Category: random

There are more problems at the Internal Revenue Service than the fact that the agency is targeting political and religious groups. This one has to do with the report, “Substantial Changes Are Needed to the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number Program to Detect Fraudulent Applications.”

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says the IRS sent more than $18 million in tax refunds to the same address in three separate California cities in 2011. They include Oxnard, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in San José,where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, where the IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.

Meanwhile, two other California cities have been found to be some of the most often used addresses on Individual Taxpayer Identification Number applications in the nation. They are Orange, with 8,361 people and Los Angeles, with 8,337 people. Finally, an address in Thermal received 95 tax returns, for a total of $402, 274 in refund, with 67 people register to the address.

California isn’t the only state with multiple ITIN’s and addresses. The report shows there are a total of 154 addresses across the U.S. appearing on more than a thousand ITIN applications submitted to the IRS in 2011.

Metadata is more revealing than you’d think, that’s because voice content is hard to process. The National Security Agency could quickly drown itself, if it had too much voice content.

Not a bad idea, but I digress.

On the other hand, metadata and computer analysis are perfect for each other. And the more metadata, the better the analysis.

Metadata is information about who we are and the relationships between us. Collecting all the records of everyone in the U.S is like a map filled with push-pins and string showing who we’re connected too, how, why, where and why.

For example: You call your doctor and talk to him or her for five minutes, and then you call your local pharmacy and speak with the clerk for two minutes. Next you get in your vehicle and go to the pharmacy, and using your debit card pay for a tube of Valacyclovir.

Those three events, though seemingly benign, are now recorded.

A computer can analyze who you called, for how long, where you went, what you bought, how much you paid and it extrapolates — you have a disease. The information is then targeted and routed to the Internal Revenue Service and downloaded into your medical records.

By the way, the medicine you bought — Valacyclovir is an antiviral medicine used to treat genital herpes.  Jus’ what you want your friendly, neighborhood IRS agent to know.

It comes down to behavior patterns and groupings, and that makes it more insidious than actually having someone eavesdrop on our most intimate conversations. If you hold to the “six-degrees of separation” theory, you are only six mouse-clicks away from a terrorist.

On the upside, you’re also six people away from knowing Kevin Bacon, too.

A former NSA analyst and Bush-era whistleblower says the intelligence community ‘hoovered metadata’ on a range of people, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats. Russ Tice also made another allegation.

“They went after judges,” Tice says. “One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand.”

Add to this, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who believes Supreme Court Justice John Roberts changed his vote on Obamacare because of intimidation.  Lee admits he has “no evidence” anyone wiretapped Roberts.

“The opinion was written in a way to suggest he switched his vote,” says Lee.

Roberts wrote the court’s majority opinion in favor of the Affordable Care Act. His opinion came as a surprise to many when he declared the law constitutional on the grounds that it is a tax, and therefore falls within the powers of the federal government.

J. Edgar Vacuum Cleaner, would be proud.

The State of Nevada Department of Public Safety’s Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security received a federal grant recently from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for more than $3-million. This is an increase over last year’s total by nearly $700,000.

The funding is to help enhance authorities in the preparation, prevention, and response to terrorist attacks and other disasters. It also keeps the State of Nevada and its citizens tied to the Federal Government’s apron strings.

This is jus’ another form of soft tyranny and a further erosion of our civil liberties.

Reno’s Mayor Bob Cashell asked the City Council, to begin drafting regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries, after Governor Sandoval signed legislation last week legalizing them. However, the Council voted to wait before determining where dispensaries are to be located.

Furthermore, the council also voted to do more research and drafting before proposing any regulations. They need figure out how they will comply with the new state law that allows Washoe County 10 dispensaries, but no more than 25 percent in a single jurisdiction.

This must be killing Reno’s  RINO-in-Chief.  It was two years ago, at the height of Nevada’s economic recession, that Cashell declared a personal moratorium on allowing anymore tattoo parlors, liquor stores or pawn shops in the downtown district, saying he and his wife believed them to be a blight on the city.

I love God’s sense of humor.

