Etymology of 'Little History Lesson'
Claim:  "Little History Lesson" article accurately explains origins of many common phrases.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2000] In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs" therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg". As incredible as it sounds, we are informed that men and women took baths only twice a year! (May & October) Women always kept their hair covered while men shaved their heads (because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs.  Wealthy men could afford good wigs. The wigs couldn't be washed so to clean them, they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term "big wig." Today we often use the term "here comes Mr. Big Wig" because someone appears to be or "is" powerful and wealthy. In the late 1700's many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board was folded down from the wall and used for dining.  The "head of the household" always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Once in a while an invited guest would be offered to sit in this chair during a meal whom was almost always a man.  To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. Sitting in the chair, one was called the "chair man of the board." Today in business we use the expression/title "Chairman of the Board." Needless to say, personal hygiene left much room for improvement.  As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told "mind your own bee's wax."   Should thewoman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a smile?"  Also, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt and therefore the expression "losing face." Ladies wore corsets which would lace up in the front. A tightly tied lace was worn by a proper and dignified lady as in "straight laced." Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the "ace of spades." To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 card instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't "playing with a full deck." Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what was considered important to the people. Since there were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs and bars who were told to "go sip some ale" and listen to people's conversations and political concerns. Many assistants were dispatched at different times... "you go sip here" and "you go sip there". The two words "go sip" were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and thus, we have the term "gossip." At local taverns, pubs and bars, people drank from pint and quart sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and who was drinking in "quarts." Hence the term "minding your "P's" and "Q's." Origins:  In 1999, a spurious missive purporting to explain the origins of a number of common phrases appeared on the Internet. That laughable compilation, titled "Life in the 1500s," was pulled together as someone's idea of a joke. 1500s In 2000, the pranksters went at it again with yet another specious list of purported word and phrase origins, this time dating it to the1700s. Typically titled "Little History Lesson," it offered the set of false etymologies listed in the Example section above. Below we analyze each entry in order: In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs" therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg". While some portrait artists might have charged extra for the inclusion of additional details in commissioned works, we know of none that charged per limb displayed. (Most varied their fee by the size of the canvas requested.) The "costs an arm and a leg" saying instead first surfaced around the 1940s, with a meaning of "An exorbitant amount of money," and it likely developed from much older phrases wherein arms and legs were used as examples of extremely valuable items their possessors might be persuaded to surrender in exchange for things desired even more. "If it takes a leg" (used to express desperate determination) dates to 1872. Similarly, print sightings for "I'd give my right arm" (to be able to do something especially desired) go back as far as 1616. As incredible as it sounds, we are informed that men and women took baths only twice a year! (May & October) Women always kept their hair covered while men shaved their heads (because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs.  Wealthy men could afford good wigs. The wigs couldn't be washed so to clean them, they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term "big wig." Today we often use the term "here comes Mr. Big Wig" because someone appears to be or "is" powerful and wealthy. Full immersion bathing didn't become the norm for a very long time because it took a fair bit of work to haul the amount of water and wood needed to fill and heat a bath. However, that folks weren't routinely taking what we would consider proper baths doesn't mean that they didn't regularly clean themselves. Cleaning one's body was a matter of taking what we would regard as "sponge baths": wetting oneself down with a damp cloth, followed by scrubbing the body with a soapy cloth,  rinsing with a wet cloth, and finishing off with a toweling dry. Even in the 1700s in locales and social strata where the wearing of wigs was common, these headcoverings were indeed washed (albeit carefully); they were not inserted into loaves of bread and baked. (One has to wonder about an explanation that posits folks who were afraid they'd damage expensive goods by washing them would happily risk incinerating them.) Print sightings of "big wig" and "big wigged" date to 1781 and 1778 respectively, with the term's always having referred to someone regarded as societally prominent by virtue of wealth, position, or power. While the term does find its origin in the rather impressive wigs sported by the upper crust, said wigs were deliberately constructed to be large and imposing; they didn't get that way from having been baked in bread to kill lice. In the late 1700's many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board was folded down from the wall and used for dining. The "head of the household" always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Once in a while an invited guest would be offered to sit in this chair during a meal whom was almost always a man.  To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. Sitting in the chair, one was called the "chair man of the board." Today in business we use the expression/title "Chairman of the Board." People have been eating off tables of various forms for about as long as humans have been recording history. We're wholly unaware of any society wherein a board hinged to the wall was let down at dinnertime so that folks seated on the floor in front of it could eat from it. The "board" in "chairman of the board" refers to a board of directors, generally a group of successful businessmen appointed to oversee the running of a corporation. The word "chairman" dates to 1654 and refers to the occupier of a chair of authority. Needless to say, personal hygiene left much room for improvement.  As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told "mind your own bee's wax."  Should thewoman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a smile?"  Also, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt and therefore the expression "losing face." While throughout history women have used odd (and sometimes dangerous) substances on themselves in pursuit of beauty, we're unaware that at any point they were coating their visages with wax.  "Mind your own beeswax," a phrase first noted in 1934, is no more than a cutesy way of saying "Mind your own business," with "beeswax" used as an ear-pleasing substitute for the more staid "business." The saying it's based upon, "To mind one's business," dates to 1660 and means to tend to one's own concerns in preference of involving oneself in the doings of others. One "cracks a smile" in the same way that one cracks a joke or a boast; there is no physical crevice made in anything, let alone the fictional wax masks women were supposedly parading about in. Sightings of "crack" used in the sense of uttering something loudly and with flair date to 1315, with "crack a boast" to 1386. The linguistic concept of "losing face" (or saving it) didn't enter the English language prior to contact between British traders and the Chinese and was first noted in 1834. The "face" the Chinese were so concerned about wasn't an anatomical one but rather the publicized image of oneself, in the sense of the "face" one displays to the world at large. Two Chinese words, one meaning "moral character," the other "social prestige," were each translated into English as "face," with "to lose face" meaning to have damage done to one's reputation or to be publicly embarrassed.  Ladies wore corsets which would lace up in the front. A tightly tied lace was worn by a proper and dignified lady as in "straight laced." "Strait-laced" does derive from the tying of corsets, but the proposed etymology given in the article has it backwards: The term's origin has to do with the tightness of the lacing and the consequent constriction of such garments, as opposed to the moral character of the persons wearing these underpinnings. (One needs to remember that a multitude of men and women, from the wholly proper and dignified right down to the entirely disreputable, wore corsets.) "Strait" came into the English language from the Latin verb "stringere," which means "to strain; draw tight." Other "strait" words we're familiar with, such as Straits of Gibraltar and strait-jacket, likewise employ its narrowing or restraining elements. "Strait-laced" was first spotted in 1430, and while at that time it did have to do with the tightness of corsets, by the 1540s the term had expanded to encompass things that were narrow in range or scope or people that were uncommunicative (i.e., kept a great deal of themselves in). By the 1550s, it was used to describe folks who were excessively rigid or scrupulous in matters of conduct. Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the "ace of spades." To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 card instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't "playing with a full deck." Taxes were levied on playing cards in England at various times in its history, with the earliest instance occurring in 1588. However, when this tax was in force, the basic duty was applied to each deck, not just a specific card within it. Once the tax had been paid, one card from the now-taxed deck was stamped with a special seal to show that the duty had been properly rendered. Over time, that card came to be the ace of spades (most likely because it's the one on the end of the deck). "Not playing with a full deck" is simply one of countless sayings of the same ilk as "two bricks shy of a load" or "a couple of French fries short of a Happy Meal"; a phrase indicating that the person referred to lacks ordinary intellectual capacity. Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what was considered important to the people. Since there were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs and bars who were told to "go sip some ale" and listen to people's conversations and political concerns. Many assistants were dispatched at different times... "you go sip here" and "you go sip there". The two words "go sip" were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and thus, we have the term "gossip." "Gossip" descends from "God sib," an ancient term (1014) for godparent or sponsor. (A christening ceremony was a "gossiping.") Along the way to its current meaning, "gossip" picked up the additional meaning of "chum" or "friend." One of the activities folks engage in with their friends is chewing over the events of the day, and over time the word "gossip" shifted away from the person chatted with to the activity itself, as well as coming to attach to people overly fond of discussing the doings of others. At local taverns, pubs and bars, people drank from pint and quart sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and who was drinking in "quarts." Hence the term "minding your "P's" and "Q's." In an nutshell (with the non-nutshell version to be found here), while the definitive origin of this phrase has yet to surface, ones that most certainly can be ruled out are the "pints and quarts served in a bar" explanations. The first print sighting of the saying dates to 1756 (or even earlier if we accept a 1602 sighting of a variant of the phrase), which means it long predates the selling of beer in pints and quarts. here While the "Little History Lesson" e-mail has remained surprisingly static across its decade-plus existence, one additional item about freezing the balls off a brass monkey has come to be added to it.  One more: bet you didn't know this! In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. However, how to prevent them from rolling about the deck? The best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem... how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 round indentations. However, if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys." Few land lubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannonballs would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." (All this time, youthought that was an improper expression, didn't you.) That writeup first appeared on the Internet in September 2002 as a stand-alone item. By March 2004 it began showing up as the completing entry in the "Little History Lesson" mailing. In a further nutshell, (with the non-nutshell version offered here), while the etymology of this pronouncement is still up in the air, the "cannonballs" explanation should be dismissed because  when the saying started appearing in print in the mid-19th century, various body parts (ears, tail, nose, or whiskers) were said to be about to fall off a brass monkey thanks to the cold. here Barbara "frozen assets" Mikkelson Last updated:  1 November 2010    Lighter, J.E.  Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang.   New York: Random House, 1997.  IBSN 0-679-43464-X. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang    The Compact Oxford English Dictionary.   Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.  ISBN 0-19-861258-3. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary
In late January 2017, news outlets across the United States reported on a purported "can you hear me?" telephone scam. According to thosereports, the scam begins with an unsolicited phone call to the putative mark. After the caller makes contact they ask the recipient "Can you hear me?" to elicit a response of "yes," and a potential onslaught of unauthorized charges ensues. On 26 January 2017, CBS News reported the workings of the scam thusly: reported Virginia police are now warning about the scheme, which also sparked warnings by Pennsylvania authorities late last year. The "can you hear me" con is actually a variation on earlier scams aimed at getting the victim to say the word "yes" in a phone conversation. That affirmative response is recorded by the fraudster and used to authorize unwanted charges on a phone or utility bill or on a purloined credit card. "You say 'yes,' it gets recorded and they say that you have agreed to something," said Susan Grant, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "I know that people think it's impolite to hang up, but it's a good strategy." But how can you get charged if you don't provide a payment method? The con artist already has your phone number, and many phone providers pass through third-party charges. At first glance, the warning sounded reasonably valid: major news outlets covered it, and a Better Business Bureau satellite office reported the scam as well. But a closer examination revealed some questionable elements.  Primarily, we haven't yet been able to identify any scenario under which a scammer could authorize charges in another person's name simply by possessing a voice recording of that person saying "yes," without also already possessing a good deal of personal and account information for that person, and without being able to reproduce any other form of verbal response from that person. Moreover, even if such a scenario existed, it's hard to imagine why scammers would need to utilize an actual audio recording of the victim's repeating the word "yes" rather than simply providing that response themselves. As far as we know, phone companies, utilities, and credit card issuers don't maintain databases of voice recordings of their customers and use them to perform real-time audio matching to verify identities during customer service calls. In all the news reports we found, interviewees merely reported having been asked the common question ("Can you hear me?") but did not aver that they themselves had fallen prey to scammers: merely reported Lori Goodwin, who lives in Tampa, has been getting about three of these calls every week for the last several months. "If you hear someone say 'I can't hear you' or 'Can you hear me,' the first reaction you have is to say 'Yes,'" she said. "It's almost instinctual, so that's what they're looking for." Goodwin said she's always just hung up the phone, but she didn't realize until recently how dangerous those calls can be. When Mary Kuczborski of Clinton Township answers her phone, she doesn't expect to be hit with questions. But that's what happened Thursday evening. "When it came on it was a gentleman, nice voice, and he says, 'can you hear me?,'" Kuczborski said. Mary was the latest intended victim of a nationwide scam. Asking 'can you hear me?' is aimed at getting the victim to say 'yes.' The response is recorded by the scammer and then used to authorize unwanted charges on phone or utility bills or credit cards. Consumer protection experts say it may be rude, but if you get a 'can you hear me' call, the right response is to just hang up. Mary was a little more colorful. "Now, what do you want? And it went click," she said. BBB of Western Pennsylvania warned of the scam on 18 October 2016 but described no specific instances of individuals being scammed. That BBB satellite referenced the organization's nationwide Scam Tracker, but all related entries we found there were submittedby people already aware of news reports about the purported scam: warned of Scam Tracker       A CBS News report on the purported "Can you hear me?" had prompted police warnings in 2016, but yet again we found no indication that anyone who had actually been scammed out of money by saying "yes" to a caller had stepped forward. (It's not uncommon for police departments to spread dubious crime warnings on a "better safe than sorry" basis, such as one about a $100 bill carjacking ploy.) carjacking The "Can you hear me?" scam for now seems to be more a suggestion of a hypothetical crime scheme than a real one that is actually robbing victims of money. In messages we left with the BBB, the FTC, and the Consumer Federation of America, we asked a question absent from all the news reports we've encountered about this scam: "Are there any documented cases of people being victimized in this manner?" We have not yet received any affirmative response to those queries. Jackson, Curtis.  "Nationwide 'Can You Hear Me' Phone Scam Targets Michigan Residents."   WXYZ.  26 January 2017. Kristof, Kathy.  "Beware New 'Can You Hear Me' Scam."   CBS News.  26 January 2017. Trimble, Grady.  "'Can You Hear Me?' Phone Scam Reaches Tampa."   WTSP.  26 January 2017. Better Business Bureau of Western Pennsylvania.  "BBB Scam Alert: Can You Hear Me?"   18 October 2016. Better Business Bureau.  "Scam Tracker."   