Proud of Your Ignorance?

Granted, I’m a curmudgeon, and take umbrage at things that other’s might easily overlook or forgive. But making simple spelling mistakes on an email blast that represents your company to the world does not strike me as a way to make a great impression. I received this email today:

I’m sure whatever tool was used to create the original email had some spell check capability.

Is this company too proud to use a spell checker? If they’re not willing, or not smart enough, to use spell checking on a public document, what confidence do you have they will be careful with the work they do for you?

Boycott Mozilla?

Given how the new CEO of Mozilla was hounded out of Mozilla by a bunch of intolerant employees, I've decided to never again use any Mozilla products. Firefox has been removed from every computer in my, albeit small, company.

As a Libertarian, I believe any consulting adult should be allowed to enroll into a civil union with as many other consenting adults as they choose. Sanctifying a civil union through a church, temple, or synagogue should be strictly a religious matter. And that religious organization should be free to accept or refuse to sanctify any union they choose. That's what freedom of association, and freedom of religion are about.

However, the tactics of the loud mouthed, self-righteous, intolerant employees of Mozilla, and that stupid OKCupid web-site, are too much for me.

Their behavior smacks of the tactics and goals of every modern totalitarian,  fascist regime that has existed since the beginning of the 20th century. I want nothing to do with them.

So, I am going to boycott Mozilla because of the intolerance of their company, for their punishing of someone who exercised his Constitutional rights in a manner that they deemed inappropriate, and for their absolute ignorance and hypocrisy of what free discourse means.

I hope others will join me, and eventually the company devolves into bankruptcy, and the loud-mouthed peons with their silent supporters are out on the street without a job. Nothing would be a more fitting result.
(this is a repost from another blog of mine, theDotNetTavern)

Should Any Organization Be Tax Exempt?

Recently, one of our local weekly papers published a Letter to the Editor from a gentleman who indicated he was upset that the Boy Scouts of America were tax-exempt. He felt that as they "discriminate" against gays that they should not be eligible to receive a tax-exemption. The writer made a point in his letter that he is on on the board of directors of one of our local Lutheran churches.  I responded to his letter with my own. The editor modified my letter slightly, which I repeat below, but did not change the general nature or intent of my original.

Regarding the recent letter writer who suggested the Boy Scouts of America should lose their tax-exempt status because he doesn't like their policies: perhaps he should consider how many other tax-exempt entities discriminate. 

The Girl Scouts: they are guilty of gender discrimination. They won't accept my son as a member. Like the BSA, their oath requires the members serve God and their faith. Surely that's a problem for girls whose families are agnostic or atheist. Cut them off. No exemption for them. Don't let them use the church facilities. Or how about the Black Chamber of Commerce, La Raza or Asian-American anything? Surely their names tell it all. They discriminate on the basis of race. No tax exemption for them. 

Or how about those Muslims, Catholics and Jews? You have to learn their Koran, Bible or Torah, and possibly (if male) get circumcised before you join those guys. You can't be an atheist and join those groups. Religious discrimination. 

Come to think of it, why are any of these groups tax-exempt? Why should I be forced to pay to make up for the lost revenue from any of the above sources? While I agree with the purposes of the BSA and the GSA, I'm against the ethnic this or that of anything, and just about every organized religion, including the letter writer's Lutheran religion. "He among you who is without sin, let him first cast a stone ... "

Gun Control: Good Politics, But Bad Policy?

According to the Brookings Institute, Mr. Obama has a plan to increase the implementation of "evidence-based" policy (See here...). Oh really?

Let's look at some gun control evidence. I went to the FBI site and downloaded one of their many tables of statistics (See here ...). The table I downloaded was table 20 (homicides by state/weapon). I then added some columns of my own to perform some simple calculations (See my download link at the end of this post).

