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This is a follow up to a story published a couple of weeks ago regarding the closure of all 3 schools in Clay County, TN.

On 29 Oct a special meeting was called to discuss a revised budget containing cuts that closed the $800k hole, allowing schools to reopen. The cuts came from layoffs, recalculated interest payments on loans, and moving money reserved for a potential future payout on a lawsuit. The largest portion came from some kind of accounting mumbo-jumbo manipulation of their debt reserve.

One of the board members was quite upset with the county commission, remarking they seem to be "kicking the can down the road" until next June, adding, "...[the comptroller] could care less about the education of the students in Clay County."

The budget was approved by unanimious vote.

I got an update for Star Trek Continues from Kickstarter saying they've finished their engine room! There's only one picture, but it looks pretty cool. They say their newsletter will have some updates later this year for production of episode 6. I submitted a story about Star Trek Continues when they released episode 5, and tried to include a lot of good information and links for those who haven't encountered it before.

Ordered yet another book series for my ten year old son today. I am having a blast being unable to keep up with what all he is reading.

For anyone interested, it's the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander. This is a marvelous time of year to read them, too.

Woke up today to find that my paycheck was down by 10%. That'll certainly give you a good jolt in the morning!

Contacted HR, hoping to hear that it will be rectified today.

One hopes that this isn't what's happening!

There is an article in the Guardian called Britain is heading for another 2008 crash: here's why.

The premise seems to be that government running a budget surplus leads to contraction in the private sector i.e. recession. Therefore, austerity will continue to make things worse for us.

The reasoning is very simple, perhaps simplistic.

You may be objecting at this point: but why does anybody have to be in debt? Why can’t everybody just balance their budgets? Governments, households, corporations … Everyone lives within their means and nobody ends up owing anything. Why can’t we just do that? Well there’s an answer to that too: then there wouldn’t be any money. This is another thing everybody knows but no one really wants to talk about. Money is debt.

I understand that people may borrow money to invest in e.g. a business where they might need to buy machinery and to pay staff before the profits start to roll in, and that hopefully the profits will be large enough to pay back the load and to make a living, but that's where my small brain gives up.

What is the rest of the story?

Also, note the graph of house prices.

Update: here come the sub-prime mortgages again. Only this time we, the public, have to bail out the banks when it all goes horribly wrong. Remember how they changed the law after the last crisis, so that the same terrible fate would not befall the banks again.

Didn't watch this time. Ben Carson sure is popular isn't he?

Wikipedia
Fireworks Fly In Unruly Third GOP Presidential Debate
Four Republicans Battle For Attention At Undercard Debate
PolitiFact

Bizarre, campy song explains China's 13th 5-year plan
Song (low information content)

Five-year plans of China
Timeline

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Symptom: A / is added to the URL.
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The Link should be to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library

Not sure, if this is interesting for SN, so I will post it in my little journal. If you landed here by accident, please click here

Last week in the Guardian:

Asterix and Obelix are back in a new edition of the famed comic book, this time fighting their Roman foes in a propaganda war alongside a character inspired by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Two years after Asterix and the Picts saw the duo head to ancient Scotland, the Gauls are back home for their latest adventure as a tribe resisting Roman occupation, the 36th book in the hugely popular series.
Asterix and the Missing Scroll is the second book by writer Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrator Didier Conrad, who took over from original co-creators Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny.