Well that, and I looked at the store snack section last night, and the Hostess products are twice the price of other options available. So, if you want a Twinkie fix and the store brand is just as good (I don't know if that's the case, I don't eat Twinkies) why pay more especially with the economy being so bad right now? Same with the fruit pies, Ho-Ho's et al.

We just talked to a sales rep from Verango, they do just this type of system. Sunrun buys the panels and maintains them. Quoted us 27.5 cents/kwh to start in the first year to replace the 131%+ tier power that we are charged higher rates in California on.

I created a spreadsheet to calculate our average cost/kwh over the last year in the upper tiers, and it worked out to 32.5 cents. So we could save 5 cents/kwh, or $31 per month if our usage stayed the same the last year. Not enough for me to bite, even if it costs us nothing. I'd rather find ways to reduce usage and cut our bill by more than that. We'd planned on doing that, which means the savings would be even smaller because our usage in the top tiers would be going down anyway.

Incidentally, part of his pitch is that energy costs increase 6.9% per year. The 20 year solar contract locks in increases of 2.9%. So part of the argument is that over time, solar costs will go up at a much slower pace than electricity costs from PG&E. The only thing is, there has apparently been so much outrage over electricity costs in California that last year they got the highest tier rates lowered from around 40.4 cents/kwh to 34.2 cents/kwh, and the next highest tier also had a decrease from around 33 cents/kwh to around 31 cents/kwh. (Baseline and 101-130% tier rates went up a little) Which kind of negates the argument that energy costs go up every year, and reinforces the fact that energy companies are regulated by the government, so there are ultimately some political factors involved (aside from market forces, etc) in determining rates that are charged.

Our high school had a small computer lab (a small room between classrooms probably originally meant as a teacher office/work area) with 4-5 C64s and an Apple II, IIRC. A couple of times I remember it made a great place for students to meet up and exchange pirated software.

"On The Edge" explains the problem. The plan was to use the serial shifter in the CIA chip. But the lines from the CIA chip to the serial port that was in the final schematic was cut by the production layout guys in California, and hundreds of thousands of PCBs were already in production. So it had to be solved in software.

No, the bill the Senate passed is more complicated than that.

Dive into Quickbooks then and see if you can get it to work. What you need to do is apply a 4.2% rate to wages under $18,350 in January and February, and a 6.2% rate that applies to wages over $18,350 but below $110,100 in January and February, and a 0% rate to wages above $110,100 in January and February. Then For March thru December, you need to specify a third rate, TBD, for wages under $110,100, 0% above that limit. The three paired amounts (wages paid and tax withheld for each category) then need to be reportable to fill out quarterly tax forms that have yet to be designed.

No you can't do that, because then tax filers would need to be able to document what their income was during the first two months of the year. They couldn't file taxes until after February, the employer would have to issue a new form, the IRS would have to design the form, they'd have to redesign the 1040, et al. You realize all of this requires lead time, right?

"Payroll tax" is often used to refer to the Social Security tax, when one wishes to obscure the nature of the tax (ie that it funds the Social Security program). "Withholding tax" is more normally used to refer to federal income tax based on the income tax tables.

What the Senate bill did on the Social Security tax was set a limit of $18,350 (1/6 of 110,100, the limit for the entire year) for the first two months of the year that the 4.2% rate applies to. 6.2% applies above that limit. After the first two months of the year, rates are yet to be determined.

So instead of a simple calculation involving a single rate and a single wage limit for the employee portion for the entire year, we have three rates, two for the first two months and one for the last 10 months, and two limits that apply. For reporting the quarter totals (Form 941) employers would need to report the total wages for the first two months below $18,350, and the total wages above $18,350 along with the total wages for the third month in the quarter.

I would be very surprised if any payroll software were capable of handling this calculation for the Social Security tax right now. Up until now, there was no reason to build such a ridiculous calculation into your payroll software.

It seems like to me that it used to be that politicians, or at least their staff, had some inkling of the real world effect of changing tax policy, and the need for lead time for the IRS and SSA not to mention software vendors to adjust to these changes. At the worst, changing tax rates, calculations or reporting requirements should be done at the end of quarter if not the year.

News reports suggest to me that the only sticking point between the Senate and the House is how to fund the bill. The two month time frame apparently came about because that the Senate and House only agreed to funding sources that totaled enough to continue the tax break for that period of time.

Actually, wouldn't half of the people be dumber than the "median" person?

That was my initial thought, the alleged theft occurred on the moon, so I think the US Government should bring action against the astronaut in a lunar court.

Oddly enough, I read on Wikipedia (so it must be true!) that some Democrats wanted President Polk ("The Napolean of the Stump") to annex all of Mexico instead of signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. I think that would make a very interesting alt-history scenario!

I'll second this, but add a third option:

3. After watching the 2005+ series, if you don't have enough time to watching everything in order starting with Tom Baker, watch at least his first season, which includes stories with three recurring villain races. Then if you are interested in the classic episodes but don't want to slog through them in order, skip around based on a theme, say all of the Dalek episodes in order, or regeneration stories (last and first episodes when the actor portraying the Doctor changes). Some of the episodes and seasons are tied together with a theme (Season 16: Key to Time, Season 23: Trial of a Timelord, Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva form a sort of trilogy). Others are notable for certain reasons (e.g. City of Death was filmed in Paris and written by Douglas Adams and will seem familiar if you've read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency). There are a few multiple doctor episodes (The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors, The Three Doctors) that are worth watching. Watch at least one episode from each of doctors 4-7. Check out the only Eighth Doctor (Fox TV movie) because like or not, that's all there is for the eighth doctor (and they did get Sylvester McCoy back for the first 20 minutes to include the regeneration sequence).