Corrections and Amplifications February 21, 2003January 22, 2017 MASSIVE URLs If you ever have massive URL’s that you need to put in an email . . . but worry the email program will break the URL thus rendering it useless . . . sorry about the link yesterday. Try this one: makeashorterlink.com. NINETY-NINE Bob Fyfe: ‘The one two-digit number divisible by 9 that doesn’t add up to 9 is 99 (adds to 18). To be 100% correct, the digits of all numbers divisible by 9 sum to a number also divisible by 9 (not necessarily 9 itself). Same is true for divisibility by 3.’ Jim Kozma: ‘I think it’s even neater that the reverse is true: All numbers whose digits (recursively) add up to 9 are divisible by 9. So 111111111 must be divisible by 9, and voila, it is: 12345679*9=111111111. Or how about 123456789? 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9=45 and 4+5=9, so 123456789 is also divisible by 9.’ ☞ Why do I start these threads?! NOISEBUSTERS Michael Burns: ‘The ‘Jensen Noisebusters’ part of the quote you have for me yesterday is incorrect. The Jensen headphones are different from the Noisebusters headphones. Two different companies, although both go for about $40.’ TAX PREPARERS ON PARADE Le Moore: ‘You talked about two things in your February 16 PARADE article [unfortunately not linkable] that I felt needed to be addressed: First, you said ‘many tax preparers type your information into the very same software packages you could type it into yourself.’ Do you realize that most tax professionals don’t just use TurboTax or other off-the-shelf software to prepare tax returns? My husband is a CPA and we purchase the professional version of TurboTax (it is called ProSeries) made by Intuit. This program usually costs several thousand dollars EACH YEAR, and it is MUCH more than TurboTax. Many times the tax programs people buy off the shelf have an ‘interview’ process. If a person has something unusual going on with their tax situation, or if a they have heard of some ‘new’ tax law that they think applies to them, then many times they end up guessing during the interview process, or just putting information where they ‘think’ it needs to go. Some of these self-prepared returns we have seen are done so poorly it is no wonder that these people end up coming to us when the IRS sends them a letter with questions about the return. The software ‘interview’ process does NOT take the place of an experienced tax professional asking probing questions that might result in additional deductions the client overlooked because he opted to go the cheaper route, or suggestions very specific to the taxpayer to consider for their next year’s return (i.e., doubling up real estate taxes in order to itemize every other year). Many times it is the people with the less complicated returns that need to ask us questions while we are preparing their taxes about things they might be considering and wanting to know how it will affect their taxes next year (i.e. buying a house, going back to college, looking for another job, unreimbursed employee business expenses, office in the home, etc.). ‘Also, the software programs that people purchase to do their own returns seem to be lacking tremendously when a problem is encountered (i.e., e-filing and the return is rejected – the standard answer given by the IRS in many cases can be misleading and confusing [surprise] and it has taken us many years of ‘fixing’ problems in order to QUICKLY help when a problem occurs.) There are many situations we have had to correct and prepare amended tax returns when the client decides to ‘do it themselves.’ Granted there are many returns that are the same each year and perhaps those people could do their returns with no difficulty. But, they need to remember that in general, they are going to get what they pay for. It is important that they remember that they have just forfeited the right to have a professional looking out for their best interests. ‘Additionally, I would like to point out that there are a lot of people who think that everyone who prepares taxes is a CPA. Our office is in Texas, and anyone who decides to prepare taxes can do so with no training, or supervision, or having to answer to anyone regarding their ability to prepare taxes. We end up helping a lot of people with tax problems after their tax preparer drops out of sight and there is absolutely no recourse that these people have against the missing tax preparer.’ ☞ So maybe my admonition in PARADE to ‘beware professional tax preparers’ was not entirely unjustified, but what I was aiming at with that caveat was the tendency to push Refund Anticipation Loans . . . and, in some H&R Block offices, then charging an additional $50 or $75 to cash H&R Block’s own Refund Anticipation Loan check. I.e., you are a low-income person who comes in with a simple return. Of your, say, $900 refund, H&R Block takes a tax preparation fee, a fee for getting you that $900 a couple of weeks early, and a fee for cashing its own check. It adds up. Le continues: ‘The second thing I wanted to bring up is the other side to the expensive Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL) situation. When my husband and I started our tax office over 10 years ago we offered RALs only because the competition