The Professor's Notes

I wanted to take a few minutes and point out that Adam S Baldwin, actor, is also a blogger.  But not just any blogger.  He writes thoughtful, well argued pieces discussing politics, religion, and the human condition.  He does not write the usual “Hollywood blather” that would lead one to say “look at me I am___.”  He writes pointed critiques that challenge the status quo and the human condition.

His writing seems to make us say, instead “Look at yourself…. what are you?”

I am pleased that I have come across his blog (a direct result of his strong defense of Brit Hume against the attacks of those who seem to hate Christians, and Christianity.)  I would encourage any of you that want to be challenged in your thinking, whether you disagree or agree with his positions, to read him regularly.

Just yesterday an impromptu discussion in taxation and representation occured over at Community College Dean’s blog.  Apparently “anonymous‘s” comment was “uncalled for” when anonymous (in response to the question about including tax-payers in selecting a college’s Board of Trustees) suggested that taxpayer has less of a say than does the voter (and I would agree, these two concepts are not synonymous!)

Having just made made my estimated tax payment (late, yet again, I know…) was reading through the IRS 1040 ES tax pamphlet, and came across a list of list of expiring tax benefits.  I have (using the power of the Jing Project!) excerpted from that document that list:

Why would I list this?  Well, I find it quite interesting that, as part of the Democrats efforts to eliminate Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” they are letting these evil tax cuts die.  You know the ones..  That credit for encouraging energy efficiency?  Oh, and that pesky credit for research (darn those tax-evading scientists!)¹

Interestingly, despite his obvious leftist leanings, Dean Dad hasn’t commented on the expiration of the tax benefit called “Tuition and fees deduction.”  He also hasn’t commented on the loss of the educator deduction from the AGI.  I wonder why?

So my question for you, dear readers is this:  Why were these tax cuts/benefits evil, and how do they only help the rich?

¹ Interestingly, several of the podcasts I have listened to lately have applauded the Obama election, and talked about the expectation that the floodgates of funding will be swinging wide. Hmm… at the same time that we remove the tax credit for conducting research? Apparently (and I just surmise here) the only “good science” is that which is directly funded by the government.  Ahh, yes, suckling…

For some reason I get a NaturalNews emailed newsletter, full of crack-pot ideas about food, and medications.  I went to read a story about diabetic care INCREASING the risk of death due to heart disease (go read the article.  It actually is quite good, and the conclusion is accurate. There were significant methodological flaws–just not the ones they report.)

What I thought was really interesting was this description about the author:

“Helmut Beierbeck has a science background and a strong interest in all scientific aspects of health, nutrition, medicine, weight loss, or any other topic related to wellness.” (emphasis added)

What does “has a scientific background” mean?  Sounds quite vague to me.  English major who took more than the minimum courses for a BA in LA?  One (or both) parents were scientists? He can spell science?  Knows Bill Nye?

But I suppose I should listen to him.  He has the “Background.”

Reminds me of that old Public Radio show, “Ask Dr Science” where they botch science, but he has cred.  Why? “I have a Master’s Degree–IN SCIENCE!”

The only real difference is, Ask Dr Science is intended to be funny.  NaturalNews just is…

This election year is perhaps more strange than any other (and we have had some STRANGE ones!)  It used to be we would joke about the personalities of the candidates, and they ran on their policy ideas.  This year, they are running on their personalities, and apparently running from their policies!  That said, I want to tackle a couple of the other “strange” things that are happening this time around.

The Democrats have, for a very long time, (read, 4 years) been running around claiming that the Bush Administration, and the Republicans, are running a “politics of fear” only able to be re-elected when the American people are “afraid.”  Well it sure looks to me like the Democrats are doing the same thing.  Oh, they aren’t trying to make us afraid of terrorists.  They are making us fear the economy.  Fear a loss of jobs.  Fear each other.  Take, for instance, this comment from Obama’s acceptance speech:

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.

I am sure you see it.  We should be afraid of what may happen to us if we don’t elect Obama.  In fact, the whole first third of his speech (and of every speech) was designed to instill fear into our hearts.

Hey–I am not saying it isn’t a great style.  It works.  It is a formula for speech-writing that has been shown through the ages to be successful.

It is also a speech designed to highlight one party, and their vision of the future, in comparison to another.  I believe we call that “being partisan.”  I don’t think anyone faults Obama and the Democrats for being partisan.  After all, it was a “Democrat Party Convention” after all.  But what is surprising was the criticism put foward by the Obama camp as read in the Mercury News:

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called the speech “well-delivered, but written by George Bush’s speech writer and sounds exactly like the same divisive partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years.”

Hmm.  partisan attacks?  Let’s see… what could those be?

Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third.

