Thursday, December 24, 2015
Saul Alinsky.............................
..........................would probably approve. John Kay suggests "the characteristics of organisational failure are timeless" and then he sets out the field manual. A wee excerpt:
"The wide exercise of power without responsibility, often in the name of democracy or participation, is at best a recipe for organisational paralysis and at worst a mechanism for actual sabotage, as is the substitution of procedural rules for individual judgment."
Timeless.............................
...............Michael Wade posts 21 Things I Wish I Knew In My Twenties. Some of us sixty-somethings still have a lot of work to do. Thanks Michael.
Game changers.............................
................here are 14 events that have dramatically altered the way us humans live. You might notice that the pace of these events is quickening. Apparently these 14 were culled from this broader picture. Pondering using The Wonder That Is Amazon to acquire it, if only to see if Amazon made the cut. Surely it must have.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Sing in exultation.................................
Martina McBride.................................O Come All Ye Faithful
Ah.....................................the fine print
...................or, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Fun with Federal Omnibus bills: Part One. Story here.
thanks craig
Ah, science. We hardly knew you.........
...........................................................or, fuddling with the data.
I, like any clever scienticist, could fuddle with the data till my eyes crossed, then shrug and postulate various “events within the event” — weaves, turns, sprints, wrinkles, leaps, bobbles — plus an unknown number of additional “whatevers.” But I wouldn’t go on television until I’d found hard evidence of my purely speculative play-by-play. Smoking guns are all very well, but a coroner requires a one-to-one pairing between bullets and wounds.
-David Warren, as excerpted from this post
Artistry...............................
.......................or, painting pictures with words:
She was cool, superior, and slightly snotty. A male friend, if she had time for one, would have a hard body, a great tan, a gold chain, a two-seater Mercedes-Benz, and no sense of humor. A commoner had little chance of peeling off her shorts. Should it happen, she'd do it purely for the experience, like shopping at Kmart or sniffing glue.
She knew what I was thinking, of course. And she knew she was reaching me, with her information, money, and long athletic legs. All management tools, properly deployed, well under control. It was mildly irritating.
Letting it percolate for a moment, I looked down at the battered, grass-green fiberglass hull of my boat, the brilliant white D'Arches paper, the black handles of the watercolor brushes. It was all I really wanted to do; I didn't want to fool with some rich guy's computers. But a bigger boat would be nice, and money would buy more time to paint. And New Orleans is a pleasurable place.
"It sounds illegal," I said after a while.
-John Sandford, as excerpted from The Fool's Run
"May I buy your groceries?"...............
I was one of those people who made fun of the “people of Walmart”. And I’m an idiot. I don’t know anyone’s story, their background, their pain or their journey in this world. I judge the badly dressed, the overweight, the sloppy, the ignorant, the ill-mannered. The same ones, yesterday, who cried when someone offered them a small kindness. The ones who, when they figured out what my husband and I were doing hiding in the jewelry section across from the check-out lanes, came running over, looked us right in the eye, thanked us and complimented on our wonderful girls. There’s MY gift, right there. I haven’t gotten anything as precious as that.
-Walmart as a Holy Land. The full tale is told here
thanks Glenn
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Hear the angels' voices.......................
Not sure who she is, but it's really good.............O Holy Night
You may have noticed.......................
.............that we have posted more than several excerpts from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals here of late. Noticing the curious nature of our readers, you are undoubtedly wondering when we are going to post said rules. Wonder no longer:
Always remember the first rule of power tactics:
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The second rule is: Never go outside of the experience of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat. It also means a collapse of communication, as we have noted.
The third rule is: Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. (Alinsky now includes a very long paragraph - too long for the allotted typing time - on Sherman's march through The South).
The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.
The seventh rule is: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church on Sunday mornings. New issues and crises are always developing, and one's reaction becomes, "Well, my heart bleeds for those people and I'm all for the boycott, but after all there are other important things in life" - and there it goes.
The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction but that action is itself the consequence of reaction and of reaction to the reaction, ad infinitum. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action.
The eleventh rule: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through to its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. We have already seen the conversion of the negative into the positive, in Mahatma Gandhi's development of the tactic of passive resistance.
