If I were giving a commencement address this year, it would go something like the following:
Graduates:
I want to congratulate you on becoming the least-educated class in recent history.
During the past four years, you have made excuses during COVID for missing class, turning in late assignments, and failing to meet the requirements of many courses.
You have learned to make excuses or blame someone else for your mistakes.
Since COVID has ended, you have honed your skills for making excuses.
Then, you decided to protest for much of your senior year.
Fifty-two percent of you will be underemployed a year after graduation, meaning you are working in jobs that don’t require the degrees you earned, according to a recent report by the Burning Glass Institute, which analyzes the job market. Five years out from school, the report said about 88 percent of you who are underemployed will be “severely” underemployed.
Peter McCoy of The Wall Street Journal wrote recently: “Here is a brutal fact for the college class of 2024: There aren’t enough college-level jobs out there for all of you. Some of you will snag them. Others will have to settle for jobs that don’t require a college education. And history shows that many of those who start out in a job that doesn’t require a college education are still toiling in that kind of job a decade later.”
Also, you have amassed an enormous debt to pay for your degree, and it may take decades to pay the money back.
Nevertheless, the federal government recently decided people don’t have to repay their loans. That’s one of the few upsides you have that others didn’t.
As you head out into the real world, I recommend improving education for your families from the beginning of school through college and beyond.
Otherwise, my sobering message will be given time and time again.
Posted: April 30, 2024 by datechguy in Uncategorized
It’s been an interesting tax week for me.
Until Sunday I had no idea there was anything to do with taxes still going on with me. I had mailed my Federal and State returns on the day before Pintastic NE 2024 (April 10th) to make sure they were taken care of before I left. On Saturday I went to the bank and found that the check I owed the feds (thanks Joe Biden) had been cashed but the state refund had not come yet. I found that slightly odd but it was only a couple of weeks so I didn’t think anything of it.
After work on Sunday my son ask me if I could scan a document for him that he had to email out as his own scanner was toast. I agreed went to scan the document and to my horror found my Massachusetts scheduled C1 sitting in the copier/scanner from the day of me copying everything before mailing.
Now years ago you used to be able to put a federal Schedule C on your mass taxes with a note saying “no mass differences” with your state taxes. The new form is different and unlike the federal form which has the “cost of goods sold” part on the back of schedule C that bit of notes is on a separate form C1.
So when I doubled check my taxes and saw “Schedule C” in my mass pile it didn’t hit me that C1 wasn’t there.
Because I pay sales taxes on the 2 to 3 copies of my book that I sell each year I have an account on Mass Tax Connect so that night I scanned the form C1 and attached it in a message explaining how the form was forgotten and asking if that was enough or if they wanted me to resend the lot.
I got an email noting a reply on the account and signed on. The message I got was a nasty surprise.
They apparently didn’t notice the missing C1 form because apparently despite me mailing my taxes at the desk at the post office they never received my tax return.
This was a real surprise as my federal taxes were sent at the same time and they wasted no time cashing my check.
So now I’m torn between the idea of taking part or all of tomorrow off to try to get all of this taken care of or waiting till my next day off and doing it Thursday but either way consider this:
At the time I found that form in my scanner I was kicking myself thinking this was the reason my refund wasn’t in and considered it a big misfortune. It turns out however that if I had not forgotten that form C1 I would have absolutely no idea that the Post Office lost my tax return (I presume it’s lost as it wasn’t returned via the return address).
Furthermore if my son had note decided to go to do a weekend visit at the National Our Lady of La Salette and his scanner wasn’t down who knows how many days it would have been before I realized that form hadn’t been sent.
Now thanks to both of these things the problem will be solved before the end of April instead of being discovered months from now and becoming a bigger headache then it already will be.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Update: Got the day off to contact DOR and talked to Courtney. She tells me to wait six weeks or so as paper returns aren’t always processed right away so that would explain the lack of a record. Just to play it safe I scanned everything and sent it via the online site but I’ll breathe a sigh of relief
Tonight is game three of the series between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat which is a rematch of the Eastern Conference Final.
The Celtics were widely expected to sweep but after an embarrassing loss at home in game 2 they shut down the depleted heat in a defensive clinic that was a sight to behold. One might thing this would make tonight’s game a must win for Miami but I’m thinking it’s a must win for Boston.
On paper these two teams aren’t on the same planet but the Heat are one of the best coached teams in the game and have a never say die attitude. If they manage to steal game 4 at home all those old questions about the Celtics heart will return and it will mean that the Celtics will need to win at least one more at home where the Heat dominated them last year in the playoffs.
As they say, that’s why they play the games.
Speaking of playing the game the Boston Bruins are in almost every measurable sense worse than last year. Last year they set a record for regular season points, this year they finished 2nd in their division two Bruins greats retired.
Yet they now have a 3-1 advantage going into game 5 on Tuesday.
It would be quite an irony if their lesser team made the greater run this season. The real question however is will they return to their rotation at Goalie or will Swayman who has played in all of Boston’s wins get the call and Ullmark who lost game 2 remain on bench?
The media have a whole day to discuss it.
To say this young Boston Red Sox team has been a surprise is a understatement and a half
Despite trouble vs a good Cleveland team they managed to not only sweep a decent Pirates team in Pittsburgh but take two of three from a first place Cubs team even going so far as to put a 17-0 drubbing on them.
And this from a team whose disabled list is a who’s who of their opening day roster.
The young kids have delivered and now sit in 3rd place just 3 out of first and a 1/2 game behind in the wild card. All without spending tens of millions on free agents
Off in St. Louis I suspect Chaim Bloom is watching the team he built win and smiling.
