The Death Tax

There is no such thing as a “death tax” in the USA.  The Death Tax is what Republicans label the Estate Tax as a way to manipulate folks who are not affected by it to condemn it, for the political benefit of their wealthy friends.

Ah, Grover Norquist

Svengali comes to mind.  Svengali was a very famous (and fictional) opportunist who seduced and dominated a young girl named Trilby.  But she was his only victim.  So, Svengali doesn’t make the cut.

Rasputin comes to mind.  Grigori Rasputin was a very famous peasant of late Tsarist Russia who had enormous influence over the Court in pre-revolutionary Russia.  But his power was short-lived.  So, no, Rasputin doesn’t make the cut.

The great Mesmer comes to mind.  Franz Mesmer was a German physician who is credited with inventing (or discovering) hypnotism.  So feared was he in his day that the word Mesmerism pre-dated the first use of the word hypnosis by nearly 100 years.  I don’t know, is Mesmer the real deal?

But surely Grover Norquist is the real deal.

Call it Ben’s Care

Please read the Intro to Ben's Care first.

What is Ben’s Care?  Ben’s Care is a new paradigm for health care in the United States.  The primary objective of Ben’s Care is to provide the best possible health care to every American at the least possible cost to the entire economy.  While those whose health care is now partially or fully paid by an employer or subsidized by the government may feel that Ben’s Care will cost them more, as a matter of fact everyone will experience lower real health care costs than ever before.  Ben’s Care has no monthly insurance costs and it is not paid for by a special tax withheld from you at every pay check.  Ben’s Care will connect you directly to your health care providers as never before.

An Open Letter to American Creationists

To my Creationist friends – Young Earth Creationists (who believe that the Earth and the universe are only thousands of years old, not because the Bible told them so but because James Ussher, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland declared in 1654 that creation took place at nightfall on 22 October 4004BC, some 6021 years ago), “plain old” Creationists (who believe that the physical universe must have been the creation of a supernatural deity) and Intelligent Designers (plain old Creationists who understand that they have to strip religion and God out of the equation in order to pass Constitutional muster).

How long have you wanted to have YOUR story respected?  Surely since only a few years after Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871).  Surely since the awful Scopes Trial (1925), where the Christian prosecution prevailed, but not really.  We have been fighting Culture Wars (between fundamentalist Christians and seculars) for as long as we can remember.  And only one of the issues is the teaching of Darwinian Evolution in our public schools.  And wanting to challenge it on its own turf with the Biblical Creation story.  And being most recently slapped down by conservative Judge John E. Jones III, a George W Bush appointee, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005).

Getting Real about Global Warming

Before we begin, I need you to perform an experiment.  First, write down your estimate of the temperature of the water that you wash dishes (manually) with.  Next, write down your estimate of the temperature of the water that you bathe in (shower or bath).  In both cases, the hottest that you can tolerate without burning yourself.  After you write these numbers down, I want you to find your kitchen thermometer and measure how hot the water really was under both conditions.  When you have these four numbers, click below where it says “Read more »” and continue reading.

The Cosmos

These are all Galaxies in a piece of sky smaller than the Moon

This essay was written by a friend; I like it so much that I am posting it on my blog.  It’s not about politics or governance but it IS about perspective and we both agree on the importance of perspective, in politics and everywhere else.

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The Cosmos

Cosmos is Greek for the world of the Heavens, the starry world.  That is: everything out there.  Everything that we can see or grasp or imagine.  All the big things (that, ironically, appear to us so infinitely tiny).

Most humans don't think cosmically.  Most humans' view of “the world” is their local "world," frequently not more than a 20-mile radius world.  Many affluent First-World citizens have a different perspective of "everything," perhaps the world itself, the planet Earth, or at least vacation spots in far-away places.  But for the most part, most First-Worlders do not ever think about the Earth proper; it is too vast to imagine except in very limited discussions.  For the most part, our “world” is our neighborhood, and we rarely think outside THAT box.

Echo Chamber

Living in an Echo Chamber is living among folks who have the same thoughts, opinions and beliefs as you do.  Neighborhoods tend to homogenize over time; most neighborhoods become of one mind over important things as most neighborhoods belong to a single demographic, be it economic class, social class, religion, ethnicity, education, etc.  Similarly, most neighborhoods tend to become overwhelmingly Democratic or Republican, overwhelmingly conservative or liberal.  So, with regard to where we live, most of us live in an Echo Chamber.  Naturally so, but without malicious intent!  For much the same reasons, it is often true of where we work that we live in an Echo Chamber.

Celebrity

Some wag once said: “A celebrity is someone who is famous for being famous.”  The most famous such “celebrity” in today’s America has to be Kim Kardashian.  Let there be no doubt, Ms. Kardashian is quite beautiful and quite sexy.  But 100,000 to 1,000,000 American women are as desirable as she is, so why is she famous and they not?  What did she do to become famous?  Another perfect example of this kind of celebrity is Paris Hilton, great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, founder of an international hotel chain that bears his name.  Ms. Hilton can barely be called pretty, much less beautiful.  So what she did do to gain fame?  She put herself in the way of paparazzi until they noticed her barely bizarre behavior.  Kim Kardashian was smart enough to know who to latch onto.  There is the reason for Kardashian’s celebrity, she was a hanger-on of another “celebrity.”

So, what do really famous people do?  How do really famous people become famous?  Easy, they do something!  They achieve something (beyond looking good).  Bill Gates, Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry, Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Angelina Jolie, Barack Obama, even Donald Trump, they all did something and you all know what they did.  And you all know that they put in thousands of hours preparing for their achievement before they began to attract even a small measure of fame.  What did Kardashian do to get where she is?  Nothing, really.  She grabbed onto another celebrity’s coattails.

Taxes, Again

When will I stop writing the same damn thing about taxes?  When enough Americans really GET what I am trying to say.  Voting for the guy who promises to cut your taxes is the same thing as voting to have a (bigger) Budget Deficit, which is the same thing as voting to explode the National Debt.  There is a reason that we have a nearly unimaginable $20 trillion National Debt: for 35 years we have not raised enough taxes to cover what we as a nation have bought.  Voting for a tax cut is the same thing as choosing not to pay down your unpaid credit card balance, the same thing as choosing not to pay for what you bought last month.  This essay will examine the sometimes surprising consequences of low tax rates, which include that they don’t make us happier and they don’t make us more free either.

The Day After

It's official: President-Elect Trump!

Note to the reader: I began this post the day after the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency became clear.  Watching the results as they unfolded on Tuesday night was unsettling.  I did not vote for Hillary Clinton (of COURSE I voted!  And if you have read me at all, you should know that I consider our de facto two-party system an abomination) but the idea that Donald Trump might become President was very … troubling.  Never in our history, at least in MY lifetime, has a candidate been so unfit for the job: personally, politically, internationally and ethically.