(Alinsky now offers several long paragraphs, also too long for inclusion, supporting the eleventh rule.)
The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying "You're right - we don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us."
The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Fifty years ago...........................
The Vince Guaraldi Trio...........................What Child Is This
Chuckling to myself...............................
I've played in a monthly poker game with the same group of guys for more than thirty years now. Over the past few winters it has gotten progressively more difficult to get a quorum. Over half the group now winters in Florida - but not me. So, it was with great interest that I viewed this weather prediction chart:
Enjoy yourselves.
source via
On the Paris climate conference, or..................
.............Why multilateral negotiation is so difficult
"What world leaders have actually signed us up to is: voluntary emission limits with no enforcement mechanism, voluntary progress reviews and voluntary contributions to a trillion-dollar green climate fund. Nothing is binding except that each country must resubmit its voluntary national goal every five years and even that does not apply to the G77 developing nations."
"World leaders essentially solved the problem of where to go to dinner by changing the topic of conversation to how much they would all like to go to dinner. On this they were all triumphantly agreed. For the poor people of the world, the vagueness of the Paris agreement is good news: it means development can continue, making them less vulnerable to all harms, including weather. Those who think climate change is a huge threat should be worried, but those of us who think climate change is not such a big threat should still be concerned about just how bad the world would be at responding when a really big collective-action problem comes along: mega-volcano, alien invasion, etc."
as excerpted from this Matt Ridley post
Monday, December 21, 2015
So, I was reading...................
......................my Emerson, and came across this passage:
The most attractive class of people are those who are powerful obliquely, and not by the direct stroke: men of genius, but not yet accredited: one gets the cheer of their light, without paying too great a tax. Theirs is the beauty of the bird, or the morning light, and not of art. In the thought of genius there is always a surprise; and the moral sentiment is well called "the newness," for it is never other; as new to the oldest intelligence as to the young child, — "the kingdom that cometh without observation."
I think he is describing the bloggers that I have the good fortune to follow. Thank you all!
Dreaming.................................
“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.”
-George Carlin (added bonus: Carlin's rant on "The American Dream" here)
“I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night — there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.”
-Marilyn Monroe
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
-Hamlet, as channeled by William Shakespeare
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
-T. E. Lawrence
“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
-Bob Dylan
Dreaming, continued.........................
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden, from the chapter Conclusion
Ed. Note: Page for page, Walden has to be one of the all-time most quotable books. And to think, you can own it for free by following the link to Amazon (and having Kindle). We live in a most bounteous universe.
Speaking of..............................
..........................................................Susan Boyle and dreams
Susan Boyle..............................................I Dreamed A Dream
Fifty years ago..............................
The Ventures................................................Blue Christmas
It's beginning................................
.........................................................to look a lot like Christmas
Sunday, December 20, 2015
A twofer.............................
Pentatonix.............................Joy To The World/Hark the Herald
A good question.....................
If you can’t work yourself into a nice and foolish frenzy in college, what’s the point of being 19 years old?
So asks this The American Interest post.
Our old friend Marcus Tullius Cicero seems to agree:
"For 'tis a Truth but too well known, that Rashness attends Youth, as Prudence does Old Age."
Fifty years ago...........................
Johnny Mathis.............................................A Christmas Medley
Self-financing...........................
........................................................a campaign is pretty easy when you are willing to say about anything to generate free media coverage. But, will that be enough to win a national election? Here is a voice that reasons probably not:
Jenkins thinks that DT will not be able to stay the course:
We could be wrong but the Trump effort is probably self-liquidating. Expect a glorious, “I’ve got better things to do than hang around with you losers” exit just about the time he would have to start spending real money to keep going.
Never forget..........................
The world around us is uneven, unfair and yes, absolutely, over-the-top amazing.
-Seth Godin, as extracted from here
The headline reads......................
2015: The Best Year in History for the Average Human Being
While life its ownself isn't perfect (and wasn't designed to be so), it is always a good thing to honor exactly how far we have come. Back story here.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
It's not the years, it's the miles..........
Keith Richards.....................................Run Rudolph Run
hear the inner voice of love..............
