Business Tax (Dis)Incentives

"Giving a tax incentive to a business to encourage economic development sounds like a great idea, but it is not. Tax breaks for businesses are little more than corporate welfare at the expense of hard-working Georgians. They amount to subsidies favoring a select few businesses over Georgia’s residents and existing businesses.

Proponents of tax breaks for new businesses argue the increase in jobs will make up for the reduction in revenue, but tax breaks for businesses rarely pay for themselves and often end up costing the state a great deal of money. That shortfall must be paid for by Georgia’s taxpaying citizens and business, which don’t have the benefit of that break.

Giving a business a tax incentive to move here may help that business in the short term, but in the long term the people who pay for that tax break also happen to be the employees and the customers of that company. Plus, it sends the wrong message to existing Georgia businesses: “If you stay in the state, we will use your tax dollars to subsidize your competitors.”

In June, after the North Carolina Legislature approved a $46 million tax break designed to induce Apple, Inc. to build data warehouses in the Tar Heel State, Scott Hodge, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, had this response: “Too many legislators confuse targeted business incentives with policies that truly create a better business climate.”

“They are not. They only provide an excuse for lawmakers to avoid real tax reform. Targeted incentives are to a state’s economy what steroids are to the human body – short-term results that eventually weaken the bones, cause heart failure, or worse, impotency. Tax systems should not be used to pick winners and losers or micromanage the economy. Data farms in North Carolina might be a good thing, but it is much better for the marketplace to decide that, not government. The key to a prosperous economy is a tax system that provides a level playing field for all businesses and all industries...”

...The most equitable tax incentive that Georgia could offer would be to cut taxes on individuals as well as corporations to make Georgia more attractive to individuals and businesses – both old and new. This would lead to investment and job creation, encourage more businesses to move to Georgia and send the correct message to Georgia’s current businesses." (Emphasis Mine.)

No, I ain't moved to Georgia. I just used this article to answer this question: Guess what "economic strategy" Puerto Rico has surgically grafted (heavy emphasis on "graft") to its low sloping forehead of business development for 40+ years?

 Uh-huh.

The Jenius Has Quoted.

Two Optimists

I love how languages can express ways of thinking. I know two languages intimately and I've heard of others, so I know there's more than one way to think about a concept.

For example, English separates the concept of "being alone" into two distinctions: lonely and solitude. Lonely is the painful feeling of isolation, while solitude is the joyful state of feeling complete and in harmony. Spanish has only one word for "being alone"--soldedad--which means loneliness. In Spanish, soledad is forever negative, and for someone like Me who enjoys solitude, expressing it in Spanish would be akin to saying "I like being lonely" in English.

That just don't sound right, right?

I recently found out that another of My favorite words--optimism--has a dual nature in Japanese. On one hand, they say Rakutenteki to mean "hope that things will turn out well; a positive outlook," a similar definition to English. On the other hand, they also say Rakkanteki, meaning "facing challenges to give life meaning."

I was instantly taken by this dual nature of optimism in Japanese, grokking it fully. Life without challenges is Life without flavor, drab and dull. My oldest nephew once asked Me what My favorite games are, and when I replied he said "Why do You like difficult games so much?" and My answer was "They are the ones that challenge the most." Sometimes projects I undertake are far outside the realm of what others call "realistic" (namby-pamby dullards all), but they involve a whole lot of challenges that make Life (for Me) a lot more interesting.

I know for a fact I'm in a minority here. Most of the people I encounter are optimists in the "I hope I win the Lotto" mode, not in the "I have to get better to solve this" mode. To them, doing logic puzzles is akin to learning Sanskrit, reading anything other than gossip is like sawing their face in half and thinking to solve problems no one else sees yet is like baptizing a TV set in vinegar.

Sad. But then one can see how they are incapable of being true optimists, of embracing the energy of challenges and of rising to new heights to see farther and do more. That they are the majority is tragic. That I often feel as if I'm alone in this just means I feel...solitude.

The Jenius Has Spoken. 

DisEducation Triage

If a restaurant failed health standards 8 years in a row, should it remain open?

So what should be done with schools that have failed educational standards 8 years in a row?

Well, if you're the Puerto Rico Department of DisEducation, you pretend they don't exist. You act as if those schools were aberrations, even though schools that have failed No Child Left Behind standards (the Enron/AIG of educational standards) for 5+ years amount to 19% of Our total school system.

