I know that sounds just so right wing. Donald Trump anyone? How about if was in fact left wing and progressive? When you have a tax that hits everyone equally, it is considered regressive. A progressive tax is one that increases as your ability to pay increase. So rich people pay more and poor people pay less. Corporate tax on profit is paid for by the buyer equally. Since a corporation has no independent way to raise money except from their clients, those clients are in effect paying for their taxes the corporation will pay on profits. If remove that tax, then in an ideal world the price of goods should drop. It most likely won’t as corporations would instead merely increase the amount of profit they take home.  And I think that is also an equally good idea. Taxes that corporation pay are usually in the none existent, they find loopholes or tax avoidance schemes to fraud or outright bribery of government officials in order to avoid paying any sort of taxes to begin with. So let’s get rid of this sham anyways.

With the extra cash, they might create more jobs. Ok let’s pause while we laugh with cynical realism at that so often boasted claim that turns out to be a fictional use of the language bordering on outright lies. They can re-invest those profits into research and development. Which I will assert is a good thing. Since they won’t have to fake R&D to avoid paying taxes, the result may be some real progress and real developments that will provide additional resources for the company to make even more money and hence real job growth potential. The other two ways are buying back stock, or providing it to shareholders as dividends or paying executives. I see both as ways to tax that money back properly. First, stock; which are on average held for a grand total time of 23 second before being sold off. This churning makes some people money using computers to buy and sell. The marginal gains on fractions of pennies over millions of shares can yield small but significant profits. If all sells are taxed at a small rate of 2% for the federal government and 1% to the province, real tax revenue would be gains. Simple enough to see, all those profits made on Wall Street and Bay Street is from a surcharge of 1.5% on every sale. They make lots of money, so too should the government collect. Also, since most poor people don’t buy significant amounts of shares, the purchase will not adversely affect the middle class or the poor. The cash dividend tax rate is paid for at the rate of 33% but subject to modifications from other tax breaks. Since there is no longer a corporate tax, all dividends are to be taxed at 50% at source and not subject to refund. In other words, you money is gone when you get the cash.

This leaves me with two additional points. CEO’s make an unholy amount of money, very little in the form of cash but the vast majority in stock in their pay package. They get billions in stock. This practise has to stop. All shares are to be granted in the form of cash and taxed at the 50% rate. As well, it will be part of the financial fillings, in case it is not, that all such salaries are quoted in cash so stock holders, even unsophisticated investors can see just how much the CEO is taking from their bottom line.

Lastly, without the need to lower tax rates, corporations might be tempted to stop sponsoring charities and sporting events. After all, they don’t get the tax break they used to. Fortunately, I rather doubt they do give away money in an effort to be good corporate citizens. They do it from the advertisement and the tax breaks. I know so young and yet so cynical. They will still sponsor those charities, perhaps not as much, but they still will continue to give. Why? Because it is a form of free advertising and being seen as a bad corporate citizen or worse greedy would harm their bottom line where they make profits from to begin with.

I think this will clean up the tax act, and greatly increase tax revenue. By fairly taxing the people making the money, not the corporations who are just too good at hiding it from the taxman, we get our, society as a whole, fair share of taxes from the rich. This would make the tax progressive, and fair as only the very rich would be paying such taxes on traded stock and dividends.

In order to qualify this election, we have created a list of best to worst results that we can expect. Note this is not the best possible results, as that would require Bernie Sanders to still be in the race and win the presidency. As that will not happen, we have to face reality and that means Clinton or Trump. The two most hate politicians in the records of polling such questions.

Best Clinton wins and Democrats win both the House and Senate. In which case for the next two years they might, just might get something done in the passing of progressive legislation. They might fill in their nominations for the courts and they may stumble on some good policies to help working and the poor.

Next, Clinton wins but they lose the house to Republicans but win the Senate. This means the Iran deal is safe but little will get done. Paul Ryan is but a shadow of real leaders in the House, where what the speaker would say would become law. Now his speakership is merely cardboard cut out they use to toss rotted fruits at.

Next Clinton wins the Presidency and loses both House and Senate. What might likely occur? This result will means four and possible eight more years of ideological gridlock and posturing. Little would be done and even less would be accomplished.

Last, Trump wins, in any combination. He does not know how to rule, how to work with, or how to create anything. The man is a shyster as can be seen in his so called “Trump University scam.” At this point despite the incompetence at the top, the transition team will find good people if ideologically bent to take up the offices in Washington and may even figure out a way to work with Tea Party enthusiasts to get something worked out. For example, Money out of politics would be nice. But I won’t hold my breath. Four years of trump, will the republic still be standing? For surely it is greater in its summation and grandeur then even he can destroy… not that he won’t try his best to do so.