I once saw a stonecutter remove great pieces from a huge rock on which he was working. In my imagination I thought, That rock must be hurting terribly. Why does this man wound the rock so much? But as I looked longer, I saw the figure of a graceful dancer emerge gradually from the stone.
I have spent a good deal of my life building a stone wall of protection around my heart. Now, when I actually hear the truth about my hardness of heart, it seems as though one of the stones is being taken out of my protective wall. This wounds me and makes me frightened and angry. It's a big struggle. But I'm trying to be more aware and less fearful in the process. "Don't be so afraid," I hear the inner voice of love say to me. "Recognize everything in your life as a gift, and consciously give thanks. Make more room for joy in your life. Let the stones be taken away, and be grateful. Go beyond your comfort zone, and trust. Have courage, open yourself to your heart's deeper desires, and let the wall fall down. Open yourself , and allow me to remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
-Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of The Spirit
God love...............................
.....................................................................us pesky humans.
Autonews reports that programmers working on driverless cars have found that having made them perfectly law-abiding, unable to commit traffic infractions, the result is that they have double the accident rate of driven cars, as they cannot cope with the anarchic driving of humans.
More of the story here
Fifty years ago......................
Andy Williams..........................Do You Hear What I Hear?
So I was trying to decipher..............
.....................the "placemat" when the thought occurred: It sure would be interesting to see a study ten years from now on the employment histories of the Harvard (et. al.) graduating classes of 2016 and 2017.
Speaking of studies.................
.........................I'm hoping some free-thinking economist type will complete a thorough examination of the impacts, both positive and negative, of the government providing 99 weeks of unemployment benefits back in the 2009-2011 era.
As a follow-up to that, a study on the employment history of those under thirty years of age who availed themselves upon the 99 weeks of benefits might be interesting as well.
Just curious.
From the High Doganate..............
Another idea, for our beloved southern neighbours. The winning candidate should choose a regnal name upon becoming President, such as “Abraham II” or “George IV” or “John V” or “James VII.”
-David Warren
Unexpectedly, this doesn't seem all that outlandish.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Follow the star...............................
Pentatonix......................................................The First Noel
All I want for Christmas...........................
..............................is for the Sensory Dispensary and the View From the Ledge to resume their blogging ways.
Fifty years ago.........................
At the toy store..........................................................
Ouch................................
Spengler, an ex-neocon himself, disses the "neocons"................
Every ideology has a use-by date and you're long past yours. Henry Kissinger did great service to this country by opening relations to China, a necessary if not sufficient condition for winning the Cold War. But Kissinger couldn't see past the dull calculus of detente, while Reagan foresaw unconditional American victory over Communism--and without you neocons, he never could have done it. You made a Gargantuan error, though, when you assumed that the Reagan Revolution could be exported to the Middle East, Russia and China, and you misplayed the strongest hand that any world power ever held. America went from only-hyperpower status when George W. Bush took office to a playing second fiddle to Vladimir Putin today.
Full essay here.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Fifty years ago..........................
The Ray Conniff Singers......It Came Upon The Midnight Clear
a deep reverence for the enigma of life....
Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is this the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search for ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest. As with all life, this is a paradox, for his irreverence is rooted in a deep reverence for the enigma of life, and an incessant search for its meaning.
-Saul Alinsky, as extracted from here
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Seems unlikely at this point.......
George Strait.................................................White Christmas
Santayana...............................
A few quotes from George Santayana:
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.
Fifty years ago...........................
The Ventures...................................................Frosty the Snowman
As we said before........................
..........................we have been concerned more with the prospects for deflation than inflation. An essay on the mystery of the "missing inflation" here. Be careful what you wish for.
Since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, inflation expectations have sunk. “I talk to a wide range of business contacts, and virtually none of them are mentioning rising inflationary or cost pressures,” Mr. Evans said. “No one is planning for higher inflation. My contacts just don’t expect it.”
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Am I the only one who....................................
......................................doesn't like being told what to say?
Hmmm.....................................