was doing so and clients were asking for them. However, we made every effort to discourage people from doing these because of the extremely high interest rate, and we continue to do so. We have also discovered over the years that most of the people who do these RALs are claiming the Earned Income Credit (EIC) as you mentioned in your article. What seems to happen in almost every case is that these people consider the EIC as ‘free’ money since they are getting back so much more then they had paid in federal withholding. I can’t tell you the number of times we have tried to talk these people into waiting for their money by explaining to them about the high short term interest rate, only to hear them say something like: ‘Well, it’s only about $100 or so – that’s not so much, and I really want my money tomorrow.’ ‘We feel that we are here to help people from being ripped off by trying to keep our prices reasonable. There have been many times we have had people tell us of very outrageous prices being charged for these RALs. In light of these facts, we have begun to feel that we should CONTINUE to offer these products to provide a reasonable alternative to the companies out there who continue to push these products for unreasonable. I don’t think that the RAL program is going to go away anytime in the near future, so perhaps you should attempt to direct your thoughts on what people should be looking out for if they are absolutely determined to get a RAL. It is important for them to call around and check prices, or ask someone they know to refer them to a reputable company before just walking into a tax office. Please consider both sides of this issue and not just the fact that the fees are so high. Sometimes these people are really desperate and unfortunately they are really counting on getting this money in 24 hours or so.’
Trizonality Or . . . Wrestling With the Marriage Wrecker February 20, 2003February 22, 2017 The truth is, I got to playing Scrabble with my computer and managed one of my best scores ever, 501 to its 301, with only one questionable word. (OK, I lucked out with both blanks, which makes it almost impossible to lose, but still – for me, 501 is really good.) I assume you have no problem with WRECKER, MARRIAGE, or WRESTLER, each of which brought me the 50-point bonus. TRIZONAL I admit was a stretch; but the computer allows BIZONAL so, I ask you, why not TRIZONAL? Gallia in tres partes divisa est, after all. Not to mention the three zones we may wind up with in Iraq. So the dog came nowhere near my home work – they probably don’t even allow dogs here at the Hyatt (sadly, I am paying the ‘discounted convention rate,’ which is about double what I could have gotten an equally good room for via Priceline.com, but I have to be where everybody else is) – but I just blew off my responsibilities for Scrabble. Yes, well, even so, at this late hour, as I towel off from the Scrabble, I suppose I can find time to pass on a link or two. RACY CALCULATIONS Responding to the set of calculators linked to yesterday, one of you suggested this on-line calculator. DO NOT GO THERE IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 OR EASILY OFFENDED. But leave the sound on your computer if you are not. Or, if YOU are cool with this but your better half is more upright, listen through your earphones. EARPHONES Richard: ‘The best headphones for airplane use appear to be the Etymotic ER-4P‘s. They are in the ear canal phones, like the Sony’s you mention, but much better sound. Reportedly isolate well enough that you don’t hear anything other than the music. About $270. I don’t own a pair, but spend more time than I should browsing.’ Michael J. Burns: ‘A friend and I did a side-by-side comparison between his Bose (about $300) and my Jensen Noisebusters that I paid $39.95 for last Fall. The Bose were cushier, but from a noise reduction standpoint they sounded indistinguishable. The Noisebusters had a greater noise reduction spec in its noise reduction band, while the Bose had a larger noise reduction bandwidth. But the impression of everyone who tried them was that the overall noise reduction was pretty much the same. This review compares the $300 Bose to the $40 Noisebusters. This one compares the $100 Brookstone to the $300 Bose and $40 Noisebusters. The Jensen ones are $39.95. Also, Sennheiser makes anti-noise reduction (ANR) headphones for $97.95. Brookstone‘s offering goes for $99. ‘ MASSIVE URLs ‘Also,’ writes Michael on a completely unrelated note, ‘if you ever have massive URL’s that you need to put in an email . . . but worry the email program will break the URL thus rendering it useless . . . this free service is worth knowing about.” NINE Richard Stubbe: ‘You write: ‘Spookier still, all 2-digit numbers divisible by 9 add up to 9 – the 2 + 7 in 27 = 9.’ Actually, the digits of all numbers divisible by 9 add up to 9, not just the two-digit numbers. One of the many cool things about numbers.’ I’VE CHANGED MY E-MAIL ADDRESS As noted yesterday . . . I have change the Me-Mail address this site links to. So if some of you have captured the old e-mail address (andytobias@aol.com), please delete it – I will not be checking it. Instead, please just click Me-Mail, at top right, as before. Thanks.
