Check out my Web Page

Good news, we now have a web site:

HTTP://ChuckIRS003.HTMLPlanet.Com

I've already put the pictures that were referenced in the last issue online. I also added the last newsletter. By the time you get this letter, It'll be online too. Since my newsletters are going to be online, I don't plan on sending out hard copies of future additions. So please keep checking my page for updates and new links.

If you have a favorite web site that you think I might like to add to my favorite links page feel free to send me a certified letter. That way I might be sure to get it.

Concert News

Unfortunately, my financial condition has kept me from attending any social events since my last issue. For the record, I've given up driving a car. I just can't afford it. I don't go anywhere that I can't ride my bike to. Since the opportunities are not what they use to be in this country, I'm planning on moving to Australia early next year. So I expect things to get better shortly.

Charity problems

For some reason, I seem to be noticing a lot of charity organizations wasting money. I was at a concert recently were they sold little flags for your car. They were charging $10.00 a flag and telling people it was for the September 11th fund. So I asked them how much went to the charity. They told me 2% or 20 cents per flag. I told the lady to get lost. The flags might cost her $5 a piece and she's selling them at the free mall concert for $10. Well she ran after me and started talking about her overhead. She has to pay health insurance, retirement... I listened with a deaf ear. She was the only one manning that booth. But she was going to write her business expenses off against the money she made at that event.

Since I can't afford to drive a car anymore, and a local radio station (I94.3) was collecting donations for local family Christmas gifts. I decided to donate my 1992 Chevy Astro Van. I told them it had 175,000 miles on it but it was customized with four captain chairs and bench bed in the back and in great shape. I thought some poor family might have something to be proud of. Well, guess what the radio station called back and said there weren't any needy families in the area that needed a car. I guess people in our area of the country are in better financial condition than I am.

The same radio station (I94.3) put on free concert in our city park. I think I was the only one there not involved in the show. There was no one in the audience. I could set up my lawn chair anywhere I wanted. I told the station that someone was having a auction at the entrance to the park. So cars where parked all over the place. I told them to tell their listeners that there was plenty of parking just keep driving past the auction. I'm not sure if they ever announced that parking problem. All I know is that no one ever showed up. So they didn't collect much at that charity event. I wouldn't tell anyone what I gave because I do it to help people out not to get rewarded. I want my reward in the afterlife (heaven).

Political Opinion

I hate to say it but I'm not to excited about this administration. Yeah, I think I could do a better job. First of all, I think the American public should have demanded more fuel efficient cars after the 1973 oil embargo problems. Since the public didn't do it, the US government should have started phasing in a gradually increasing gas tax. Say 25 cents a gallon every year till cars start getting at least 50 miles to the gallon. Telling the car industry to make fuel efficient cars doesn't work but make consumers change their buying patterns and the industry will change or go out of business. There's no reason for the cars of today to be getting such poor gas mileage. The cars weigh half to a third of what they use to weigh in 1973 but the gas mileage is about the same and they cost four times as much. It doesn't make sense. Cars today are made of materials that collapse if its touched. In 1973, a car wouldn't get a dent in a low impact crash. So much for high tech cars.

Now lets talk about the war in Afghanistan. I have to assume that our leaders have indisputable proof that the people they're fighting really were involved in the September 11 terrorist attack but I have my doubts. I think another country might have set us up by providing misleading information. I think the USA should be trying to keep good relations with the Arab countries. We need their help and assistance. The Russians are doing everything they can to get friendly with the oil countries. If we end up getting the oil countries mad at us and they decide to start another oil embargo, this country is going to really suffer this time. In 1973, the economy was in a lot better shape. If it happened again right now, the rise in gas prices and goods would increase unemployment and force stock prices lower still. Since so many stores are selling goods via credit (no payments till 2002....) The America public and the government are in debt and those debts will be defaulted if the embargo hits. That'll be the equivalent of the margin recalls that lead to the 1929 stock market crash. So we could end up with a depression if things aren't turned around pretty soon.

