What Could You Do With $42 Million Dollars?…

The IRS just spent it to send you a letter stating what you VERY likely already know in announcing that your stimulus is on the way and that you have to file an income tax return.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080307/ap_on_go_ot/dear_taxpayer

Just to throw out some ideas on productive uses of such a chunk of change.

– Could that “announcement money” be used to help in cities that have high populations of poor and homeless?

– Could that “announcement money” be used to help in cities that still have significant damage from natural disasters?

Frankly, it’s a lot of money, but not enough to make any dent in the infrastructure issues that came to mind. But humanitarian aide as cited above seemed to be the most likely better use.

Looks like Linda Stiff is serving as acting Commissioner at the IRS and that Henry Paulson is head at the Department of Treasury that the IRS is under. It’s not clear who/what group was immediately responsible for this spending decision.

Perhaps you’d like to contact your senator or house representative for your state to let them know how you appreciated the use of this public tax money.

Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220
General Information: (202) 622-2000
Fax: (202) 622-6415

For contacting your state’s representative:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Im not even gonna ask how much is being spent to run that commercial about TV’s not working without a converter box or replacement after Feb 2009. And how could we better use that money?

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No scraping please…. _____________________________________________

No Stimulus for You!… and others wait til May

Sadly, if you made less than $3000 in 2007, you will NOT get a dime under the current Stimulus package. These people are too poor to spend this on necessities?

Unemployment benefits that ran out…will stay run out.

Looks like the current version will give a tax Rebate of taxes paid up to $600 for singles now…..but you wont even get stimulated til May or June.

$50 billion in incentives for businesses to buy new equipment… (No, …..you have to put the equipment in a business still located in the US…yeah)

I keep hoping that I misread something on this….
Now it has to go through the House and Senate… Perhaps, some help for those making less than $3000 or with their unemployment depleted…

http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/460097.html

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The Right Tool For the Job…HDTV

HDTV or even SDTV (standard definition..ie less dots to make up a image on the screen).

I don’t have either. Why do I continue to watch a perfectly nice old 13″ analog set? I used to have cable btw…and frankly I watched a lot of Comedy Central and the Weather Channel with the occasional Dennis Miller HBO show or movie thrown in.

And I concluded after a year that it wasn’t worth the extra money…which quickly adds up…to have that tiny bit of additional content to vegetate in front of.

So, to me the want (notice I didn’t say need) of HD or even SD television is related to the content you plan to view.

It’s all about content which is subpar at this time.

–Movies would be cool although I can count on a few hands the movies that I’d really have to have HD to enjoy any more than on a regular set.

–Sports, especially football and NASCAR and Indy racing would be good examples for HD.

–Animal, nature, science and world travel type programming would be cool in HD

-But In reality, I mostly watch parts of:
Late Night Talk Shows (Letterman, Leno, OBrien, Ferguson, Feresten

Local news

Nightline

Charlie Rose

Saturday Night Live

PBS stuff…This Old House, etc

So… for an additional $700 plus, I can see every zit and blimish on David Letterman or Infomercial bonehead Kevin Trudeau? Umm no.

But, but what about the fact that our stupid greedy government has decided to screw us yet again and sell lots of the broadcast spectrum which forces television stations to stop sending my perfectly fine old analog signal in February 2009?

What will a person like me do? There will be a converter box that will take the digital version of the same signal and convert it back to the analog and most likely I will watch that 13″ analog TV til it caputs. After that, perhaps the various technolgies of LCD, plasma, OLED and DLP projection will have had the survival of the fittest and true dark black and screen life and other issues will be closer to sorting themselves out.

Then there’s regular DVD and VCR for SDTV and can still be watched on HD..btw.

And then the current two flavors of HD DVD…ie BluRay and HD-DVD. As of this posting it looks like BluRay has a lead on movie studios and content providers that (once again plan more content) for BluRay

Leo Laporte noted that cable channels now have some channels in HD, but….may not look as impressive as expected due to video compression.   Leo’s podcasts, especially “The Tech Guy” is a good resource for thoughts on HD and more.
http://twit.tv

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No Child Left Behind…The Digital Gap/Divide…

I’ve heard the hype about the OLPC (One laptop per child) that Negraponte is heading up. There are others working on low cost laptops allegedly for third world countries and perhaps in the states too… To address the alleged digital gap… O no…

Firstly….
The OLPC looks good in the pics. Fine..
So….the one that the child in the alleged third world country gets ….( I can only speak from experience in rural Peru and Chile….but there’s…umm most of those countries without rural electricity…and sharing a high speed internet link?…you would be lucky in most places even in a city to find a dialup …so..the net sharing thing…like a nancy pelosi idea gone terribly impractical. Hmmm And maybe clean water and sewage trump playing (i mean learning) online?

