Wednesday, August 31, 2011
What's up, Sloop John B
An 18th century ship (merchant sloop?) has been discovered on the site of the World Trade Center. At one point that site was an anchorage for the Hudson River.
Or yet a foreign merchant?
Call Alan Moore. German merchant yet another suspect in Jack the Ripper murders.
There are too many suspects. Even Miss Marple couldn't solve this one.
There are too many suspects. Even Miss Marple couldn't solve this one.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Perhaps if Warren Ellis were in charge of Homeland Security
Let's end our long national nightmare of puppies. Twice as many Americans died of dog bites in 2010 as died of terrorism.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A Game of View
With a hurricane aiming straight for New York City, Teresa Nielsen Hayden takes on a journey to see how storms can change coastlines. Specifically, she follows Rye through it's past as a harbor town and it's current status as landlocked.
Cuz I'm the Taxman
While the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (behind Japan), loopholes in the tax code put the US on an even playing field with the rest of the world.
"But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less — often far less — than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied.
"The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks — has made American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California who was head of the Congressional joint committee on taxes. This has profound implications for businesses, the economy and thefederal budget.
"The United States is virtually alone in trying to tax its multinational corporations on their foreign earnings, but it allows companies to avoid those taxes indefinitely by keeping profits overseas. That encourages companies to use accounting maneuvers to shift profits to low-tax countries and to invest profits offshore, says David S. Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York.
"But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less — often far less — than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied.
"The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks — has made American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California who was head of the Congressional joint committee on taxes. This has profound implications for businesses, the economy and thefederal budget.
"The United States is virtually alone in trying to tax its multinational corporations on their foreign earnings, but it allows companies to avoid those taxes indefinitely by keeping profits overseas. That encourages companies to use accounting maneuvers to shift profits to low-tax countries and to invest profits offshore, says David S. Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York.
"Honeywell International, the New Jersey company that makes things as diverse as aerospace components and First Alert smoke detectors, reported in regulatory filings that in the last five years, it paid cash income taxes in the United States and abroad equal to 15 percent of its profits. On Friday, a Honeywell spokeswoman pointed out that the company had since made a large pension contribution, which effectively cut its profits and made its tax rate closer to 22 percent.
"A major domestic competitor, United Technologies, reported an average of 24 percent over that time. A German rival, Siemens, reported 29 percent of its total profit.
In addition to being complex and uneven, the United States corporate tax code is inefficient and has become a diminishing source of revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for about 9 percent of all federal revenue in 2010. At $191 billion, they were equal to 1.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Most industrial countries collect more from companies, about 2.5 percent of output. Only a portion of that disparity can be explained by the many types of businesses in the United States that elect to be taxed at an individual rate.""
Take yourself of the gov't trough, Gov!
Governor Rick Scott of Florida has mandated drug testing for anyone on welfare within the state. The leading walk-in chain of clinics that will administer the test is owned by his family. The tests discovered that 2% of the people on welfare that have taken the test have been found to be positive for drug use. This means that the tests cost more money than they save off of "welfare cheats".
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Can he stand at attention on New Years in Edinburgh?
Ex Royal Marine is sentenced to two years in jail for being naked in public. Again.
Not sure who'll learn first that the other isn't planning to change, Gough or the UK courts.
Not sure who'll learn first that the other isn't planning to change, Gough or the UK courts.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
If it's not Scottish, it's crap!
BBC documentary on Scotland's comic book creators, Grant Morrison, Mark "Kick-Ass" Millar, Frank Quitely, and Alan Grant.
Harlequin is a tool of Satan
Dirty Girl Ministries fights a crusade against the evils of female masturbation.
What a waste of a good name! I can start a porn label under that name!
And twice a week is excessive? Oh, I am damned to Hell. There is no salvation for me.
What a waste of a good name! I can start a porn label under that name!
And twice a week is excessive? Oh, I am damned to Hell. There is no salvation for me.
Like the fabled unicorn
Reports say that bisexual men do exist. That's a relief. I'm sure they'll sleep better knowing that they are not the figment of some drug induced college hallucination.
"I feel my heart start tremblin' whenever you're around"
The differences between East and West Coast 'quakes. For example, thus: "In the east the underlying bedrock is pretty well-connected (like a concrete slab). Eastern earthquakes can travel farther that in the west, where the underlying topography is so chopped-up (like a brick patio) that the energy of a quake is dissipated closer to the epicenter."
That last might explain why it felt stronger than the readings would suggest.
That last might explain why it felt stronger than the readings would suggest.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
"Islamic Extremist" vs Batshit Crazy Party
David Ramadan has Ed Meese's endorsement for a seat in Virginia's State Assembly. His opponents paint him as an Islamic extremist.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Out of the mouths of babes.
The witch trial that set a precedent for testimony from a minor. Before this, 14 was the legal limit.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
William Gibson on cities.
You never know whom you might meet in the city. In a small town, you’re less likely to encounter people or things or situations you haven’t encountered previously. These people or things or situations may be wonderful or horrible, in either city or town, but cities have the numbers, the turnover. To a writer of fiction, this is extremely handy, a city being able, more or less believably, to mask excessive coincidence, producing, as Doyle taught me, whatever the narrative might require.