I'd like to see the president offer to help the oil countries to protect their oil fields from terrorists. We need to tell them that they have to avoid the mistake that we made by assuming our homeland was safe from a terrorist attack. By telling them that we couldn't protect our country, they might not object to us helping them. We wouldn't be telling them that we were better at it then them. Terrorism is a world problem that requires a world team effort to stop. Anyway, If terrorists set off a nuclear device in the oil rich middle east their oil lands would be unsafe for years. So we'd be without the use of that oil.

On the other hand if we help them protect those oil fields, we might gain the help of some very powerful players in the world markets. They would be less likely to start another oil embargo and they might buy more of our products to help our economy.

If we don't try to keep their friendship, they could end up owning most of our country, if we have a stock market crash and they decide to invest while prices are low.

What's wrong with our legal system?

Our country is wasting to much money on stupid legal cases. For instance, how many cases have been tried to decide if it's legal to post the 10 commandments in a public building. Why can't they compromise and post the law followed by the commandment number and at the bottom of the poster say "ITS NOT RELIGION, ITS THE LAW". Then the judges, congress, and lawyers involved in those stupid cases could start working on something productive.

I just recently seen a show on Dateline or 20/20 about a police officer who shot a vicious dog that bit his daughter about five time in one attack. Our dumb laws had allowed the owner of the dog to keep the dog over the weekend because the dog catcher didn't work weekends. Anyway the catcher didn't put the dog to sleep. They gave the lady the dog back. She said she was only going to keep the dog one more day and have it put to sleep but the jury didn't buy it. They agreed that the father had a right to kill the dog because the system had failed. Then they asked the judge if they could speak. And they said that the system failed. The dogcatcher and the dumb lady should have been the ones on trial. They were the ones that were causing the problems. The jury said they hoped that this case will change the laws and make the dogcatcher pick up vicious dogs ASAP and not allow the owner keep the animal over the weekend. She should never have been allowed to put that dog back in the same environment that lead to the mulling of that little girl. That's just irresponsible behavior and poor laws.

I have case against the IRS that is very similar to that case. The IRS doesn't allow an employee accused of an EEO complaint to see the complaint, defend himself or herself, or talk to any witnesses. They take the position that an employee accused of an EEO complaint is guilty till proven innocent but the accused can not defend himself or herself. The accuser has all the rights.

Our legal system use to say you were innocent till proven guilty and we would rather let a guilty person go free than punish one innocent person. Well don't take my word for it. Please checkout the court information on my web page:

HTTP://MSPBToTheJudge.HTMLPlanet.Com

I have all the letters I've sent to the court online and the hearing testimony. I'm in the process of adding the letters that I sent to the agency and I hope to add the depositions shortly after that.

I've sent letters to the court and the agency asking them to supply computer copies of their documentation so their information could be added to the database. But the agency is trying to keep the information secret. They've filed motions to protect the information. They don't want to admit that the employee who filed the complaint was a nut. Her complaints were unjustified . The agency never investigated her complaints. Based on this case, I could file a complaint against any one in the building and get them fired even if I never met them. The IRS managers involved never even talked to the accuser about her complaints. All they needed was to know that the EEO Office was handling an EEO complaint against me and they didn't care what it was or what I did. It didn't matter. All they had to know was that there was an EEO complaint against me. Their defense was that they were required by the government to address EEO complaints ASAP in order to protect the accuser. They were not required to investigate or let the employee defend himself or herself. In fact the accused was not allowed to talk to anyone about the complaint so he or she can't talk to any witnesses and definitely not the accuser. Worse yet the accused doesn't get to see the complaint. So how do you defend yourself against a complaint that you've never seen.

Luckily, the MSPB federal judge ordered the agency to release the complaint file. It's only six years since the first unjustified complaint was made. The file has about 10 letters or e-mail communications that the accuser sites as harassment. When the IRS managers reviewed that file during hearing they found all the recent communications to be legal and not harassment. The Lady involved was either a lesbian in hiding , a nut case or she had something against me. There was no justification for the agency's actions.

