Allen July 28th, 2004
I heard on NPR coming in to work this morning that another Zen Buddhist charity has been charged with providing support for terrorists. Apparently the Holy Land Foundation has been providing money to Buddhahad Fighters, a shadowy organization that sponsors suicide bombers in 7-11 stores across the country.
Update: It may not be Zen Buddhists that are at the center of the controversy. This continues to be a developing story.
Allen July 27th, 2004
Read I guess she never said this, either. I probably should just “shove it.” to hear Jay’s reaction to Theresa’s 180-degree spin regarding the Democratic party.
And just so I can start this meme early….
I’m highly suspicious as to the timing of this revelation.
Duh.
Allen July 27th, 2004
Nope, no news here. Nothing to read about. Move along.
Afghanistan is in ruins and the Americans foisted a failed policy upon a downtrodden people. They all hate the US and wish we wouldn’t impose our imperial values upon them. Peace is War. America is double-plus ungood.
[Via small dead animals]
Allen July 27th, 2004
Dale Franks, in More on Taxation, complete with a shameless plug, examines a national sales tax (shortened to NST) and finds what he likes.
Read the original and then examine this excerpt:
Equally disturbing is that the income tax allows the government to pick and choose between favored groups or desired social outcomes by alterations of the tax code. Large businesses that are able to spend money on lobbyists can collect all sorts of tax breaks and loopholes through manipulation of the tax code.
Politicians seem completely unable to resist monkeying with the tax code to produce politically desired social or financial outcomes. As a result, the tax code is a compendium of special interest tax breaks, arcane finance rules, and an impentrable [sic] mass of regulations. Call the IRS two separate times asking the same question about the same tax problem, and the chances are, you’ll get two different answers.
As a result, it is almost impossible to fill out a moderately complicated tax return without violating some arcane tax provision that government can use, if they desire to do so, to bring you to heel. In my view, the personal income tax is a potential tool of tyranny.
I am far more comfortable with the NST. It immediately liberates the citizenry from any personal financial oversight from the government, which automatically makes it more conducive to personal liberty. The need for citizens to obtain accountants, tax attorneys, or the services of H&R Block would be completely eliminated. More importantly, the temptation to call down audits upon unpopular government critics would be ended completely.
Moreover, it completely–or, at the very least, substatially [sic] –eliminates the government’s ability to use the tax code to produce political or social results desirable to the government.
And these are the same arguments that will be used against the passage of any sort of National Sales Tax.
BTW, excellent article on supply-side tax cuts here. Have we reached a sub-optimal point on the curve? I don’t know.
Allen July 27th, 2004
But They’ve Forgotten the SteakSoy Patty.
Kevin Drum of CalPundit fame asks why is George Soros and and company are Getting Their Act Together when they don’t seem to have a central message that binds them together.
From his article:
I guess I’m a little surprised that the story of how movement conservatism and its associated money machine rose from the ashes of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign is still news to anyone, but I guess it is. And apparently Stein has put the the story together in a uniquely understandable way that makes light bulbs go off for a lot of potential activists.
But what really surprised me is that in an 8,000-word story about these people, there wasn’t so much as a single sentence about what they believe in. It’s all about the infrastructure and the fundraising and the message machine — but nothing about the message itself. What are they doing all this work for?
Italics in the original.
Good question. What binds them together is progressivism. Exactly what that really means is left as an exercise to the voter.
As a note, I’ve bookmarked the original article that Kevin Drum refers to and plan to comment on it later.
Allen July 27th, 2004
Insert tongue A into cheek B and read A Modest Open Letter. In it, E. Nough proposes solutions to world opinion regarding that patch of desert in the Middle East.
Something tells me, though, that the first option given (surrender) will be a lot quicker.
[Via LGF]
Allen July 27th, 2004
Read THE TRAITOR’S POISON STARTS ITS WORK for disappointing news about how F*9/11 is hurting morale in our troops.
Freedom of Speech allow idots like Moore to package up lies and sell them as truth. How many soldiers will wind up discouraged and defeated because some multi-millionaire packed up a load intellectual vomit and foisted it off onto the American public? Christopher Hitches exposed the lies of that film back in June. But how many troops will read Hitchen’s essay?
Political discourse, my ass. Had a right-wing nutjob created a film like F*9/11 connecting Clinton with [Saudi Arabia/China/North Korea/fill in the blank], the media would have crucified said nutjob and hung them out to dry.
This just sickens me.
Allen July 27th, 2004
But I’m having problems with getting a line break (br) between each element. As you can see on my sidebar, I’ve got my TypePad list slimmed down (disabled the one-line bios) and imported my OPML from FeedDaemon to start my blogroll. The problem is that my blogroll is presented as one large mass of blogs. Doesn’t look too pretty. I’ll keep it for right now, but may pull it if I can’t figure out how to get the linebreaks in.
Update: I also figured out how to import my OPML into my TypeList. So I’ll simply update both my BlogRoll and my TypeList with my OPML file. Now if I could just automate the update of my OPML file to a central site and have both BlogRoll and TypePad read that. But I can live with this for now.
Allen July 27th, 2004
Music Industry Executives Baffled By Decreased Sales of CDs
Read Rip van Hoodwink to learn from Charles how Macromedia has created a broken CD (with bad data on the music tracks, etc) that then requires the installation of their software that prevents ripping.
While I fully support property rights, I realize that peeing in the soup is not the way to sell more soup. Once folks catch wind of this system and the usage of said system starts showing up on more and more CDs, I predict that CD sales will decline — even more than before.
I rip tracks from CDs onto my computer at work, in order to listen to music that suits my mood at the time. I don’t maintain a huge inventory of CDs at work, but keep them at home. I also rip them to listen to them on my MP3 player that I have on my Palm during workouts. All perfectly legal activities that will be denied with this new hare-brained (or is it hair-brained) idea. I’ve disabled auto-play on my computers — in part for this very reason. I guess I will have to start inquiring when purchasing CDs to see if this brain-dead “feature” has been installed.
What’s next? Books printed in fading ink?