Teachers can be petty, jealous and mean. The great ones inspire their students to soar above them, in skill and dreams to reach for the stars and chase comets across the sky. The worst merely try to tear their students down, like pulling the wing from an angel or a butterfly as they were some tormented adolescent trying to rip the wings off flies. The best teachers fill us, their ever grateful students with the wonder and joy of learning. The love of the novel, the warmth of knowledge and the comforting friendship of thoughts yet to come, yet to be but always soon to become. The worst teachers batterer us with fear and loathing from their own weak, tepid insecurities that eke out their miserable existence trying to create more gloom dweller incapable of every learning to fly and be free of their own self-pity, contempt and disparaging existence. That is the sum total of our schools. For along that path lies every single teach you will ever meet, from the good to the bad to the horrible. But just one caring teacher will change the perspective of that lucky student who will let them take off, and soar above it all, to reach out to become better than they are, above the petty fray of based meanness, drudgery, and mediocrity. The goal is to survive the bad teachers, ignore the incompetent, and embrace the greatness when you manage to stumble upon the few, the rare but always the best! Learn from those you can. Love those you will and the rest, be they ever so humble, they are our teachers.

White people make up 62% of the US population. Black people only account for 13% of the same population, or nearly 5 white persons per every single black person in society. Of all the people shot and killed by police, White people are shot by police in 49% of incidents. A 13% difference then the expected result. White should be shot more, if they were being shot was in proportion to their numbers in the makeup of the population. Black’s are shot and killed by police 24% of the time, an 11% difference from their percentage of the population if they were in proportion. In fact, black people are almost shot twice as much as their population numbers would indicate. This is a significant difference. Whites are killed by police less than their proportion of the population would indicate and blacks are overly targeted by police.
13% of all black people who are shot and killed by police are unarmed. Compared that to only 7% of whites being unarmed when shot by police. Again twice as many black are killed while unarmed as a white person would be. In relation to their respective population numbers, blacks are 10 times more likely to be shot and killed while unarmed as a white person would be.
Of all people shot and killed by police in 2015, 40% were black men, who only make up 6% of the total population. What is clear is that a disproportionate amount of blacks, men and women are killed then their population numbers would indicate. This is a problem. This is why a movement such as Black Lives Matters is needed to foster better training and better inter community relations in order to meet, debunk and socialise police officers to the black community. In my personal opinion, Blacks are demonized as dangerous criminals in the mind of law enforcement. Therefore, maximum precaution must be taken, and that action that done by a white person would be excused, done by someone who happens to have colour in their skin will result in a death sentence. By training officers better, familiarizing them with blacks who happen to be the most often target of black crime, police might build stronger community relations and bridge the gap to those communities. Also, this is not longer a desire, a request or an optional. All police need to have body cameras upon themselves. The camera never lies, and to show the public, what happened in the event of a police shooting will do wonders to help bridge the gap. Black people, just as white people, can see if an officer is in danger and forced to defend him or herself. It is the unknowing that causes the distrust. Show the videos fast and get them out into the media faster will prevent issues from arising in the communities affected in a police shooting. For when people can see the video, they can put themselves in the place of the police forced to kill someone. They will then make up their own mind if it was justified or not. Too often, those videos are held back cause mistrust, if the video cleared the officer why is it not being presented? There is also usually no good answer why there is a delay in showing the video.

Statistics are from Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter Experiment DEBUNKED
Young Turks

The top five reasons why Donald J Trump should not be elected President of the United States

1) He is a con artist. From his charity foundation buying a picture of himself, to using other people’s money to make donations o the same amount, this foundation was mostly a way in which The Donald could fund rentals for his own businesses. Then there is Trump University where his sales reps, keep pushing people to max out their credit cards for the next big course. All for the student gain of nothing of value, no degree, no job, just an inflated credit card bill. If he was really that rich, he would not be stealing pennies from the poor house.

2) Treatment of the press: The Donald has been doing all he can to destroy the power of the press, from isolating hem into a set area where he can pick on them at his rallies, to merely attacking hem as biased in his speeches. What little respect people have for the news will soon be lost. The Donald would go even further as President, so much for the 1st amendment.

3) Treatment of women: “Grab them by the Pussy” is now a mainstream legal word that the FCC won’t be fining Howard Stern for any more. The Donald has made it a mainstream word. Lenny Bruce is somewhere above dancing at this expansion of the words you can say on TV. George Carlin has changed his skit from the seven words you cannot use on TV to 6.

4) Assassination of Clinton or merely the jailing of: What third world fascist government openly calls for assassination or jail of their rival? Small Hand Donald has done both in this election and in more than one form and at more than one time.

