People Can Read Minds...

Sort of. (See the science)

When I die...

this is how I want to be buried.

I also want every verse of "Holy, Holy, Holy" sung at my funeral (acapella please with a heavy bass emphasis).

Filibuster

Dick Morris writes what I have been telling Erin needs to happen since the judicial filibuster started. Basically, instead of engaging the so-called "nuclear option," which I disagree with, force the Democrats to run a real filibuster. Anyway, I am patting myself on the back for coming up with the same solution as one of the greatest political minds in the history of the world.

FireFox

I have been using Mozilla's FireFox browser for about 3 months now. I don't use it exclusively because our intranet and extranet our .NET sites that don't look or function correctly in FireFox. This is a big detterent for me to be an advocate for FireFox. As a developer who sometimes uses the .NET framework, I want to know that people are going to be able to use my applications.

My second big problem is that FireFox seems extremely slow when rendering pages. Now, I haven't done any benchmarking tests or anything...it is just an observation.

FireFox is safer by far than Internet Explorer. I have gone to sites that I know have malicious code that gets downloaded on your machine when you visit it and FireFox does not get comprimsed. This is a big advantage in my book. We have had to deal with several viruses/malware attacks when employees were browsing sports related sites. If they use FireFox, then they don't get the malware.

I love tabbed-browsing. Tabbed browsing is the best browser invention ever. I hope IE adds it to thier UI.

Anyway, I will be using FireFox for my web browsing, but will not get rid of IE. There are times and sites that I find easier to use from IE than FireFox. Microsoft has nothing to worry about from FireFox, despite the hype. IMHO, FireFox is a great browser but it is not a KO-Drag IE down browser. However, I do hope that MS implements some of the security features and other usability features of FireFox, to truly make a great browser.

This irks me...

How can you continue to let a guy like this out on the streets? C'mon. Throw his rear-end in jail for life. He obviously can't be trusted to make his own decisions and he will get somebody else killed.

50 reasons to support the Fair Tax

Clueless User Story

On our network, we map everybody to a specific network drive that is labeled "p:\" (for public). Everyone in the network gets mapped to the same place and everyone has access to it. We have other network drives with more limited memberships, but P-drive is the one people are supposed to use to share department-wide documents.

I got a call a few minutes ago from a user (Person A) asking if I could log her onto a co-worker's (Person B) machine who is out today so that Person A could get a file off of Person B's P-drive. Person A was clueless as I tried to explain to her that her P-drive was the exact same P-drive as Person B and she didn't need to physically be on Person B's machine to get the document. I don't think she understood because she ended the conversation with "Person B will back on Wednesday and I will just get her password then."

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH. Shaking my head in disbelief...

Is it really smart to tell the IT Manager that you are going to break the policy concerning the sharing of passwords?

Online Quiz Results: Personality Disorder

Once again, I am amazed by the accuracy of these online quizzes...how do they do it?

You May Be a Bit Narcissistic ...

Yeah, you're a bit fixated on yourself. But you're so great, you can't help it! You're a bit obsessed with your own fame and success. And you'll push past anyone who stands in your way.

What Personality Disorder Are You?

Freudian Slip: Condi says "Da" to Presidency

NewsMax is reporting that in an interview in Moscow answered a question about her running for President with a "yes." She quickly back-pedalled, changing her answer to "nyet." But, we have to wonder if there was not a little bit of a Freudian slip.

Small Group Material

Week 17 - Chapter 9 - Part I

• Teacher Notes

Week 18 - Chapter 9 - Part II

• Teacher Notes
• Homework
  

Have you payed your Master?

Today is April 15, the day set aside to make sure that you have paid the income taxes that have been levied against you.

On his website today, Neal Boortz featured a quote by T. Coleman Andrew, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service for three years, from 1953 until 1955. Well, since I don't believe everything I read, I did a little research to find the source of the quote and find out who Mr. Andrew is.

