Discussion:A New Sin here on T/A

y or n

Not to mention how risky it is to provide a brief response to someone when you don't have that much info about their ability to apply it correctly, and they've only given half the story in their OP....

OTOH, when a question has been asked a zillion times before and/or actually does have a black and white answer, I quite enjoy seeing the y/n responses. Or a single link or code reference. Always get a chuckle out of those.

I can never get a straight answer here! You're all worse than the lawyers.

(I do agree with all of the posts above, excepting my own of course!)

A beneficial side-effect of this edict is that the budget deficit will disappear by 2012. My sources tell me that a deficit is expected to return in around March 2013, once members of the Ruling Class work out that the US Treasury has something to treasure. This, of course, assumes that we, and the planet we inhabit, will still be here by March 2013.

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TexCPA 11:20, 30 September 2010 (CDT)

Now here is the muskrat ramble

"The muse slid into the floppy drive and was gone. I was hungry for lunch; talking to her is so exhausting. I also wondered for the first time why Seeger used ‘barricade’. It did not sound like the correct word for trench warfare. My reverie was interrupted by the dog at the window, barking at the mail woman’s car out by the road. I grabbed the leash and off we went for a walk.

We went into the field next to ours. I let Farfel off her leash. She headed for the rock outcropping and began to circle it, sniffing enthusiastically. As I neared it I heard a voice cackling:

“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”

Through a crack in the rock I could see three women, circling a pot and dumping various oddments into it. They were dressed in greasy black shawls. The one talking was younger than the other two. She looked almost teenage. I wondered which of the older ones was the single mother. The oldest saw us. She pointed to me and told me I would become Thane of Cawdor and then King of Scotland, but that my reign would be barren of succession.

Farfel barked at her but she shouted the dog down and prophesied that Farfel would be lesser than me, but greater than me, not so happy but much happier. The youngest then spoke, pointing at Farfel, “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.”

A strong gust of wind, straight from Hudson Bay, blew the apparitions away. We walked home, picking up the mail on the way. Most of it was junk mail for my late wife. I tried to take a nap. The dog jumped in bed next to me, but I could not sleep. As I lay there restless, the dog murmured, “Still it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house: ‘Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.”

She looked so smug and satisfied. I wondered how she was going to produce future kings. She had been fixed as a puppy. One Old English Sheepdog/Irish Setter was enough for the world. I got out of bed and went to my keyboard. I looked up at Lixie, sitting on her sailboat. She smiled and shook her head.

“Dad, are you ever going to write anything original?”

Ooops, wrong link....here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vpuFYQwZ5o

Keith, it was like when I went to our public library a few years ago. The library had an excellent professional set of CCH Tax books (I think it was CCH). I mean these were not handbooks, these were top quality materials. They were housed in the reference section.

I noticed they were out of date and I asked the librarian when the new ones would come in.

Oh, she says, we just send people to irs.gov now. She acted like she was letting me in on a secret. [It was a county library, but still, give me a break].

I do question the wisdom of constantly updating a library with expensive reference books given the level of access that we have to the written word today. While my love of books was nurtured by the library at an early age, I'm just not sure how necessary it is today for a library to be modern and have the newest resources. I do think we should have well run libraries, as that helps in developing citizenship.

A recent NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html) talked about the trend of privatizing library systems, which seems rife with problems. Corporations aren't going to stand up against groups that are going to censor books. I consider myself a conservative, but some things, such as police departments, are better run by the government.

However, if you look for a book (say on a hobby or craft) written before the early 90's, you will find an entirely different book than you'll find today. The old books actually taught you how to do something, and they are being thrown away.

The editorial style has changed completely today into a sort of breezy style with a bunch of pictures. Short on content.

You take the free sites on the internet, same thing. You better know something about the subject before you go to them because there is so much rubbish and misinformation on the internet.

People don't think a society can actually lose knowledge. They think there has to be a fire like the library in Alexandria of old. I'm not so sure.

But, I do realize that the temper of the times is against me. The community is calling for computers in libraries and they will get them. However, most of the time when I'm in the library today, the kids on the computers seem to be doing everything but research. (Smile). The saddest thing is that the job of a trained reference librarian today is to play timer and dole out terminals to the public.

Privitizing libraries? What worries me is the corporations choosing the books to begin with. A library run by Citibank and AIG might be sparse on information about Citibank and AIG (or their cronies).

Seems the only people who go now are those without internet access.

"Seems the only people who go now are those without internet access. "

Scary. I was talking with a college professor recently who said that kids today just don't know how to analyze what they're reading. They've been brought up on the "sound bite" method of communicating and have little use for anything longer than a few sentences. The even scarier part was that the professor indicated this is just a change we're going through, that stories will still carry on as they did many, many years ago and reading will go by the wayside.

As for our public libraries, my sons look forward to going to the library every week, and it's not to play on computers. We're definitely in a transition here, but I hope our libraries remain. (Remember when people said movie theaters would disappear after VHS came out?)

Computers are fine to look things up IF you already know something about the subject, but to me the book is still the best way to learn a new subject.

I still think the book or the book form is the greatest technology of all time. You can open a book from the 1500's (or earlier) find the printed, unbound pages (in whatever form) and read them.

Whereas today, there is no guarantee the hardware (or software) will be around to play the storage medium. We are putting our history at risk. People will not realize until it's too late that you must update all your stored data with each major development in technology OR you must keep the old technology (and keep it in working condition). Most of the old electronics goes on the trash heap, or it get's dusty and won't work.

A book keeps fine on a shelf, as long as it's not too damp.

Our library also serves as an after school homework center. Its across the street from the middle school. My kids went there everyday after school. They are in high school now but if I am running late picking them up - they walk to the library to do homework.

Now for something really old: our town library closed. Someone stole the book.