5) Rigged elections: Saying the only way he would lose is if the election was rigged, at the same time as Republicans, desperate to avoid a melt down along both the Senate and House turning to Democratic control, are actively seeking way to disenfranchise as many minorities as they can. What’s next revoking the 19 amendment allowing women to vote? Undermining the essence of democracy because he, having failed to win the plurality, is poor sportsmanship and childish.

Any one of these reasons is enough to not vote for him. All of them says vote for someone else.

Thesis evaluation consist of an oral defense that is usually open to the public, this can has caused more than a few problems. Here are some of the worst nightmares that can happen. All are true stories. Here are my top five worst Thesis defense ever!

The first story was told to me by a professor as she was then a student. She wrote her PHD thesis in a year and submitted it to her adviser. The advisor read it and invited her to a nice restaurant for supper and then broke the news. “I am afraid this simply won’t do.” One year of work, flushed. So she went back to the writing table and rewrote it anew.

Another student when told took the opposite road and demanded a hearing of the full thesis defense board as is allowed by university thesis rules. They followed procedure to the letter. When the vote was cast, the student lost by a vote of five to zero. They failed him. And that failed him out of the program. So no Masters as a door prize as he left either.

A female student went to her defence where she had misquoted someone in her text; a very minor error that we all do. But most are caught in time before the defence. In her case, the problem was not the tiny error, it was the readers. Her advisor was hated in the department so they had one outside reader to be impartial and one reader who hated him. Well over this tiny error, the two started to go at each other. The chair asked the audience to leave. Whereas inside the shouting and screaming could be heard across the library as it went on for hours. Thirty minutes for her defence, and three hours of screaming. Degree earned, vote two to one.

When making enemies, do not piss off the vindictive graduate chair when planning to do your thesis defense, for there may be repercussions you have not considered. He first scheduled her defense in the schools largest auditorium, and then proceeded to order all the first year undergrads to attend this mandatory event. Then made sure a sign-in sheet was passed around. Normally you defend in a class room with a few people at most 20-30 people. She had to defend her thesis in front of 500 students who resented her taking up their free time. Talk about hostile environment.

Perhaps the worst thesis defense occurred for an international student who lived in Saudi Arabia. For some unknown reason she had to defend her thesis online and an Islamic religious policeman was to be in the same room as her. Now English was her second language so she struggled with it. The police officer spoke no English, requiring her to stop and explain to him in Arabic. If he got bored or if she took too long in her answer he would interrupt her. What should have been over and done within an hour at most went over near three hours. Where at one point he got up and almost smacked her. Only later would we find out what he was saying to her in the midst of her thesis defense. “Why are you doing this? You are just a stupid girl, you should not be talking to these men, you be fucking your husband so stop whoring yourself out to sound smart then you are stupid girl.” She passed 5 to zero.

Bonus, a thesis on Foucault went seriously off the rails when the professor began to talk of this philosopher’s sexual preferences, using non academic terms like “Fist fucking.” He went off topic and spoke on that subject for near an hour before the chair could take over and call an end to the session.

Montreal is a most beautiful city. You may enjoy it, if you c can get out of the traffic jams. Seems that on every route, every bridge and every highway, there is construction, repairs or just imaginary things forgotten in the minds of engineers, waiting still to be called done, with the left over orange cones scatters about to mark the memories and nightmares of truckers, roadsters and travellers alike, who have to navigate the impossible rubric of a city transport grid run amuck. It is not just how much repair work is being done but how bad the planning of it is. On one particular bridge, they normally allow during rush hour in coming or outgoing traffic. So one day repairs needed to be done. So at 7 pm, when they switched to both ways, they blocked the out bound lane, where all the traffic was in order to repair on the side of the bridge. The inbound lane was opened to let in ten, fifteen cars. The outbound lane still had maybe 500 to a thousand cars wanting to get off island. But repairs come first. And that in bound traffic all ten of them had to be let in. The 1000 cars waiting were simply not important enough to consider. What is worse is that next year is the 375th birthday of Montreal. So the Mayor doubled down on construction and repairs to get in as much as he can this year, so next year will be relatively light on such things as needed in order to let the tourist enjoy the city. For all that, the bad planning, the traffic and the horrible drivers Montreal is known for, we are getting off lucky. Why do I say that? In the United States where they desperately need such infrastructure repairs. Where roads, bridges and highways are literally falling apart, they do not have the tax revenue to afford such things. In truth the bill could be as high as 4 trillion dollars at this point, and surely will go higher. But they have also a lack of will to tax their people in order to get the money to do those repairs. So whereas Montreal has a high rate of tax, as does Quebec, Canada too, the infrastructure is being renewed, repaired and rebuilt. Heavens knows what will happen down south as their cities, roads and bridges start to fall apart.