Link to Book Sale Information

Click on this link to access information about the book sale.

https://stevenspoint.news/

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Has Spoken!

 Remember the re-scheduled spaghetti dinner benefit for the Kollocks on Tues, April 16, from 4:30 to 7:30 pm at the Point of Discovery School at 1900 W Zinda Dr in Stevens Point.  Please help support this family.

The Book Sale is Coming

The SPARTA Spring Book Sale is right around the corner.  You can find us on the first floor of the Central Wisconsin Children's Museum Building, 1100 Main St., Stevens Point.

Times are:

Wednesday, May 1  -noon - 7pm

Thursday, May 2     - 9am - 7pm

Friday, May 3          - 9am - 7pm

Saturday, May 4      - 9am - 2pm

If you can work a shift, contact Nancy Mezyk. 

Our Latest Good Deed is Done

Sandy Williams, at far right, executive director of the Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum, demonstrates the recently installed Automatic Door Operator donated by the Stevens Point Area Retired Teachers’ Association (SPARTA) from profits of a recent book sale. The north entrance off the city parking lot is now handicapped accessible to the Museum and businesses on the first floor. SPARTA book committee members pictured, from left, are Janeen Kwarciany, Janet Swiston, Nancy Kemmeter with Maya Kemmeter, Mary Marks, Nancy Mezyk, Charlene Laurent, and Santha Bickford, president of SPARTA. The next SPARTA book sale is Wednesday, May 1, to Saturday, May 4.

Paid Your Taxes Yet?

https://itep.org/notadime/

60 Companies Avoiding All Federal Income Taxes in 2018

U.S. Income and Federal Tax figures in millions of dollars.

Company	U.S. Income	Federal Tax	Effective Tax Rate	Industry
Activision Blizzard	$447	$-228	-51%	Computers, office equip, software, data
AECOM Technology	$238	$-122	-51%	Engineering & construction
Alaska Air Group	$576	$-5	-1%	Transportation
Amazon.com	$10,835	$-129	-1%	Retail & wholesale trade
Ameren	$1,035	$-10	-1%	Utilities, gas and electric
American Electric Power	$1,943	$-32	-2%	Utilities, gas and electric
Aramark	$315	$-48	-15%	Miscellaneous services
Arrow Electronics	$167	$-12	-7%	Retail & wholesale trade
Arthur Gallagher	$322	—	—	Financial
Atmos Energy	$600	$-10	-2%	Utilities, gas and electric
Avis Budget Group	$78	$-7	-9%	Motor vehicles and parts
Celanese	$480	$-142	-30%	Chemicals
Chevron	$4,547	$-181	-4%	Oil, gas & pipelines
Cliffs Natural Resources	$565	$-1	0%	Oil, gas & pipelines
CMS Energy	$774	$-67	-9%	Utilities, gas and electric
Deere	$2,152	$-268	-12%	Industrial machinery
Delta Air Lines	$5,073	$-187	-4%	Transportation
Devon Energy	$1,297	$-14	-1%	Oil, gas & pipelines
Dominion Resources	$3,021	$-45	-1%	Utilities, gas and electric
DTE Energy	$1,215	$-17	-1%	Utilities, gas and electric
Duke Energy	$3,029	$-647	-21%	Utilities, gas and electric
Eli Lilly	$598	$-54	-9%	Pharmaceuticals & medical products
EOG Resources	$4,067	$-304	-7%	Oil, gas & pipelines
FirstEnergy	$1,495	$-16	-1%	Utilities, gas and electric
Gannett	$7	$-11	-164%	Publishing, printing
General Motors	$4,320	$-104	-2%	Motor vehicles and parts
Goodyear Tire & Rubber	$440	$-15	-3%	Motor vehicles and parts
Halliburton	$1,082	$-19	-2%	Oil, gas & pipelines
Honeywell International	$2,830	$-21	-1%	Industrial machinery
International Business Machines	$500	$-342	-68%	Computers, office equip, software, data
JetBlue Airways	$219	$-60	-27%	Transportation
Kinder Morgan	$1,784	$-22	-1%	Oil, gas & pipelines
MDU Resources	$314	$-16	-5%	Oil, gas & pipelines
MGM Resorts International	$648	$-12	-2%	Miscellaneous services
Molson Coors	$1,325	$-23	-2%	Food & beverages & tobacco
Netflix	$856	$-22	-3%	Retail & wholesale trade
Occidental Petroleum	$3,379	$-23	-1%	Oil, gas & pipelines
Owens Corning	$405	$-10	-2%	Miscellaneous manufacturing
Penske Automotive Group	$393	$-16	-4%	Motor vehicles and parts
Performance Food Group	$192	$-9	-4%	Retail & wholesale trade
Pioneer Natural Resources	$1,249	—	—	Oil, gas & pipelines
Pitney Bowes	$125	$-50	-40%	Computers, office equip, software, data
PPL	$1,110	$-19	-2%	Utilities, gas and electric
Principal Financial	$1,641	$-49	-3%	Financial
Prudential Financial	$1,440	$-346	-24%	Financial
Public Service Enterprise Group	$1,772	$-97	-5%	Utilities, gas and electric
PulteGroup	$1,340	$-44	-3%	Miscellaneous manufacturing
Realogy	$199	$-13	-7%	Miscellaneous services
Rockwell Collins	$719	$-16	-2%	Aerospace & defense
Ryder System	$350	$-23	-7%	Transportation
Salesforce.com	$800	—	—	Computers, office equip, software, data
SpartanNash	$40	$-2	-4%	Retail & wholesale trade
SPX	$66	$-5	-8%	Industrial machinery
Tech Data	$203	$-10	-5%	Retail & wholesale trade
TOTAL, THESE COMPANIES	$79,025	$-4	-5%
Trinity Industries	$138	$-19	-14%	Miscellaneous manufacturing
UGI	$550	$-3	0%	Utilities, gas and electric
United States Steel	$432	$-40	-9%	Metals & metal products
Whirlpool	$717	$-70	-10%	Electronics, electrical equipment
Wisconsin Energy	$1,139	$-218	-19%	Utilities, gas and electric
Xcel Energy	$1,434	$-34	-2%	Utilities, gas and electric