For over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy – give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

The speech goes on and on with these sorts of dichotomies. They (the Republicans) don’t care about, want to hurt you, only want to help their cronies.. but WE (the Democrats) care about you, and are willing to do what it takes to help you.

That, my Fellow Americans. Is partisan divisiveness. Don’t complain that Republicans do that, when you did it the week before.

I have really enjoyed most of the commercials during this year’s Olympics in Beijing.  Creative, touching, and informative.

Take the GE commercials, for instance.  They have laid out clearly, in several commercials, how they are actively engaged in alternative energy projects.  GM touting their lower consumption and hybrid and electric vehicles.  Boeing and their lighter and less fuel consuming aircraft.  The list goes on.

As I see it, they are telling us the things that are already going on. Steps that are being done today, based on research and development conducted for at least the past 8 years (and more likely 20-30 years.)  Clearly, we are seeing today the fruits of labor and investments made in the past decades.

On the other hand, we have Obama’s commercial.  In his commercial (hey, he approved it!) he points out that the hands that do many every day things can also things to put in place alternative energy programs.  Like wind power. Alternative fuel cars.  Solar power. All noble thoughts.  And he is right, our hands can do those things.  In fact, as evidenced by not just the other ads, but our own experience (and the fact that the video used shows locations already doing these things).

So just what will Obama bring to the table? How will he enable our hands? Hmmm?

It seems to me that the Democrats are the ones playing off the fears of the American public.  Not the fear of terrorists, but fear of energy failures.  And they are promising…. um… wait, I had the memo right here…

Oh, yeah. Change.

Now, if we could just hear what that change is, and how it will be different.

I’m still waiting.

I have written previously about the energy policies of the candidates, and I specifically wrote about the proposals from Obama and Clinton to create a “windfall profits” tax.  At the time I pointed out that, when attempted previously, windfall profit taxes failed to achieve their stated goals.

One more thing:  the last time this was done, under Carter, the expected revenues just didn’t materialize.  According to the report published in 2006 by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “The $80 billion in gross revenues generated by the WPT between 1980 and 1988 was significantly less than the $393 billion projected. Due to the deductibility of the WPT against the income tax, cumulative net WPT revenues were about $38 billion, significantly less than the $175 billion projected.”

That got me thinking.  What people are really saying is not that they want to tax “windfall profits” (defined at the Financial Dictionary as “A sudden unexpected profit uncontrolled by the profiting party.”) but rather people are upset that the oil companies are making money by charging the consumer a higher price than they used to. Yup.  It apparently is unfair to charge a price that the market will bear.

Hillary Clinton, on May 1st is quoted as saying “The oil companies have made out like bandits, and there is no basis for them to have these huge profits.”

That said, I started to look around and see what other companies are earning these sort of “obscene” profits, during what has been described by Obama as “a recession, or worse.” So, first, I looked at the percentage profits earned by Exxon the most-oft used target of opportunity by the left.  For that past three years, Exxon has earned between 9 and 10 % profits (computed by dividing their “net income” into “total Revenue”–all data from http://finance.yahoo.com the hotlinks on the company names will take you to those pages)

Exxon
Net Income    Total Revenue    ”% Profit”
2005 36130              370680           9.75%
2006 39500              377635         10.46%
2007 40610              404552         10.04%

So, that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, but perhaps I missed something.  Perhaps that 10% return in unmatched by any other company.  So, I decided to look at another company.  Yes, I had a biased selection.  I chose Apple, Inc, for two reasons.  First, Apple has had strong success making in-roads into several markets (computers, cell-phones, music), and secondly, because it seems Apple tends to be the computer platform of choice by those on the left.  Read the rest of this entry »

(iPhone Experience, Pt 2)

I had to chuckle.  Really.  Remember way back when, when I wrote that the iPhone was a bit over-priced, in my opinion?  It was funny at the time, really, considering that Scott Bourne, over at The Apple Phone Show was talking about how great a deal it was, to get an 8gb phone for $599.  He even bought, I heard recently, 11 phones at that price.

The iPhone has gone through one price reduction, and even lower prices with the introduction of the new “iPhone 3G” model.  So do we applaud the new affordability of the iPhone?  Well, some do. Others, however, choose to attack AT&T for making the iPhone “more expensive.”  And not just any “others.”  Scott Bourne himself!