Nineteen. Freaking. Percent. That means that for 5, 6, 7 or 8 years--and now 9--19% or more of Our revolting excuses for schools have utterly failed in meeting the agreed-upon standards. Add in the schools at 3+ years of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) failure and you have over 34% of Our schools in sub-standard mode.

But look more closely at the problem and you see an even more alarming trend: Over 61% of the failed schools are junior high/intermediate schools, encompassing 7th, 8th and 9th grades. Almost half of the intermediate public schools We have are abject failures, not only at teaching, but at retaining students. For not only is there a teaching problem, the dropout rates in those grades starts soaring to disastrous heights and in full ostrich mode, the DisEducation herd pretends it isn't happening.

Billions of dollars have been funneled into this bottomless pit, made so by incompetence, politicking, ignorance, theft, immorality and short-sightedness. DisEducation is the department where Our Past lies buried, Our Present gets embalmed and Our Future is a wake.

If this (non)Administration, this (outhouse)legislature and DisEducation department were truly--truly--interested in resuscitating Our Future and making a true positive change in education, it would aggressively target intermediate schools to both reduce the failed-standards rate and dramatically decrease the dropout rate.

From restaurants to hospitals: Triage is the process by which the highest priority gets the swiftest treatment. Somebody explain to the Fools that triage is not a fancy word for raping the public treasury, but the conceptual lens needed to actually do something useful for a change.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

The Puerto Rican Dream

Belated Notice of Thanks to Rebecca MacKinnon, who selected the last few of My posts that appeared on Global Voices Online. Ms. MacKinnon is one of the co-founders of GVO. Yes, I know it took Me a while to notice all this, but you know I'm just a Jenius...

What is The Puerto Rican Dream?

No, seriously. What is The Puerto Rican Dream? In 150 words or more, We can try to define The American Dream, and though there might be some debate on what it actually is, there is no debate on whether there is one or not.

For example, The American Dream can be seen as "rags to riches," "opportunity awaits for those who go after it," "everybody equal" or "hard work trumping class distinctions." There's a "can-do" spirit to The American Dream, a sense of hope and a bright future. Pundits use it as shorthand for what makes America great (referring only to the U.S. part of it all) and demagogues use it to lambast the opposition (as in "ruining The American Dream.")

So there is one. Japan has one, too, centered on self-reliance and resiliency, on coming together to overcome any adversity, the deep-seated knowledge that their will can outlast and ultimately triumph over any obstacle.

But what--pray tell--is the Puerto Rican Dream? What myth, mythos, conceptual image, word portrait, shared concept do We have that underlies if not supports Our cultural expressions?

I was born here. Spent half My childhood and most of My adulthood here. My Son was born here. Almost all My relatives were born and raised here. I have worked with thousands of people, read thousands of Our pages, experienced thousands of encounters, lived thousands of hours on this green patch of the Caribbean and for the Life of Me I can't describe The Puerto Rican Dream.

Cynically, many of Us would say The Puerto Rican Dream is to become the 51st State. That's not a dream: that's a surrender. Other cynics would say that the dream is to get more U.S. dinero in exchange for nothing. That's thievery or beggary, both of which We are guilty of. No, those aren't dreams, those are cop outs, the barking of dogs instead of the bracing thoughts of higher primates.

When things get tough, the Dream is what unites, what keeps an individual and a group moving forward. Despite the fact that I--amongs others--see The American Dream now as someone being so pathetic a TV producer makes them over for ratings gold, there is a long history of elements of that Dream coming forth in times of crisis to encourage, support and guide. Think World War II and the lunar landing program, examples of the U.S. of part of A. saying, in effect, "Yes We can."

Catchy phrase, that.

Are there similar examples for Puerto Rico? An example? When a crisis comes, when times get tough and the future looks dim and gray, what do We do? What is Our dream?

Rescue.

We dream of being rescued. By someone, somewhere, out there. No "Yes We can," but "Who can?" No "Let's go", but "Let's wait." No "It's up to Us," but "It's up to the U.S." Or somebody.

Our dream is not that of the cowboy or the samurai or the honorable knight, the proactive heroic figure battling alarming obstacles to set the world aright. No. We are, in Our dreams, the princess waiting to be rescued...by the hero.

Some of My brethren from Our Island will argue against My claim. They might say I'm a traitor, a vende patria or a total idiot for saying such a thing. Okay, they're perfectly entitled to being wrong about that, too. Because here's My challenge: Show Me We aren't the princess. Show Me We aren't the passive want-it-alls who can't--or won't--lift a finger to save Ourselves. Go ahead, try to show Me Our dream isn't "Save Me," that it is, instead, "Saving Ourselves."