The main points of his quote are that the income tax is bad because:

• It effectively nullifies the Fourth Amendment
  
• It robs our right to privacy
• It destroys the concept of private property rights
• There is no cap on the amount that can be confinscated
• It fuels class hatred
• It employs techniques and principles of communism and socialism
• It is oppressive and tyrannical in nature

Anyway, for your entertainment, a list of quotes that I have collected about the income tax over the years.

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

~ Frederic Bastiat

"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."

~ Will Rogers

"The taxpayer; that's someone who works for the federal government, but doesn't have to take a civil service examination."

~ Ronald Reagan

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

~ Winston Churchill

"The point to remember is that what the government gives, it must first take away."

~ John S. Coleman

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

~ G. Gordon Liddy

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."

~ Mark Twain

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constituion which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..."

~ James Madison (Author of Constitution for those educated at government indocrtination centers)

"To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it on the favored individuals...is none the less robbery because it is ... called taxation."

~ US Supreme Court in Loan Association v. Topeka (1874)

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."

~ Robert A. Heinlein

"America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation."

~ Dr. Laurence J. Peter

"Congres can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay."

~ Milton Friedman

"The income tax has made more liars of the American people than golf has."

~ Will Rogers

"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."

~ Barry Goldwater

"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."

~ Plato

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

~ Albert Einstein

"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."

~ Calvin Coolidge

" A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right."

~ Anon.

"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed."

~ Robert A. Heinlein

"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income."

~ Benjamin Franklin (I wonder what kind of government taxes people half of their income?)

"You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what the death tax boils down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes and get reelected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice."

~ Thomas Sowell

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

~ Ronald Reagan

"The most laughable WHite House criticism is that tax cuts are a 'free lunch.' The American people's work created that money. Only in Washington could there be a belief that letting people keep more of what they create is a giveaway."

~ Forbes, August 26, 1996

"What does 'fair' mean? In the dictionary, it means that everyone has to do about the same. Ten percent of a million dollars is still ten times more than ten percent of a hundred thousand dollars, and twenty times more than ten percent of fifty thousand. But 'fairness' in the tax code has come to mean that we take all the money we can from successful people and dole it back ... and what do we end up with? We end up with a jobs program for bureaucrats, and accountants, and lawyers, and somewhere along the way the taxpaying citizens are just plain forgotten. I'll tell you what I think 'fair' means. I think it means we all bear the same burden in the same proportion. I think it means that the system not only allows, but encourages us to participate in the economy."

~ Tom Clancy

"The principle involved here is time-honored and true: and that is -- it's your money."

~ Robert Dole

"The purpose of a tax cut is to leave more money where it belongs -- in the hands of the working men and working women who earned it in the first place."

~ Robert Dole

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money."

~ Joseph Sobran

"If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you."

~ William E. Simon

"People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government."

~ Cal Thomas

A solution to this problem. The Fair Tax.

State Governments can be stupid too

How asinine is this. A skate park has been closed by the State Architectural Access Board because the park failed to meet handicap accessibility guidelines. Myra Berloff, director of the state Office on Disability is quoted as saying,

‘‘(The park) seems to be a lovely place. It's a place where the community gathers. I understand that these are errors, but I am inclined to say that until it is open to everyone, it is open to no one.'' (emphasis added)

This reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron." I guess really good authors can see the future.

Juliet is gone

Gone, but not forgotten. After nine years of living with us, Juliet has roamed out of our lives. I'm not sure I can write this.

This morning, the vet called and said that she was unable to draw off any of the fluid around Juliet's organs and the medicine did no good. The x-rays still showed nothing becuase of the excess fluid in her body. She referred us to the top vet clinic in Montgomery for an ultra-sound.