Accessed 27 January 2017. Claim:  Analysis demonstrates the "Cash for Clunkers" program's gasoline savings to be an inefficient economic trade-off. false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2009]     I guess I must be on the wrong page... A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline. A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles  so that's 224 million gallons / year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels of oil is about  of one day's US consumption. And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl. So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million. How good a deal was that ??? They'll probably do a great job with health care though!! Origins:  In 2009, the federal government's Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), commonly known as "Cash for Clunkers," provided consumers with $3,500 or $4,500 discounts for trading in older model automobiles and purchasing new, more fuel-efficient vehicles.  The analysis presented above maintains that the CARS program essentially spent $3 billion in federal (i.e., taxpayer) funds in order to save $350 million in (foreign) oil purchases, an inefficient economic trade-off.   The premise that the sole purpose or benefit of the CARS program is to save money on U.S. expenditures is a rather specious one to begin with.  And even within that framework,the analysis is flawed in key aspects. According to the latest CARS statistics,  auto dealers conducted 690,114 transactions through the program, and cars traded in through the program averaged 15.8 MPG, while new vehicles purchased through the program averaged 24.9 MPG.  Assuming, as stated above, that the average motorist drives 12,000 miles per year, we arrive at the following calculations: statistics A vehicle averaging 15.8 MPG driven 12,000 miles per year uses 759.5 gallons of gasoline per year. A vehicle averaging 24.9 MPG driven 12,000 miles per year uses 482 gallons of gasoline per year. The average CARS transaction will reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 277.5 gallons of gasoline per car per year. The 690,114 vehicles sold through the CARS program will therefore save a total of 191.5 million gallons of gasoline per year. So far, so good  our figures make the CARS program look even less economically efficient than the original analysis does.  The fatal flaw comes in the next step, however. The example presented above claims that 224 million gallons of gasoline are the equivalent of 5 million barrels of oil (i.e., one barrel of oil produces about 45 gallons of gasoline), which is an erroneous assumption.  One barrel of crude oil holds 42 gallons of crude oil, not 42 gallons of gasoline  the crude has to be put through a refining process before it becomes gasoline. How much gasoline is produced from one barrel of crude varies according to the refining process used and the type of crude oil involved, but according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, "U.S. refineries produce between 19 and 20 gallons of motor gasoline from one barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil." (Crude oil contains many different types of hydrocarbons, not all of which can easily be converted to gasoline, so other petroleum products such as kerosene and lubricating oil are also produced during the refining process.) EIA hydrocarbons If we take the mid-point of that range (i.e., 19.5 gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil) and multiply it by the $75 per barrel price quoted in the example, we find: 191.5 million gallons of gasoline / 19.5 gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil = 9.8 million barrels of oil 9.8 million * $75 per barrel  = $735 million This savings of $735 million per year is over twice the $350 million figure posited in the original analysis.  (The latter figure should actually be $375 million; the original contains a mathematical error in stating that 5 million multiplied by 75 equals 350.)  Moreover, the gasoline-saving benefits produced by the CARS program won't simply dissipate after the passage of a single year, as suggested above.  According to the  CARS stats, the total dollar value of transactions conducted under the "Cash for Clunkers" program was about $2.9 billion. Therefore (if all other factors remained the same), the full cost of the CARS program would be offset by gasoline savings in about four years  not a spectacular trade-off, perhaps, but not nearly as bad a one as claimed in the original analysis.  (All of these figures assume the price of gasoline to be a constant, a dubious proposition since the cost of oil can fluctuate quite widely, especially in the short term.) The original analysis also focuses solely on savings in gasoline costs and doesn't take into account other intended or residual effects of the CARS program, such as the economic benefits of boosting auto sales, reducing pollution by replacing older cars with more fuel-efficient vehicles, increasing safety by replacing older cars with vehicles offering advanced safety features, and providing additional parts and raw materials for the market: [The clunkers'] components and frames ... have begun flooding the used parts and scrap-recycling markets with more than 100 million tons of steel, batteries, and tires, among other things. "This is like a second wave of stimulus to our economy," said Bill Goodale, general manager of Millis Industries, which has picked up about 200 clunkers from local dealers and expects to take possession of hundreds more in the next few weeks. "As it trickles down, it helps junkyards. It helps the guy looking for cheap parts to keep his car going. It adds a lot of steel to a market that hasn't produced much of it in the last year." Last updated:  13 September 2009 Claim:  Photographs show poachers collecting sea turtle eggs in Costa Rica. REAL PHOTOGRAPHS; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2010] Aha, maybe we have just discovered why the sea turtle is going extinct & it is not global warming. !!!!!!!....  Sending you an e-mail of the turtle poachers on the beaches of Costa Rica.  See the 2nd picture too, where the female cannot cover up her own eggs, before the intruder steals away what Nature has given her to protect her young. These people have unfortunately, taught their children nothing for the future generation to cherish. Look at these children and they do not know anything about conservation of Marine Life Protection and look at the disastrous road their parents are taking too... What have they they all gained for the future of Costa Rica's Marine Life protection? World Wide shame in COSTA RICA. Please distribute widely. The Turtle eggs  are stolen to be sold. The PLANET IS THANKFUL.                           Origins:  These photographs do show the collection of olive ridley sea turtle eggs in the coastal town of Ostional, Costa Rica, but those who are gathering them are not "poachers" (i.e. people who catch fish or game illegally), nor are they regarded as threatening the sustainability of the sea turtle population in that area.  As described in a 1998 article by National Public Radio correspondent John Burnett, the gatherers are engaged in a government sponsored conservation activity, collecting a relatively small portion of eggs, which  biologists have averred would otherwise have been destroyed, from the millions of olive ridley eggs laid during the turtles' reproductive season: olive ridley conservation activity In the coastal town of Ostional, located on Costa Rica's Guanacaste Peninsula, a 13-year-old project has helped stabilize the population of the olive ridley sea turtle.  For 10 months of the year, usually around the third quarter of the moon, olive ridleys swim by the hundreds of thousands to a single mile of beach at Ostional in an ancient reproductive rite little understood by scientists. They scuttle onto the sand, dig a hole with their flippers, and drop in an average of 100 leathery, white eggs the size of ping pong balls. Over the course of a five-day "arribada," literally, an arrival, nesting females will leave as many as 10 million eggs in the black, volcanic sand. Mass nesting is nature's way of ensuring that after the turkey vultures, feral dogs and raccoons have eaten all the fresh eggs they want, there will be enough left over to produce a sustainable population of olive ridleys. In the early 1980s, scientists learned that because of limited space on the beach, females arriving later destroy the first laid eggs. The researchers wondered: why not let poachers have the doomed eggs? Under a law written especially for Ostional, the government allows an egg harvesting cooperative to collect all they can during the first 36 hours of every arribada. Coop members then truck the eggs around the country, selling them to bars and restaurants. In return, the community must protect the olive ridley. Coop members clean debris from the nesting areas and patrol the beach day and night for poachers. Forty days later, when the hatchlings emerge, children from the Ostional Primary school run to the beach. "We protect the tortugitas when they crawl to the ocean. If we don't, the vultures will get them and bite their heads off," says a local 8-year-old boy, breathlessly. A Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) representative noted that the activity pictured here is controversial but legal (Ostional is the only part of Costa Rica where sea turtle egg gathering is allowed), and that investigation to determine its overall effect on the olive ridley population is ongoing: STC Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) has seen a lot of recent communication among conservation groups and turtle advocates concerning these photos showing sea turtle eggs being harvested in Costa Rica. The reality is that this harvest is the only remaining LEGAL harvest of turtle eggs in that country. The community of