Where can terrorists buy guns? Why, the United States! Federal law prohibits felons, fugitives, drug addicts and domestic abusers from purchasing firearms, but it excludes anyone on an FBI watchlist. From 2004 to 2014 suspected terrorists tried to buy guns 2,233 times, according to the Washington Post, and 91% of the time they succeeded. Apparently, …
Continue reading ‘Terrorism and the complicity of the gun advocates’ »
In the last financial year, 2014, Facebook paid less tax than an average UK worker would pay. The social network’s UK operation paid £4,327 in corporation tax. An average UK worker earning £26,500 would pay £5,393, a combination of income tax and national insurance payments. Meanwhile they spent more than £35m (!) giving their UK-based …
There is something I don’t understand, and maybe someone can enlighten me? The ISIS plotters and bombers have unrestricted access to the internet. The master minds disaffect them on the web, encourage them to plot and kill on the web and there is free information on the web as to how to make bombs. In a …
In 2005, the agency that collects state income tax in California began a pilot programme called ReadyReturn (later called CalFile), a voluntary, ‘simple, easy-to-use service that offers free, direct to government e-filing’, similar to the British system. It saved the people who used it money and time, and was projected to save the state half …
Continue reading ‘How Turbotax keeps US tax returns bewilderingly complicated’ »
It’s nice to be able to record some good news. Chris Mooney, in the Washington Post, reports that natural gas replaced coal as the largest source of electricity generation in the US for two months this year. 30% of the cost of generation involves coal transportation, whereas natural gas costs a fraction of that figure. …
