More Random Reading

Obama vows to cut the budget deficit by two-thirds by raising taxes. Good lawd, man! Stop the spending! But then there's this CNN story, stating that Obama wants to cut taxes to 95% of Americans. Oh, right. This is the $13 tax credit per week people are supposed to get.

1. Let's start with the first fallacy: 48% of Americans don't pay income taxes. They get a full refund of all those taxes.
2. Next fallacy: only the rich benefit from tax cuts. This actually isn't a fallacy, but something that Obama just leaves out of his speeches. The top 25% of wage earners pay 86% of the income taxes. Obama is engaging in pure class warfare on this issue. One might complain about "tax cuts for the rich," but how disingenuous is that complaint when the rich pay the majority of the taxes? Also, income taxes are on wages, not trust funds and other things that keep folks like the Kennedy kids fed, so the folks who are born lucky enough to inherit a ton of money don't get socked by many of the taxes that are out there.
3. Fallacy #3: a tax credit to people who do not normally pay income taxes is not a tax cut, that's a giveaway from someone who does pay taxes.

A Swiss political party wants to retaliate against a U.S. government probe into Americans who sent their money to Switzerland to protect that money from intrusive U.S. banking laws. I wonder how much trouble I'd get into if I opened a Swiss bank account. Never mind, I don't have enough money to be worth confiscating anyway.

Chicago's Mayor Daley wants a surveillance camera on every street corner. With very strong gun control laws, the Windy City has ensured that only the criminals and the government has guns. So now you're an ordinary, law-abiding, non-gun-carrying citizen. How safe do you really feel?

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and following the 12th Imam.

Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative (Likud Party), again Prime Minister of Israel. There are also conservative-leaning governments in France, Germany, and New Zealand...just around the time America has gone liberal. Interesting world.