Erin took Juliet to the vet in Montgomery and then went to school. After school she picked me up from work and we went to see the vet togather. The ultra-sound revealed a tumor in the right ventricle of Juliet's heart that took up over half of the space. This tumor was causing blood to back back up and saturate the liver and other organs. These other organs were giving off the excess fluid that was causing her to swell, putting pressure on her stomach (which was why she wasn't eating), and putting pressure on her lungs causing her to have trouble breathing.

While the vet was not hopeful, he did mention that he wasn't exactly sure what the mass in her heart was and that they could send the ultrasound to a radiograph specialist to know how to treat it. However, the decision is ours and our normal vet's, so we packed Juliet back up in the car and drove back to Millbrook and picked-up Mihaela from the daycare.

We then went to our vet's office where were escorted to an exam room that was obviously designed to be a grieving room. The vet came in and gave us the news that there was really nothing more that could be done for Juliet and we made the right, but difficult, choice of having her put to sleep so that she would not suffer anymore. Our vet gave us 10-15 minutes with her and we loved on her for the last time. Mihaela hugged and kissed Juliet and Erin and I just cried and cried and cried.

The vet returned with the proper paperwork for us to sign and then asked us if we wanted to stay and watch the procedure. We declined. I just didn't want the image of her drifting off into the never-ending sleep to be burned in my mind. We left via a side door, both of us barely able to walk to the car because of the tear-blurred vision.

We came home and as I was getting Mihaela out of her car seat she made the panting sound that she uses to call Juliet and we cried some more. Our Juliet, our first "child", has passed away and it hurts so much...so much more than I would have expected. I remember clearly the day we got her. I remember how she would watch us through the window when we would leave and jump on us when we would get home. I remember walking thourgh chest-high snow, with her bounding on the top of it without a care in the world. I remember cuddling up on the couch and holding her tight time after time we went to fertility and didn't concieve. I remember rough-housing on the floor with her, letting her chew my arm and hand all up. We used to play tag in the backyard. She would run after me and "get me" and then I would run after her and she would try to avoid me. I would finally corner her and "tag" her and pet her...and then she would chase me. I remember loving her...and in her complete dog fashion, loving me back unconditionally. I will miss her.

Juliet back to the Vet

I took Juliet to the vet last Thursday because she hasn't been doing well. She had drastically changed her eating habits. She was ballooning up in her mid-section. She had become lethargic. We were not too worried because we had taken her to the vet at the end of Febuary for her annual check-up and everything seemed fine. The vet said her thyroid levels were normal and instructed us to discontinue using her synthroid.

We figured the weight gain, lethargy, and other symptoms were just from being hypo-thyroidism and that the vet would tell us to put her back on the synthroid. On Thursday the vet took blood to run tests and said she should have the results on Saturday. We didn't get a phone call on Saturday. So, on Monday, Erin called for the results. The vet said all the tests weren't in, but the initial results look like her thyroid is in check. She said the other test results would be in today.

Erin called back this afternoon and the results still weren't in, but the vet was concerned about Juliet's dry heaves and asked Erin to bring her back in for an X-ray. The x-ray has revealed that Juliet has liquid in her heart, lungs, and abdomen. The vet is giving her some medicine to get rid of the liquid and keeping her overnight. They will take another x-ray in the morning to see if they can get a better shot.

Needless to say, both Erin and I are distraught. We know that Juliet is old (15 years old) and have been preparing ourselves for the last couple of years for her death. However, it is still sad when you can see the end more clearly than ever. I know some people will not understand, but she has been part of our lives for 9 years. She is our family and we love her deeply. While it is true she is just a dog, she is our dog.

Of course, we do have to see what the vet says tomorrow. The waiting and wondering, though, is hard. If it is not too silly for you, please pray for Juliet and for us.

developing...

So Insightful

In his "Best of the Web" piece today, James Taranto explains why married people with children vote Republican,

"Married people with children are in or approaching their peak earning years, and they need all the money they can get, for raising children is expensive. The Republican message of lower taxes is all the more compelling to a voter with mouths to feed."

