SS United States Gets $200G Gift

SS United StatesSS United States in her glory days

The storied SS United States that has been rusting at Pier 82 in Philadelphia since 1996 has receive a shot of life from businessman Jim Pollin, who  has given a $220,000 check to the SS United States Conservancy, the non-profit dedicated to is preservation.

The ship, built in 1952, still holds the speed record for a westbound trip from the Britain to the United States at 34.51 knots which is 40 m.p.h.

It also continues to hold the Blue Riband,  which is given to fastest passenger liner crossing the Atlantic in regular service.

The United States, would be an excellent tourist attraction for the area. It would make a great floating hotel or a place to watch fireworks on the Delaware River. It certainly would be a more interesting casino than the existing ones in these environs.

The eastbound Atlantic speed record, by the way, is now held by Hoverspeed Great Britain, an ocean-going catamaran, which set it in 1990 with a speed of 36.6 knots.

Thank you again, Mr. Pollin. Hopefully, someone with a similar interest in our heritage can be found to help save the USS Olympia.

 

 

 

Pupil vs Student

Pupil and student are words used interchangeably which is unfortunate as it would be useful to treat them distinctively in keeping with their roots.

Pupil comes from the Old French pupille  which comes from the Latin pupillus  which means orphan child ward/minor.

Student comes from the Old French estudiant  which means “one who is studying” which comes from the  Latin studiare  which means “to study”

Someone who is being uneducated unwillingly — which would be just about all those in primary schools and most of those in secondary ones — would be best  called pupils.

It is not demeaning and there is no shame in it — we were all there after all — but it is an honest description and the young sense hypocrisy and insincerity better than most, we think.

Involuntary education is necessary but calling first graders and such students, debases that word. An opportunity is missed that they are one day going to find something they wish to study without compulsion. Even worse, by doing so a demoralizing implication is made that this will never happen.

That, of course, is a tragedy.

It is important that there are basics that everybody knows and understands. Once those are out of the way, though,  compulsion starts to develop the stench of indoctrination.

Pupil vs Student

Pupil vs Student

 

 

 

IRS Record Keeping Hypocrisy

The Internal Revenue Service has lost critical emails of seven officials accused of targeting conservative groups.

Byran Preston of PJMedia.com notes that the IRS uses server based Microsoft Exchange as its email system hence its excuses of hard drive crashes and recycled backup tapes are not very plausible.

If emails are served on outside servers problems they would obviously not be susceptible to issues involving local computers.

Preston notes that the IRS website provides taxpayers with this strong record-keeping advice:

Note: Keep copies of your filed tax returns. They help in preparing future tax returns and making computations if you file an amended return.

  1. You owe additional tax and situations (2), (3), and (4), below, do not apply to you; keep records for 3 years.
  2. You do not report income that you should report, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return; keep records for 6 years.
  3. You file a fraudulent return; keep records indefinitely.
  4. You do not file a return; keep records indefinitely.
  5. You file a claim for credit or refund* after you file your return; keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.
  6. You file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction; keep records for 7 years.
  7. Keep all employment tax records for at least 4 years after the date that the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later.

Hypocrisy involving government always comes back to bite those responsible in the tail. It may take awhile but it will happen here as well.

IRS Record Keeping Hypocrisy

IRS Record Keeping Hypocrisy

Oldest song written in English William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 6-17-14

The oldest song written in English? Probably that real oldie “Judas” written in the 1200s.

Hillary Book Bombs

The Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper is reporting that Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices, a memoir of her State Department experiences is a bomb.

The book has sold 60,000 hard covers the first week and 24,000 ebooks according to Halper. Publisher Simon & Schuster was hoping for 150,000 print the first week.

Mrs. Clinton reportedly received a $14 million advance for the book — she’s not going to donate it to charity, btw . Simon & Schuster is not expecting to make it back.

Hillary Book Bombs

Hillary Book Bombs

Cop Killers OWS Affiliated

Cop Killers OWS

Jerad and Amanda Miller, the couple who murdered two police officers in Las Vegas on June 8 along with a bystander who tried to intervene have dropped out of the news.

The Millers draped a “don’t tread on me” flag over the  bodies of officers Igor Soldo, 31, and Alyn Beck, 41, before entering a Wal-mart where they killed Joseph Robert Wilcox, 31.

Initial reports had these sickos as Tea Party types. Heavy coverage was expected as has become the norm in shootings with multiple deaths.

So why did the establishment media stop covering the Millers? Well, it turns out that this heartless pair were not Tea Party after all but affiliated with the anarchists in Occupy Wall Street.

So that explains that. If the facts don’t fit the narrative down the forgotten hole it goes.

It should be remembered that Soldo and Beck were shot in ambush.

Wilcox, who had a concealed carry permit and was armed, was killed from behind by Amanda after he confronted Jerad.

Betcha Wilcox was Tea Party.

The Millers retreated to the back of the store as police closed in, where Amanda shot Jerad then herself.

Cop Killers OWS

Cop Killers OWS

 

Distributism Catholic Economics

Pope Francis Distributism Catholic Economics

With Pope Francis’ comments concerning capitalism causing concern in conservative circles it’s a good time to explain Catholic economic doctrine which is often termed “distributism.”

Despite the name, it is not about taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

The policy actually declares property ownership to be a fundamental right and that the means of productions should be spread as widely a possible so that they are not centralized under state control which would lead to soul-destroying tyranny.

The doctrine says that socialism is bad and that capitalism ends up concentrating economic power eventually capturing the state leading to a form of socialism.

It’s pretty hard to argue that point.

It looks like Francis is a DIY Tea-Party kind of guy.

Crisis Magazine has a good article on the subject here.

Small can be beautiful.

Distributism Catholic Economics

 

Skunks Unlimited William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 6-16-14

A Connecticut firm called Skunks Unlimited back in 1983  developed a protective spray device that squirted skunk scent instead of tear gas.

Frank Videon Jr. R.I.P.

Frank Videon Jr. R.I.P.Frank Videon Jr.

Frank C. Videon Jr. died June 12 at his home in West Chester following a long battle with stomach cancer. He was 70.

He was the proprietor of Videon Chevrolet in Newtown Square and was known for the friendly advertising rivalry with his brothers Wayne and Steve who had Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealerships in Newtown Square.

The ads would be full page on the back page of the County Press and often feature headshots of the other brothers on top of farm animals or childhood photographs of them.

As the advertising space rotated among the dealerships, Frank Jr. would find himself the subject of retaliation.

Frank ran the Chevy dealership until 2009 when General Motors forced him to close as part of the Obama restructuring.

He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Carol; his mother,  Edna; daughters Tara, Tracy and Tami; and seven grandchildren.

His father, Frank Sr., died in 2011.

Visitation will be 12:30 p.m., Sunday, June 22, at Newtown Square Presbyterian Church, 3600 Goshen Road, which will be followed by a funeral at 2 p.m.

Donations may be sent to Newtown Square Presbyterian Church or the American Cancer Society, Box 22718, Oklahoma City, OK 73123-1718.

 

Supreme Court Changes Decisions

Apparently, the Supreme Court changes decisions after issuing rulings.

It’s not something taught in the typical civics lesson.

The matter was revealed by New York Times columnist Adam Liptak last month.

David Zvenyach, the general counsel to the Council of the District of Columbia, writes computer code as a hobby. He applied the JavaScript application Node to crawl the opinions posted on the Supreme Court  every five minutes.  He  then follows up with a manual tweet.

He explains why here.

Kudos to Zvenyach and all hail institutional transparency.

Hat tip Gigaom.com

Supreme Court Changes Decisions

 

Supreme Court Changes Decisions