Ostional on the Pacific Coast is permitted to harvest all of the olive ridley eggs that are deposited during the first couple of days of an arribada (when thousands of turtles return to nest at the same time over about a week). The eggs are packaged and marked for sale around the country, with much of the income returning to the community. While I don't personally agree with this egg collection, the project is endorsed by the Costa Rican government for the time being. This is a very controversial subject among sea turtle scientists, conservationists and community members in Costa Rica. Among other issues, the legal sale of any turtle eggs in the country opens the door for clandestine egg harvesting from other parts of the country. The photos being circulated have served as a catalyst for the Costa Rican National Sea Turtle Conservation Network (of which STC is an integral part) to initiate an investigation of the scientific justification for this egg harvest. Specifically, the group is investigating the validity of claims that the harvest increases (or at least doesn't reduce) overall hatching productivity on this beach. The claim put forth is that during an arribada, many of the first nests to be laid are dug up and destroyed by females attempting to nest in the same spot days later. Not only are the earliest nests often destroyed, the rotting eggs become putrid and attract lots of bugs and predators, thus threatening the last nests deposited. A committee of the CRNSTCN was formed (on which STC's scientific director, Dr. Emma Harrison serves) to investigate the issues surrounding this legal harvest further. In addition to an independent investigation of the issue, questions are being asked of the people in charge of the project to help determine whether there is sufficient monitoring of the program and its impacts on the Ostional olive ridley population.  Based on the results of this investigation, there could be some recommendations for changes in the future. For the time being, what you see in these photos is completely legal and regulated by the Costa Rican government, though it remains quite controversial, and there is a formal review of the program underway by independent biologists in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica Tourism Board has also placed a notice on its web site in response to the circulation of these photographs: notice A chain of emails is circulating on the Internet with false information regarding the Conservation and Use of Ridley Sea Turtle Eggs Project (Lepidochels olivacea) at the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge in Guanacaste. There are 12 photos of the legal gathering of eggs accompanied by text labeling it as "theft" and an "international shame." The Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) seeks to clarify that the images actually represent a model of sustainable development in the Ostional community, approved in 1990 by executive order for the Protection, Conservation, and Recovery of Sea Turtle populations enacted on November 28th, 2002 and by Fishing and Agriculture law approved on April 25th, 2005. The legal use and allotment of resources plan, far from being an embarrassment, is the pride of the country and has been applauded and recognized by national and international scientists.  The Ostional National Wildlife Refuge witnesses up to 200,000 Olive Ridley turtles during the rainy season and about 15,000 in the dry season. Upon their arrival, the sea turtles lay thousands of eggs and destroy a large portion of them as they return to the ocean. That's why, under the sustainability development concept, the nearby rural areas are allowed to remove a specified amount for commercial purposes in Costa Rica under the Ostional Internal Development Association (ADIO). ADIO assures a rational use of the eggs and avoids massive and uncontrolled removal by communities. The association works together with the Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET), the Costa Rica Institute of Fishing and Agriculture (INCOPESCA), and the Biology Department of the University of Costa Rica. Only ADIO has permission to commercialize turtle eggs in the country, packed in sealed bags displaying the association's logo and sold with corresponding invoices. Any other consumption is illegal.    Reuters.  "Caribbean Turtles Said Threatend by Catches, Trade." Claim: Household paper shredders can pose a danger to children and pets. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] This one comes from a well respected Borzoi person, and veterinarian, Elizabeth A Coney, DVM of Kentucky. She wrote: Now - for every one of you that has a home paper shredder with an "auto on" feature, I want you to go turn it off and unplug the paper shredder right now. Because night before last I was presented with a paper shredder containing most of the tongue, ripped out by the base, and a very pretty sweet 1 1/2 year old lab cross whose owners euthanized her. She always watched the paper go into the shredder, she thought it fascinating. The "auto on" feature means the shredder sits there waiting for something to get placed into it. Like an inquisitive tongue. I told them, "Dogs can do fine without a tongue, they have to learn to drink and eat differently", but the owners didn't want to go there. The look in her eyes said, "I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, it's all my fault". We all cried.  I cried when I read this, myself. In subsequent posts Beth says she has learned that dogs who have lost more than half their tongues *don't* do as well as she had been taught. According to the veterinary literature it is also possible for animals to be injured other places than tongues  a Basset lost an ear, a long-haired cat most of the skin on its side, a kitten a foot, etc. She didn't mention any human injuries, but I can't imagine that a toddler would be immune from either curiosity or injury. Please be vigilant!! This is not the 1st time I have heard of this happening. Origins:  While Barbara and I were away from home for a few days recently, we received a playful e-mail message from our petsitter informing us that our house was "haunted."  She'd  dropped by to tend to our cats, she said, when suddenly she heard the sound of a paper shredder running in Barbara's office.  Nobody else was in the house, and she quickly ruled out the possibility that one of our kittens had accidentally started the shredder because they were all dancing around her feet in the kitchen at the time, impatiently waiting to be fed. The incident was even more puzzling because we're pretty careful about always leaving our shredder in the "Off" setting when we're not using it, and even when the device is powered on, it doesn't activate until a piece of paper is fed into it.  We never did solve the mystery, although we're pretty sure it's not related to a haunting. In any case, the experience reminded us that we (like many other people) now have in our home a variety of machines that once were typically found only in business offices. Although some people manage to find ways to injure themselves with just about anything (even something as seemingly innocuous as a fax machine), paper shredders can pose an especial hazard  they're made to destroy documents rather than generate them, and (due in large part to concerns about identity theft) more and more of them are being purchased for home use, where their shredding blades represent a risk not just to careless adults, but to curious children and inquisitive pets as well.  In 2005, for example, the Spokesman Review reported: [T]he U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says shredders  $350 million worth were sold [in 2004] and many wound up in homes  pose a growing threat of injury to children, particularly toddlers. The agency received 31 reports involving finger amputations and other finger injuries from paper shredders from January 2000 to December 2003. It isn't difficult to find harrowing reports of children being seriously injured through sticking their fingers into shredders, such as the following account from Consumer Reports: Lisa Broadfoot's son, Talan, was helping her shred documents, when suddenly his little fingers got sucked in. "He screamed and then was begging me to get his hands out of this machine, 'Please Mommy, Please Mommy, get my hand out.' [He was] just screaming and crying and begging," Broadfoot said. Lisa rushed Talan to the hospital with the shredder still attached. "They started cutting the blades because there was no other way to get his fingers undone," she said. "It was like he could feel it. He just started screaming again and I'm holding him and trying to explain to him that it's going to be OK. It's going to be OK." Talan ended up losing three of his fingers. In March 2006, TV's Inside Edition reported a similar case of injury to a child: When you meet Hallie Mouritsen, you cant tell that there's anything wrong with this beautiful five year-old girl.  But if you look closer at Hallie's left hand, her fingers are cut off at the knuckle.  The doctor described them as being "crushed, mutilated and non-viable." How did it happen?  Hallie was feeding paper into a shredder in her home when her fingers got caught in its powerful blades. According to her father, Matt, "it grabbed her fingers and just began pulling." And Hallie's not the only one.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a safety alert after receiving 50 reports of injuries from paper shredders since 2000, most involving children younger than five.  Mr. Mouritsen is an accounting professor in Salt Lake City, Utah who often works at home. He says he had just opened the shredder for the first time and after using it, left the room briefly. Hallie, who was just two, went into the room with her older sister. "The next thing I know, while I'm making dinner, my five year-old is yelling, she's stuck, she's stuck!" he told Inside Edition's Investigative Reporter Matt Meagher. Hallie's wounds took months to heal.  