Friday, February 20, 2004

Entirely Sensible

Just So You Know

Donald Sensing has an interesting solution to the “marriage problem” that just might make everybody happy.  Except for the radicals on both sides, of course. 


Posted by Ross on 02/20/04 at 07:45 AM
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Put Down Like Dogs

Perfidy Attacks

It’s just about 2:30 in the morning and I’ve just wrapped up another 16 hour work day. That’s typical in the world of small companies, these days.  Cash is hard to come by; I can tell you that my personal productivity factor is way up (rising productivity means GDP gains without additional employment). 

Naturally I need to be pissed about politics before I go to sleep, so here’s the thought of the night:

Lower tax rates are given to capital gains income because (supposedly) the money saved is re-invested into the economy, creating more jobs and more wealth.  When we lower capital tax rates, we raise taxes elsewhere to compensate; these higher taxes are applied to the working class, which is pretty much everyone making under $250,000 or so. 

We have seen a dramatic rise in direct investment; the GOP trumpet continuously about the ever-growing number of shareholders.

So if everyday folks are getting into the investment game, which should we be raising their taxes and handing that money to the very richest amongst us?  If Joe Everyman is investing, like he apparently is, I really don’t see why we don’t just let him keep a little more of his money.  He’s going to invest it anyways, just like Thaddeus Q. Gatesfeller the IIIrd.  And I’ll tell you another thing: Joe Everyman isn’t going to cheat on his taxes, or spend huge sums on legal fees just trying to avoid paying taxes.

Seems to me that the tax cuts for the rich come at additional cost to everyone else. And they aren’t designed to increase investment; that would have happened anyway, with direct investing and 401k plans.  Because he has to pay higher taxes to subsidize the truly wealthy, our Joe just doesn’t have much of a chance of ever developing much wealth on his own.  After all, his real income has only risen by 4% in constant dollars since 1972.  Thaddeus has seen his wealth rise in that time frame by over 500%.  Yes, that’s five hundred percent.  Trickle-down is working for someone…

So why are we screwing over the finances of this country and most people who live in it?


Posted by Ross on 02/20/04 at 07:27 AM
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Space News Potpourri

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Several interesting space tidbits:

  • MSNBC is reporting that the shuttle will be grounded until at least 2005.  This is both bad news and a potential opportunity.  First, it means that space station personnel will need to use the Russian Soyuz to get to and from the station; and there will be no manned missions to do things like save the Hubble, or for anything else.  The opportunity, which will almost certainly be passed up, is for NASA to move past the shuttle entirely, and begin a crash program to develop an efficient means of manned space flight, along several tracks:

    One, a stop gap, cheap but reliable capsule to be launched atop a disposable launcher like the Atlas - along the lines of OSP ideas.  Two, restart the DCX program with exactly the same management philosophy as the original program.  Build early, build often is the surest way to success.  This could result in a real SSTO in a few years.  And three, long range research into propulsion materials, and other technologies for new launchers in the future.  Shuttle technology should be immediately converted to unmanned cargo uses, along the lines of the shuttle-c or other ideas outlined here.  In my dreams.

  • Also on MSNBC, this report that there’s lots of debris floating around the ISS.  And a good chunk of that debris might be parts of the space station.  Who’d they get to build that thing anyway, Ryan homes?

  • And finally, space.com informs us that the Russians are considering building a Soyuz 2.0.  The new version would have twice the passenger capacity of the current, decades old design; and the crew section would be reusable.  The Russian rocket company Energiya would need to design a new launcher, as the current Soyuz rocket would be insufficient to put the twice as heavy capsule into orbit.  But hey, at least somebody’s thinking ahead.


Posted by Buckethead on 02/18/04 at 09:58 PM
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Try Reading It

Perfidy Attacks

InstaPundit pre-interprets Kerry’s 1971 testimony on the war; he listens to it so we don’t have to! 

Of course, maybe it’s a good idea to just read the damn thing yourself, and form your own opinions.  Note that Hewitt and Reynolds don’t pull out any quotes or disagree with what Kerry said; they’re crying little weasels because they don’t like how he said it.

If someone can tell me who has more of a right to speak his mind about a conflict and the politics that drove it than a recently returned, wounded soldier, please speak up.  If the GOP wants to make an issue out of this, they can contrast this heartfelt testimony with Bush’s activities at that time: Vigorously not even bothering to show up for a flight physical, which disqualified him from flying, made him ineligible for deployment, and conveniently allowed him to sit out service. 

I don’t expect to hear anything from Bush about Viet Nam.  He’ll let the party hacks do the talking.


