June rambling #2: some more social justice

Leslie’s still in the hospital, getting incrementally better.

You can’t compromise with bs

Is Trumpism becoming a new religion?

When The White House Can’t Be Believed

The 2017 Comprehensive Plan For Reorganizing The Executive Branch is codified in the June 2018 Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century. They’re DOING all of it, or trying to. (HT, Steve Bissette)

Family Separations: Should we be horrified, relieved, or just confused?

This Isn’t the First Time the White House Attempted to Cut the Dept. of Ed.

The corporate tax cut will never trickle down

Space defense will be a major concern for the U.S., but the “Space Force” is not the answer

Browser extension to fix the NYT’s squeamishness about calling him a liar

Reporter is raising her daughter to speak three languages; a stranger demanded she ‘speak English’ to her

Living While Black

More than one percent of Oklahoma’s population is in the slammer

Last Week Tonight with John OliverXi Jinping

We could use some more social justice when it comes to fandom

Father’s Day for children of abusive fathers

“In moral crisis” or “immoral crisis”?

Judge tosses Kansas law that disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters, orders KS Secretary of State Kris Kobach to take remedial law classes

Sales tax: Different items are taxable in different states

You don’t really know who Bernie Sanders was in the 1960s

Anthony Bourdain interviewed on The Daily Show, January 2018

RIP Dan Ingram

A natural gas power plant with no carbon emissions or air pollution

How does Disney World control mosquitoes?

‘I had to guard an empty room’: the rise of the pointless job

The Curious Origins of 16 Common Phrases

Now I Know: The Radio Reporter Who Found a New Voice, Literally and Why Is it Named Idaho? and The Tractors that Turn Farmers into Hackers and the Sound of Sneezes and The Man Who Takes Apostrophes Very Seriously and the National Animal of Scotland

The patron saint of the tacky

The LESLIE Chronicles

This is the picture of my sister’s bicycle after her accident on June 4; you can’t really tell that the handlebars are sheared off.

Leslie’s still in the hospital, getting incrementally better. Great strides in the past week, actually. She’s had a fourth surgery this week, on her palate. She has a coterie of friends tending to her, besides the hospital staff.

Most notably, I was able to talk with her this week! She has these different colored caps that cover the trachea incision that allows her to be audible. She was tired but coherent and rational. THAT is a very good sign.

If she were not wearing a helmet, there almost certainly would have had have been a different outcome. So if you are riding a motorcycle or bicycle or scooter, wear the damn helmet.

MUSIC

We’re Not Gonna Take It – Dee Snider (stripped down version)

77 Cover Songs – “Weird Al” Yankovic

Art of the song parody

Still A Friend Of Mine – MonaLisa Twins

99 Luftballons – Kaleida (Atomic Blonde Soundtrack)

Whitney Avalon sings again!

Anema e core – Pier Angeli

Just A Song Before I Go – Graham Nash (original demo)

John McElrath of the Swingin’ Medallions died at 77

Why Modern Music Is Awful

City of Albany folks: You may be able to prepay 2018 property taxes

In effect, seniors will pay for tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy as automatic spending cuts are triggered because the tax cuts add $1.5 trillion to the national debt.

From the Honorable Darius Shahinfar, City Treasurer:

Given what is happening in Washington with respect to tax reform and the possible elimination or capping of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, the City of Albany expects to be able to accept payments of 2018 property taxes on December 29, 2017. Albany’s authorization to accept these payments is premised on the expectation that Albany County will provide the City its Tax Warrant on or before December 29.

Please be advised that the authority for the City to collect 2018 property taxes on December 29, 2017 does not address the deductibility of such prepaid taxes for income tax purposes, as that issue is under the purview of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

– Upon advice from the New York Conference of Mayors

Payments can be made at:
Treasurer’s Office
City Hall
24 Eagle Street, Room 109
Albany, New York 12207
NOTICE TO TAXPAYERS
OF THE
CITY OF ALBANY

You may be able to prepay your 2018 property taxes on December 29 at City Hall.

The Treasurer’s office now offers multiple ways for you to obtain property tax bill information.

Save a trip to City Hall, view, print and/or pay my tax bill online at payments.albanyny.gov. Payment may be made directly from a checking account for a $.50 cent fee, or by credit card for a $.25 cent fee plus 1.95% of the total payment.

You can request a change to your billing address by emailing taxbilladdresschange@albanyny.gov.

You can request a copy of your Tax bill and/or receipts for payment by using the following addresses:

Receive an e-mail copy of a 2017 tax bill taxbill@albanyny.gov
Receive a paid receipt by emailing 2017paidtax@albanyny.gov

Or submit your information [on the page] to receive a copy of your 2017 tax bill or receipt within 24 hours.
***
From the LA Times: Now that the tax overhaul has passed, here are five moves to consider before year’s end.

