The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. -Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)
Pfizer, one of America's largest pharmaceutical companies, is in talks to acquire Ireland's Allergan and cease being a U.S.-based company. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer CEO Ian Read was "unapologetic about his desire to reduce Pfizer's tax rate, saying Thursday that U.S. corporate tax rates have put the company at a disadvantage with its foreign rivals."
Our 35% corporate rate (39.1% including state taxes) is the highest of any industrialized nation and third highest in the world.
Only Chad and the United Arab Emirates levy higher tax rates on corporations.
Pfizer, one of America's largest pharmaceutical companies, is in talks to acquire Ireland's Allergan and cease being a U.S.-based company. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer CEO Ian Read was "unapologetic about his desire to reduce Pfizer's tax rate, saying Thursday that U.S. corporate tax rates have put the company at a disadvantage with its foreign rivals."
Our 35% corporate rate (39.1% including state taxes) is the highest of any industrialized nation and third highest in the world.
Only Chad and the United Arab Emirates levy higher tax rates on corporations.
Is there anybody who does not think such a situation will cause a reaction in those affected.
A book called "Mudslingers" by Kevin Swint reports that, something like 65 years ago, a politician attacked his campaign opponent as an "extrovert" with a "homo sapiens" brother and a "thespian" sister. The point seems to have been to appeal to ugly prejudices of voters who were sufficiently uneducated to know what the words meant. And apparently some voters didn't.
Who is....Norman Borlaug?
Mt Everest: 29,029 feet. More than 5,000 people have climbed Everest and 219 have died trying. About 77 percent of those ascents have been accomplished since 2000. In 2007, a record number of 633 ascents were recorded. Mount Everest has two main climbing routes, the southeast ridge from Nepal and the north ridge from Tibet. Today, the southeast ridge route, which is technically easier, is more frequently used.
The northern approach was discovered in 1921 by George Mallory during the British Reconnaissance Expedition, which was an exploratory expedition, not intended to attempt the summit. Mallory was famously, perhaps apocryphally, quoted as answering the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the reply "Because it's there."
Mariana Trench is the deepest point on earth's surface, this trench lies in Pacific Ocean, at Challenger Deep. Located at a depth of about 10.91 km or 11,033 meter below sea level, deeper than Everest is high.
The northern approach was discovered in 1921 by George Mallory during the British Reconnaissance Expedition, which was an exploratory expedition, not intended to attempt the summit. Mallory was famously, perhaps apocryphally, quoted as answering the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the reply "Because it's there."
Mariana Trench is the deepest point on earth's surface, this trench lies in Pacific Ocean, at Challenger Deep. Located at a depth of about 10.91 km or 11,033 meter below sea level, deeper than Everest is high.
Minimum wage legislation has a twisted history. For example, there is debate over the effect of such laws on low wage earners. Yet it is generally agreed upon that the Davis-Bacon Act-the first federal minimum-wage law-was passed in part to prevent southern black workers from taking construction jobs from unionized white workers up north, that is to limit employment opportunities by lower wage competitors.
Desultory: adj:1. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark. 2. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation. ety: Desultory finds its roots in the Latin word dēsultor, a term referring to a circus rider who jumps from one horse to another. It entered English in the mid-1500s.
Here's a creepy sign. Pension advances are complex products that offer retirees a lump-sum cash advance in exchange for all, or part, of their future pension payments. Consumer groups say they are pitched disproportionately to retired military members and federal retirees. Future Income Payments is just one of the companies that offer such products. In a 2014 report, the Government Accountability Office identified 38 companies that had recently offered pension advances. At least 30 of the 38 companies were affiliated with one another in some way, sharing a parent company, a broker or another business relationship. One company offers you an advance on your pension then charges you over 500% interest on the advance.
Good news. The world is falling apart but the two democrat candidates for president have declared their opposition to high ATM fees. The Rube-publicans probably have a plan they will probably discuss later, maybe.
The Antikythera mechanism is not an isolated miracle. One of the most prolific inventors of Hellenistic times was Ctesibius of Alexandria who lived during the 3rd century BC. He worked on pneumatics and hydraulics. The 'Ctesibius pump' is a hand-operated pressure pump that used air pressure to raise water within a system of two cylinders, then forcing it out. The pump worked with levers moved from the outside: the levers were connected with non-return valves (pistons) that sealed perfectly at the inside of each cylinder. On the upstroke, vacuum and suction of the water were produced; on the downstroke, water was sent up through the second pipe, causing its continuous outflow with force.This was, exactly, the principle on which 18th-century double water pumps were based. These principles led to a hydraulic pipe-organ and "Hero's engine," an actual steam engine that was used in Alexandria--I believe it could open and close doors.
Golden oldie:
The general lesson is that if some part of government fails in its function, it will most likely be given greater funding and power. Of course, the purpose of this is not to reward failure; the thinking would be that more money and power will enable the agency to solve the problem. But the effect is that government grows when social problems grow, and thus it is not in the government's interests to solve society's problems.--Michael Huemer
Sunday evening on October 30, 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy "Charlie McCarthy" on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. So they missed the introduction to the CBS program that started at 8. It went: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells." The story of the invasion from Mars started as interruptions in a regular sounding evening music show. Perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed that a real Martian invasion was underway. Panic broke out across the country. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn't see their lights.
Changes in the tax laws have encouraged people to report income as personal rather than corporate income. Their incomes haven't really changed; it just looks to policymakers like they have.
In 1325, Ibn Battuta embarked on an extraordinary 75,000-mile (120,675-km) journey via Mecca to Egypt, East Africa, India, and China. He set out at age 21 and returned home some 30 years later. No other medieval traveler is known to have journeyed so extensively. The details of his travels are recorded in a narrative titled The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. His inventions and academic work are also renowned. His writings, translated of course, are a bit mundane bit this is what he wrote of the Plague of 1348 (he was in Damascus during a fast proclaimed to protect the city from the plague): "They then returned to the city and held the Friday service, and God lightened their affliction; for the number of deaths in a single day at Damascus did not attain two thousand, while in Cairo and Old Cairo it reached the figure of twenty-four thousand a day."
Norman Borlaug - a man whose name is barely known - used genetic engineering to help make wheat sturdier and more resistant to disease, thereby affording far more to eat and counteracting famine in developing countries. It is said he saved as many as a billion lives.
According to the study, by University of Chicago researchers Bruce Meyer and Nikolas Mittag, survey respondents in deep poverty reported only 52 percent of government resources they received. Considering all people in poverty, survey data captured only 46 percent of government assistance. The implication was that poverty researchers - who often recalculate the poverty rate to include income from programs that the official metric ignores - have been reporting bad numbers.
Affect and effect: Most of the time, you'll want affect as a verb meaning to influence something and effect for the something that was influenced. A trick is to remember that affect comes first alphabetically, and an action (to affect) has to occur before you can have a result (an effect).
AAaaaaaannnnnddddd.... a picture of the crowd climbing Everest in 2013:
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