April 29, 2004
WWII Memorial
The memorial opens today, and will be dedicated on Memorial Day, 2004.
I find it amazing there has never been a WWII memorial in Washington until now. Hurts my head.
The official site is slow (at least today...) but has some good info.
April 26, 2004
Which Founding Father Are You?
One never really knows how accurate these things are. But I do find these sorts of "which X are you?" questionaires fun.
So, for what it's worth, I am:
Which Founding Father Are You?
You can also take the companion quiz...
Which Revolutionary War Asshole Are You?
April 23, 2004
Boortz on the FCC
Neal Boortz's column this week is on the recent and ever building censorship arm of the FCC. This is a really good read for anyone wondering why this "Howard Stern issue" is such a big deal.
April 21, 2004
Bug Me Not
Ever link to a news website or article, only to be prompted for to register? Even when such registration is free, these sorts of prompts are annoying, and often enough to make me give up on reading the article. Well, let this bother you no more! Using bugmenot.com you can look up the URL of a site and get a registration login for that site. No signup or personal info is necessary to use this service. How cool is that?
Another interesting free service is mailinator.com which allows you to "make up" a mailinator email address at any time, with no signup necessary; once someone sends a message to that made up email address (for example, a registration email...), mailinator automatically creates a temporary account for the address and stores the email sent to you. You then just visit the mailinator site and access the message - the account and the message disappears automatically after a few hours. No signup or personal info is necessary to use this service. How cool is that?
April 19, 2004
April 13, 2004
Tax Freedom Day
If you ignore the fact that we're spending in a deficit, so that we'll have to pay for things later that the government wants now, this is relatively good news (for the short term, at least).
It still sucks eggs. That means that from Jan 1 until two days ago, we here in the U.S. were collectively working for all of our various levels of government.
The "Tax Freedom Day by State and Rank", near the bottom of the page, is pretty interesting... (the higher the rank number, the better).
Neat.
Here's the Tax Foundation's pie chart "How Many Days America Works to Pay Taxes Compared to Major Spending Categories, Calendar Year 2004":
Note that, according to these statistics, even with "Tax Freedom Day" being so "early" in 2004, American's still will have worked approximately 28% of the year... just to pay taxes.
Note also that, according to their extended forecast, "Tax Freedom Day" is expected to move later and later into the year, each year for the next ten years, that is if the tax laws stay the same.
Also, note that "Despite the dramatically lower tax burden in 2004, Americans will still spend more on taxes than they spend on food, clothing and medical care combined," said [Tax Foundation President Scott] Hodge.
One last note: these statistics show the average tax burden of Americans, meaning that those people who pay no taxes whatsoever are also included! This means that the tax burden of the average tax payer is actually much higher...
Download the complete Tax Freedom Day report
The report has some interesting analysis and history, including this tidbit of info:
"At the beginning of the 20th century, taxes accounted for 5.9 percent of income, and the nation celebrated Tax Freedom Day on January 21."
April 09, 2004
FCC
My message to the Federal Communications Commision:
FUCK YOU ROYALLY
Censor that, mother fuckers! :)
I'm not even a fan of Stern's. I find his humor less than childish, it's moronic, and, quite frankly, boring. But I stand 100% behind his right to say whatever he wants, have whatever guests he wants, etc. without the meddling fines of a government bureaucracy gone awry. I'm not saying that he has a right to be on Clear Channel stations - that's up to Clear Channel. But he should be free to compete for the ability to be broadcast on their stations without the government threatening to not only fine Clear Channel and other stations that carry his show, but to revoke broadcast licenses from such stations.
Where in the First Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution, does it give the federal government the right to restrict the Freedom of the Press or Speech via "licenses"? Did Benjamin Franklin have a "license" to publish his newspaper, before or after 1776? Why, therefore, do we tolerate the government regulating the more modern versions of the "press", namely radio and television, by licensing those who broadcast on those media technologies?
This, my friends, is a textbook example of fascism - the private ownership of companies, etc. with high regulation by the government.
Howard Stern's Response To FCC Bullying/De-facto Censorship
Ice T spoke out against the FCC in his song "Freedom of Speech" back in the day (well before the recent bullying by the FCC of Howard Stern) over the pressures from FCC and PMRC to get him fired from Warner Brothers (it eventually happened - so he started his own recording company).
April 05, 2004
TV = Ritalin = Stunted Growth
Why does this finding not surprise me?
Watching TV may hurt toddlers' attention spans
And a related finding:
Study: Ritalin linked to stunted growth