I have not been able to articulate it so clearly, but this is what I feel when I talk about taxes. I am in negotiations with a client to do some developing for them. If I get the job, when I am finished, I will get the largest, lump-sum payment for service rendered that I have ever recieved. To accept this job, though, will require a lot of sacrifice of family time for a short time, so Erin and I were discussing what needs we have and whether the rewards (payment) will justify the expense (sacrifice of family time). As we were looking at the numbers, I stated that we, of course, have to take 10% out for our tithe, 15% out for "self-employment" tax, and 15% out for our income tax bracket that we are in. When we looked and realized that 1/3 of what I have the possibility to earn will be stripped for government payment, we were outraged (this, of course, is a very limited picture of the true scope or taxation).

God has blessed Erin and I, and we are comfortable. However, we are not rich and 1/3 of what we make is a lot of money to us. We are a young family. We have a house payment (on a 1,395 sq. ft, 3 bd, 2 bath that will need to be upgraded when we have another child), a very little credit-card debt (which will be gone by end of summer we hope), and student loan debt. We don't have any car payments and we have chosen a lifestyle that allows my wife to only work part-time outside of the home. I work one full-time job and have 3 clients for my side business (which takes up about 15-20 extra hours a week). Yet, we can't get ahead or make an impact because 30% of our salary is used for taxes. It is sad.

I want one liberal who can justify to me why it the government's goals are more lofty than mine to the tune of 1/3 of my check. Erin and I would rather use our money to shore up our financial status... save for another adoption...give more money to our church's building project...put some more money away for retirement...save for another down-payment on a bigger house...buy some new furniture (everything we have was given to us as hand-me-down's from family memebrs)...buy a storm door...etc...etc...etc... Can some liberal explain to me why these goals are less noble than some of the expenditures listed here? Please?

Life is expensive. Sure we made some financial mistakes when we were younger that we are now paying for (I will never go into debt again, except for a mortage). But, I know that the average American family who is our age has twice the amount of debt we do and I don't know how they make it. It is no wonder that Generation X has no emergency savings, no retirement planning, and is up-to-thier-eyeballs in consumer debt. When government takes 33% of your income, you don't have a whole lot left to live on.

I know that only one of the two major parties is willing to even consider letting me choose the best way to spend the money we earn, and that is the Republicans. So, it is in my financial best interest to continue to support Republican politics, though I disagree with them on some personal choice issues. I also wish they would go back to their roots of smaller government so that they could enact even more tax cuts. A piece of good news, though, is that the Fair Tax is actually getting more publicity and more recoginition. I would love to see some kind of total tax reform on the radar screen (whether national sales tax or flat tax*...I don't care...just pick one). However, since Bush and the Republicans can't even get Social Security Reform passed, I won't hold my breath.

* Good implementation plan of a flat-tax outlined here.

Foolishness

A man was told by a clerk at a store that he would not have to pay an installation fee for a car stereo he purchased. Later, the stored called back and said he would have to pay fee. Well, in order to passive-aggressively protest the fee, he pays the $114 with 57 $2 bill. Very funny and clever if you ask me.

Well, the clerk taking the money was probably government school educated because she didn't think they were real. They call the police. The police come and arrest the guy. I guess they didn't study the $2 bill in counterfiting class.

Finally the Secret Service shows up and validates the tender used for the debt. The police department then gave the worst apology ever, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world." So, police stupidity is all the terrorist fault. After all, everyone knows that the terrorists' true plan for destroying our republic calls for the circulation of bogus money through chain-electronic stores.

Article Here

Bye Bye SS Reform

It would appear that Republicans in the Senate have decided that it is too risky to their politcal carreers to purse President Bush's plans for privatizing Social Security. It looks as if private accounts have no chance of becoming law during this President's term. So, what kind of reform can we expect?

