Never fear, the bunny inspectors are safe. You, however, are not as the Internet Sales Tax Bill careens ahead.

View 771 Monday, April 22, 2013

Air Traffic Controllers have been furloughed, and flights are delayed, but be calm. The Bunny Inspectors are still on the job, so all is well.

Chechnya and Czechoslovakia

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Greetings! Writing to you from my new email address.

Perhaps nothing more illustrates the woeful state of American education than this statement made by the Czech ambassador :

http://www.mzv.cz/washington/en/czech_u_s_relations/news/statement_of_the_ambassador_of_the_czech.html

Which was necessitated by this tweet:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151336710287161&set=a.252358827160.146546.575862160&type=1&ref=nf

Evidently the author, one Michael Matthews, leaped to the conclusion that the bombers were from Czechoslovakia and called for its nuking despite the fact that the two countries are a thousand miles apart.

Somewhere a geography teacher is crying him/herself to sleep while hitting the bottle hard.

I believe this animated gif best sums up my reaction:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m31xm3BR1v1rtcfaqo1_500.gif

Respectfully,

Brian P.

EARTH DAY ABOUNDS.

Never fear, the icebergs will not be here next year.

I am using inspiration from Fallen Angels to celebrate Earth Day.

"Throw another log on the fire…"

Government Budgets vs. Private Industry

"Air Traffic Controllers have been furloughed, and flights are delayed, but be calm. The Bunny Inspectors are still on the job, so all is well."

As one recent letter to the editor in the Washington Post suggested, isn’t it interesting that mandating a 25% (or more) increase in the minimum wage (no small part of a company’s operating expenses) will supposedly not negatively impact a business’s operation, but a smaller cut in virtually any federal agency’s budget will apparently bring about significant downgrading in that agency’s ability to function.

Karl

Karl Fritz

Coincidences

Jerry,

This one is a bit of a stretch but once upon a time I attended a 1960 New Years party on Marlborough Street about a five minute walk from where the baloon went up. The folks I was with lived in Watertown about two and a half blocks from where the two firefights brought it down. I bet the two morons never even had a clue about how good facial ID technology has become. Considering the lousy tradecraft the FBI displayed in their first encounter with the older guy, it must have come as a hell of a shock to find that the non-Bunny Inspector side of the organization can be quite good.

Val Augstkalns

Fascinating

‘So big business and big government are uniting to pursue their mutual interest in sticking it to the little guy.’

<http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324493704578432961601644942-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html>

Roland Dobbins

Every time Congress has taken a serious look at proposals to boost Internet sales taxes, it has rejected them. That’s probably why pro-tax Senators are trying to rush through an online tax hike with as little consideration as possible.

As early as Monday, the Senate will vote on a bill that was introduced only last Tuesday. The text of this legislation, which would fundamentally change interstate commerce, only became available on the Library of Congress website over the weekend. And you thought ObamaCare was jammed through Nancy Pelosi‘s Democratic House in a hurry.

This thing is on rails, speeding for passage.

Mr. Enzi’s Marketplace Fairness Act discriminates against Internet-based businesses by imposing burdens that it does not apply to brick-and-mortar companies. For the first time, online merchants would be forced to collect sales taxes for all of America’s estimated 9,600 state and local taxing authorities.

New Hampshire, for example, has no sales tax, but a Granite State Web merchant would be forced to collect and remit sales taxes to all the governments that do. Small online sellers will therefore have to comply with tax laws created by distant governments in which they have no representation, and in places where they consume no local services.

It is in a way the end of the Nation of States, and a very strong move toward abolishing the notion of state sovereignty.

subject: EARTH DAY

Hi, Doc.

If one thing is trying to kill you, it’s called an enemy.

If everything is trying to kill you, it’s called Nature.

Earth Day is the result of a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome.

Matthew Joseph Harrington

e pur si muove (the motto of consensus deniers since 1633)