Go ahead. Try. It isn't a dream, what We have, but a nightmarish willingness to sleep until the danger is taken care of...by the hero from somewhere out there.

The Jenius Has Spoken. 

Vote for El Yunque!

This won't take long...

I know there's a campaign on to have El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rain forest in the whole U.S. of part of A., declared a modern wonder. You know, like the 7 Wonders of the World, part III. Or IV.

I know there's a UNESCO New Natural 7 Wonders of the World campaign on because I see ads on dozens of pages across the whole wide GoogleTubes urging the User--in this case, Me--to Vote for El Yunque!

I must have seen that ad over a hundred times. Maybe missed it another few hundred times. Heard about the campaign somewhere and about how El Yunque was ranking high in this round. I think.

And then it dawned on Me that I should vote. Not out of some sense of Yo soy Boricua pride, but from the realization that is a veritable wonder that We haven't already screwed up El Yunque beyond all recognition.

If you saw this, then you'll know exactly what I mean.

So I voted. For El Yunque, ranked #3 in Group E. And I also voted for the Amazon rain forest, (ranked #1 in the same group as El Yunque), Mount Everest (#9 in Group C), The Great Barrier Reef (#3 in Group G),  the Grand Canyon (#5 in Group D),  Niagara Falls, (#2 in Group F) and the Galapagos Islands (#1 in Group B.) Rankings here. Vote here.

And maybe UNESCO's campaign can help Us keep saving El Yunque. From Ourselves.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

 

Procedural Vermin

[Once again, My Thanks to Global Voices Online for picking up another Jenius post, though this one creates in Me the vivid definition of "mixed feelings"...]

"How will this play out? Health nominee hung, Public-Private Alliances tabled, Convention Center named Stupid, Education nominee confirmed and the sequel "Cringing Larva, Horrid Vermin" playing out before Our bloodshot eyes..."

Quoting Me, of course. 

In the words of a clown: How'm I doin'? 

--Education nominee, a.k.a. Political Animal harboring drug-dealing parasite, confirmed.

--Convention Center named for Stupid Pedro Rosselló.

--Public-Private Alliances tabled as in "Politics trumps Potential Solutions."

--And today, Health Secretary nominee dropped like a lead bedpan, hung by political opposition that never even tried to vet him.

So by default (emphasis on "fault") the "Cringing Larva, Horrid Vermin" scenario is here, giving Me a 5-for-5 sweep.

Hold your applause. And your nose. 2005 is back with a vengeance: a mud-headed governor backpedaling like a drunken crab from a legislative whore hell-bent on destroying him politically. (Sorry, I wrote "whore." I meant "whores.") Only back then, there were two parties involved. Now there's only one. If you can call it a party. It's more like a drunken leper colony pretending to be the Royal Court of Narnia.

Six months into a (non)administration, The Larva, (non)governor Luis Fortuño, has yet to achieve Cabinet completion. Is this the model of government the state(of chaos)hood party said would be "the standard for progressive government"? (The name of the party is the New Progressive Party, so they made a play on words that... Oh forget it. It's too easy.)

Back in 2005, they smarmily excused their retarded behavior by claiming they were "defending the people's interests," a concept none of them could properly define in 50 words or less. Now what smarmy excuse do they have? None. So they claim "procedure," as in "analysis," "scrutiny" and "evaluation." Even if none of them could define any of those terms in 50 words or less. Using a dictionary. Read to them. Slowly.

Let's face it: We're in the slimy clutches of microcephalic vermin, sub-creatures subsisting on blind instinct and greedy hunger. To sustain and maintain healthy existence, vermin must be minimized, up to the point of destruction, if need be. 

You can write the ending to that paragraph. Unless you're in the statehood party, where you'd be more inclined to "analyze," "scrutinize" and "evaluate" what you will never complete. Or understand.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

Shame On (and For) Us

There are times, very few times, when one feels intense shame for one's country.

This is one of them.

I lived less than a block from Ocean Park beach for over a year. I played football there, threw Frisbees, gained a massive scar along My left knee trying to catch an Aerobie, played beach volleyball there, swam, surfed, threw rocks, saw the sun rise and set, sat through a major thunderstorm with waves crashing several feet from Me...I felt at home there, on the sand, along the shore.

