Not Much to Write About

It’s tough to pay attention to much for the past couple of days that isn’t related to the VA Tech shootings.  It’s a horrible thing.  I doubt I could add anything to the conversation that isn’t being said somewhere else.

Besides, I tend to be a sarcastic (just a tad) and this definitely isn’t the time for that.

JL Kirk Situation Hopefully Rectified

Surprise, surprise.

All they really wanted was to not have their company misrepresented by their mentally challenged employee who left a message on Katherine Coble’s blog.

JL Kirk’s main concern at the outset was that we communicate their position – which is different from the information originally told to me by a JL Kirk employee – that JL Kirk is not a continuation of the defunct Bernard Haldane company, either in terms of corporate identity or stock ownership, and that JL Kirk’s principal, Kirk Leipzig, is only a former Bernard Haldane employee but did not buy any assets or stock of Bernard Haldane.

Which is a round about way of saying, “We’re not denying we’re butthooks, we’re just not the butthooks that our butthook employee claimed we are in her post.”

Nice.

What if We Payed Taxes All at Once?

I’ve been reading lots of articles today that are run every year at this time about “giving the government an interest free loan”, getting a refund, filing early if there is a refund, filing at the end if there isn’t, etc.

I wonder if there would be more of a public outcry over taxes if we had to pay a single bill at the end of the year.  It is pretty sneaky that the gov’ment takes taxes out of your check at every pay period.  Most people never miss it.  But what if we had to write a check out each April for $20,000 or so?  I bet people would notice then.

It’s funny how some people even go beyond the “convenience” of paying each pay period.  They make sure that they pay more so that they can get a refund at the end of the year…sort of like a negative interest savings account.  How sad is it that we, collectively, don’t have the discipline to save and are willing to pay the gov’ment to do it for us?

Nasty Weather at Boston Marathon

Heavy rains, temperatures in the upper 30s, and gusts of wind up to 50 mph.

I’ve never qualified for Boston, and I’m glad I didn’t this year.  The website has up to the minute conditions and results, including this helpful tip on treating hypothermia:

If CPR is necessary, resuscitation should not be stopped until the person’s body temperature is at least 95°F/35°C (never give up your efforts). All temperatures indicated are rectal measures, which give a closer indication of core temperature. If the victim is cooperative, you may take temperature by other methods.

I’d be willing to cooperate fully.  Sounds like a nice day to sit on the couch under a quilt and watch a marathon.

Knox County School Rezoning

This one will stir the pot. There is an uproar going on right now over the rezoning of schools in Knox County to accomodate the new Hardin Valley High School. 3,400 students from Farragut, West, Bearden, Karns, Gibbs, Austin-East, Central, Carter, Fulton, Halls, and Powell are going to be affected.

Let me get this straight…

You had no problem paying for failing public schools before you had children attending them. You will have no problem continuing to pay for these failing schools long after your child has graduated. You have no problem allowing the state/county to decide when your children will go to a failing school. You have no problem allowing the state to decide on the failing curriculum. You have no problem allowing the state to lump your child (an individual) into this failing curriculum that is geared towards the masses. You have no problem with the state using funds (tax money) to support athletic programs instead of actual education. You have no problem with teachers’ unions and tenure which potentially allow incompetent and lazy teachers to continue “educating” your children. You have no problem with teachers “teaching to the test” to achieve high scores on state mandated standardized tests for the purpose of getting a raise instead of teaching your child to reason and think for themselves.

But you do have a problem with the state deciding which of these failing schools your child must attend?

Isn’t lack of choice and control an expected part of socialism? Was the fact that public schools, social security, etc are socialist institutions conveniently left out of the failing public education most of us received?

Sounds to me like we are getting precisely what we deserve for turning so much control over to the state in the first place.

**UPDATE**

I stand corrected.  There are very important angles of this story I haven’t considered.  Luckily, the News Sentinel is on the job.

It Will Be Here Before We Know It

This Countdown to a Bush Free America site has great revenue producing potential.

I haven’t thought about this in years, but there was a band in Knoxville in the early 90s called The Used. They eventually changed their sound and morphed into Superdrag and became pretty successful.

The Used was my favorite local band for a while. They were pretty punk and had notoriously great parties at their house. I think one of their songs was “No Bush ’93”, but it could have been an Underwear Meatclock song.

I only remember a few lyrics to this song:

No Bush ninety-three!

No Bush ninety-three!

No Bush ninety-three!

What’s Clinton gonna do for me?

Crystal Gail Mangum

Wow–don’t it make my brown eyes blue.

Is that her stripper name? What’s her real name?

This didn’t really warrant its own post I guess, but I didn’t want to leave that comment on someone else’s site.

Helping People Avoid Foreclosures the Right Way

Brad Warbiany has it right when he talks about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America:

…these guys (a private group) are helping people, so I’m not going to criticize them in any way.

This is how people are helped in a free market.  Those with a vested interest in the success of the individuals who borrowed money from them try to make the best of a bad situation. 

Unforunately, there are plenty of other people, Charles Schumer for instance, who want the federal government to bail out people who borrowed money they can’t pay back, which is basically helping the companies who shouldn’t have loaned them in the first place.  Never mind the fact that the federal government itself already runs at a deficit.

I’ll spell it out for you on simpler terms, with the middle man removed.  You and I will be forced to provide someone else with housing by paying back a loan they took out with a bank who shouldn’t have loaned them the money in the first place.

Surely the banks will expect this money back with no interest.  Right.  Here’s an article that tells the whole story without the common sense slant I just provided.