All definitions of words, like everything else, are relative. Definition is to a major degree dependent upon your partisan position. Your leader is always flexible, he has pride in the dignity of his cause, he is unflinching, sincere, an ingenious tactician fighting the good fight. To the opposition he is unprincipled and will go whichever way the wind blows, his arrogance is masked by a fake humility, he is dogmatically stubborn, a hypocrite, unscrupulous and unethical, and he will do anything to win; he is leading the forces of evil. To one side he is a demigod, to the other a demagogue.
-Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
Still talking taxes.....................................
The only answer on her website is to “close loopholes” to make up the lost revenue. This is an interesting example of closing loopholes to pay for other loopholes. But I suppose one person’s “loophole” is another person’s thoughtfully crafted tax benefit? Also, “closing loopholes” is what one always says when one needs a cop-out answer.
-The Banker, as excerpted from here
Monday, December 14, 2015
Nippin'..................................
Francis Sinatra.......................................The Christmas Song
On digestion.............................
"Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life undergoing a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experience when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized."
-Saul Alinsky
On time................................
When we experience time as chronos (chronology), the events of our life are nothing more than randomly connected series of incidents and accidents over which we have no control. Time has become opaque, dark, and impenetrable. We cannot see through to the underlying coherence of our story. Disappointments, unemployment, material loss, sickness, and death are experienced as meaningless disruptions to be denied and avoided if possible. When time is only chronos, we don't have time to do all the things we need to do, and our schedule is a burden. Time is running out, and time is exhausting. There is no time for friendship, for blessing, for celebration.
Time needs to be converted from chronos to kairos - an opportunity for a change of heart. The spiritual life is a formation process in which time slowly loses its opaqueness and becomes transparent. To start seeing that the many events of our day, week, or year are not obstacles to a full and meaningful life, but the way to it, is a real experience of conversion. Once we discover that writing letters, attending classes, visiting friends, cooking food, and even doing the dishes are not a series of random activities but contain within themselves the transforming power of re-creation, we move from time lived as chronos to time lived as kairos (right time, the real moment, the opportunity for change, the chance of a lifetime). When our time becomes kairos, endless new possibilities an opportunities open up to our vision.
-Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Formation
Fifty years ago..............................
The Beatles.............................................the Christmas Record
Opening paragraphs...............
My name is Sebastian Rudd, and though I am a well-known street lawyer, you will not see my name on billboards, or bus benches, or screaming at you from the yellow pages. I don't pay to be seen on television, though I am often there. My name is not listed in any phone book. I do not maintain a traditional office. I carry a gun, legally, because my name and face tend to attract attention from the type of people who carry guns and don't mind using them. I live alone, usually sleep alone, and do not posses the patience and understanding necessary to maintain friendships. The law is my life, always consuming and occasionally fulfilling. I wouldn't call it a "jealous mistress" as some forgotten person once so famously did. It's more like an overbearing wife who controls the checkbook. There's no way out.
-John Grisham, Rogue Lawyer
An act....................................
"So let’s ditch the zero-sum mentality and remember that an entrepreneur who makes something that was once a preserve of the rich cheaply available to ordinary people has done an act of philanthropy through his business, even if he also makes a fortune in the process."
-Matt Ridley, as extracted from this post on Mark Zuckerberg and philanthropy
So..............................
"They arrived at Buenos Ayres. Cunegonde, Captain Candide and the old woman went to call on the governor, Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza. This gentleman had the pride befitting a man who owned so many names. He talked to men with a most noble disdain, turning his nose up so far, raising his voice so pitilessly, assuming so imposing a tone, affecting so lofty a carriage, that all who addressed him were tempted to give him a thrashing."
-Voltaire, Candide
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Let's get away..............................
Jimmy Buffett.................................................Christmas Island
Well...............................
"If there were no best among all possible worlds, God would not have created one."
-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Chapter One............................