Puerto Rico is My home. It's where My heart is, where My son is, where My family and many of My friends live. Of them, there is never a feeling except a positive one. But when one sees what one's people are capable of doing...

No, this isn't torture. Or genocide. Those are horrible crimes committed by beasts. What this video shows is a crime, albeit a small one in the pantheon of evil. The shame comes not from it being a crime, but from the indifference leading to and suffusing it.

Watch the video, if you can, with the pseudo-cool jazz music as counterpoint. Look at what the camera captures with stark objectivity. And know that every piece of garbage--every one of the thousands of pieces of garbage--indicts Us with its clear message of unconcern, of consumerism, of brainlessness, of herd mentality, of disdain, short-sightedness and sheer incompetence.

As the alleged tourists said: It must be cultural. Before this video, I would have argued it was human nature.

Now I can only reply: Yes, I guess it is.

Shame on Us.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

Stupid Convention Center

Let's see... I'm just rummaging through here to see if I can find some kind of prediction, some kind of Jenius insight that I can turn into a blog post... Well whaddaya know...

The local excuse for a senate has approved a bill to name the Puerto Rico Convention Center the Pedro Rosselló Convention Center.

Hee-hee. Let's go to the replay!

"(Senate president Tomás Rivera, a.k.a.) Tantrum is even pushing the idea of naming the Puerto Rico Convention Center after (Pedro Rosselló, a.k.a.) Stupid, making it the Stupid Convention Center, which is perfectly apt as the damn thng is too small to attract mega-conventions, too big to adequately serve a majority of local expos, has lousy architecture that makes it non-modular and is saddled with too many parasitic employees to make it cost-effective.

So, yes, it makes perfect sense to name it the Pedro Stupid Rosselló Convention Center..."

Now, of course, Tantrum didn't push that bill through based on My scintillating analysis... or actually, he did: "...(B)y ramming that (the naming) down ([non]governor Luis Fortuño's, a.k.a.) The Larva's throat and by making the naming of the white elephant an equal-par issue with The Larva's cabinet--key players in any chance We have of making progress in the here and now--Tantrum is flexing political muscle in brainless fashion. Nothing new there. And The Larva is waffling and sidestepping. Nothing new there, either."

Good times, good times. Let's name a barren excuse for an economic tool after a barrel of excuses tool. The Stupid Convention Center it is! And all this wrapped in the pissant dick-slinging of two microcephalic (and microgenitalic) Fools with the vision of garden slugs. Hooboy! It don't get any better than this! Can you feel the excitement?!

I'm actually hoping the Stupid Convention Center gets condemned because of widespread black mold. That would help it match the color of its namesake's purported soul.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

Above (My) Average Brethren

There's a shortage of solutions on My Island.

We have problems--many problems--and though there's a super-abundance of empty-headed, knee-jerk criticism (not by Me), self-interested smarmy poppycock (not by Me) and overblown narcissistic shouting (again, not by Me), there is a very distinct lack of truly thoughtful discourse going on around Us, conversations that lead to real solutions rather than convenient-for-someone schemes.

I often have thoughtful discourse and sometimes it's with other people. Many of My friends and colleagues are of high intelligence, are aware of reality and can articulate a problem, an analytical approach and a series of potential solutions without resorting to demagoguery. We engage in this kind of behavior waaaay more often that Our average brethren. Off the top of My head I'd say We do this 153 times more often, in other words, Our average brethren would take 153 years to match what My colleagues and I do in one year.

Arrogant? Nah. It's just the truth.

But what, pray tell, do We accomplish with so much discourse, aside from either dampening or firing up Our initial attitudes about the subject matter?

Good question. 

Wish I had an answer. Oh, I do, but it's kinds vague: We do this to keep Our eyes and minds open to act upon a solution when We see it emerging.

Yeah. A bit on the lame side. It smacks of passivity, of "Let someone else do the work and I'll jump on board as soon as there's a bandwagon that can support My weight." But even as lame as that sounds, it's light-years ahead of Our average brethren, for whom "solutions" not couched in terms of "Here's your check" have no chance of occupying space in their oh-so-narrow worldview.

I could say I'm getting to be a cranky, cantankerous curmudgeon, if it weren't for the fact that I've pretty much always been a pedantic, sarcastic smart-aleck. And I have no more defense for that attitude other than it keeps Me focused on trying to find solutions for Our woes, keeps Me going back to those who can seriously challenge My beliefs and prove Me wrong and occasionally thrusts Me in the position of actually having to put My money where My mouth is, which I do waaaay more often than...well, you know.

