Taxation isn't just "Oreo Cookies"

From today's _San Jose Mercury News_ letters section:

Rich Nielsen wrote:

In case any of your readers don't quite understand what Sen. Barack Obama's "income redistribution" amounts to, here is an analogy. You study real hard and get an A in class. Some other student skips class, hardly studies and gets a D. The professor decides that there is too great a disparity between the grades in the class, so he lowers your A to a B- and raises the D to a C+ to help even things out.

Sound fair to anyone?

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There seems to be a great missunderstanding of the difference between "Equal Opportunity" and "Equal Results". The first is the American Ideal, the second seems to be the new way to measure progress on the first.


Results also include a component of "Effort and Ability".

Tax me too much and I'll stop working. That will reduce my taxes and sink everyone's boat.

"Change, We Need"

Barack,

I'm confused by your signs.

Change
We Need

Is this a lame attempt at Yoda speak? Did you want to say "We need change", but wanted the "Change" part to be bigger and bolder?

In any case, "Change" is too easy and too dangerous. Different for the sake of different should not be confused with progress. Change is just entropy, not a way forward.

Your speeches frequently describe to your audience how your policies will benefit the individuals whose votes you seek.

You seem to want to invoke JFK's exhortation - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country!"

When you say the words it sounds like "Ask not what you can do for your country, but rather ask what your country can do for you!."

Ask more of your government. I could support that idea.

More - efficient
More - forward thinking
More - useful
More - humanitarian

A blog you might enjoy.

For the Jesuit educated among you (and every one else too)...

http://cptdrfrtim.blogspot.com/

Thank You

Thank you, green barn, for 41 wonderful years.

Fuel Economy vs. speed

Just for the record - on our recent trip -

Eastbound - speed limit and a max of 65 mph --- 18.4 mpg
Westbound - speed limit plus 5 for the most part - max 80 mph --- 17.1 mpg

Call me "General"

Not a military rank but rather an amateur radio license class - passed written element 3 so now I have new HF radio privileges but no radio to use them - and no place I'm allowed to put the relevant antenna (CC&R restrictions).

I'm studying the information for element 4 and hope to take that exam before too long - that would make me "amateur extra".

de

KD6CWF

Wii 3

We have the third Wii in the family that I know about. While I like the game system and have enjoyed getting tips about game play from my grandson, I have to say that the Nintendo marketing is even better than the game.

The purchase experience is a sustained "almost out-of-reach" condition. They seem to be perpetually "out of stock" but "will arrive soon". Call back on Wednesday morning to see if any of the pre-ordered systems are unclaimed - get here an hour before the store opens on Sunday morning and wait in line for a coupon to buy a unit.

It is pure marketing genius - generate exactly the right degree of scarcity to maximize sales and completely eliminate any sales resistance or expectation that a "sale price" might happen. Encourage the purchase of any related parts, should they happen to be in stock, because you may not see them again. If they were readily available in the stores, they would not be so successful. The scarcity adds to the mystique.

And this, all for a video game system that has a novel user interface but is otherwise rather mundane (XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 have much more capable processors and graphics hardware etc.). Perhaps the other thing setting Wii apart from the others is that Wii seems to focus on "E" rated games rather than the shoot-em-up and bad behavior games.

Wii Fit may be available Wednesday (or perhaps on June 8Th).

The only other thing that was this hard to obtain was an EV1.

But I'm up to 3/160 on the Lego Star Wars game :-)