We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
Congress has waived the time limit to award the Medal of Honor for another three heroes. The President will soon issue the Medals, each for amazing and tremendous service far above and way beyond the call of duty.
Here is my feeble tribute to these incredible men.
1st Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing
Lt Cushing, West Point class of 1961 (oops) 1861, stood his ground at the battle of Gettysburg. Continue reading “Congressional Medal of Honor approved and soon to be awarded for three amazing heroes”
Debut appearance of the cover, hot off the digital press:
My newest book is in the last stages of editing. Hope to move into conversion to e-book format soon. Will be released in the next couple of weeks.
As you may know if you browse my other blogs, I’ve been following the story of Scott London closely on Attestation Update. Mr. London was the partner at international accounting firm KPMG in charge of the audit practice for the southwest region of the U.S.
He was caught passing inside information to his golf buddy. When confronted, he quickly confessed and plead guilty. He received a fourteen month jail sentence and is now a prison inmate at the Taft Correctional Institution.
You can now read of his journey from the lofty world of senior leadership to prison inmate in this book. The dozens of blog posts covering the story have been combined in chronological order instead of being spread all over the blog in reverse chronology. The posts have been edited slightly and the sequence changed a bit.
Available soon
The story of Mr. London’s fall will soon be available on your phone, e-reader, tablet, or other reading platform of choice. Will be available at the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes stores.
Print copy will be available at Amazon soon after the electronic version is published.
Louis Zamperini passed away today at age 97.
He survived 47 days in the water after getting shot down only to survive years of torture in a Japanese prison camp. He rebuilt his life on a foundation of faith in Jesus Christ. His story is such an encouragement to me.
I had the privilege to meet him about 15 years ago. Only visited for a moment, but do recall he was such a vibrant man, filled with life.
Continue reading “We lost another hero today – Louie Zamperini”
Iraq seems to have blown up in the last week or so. Is it really necessary to say I don’t have a clue what is happening? To see what give me a vague, fuzzy hint of something that looks like a clue, check out…
6/16 – American Interest – The Middle East and Beyond – Iraq: What a Way To Go – Adam Garfinkel provides deep background on how Iraq came into being and helps sort out the mess that is happening now.
Continue reading “Mali and Central Africa Republic update (and Iraq) – 6/17”
Those who have paid attention to the massive spying effort of the feds have learned how to parse corporate denials. Comments like We have never knowingly participated in program ‘AbuseOurCustomersTrust’, could mean one of three things:
All of which means the company was telling the technical truth while fully cooperating with the specified program and saying they didn’t.
Shall we apply this parsing ability to a denial from the UPS about shipping packages to the NSA for hacking?
Background
It has long been known that California is heavily dependent on a ‘soak the rich’ strategy for collecting personal income tax. An article from Capital Journal reprinted in the LA Times (assuming I’m reading the byline correctly) explains the success of soaking some while advocating a change in strategy: Broaden the tax base to ease disproportionate dependence on the rich.
Here’s some info from the article that shows the state’s dependence on ‘the rich.’
Continue reading “Dependence on ‘the rich’ in California tax collections”
A few updates on the conflicts in Mali and Central Africa Republic.
Mali
3/22 – Economist – Hurry up, or it’ll be too late – Continue reading “Mali and Central Africa Republic update – 5/6/14”
Sergeant Chip Saunders’ World War II exploits were chronicled in a 1960s television series, Combat!!, a reality show decades ahead of its time. The documentary series is available at Amazon here and here. A generation of youth grew up following tales of his experiences. Many of his peers found reward in hearing of his journey across Europe.
After he withdrew from public life for a season, this blogger is pleased to report that Sgt. Saunders is still at work, doing a little double dipping to increase his pension when he eventually retires.
Where is he now?
He keeps a low profile, but is currently a supervisor in the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. I was able to track him down after a recent PR piece from the Richmond Fed unintentionally gave me a hint of his location. I can now confirm that formerly Sgt. Saunders is now a Lieutenant supervising a Quick Reaction Force in the Richmond Fed’s Law Enforcement Unit.
He continues to use a trusty, battle-proven .45 caliber automatic rifle as his personal weapon as he again leads a squad protecting American national resources.
Tracking down the WWII hero
Here’s the clue followed to track down Lt. Saunders: Vintage Thompson Machine Gun. The Richmond Fed has two of the trustworthy Thompsons in the Law Enforcement Unit’s inventory.
Here is my eleventh list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a paragraph. One new perspective is maybe we should fully embrace the surveillance society and push the boundaries out further. Hmm.
2/25 – Schneier on Security – Breaking Up the NSA – Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 3-28-14”
You read that right. 37% and 2%.
Over a third of individual taxes are paid on tax returns in the top 1% of filers and 2% paid by the bottom half combined.
That’s according to IRS stats from 2009. Here’s the graph from the IRS’ Individual Income Tax Rates and Shares, 2009:
This is the third post in a series based on an article from the Canada Free Press dated 1-18-14: Hard Times Hit Large Scale Solar Energy.
The first post here summarized why solar farms are in trouble generally and described the extensive subsidies that supported them. The second post here described more of the environmental harm generated at one solar farm. This final part got bumped by the opening of the big facility near the Nevada border.
Solar plants used to be quite lucrative financially.
Solar plants used to be quite the money-maker, what with unwilling demand from customers created by regulators, big federal tax credits realized before construction, and huge loan guarantees.
From the article Continue reading “Financial results for wing-toasters and future prospects, part 3 – solar #11”
Not much news to mention on Mali, which is probably a reflection on my attentiveness. Sad news continues to come out of CAR.
Mali
12-7 – Economist – Taken down a peg – Behind the indictment and pending trial of the captain who led the coup leading to the current instability, the Economist staff see continuing political turmoil and institutional weakness. It does show, to the writer, that the new president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, is in control.
(Photo by James Ulvog)
Previous post highlighted financial info about solar farms I learned from an article in the Canada Free Press dated 1-18-14: Hard Times Hit Large Scale Solar Energy.
This post describes new info I learned about the environmental damage from the Ivanpah solar farm.
Next post will paint a picture of how I’m guessing one solar farm was financed and discuss the prospects for future thermal farms.
Environmental harm
The article linked above goes into detail on the environmental damage from the Ivanpah project I’ve discussed before.
Melted wings
I’ve been wanting to find some financial info for the operations of a solar farm.
Wow, did I hit the jackpot with an article from the Canada Free Press dated 1-18-14: Hard Times Hit Large Scale Solar Energy.
I will extract some of the financial tidbits and reorganize them.
Here’s the summary reason (broken into bullet points) why solar power plants aren’t getting built very fast:
Solar companies are going out of business because solar power is not economic without large government subsidies and incentives;
projects are being canceled because of lack of financing;
saving threatened or endangered species, such as the desert tortoise, is costing solar developers dearly; and
once built, solar developers are having difficulty in negotiating agreements to sell their power to utilities because solar power requires higher rates than what utilities pay for power from traditional energy sources.
General relationship of electricity costs
Continue reading “Financial results not looking good for wing-toasters, part 1 – solar #7”