Handy On-Line Financial Calculators February 19, 2003February 22, 2017 DINKYTOWN.NET Paul Lowry: ‘Here’s a helpful site for doing calculations for lots of financial decision making.’ ☞ I think some of you may want to play with, and bookmark, this one. PCG – ‘NEVER MIND’ A little while back, I wrote that one of the very smartest guys I know, who really does his homework, thinks PCG – then $13.75, now about $1 less – expects it to be $21 or $22 in a couple of years. He could very well be right. But I ran into one of the other very smartest guys I know, mentioned this stock symbol, and was told he had read a very thoughtful bearish analysis of the stock and was considering shorting it. Ain’t that annoying. So, with apologies, I now withdraw my suggestion, as I no longer feel as confident as before. I’VE CHANGED MY E-MAIL ADDRESS Spammed silly, I have change the Me-Mail address this site links to. So if some of you have captured the old e-mail address (andytobias@aol.com), please delete it – I will not be checking it. Instead, please just click Me-Mail, at top right, as before. Thanks. OUR DEFT DIPLOMATIC TOUCH Molly’s take.
Insane, But in a Good Way February 18, 2003January 22, 2017 IT’S A . . . MIRACLE! Cheryl Crumley: ‘How does this work??? It’s impossible!!!’ ☞ Hardly. (See below if you don’t figure it out.) ILLEGAL TO SELL YOUR CD’S IF YOU’VE KEPT COPIES Chris McMahon: ‘He has 750 cd’s?! Good grief, that’s a lot. That reminds me of your column on the kings of old and how our lifestyles today are better for even the most common man. An ancient king would be able to command a live production every evening if he wished, but it would only be one type of music. Here you have access to 750 different kinds, day or night, and you can fit it in the palm of your hand and listen to it without bothering the person next to you [the queen].’ Dan Pritts: ‘Re: the Nomad Jukebox 3 post: (1) Anyone shopping for such a gadget MUST check the Apple iPod. (2) MP3 files are not ‘perfect digital copies’ of the original CDs. They use what is known as ‘lossy’ compression to squeeze the size of the files – this lowers the overall quality. It is a tradeoff between quality and size.’ Andrew Krieg: ‘A lossless compression requires approximately 10 Mb of storage per minute of music. If an average CD were just 40 minutes in length, only 100 ‘perfect’ copies would fit on 40 Gb hard drive. MP3s are great for travel or listening to at work, but I would never replace my CDs (or LPs) with lossy MP3s.’ Andrea Marcucci (and many others): ‘Your reader wrote: ‘When I finish my CD-ripping project, I will have a perfect digital copy of my entire music collection on my hard drive. Upon completion, I plan to sell the original CDs (probably to the local used CD store) for $3-4 each.’ Good plan, except that it’s illegal. You can’t copy copyrighted material and sell it, regardless of whether you sell the copy or the original. I believe current law allows you to make a copy of a video, lp, cd, or tape for personal use or to give away, but you may not profit from it.’ ☞ I should have thought to point that out. Thanks to the many of you who wrote to arouse me from my stupor. AND SPEAKING OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT I still owe you a column with your good feedback. But if I don’t get to it, here’s at least one point of agreement with those of you who disagree with my support of the copyright extension: After a less-than-interminable period of time, copyrights should expire unless they are actively renewed. Maybe there would be a small renewal fee. But even without it, just requiring that some paperwork be filled out would likely return the great bulk of copyrighted material back to the public domain. INSANE – BUT IN A GOOD WAY Wayne Arczynski: ‘I know you are somewhat of an aficionado of Frequent Flyer programs and wanted to point you to this site: flyertalk.com. These folks are insane, but in a good way. The forums show ways to creatively generate all sorts of miles, including mileage runs. I had never heard of this before, but it appears some folks travel with five or so connections to maximize their miles on discounted fares. Here is one example: DCA-MSP-LAX-AMS-LIS . . . LIS-AMS-LAX-DTW-MSP. Fare: $362. Total miles: 19,000 before bonuses.’ ☞ Pavlov was right. BUT DOES IT HAVE AN AIRPORT? Turner Jones: ‘I always liked Scarce Grease, Alabama – especially when I am on a diet. It’s listed on mapquest.com.’ IT’S A . . . MIRACLE! Cheryl Crumley: ‘How does this work??? It’s impossible!!!’ ☞ OK, it’s not a miracle. All two-digit numbers, when you do this little operation (adding the digits together and then subtracting that from the number you started with) work out to a multiple of nine. Take 31: 3 + 1 = 4, and 4 subtracted from 31 = 27, and 27 is divisible by 9. (Spookier still, all 2-digit numbers divisible by 9 add up to 9 – the 2 + 7 in 27 = 9.) Notice that both the crystal ball AND the symbols beside the numbers divisible by 9 change in lockstep together each time you click. The crystal ball knows that any number you choose will work out to a multiple of 9. So the site is programmed to have multiples of nine and the ball always in synch. The first time you use 31, it might produce a smiley face – as does the crystal ball. But click again and it rotates to a different symbol – as does the crystal ball.
Taxation Without Representation (And Scupidity) February 14, 2003February 22, 2017 Columnist Bob Herbert in yesterday’s New York Times: ‘Everywhere you turn, support programs for the poor, the ill, the disabled and the elderly are under attack. Children’s services are being battered. As Mr. Bush smiles and talks about compassion, funding for programs large and small is being squeezed, cut back, eliminated.’ Like cutting out after-school programs for 500,000 kids. ‘Mr. Bush has proposed cuts in juvenile delinquency programs, public housing assistance, children’s health insurance and on and on. He’s even undermined the funding for his own highly touted school reform program, the No Child Left Behind Act,’ writes Herbert. We are entering a period of massive budget deficits – the kind that used to worry Eisenhower and Rockefeller Republicans, but that are seen by today’s Republican leadership as a way to ease undue burdens on the rich and shrink government services for everyone else. Reader Mike Broderick: ‘We are taking Social Security taxes (paid overwhelmingly by lower and middle-class working people) and using them to finance our deficit spree. It’s a good bet that the upper class beneficiaries of this raid on the Social Security Trust Fund won’t be willing to pay taxes to make Social Security payments when the money is needed starting in 2025 or so. The deficits caused by Bush’s current and proposed tax cuts will definitely impact most of us then.’ That’s an interesting way of looking at it: We are taking Social Security taxes (paid overwhelmingly by lower and middle-class working people) and using them to finance our deficit spree. That Social Security ‘lock box’ candidate Bush pledged to protect? He is instead raiding it to slash taxes for the best off. According to estimates by the Bloomberg News Service, President Bush himself will save $44,500 a year if his current tax proposal is enacted. Vice President Cheney will save $327,000 a year. The Clinton/Gore slogan, was: Save Social Security First. Don’t squander the surplus. The unspoken Bush/Cheney slogan is: Save the Rich from Their Crushing Tax Burden. Candidate Bush promised over and over we could do it all: Protect Social Security, provide prescription drug benefits, build up the military, slash taxes for those who were already doing best. A near plurality of the voters took him at his word, and a Republican Supreme Court put him over the top. Yet now we face what could easily be half-trillion dollar annual budget deficits. The justification is that by ‘letting people keep more of their own money,’ the economy will get a boost that will create jobs. Dick Cheney will hire 10 more butlers and maids. Or he’ll buy 10 new American-made cars each year, or 500 refrigerators. Or he’ll start a new business from an undisclosed location. Whatever he does with the money, runs the reasoning, will be better than employing people to run after-school programs for at-risk kids. (It’s less clear what the five principal heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune will do with the estimated $197 million in tax savings they would reap each year if the tax on dividends is eliminated. To make up the revenue, we could always just cancel more programs for kids, or go that much deeper into debt.) The Bush plan is to rack up huge deficits now and let future generations worry about shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare, and the consequences of under-funding care for millions of at-risk kids. James Carville calls this taxation without representation. The people who will bear the cost are too young to vote or not yet alive. Spread the word. [And speaking of words, here’s one: SCUPIDITY – Forgetting to wish your loved one a Happy Valentine. Don’t be scupid!]
