The wheels on the bus are, according to the children's song, supposed
to go round and round. Except in
New
Orleans they didn't. At least not prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting.
Which is a shame, because they could have been used to help tens of thousands
of people who lacked transportation evacuate.
One school bus
got put to good use—by a young man who'd never
driven a bus—but who drove it all the way to Houston picking people
he didn't know up along the way. See a problem, find a solution, help
others out. Jabbar Gibson is a hero—New Orleans, and the United States,
needs more people like him.
— Michael A. Cleverly
Monday, September 05,
2005
at 18:51
498 comments
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Rachael designed a very
beautiful (in my unbiased opinion) cover for the book I'm having published.
I needed the original Photoshop file, but
it's rather large—more than sixty megabytes, and she's stuck out there
in Lubbock, TX with just a dial-up connection (and what's worse, she's only
got pokey NetZero, poor girl).
Sometimes sneakernet does have higher throughput...
We decided it'd be quicker for her to burn me a CD and overnight it.
She drove it out to the FedEx office at the Lubbock airport last night
so that I could have it this morning and take it to the printer.
Sad thing is, although FedEx's website is still telling me the
estimated delivery time is 10:30 AM on Thursday September 8, 2005, it isn't
even in Utah yet.
It left Lubbock at 9:06pm and got to Memphis right at midnight. Then it
apparently just hung out there for over thirteen hours. It got a departure
scan from Memphis at 1:06pm this afternoon—several hours after I
was to have received it.
It sure better get here tomorrow. And I think I'll be asking for my
$19 back. The sad thing is I would have happily paid several times more
than that to guarantee (truly) that it would arrive today, since I can't
exactly have the printer print coverless books...
For anyone who wants to follow along, I'm sure I'll be
tracking
the package every few minutes tomorrow morning till it arrives.
— Michael A. Cleverly
Thursday, September 08,
2005
at 20:26
372 comments
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I got to see a proof of the cover Rachael designed yesterday. It looked
gorgeous in print—even better than it did on the screen. I'm very
excited!
— Michael A. Cleverly
Wednesday, September 14,
2005
at 20:07
364 comments
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The summer after I graduated from High School, before starting
college, I lived in Henderson, NV with my
friend whose father had been transfered from Salt Lake to Las Vegas.
(I spent the summer working as a teller at the First Interstate Bank branch
on Tropicana & Eastern.)
The heat, of course, was terrible outside. But generally people just
go from an air conditioned house to an air conditioned car to work in
an air conditioned building. (I didn't, but that's because the
luxury
pinto I drove didn't have functioning a/c.)
Anyway, what's the point? Well, it's HOT outside in the summer in Las
Vegas. And so when I read about a rather
strange protest tonight I knew that I definitely would not have
wanted to earn only slightly more than minimum wage to stand outside
in the heat and be a "professional" protestor.
That's exactly
what a labor union in Las Vegas has hired cheap temps to do. The labor
union pays these temps a miserly $6.00/hour and doesn't provide an
benefits whatsoever. The temps have to stand outside all day in the sometimes
> 104 degree heat, in front of a new Wal-Mart neighborhood grocery
store in Henderson, NV to "protest" the fact that new entry-level Wal-Mart
employees often get hired on at only $6.75/hour.
While a lot of people believe Wal-Mart is evil (I personally prefer to support local or
regional merchants whenever possible), it seems rather hypocritical for
a labor union to pay people less with fewer benefits than the evil
corporation they're protesting against.
And, personally, if I were desperate enough to take a benefitless job from
a labor union for $6.00 an hour, I'd head on inside and talk to the store
manager and see if I couldn't "defect" from the protest and start working there.
Better salary, at least no fewer benefits—possibly more—and
air conditioning(!). At least one temp is apparently considering just that.
— Michael A. Cleverly
Wednesday, September 14,
2005
at 23:05
351 comments
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I don't pay tithing in order to get a tax deduction. I pay tithing because
it is a commandment.
Jon Butler, an attorney representing the LDS Church gave a statement
to the Tax Reform Task Force committee, saying in part:
"Our community is best served by providing tax incentives for the support of charitable activities... Charitable contributions help provide for society's poor and needy, fund education and the arts, and meet other important social needs beyond the reach of government resources."
I know I would make at least the same amount of charitable contributions
even if there were no tax benefits to doing so. With a flat tax leaving
more money in my wallet I'd have the means to give even more.
The Prophet Joseph Smith said, "I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves". He did not say,
"I lobby the government to give men a tax break to incentivize them to do
the right thing."
As a homeowner and a parent of four, I'm also in favor of a flat tax
in-lieu of being able to deduct my mortgage interest as well as receiving
per-child tax breaks.
It's hard for me to imagine that the simplifying the byzantine
tax code could possibly make the system worse or less fair than it already is.
Steve Forbes makes, in my opinion, a fairly persuasive case that a flat
tax would "unleash
a stupendous economic boom."
— Michael A. Cleverly
Sunday, September 18,
2005
at 14:47
806 comments
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Saturday night I was playing Word of Warcraft when a
plague of sorts hit
Ogrimmar. I thought it was a great new feature that had just been added
in last weeks update, but apparently it was more of a bug than a feature.
— Michael A. Cleverly
Tuesday, September 20,
2005
at 19:11
567 comments
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Though quite spendy, I think custom printed toilet paper is rather humorous. I don't have any rejection letters to use, alas...
— Michael A. Cleverly
Tuesday, September 27,
2005
at 18:54
422 comments
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