Secondly…
I’ve have been chewing on the “digital gap/divide” a lot lately though as I see more and more of the US high tech folks on the sidelines working in “service” jobs… and the supposed advanced learning and skills….

To be honest, most of those kids, if they are lucky enough to get a job at all, will need the 3R’s, a clean shower and decent breakfast. The UI on the cash register or kiosk is aimed at the lowest common denominator. There will be a VERY small percentage that will actually end up being techs. In case you all havent noticed…more and more of thats in India or where the lowest cost is…

And just like in the states, if there aren’t many or any good, high paying jobs at the end of this skill building and this kid is still shoveling llama dung….or growing coca plants….Umm yeah.

At that point, they can become bloggers, play WOW and check out some PRON…in a desolate village? Nice.

More on this as I get a chance.

It Was Sobering and Sickening to See…

It was more than sobering to see a Sheriff’s Commissioner’s Sale notice on a house in my neighborhood today. In all my years I’d never seen one on a property near me. (and yes there certainly have been those sales throughout the years)

I’m not sure if it was a case where this person got sucked into one of those horrible ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) or if there was a job loss, bad decisions or bad health… The property was evidently financed by Citigroup Financial. But, I don’t any of the particulars of this situation.

It was however a sharp kick in the stomach to remind me just how bad things are for what used to be a middle class in the United States.

It does sicken me to see the media just spin a lot of the bad situations as a mortgage crisis. It’s just not that simple. And certainly I know how bad the job market is and has been for at least the last 10 to 15 years.

And certainly when 12 million of anyone invades the country and further loads down an economy that already was predicting that the next generations won’t have medicare, pension or retirement… …. that I see an elderly parent and relatives count on for survival….

Then to further have to listen to someone like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and others blather on about what they are “giving back”…. except it’s in some other country….(not usually the one that raised them up…by the way)

Yeah the whole evil mess just leaves me with a pit in my stomach…. and my prayers go out to that family…

This is no longer politics.

Demographic of the Patrons In One Business

Know your audience…Marketing101 meets Main St.

This one may vary depending on your location but this is the audience I saw in a particular business establishment.

– The elderly (various ethnicities)

– Latino immigrants (Central America and Mexico mostly)

– Wandering unsupervised teens and pre-teens (various ethnicities)

– Meth People (digital cameras always need litium batteries and oddly enough security cameras.

– People that want to return things without receipt and certainly without packaging and after 30 days. Uh no!

– Criminals – they actually just came in to steal (various ethnicities)

– Thuglike people that just look like they came to steal (various ethnicities)

– People that are off their meds, bipolar and other various mental health issues.

– Occassionally the homeless and vagrants

– Repeat customers (various ages and ethnicities) with money that are ready to buy

– People passing through that are from like Florida or Arizona and truck drivers that stopped at Walmart

It would be interesting to see this real world info in a company’s business plan. Instead, you always see the idealistic stuff of upper middle class and 18 to 35…kinda stuff.

In this case, the elderly, the latino, the travelers/truck drivers and repeat customers with money in hand kept this business thriving. Speaking some amount of spanish was very helpful.

As far as weird stuff:
One guy came in with a tattoo…on the side of his neck…that read (and I can’t make stuff up this good)…
“100% Honky”

…I rest my case.

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Something Else That Made Me Giggle…Who is the other senator from Idaho again?

Due to recent media coverage, EVERYONE knows one of the senators from Idaho. Yeah, we now know Larry Craig from the Minneapolis airport men’s room.

But do you know who the other senator is?

Saw this on autone’s angelino blog when I was checking up on the recent re-try on making citizens out of the invaders.

http://autone.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/kill-the-latest-amnesty-bill-for-illegal-aliens/

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“Phone them by contacting the Senate switchboard at 800-862-5530 or 202-224-3121.