Molly’s Bose Earphones in Lizard Lick, Iraq February 13, 2003February 22, 2017 TYSON CHICKEN QUESTION Duane Sheets: ‘So anything that feels pain we shouldn’t eat? There are whackos who think plants feel pain. Why don’t all the humans just die and leave the planet alone?’ ☞ That would be one extreme. The opposite extreme would be to say torturing animals is completely acceptable. Is there perhaps a sensible, moral middle ground? PLACES, EVERYONE Dan Albro: ‘I always liked “Lizard Lick, NC.” BOSE HEADPHONES (again) Joshua Stevens: ‘I fly over 100,000 miles per year and I swear by Bose. I’ve been one of the first to invest in their noise-canceling headphones about four years ago. The sound is both quiet and excellent. Their customer service is also outstanding. Twice I’ve had an issue involving the foam around the ear pieces coming unglued, each time I returned to the local Bose store and they simply exchanged the phones for a brand new pair! ‘Recently, I invested another $350 in my other ultimate travel gadget, the Nomad Jukebox 3 MP3 player from Creative Labs. It features a 40GB hard drive that will hold over 15,000 songs! (Memory chip based MP3 players are so passé.) I am now 75% through the process of ripping the 750 CDs in my collection into MP3 format (2-3 minutes per CD with a Pentium 4 and a 48x CD-ROM drive). The Nomad 3 is the exact same size as a portable CD Player Walkman, weighing in at 11 ounces and has rechargeable batteries good for 22 hours of play time. It also fits perfectly in the Bose headphone case. More importantly, when I finish my CD-ripping project, I will have a perfect digital copy of my entire music collection on my hard drive. Upon completion, I plan to sell the original CDs (probably to the local used CD store) for $3-4 each. This should raise $2,500… more than enough to pay for the Bose headphones, the MP3 player and my Pentium 4 computer! If I had invested my $350 in risky stocks 4 years ago it might be worth only $100 today.’ [Well, maybe, but selling CD’s once you’ve copied them and kept the copies is illegal.] ATTACK IRAQ? Michael Axelrod: ‘For a carefully reasoned case for invading Iraq, see The Threatening Storm by Kenneth Pollack. After considering a number of options, the author reluctantly concludes that the least dangerous course of action is to invade Iraq without further delay. Pollack was a CIA analyst specializing in Iraq. He explains why ‘containment’ won’t work. Adlai E. Stevenson III presents more or less the standard left-of-center case for not invading Iraq. Some of his assertions are just flat-out wrong, such as: ‘Even top officials at the Central Intelligence Agency have acknowledged that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction are only a threat if Iraq is attacked.’ Pollack discusses this very point at length, and in depth. It’s a very dangerous assumption.’ MOLLY ON BEATING TAXES She writes (in part): ‘What is it with rich people that 60 percent of a $100 million is not enough? What kind of sickness is that? You make $100 million on stock options, do you honestly think you earned it? Did you work 10,000 times harder than a guy who gets $10,000 a year for digging ditches? Even a thousand times harder? A hundred? Ten? It is no secret that the ultimate goal of the conservative movement in this country is to get rid of the IRS and the progressive income tax entirely. The right-wing foundations have been talking about it for years. It is genuinely difficult to understand the level of greed and venality that would make someone think everyone else should pay taxes on what they make, but that he doesn’t have to . . . ‘ ☞ It is a grand time to be rich and powerful in America.