We were in 3rd Grade at Margaret Keating School when Mrs. Damm told us how man came to have fire. While I don’t recall the tale word-for-word, I have cobbled several versions of the story together, recreating what was passed down to us…

Coyote had no need for fire. So he seldom concerned himself with it, until one spring day when he was passing a human village.

There the women were singing a song of mourning for the babies and the old ones who had died in the winter. Their voices moaned like the wind prickling the hairs on Coyote’s neck.

“Feel how the sun is now warm on our backs,” one of the men was saying. “Feel how it warms the earth and makes these stones hot to the touch. If only we could have had a small piece of the sun in our teepees during the winter.”

Coyote, overhearing this, felt sorry for the men and women. He also felt that there was something he could do to help them.

He knew of a faraway mountain-top where the three Fire Beings lived. These Beings kept fire to themselves, guarding it carefully for fear that man might somehow acquire it and become as strong as they.

Coyote saw that he could do a good turn for man at the cost of these selfish Fire Beings. So Coyote went to the mountain of the Fire Beings and crept to its top, to watch the way that the Beings guarded their fire.

As he came near, the Beings leaped to their feet and gazed searchingly round their camp. Their eyes glinted like bloodstones, and their hands were clawed like the talons of the great black vulture.

“What’s that? What’s that I hear?” hissed one of the Beings.

“A thief, skulking in the bushes!” screeched another.

The third looked more closely, and saw Coyote. But he had gone to the mountain-top on all fours, so the Being thought she saw only an ordinary coyote slinking among the trees.

“It is no one, it is nothing!” she cried, and the other two looked where she pointed and saw only a grey coyote.

They sat down again by their fire and paid Coyote no more attention. So he watched all day and night as the Fire Beings guarded their fire.

He saw how they fed it pine cones and dry branches from the trees. He also saw how, at night, the Beings took turns to sit by the fire.

Two would sleep while one was on guard; and at certain times the Being by the fire would get up and go into their teepee, and another would come out to sit by the fire.

Coyote saw that the Beings were always jealously watchful of their fire except during one part of the day. That was in the earliest morning, when the first winds of dawn arose on the mountains.

Then the Being by the fire would hurry, shivering, into the teepee calling, “Sister, sister, go out and watch the fire.” But the next Being would always be slow to go out for her turn.

Coyote waited through the day, and watched as night fell and two of the Beings went off to the teepee to sleep. He watched as they changed over at certain times all the night long, until at last the dawn winds rose.

Then the Being on guard called, “Sister, sister, get up and watch the fire.”

And the Being whose turn it was climbed slow and sleepy from her bed, saying, “Yes, yes, I am coming. Do not shout so.”

But before she could come out of the teepee, Coyote lunged from the bushes, snatched up a glowing portion of fire, and sprang away down the mountainside.

Screaming, the Fire Beings flew after him. Swift as Coyote ran, they caught up with him, and one of them reached out a clutching hand. Her fingers touched only the tip of the tail, but the touch was enough to turn the hairs white, and coyote tail-tips are white still.

Coyote shouted, and flung the fire away from him. But the others of the People had gathered at the mountain’s foot, in case they were needed.

Squirrel saw the fire falling, and caught it, putting it on her back and fleeing away through the tree-tops. The fire scorched her back so painfully that her tail curled up and back, as squirrels’ tails still do today.

The Fire Beings then pursued Squirrel, who threw the fire to Chipmunk. Chattering with fear, Chipmunk stood still as if rooted until the Beings were almost upon her. Then, as she turned to run, one Being clawed at her, tearing down the length of her back and leaving three stripes that are to be seen on chipmunks’ backs even today.

Chipmunk threw the fire to Frog, and the Beings turned towards him. One of the Beings grasped his tail, but Frog gave a mighty leap and tore himself free, leaving his tail behind in the Being’s hand, which is why frogs have had no tails ever since.

As the Beings came after him again, Frog flung the fire on to Wood. And Wood swallowed it.

The Fire Beings gathered round, but they did not know how to get the fire out of Wood. They promised it gifts, sang to it and shouted at it.

They twisted it and struck it and tore it with their knives. But Wood did not give up the fire.

In the end, defeated, the Beings went back to their mountain-top and left the People alone.