Should the populous mechanism of the fictive city fail to produce phenomena of sufficient weirdness, our literature of the fantastic often turns, quite reflexively, to dead cities, our most profoundly and mysteriously haunted artifacts.
Many deserted cities probably never were engines of choice. To stand in the vast plaza of the pre-Columbian Monte Albán, for instance, is to know that Monte Albán was about decreasing choice, narrowing it. Monte Albán was a control machine, an acoustically perfect environment with magnificent lines of sight: a theater of power. We don’t know why Monte Albán was as abruptly deserted as it may have been. Perhaps the show failed, finally, to come off, and no other was available, or possible, within that inflexible, uni-purposed structure.
Would I lie to you?
An Iceni road, dating back to the Iron Age (75BC?), has been uncovered in East Anglia. The road, preserved in peat, was built out of timber.
Freedom From Speech?
Two kids (legal kids, ages 20 and 22) were sentenced to four years in jail for inciting riots on Facebook. Never mind that their actions did not cause rioting.
Page the Lorax!
A collection of previously uncollected Dr Seuss stories will be printed in September. It will consist of seven stories published previously in Redbook in the 1950s.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Violet Blue on SlutWalk
"Yes: I think scantily clad girls marching in the streets around the world are agents of change for our species."
To anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I have female friends that dress in ways that would embarrass strippers. I (and they) think little if anything of it.
To anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I have female friends that dress in ways that would embarrass strippers. I (and they) think little if anything of it.
Deadly Mouse
A bull named Mouse claims top dollar for his owners. He's killed three men during a Spanish festival over the last ten years.
Egypt, BART, & Cameron have this in common
Ailing ex-dictator gives his name to a fearful practice: the mubarak.
I still like the Cameron Initiative.
I still like the Cameron Initiative.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Notes on class warfare from the man whose class won
Warren Buffet has an op-ed in the New York Times, "Stop coddling the super rich". Here are the highlights:
"OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
(...)
"Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
"OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
(...)
"Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
"If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
(...)
"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends."I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation."
Must check out Golau Glau later.
For anyone reading this that doesn't follow Warren Ellis on any of his various profiles, here is Electronic Encounters: Music Inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
19th century African-American village unearthed in Central Park. It appears to have been founded in the 1820s (while slavery was still legal in New York) and destroyed in the 1850s.
Friday, August 12, 2011
They hate us for our freedom, Part II
BART prepares to shut down the cell network on it's line in preparation for protests on their cops being kill happy thugs AGAIN.
From now on, I'm calling a plan to shut down cell networks, social media, messaging systems as a way to stop insurrection as the Cameron Initiative.
From now on, I'm calling a plan to shut down cell networks, social media, messaging systems as a way to stop insurrection as the Cameron Initiative.
Good US Conservative Values!
Indiana state representative Phillip Hinkle has been caught trying to pay an 18 year old male for sex. Hinkle is of the anti-gay branch of the GOP.
They hate us for our freedom
Counterfeit pilot IDs and uniforms will now be sufficient to circumvent airport security but be damned if you can travel tooth toothpaste.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
"Bloody Mary is the girl for me"
Star Wars coins to be accepted as legitimate currency on the South Pacific island of Niue. Someone finally figures out how money works. Damned good show!
Could the US fall for it twice?
And Rick Perry officially joins the race for the White House.
Supposedly Governor Good Hair went to Iowa to meet with Michelle Bachmann. No word on whether he made it clear that he will fight her for the support of the batshit crazy wing of the GOP, or whether they'll join forces if one of them takes the nod. The latter is my guess. Bachmann is used to covering for and working with heavily closeted gay men.
Supposedly Governor Good Hair went to Iowa to meet with Michelle Bachmann. No word on whether he made it clear that he will fight her for the support of the batshit crazy wing of the GOP, or whether they'll join forces if one of them takes the nod. The latter is my guess. Bachmann is used to covering for and working with heavily closeted gay men.
One of the few investigative reporters we have left
I'm going to have to find out exactly what Palast was investigating this time.
Posthuman Future One Day Closer
Call it an electronic temporary tattoo. It will collect and transmit information about your heart rate, transmit signals between prosthesis and the brain, or simply provide a simple useful interface between man and machine.
Prison may be hell, boys, but it's good for business.
A Pennsylvania judge is sentenced to 28 years for a "kids for cash" racketeering scheme. In short, as he sentenced kids to privately run youth offenders detention facilities, he received kickbacks, up to $2.8m.
If you ever wanted proof that youth was considered just another commodity, here it is.
If you ever wanted proof that youth was considered just another commodity, here it is.
"Like Steve McQueen all I needs a fast machine"
US military loses contact with the Falcon HTV-2, the fastest plane ever built, 36 minutes into it's test flight.
UPDATE: Air Force says it crashed into the ocean.
UPDATE: Air Force says it crashed into the ocean.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
A, yes, a fairy tale wedding!
You ladies lose points for not knowing who Gollum is. The bride is obviously not offended.
London's Burning
Photographer who took the picture of a woman leaping from a burning building in Croyden talks about being in the heat of it.
Probably going to stockpile all news of the London riots here rather than spam people on Facebook/Twitter/Google+ today. I think I want to keep track of this.
Probably going to stockpile all news of the London riots here rather than spam people on Facebook/Twitter/Google+ today. I think I want to keep track of this.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
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