Posted by Ross on 02/18/04 at 08:40 PM
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“Death From Above!  I’m Here to Help!”

Unmitigated Gall

So this soldier packed up and moved his family to Canada because he was going to be sent in harm’s way.  Again.  He had already completed a tour in Afghanistan, and was about to be sent to Iraq.  His conscience would not allow him be a tool of American oppression (or something), so he ran to Canada.  His story is that he enlisted for the college money and to “make a difference”, and not so much for the fighting and the icky bits. 

Here’s the problem: he was in the 82nd.  He went to jump school.  The article doesn’t specify whether or not he was an infantryman, but regardless you don’t put yourself through the rigorous training and land a posting in a prestigious airborne unit unless you want to be there.  If you are unfamiliar with the 82nd’s history of close combat, relentless aggression, and cultivation of the warrior spirit, you’re stupid.  If you just need a hug, you’re in the wrong place. 

Furthermore, he decided he was a conscientious objector.  That claim would carry alot more weight if he had claimed he was a CO when the recruiter first asked him, early on in the process.  Or later, when he signed a document that again asked him whether he was a CO (among other stuff, like if you’ve ever tried to overthrow the governemnt, that sort of thing).  So he wasn’t then I guess.

The article quoted him at length discussing how he was unwilling to risk his life for a mission he did not believe in (in Iraq, that is).  Again, this kid is a little dense, and missing the fundamentals: it’s not up to soldiers to decide which missions they will accept or which they will not.  It’s the soldier’s job to execute them.  Yes, there is an ethical dimension, in that all soldiers are sworn to obey the lawful orders of the officers posted over them.  If your commander orders you to execute a prisoner, you would not have to obey and indeed would be criminally liable if you did.  Getting an order to deploy to Iraq is a lawful order, and Congressional authorization for the conflict is what counts, not the goddamn UN, not Mother Theresa, not Greenpeace, and damn sure not you.  There’s no conscientiously objecting your way around that. 

Finally, if the kid really “wanted to make a difference”, as he claims, why not the Peace Corps or Teach for America or Commies for Christ or some such?  No, nothing says “I’m here to help” like parachutes and body armor. 

Oh, and double-finally: Canada should extradite him, since desertion is a crime there as well as here.  He’s not so much cowardly, as just dumb.


Posted by on 02/18/04 at 05:18 PM
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Understanding Taxation

Perfidy Attacks

With any luck I’ll have the time to write a long post on the subject.  When it comes to running a civil society, much of it boils down to how we handle taxes.  We’d all pretty much agree that some level of taxation is necessary...and we’d all agree that paying less is a good thing, and having government do less is a good thing.

I’ve been studying taxation and incomes.  There are some pretty astonishing facts that you rapidly become aware of:

- three quarters of American families pay more in social security taxes than they do in income tax
- the total tax paid must be taken into account (income, medicaid/medicare, social security), and that’s federal stuff
- inflation-adjusted income since 1970 has risen only 4% for the bottom 99%
- inflation-adjusted income since 1970 for the bottom 80% of earners has actually fallen slightly
- inflation-adjusted income since 1970 for the top 0.01% of earners has risen by over 400%
- tax burdens as a percentage of income are roughly equal, at all income levels; the rich do NOT pay more taxes as a percentage of income
- tax cuts for the rich are financed with social security revenues, which are exclusively collected from the poor and middle class
- repeals of inheritance tax were pitched as “save the farm”; there has not been one documented instance in the last 20 years of a farm being lost due to the inheritance tax.
- AMT is going to be a huge problem in a few years, because its formulas are not adjusted for inflation.  AMT works by denying deductions; you cannot take a deduction for having a child, for example.  The basic AMT deductions haven’t increased; as such dramatically more people are subject to it.  Bush could have used tax cuts to free middle class families from AMT, but he didn’t…

Until you’re in the top 1% of earners in the country, you haven’t seen any real income increase in 1970 dollars. 

How do the rising deficit, deficits as a percentage of GDP, and revenue projections all factor into this?  Very badly, of course.

But not if you’re at the very top...everything is fabulous.  You’ve gotten the best tax legislation money can buy…


Posted by Ross on 02/18/04 at 05:16 PM
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Privatize Hubble

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Dennis Powell has an interesting idea.  Sell or give the Hubble Space telescope to a private foundation, and let them raise the money for a rescue mission.  He argues that it would remove pressure from NASA at this awkward stage, and be a useful test case for more general space privatization.  And hey, it might save Hubble.  And that would be a good thing.


Posted by Buckethead on 02/18/04 at 03:32 PM
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Of Mouse and Frog

It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell

I see on Fark that Disney has bought the Muppets. Dammit!