But Coyote knew how to get fire out of Wood. And he went to the village of men and showed them the trick of rubbing two dry sticks together, and the trick of spinning a sharpened stick in a hole made in another piece of wood.

So man was from then on warm and safe through the killing cold of winter thanks to Coyote.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an education plan designed to bring each U.S. state’s curricula into alignment with each other nationwide. This sounds very Progressive and worse yet — 45 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense  have adopted the standards.

Admittedly, I am not an overly smart man, but even with a college degree, I have no clear idea what those standards are, and judging from the website corestandards.org, they have no clear picture either.

“Building on the excellent foundation of standards states have laid, the Common Core State Standards are the first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education. It should be clear to every student, parent, and teacher what the standards of success are in every school.

Teachers, parents and community leaders have all weighed in to help create the Common Core State Standards. The standards clearly communicate what is expected of students at each grade level. This will allow our teachers to be better equipped to know exactly what they need to help students learn and establish individualized benchmarks for them. The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them.

With students, parents and teachers all on the same page and working together for shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from school prepared to succeed in college and in a modern workforce.”

Huh?

It boils down to this: Common Core is ‘a one-size-fits-all’ program and the one question you need to ask yourself: Is this good for my child?

I’m betting not.

What sort of stupid moron’s are you Californian’s electing as state lawmakers? I’ll enlighten you.

From CSN News:

“A proposed law introduced in the California State legislature would allow public school children to use bathrooms designated for members of the opposite sex, if that students’ “gender identity” differed from the students biological sex.

Assembly Bill 1266 introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who represents a portion of the city of San Francisco would:

“…require that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s record.”

While the bill does not specifically mention restrooms, restrooms and locker rooms are generally considered to be part of the “facilities” in schools throughout the country. The bill would apparently also require that biological males be permitted to try out for, and play on, girls’ sports teams if they identify themselves as females.”

Imagine how happy you’ll be when your 14-year-old daughter is sharing a shower with a 17-year-old boy after Phys. Ed. class.

Goldfield was the site on September 2^nd, 1906 of a lightweight championship fight that lasted 42 rounds. It featured Joe Gans and Oscar “Battling” Nelson.

The fight started about three that afternoon, and temperatures in the boomtown soared past 100 degrees. The two battled long and hard, but, finally, in the 42nd round, Nelson was disqualified for a low blow to Gans, who was declared the winner.

It’s interesting to note that no matter whom won, Gans, who was black, was to earn $11,000 while Nelson, who was white, was to receive $22,500, even though Gans was favored two to one. When the pair fought again two years later Gans lost by a knockout.

“I was born in the city of Baltimore in the year 1874, and it might be well to state at this time that my right name is Joseph Gant, not Gans,” he told reporters. “However, when I became an object of newspaper publicity, some reporter made a mistake and my name appeared as Joe Gans, and as Joe Gans it remained ever since.”

Gans started boxing professionally about 1891 in Baltimore and quit in 1900 with an eye cut in the twelfth round of the world lightweight title bout against champion Frank Erne. In their rematch two years later, Gans knocked Erne out in one round to recapture the lightweight title.

He died in August 1910, of tuberculosis and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Baltimore. His monument is maintained by the International Boxing Commission and sits jus’ to the left of the main entrance of the cemetery.

Ernest Hemingway would later used Joe Gans’ character in his 1916 short story “A Matter of Color.” This early story set the stage for Hemingway’s famous 1927 parable “The Killers.”

Thanks to the news agency Reuters, we have now have a good idea what country leads the world in requesting data from Internet, cell phone and other techie companies. At 30,128 requests in 2012, the U.S. made more twice the requests by the United Kingdom, number two country on the list of ten.

“Even if they can listen in, that doesn’t mean they are,” says a friend.  “Most of our conversations are really not that interesting to anyone but us and sometimes not even then.”

Fair enough, but what makes all this National Security Agency eavesdropping so frightening to me is while you might not have anything to hide, talking with someone who does could get you caught up in the NSA’s dragnet. And like it or not, you are subject to being treated as a criminal too, though you’ve done nothing wrong.

It appears, “We the People,” are far more transparent and trusting that our Federal Government.