Her dad still chokes up remembering Hallie's reaction the day the bandages came off.  "She went like this with her hand" (hiding his left hand). "She couldn't even look at it. She asks us to this day, when are my fingers going to grow back?" Among household pets, dogs are particularly at risk from shredders, as they have a tendency to lick things, and many breeds have long, floppy ears that can get caught in shredder openers.   The Spokesman Review published an account of an incident in which a puppy suffered injuries from a paper shredder so severe that she was euthanized afterwards (and her owner lost a portion of one finger trying to rescue her): Adam Forney doesn't even own a paper shredder. And he probably never will. The 22-year-old was sitting on his couch in his south Spokane home watching television when his 7-month-old puppy licked the top of his roommate's shredder and the dog's tongue was sucked into the shredding mechanism. "I ran into the room ... she was pulling so hard and the thing was dragging ... then she just ripped away," Forney said. "I will never forget the sound it made when she pulled away." In the chaos of trying to help his injured dog, Forney's pinky finger was bitten off at the first joint, and another finger was fractured by the bite. "I grabbed her head to try and get her to calm down, and she bit me," Forney said. "She ran out of the room and I just lost it. It looked like a murder scene in my house ... there was so much blood." Forney went to the emergency room, and his mixed-breed dog, Alice Lane, went to a local pet emergency clinic, where she was euthanized. Inside Edition offered a similar tale of a young dog's catching his tongue in a shredder: A number of pets have also been injured by shredders. For one dog owner, it was a horrifying experience.  Sandra Clarke of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina told us when she was at home working on March 1st, her curious puppy, Cross, caught his tongue in a shredder.  According to Sandra, it was not a pretty sight.  "It looked like hamburger meat.  It was shredded up about an inch.  There was blood everywhere." A large part of the problem is that since shredders were originally designed as business equipment for offices (where they would presumably be   used only by adults), many models did not have the kinds of safeguards built into them to provide adequate protection in household environments, where children and animals abound.  Although consumer safety groups are working to get manufacturers and lawmakers to adopt more stringent safety standards for shredders (such as making paper slots thinner and placing blades farther away from openings), the adoption of new standards takes time, and plenty of the machines already have been purchased for home use.   Some veterinarians maintain that serious shredder accidents involving animals are rare, but the frequency of occurrence is difficult to estimate since there has not been any systematic effort to keep track of such injuries.  Regardless, the subject merits attention since the potential for accidents (involving both people and pets) will likely continue to grow as more and more shredders make their way into households, and the likelihood of injury can be mostly eliminated by following a few simple precautions:  Try to place your shredder where it is not accessible to children or pets.   Turn off (or unplug) your shredder when you are not using it.   Never allow children to operate your shredder, even with adult supervision.  Keep your hands and fingers as far from the shredder opening as possible when feeding material into it.   Be careful to secure or remove ties, necklaces, bracelets, loose-fitting clothing, and long hair before using your shredder.  Avoid putting thicker material (such as food wrappers, product packaging, and padded envelopes) through your shredder.        Paper Shredder Dangers to Kids, Pets   (KGO-TV)        Paper Shredders Can Be a Danger to Children and Pets   (Inside Edition)      Leaming, Sara.  "Paper Shredder Leads to Nightmare."   The [Spokane] Spokesman Review.  2 March 2005.    Inside Edition.  "Paper Shredders Can Be a Danger to Children and Pets."   30 March 2006.    Internet Broadcasting Systems.  "Paper Shredders Can Be Dangerous Risk Around Home."   WRAL.com.  10 April 2006. Claim:  Opinion piece expresses columnist Charles Krauthammer's thoughts on Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare. INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2012] I would like to know if the following email attributed to Charles Krauthammer has been correctly  attributed.  Circulated under the subject line: Health Care Decision: From Charles Krauthammer.  To all my friends, particularly those conservatives who are despondent over the searing betrayal by Chief Justice John Roberts and the pending demise of our beloved country, I offer this perspective to convey some profound hope and evidence of the Almighty's hand in the affairs of men in relation to the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare. I initially thought we had cause for despondency when I only heard the results of the decision and not the reason or the make-up of the sides.  I have now read a large portion of the decision and I believe that it was precisely the result that Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts and even Kennedy wanted and not a defeat for conservatism or the rule of law.  I believe the conservatives on the court have run circles around the liberals and demonstrated that the libs are patently unqualified to be on the Supreme Court.  Let me explain. First let me assure you that John Roberts is a conservative and he is not dumb, mentally unstable, diabolical, a turncoat, a Souter or even just trying to be too nice.  He is a genius along with the members of the Court in the dissent.  The more of the decision I read the more remarkable it became.  It is not obvious and it requires a passable understanding of Constitutional law but if it is explained anyone can see the beauty of it. The decision was going to be a 5-4 decision no matter what, so the allegation that the decision was a partisan political decision was going to be made by the losing side and their supporters.  If the bill was struck down completely with Roberts on the other side there would have been a national and media backlash against conservatives and probably strong motivation for Obama supporters to come out and vote in November. With today's decision that dynamic is reversed and there is a groundswell of support for Romney and Republicans, even for people who were formerly lukewarm toward Romney before today, additionally Romney raised more than 3 million dollars today. Next, merely striking the law without the support of Democrats and libs would have left the fight over the commerce clause and the "necessary and proper" clause and the federal government's role in general festering and heading the wrong way as it has since 1942.  As a result of the decision the libs are saying great things about Roberts; how wise, fair and reasonable he is.  They would never have said that without this decision even after the Arizona immigration decision on Monday.  In the future when Roberts rules conservatively it will be harder for the left and the media to complain about the Roberts' Court's fairness.  That's why he as Chief Justice went to the other side for this decision not Scalia, Alito, Thomas or Kennedy, all of whom I believe would have been willing to do it. Next let's look at the decision itself.  Thankfully Roberts got to write it as Chief Justice and it is a masterpiece.  (As I write this the libsdon't even know what has happened they just think Roberts is great and that they won and we are all going to have free, unlimited healthcare services and we are all going to live happily ever after.)  He first emphatically states that Obamacare is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause saying you cannot make people buy stuff. Then he emphatically states that it is unconstitutional under the "necessary and proper" clause which only applies to "enumerated powers" in the US Constitution. Justices Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan all went along with these statements.  They never would have gone along with that sentiment if that was the basis for striking the law in total.  This is huge because this means that the Court ruled 9-0 that Obamacare was unconstitutional under the Commerce clause which was Obama's whole defense of the bill.  They also ruled 9-0 on the "necessary and proper" clause.  Even better both of these rulings were unnecessary to the decision so it is gravy that we got the libs to concede this and it will make it easier to pare away at both theories in the future, which we must do.  Well done.  Roberts, through very tortured reasoning, goes on to find that the taxing law provides the Constitutionality for the law.  Virtually everyone agrees that the Federal government has the power to do this as it does with the mortgage deduction for federal income taxes.  This too is huge because Obama assiduously avoided using the term "tax" and now he has to admit this law is a tax and it is on everyone even the poor.  That will hurt him hugely in the polls and will help Romney.  More importantly though is the fact that this makes this a budgetary issue that can be voted on in the Senate by a mere majority instead of 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster. That means that if the Republicans can gain a majority in the Senate, it can vote to repeal Obamacare in total. Finally the Court voted 7-2 to strike down the punitive rules that take away money from states that do not expand Medicare as required in Obamacare.  