I have been slowly catching up on listening to podcasts, and happened to listen to the Mac Break Weekly number 96, titled “iReady.” In that episode the MBW gang rants against AT&T, led by Scott Bourne, because the data plan has gone from $20/month to $30/month.  Of course, AT&T argues that they are doing this because the data plan now supports 3G, but for some reason, many view this as a sort of “breach of trust.” What’s worse, Leo LaPorte leads the pack in ridiculing AT&T for actually trying to reach people with a video, helping them prepare for purchasing an iPhone.  Seems like a nice, good-faith effort on AT&T’s part, but apparently their hatred of AT&T gets in the way, yet again. (Funny, given my previous past post: AT&T trying to get customers ready to buy iPhones, and then Apple slow-rolls the delivery of units to AT&T stores…)

It turns out that over at “The Apple Phone Show” in their podcast #61 the APS gang ranted again about the evil AT&T.  It turns out their hatred of AT&T is because AT&T is treating the iPhone as a cell phone.  Seriously.  Here’s the quote:  “The worst news is that it’s almost as if the iPhone is some sort of cellular telephone.” Gasp! Read the rest of this entry »

As you no doubt have read, I have bought an iPhone.  This makes for the third iPhone in the family, and the first of the 3G variety.  I have replaced my Cingular 8525, which was a nice Windows Mobile phone.  I bought my phone at the AT&T store near me the day it was released, and even twittered while in line.

Order Fulfillment

Apparently, though, I was one of the lucky few.  According to one source close to AT&T, Apple fills the purchase orders for the Apple Stores first, and then fills the ones for the AT&T stores.  On top of that, they will be satisfying the AT&T direct-fulfillment orders first, before sending any to the AT&T stores for general (walk-in) sales.

This is an interesting situation, because it is a conflict with selling one product through two different distribution channels.  Apple has two retail distribution channels–the AT&T channel, and the Apple channel (and admittedly, but have online and storefront channels.)  Apple will sell phones through both, but I suspect they sell to AT&T at a “wholesale” price, and they sell through their stores at the higher retail price.  (Yes, I realize there is the AT&T subsidy involved.)  It is understandable that a manufacturer would prefer to sell their product at a higher rate of return through their own channels.

Of course, this approach isn’t without problems.  The fact that the Apple Stores have iPhones in stock, and the AT&T stores do not, leaves customers (especially the Apple-fan types) being hyper-critical of AT&T while applauding how good Apple is at satisfying demand.  Really?  Not that hard, when you control the stock.

You see, according to my source, Apple provided up to 10 times as many iPhones to their stores as they did to the AT&T stores.  And, as mentioned above, they are still sending iPhones to Apple Stores for store-front sales, while they are forcing AT&T customers into a 21 day wait for their “direct fulfillment” orders.

So who is to blame?  Wrong question, really. I hate the “blame game.”

But–I do believe we must acknowledge that the end result is because of Apple’s decisions, and NOT AT&Ts’.

(see next post for part 2)

Enough about the iPhone.  Back to politics.

What a story.  The LA Times has reported that Obama’s political positions are moving more centrist, looking more and more like John McCain every day.

The picture on the LA Times is even designed to evoke a sense of “sameness.” (see below) [EDITOR NOTE:  The LA Times has apparently removed the photograph showing Obama and McCain in similar active poses, although the story is still online.  No comment as to why.]

I understand that politicians often have to be politicians (you know, change their positions with the wind to stroke their egos through elections).

My question is simply this:

Can McCain now claim that he has held the centrist position the whole time, and that Obama is pandering?

Blending my two most recent themes, I was reminded today of a Star Trek:TOS episode “Court Martial” where the digital records on the Enterprise were modified to “Frame” Capt Kirk.  (Summary at Wikipedia) It was quite an interesting thought, back in the early 1960′s.  Think about it.  Digital video records?  Really?  And you can MODIFY them?  The Wikipedia summary points out the problem with relying on computer-based evidence:

Spock enters, ready to present new evidence on behalf of his Captain: the suspected tampering of the computer system. Without any real evidence to back up the claim, Spock insists that aside from himself and the Captain, only Mr. Finney had the knowledge and clearance to alter the computer logs and he believes Finney is still aboard the Enterprise. Kirk’s lawyer asks the trial to reconvene aboard the Enterprise to see proof of the defense’s new theory. The prosecution objects to the new request, stating the computer files are proof enough of Kirk’s guilt. The court overrules when Cogley states that a man’s guilt can not be proven by a machine, since machines can make mistakes. The court seems to agree.

Jump ahead 40 years, and we find from the New York Times that apparently the image of the four missiles being launched by Iran was photoshop’d.  The most benign argument is that they launched fewer than four missiles.  The image from the NYT shows where the “clone” tool was apparently used.

One could easily use this as another example of the news media failing to conduct due-diligence before running a photograph.  I would argue that, in this case, the process worked.  They ran a photo from a news agency, and when they discovered what appears to be intentional deception, reported it.

I would only hope that the biggest lesson learned here is to question images delivered by a state-controlled news agency.