What Those DNA Tests Really Show

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferraff/2019/04/09/genetic-astrology-when-ancient-dna-meets-ancestry-testing/#544b604b6c69

Jennifer Raff makes these points:

1. Your DNA is not a good snapshot of your whole family tree more than a few generations back. You have many more genealogical ancestors than you have genetic ancestors.
2. Any given individual in the past (including all of the ancient people referenced in the Primeval DNA test) is extremely unlikely to have passed along their DNA to anyone, including you.
3. Any person in the distant past—be they anonymous peasant or famous monarch—who passed on their DNA into present times might be your ancestor, but he or she will also likely be the ancestor of everyone else in the world. In other words, as geneticist Dr. Adam Rutherford explained in his post on the subject for The Guardian, “we are all special, which means none of us are.”

The BIG Picture

There can be only be one?

 https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/04/11/there-can-be-only-one/

This image illustrates hominin history over 4 million years, highlighting a recent discovery in the Philippines. Is anyone else as horrified by it as I am?

It illustrates 8 species of Homo in the last million years. The fossil record is spotty, so there are probably more…and the record prior to a million years ago is going to be even weaker, and the number of species is going to be even less representative of reality. Our family was a wonderful flowering bush of diversity, and now its been pared down to a single twig, us.
That’s an illustration of failure. We should be worried, especially since we’re actively exterminating even our distant cousins, taking an axe to the whole family tree. We’re working towards only supporting one primate type on the entire planet, which seems a little selfish and short-sighted.

--Pharyngula

Click on graphic to enlarge.

George Who?

During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era. So, he couldn’t understand why America’s first president didn’t name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself.

“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said, according to three sources briefed on the exchange. "You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you"...

If Trump was impressed with Washington’s real estate instincts, he was less taken by Mount Vernon itself, which the first president personally expanded from a modest one-and-a-half story home into an 11,000 square foot mansion. The rooms, Trump said, were too small, the staircases too narrow, and he even spotted some unevenness in the floorboards, according to four sources briefed on his comments. He could have built the place better, he said, and for less money.

-Digby, Hullaballoo

 

And on a related topic...Welcome to Equal Pay Day

Borrowed from Hullabalo

Passing this along....