This too is huge because we got Kagan and Breyer to join this decision and it can easily be applied to many other cases of extortion the Federal government uses to force states to do things they don't want to. This is also amazing because Obamacare has no severability clause so by striking the Medicaid mandate portion as unconstitutional the whole bill should have been struck.  If that happened none of these other benefits would have been accomplished. I haven't read far enough to know how he did it but I am sure it is brilliant. So to recap the Roberts court through a brilliant tactical maneuver has: strengthened the limitations of the commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause by a unanimous decision, made Obama raise taxes on the poor and middle classes, converted Obamacare into a tax program repealable with 51 votes in the Senate, enhanced Romneys and Republicans' fundraising and likelihood of being elected in November, weakened federal extortion and got the left to love Roberts and sing his praises all without anyone even noticing.  Even Obama is now espousing the rule of law just two weeks after violating it with his deportation executive order. That is why I have decided this was a genius decision and that I did in fact get a great birthday present today not to mention U. S.Attorney General Eric Holder being held in contempt.  What a day.   Origins:  This opinion piece began circulating shortly after the June 2012 Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of "Obamacare" health care legislation and has been attributed to  Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.  However, it was not written by Charles Krauthammer: the piece was not originally credited to him (his name was added later), it doesn't appear in his published writings, and he wouldn't refer to a late June event as constituting "a great birthday present" for himself (as he was born in mid-March).  His column on the court's Obamacare  decision, entitled Why Roberts Did It," is distinctly different from the opinion presented here.  Why Roberts Did It The earliest versions of this item that we received bore the signature block of Richard Bolen of the Bolen Law Firm in Lexington, South Carolina. Last updated:  8 July 2012 The hotly contested West Virginia primary for a U.S. Senate seat is now over. But it didnt take more than a few hours for the general election to start. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., appeared on West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kerchevals show, the morning after election night. In the general election, Manchin faces Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in what most observers see as a competitive race. Manchin portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative both as governor and in the Senate in hisinterviewwith Kercheval. He expressed concern about the rising federal debt, which exceeds $21 trillion in the broadest measurement. By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country, Manchin said. Is Manchin right? We found that hes at least certainly close. You may not realize this, but as a nonprofit news organization, we depend on  and answer to  you. Your support directly impacts our abilility to provide objective, factual reporting  on issues that matter.Donate now to our Spring Campaign and go on the record as saying facts matter! In 2017, the last year for which complete data is available, defense spending stood at $590 billion. Net interest on the debt stood at $263 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan budget analysis arm of Congress. So defense spending is currently more than twice as big as net interest. However, net interest is expected to grow faster than defense spending over the next decade. Thats according to CBOs most recentBudget and Economic Outlookreport, which projects a variety of budget categories 10 years into the future. (See Fig. 2.1here.) Between 2018 and 2028, CBO projects, both defense and interest will rise, with interest overtaking defense spending in fiscal year 2023. In 2023, defense spending will be $679 billion and net interest will reach $702 billion. The gap will only grow from there. So CBO has it one year later than Manchin said. That said, things could change between now and then  and CBOs assumptions are not the only way to make these projections. CBOs projections assume that defense spending will return to tighter levels in 2020, after the current spending bill expires, said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. However, Congress has regularly raised the spending limits since they were first imposed in 2011. And if Congress acts as it has in the past, that would change the calculations. However, CBO does not specify the amounts under this alternative assumption, so that scenario is too speculative to consider. Manchin said, By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country. The closest official estimate we could find says that net interest will pass defense spending in 2023, or one year later than Manchin said. But using a different set of unofficial assumptions, it could be different. We rate his statement Mostly True. The photograph displayed above is a Christmas-season picture of graves at Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of men and women who served the United States in the military and in the government. Every December since 1992, volunteers have laid wreaths donated by the Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, at the headstones of thousands of America's honored dead: Arlington Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2005] I had never heard of this. I have only visited in the summer months. I wonder why the press hasn't enlightened the public about it? Arlington National Cemetery  Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.Know the line has held, your job is done.Rest easy, sleep well.Others have taken up where you fell, the line has held.Peace, peace, and farewell...  Readers may be interested to know that these wreaths  some 5,000  are donated by the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, Maine. The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but covers the trucking expense as well. He's done this since 1992. A wonderful guy. Also, most years, groups of Maine school kids combine an educational trip to DC with this event to help out. Making this even more remarkable is the fact that Harrington is in one the poorest parts of the state. Morrill Worcester initially brought 4,000 surplus wreaths from the holiday decoration company he owns to adorn gravesites at Arlington in 1992. Every year since then he has set aside several thousand wreaths especially for that purpose, driving to Arlington in December with a trailer full of decorations and dozens of volunteers to distribute them throughout the cemetery. As Mr. Worcester told an Air Force reporter in 2005: We couldn't do anything in this country if it wasn't for the people who gave their lives to protect us. It's a great honor to be able to come here and pay our respects.That first year, there were just a few of us, and it took us five or six hours to get them placed. This year, we had extra help and got done in about an hour. One question we're commonly asked is how the Arlington Wreath Project determines where to place their wreaths, since Arlington National Cemetery encompasses many more graves than the number of wreaths distributed each year. Major Wayne Merritt, a co-director of the Project, told us that the director of the cemetery selects the location for each year's wreath-laying, and the Project's plan is to cover all the areas of the park over a number of years. The answer to another common question is provided in Wreaths Across America's FAQ: "Prior to the wreath-laying ceremonies, cemetery administrative personnel give participants specific instructions regarding placement of wreaths. In most state/national cemeteries, participants are instructed to place wreaths only on graves bearing the Christian cross or nondenominational graves." FAQ In 2007, the Worcester family, along with veterans and other groups and individuals who had helped with their annual Christmas wreath ceremony in Arlington, formed Wreaths Across America, a non-profit organization, to continue and expand the effort to place memorial wreaths at more than 230 State and National Cemeteries and Veterans Monuments across the United States. This project receives no government funding, with the cost of the program being paid for by individual wreath sponsors and corporate donors. Wreaths Across America On 10 December 2011, 15,000 volunteers laid 90,000 wreaths on headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. Photographs of the 2011 wreath-laying ceremony can be viewed on the Washington Post web site. Washington Post The clip displayed below is a seven-minute video of past wreath-laying ceremonies put together by Worcester Wreath to show what the Arlington Wreath Project and Wreaths Across America is all about:  Alcindor, Yamiche.  Thousands of Wreath-Layers Carry Out Arlington Tradition.
 The Washington Post.  13 December 2009. Buzanowski, J. G.  Airmen, Civilians Lay Wreaths at Arlington.
 Air Force Print News. 19 December 2005. Crudele, Bethany.  Volunteers Lay Wreaths at Arlington in Holiday Tribute to Fallen Veterans.
 CNN.  12 December 2009. Salas, Randy.  Web Search: Wreaths for the Fallen.