So that's My stand. Average Brethren: what's yours?

The Jenius Has Spoken. 

Pirates Fever Boils Over

I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. Yeah, go ahead, scoff. Or pity Me. Even a Jenius has a soft spot in His head. And this is definitely Mine.

I wrote about this a while back, this affection for a team that, by now, has tied the record for most consecutive losing seasons in baseball history: sixteen. Uh-huh, 16 years of "Wait 'til next year!"

But next year is pretty much like the last year. Sixteen times in a row.

Last year, the Pirates traded their top player, Jason Bay, to the Red Sox and their quality right fielder, Xavier Nady, to the Yankees. What did My Bucs get in exchange? I think 4 minor league prospects and a glove. I hear the glove is making progress through Double A ball...

Now I find out that the Pirates, My Pittsburgh-Clemente-played-here-Pirates, have traded their current best player, Nate McClouth, to the... Atlanta Braves. LIke one of the solid LaRoche brothers says, you start wondering who's going to be left, for in less than one season, the Pirates traded away their ENTIRE outfield so they could become starters for pennant-contending teams.

I'm just a Jenius, you know, but wouldn't three above-average outfielders HELP your freaking-ass team?!? With the LaRoche brothers, Jack Wilson and Freddie Sanchez, the Pirates had a solid core of young players, of which 3 are gone and who knows, maybe the other 5 will be, too. It's like a fire sale, only that the Pirate fans are the ones getting burned. 

So three nights later, guess who recently-traded Nate hit his first home run against? Shit. Helped beat the Pirates, although Nate's replacement had 2 triples. Woo. And hoo.

And in their never-ending descent to cheapskate gutters, the Pirates actually signed the 2 Indian (from India) "pitchers" who sucked the least in some Indian "reality" show. I think they got them both for $40,000 and a crate of "The Simpsons" DVDs Barry Bonds left behind in his haste to stab steroids in his butt on the West Coast.

As it stands right now, the Pirates are 4 games under .500, their pitching is spotty, their hitting is typical of a young team (hot and cold) and the Indians are somewhere in reserve. I'd say their on a reservation clause, but I'm too disgusted to go there.

Will the Pirates win at least 81 games this year, when rumors fly that 2-3 more players are on the trading block? Hell, I don't think they can 81 games without Nate, Jason and Xavier. They didn't when all three were there, albeit younger. But now they're gone and We have youngsters peeking over their shoulders and dreading that call into the manager's office that says "You've been traded to..."

But I hope they can. I really do. So that after 16 miserable years of 5-year plans and turnarounds and getting a new focus We can actually see that 81 in the W column and sigh with relief. It's definitely not much, but it's what I'll take if I can get it.

The Jenius Has Spoken. 

Don't Care, Won't Care

This won't take long...

I was asked--by My Special One--how I could be insensitive to the situation the displaced government workers are going through and essentially unmoved by the more layoffs to come. I wasn't asked that in order to point a finger or raise a welt from criticism, but more as a window to My thoughts.

Take a look:

---I believe most government workers--the bulk of the bureaucracy--are mediocre workers at best...and they know it. That's why they choose the "security" of government work, do a lousy job at it, hate it with a passion, but don't dare leave to actually have to earn a living in the private sector.

---I believe most government workers are replaceable with machines, better systems and dead space. That includes the legislative outhouse and its seepage systems.

---I believe the government started growing in number of jobs in order to make up for a lack of imagination, creativity and intelligence brought on by winning the faux-governor's mansion without being prepared for it. Yes, I'm talking about Luis "Piano Man" Ferré and his "stuff the government and build highways with my company's cement" economic disaster "plan." 

---And I believe the self-same goverment, led by facetious weasels of all parties, have perpetuated the "stuff the government" blood sausage of plan in order to increase their levels of influence. Screw the economy, they cackle (weasels do cackle), We're in this for power!

So when--if...IF--those excessive jobs are hacked and slashed to oblivion, I won't feel any pain, remorse or sympathy for the clueless mediocrities who mark time in exchange for money, who clog the septic system like cement-laden feces and drag the talented and hard-working lot of Us down to their pathetic level.

The sooner they start wailing, the better.

The Jenius Has Spoken. 

Jenius Does Info

Another Jenius Thanks to Janine Mendes-Franco for grabbing another of My posts for Global Voices Online. I simply must meet this woman...