Under current law, employees are allowed to deduct unreimbursed business expenses if they total more than 2% of their adjusted gross income.

They include a home office, depreciation on a personal computer required for the job, dues to professional societies and subscriptions to journals and trade magazines.

All of those deductions would disappear through 2025 under the Republican tax bill, so you probably want to move as many of those expenses as you can to this year, such as by re-upping professional journal subscriptions.
***
From Nation of Change:

[The bill] mandates automatic Medicare cuts of at least $25 billion in 2018 and $400 billion over 10 years. In effect, seniors will pay for tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy as automatic spending cuts are triggered because the tax cuts add $1.5 trillion to the national debt. Automatic cuts altogether will total $136 billion in 2018 and include reductions in agriculture subsidies, student loans, military retirement and more. [Congressional Budget Office (CBO)]
***
This Tax Accountant’s Thoughts on the New Tax Law: This is a draconian tax bill for employees.

It also is insidiously designed to social engineer our society, away from wage earners and the benefits that employers are obligated to provide, to become an increasingly non-union and non-employee based economy of contractors and sub-contractors, with no benefits, sick pay, family leave, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, or vacation pay.

And, of course, no health insurance.

And still, the debt will grow by trillions…

May rambling #1: Bringing the Invisible to Life

The Daredevils Without Landlines

And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan … “Pious Paul interjected, ‘For the Samaritan’s work is unsustainable and sends the wrong message. It teaches travelers to take dangerous roads, knowing that others will rescue them from self-destructive behaviors.”

Strength Through Unity: How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late

American Identity is Based on Alternate History

The Truest, Meanest Jokes that Bombed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The absurd amount of entitlements that go to rich people and Why cutting rich people’s taxes doesn’t create jobs

Jimmy Kimmel’s Radically Simple ‘Jimmy Kimmel Test’

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria

Jodi Picoult: Are You Sure You’re Not Racist?

Someone wants to know why there was a Civil War and could Andrew Jackson have stopped it?

George Will: This president does not know what it is to know

Much Ado About Religious Liberty

Heineken ad

Is the special relationship ending? (Australia, New Zealand)

Vlogbrothers: Can You Trust Mainstream Media? and The Life Changing Magic of Thumbs Up

Younger Men, Older Women: A Pairing Becomes More Common

WebMD stands for medically deficient

There Is a Fake IDGod, and He Lives in China

The Daredevils Without Landlines — And Why Health Experts Are Tracking Them

Camsing Acquires Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment

David Brickman review: Neil deGrasse Tyson at Proctors

Man forced to surrender his ‘offensive’ Star Trek license plate

Tony nominations (yes, I watch)

Now I Know: The Google Maps Invasion and Bringing the Invisible to Life and Lighting Up the Switchboards

Good luck (shhh!) and spam wedding

All of a sudden or all of the sudden

Please type your preferred plurals in the comments box: alumnus, apparatus, appendix, aquarium, cactus, crisis, criterion, focus, thesis, forum, fungus, hippopotamus, index, nucleus, octopus, phenomenon, referendum, radius, stadium, syllabus, prospectus, ellipsis, museum, factotum, status

Music

LISTEN TODAY! Bette Midler stars as Dolly Levi in the Tony Award-nominated revival of Hello, Dolly, before album is released May 12.

Saxa of the (English) Beat, R.I.P.

Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans, a Star Wars/Beatles fan tribute

TEN HOURS of the Cantina Band

Top 10 Songs About Elvis Presley, not including Elvis Presley Boulevard – Billy Joel, the only Joel single I own (B-side to Allentown)

Chuck Miller: Wake up, you sleeping lion!

Someday My Prince Will Come – Dave Brubeck Quartet

Photos show the world’s biggest rock stars as tourists in 1970s Japan

Forbes: How The Music Industry Is Putting Itself Out Of Business

The Eagles Sue an Actual Hotel California

October rambling #2: monotasking

Bob Dylan isn’t the first lyricist to win the Nobel

anyjackass

Christ’s Burial Place Exposed for First Time in Centuries

John Green explains the tax plans of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the differences between Donald Trump’s plans for healthcare in the United States and Hillary Clinton’s proposals

Political ads: Jason Kander for US Senate from Missouri and Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty

SNL: ‘Black Jeopardy’ with Tom Hanks

‘What Kind of Mother Is 8 Months Pregnant and Wants an Abortion?’

‘Marquis,’ YouthFX film about Marquis Dixon; a state appeals court has rejected the original nine-year sentence for Marquis Dixon, the Albany youth convicted as an adult for a sneaker robbery

H.I.V. Arrived in the U.S. Long Before ‘Patient Zero’ and Mythology of ‘Patient Zero’ and how AIDS virus traveled to the United States is all wrong

We are intersex people, and we don’t need to be ‘fixed’ by surgeries

Surviving the intersection of fear and recklessness

Read This Story Without Distraction (Can You?) – I did not know monotasking was a word

Tom Hayden, protester-turned-politician, dies at 76

NFL Ratings Just Fell Off a Cliff: Why?