I know and understand perfectly that the Muppet franchise just hasn’t been the same since Jim died, but this is a final insult I’d rather not see. Disney is well known for rapaciously exploiting its trademarks, sometimes illegally (see Pooh, Winnie The), and although I doubt the Muppets can sink any lower than doing a Pizza Hut commercial with that woodenheaded twit with boobs they call Jessica Simpson I’m sure I will continue to be surprised by the depths Disney can achieve.

What would Statler and Waldorf say?


Posted by Johno on 02/18/04 at 02:48 PM
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Blogroll addition and moonbat taxonomy

Perfidy

I have taken the liberty of adding John and Belle have a blog to the blogroll at right.

As an introduction, here is an excellent post on This whole conservatives in academia thing.

[wik] Speaking of conservatives: Via Volokh, I see that Kieran of Crooked Timber has discovered that David Horowitz has drifted deep, deep into moonbat territory never to return. Jeez. Back away slowly.


Posted by Johno on 02/18/04 at 02:37 PM
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Security Trade-Offs

Just So You Know

Bruce Schneier is a very well-respect cryptographer and writer on security policy in general.  He’s got a short essay here on security trade-offs which is well worth reading.  I’ve read his book on the subject as well.

The point is, we can give new powers to our federal agencies with ease...but what are we really getting in return?  We need to look very closely at freedoms that are lost, and at the potential for abuse that we introduce into the system.

For each of these powers, we need to look at the checks and balances.  If someone goes “bad”, what kind of abuse can this new power generate?  If history teaches us anything, it’s that the answer cannot be that we simply must trust those in positions of authority.  The whole structure of government in this country is designed to eliminate single points of failure.


Posted by Ross on 02/17/04 at 06:11 PM
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“I’m Rich, Bitch!”

Entertainment

The first season of Chapelle’s Show will be available on DVD 24 Feb 04.  Run, don’t walk.  Amazon has it for cheap if you pre-order.  Which means to order before you order I guess. 

“Mad Real World” had me in tears, as did the crackhead doing the D.A.R.E appearance at the elementary school.


Posted by on 02/17/04 at 03:17 PM
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Oh, Canada! We keed because we love!

Crazy Foreigners

Buckethead noted this weekend that Canadians were outraged by the antics of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog during Conan O’Brien’s recent Canada trip.

Oh, please. I love Canada and Canadians. I really do. I’d fit in there. But the nation has a little bit of an inferiority thing. Any time a Canadian of any stature comes up in conversation, whether it’s Mike Meyers, Neil Young, or Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray, any Canadian present in the conversation is required by law to say, “Ya know, they’re Canadian.”

Yes, we know. And they’re probably funnier and play better guitar than Americans, too. And yes, we know about Smarties and how great fries are with gravy and cheese, and of course the Maple Leaves, the Rough Riders, and the Rough Riders are the greatest sports teams in the history of sport.

But please, Canada, grow a pair. Check out what Triumph said to Quebecois last week that caused all the fureur:

“So you’re French and Canadian, yes? You’re obnoxious and dull.”

“I can tell you’re French, you know. You have that proud expression, that superior look, and I can smell your crotch from here.”

Now that’s comedy. I have to say, my reaction is summed up best by Toronto Star columnist Vinay Menon: “I can’t believe this country was successfully baited by a damn hand puppet.”

Me neither.


Posted by Johno on 02/17/04 at 02:51 PM
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Sunday, February 15, 2004

Brits Pursue Kerry Sleaze

Partisan Politics

The Telegraph says this is the woman who will derail the Kerry candicacy:

image


Posted by Buckethead on 02/15/04 at 09:52 AM
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Saturday, February 14, 2004

Clinton’s Speech

Crazy Foreigners

Bill Clinton spoke in Qatar recently; I think you’ll find the speech well worth reading.  What he says resonates with me.


Posted by Ross on 02/14/04 at 04:42 PM
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Thin-Skinned Canadians Upset By Sock Puppet

Entertainment

No, really.

Triumph the Insult Dog was seen in Quebec replaing street signs with ones that read, “Quebecqueer Street” and “Rue des Pussies.”

Alexa McDonough, a legislator for the left-leaning New Democrats, described the program as “racist filth” and “utterly vile” and demanded the government seek the return of the C$1 million subsidy.

“There may be those who would say, ‘Isn’t this interfering with freedom of expression?’ It’s not interfering to say we will not publicly fund this kind of vile, vicious hatemongering,” McDonough told reporters.


Posted by Buckethead on 02/14/04 at 04:26 AM
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