One aspect of taxation that is rarely commented on is the massive workload it imposes on citizens. 6.6 billion hours per year is a massive amount of time and energy. Considering what minimum wage is at the moment, that’s well over $30 billion of people’s time that’s being taken up by taxes. It makes one realize just how much tax reform is needed.
Archive for April, 2005
Tax Burden
Friday, April 15th, 2005Senate Blows It
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005You’d think the Senate would edit their transcripts — at least for classified material.
Bizarre Science
Monday, April 11th, 2005Want to understand how nerves work to try to help limit psychological problems? It seems that the first step is to use lasers to control headless fruit flys.
There does seem to be a connection there, but technology seems to be getting stranger lately. I mean, an alcohol-powered laptop? Next we’ll have alcoholic robots or something.
Democrat Tune-Up
Monday, April 11th, 2005It’s about time the Democrats started to develop solid positions on such things as values. There can’t be any good dialogue when there’s only one side discussing something. This may be bad news for Republicans (if the Democrats are successful), but good news for the country as a whole.
Iran Turmoil?
Sunday, April 10th, 2005If this is accurate, it’s definitely a good sign for the future of democracy in the region. The grip of the mullahs on power shouldn’t be underestimated, but the exertion of keeping the citizens at bay will likely limit their flexibility in interfering in other countries in the region.
Stuff For Today
Saturday, April 9th, 2005Random stuff post:
-There’s an interesting story here that’s worth reading.
-INDC Journal has been deblogrolled (new word!) for generally behaving like an ass incivility. Disagree all you want, yes, but attacking each other for “abyssmal reading comprehension” (without even spelling abysmal properly) is pointless bile, and is fairly counterproductive. This is my pointless little bit of protest. I don’t know why, but Bill’s posts don’t seem to be as good as they were before the election.
-In March this blog actually had over 3,000 visits! No word yet on how many of them were bots for sites selling viagra, promoting online gambling, and other such uplifting pursuits.
Judicial Activism
Saturday, April 9th, 2005Judicial activism is something that drives me absolutely up the wall. Normally I would say that it’s just individual judges doing whatever they want and not a grand conspiracy, but it’s beginning to look more and more like a grand conspiracy. The unfortunate thing about this whole episode is that these people actually are in a position to effect the changes they propose.
CBS In Iraq
Saturday, April 9th, 2005I can’t say that this really suprises me. With all of the pictures that have been floating around taken from immediately besides insurgents firing on Americans and Iraqi police, I’m only suprised that it took this long for someone like this to be caught.
China As Threat
Friday, April 8th, 2005This article about China’s rise in military power is quite interesting. I still don’t know exactly what to think about China — they’re an enigmatic bunch, and will likely stay that way — but it’s definitely important to keep an eye on events in that portion of the world.