Alaska: Murkowski, Stevens
Arkansas: Pryor
Idaho: Crapo ….<- How do you pronounce that again?
Indiana: Bayh
Iowa: Grassley, Harkin
Kansas: Brownback
Louisiana: Landrieu”

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Ok, One More Time…What Happened That Was Illegal?

Senator Larry Craig of Idaho has gotten a more than generous coverage in the media this week….as Paris Hilton, Nicole Richey and Lindsay Lowhan breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Did I miss it? What did he actually do that was illegal? He pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge? Allegedly he had solicited sex in an airport men’s room in Minneapolis? The “solicitation” amounted to patting his foot and putting his hand just over the sacred stall divider demarcation line on the floor? And this was supposed to be some kind of gay gang sign of wink wink nudge nudge,,,,know what I mean…say no more? that the officer in the next stall received and said…Oh no you didnt…Come with me!

So, suddenly I’m assessing a bad Monty Python sketch from the 1970’s?

In the cnn.com article, reporter Dan Popkey was quoted as saying about the event…., “We have no hard evidence.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/29/craig.arrest/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

That was one of several double entendre phrases that made me giggle this week. I think we are all glad about not having hard evidence…great….another Youtube video.

And in the next article, the officer has arrested about a dozen men for making this undescribed (tape said his hand was palm up, k) “hand gesture” since joining the airport police force in 2000. Really? Aren’t there bigger fish to fry after 911? Aren’t there sinister looking people or items left unattended or people parked in a fire lane for the airport police to be checking on? No, this dude is hanging out in the men’s room watching for undescribed illegal hand gestures?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_go_co/craig_arrest

… and the officer makes a comment that he expected this from people in the hood… Really? The next article from KTVB news had the text …

“I just, I just, I guess, I guess I’m gonna say I’m just disappointed in you sir,” Karsnia said. “I’m just really am. I expect this from the guy that we get out of the hood. I mean, people vote for you.”

…Really? Why is that again?

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-aug3007-craig_transcript.8638610a.html

And let me get this straight, if Senator Craig were to actually confess to being gay now, then we’d be tripping over ourselves to give equality to his life style, not to offend him and his guilt would be in not keeping his lifestyle at home?

And is the Minneapolis airport men’s restroom some famous place for a hook up? Aren’t there like 10 or 20 mens rooms in a major airport? How would you even know which one? Look for guys patting their feet as you pass stalls? So now, when I’m trying to take a much needed dump and I hear what sounds like a foot tapping or worse yet some hand crossing the demarcation line….Dude, I’m just trying to take a crap…Please.

By the way, what a great few months to work at the Minneapolis tourism bureau. “Come for our bridges…and stay for the restrooms….”

I can’t wait for the George Carlin and David Letterman comedy bits on this one.

More to come on this one…

This reminded me of a sketch on TalkShow with Spike Feresten.

Google ….return dapper ifilm
Then its “Return of the Dapper Daniels” on ifilm

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service….No Sheet!

I saw this the other day as I entered a grocery store (and it’s 2007 folks.)

Can’t say I ever saw much enforcement of this. I used to see this service policy warning on the front door of most restaurants, stores and groceries back say in the 70’s. (Now…pardon my sidebar remembering classic Lovelines observations by Adam Carolla reflecting on his upbringing in a fairly hippie area of North Hollywood in the late 60’s and 70’s….also getting a mental recall of Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Jeff Spicoli might need the council of such a service policy…but I digress )

But especially in the 70’s some jack off would inevitably walk into a reputable store with no shirt and some cutoffs and an ora of respect that he had at the convenience store earlier when he bought the smokes he was now fumegating everyone with.

Ahh the 70’s….So to the rest of the world..yeah we needed the sign. Common sense …..was NOT adequate…because it had quit being common. It was during the end of and following the Vietnam war and the man wasn’t gonna hold homie down with all his rules man.

So, now it’s 2007 ….and the sign…is back….it’s ALL back…Enjoy!

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Things that go through my mind…now and again…

This will be a work in progress, but I wanted to note things that occur to me ocassionally or that pass through my mind.

– Uh,,,was that a dude?

– Why does the guy teaching my safety training….have a finger missing?

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