In the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia there lived a youth, endowed by Nature with the most gentle character. His face was the expression of his soul. His judgment was quite honest and he was extremely simple-minded; and this was the reason, I think, that he was named Candide. Old servants in the house suspected that he was the son of the Baron's sister and a decent honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom this young lady would never marry because he could only prove seventy-one quarterings and the rest of his genealogical tree was lost, owning to the injuries of time. The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle possessed a door and windows. His Great Hall was even decorated with a piece of tapestry. The dogs in his stable-yards formed a pack of hounds when necessary; his grooms were his huntsmen; the village curate was his Grand Almoner. They all called him "My Lord," and laughed heartily at his stories. The Baroness weighted about three hundred and fifty pounds, was therefore greatly respected, and did the honors of the house with a dignity which rendered her still more respectable. Her daughter Cunegonde, aged seventeen, was rosy-cheeked, fresh, plump and tempting. The Baron's son appeared in every respect worthy of his father. The tutor Pangloss was the oracle of the house, and little Candide followed his lessons with all the candor of his age and character. Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology. He proved admirably that there is not effect without a cause and that in this best of all possible worlds, My Lord the Baron's castle was the best of castles and his wife the best of all possible Baronesses. "'Tis demonstrated," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise; for, since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all the year round; consequently, those who have asserted that all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best." Candide listened attentively and believe innocently; for he thought Mademoiselle Cunegonde extremely beautiful, although he was never bold enough to tell her so. He decided that after the happiness of being born Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the second degree of happiness was to be Mademoiselle Cunegonde; the third, to see her every day; and the fourth to listen to Doctor Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the province and therefore of the whole world. One day when Cunegonde was walking near the castle, in a little wood which was called The Park, she observed Doctor Pangloss in the bushes, giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-maid, a very pretty and docile brunette. Mademoiselle Cunegonde had a great inclination for science and watched breathlessly the reiterated experiments she witnessed; she observed clearly the Doctor's sufficient reason, the effects and the causes, and returned home very much excited, pensive, filled with the desire of learning, reflecting that she might be the sufficient reason of young Candide and that he might be hers. On her way back to the castle she met Candide and blushed; Candide also blushed. She bade him good-morning in a hesitating voice; Candide replied without knowing what he was saying. Next day, when they left the table after dinner, Cunegonde and Candide found themselves behind a screen; Cunegonde dropped her handkerchief, Candide picked it up; she innocently held his hand; the young man innocently kissed the young lady's hand with remarkable vivacity, tenderness and grace; their lips met, their eyes sparkled, their knees trembled, their hands wandered. Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh passed near the screen, and observing this cause and effect, expelled Candide from the castle by kicking him in the backside frequently and hard. Cunegonde swooned; when she recovered her senses, the Baroness slapped her in the face; and all was in consternation in the noblest and most agreeable of all possible castles.
-Voltaire, Candide
Still work to be done.................
Once upon a time in Paris, in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, there lived a young boy whom nature had endowed with the quickest of wits and the most wilful of dispositions. His soul - if he had one - was written upon his countenance. He was quite sound in his judgment, and he had the most straightforward of minds. His family nicknamed him Zozo: he later called himself Voltaire. While he believed in God Almighty, he none the less considered that there was still work to be done. 'God created man free,' he wrote at the age of seventy-three, 'and that is what I have become.' This is the story of his extraordinary life, the story of a search for freedom.
Zozo was probably a bastard. Like Candide, the hero of his most famous work. Officially little Francois-Marie was born in Paris on Sunday, 21 November 1694, the second surviving son of Francois Arouet, a lawyer, and his wife Marie-Marguerite )nee Daumard). Unofficially - but according to Voltaire himself, on several occasions - he entered the best of all possible worlds on Friday, 20 February 1694, the son of the chevalier Guerin de Rochebrune (or Roquebrune) a writer of popular songs. This was certainly his preferred paternal origin, and he defended his mother's honour by claiming that it lay in her preference for 'a man of wit and intelligence' - 'a musketeer, officer, and author' - over 'Monsieur his father who, in the matter of genius, was a very mediocre man.'
-the opening two paragraphs from Roger Pearson's, Voltaire Almighty: a life in pursuit of freedom
A virtual standing army......................
He correctly points out – as have others before him – that the complexity of an 80,000-page tax code leads to unfairness, cronyism, and the need for a virtual standing army of tax lawyers and accountants. Jeb! cites a study that found the cost of complying with the US tax code reached $168 billion per year in 2010 for individuals and corporations. Which is crazy, and infuriating.
-as culled from this Bankers Anonymous post, wherein he also predicts a Jeb! victory in 2016.
Fifty years ago..................
The Supremes................................Children's Christmas Song
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