Journal Entries
More lawn problems
Posted May 9, 2003
Today I discovered a frog in my lawn while I was mowing. I guess I need to do yard work more often.
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Latest reply: May 9, 2003
SETI@home
Posted Apr 18, 2003
I set up an account over at SETI@home. It's a lark. It's a neat idea. Probably pointless, but you never know. It gives my computer a hobby for when I'm away from it. Those long lonely nights showing pictures of scenic beauty to an empty room must be dull.
It's hard to believe that there is not other life in the universe. I think it's a mistake to think that it will be friendly. The nature of life kind suggests that any life that we find will be aggressive. I rely on the hope that interstellar war is too unprofitable to engage if we ever are discovered by someone else.
I also joined the h2g2 Researchers group.[http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_31737.html]
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Latest reply: Apr 18, 2003
Tax Day
Posted Apr 15, 2003
Today is April 15th. In the United States, that means you have to file and pay your taxes for the prior year.
In 2002, we made just shy of $75,000, and our bill for the federal government is just shy of $10,000. We're paying 13% of our income to the federal government, and that doesn't even include, Social Security ($5,200) and Medicare ($1,150) payroll taxes, and state income taxes ($3,600). These income based taxes alone eat up over 25% of what we earn. That doesn't include the money our employers have to match for the payroll taxes. If it wasn't for that, we'd get the $5,200 and $1150 that our employers have to give over to the federal government.
Then there's other taxes: property tax on our home, sales tax on everything we buy, ad valorum on our cars, all kinds of federal, state and local taxes on our cable and telephone bills, taxes on our gas for our cars, sin taxes on our alcohol that more than double the price of a drink. The list goes on. In the end, the government takes nearly 50% of what Americans earn.
It's frustrating. I understand the need for many government services. I've worked for the government most of my adult life.
But Why do they hide so many taxes so that people don't realize what they're paying? Why do these taxes have to be so complicated? I made a fairly simple mistake on Schedule C of form 1040 when I was listing my self-employment income. That mistake would have cost well over $1000 in taxes.
Then we're deceptive about who collects taxes for what. The federal government gives the states and local governments a huge amount of money. They provide federal highway dollars for roads, grants for special programs, etc. Why can't the states or local governments raise their own money for these programs? They have the power to do it. I've even see local governments say that they paid for programs with federal grants, thus saving the taxpayers money. Bull, they just took money from a different set of books.
I think we need to take a careful look at what we spend our tax money on and how we collect it.
Here are some things I think are worth trying:
The national retail sales tax (http://www.fairtax.org/). It would give us one place to pay for our federal government. It's simple and honest.
Make the government figure out our taxes for us. The IRS checks our taxes already. In 1996, we screwed up our taxes, and the IRS sent us a check for the money that we overpaid. They receive all the W-2's and 1099's so they know how much our employers and banks pay us. We could pay our taxes through a payroll tax like Social Security. This would make deductions hard to handle, but if we had fewer deductions, then our tax rate could be lower. The only one I'd even consider keeping would be the mortgage interest for a home you live in. It would be had to set up a system to refund that.
Those are my thoughts on this day.
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Latest reply: Apr 15, 2003
Ashamed to be an American
Posted Apr 15, 2003
Today was the first time I have ever been ashamed to be an American.
I work in a jail. In some of the blocks, the inmates have rooms with three walls. The fourth side is open, so we can see in. I was in tower where we watch the inmate blocks.
I was watching an officer who was supervising some inmates cleaning their walls, when the neighboring block started making a bunch of noise. One inmate was imitating a siren, and I looked over at him casually, and didn't think much of it. Then I saw several inmates running out of one of the 'rooms' and one inmate chasing them. He was throwing papers at them.
I called the other officer and we went into the block. I asked the inmate who had been making siren noises what they were doing, and he said that they were, "Bombing Baghdad." The inmate who had just chased the other inmates out of his room looked like he could have been Arab.
The guy, who looked like he was Arab, was an American citizen who was originally from the Philippines. He offered to let him move, but he declined.
I don't moralize to inmates. I'm a law enforcement officer; I'm not a preacher, a judge, a jury, or anything like that. I almost never raise my voice. These guys drove me to far. I yelled at the inmates in the block. I said something like:
This is America. We're not supposed to do things like this. We're supposed to be better than that. That man is an American citizen, and he's from the Philippines. You idiots can't even get your racism right. You're supposed to work against us, not each other. I'm embarrassed and ashamed of you.
There was also a lot of cussing.