 [Minneapolis] Star Tribune. 9 November 2006. With Republicanscriticizing the corporate tax hikeproposed by President Joe Biden to fund his infrastructure plan, Biden pushed back during remarks on his proposal, the American Jobs Plan. Biden framed the issue as one of fairness, with big corporations not paying their fair share. A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations use the various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020, Bidensaidin his April 7 remarks. It's just not fair. It's not fair to the rest of the American taxpayers. We found that Bidens statement is supported by a recently released study from a liberal group, though that studys methodology has its critics. President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the American Jobs Plan at the White House on April 7, 2021. (AP) We didnt hear back from the White House, but Bidens remarks make clear that he was referring to an April 2studyby the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That study, which had received wide media coverage in recent days, found that at least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. The list of 55 companies is sprinkled with well-known names, including FedEx, HP, Nike, Salesforce and XCel Energy. Collectively, the study concluded, the companies earned $40.5 billion in pretax income in 2020 and would have paid taxes amounting to $8.5 billion had this income been taxed by at the standard 21% corporate rate. In reality, the companies collectively received rebates from the federal government worth $3.5 billion. The study cited several tax laws that helped protect these companies income from taxation, including those governing the tax treatment of executive stock options, research and experimentation, renewable energy, deductions for capital expenses, and the reallocation of losses to different tax years. Some observers told PolitiFact that they took issue with Bidens characterization of such laws as loopholes. Reasonable people can disagree over the wisdom of a given tax provision, but they were deliberate policy choices, not rifle shots, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum. Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, agreed. The problem with that framing is that many of the provisions reducing tax rates are either built into the code to properly calculate net income  such as a 100% bonus depreciation, apro-growth provision or provisions created to incentivize preferred activity by policymakers, such as the research and experimentation tax credit, Watson said. Still, even experts who are critical of the studys methodology told PolitiFact that Biden accurately portrayed the gist of the reports findings in his April 7 remarks. Notably, Bidens remark also stopped short of blaming the companies for evading taxes; his remarks suggest that his quarrel is with the tax system that allowed the companies to legally pay so little in taxes. The groups study is based on an analysis of annual financial reports filed by publicly traded companies in the Standard & Poors 500 stock index or the Fortune 500 list of companies with the largest revenue. But while this data comes from federally required disclosures, critics say that what is disclosed on these forms is calculated differently from these companies actual tax filings, which are private. In other words, the critics say, we dont really know whether these companies paid zero in taxes or not. Holtz-Eakinwrotethat using Securities and Exchange Commission filings, as the study does, is tricky, because the way income is counted on these forms departs substantially from the way taxable income is reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Notably, companies have some flexibility to determine their own fiscal years for financial disclosures, whereas the IRS requires a more rigid schedule for tax payments, he wrote. Financial reports may not cover the same period of time as a tax return, he wrote. Meanwhile, the tax code allows companies to smooth out income by allowing losses to be carried forward or backward for a number of years, Holtz-Eakin wrote. As a result, a snapshot of the company in its single year of profitability is a necessarily distorted view, but one that some tax critics tend to highlight. In addition, the rules governing the reporting of capital investments in the SEC disclosures may be different from what the IRS allows. Steve Wamhoff, director of federal policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said he disagrees with the methodological critiques. Wamhoff said his groups report focuses on what the companies affirm is their best calculation of taxes they have paid for the year. Its very unlikely that the companys real-world income tax liability will be substantially different from this, he told PolitiFact. He added that the reallocation of losses to different tax years is reasonable in theory, but we are finding that corporations are not paying taxes over a longer period. Our report finds that many of these companies  26 that we have identified  paid nothing over a three-year period. William Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed that it can be difficult to infer a companys actual tax position from its SEC filings. But he said the idea that many large corporations do pay zero in federal taxes is by now well-established. The non-partisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxationhas shownthat in any given year for the past 15 years or so, about two-thirds of corporations with less than $1 billion in assets paid no federal corporate income tax, and one-third of corporations with assets greater than $1 billion paid no federal corporate income tax, Gale said. And the committee, he said, has access to corporations actual tax returns. Biden said, A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations used various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020. Biden is right that a study had been released days earlier by a non-governmental group that concluded that at least 55 large companies paid zero federal income taxes in 2020. However, it may be incorrect to call the tax provisions cited in the report loopholes, since many of them are deliberate attempts by the government to set incentives through the tax code and may on their own be broadly popular. Critics also say that the financial disclosures used to compile the report are imperfect estimates of what the companies actually paid in taxes, since the accounting rules are different for the two types of filings. On the other hand, separate data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is based on actual tax returns, has supported the studys general point. We rate the statement Mostly True. FACT CHECK: Was Nick Hanauer's 2012 TED Talk about income inequality banned because it was "too politically controversial" to release?  Claim: A 2012 TED Talk video featuring wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer speaking on the subject of income inequality was banned because it was deemed "too politically controversial."    Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2015]   There are several articles that claim "TED Banned This Billionaire For Exposing Capitalism's Biggest Lie" or some similar wording. This is about the speech of Nick Hanauer, apparently a Seattle venture capitalist. The language of this sensational claim makes me suspicious, as does the unlikelihood of the claim. Is it true? What is the source of the rumour?   Origins: On 1 March 2012, Seattle-based venture capitalist and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer participated in the global conference series of "TED Talks." The video of his six-minute talk, widely circulated since its release, captured him addressing a spate of issues pertaining to income inequality and capitalism from the perspective of a very wealthy individual:  Not long after Hanauer's March 2012 talk was filmed, rumors began circulating claiming that TED had deliberately suppressed the clip due to its potentially offensive (to rich people) nature. On 16 May 2012, National Journal published an article contending that TED's organizers had quashed the groundbreaking talk because its content was simply too controversial to release, an odd assertion considering the 2011 emergence of a well-known (and widely reported upon) protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street): article Occupy Wall Street TED organizers invited a multimillionaire Seattle venture capitalist named Nick Hanauer  the first nonfamily investor in Amazon.com  to give a speech on March 1 at their TED University conference. Inequality was the topic  specifically, Hanauer's contention that the middle class, and not wealthy innovators like himself, are America's true "job creators." "We've had it backward for the last 30 years," he said. "Rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich." You can't find that speech online. TED officials told Hanauer initially they were eager to distribute it. "I want to put this talk out into the world!" one of them wrote him in an e-mail in late April. But early this month they changed course, telling Hanauer that his remarks were too "political" and too controversial for posting. In the years since 2012, Hanauer's TED clip has paradoxically been viewed millions of times while remaining the focus of articles describing it as described as "banned," "too controversial," or the speech TED "doesn't want you to see." While it's difficult to determine the accuracy of statements about its online availability in March 2012, the clip clearly became widely available and was frequently viewed on sharing sites such as YouTube shortly thereafter, and it has remained popular ever since. But in 2015, many social media users continued to assert Hanauer's talk was banned: Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer  Rich People Dont Create Jobs (VIDEO) #news https://t.co/wmlAmaIZ48 #news https://t.co/wmlAmaIZ48  Hannah Kennison (@HannahKennison1) July 6, 2015 July 6, 2015   Nick Hanauer on His Banned TED Talk & Why the Middle Class are the Job Creators https://t.co/KKQOqIK5PQ https://t.co/KKQOqIK5PQ  Jonathan Goodman (@GoodmanJonathan) July 20, 2015 July 20, 2015   if you are interested in #economics, then it is worth listeningBanned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer 'Rich people don't... https://t.co/00E6rlPF1g #economics https://t.co/00E6rlPF1g  Mudassar Bashir (@mb62020) June 15, 2015 June 15, 2015   Nick Hanauer too politically controversial: rich people dont create jobs, consumers do - via Reese Jones https://t.co/9xzs0vn1kz https://t.co/9xzs0vn1kz  VritTV (@Verite_TV) June 11, 2015 June 11, 2015   In late May 2012 a contributor to TED's forums specifically asked why Hanauer's talk had been "banned," prompting a lengthy discussion during the course of which individuals affiliated with TED linked to a statement issued by TED curator Chris Anderson on why Hanauer's talk had not been promoted.     