There is a ton of talk about the Patriots drafting Drake May with the 3rd pick of the draft, and a lot will be written about him, but did you know the Pats picked up a second QB in round 6?
New England picked up QB Joe Milton III from Tennessee with the 193rd pick of the draft which they picked up from the Jaguars.
Milton checks in at an impressive 6-5, 235 pounds with an incredibly strong arm. Big time sleeper for me in this draft.
It may be insurance with their current crop of QB (except May) all free agents after this year, he may be converted to another position by the time he hits the field but historically New England has had a lot of luck with 6th round quarterbacks who had six or more QB’s picked ahead of him.
Finally my Dynasty face to face league opens up this weekend.
I should be more excited by this team. I have both Othani & Acuna Jr and more importantly an infield of Christian Walker, Jose Altuve, Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez not only all returning from last season but all with A ratings for durability meaning that none can be injured for more than 3 games at a shot.
Yet for some reason I’m ambivalent about them.
I have no such qualms about my online squads. My 1997 Reds who just missed a playoff spot last year are running wild on the bases, which is to be expected on a team with Rickey Henderson and Lance Johnson in the outfield and despite Wade Boggs spending three series on the DL are tied for 1st place.
Meanwhile in 1972 my judicious trades for both draft picks and prospects has paid off big. Doug Rader my 1st pick in round one may have been my third choice to fill my 3B slot but he leads the team in HR & RBI and is fielding up a storm. Much to my shock my late first round picks turned into last year’s Cy Young winner Don Wilson (15th pick) and Blue Moon Odem (18th pick) and together with Ken Holtzman, Al Downing and Mike Torrez who retuned from last year have been putting up numbers to be proud of. Meanwhile Ken Berry is catching anything near him in center with 2nd year man Caesar Geronimo doing the same in right while Pete Rose is hitting anything that comes near him and old friend Ron Fairly his playing like there is someone out to take his job (Mike Jorgenson). All that adds up to first place.
A seven game lead with 123 games to go doesn’t mean a lot but it beats trailing the pack.
Nationally, the leftist ideologue is best known for botching the Jussie Smollett case. Yeah, I keep bringing that up, largely because Foxx supposedly throws a fit whenever her name is attached to the hate-crime hoaxer.
Feel her rage.
By throwing his considerable weight around, both literally and symbolically, Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, who hopes to run for president in 2028, brought the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Chicago. This may prove to be Pritzker’s undoing. Chicago was hit hard by riots after the George Floyd murder, and the crime rate in Chicago and its core suburbs has soared since Foxx took office in 2016.
Fortunately, Foxx chose not to run for a third term.
The campaign to succeed her was essentially a referendum on her time as state’s attorney. The winner by a hair was Eileen O’Neill Burke, who said at the end of a debate, “If you like the way things are going right now, you have a candidate in this election. It isn’t me.”
Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that Foxx will get a little tougher in prosecuting crime. “You may not be aware, but for the last four years the public policy of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office has been not to prosecute criminal violations tied to protests and demonstrations,” the Trib’s left-of-center editorial board wrote, “if the office deems those actions ‘peaceful.'”
“That means the office as a matter of policy won’t prosecute protesters arrested for disorderly conduct,” the op-ed continued, “unlawful gathering or criminal trespass to state-supported land, among other laws.”
As people with common sense–that is, non-leftists–know, small-time violators of the law sometimes become felons. Peaceful protests, or what liberal journalists laughingly call “mostly peaceful protests” sometimes become quite violent ones.
Foxx’s end-of-term conversion does not mean she’s been suddenly blessed with wisdom. Crime is a very serious problem in Chicago. Nationally, liberal apologists for criminality regularly tell us that the crime rate in major cities is going down, but not only do they use the COVID year of 2020 as a comparison point, they ignore Chicago. While murder the murder rate is down slightly in Chicago, other crimes are becoming more numerous. Foxx is largely to blame, but Chicago’s mayor during the pandemic, Lori Lightfoot, as well as her neo-Marxist successor, Brandon Johnson, should hold their heads in shame too.
Instead, Foxx has cynically, in regard to DNC protesters, decided to do her job.
Leftists are obsessed with history repeating itself. Looking past the calm 1996 Democratic Convention, they fear a repeat of the riot at Grant Park during the 1968 DNC, when Mayor Richard J. Daley’s angry cops beat up hippie protesters as millions of voters watched on television. Liberals blame that chaos for Richard Nixon’s victory that fall.
At a protest earlier this month Joe Iosbaker, a left-wing gadfly, offered an ominous warning with a couple of questions. “Have you heard that the Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago? Are we going to let ’em come here without a protest? This is Chicago, goddamn it — we’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome.”
Foxx doesn’t want to be blamed for Donald Trump defeating Joe Biden in November. She cares more about her political party than fulfilling the duties of her job.
Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests are regular disturbances in downtown Chicago. Protesting, both peaceful and “mostly peaceful,” has become a habit in the city. Throw into the mix Chicago’s violent crime epidemic, and the result will be a vile stew that is set to turn toxic in late August, when the DNC convenes at the United Center.
Foxx’s “conversion,” in my opinion, will prove to be too little–too late.
Let the bad times roll. History will repeat itself in Chicago.
After the DNC leaves, Foxx can return to not prosecuting protesters who break laws until Eileen O’Neill Burke is sworn in.
John Ruberry regularly blogs in Cook County at Marathon Pundit.
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