Kudos to the Texas comptrollers office. I do business in 10 states and never have I had my phone call to a g'vmnt tax/reporting information line answered so quickly. They were extremely helpful and had an incredibly easy to use online system to do all the filing. @txcomptroller
From my experience this is not a red state - blue state kind of thing. Yes, California's tax office support is horrible and their systems are a mess, but the same is true for red state Florida. This really should not be that hard but it seems to be for many states
To be fair to the agencies, a little, many state legislatures keep passing so many rules with special exemptions and exceptions and variations by geography that it can be hard for any agency to keep up.
In fact, red states like TN and FL with no income taxes can have incredibly complicated business and sales tax systems because they are trying to get tax money in different ways. Of course CA has zillions of micro taxes AND a large income tax
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Everything old is new again: This past week I have been struck by the parallels between the tragic shooting of United Health executive Brian Thompson and the threats of violence my dad and my family lived through in the 1970s and 1980s
Similar to Mr. Thompson, my dad was born and raised in a very small town in Iowa called Mt Union, which has never had a population much more than 100. Dad was born poor in the early 1920s, though he always hated when folks used the word "poor".
But I have seen the small house he lived through the Depression in and he was poor. Like many he worked about 17 different jobs as a kid, hopping on a freight train to get to school and back each day. When he as a teenager he got polio and lost about 50% of the use of one leg.
Public Service Message: I have ridden roller coasters all over the world, and the relatively new Velocicoaster at Universal Orlando is the best I have ever ridden. At my son's urging I went there for a day solely to ride that ride and I was not disappointed
It is not the highest and does not have a huge drop. It does not have a crazy gimmick like the 400 ft straight up launch of top fuel dragster in CP. It is just awesome. Every turn and move I have ever heard of in a coaster.
It has numerous inversions, including a stretch where you cruise upside down, without a shoulder restraint, only an advanced lap bar. The real highlight is the mid-ride launch -- amazing technology. And no G force sickness like I get on rides like I get on Magic Mtn Goliath
I wondered last year what the long-term plan was in NZ and Australia with a zero-COVID strategy that made no sense given that it could not be maintained in a (now semi-)free society forever. Apparently there was none.
Atlas Shrugged rightly gets grief with its awkward characterization, but don't think of it as a novel -- think of it as a paper-based simulation that takes socialist-statist ideas and says, "let's trying running these to their conclusion."
I have always felt that "believe all women" was an absurd overreach, an exhortation no rational, observant person should be willing to accept as a general rule. The proper statement, imo, was and is "take women seriously"
There is a real problem that needed to be solved. Various law enforcement bodies often did not take accusations of sexual violence seriously, patting women on the head and sending them on their way. This case was a great example
"The report found that FBI agents in Indianapolis—who received an initial visit from USA Gymnastics to report Nassar on July 28, 2015—didn’t take the claims seriously, document the evidence they received or transfer the allegations to the FBI’s resident agency in Lansing, Mich. "
Here is one reason why: Maybe 15 years ago, when cell phone power cables were power only, there was pressure for government to do this same thing, to mandate one standard among a variety of barrel power-only connectors.
But had they been successful, where would we be today? Technology has moved fast and the cell phone power connector is for more than power, it is also a data connection (less important today in the days of wireless but critical in early smartphone development).
This is simply madness -- with a looming worldwide shortage of cereal grains (due to Ukraine war and other factors) and the real potential for famine later this year, Biden mandates that more food be burned in cars
I can't tell if this is bad energy policy -- since every study not funded by ADM has shown zero to negative fossil fuel savings from corn ethanol. Or if it is pandering to the midwest corn lobby ahead of this election.
Whatever the motivation, it feels like a policy decision from the last third of Atlas Shrugged -- chasing the political problem of this moment (eg gas prices) at the absolutely predictable expense of the political problem of the next moment (food prices and grain shortages).