The results are pretty simple. Of the 12,000+ homicides in 2011, 8,000+ were by firearm, or about 68% - slightly more than 2/3. Of the 8,000+ homicides by firearms, 72% were by handgun, and only 8% were by a combination of rifle or shotgun. The other 20% by firearm, the FBI couldn't tell if it was by handgun or not. Let's asssume, for the sake of argument that the percentage of the "unknown type" reflects the same percentage as the known, and we get approximately: 90% by handgun, 10% by rifle or shotgun.

So the first elephant in the room here is that people are making noise about creating policy that addresses less than 10% of the "problem". I say less than 10%, because that 10% covers both rifles and shotguns, and so far as I know, no one is talking about controls for shotguns. After all, shotguns are something that Mr. Obama and friends supposedly shoot quite often ...

So what type of "evidence-based" policy ignores 90% of the "problem" but is still considered good policy?

Now let's look at some Center For Disease Control (CDC) statistics. These are 2010 data - the best I could  find on their web-site. This comes from Table 10 (deaths from 113 different causes)(See here...). They have death by homicide with a firearm at 11,078. About 3,000 more than the 2011 FBI numbers, but within the same ball-park. Notably, 2010 was a worse year than 2011. Another elephant in the room: if the death by firearm numbers are falling (which they are), why are we trying to make policy about 10% of a declining problem? Is it wise to spend our money on problems that are declining on their own?

Finally, from the same CDC table, death by suicide for the year was 38,364 of which 19,392 was by firearm, or roughly half. Now, suicide with a long gun, is possible, but more difficult. If you have short arms, you either need assistance (which makes it not suicide?), or you use your toes to push the trigger - or maybe some weird Rube Goldberg mechanism.

The third elephant in the room is that the suicide rate by firearm is 175% of the homicide rate by firearm. In fact, the total suicide rate is almost exactly twice the total homicide rate. Maybe "evidence-based" policy would indicate we should first spend some of our money on reducing the overall suicide rate. Wouldn't it make more sense to solve the bigger problems before the smaller problems?

It seems the room is getting pretty crowded. And elephant s**t isn't all that different from bull s**t.

So far, it looks to me that "talking" about good, "evidence-based" policy is a lot better politics than it is good policy ...

My version of the FBI table mentioned above can be found here ...

No, Moron, That's Not What We're Wondering ...

The dimwit in charge of the State Department (as opposed to the Wimp-in-Chief) was recently quoted in at least one news article as saying that Americans are likely asking themselves:

“How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be."

Actually, no, that's not what people are thinking. They're thinking "How could you be so stupid to think it would turn out any other way?" Let's see, 9/11 the anniversary of 9/11/2001. No, nothing's going to happen then. Warnings from the Egyptian government. Ahh, they're probably just over-reacting.

And why are our sovereign lands, surrounded by anti-US militants being guarded by native, least-cost, un-trained, probably double-agent, security guards from the host country? I'm sure it's very unlikely that they might have interests stronger than risking their lives to protect American interests...

Why the hell weren't the Marines there? To keep the natives from feeling offended? Tough S**t! Let them get over it...

So now the question is no longer, should we stop giving them aid? If we'd been defending our own interests properly, and as required by these fools' Oaths of Office, that would still be the question. The question has now become, why the hell are we not dropping thousands of 500lb bunker busters on them?

These morons' inability to do their job in protecting US interests has now made things MUCH worse for US interests.

To paraphrase what a famous actor recently said, "If they aren't doin' their job, ya gotta let 'em go..." It's time for them all to go. Even their stupid, moronic questions show that they don't understand their real job...

[Edit shortly after original post]
Now we know they DID know, and they STILL did nothing.  When will Congress get some cojones and impeach this fool in the White House?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/14/diplomatic-western-posts-targeted-repeatedly-in-benghazi-in-run-up-to-deadly/?intcmp=trending

Should Businesses Pay Income Taxes?

This is, of course, a trick question. The answer is "no". The reason is very simple - businesses never really pay taxes, they simply collect "hidden" taxes from their customers - some of which they pass on to the government. Let me illustrate with an example of two fictitious companies, Company A and Company B.