Taryn Huber Named RMAC Volleyball Academic Player of the Year; daughter of one of my oldest, dearest friends

Maine’s Penobscots tell Cleveland: Win the Series, great, but lose the logo

Remember When The Chicago White Sox Won The World Series?

5 Things Millennials Are Trying To Render Extinct

Winnie the Pooh is still the best bear in the world

Now I Know: Silence Lights and Hannibal, Lector and Dire Straights and The Groom of the Stool and Marching Forward and Tumbling Down and When It Rains, It Poems

Movie: SANCTUARY (1961), starring Lee Remick, Yves Montand, Bradford Dillman, and Odetta; screenplay by Ruth Ford and James Poe, based on works by William Faulkner; directed by Tony Richardson. In 1928 Mississippi, the black maid of a white woman helps her employer out of a predicament

A Hamilton Skeptic on Why the Show Isn’t As Revolutionary As It Seems

John Ostrander: Making a Better Superman
snopes

The Post-Racial America section

Racial Terror Lynching in America, Animated

‘What did you just call me?’ Black broadcaster confronts hate in Charleston

An Open Letter To Those Who Don’t See Their Own Racism

‘Only White People,’ Said the Little Girl

‘She’s So Pretty. Where Did You Get Her?’

Music

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the Gregory Brothers, featuring Weird Al, Debbie Harry and others

Springsteen covered by women: The best of the best, part 3

boudwin. – Asking is Leaving

The 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Are a Disgrace to Music; worth it for the music links alone, but no Yes?

Queen’s Fast Version of ‘We Will Rock You’ From 1977 BBC Session

Coverville 1145: Moody Blues Cover Story for Justin Hayward’s 70th

Mama told me not to come – Three Dog Night

Jolene – Dolly Parton & Pentatonix

Listen to Odetta cover Dylan

No, Bob Dylan isn’t the first lyricist to win the Nobel

Brian Wilson Talks Mental Illness, Drugs and Life After Beach Boys

Bobby Vee died at age 73, here’s a 2014 video in support of Bobby’s last album

Chartered Waters: Music Chart Stories

English in Math

I can yield in my pedantry, but only so far.

Percentage_IncreaseEnglish in Math, part 1:

Recently, several media outlets noted that the US women’s soccer team was subjected to wage discrimination, and that “the World Cup winners were paid four times less than their male counterparts last year.” One can argue the numbers, but there is a clear disparity.

What struck me, though, was the phrase “four times less”, which to my ears, seemed incorrect. I asked my spouse, who is a teacher of English as a New Language (ENL), the new designation for what had been traditionally referred to as English as a Second Language (ESL), in part because those learners may be taking on English as a third language, or fourth, or more. She agreed it “sounded wrong.”

We both would have said the men made four times as much, or the women made a quarter (or a fourth) as much. Professor Milo Schield, from the Department of Business, Accounting and MIS at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN, would agree with us. In COMMON ERRORS IN FORMING ARITHMETIC COMPARISONS, he writes of Using ‘times less’ as an inverted form of ‘times as much’:

Since six is three times as much as two, it is tempting to say that two is three times less than six. Two is definitely less than six and their ratio is definitely that of three to one. But if two were three times less than six, then six should be three times more than two. Recall that six is three times as much as two – two times more than two. ‘Times less than’ is an inverted form of ‘times more than’ – not ‘times as much’. This error is more common in speech than in writing. This error is a variation on… Confusing ‘times as much’ with ‘times more than’.

Got that? Of COURSE, you do.

But after reading this language log, and this observation, I’m willing to cede that, while my thought process is technically correct, I may be willing to give this one a pass. I KNOW what they mean, and explaining the “error” is far too exhausting.

Percentage increase

On the other hand (English in Math, part 2):

Our tax accountant gave us an interesting tidbit, citing our cash charitable contributions as 320% higher than others who earn the same amount and noncash contributions as 40% lower. So, I surmised that if the AVERAGE person gave $100, we would have given $420. Ah, but that’s not what he meant. We have given $320 versus $100. That is 220% higher than OR 320% of the average.

Quoting the professor:

The essential feature is the difference is between ‘as much as’ and ‘more than.’ ‘As much as’ indicates a ratio; ‘more than’ indicates a difference. ‘More than’ means ‘added onto the base’. This essential difference is ignored by those who say that ‘times’ is dominant so that ‘three times as much’ is really the same as ‘three times more than.’

I saw this same error on The Daughter’s First in Math, where there was a 700% increase shown, but the choices were increases of 100%, 200%, 400% and 800%. We picked the 800%, since it was the closest, and it registered as correct.

This all goes to show that I can yield in my pedantry, but only so far.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial