Author Archives: Dick

Taxing

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My friend Nina Smith has a small business in Vermont: she’s a media producer and trade show designer in North Puffin where she works about as much as she wants and has time off to garden or swim in the brief summer and to ski on good winter days. Most of her clients are out of state so her business occasionally sells them goods at retail but not very often and only on special order. Still, she has a Vermont Sales Tax ID and has to file the Sales and Use Tax Return annually.

She called the tax department.

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies…

“I am now on hold with the Vermont Tax Department for the second time,” she told me. “It took two hours the first.”

“We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume…”

VT Tax changed to a new website. “VTbizfile” morphed into “myVTax” but it’s not “myVTax.gov.” It’s “myVTax.vermont.gov.”

Sheesh.

Vermont Tax changed our business ID numbers. And passwords last only six months which is a real boon for annual filers.

Of course, no one at the tax department ever actually communicated any of this.

“I was even online for the current instructions earlier this month,” she said. Those are still at the same old link and don’t mention the changes.

Tax Examiner Vander (not his real name) got exasperated the first time Nina called; Vander rushed through trying to get her logged in. “Just file the return manually,” he finally said, guiding Nina to right area of the new website.

She had to call back. See Vander didn’t give Nina her new VT Business Account “SUT” number. The PDF return won’t print without the SUT number. “I can do the ‘manual’ filing online without that but the site insists I pick a filing month. I’m an annual filer. He didn’t tell me how to handle that, either.”

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies…

“We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume…”

Nina didn’t collect any sales tax this year — all of her sales went out of state — and she doesn’t need to make a payment. “They do require me to file, though. It should be easier to file a zero dollar return but I guess they needed to collect their due by costing me time instead.”

Tax Examiner Mary (not her real name) finally answered. Mary was patient. Mary was knowledgeable. Mary walked her through it step by step. Nina now has a gen-you-wine myVTax account and was able to tell the state she didn’t owe a penny.

At least we hope so. The site never told her her return was accepted.

Obviously myVTax has learned from my friends at !@#$%^Comcast. Sometimes you get a star but most of the time you hang on hold for a couple of hours before talking to someone who doesn’t help.

 

Climate Scientists, the Phrenologists of 2016

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Sometimes I suffer from low blood pressure; I often use the Science Friday podcast to bring it back up to normal. [For the record, SWMBO says I use it to see if I can get the sphygmomanometer to pop the bulb at the top of the column.]

The bumps on my head don’t explain that, either.

Two ‘casts from December got my attention: Do Scientists Have the Duty to Speak Out? and Why Science Needs Failure to Succeed. Each focused on a new book:

In the first, Naomi Oreskes spreads more disinformation and name calling in the name of a (carbon) tax and “sensible regulations” than good science. Host Ira Flatow1 asks if the slogan, “If you see something, say something,” applies to scientists. “If they see a risk to the planet, for example, should they say something about it?” he wondered. In her book Merchants of Doubt,2 Ms. Oreskes “says some scientists undersell the conclusions of their work, and this ‘scientific conservatism has led to under-estimation of climate-related changes’.”

Underestimation?

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Al Gore said, underestimating the issue and the wealth to be looted.

The very same day, Mr. Flatow interviewed Stuart Firestein about his new book, Failure: Why Science Is So Successful,3 the neuroscientist “makes a case for science as ‘less of an edifice built on great and imponderable pillars, and more as a quite normal human activity’.” His point “one must try to fail” reminds us that “real science is a revision in progress, always. It proceeds in fits and starts of ignorance.”

The political scientists leading the AGW charge will not admit contrary data.

Phrenologists thought their science was immutable, too.

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
— Ambrose Bierce
Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.
— Isaac Asimov
In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
— Carl Sagan

In 2014’s We Only Have 500 Days Left to Avoid Climate Chaos! I discussed the fact that climate “science” today is a Harris poll and the way the Far Green consortium has distorted real science with their religious insistence that their science is right and fixed. Their purpose is to keep the Green flowing. The green research dollars. The green investment dollars. The green tax dollars.

Science requires a comfort with being wrong, a tolerance for failure, Mr. Firestein reminded us. But political Climate Scientists have a bible that cannot fail and is never contradictable.

And that, dear friends, is why our political Climate Scientists are the Phrenologists of the 21st Century.

1 Mr. Flatow is well-known for his statement that “the science is fixed” over all anthropogenic global warming.
2 Ms. Oreskes received her Bachelor of Science in mining geology from the Royal School of Mines of Imperial College, University of London and earned her PhD from the Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science at Stanford. She is the author of or has contributed to a number of respected essays and technical reports in economic geology.
3 Stuart J. Firestein, PhD, chairs the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University where his lab researches the vertebrate olfactory receptor neuron and where he teaches neuroscience. He does accept AGW but recognizes that “uncertainty is a dirty word” in the argument.

 

Passages

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We lost a friend January 8. He was just 76.

“So sorry to have to post this… Rocketman passed away yesterday. Local favorite entertainer, musician, loving father, pirate, and friend to so many here in our islands… He most certainly was one of a kind, and the likes of him will surely never pass this way again. My condolences to his daughter, Roxanne, and all his family and friends in the Keys and all around the world. The old man certainly was right: it sure did beat 40 below, shoveling snow… And I do like it! If ever there was a life to be celebrated in style, it was Rocketman’s. Godspeed, Rocketman.”
— John Bartus


Robert Hudson played music in the late 70s and 80s in Las Vegas before coming to the Keys the same year we did. He became known as Rocketman the Pirate and he drummed, sang, and played with just about every other musician in the Keys. Between gigs he sold treasure.

“Too bad. He needs a replacement,” Rufus said. “Bartus is too accomplished. I am too fat (and I don’t live in the Keys).”

Not too fat. Too old.

I don’t think fat matters, per se. Old does. He was a legend but we need a youngster to take his place. The next Rocketman needs to be under 40.

“No way,” Rufus said. “The age was part of the attraction. Otherwise he is just another troubadour.”

The way you get to be an old troubadour is to start as a young troubadour. Not to mention our need to have somebody around for more than another couple of years.

“Aging out is American popular culture vernacular used to describe anytime a youth leaves a formal system of care designed to provide services below a certain age level.”

The troubadour has a storied history. The earliest troubadour whose work survives is the Duke of Aquitaine, portrayed as a knight, who first composed poetry on returning from the Crusades which he “related with rhythmic verses and witty measures.” Today, we think of a troubadour as a poet and singer of folk songs and rock music and other fishy ballads. Apropos of nothing, troubadour rhymes with albacore.

We are watching our favorite local artists and community leaders “age out.” Or worse.

Ben Bullington, a country doctor and singer-songwriter from Colorado, died in 2013. He was 58. He was a small town family doctor until his pancreatic cancer diagnosis; he immediately stopped practicing medicine and made as much music for as many people as he could. Vermont musician and legend John Cassel died in ’14. He was 78 and working when he suffered a heart attack after playing a show. The man of a thousand songs, Ron Hynes from Newfoundland died in November. He was 64. Blues guitarist and border legend Long John Hunter of El Paso died last week. He was 84.

I’ve been thinking about aging out a bit, ever since my family doc reminded me that he’s a year older than I. See, he’s aging out, too. That means he’s going to retire sooner than later and I’m going to have to break in some young whippersnapper.

We need to train our replacements for Dr. Bullington, Mr. Cassel, Mr. Hynes, Mr. Hunter, for the other beloved local legends. And for Rocketman.

Psychology Today rules that by dividing your own age by two and then adding seven you can find the socially-acceptable minimum age of anyone you want to date. So if you’re a 24 year-old, you can date anyone who is at least 19 (i.e., 12 + 7) but not someone who is 18. And if you’re 89 as Hugh Hefner is, you can feel free to be with anyone who is at least 19 but not someone who is 18. Oh. Wait. You can be with anyone who is at least 51-1/2 (i.e., 44-1/2 + 7) but not someone who is only 51.

When Ronald Reagan turned 75, Dennis Miller wished him a happy birthday. “Seventy-five, and he has access to the nuclear football? You know, my grandfather is 75. We don’t let him use the remote control for the TV set!”

If I have to train some young whippersnappers, I want them to stick around for the long haul. That’s why Rufus is wrong.

Over in real life, I chair a small regional arts council (known in the trade as a “Local Arts Service Organization”). I’m not quite ready to pass the microphone yet, but we are looking for a fresh face for my job, too. Out on stage last year, I introduced a number of new performers to the professional footlights. We expect to do that even more with Summer Sounds, with the county festivals, and at other venues around area. See, our top-notch musicians are all getting a little grayer, too.

Eventually, it is forced on all of us.

R.I.P., Rocky. Arrrrgh.