Well, in order to appear "bi-partisan", the Senators are looking for a plan that Democrats will support. This means that we will see Social Security taxes on the rich increased. Right now Social Security taxes are only applied on the first $90,000 of income. If you happen to make more than that, then you only pay income tax on anything over the $90,000. This barrier will either be completely removed or lifted to something like $200,000 or $250,000. The media and Congress will report that expected proceeds from the new tax will keep the program solvent.

Of course, this doesn't really fix the biggest problem (it just delays it) which is the fact that Congress has been spending money collected from Social Security on other programs for years and just sending IOUs to the Social Security Administration offices. At some point in the future Social Security expenses will exceed Social Security taxes collected. At that time, those IOUs are going to be called in and Congress will either have to pay them out of the general budget (thus either cutting programs that are currently being funded with money collected for Social Security or raising taxes), cut Social Security expenses (resulting in either less benefits or a later retirement age), or default on the loan. Those are the only "non-privatized" account options for government to use if they are going to continue to accept responsibility for people's retirements.

So, why are Republicans (who are the majority and have the votes to fix this problem) running like scared rabbits from the President's Social Security legislative package. Well, it is because they are politicians. They are more interested in ensuring they have political cover when they run for re-election next year than they are in doing the right thing and fixing this problem. In thier minds, they believe that if they get enough Democrats to support a plan, then they don't have to rock the boat and labeled as an extremist.

I don't really expect to see Social Security fixed. I don't really expected to recieve any benefits from Social Security. So, I am planning for my own retirement without any money from Social Security. You would be wise to do the same.

No Significant Cost Difference between MS and Linux

An article that cites a study by the Yankee Group is reporting that there is no significant cost difference between a server running Windows and one running Linux. This is actually what I have suspected all along. There are some cases where it is cheaper to run a Windows server (especially true in small businesses where the IT staff may be limited or overworked) and sometimes is cheaper to run a Linux server (especially in large hosting situations where you need tens, if not hundreds, of machines).

I have long held that with most software development moving to web-based technologies that this would become more true. I have yet had a client say, "Well, we don't want you to develop that app for us because you use ColdFusion or ASP.Net. We want our application written in PHP." They don't care. They care only about the cost of the service, the cost of the hosting, and the time frame to get it done. Because I am practiced at certain languages, I can develop faster in those languages and give them a quality product at a cheaper price. The technology used is irrelevant to the client, it is the functionality they pay for.

Govenrment to Pharamcist: "Keep your morals out of medicine"

There is a big commotion surrounding pharamcist dispensing prescriptions for drugs that they believe kill human life. Some pharmacists are deciding that it is immoral for them to distribute certain drugs. So, to keep from being a party of murder, they choose not to fill certain prescriptions. I have nothing wrong with this. Each person has to perform his job to his moral standard and it is not the government's place to force him to perform an action that he believes is immoral.

Now, a pharmacist's employer can demand that he fill a prescription. If he chooses not to, then I don't think there should be any law protecting his job. If the pharmacists doesn't like it he is free to get another job at a pharmacy that is owned and operated by someone who is like-minded and chooses to not fill the prescription. If he can't find any pharmacy's like that, then he is free to change careers.

In a free society individuals should have the right to follow thier morals without interference from the government. Of course, I think pharmacists who take the prescription from the patient, refuse to fill it, and then refuse to give the prescription back to the patient are wrong. The prescription belongs to the patient and the pharmacist is stealing. The patient has a right to go to another pharmacy and seek someone willing to fulfill his request.

In a free society, supply will meet demand without government interfernce.

Do they even stop to consider what it sounds like?

I was listening to CNN Headline News on the radio as I drove out to a client's site. They, of course, were talking about the death of Pope. After giving us the facts (the Pope died after battling sickness), the reporter says, "Keep listening to CNN Headline News and we will keep you up-to-date as this story develops."

Ummm...not sure how much more this story is going to develop. The Pope, Still Dead!

Well, at least this should move the Schivo kerfluffle to the back burner...