Republicans fault. They will do their best to blame all bad things on the Trump administration.
The Republicans NEED to get a health care bill thru Congress and to the president's desk. If they don't, then the coming Obamacare crash will sink the Republicans, come 2018 elections. Rule in American politics, when bad things happen, the incumbent president, and his party, take the blame. Especially when the MSM hates them. Bad things are happening to Obamacare. The Republicans must get their act together and pass something, now.
Who takes the blame was the subject of discussion on Fox. In actual fact, the MSM will write long tear stained stories about how it's all the Republicans fault. They will do their best to blame all bad things on the Trump administration.
The Republicans NEED to get a health care bill thru Congress and to the president's desk. If they don't, then the coming Obamacare crash will sink the Republicans, come 2018 elections. Rule in American politics, when bad things happen, the incumbent president, and his party, take the blame. Especially when the MSM hates them. Bad things are happening to Obamacare. The Republicans must get their act together and pass something, now.
Friday, June 9, 2017
Paper Ballots Antidote to hacking, Russian or other contenders
We have a leak, from Reality Winner, that the Russians hacked into a voting machine software company. Apparently they didn't go further and hack the voting machines, but who knows what might be possible next year, or after the next release of Windows.
Vote on paper ballots. Keep the ballots after election day in case you need to do a recount. And we can do a recount by hand, even after all the fancy digital voting machine stuff dies.
Modern digital voting machines are merely desktop computers running a "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program. They mostly run Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system. Hack into the software provider, which the Russians did, and modify the "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program to elect who ever you like. The software company distributes the hacked program to all it's customers, and presto, the Russians favorite candidate wins the election.
This cannot happen with paper ballots, marked with pen or # 2 pencil. And paper ballots a gotta be cheaper for the towns and cities than fancy electronic voting machines.
Vote on paper ballots. Keep the ballots after election day in case you need to do a recount. And we can do a recount by hand, even after all the fancy digital voting machine stuff dies.
Modern digital voting machines are merely desktop computers running a "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program. They mostly run Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system. Hack into the software provider, which the Russians did, and modify the "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program to elect who ever you like. The software company distributes the hacked program to all it's customers, and presto, the Russians favorite candidate wins the election.
This cannot happen with paper ballots, marked with pen or # 2 pencil. And paper ballots a gotta be cheaper for the towns and cities than fancy electronic voting machines.
Saw Wonder Woman in the Jax Jr last night
Pretty good. It's a comic book super hero (super heroine) movie. I haven't paid much attention to Wonder Woman since I stopped reading comic books around age 14 or so. Gal Godot plays a great Wonder Woman. She has the looks, she has the figure. She gets a great part and a lot of good lines. A lot of good costumes too. The flick opens on the Amazon's magic island (I missed the name) inhabited by lots of really hot Amazon women, and ONE really cute Amazon child, Diana. They don't talk about it, but I assume the lack of men on the island accounts for the very low birthrate. We see Diana at age 8 and then at age 14 or so, (younger actors) and as grown up (Gal Godot) The movie opens when handsome American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashlands a WWI monoplane just offshore (would have been cooler if it were a biplane). Diana rescues him from his sinking aircraft. There is a cool fight when WWI German infantry land from boats to capture Steve Trevor. The Amazons show up in surprising numbers and slay the Hun with swords, arrows and spears.
Shortly Steve and Diana set off for Europe to stop WWI. They leave the magic island by sailboat. Actually the prop guys should have done a little more work on that sailboat, its sails never set well, and were always luffing and it's speed thru the water was much too high. After reaching Europe we see a great set of period automobiles, all polished and shiny. Period British trains. Great period costumes. The guys are all wearing hats (fedoras for civilians). We see inside of Whitehall offices (lots of hardwood paneling and Army uniforms). We go clothes shopping in London with Diana which has some very funny bits. We see the inside of a British pub, full of ugly tough Brits who even manage to impress Diana with their toughness. We meet war weary British politicians who are ready to sign a really wimpy armistice with the Germans. And we heard what Diana thinks about wimping out.
They miss a few cool shots. Although bayonets were standard issue in all armies back then, we never see soldiers (allied or enemy) with bayonets on their rifles. We miss an opportunity to watch Diana with a sword duel with a bayonet wielding infantryman. One of Steve's buddies carries a good sniper rifle with a big telescopic sight all thru the latter half of the movie. We never see him draw a bead, center the crosshairs, and blow a bad guy away at 1000 yards.
This flick is over two hours, gets a little tedious toward the end. Really young kids won't have the patience to sit still thru out. Other than that, it's fine for kids, everyone keeps their clothes on and doesn't sleep together on screen. Lots of explosions, acrobatic fighting styles, and exciting stuff, not much blood.
Shortly Steve and Diana set off for Europe to stop WWI. They leave the magic island by sailboat. Actually the prop guys should have done a little more work on that sailboat, its sails never set well, and were always luffing and it's speed thru the water was much too high. After reaching Europe we see a great set of period automobiles, all polished and shiny. Period British trains. Great period costumes. The guys are all wearing hats (fedoras for civilians). We see inside of Whitehall offices (lots of hardwood paneling and Army uniforms). We go clothes shopping in London with Diana which has some very funny bits. We see the inside of a British pub, full of ugly tough Brits who even manage to impress Diana with their toughness. We meet war weary British politicians who are ready to sign a really wimpy armistice with the Germans. And we heard what Diana thinks about wimping out.
They miss a few cool shots. Although bayonets were standard issue in all armies back then, we never see soldiers (allied or enemy) with bayonets on their rifles. We miss an opportunity to watch Diana with a sword duel with a bayonet wielding infantryman. One of Steve's buddies carries a good sniper rifle with a big telescopic sight all thru the latter half of the movie. We never see him draw a bead, center the crosshairs, and blow a bad guy away at 1000 yards.
This flick is over two hours, gets a little tedious toward the end. Really young kids won't have the patience to sit still thru out. Other than that, it's fine for kids, everyone keeps their clothes on and doesn't sleep together on screen. Lots of explosions, acrobatic fighting styles, and exciting stuff, not much blood.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Islamic terrorist videos on Utube cause big advertisers to pull ads
Wall St Journal had this story today. I don't cruise Utube myself so I don't really know what gets posted there. But the stuff must be pretty bad if advertisers are pulling their ads off Utube. Was I Utube, I'd think real hard about throwing extremist video clips off the site, just to maintain good relations with my advertisers, who put up the money.
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