I realize that these people are idiots, or they wouldn't be in jail. If they weren't scum, they wouldn't commit crimes where there wasn't any bond, or someone would put up their bond, if they had one, so they could get out. This was lower than I expected of them.
This is supposed to be a country where we are judged on individual merits, and not group identity. I shouldn't be advanced at my job because I'm white. I shouldn't get into college because I'm black. I should make it on my own.
Seeing these guys tease the other inmate because of his facial features pissed me off. What's worse, they were too stupid to realize that he was from the wrong background.
I couldn't believe I witnessed something like that in the United States.
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Latest reply: Apr 15, 2003
Visiting the Georgia Coast
Posted Apr 11, 2003
Yesterday, Bev and I came back from a trip to the Georgia Coast.
On Sunday, we left out for a trip to the coast. We took Bev's Sebring. While we were driving, I started calling around to places to stay along the coast. After several misses, I found a room at Epworth-by-the-Sea, a Methodist retreat on St. Simmon's Island. Fortunately, they let non-Methodists there.
We stopped for gas somewhere on I-16. After that, we took state highways through southeast Georgia. We took the top down and off we went.
We went through Fort Stewart, Georgia. I was stationed there with 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor in the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) from 1989 to 1991 [which has since been reflagged as the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized)]. When I was there, it was an open post. Now it's a closed base, and we were stopped by the MPs. After we gave them our IDs, they let us on base.
The offices my company from 3/69 Armor were still there, even though the unit is deployed in the country that can not be named. I went over to my barracks. They've been converted into apartments for soldiers. I guess things have changed since I was in. We tried to go by the Ft. Stewart museum. I really wanted to see it, since it used to be a coastal artillery training base, and I have a fascination with coastal artillery.
We stopped at a place along the road for dinner called Captain Joe's. It was really good. They had generous portions, that weren't really necessary after the salad bar, which was wonderful.
We drove through a town called Darien, the second city in Georgia. They were just packing everything up after a three day 'Blessing of the Fleet.' We took some pictures and walked around. According to Off the Beaten Path in Georgia, there's a tour on Sapelo Island. You have to buy tickets for at Darien, Georgia. Unfortunately, the vistor's center was closed.
After dinner, we went on to the retreat. After we checked in, we went driving on the island. The residential areas of the island have a lot of very very nice homes. It was dark, so we could hardly see them, but what we could see we liked.
On Monday, we went to Jekyll Island. It was a resort for the extremely rich from the 1880s to 1942 back before Florida was a really developed. Now it's owned by the state. We drove around a bit. Then we took a trolley tour of the old resort area. We walked around a bit.
In the afternoon, we drove back to St. Simmons. We went to Fort Frederica. It's a national monument now. Back then it was a fort that was set up by Oglethorpe to protect the new colony of Georgia from the Spanish. It's almost totally gone, a victim of it's own success. After Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Bloody Marsh. The colony no longer needed the Fort, which decline swiftly.
Then we drove around the island in daylight. We went to the lighthouse and visited the beach. Then the rain came, and it poured.
On Tuesday, we went to Fort Pulaski in Savannah. It was a Civil War era fort. It is a very well preserved masonry fort. It was built so well, that there are still no cracks in the fort due to settling. There are still holes in the walls from the when the federals shelled it. In fact, there are still a couple of shells. The fort fell after thirty hours thanks to the new rifled cannons that the Union had. The defeat of Fort Pulaski meant that masonry forts were obsolete.
We went down to River Street. Bev wanted to take a tour. We didn't. We wanted to get to the Darien Welcome Center before it closed. We wound up walking around a bit and heading back down south when the rain started.
In Darien, the lady in the visitor's center said that there was a new visitor's center just for Sapelo Island. We walked through the downpour to find out they were all booked up. We still read all about the island and the Gauche culture on the island.
On Wednesday, we went to Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation Historic Site. We toured the old rice plantation that was held by one family 1807 through 1973.
Then we came home for a birthday celebration of a friend of ours that was held over at Johnny's [A694550].
It was a good trip with a lot of fun. The convertible is a great way to travel. We had a great time. It would have been nice if there wasn't so much rain.
We talked about things we wanted to do. We both listed living on the coast as one of our top things. If I ever get picked up as a fed, most of my training will take place down at FLETC [A827561] in Brunswick.
I'm pretty contented with life right now. As contented as I can ever recall, although we spent too much money on the trip. Life is good.
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Latest reply: Apr 11, 2003
Two Bit Trigger Pumping Moron
Researcher U35376
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