All Ears February 11, 2003February 22, 2017 BOSE VS SONY In an uncharacteristically loose moment last year I blew $350 on Bose noise-canceling headphones designed for use on airplanes. Air is rushing past at 600mph and people are chattering, but you are floating in your own private SurroundSound. Three problems. First, that same sum invested in just the right succession of stocks, compounding at 25% a year, grows to $2.6 million in 40 years – and the headphones surely won’t last half that long. Second, the headphones, in their leather case, take up half your carry-on bag. Indeed, you may have to check them as excess baggage. Third, if you manage somehow to get bumped up to business class on a long flight – the only kind of flight that would justify this elaborate audio enhancement in the first place – you will find that many airlines lend you their Bose headphones. But the real killer is that for $38 (when discounted) you can get SONY MDR-EX70LP earphones that fit so well, they do almost the same job. And they’re much more practical for jogging. You can still hear the bus before it runs you over, but unlike the typical earphones that come with a Walkman, they don’t fall out of your ears. A perfect accessory for your audible.com MP3 player. (My thanks to Walter Mossberg, whose Wall Street Journal techno column many of us swear by. He recommended these a few months ago, and he was right.) UPGRADING YOUR MEMORY And speaking of the MP3 player that I got with my Audible . . . I bought a tiny 256MB chip that fits brainlessly into a slot and quintuples my memory. Now, instead of one or two books I can store enough listening material for an entire summer’s vacation. TEMPO-NUMEROLOGY David Kelly: ‘It occurred to me that on March 3 of this year at 3:03:03 am (and pm), the date and time will be 03-03-03 03:03:03. This should happen progressively through the year 2012 (12-12-12 12:12:12).’ ☞ Not only should it; I would be highly concerned if it did not.
Iraq: Pro and Con February 10, 2003February 22, 2017 But first . . . Jerry Garrett: ‘I was surprised to see Tightwad, Missouri, missing from YOUR list of places. Population around 50, in Henry County. Back in the years before all the bank consolidations, the local bank had a disproportionate number of customers because people wanted their checks to show that they banked at the Bank of Tightwad.’ And now . . . ADLAI STEVENSON III’s CASE AGAINST WAR In case you missed this powerful piece in Friday’s New York Times, click here. MATT MILLER’S CASE FOR IT CAN FRANCE BE SERIOUS? By Matthew Miller Even though the French foreign minister’s response to Colin Powell was scripted in advance of Powell’s presentation at the United Nations on Wednesday, the divergence in worldviews and resolve couldn’t have been more striking. It’s hard not to think we’re at a seminal moment in which the world is dividing into those who would appease Saddam and those who would act. Call it a choice between decadence and determination. Powell, in his usual commanding fashion, inventoried the many ways in which Iraq is flouting its obligation to disarm. As it has for a dozen years As most people expected would be the case. But this process has been necessary and edifying. In the face of facts that no serious person can deny – that Hussein has no intent of disarming and is trying to string out the process in the same rope-a-dope that defectors have told us has allowed him to continue his deadly course for a decade – the French plan of ‘action’ was shocking. ‘Further strengthening of inspections,’ said France. ‘Decisive reinforcing of the means of inspection.’ Why, let’s really turn the screws, the French foreign minister said, and double, or even triple, the number of inspectors. France stands ready … to send observation aircraft. The French insist on a clear ‘timeframe’ and ‘regular follow-up.’ ‘Regular follow-up’? Saddam must laugh himself silly when he watches this on CNN. There is a serious case for waiting on war, and an unserious case. ‘Regular follow-up’ as a strategy for disarming Iraq is an unserious case. Opposing the use of force in all contexts – while a legitimate (if misguided) view for individuals to hold – is not, in my view, a serious case in a dangerous world. Neither is the related discomfort with and distrust of the exercise of American power, which accounts for a fair portion of domestic opposition to our current course. The fact that U.S. power has been misused before does not mean that it always is – or that in the world after 9/11 we should therefore shrink from acting. America is uniquely strong; we are, for all our flaws, a force for good in the world; and at this moment in history, there are times and causes where American leadership is indispensable. As fiercely as I oppose President Bush on domestic policy, I simply can’t understand Americans – and there seem to be millions of them – who sincerely believe that George Bush is a greater threat to the world than Saddam Hussein. I’ve asked this question and received this answer in conversation recently, and it surpasses what I hope are my reasonable efforts to empathize with my fellow man. These people aren’t living in the world I see after 9/11. The serious case for waiting on war is that there are always unintended consequences to military action and that war is a bloody, costly affair. But Iraq, like all such decisions, has always involved weighing the risks of action versus the risks of inaction. It is incumbent on all who criticize the president’s course to imagine themselves in the Oval Office after Sept. 11. Imagine that we try a renewed ‘containment’ approach with inspectors, the same scheme that let Saddam, we now know, amass myriad chemical and biological weapons and pursue his nuclear ambitions. Then imagine waking up one day a few years hence to Saddam announcing he has a nuclear weapon. The next day he invades Kuwait again and announces his plans to control the Saudi oil fields – and with them, 25 percent of the world’s energy supply. If you were in the Oval Office contemplating this scenario after 9/11, which side would you err on? The risks of action – or of inaction? It’s fair to slam President Bush for not leading a serious quest for alternative energy sources and oil independence. It’s also fair to slam him for not fully explaining – yet – the commitment America would need to make to reconstruct Iraq in the aftermath of invasion. But if you were our first post-9/11 president, would you feel you had done your duty to the nation by risking, through inaction, the scenario I described above? The kind of scenario that every serious analyst – including Bill Clinton and Al Gore – thinks will one day come to pass if we let Saddam stay in place? We know France is not serious. Soon enough we’ll know whether the United Nations is. Columnist Matt Miller is a senior fellow at Occidental College in Los Angeles and host of ‘Left, Right & Center’ on KCRW-FM in Los Angeles.
Dam – Toad Suck is a DAM! February 7, 2003February 22, 2017 Rob Bullock: ‘You missed one of my favorites – and not because it is in my home state – French Lick, IN 47432 (home of Larry Bird).’ K. Siembieda: ‘I can’t believe you missed central Pennsylvanians’ favorite – Intercourse, PA – in the midst of Amish country … go figure.’ Michael Roth: ‘You missed Hell, Michigan.’ Michael LeBoeuf: ‘Cut N Shoot, Texas.’ Larry Taylor: ‘Fifty-Six is in Arkansas, not Arizona, and does have a zip: 72533. (The zip for Forty-Four is 72535.) Toad Suck is not a place, it is a dam and a bridge and a former ferry. Also we seem to have a little of the Middle East in Arkansas: Damascus, AR 72039 Palestine, AR 72372 Jerusalem, AR 72080 Egypt, AR 72427 Jordan, AR 72548 Goshen, AR 72735 Zion, AR 72589 . . . and our most famous for this time of year, Romance, AR 72136.’ John Padavic: ‘I bought Tivo (the machine, not the stock) on your recommendation, and it’s amazing. It changes the way you live!’ ☞ Yes. I am certain about the machine; less certain about the stock. Dave Rockafellow (really? cool name if real) offers this link to some sober-sided Morgan Stanley economic analysis. I’d like to think it’s wrong, but my hunch is that we are headed for truly gargantuan deficits. We’ll muddle through, of course; but most of us will be the poorer for it. (Maybe not the five principal Wal-Mart heirs, who would save several hundred million dollars a year in taxes on their dividends, but most of us.)