To make matters worse, I have saved the IRS and taxpayers millions of dollars over the years. At least one time my efforts save the IRS several million in interest due to late payments. I also developed numerous mainframe software products and tools to automate operations and programmer productivity. This lady was good at her job but her value to the company didn't justify that actions they took.

Please check out my web site and write your congressperson. Tell them we need to fix our legal system. It's to complicated. Americans shouldn't need a lawyer to do simple things like get the power of attorney, adjust your alimony if you lose your job, force your ex to give you copies of the family movies and/or picture. The courts should provide fill in the blank form for all simple legal processes.

Closing

Please pray for better country leadership. The country is on the brink of disaster. The country is in debt so far now that when the interest rate starts going up, the country wouldn't be able to do much more than pay the interest on the debt if that.

The Russians are making friends with the oil rich nations and we're starting to make them made at us. The stock market is really vulnerable and an oil embargo could ruin us.

The country is concerned with the carbon dioxide levels in the air but they're clearing forests and watching them burn. Will someone please tell Mr. Bush that plants (TREES) breath in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Nobody does a better job at fixing problems than nature. Don't create new pollution laws. Start panting more trees and stop all these forest fires. Give a tax deductions to companies that own a forest around their plant. That's a better way to fix the pollution problem.

I've also heard our leaders talking about a tax cut for business. Sounds like that trickle down economics stuff that President Ragan fell for. It didn't work then and it wouldn't work now. I suggest giving business a tax credit for hiring each unemployed person over their January 2002 staffing level. That takes the unemployed person off the welfare books and gives the business the money that the government would have spent on welfare. It forces trickle down economics to work. If businesses don't hire the unemployed they don't get the money. It would encourage businesses to invest in new ideas because that'll create the more jobs. Since they'll get the government to pick up a lot of the manual costs the break even point for the new products will be a lot lower.

Fighting Terrorism

Since I have a little more space on this newsletter, I'll pass on a security idea I had. The country and businesses need to start thinking of way to protect their employees and offices from terrorism. I'd like to see the government use some of their abandon military bases to house major government complexes. Each agency would only have one building at any one base. Each base would have several major agencies on-site. Hopefully each agency would locate similar types of offices at the same locations. That would allow them to share ideas and have on-site training rather than send employees to off-site classes. By having the offices located on a military base would allow the physical security to be supplied by the military police. Each site would have an extra building for disaster recovery testing and to backup other bases that might be impacted by a terrorist activity or an act of God.

This same idea could be used to by businesses. They could create one big industrial park patrolled by a common security force and protected by a security fence. The owner of the complex might even offer the option to have a disaster recover building on-site. That would work out great if they had several complexes around the country.

The idea of location similar government office in the same complex would allow those agencies to buy the same equipment and keep prices down by buying in volume. That would make it easy to have the right disaster equipment installed in the disaster recovery building. They could also share trunk lines between complexes.

Having the disaster recovery building on-site, makes practicing and tuning the exercise a lot cheaper. As a result the agency's will be better prepared. It also makes it a lot cheaper. Employees wouldn't have to travel and they could be at home at night and over the weekends. In fact their families might not know they were involved in the disaster recovery testing. That might be a good security reason for doing it. It keeps the number and names of the people involved in your agency's recovery secret. If they go off site, you could lose your experts in a plane crash or a hotel fire. Not to mention anyone could find out which members of your agency left town to be involved in the disaster recovery exercise.

Last of all, many organizations can't afford a good disaster recovery plan and test. By asking all the agencies stationed at that one base to split the costs, the country would save money and be better prepared a terrorist attack or a act of God.

I like the options of having the expert from all the agencies meeting and sharing ideas. Many times several organizations have to invent the same wheel or debug the same problem. If they have regular meetings to share ideas and talk about problems the government becomes more productive.

I'd also like the idea of having on-site vendor training. They could use the disaster recovery system to have hands on training. No businesses would be impacted.

The End

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Chuck (Karaoke Cowboy)