Both companies produce a "glibbitch" product. They each have the same market share, and their annual revenues are each $10,000,000.00 dollars. Because they have a fungible product, and their production costs are similar, they have the same Costs of Goods Sold. Let's assume that it costs each company $9,000,000.00 to make their product, pay salaries, cover advertising, etc. So each of them supposedly starts with a company income before taxes (Revenue - Expenses) of a cool $1,000,000.00. However, Company B has one significant advantage over Company A that is not related to the product they both sell - Company B has better tax attorneys.

So Company A pays the Coporate Tax on $1,000,000 at say 30% or $300,000.00. However, Company B's lawyers are REALLY good at ferreting out some loopholes, and at the end of the year Company pays $100.00 in Corporate Income Tax. Now, both companies have sold the same amount of goods, earned the same amount of revenue, and made the same amount of income before taxes. Yet company A passes on $300,000.00 of the tax money it collected, while Company B only passes on $100.00 of the same $300,000.00 of tax money it collected.

Why do I say that Company A and B both collected $300,000.00 in tax money? Well, for one thing, the Government says it's not theirs (initially). Secondly, all that money, regardless of how much gets passed on, came entirely from their customers! The customers paid the $300,000.00 to each company! It was built into the price! Company B was just better at not having to pay it to the Government!

Now suppose the world changes overnight and on January 1st, 200x the Business Tax Rate goes to zero. All of a sudden A and B are on the same footing. Company A is now looking at increasing their profits by $300,000 per year while poor old Company B, that was doing so much better before, is looking at a measly $100.00 increase in their profits for the year.

But will Company A really do that?  If they do, then there is nothing to really distinguish them from Company B. And frankly, if they lowered their price so their annual income was just $9,900,000.00, they would still be be making more money and cost less than Company B. Remember, Company B has been paying only $100.00 each year in taxes. If they lower their price to match Company A, their net profits (after taxes) would actually go DOWN. That's not good for the shareholders....

So Company A's market share will increase. Remember, "glibbitch's" are a fungible product. So now more customers are paying less money to get the same product, because the hidden tax is now gone.

Eventually, the Government would have to raise the sales tax on "glibbitch's" because their revenue has gone down. But that's OK. Because now it's clear how much money is the Government's.

But more importantly, and rarely discussed, is that now Company A and B have to complete solely on their primary business - which is making "glibbitch's". Company B will have to lower their price to match A's. But since B is now making less revenue, they'll have to figure out how to make their product either less expensively, or improve it to maintain the price they were getting before. The important issue is that they will now compete on the price/value of their product - not on how good their tax lawyers are. Isn't that better for us all? (Well, maybe not the tax lawyers...)

A Democrat September Surprise?

A day or so ago, I had a premonition.

I think there will be a "September Surprise" from the Democratic Convention starting this coming week. My premonition is, that on the day that the VP candidate is to be announced and voted on, Old Joe will withdraw for family/medical reasons. The party will be thrown into apparent turmoil. "What are we do?" "We sympathize with Joe, but we need a candidate!" "We have to draft somebody!" "I know, let's draft Hillary!"

Yes, my premonition is that Hillary Clinton will be drafted as the VP candidate for the Democrats. I know the buzz is that she was "asked" and she "declined". Pundits have posited that

• If BO loses the 2012 election, then she will be associated with a second failure in a presidential campaign, and
• If BO wins, she doesn't want to be forced to defend his policies in 2016 when she runs again

But I think the party is scared, and sees her as necessary. And the party doesn't care about her reasons. They just want to win. They'll demand that she accept for the "good of the party". This scenario gives her and them perfect cover.

If BO loses 2012, she can claim that it wasn't really anything to do with her, because she was "drafted" and didn't really want it in the first place.

If BO wins, she won't have to support his policies in 2016, because she only took the job for the "good of the party", and not because she believed in them.

That would ironic wouldn't it? BO's presidential campaign saved by your "typical, old, white woman"...