Patrick’s Rants

I “broke” my step daughter’s mp3 player the Sansa e250 and after some searching around on the web I had to contact tech support at Sandisk. I found that I was apparently unable to list more than one e250 device in my list of hardware. It might be possible, but I wasn’t able to simply add a second device to my list of owned devices. Both of the older girls have one, both purchased at the same time.
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It’s Time for a Vista Do Over Lance Ulanoff’s tale of his encounter with a Microsoft rep and his radical ideas on how to make Windows a decent operating system. It’s funny, brash and full of decent ideas.

The Page Cannot Be Found

This shize has hit the fan. I came back from driving a route on Friday to find that the radio desk had been rearranged. (more…)

It sounds like we’re going to get a watered down economic stimulus package. I don’t care that the wealthiest among us won’t get much of a break (extending tax cuts that won’t do a thing for us today or any day. Trickle down economics was debunked a long time ago). I do care that it sounds like people on unemployment or collecting food stamps aren’t going to get an extension. What kind of a country are we when we tell people,

“it’s too bad you’re out of work, but you don’t need to eat”?

I also care when families make too much to qualify for things like SCHIP but don’t make enough to actually pay for their children’s health care out right.

Let’s talk about another idea that I’ve heard floated around, give companies a break on equipment that they buy through some kind of accelerated depreciation. This solves nothing. If companies don’t have the cash why should they be encouraged to buy? And most of the equipment being purchased is made in China anyway; that does nothing to boost the US economy overall. It just exports our cash for their goods. And last time there was accelerated depreciation on large equipment – designed to help farmers purchase large vehicles that were used on the family farm – there was a rush to buy gas guzzling Hummers and large vehicles and people ran around trying to figure out how to be considered a “business” so they could buy a big truck.

It now sounds like there will be some kind of tax refund check $600 for individuals and $1200 for a couple. That doesn’t do much for people who don’t have anything and don’t file taxes and probably will result in more flat screen TVs or maybe just payments to the credit card company. How much good will this and can it do for an individual?

The best thing that I’ve heard is to pump money (assuming that we’re going to do it anyway) into local projects – infrastructure. You know, those roads and schools that need to be built anyway? Speed up the payment for the work on those. You get some people working when things are slow in the housing and commercial markets – might be able to hire them at lower rates too. Imagine schools finished under cost and at today’s pricing instead of what it would cost five years from now. As a bonus construction workers buy American made beer when they’re working and that’s good for the economy as well.

So what are you going to do with your windfall tax check?

According to recent reports, Bush wants to send checks to people who are barely scraping by so that they can buy another tank of gas and continue supporting Cheney’s retirement plan (more on the cuts). He wants his tax cuts to become “permanent” even though his own Fed Chairman said that it would do nothing to curb the current problems. Tax cuts set to expire in 2010 will do nothing to help the economy today. In other words changing how something is to be taxed two years from now won’t help you make next month’s mortgage payment if your rate got “pimped”

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you, there are a bunch of links to click through to read this little “story” about a stay at home Windows server but it’s worth it. Mommy why is there a server at home? Just don’t use it for any actual work because, well because it’s a Microsoft server.

A TV host in Britain has apparently become the victim of identity theft after publishing his own information in a newspaper column. He wanted to prove that despite having all of his personal information published that there was nothing a thief or scammer could do other than make a deposit to his account. He was wrong.
Clarkson stung after bank prank

And no matter how many times I write something like this or express my security viewpoints it feels like I’m yelling into the wind with my family members. Remember, just cause I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.