The service by which Anderson published the explanation (Posterous) shuttered in April 2013, taking Anderson's remarks with it. However, a cached version revealed the date (17 May 2012), title ("TED and inequality: The real story"), and content of Anderson's rebuttal. asked shuttered version Anderson opened by stating that "TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us." He described an ensuing "firestorm of outrage" on sites including Reddit and Huffington Post, wherein TED was "accused of being cowards ... in the pay of our corporate partners ... [and] the despicable puppets of the Republican party." Anderson's account of the decision not to release Hanauer's talk differed dramatically from the circulating rumors: Here's what actually happened. At TED this year, an attendee pitched a 3-minute audience talk on inequality. The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. (The talk is explicitly attacking what he calls an article of faith for Republicans. He criticizes Democrats too, but only for not also attacking this idea more often.) And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance, such as the apparent ruling out of entrepreneurial initiative as a root cause of job creation. The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings  some enthusiastic, others critical. At TED we post one talk a day on our home page. We're drawing from a pool of 250+ that we record at our own conferences each year and up to 10,000 recorded at the various TEDx events around the world, not to mention our other conference partners. Our policy is to post only talks that are truly special. And we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media. We discussed internally and ultimately told the speaker we did not plan to post. He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined and this time I wrote him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed. So he forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter and the National Journal duly bit on the story. And it was picked up by various other outlets. As Anderson noted, income inequality was the subject of at least one [uncensored] TED Talk video in 2011. video Much of the rumor regarding Nick Hanauer's purportedly banned TED Talk segment hinged upon the differing assertions made by TED and Nick Hanauer at the time of the controversy in 2012. However, Anderson's claims (that TED curators are tasked with promoting only the most impactful clips) weren't implausible or suggestive of a coverup. It would be difficult to determine whether Hanauer or anyone working on his behalf threatened a public relations offensive, but TED maintained that quality and not content was behind the decision not to feature the video (which clearly was not "banned" from public view but was simply not promoted by TED). Since the time of the initial debate over whether or why the TED talk was "banned," the clip has been distributed both by TED and other outlets and widely viewed by a large online audience. In August 2014, Hanauer returned for a TED Talk titled "Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming." titled While it's true that TED opted not to promote Hanauer's initial appearance (during which he discussed income inequality) his segment was not banned, and the organization cited his lack of substantive content alongside his primary reliance on partisan ideas as the reason it was not curated alongside other featured TED Talks. At no point during the immediate controversy did TED appear to deny the existence of the video, remove it from the Internet, interfere with its distribution, or otherwise thwart the ideas advocated by Hanauer from spreading. The group simply chose initially not to promote the clip (as they do for a large number of TED Talks) in favor of other content selected by their curators. Last updated:  27July 2015 Originally published: 27July 2015 Many homeowners are currently receiving receipts stamped Paid in the mail for their 2018 property tax bills. Whether the bill goes up or down each year is of paramount importance to homeowners. So politicians are also eager to weigh in on the issue. Today, property taxes are lower than they were in 2010. Allowing taxpaying to keep more of their hard-earned money has been and will continue to be a top priority, state Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Jan. 11, 2019 in atweet. Property taxesare levied on most types of real estate -- including homes, businesses, and parcels of land. The amount owed depends on the fair market value of the property, as determined by the local assessor. Is Nygren right? Are property taxes lower today than they were in 2010? The evidence The year 2010, of course, is not an arbitrary starting point. It marks the year Republican Scott Walker was elected governor and when the GOP won full control of the Legislature. Democrat Tony Evers is now in the governors office, after topping Walker in the 2018 election. When asked for backup to the claim, Nygrens chief of staff Nathan Schwanz pointed to a January 2019 report from theLegislative Fiscal Bureauon median property tax payments in the state. The nonpartisan fiscal bureau is considered the gold-standard on such financial and budget issues. Here is its breakdown for the years in question: 2010 - 2011-- $2,963 2011- 2012 -- $2,953 2012 - 2013 -- $2,943 2013 - 2014 -- $2,926 2014 - 2015 -- $2,831 2015 - 2016 -- $2,849 2016 - 2017 -- $2,852 2017 - 2018 -- $2,876 2018 - 2019 -- $2,870 (preliminary estimate)  So, the 2018-19 total is, indeed, lower than the 2010-11 total. The fiscal bureau regularly does such estimates, and they are routinely cited by politicians of both stripes.But its important to note they are an illustration -- some people's property taxes went down, some went up. Even if your home value was right at the statewide average, your tax bill might have been higher due to various factors, including levies in individual communities. Past ratings Meanwhile, we have checked variations of this claim in the past: *July 15, 2015: Walker claimed that because of his actions, property taxes were lower than they were four years earlier. Walkers actions to limit the ability of local governments and school districts to raise levies played a major role. But we found the lower property taxes to that point were also due in part to declines in housing values. Our rating:Mostly True. *Jan. 13, 2017, Walker said property taxes -- as a percentage of personal income -- were the lowest that they've been since the end of World War II An analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance showed that on the measure Walker cited, they were lowest since 1946. Our rating:True. *June 7, 2017, after a lower than 2010 claim from Walker, we wrote that fiscal bureau estimates of the hypothetical property tax on a median-valued home found the tax was indeed lower. That time we found the drop in residential property taxes was due to commercial and manufacturing properties rising at a faster rate -- not due to collecting less revenue. Our rating:Mostly True. Finally, we also used the Walk-O-Meter to monitor a promise by Walker to continue to reduce the tax burden on working families and seniors every year he was in office. This, of course, applied to all taxes -- not just property taxes. We rated the pledgePromise Kept. Are there any wrinkles this time? Yes. According to the fiscal bureau, the change over the latest two years -- from 2017-18 to 2018-19 -- is a net decrease for homeowners, even though the gross tax bill is projected to increase. Whats behind the difference? Funding for the lottery and gaming property tax credit increased by about $66 million, which contributed to the decrease in the median net tax bill. Where Wisconsin ranks To be sure, Wisconsin property taxes remain among the highest in the United States. Various property tax trackers place Wisconsin in the top 10, sometimes in the top five. The personal finance websiteWalletHubanalyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The website also used rates to obtain the dollar amount paid in real estate taxes on a median-valued home in each state. It ranked Wisconsin as the fifth worst state for property taxes. With the median home value sitting at $167,000, the typical tax bill comes to $3,257, according to WalletHub. Filling out the rest of thetop fivefor 2018 were: Median Home valueTaxes New Jersey: $316,400            $7,601 Illinois:  $174,800                  $4,058 New Hampshire: $239,700     $5,241 Connecticut: $269,300            $5,443 Wisconsin: $167,000              $3,257 But Nygrens claim was not about the states rank. So that does not factor into our rating. Our rating Nygren said today, property taxes are lower than they were in 2010. Data from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau shows the statement generally rings true. But there have long been wrinkles on these claims -- from declining property values driving the drop to an increase in commercial and manufacturing property values shifting the burden from homeowners. Those sorts of factors are still in play, this time with tax credits contributing to latest decrease. And the rating is still Mostly True.