Jenius Friend Kevin Shockey thought it would be interesting if I explained My information-sifting system. First, the why.

On a daily basis, I will send 3-12 e-mails to people, from My Special One to Family to Friends to Colleagues with links to stuff I think they would like. Many people do this; I do it constantly. For another, I write or speak about a wide variety of topics and will often get consulted on a topic to which I can provide a cogent reponse and expanded information.

There's a reason I'm known as a Jenius (though I'll concede this might not be it.)

So here's the system: I use Opera as My browser (almost always have, always will) and its start page for Me is Speed Dial, a one-page icon-sized preview of My daily websites. These are: Lifehacker, Madville, Metafilter, BoingBoing, Neatorama, Reddit, Mixx, Google News (personalized), Hey It's Free!, The Sports Guy and 9Rules.

Every morning I go to Lifehacker, Madville, Metafilter, Neatorama and Reddit, in that order. Takes Me about 10-20 minutes and I almost always find 8-16 links I can use. I will revisit each of these 2-5 times, depending on how much time I spend in front of My Mac and how bored I might be, adding about 8-18 more a day. (Yes, I kept track so I could make reasonable estimates. I'm very glad  that's over.)

I visit Mixx and Hey It's Free! once a day; Google News and The Sports Guy 3-4 times a week and 9Rules once a week. From 9Rules I can get 12-30 links in about 20 minutes.

I also have a Session (Opera allows for saving multiple bookmarks to reopen as a group) called ZipBang (for reasons I misplaced in the flood) which has Synthesis, Dumb Little Man, Socyberty, Woot!, Zen Habits, Wise Bread, The Red Ferret Journal, Lifehack, Kottke.org and io9. (Eclectic Jenius be I.) I go through these in about 5 minutes, finding 1-3 links a day on average.

I have another Session called Twice Weekly (functional name this time) which contains 1001 Rules for My Unborn Son, Arts & Letters Daily, Buzz Feed, Cool Tools, Cool Websites, Dondequiera (a local blog sadly on hiatus right now), How to Save the World (Dave Pollard's astonishingly smart and irritating blog), My Digital Life, On Simplicity, Puerto Rico: A Paradise Lost?, Roasted Peanuts, Slashfood, Springwise and Stat of the Day. From these I get 2-5 links per session.

Then I have My e-mails, where I receive anywhere from 2 to 9 feeds a day on topics ranging from federal grants, tech news and online education to creativity/innovation, philanthropy/fundraising, sciences, health/medicine and board games. (Yes, I said "board games.")

Doing some quick math, you'll guess I spend about 80-120 minutes a day on this "information track" and you'd be right. You'd also guess I collect about 34-44 links a day, and again, you'd be right. But if only about 8-9 go out, where do the rest go?

I have over 11,000 bookmarks in Opera, with almost 95 folders in the Manage Bookmarks section. All of these are currently synched online (Opera does that automatically) so I can access them from any computer by logging into MyOpera. Most bookmarks are stored in My Action, To Do, Jenius or project folders (currently 4 are open; 2 more coming on board this weekend) or in several other folders, one of which is a series called GrabBag (now in its 10th iteration, with each one averaging 178 bookmarks.) (Yes, I counted.)

For sharing, I'll run every link I look at through a mental checklist, summarized here: Me (of course), My Special One, Kaleb, projects, colleagues, Jenius, friends, Twitter or trash. I recently re-upped on Twitter and its primary purpose is to serve as a File 12 before I go File 13 on what I'm reading.

Then (you didn't think I was finished, right?) I scan almost every link I open for links to other items that might be interesting (My longest segue, I think, took Me through over 30 websites and 3 hours) and follow those until I either have to work, reach a dead end or get bored. Lately My segues have averaged about 5-6 link trails a day.

I also receive some magazines (through Zinio) and do research on 3-4 topics a week which also lead Me down link trails. So if I tell you I spend, on average, 14-16 hours a week on "info-sifting," you know I ain't joking. 

And all this I do for the simple pleasure of zapping My Brain with something new, whether it's a medical procedure, a political argument, a tech meme, a sport stat, a new technology, a business trend, breaking news, trivia, financial advice, science theory, science fact, science fiction or a landscape picture for wallpaper. 

Oh, Twitter is back on My Speed Dial and I try to drop in on it 2-3 times a day. But much like listening to random conversations around town, it is boring. I'm looking around again to replace it with something useful and interesting, which shouldn't be hard at all.

The Jenius Has Spoken.