I really like that song by Neil Young, “A Piece of Crap.”
Okay, so the media were all good boys and girls in the days following 9/11/01, but now the commercials and coming hot and heavy. Have you seen all the great deals to be had on the new car market? 0% interest?! That is great . . . do it for Uncle Sam.
It is so hard to keep from thinking that everything GW Bush does is to get reelected; for example, him saying that he has found his calling, his purpose in being president. Ummmm . . . you mean we elected this fellow and he didn’t already have a purpose? What was he doing for the 8 months prior to the tragedy?
Most of my energy is now being applied to another site I am working on, a site about the tragedy on September 11, 2001 and the fallout from that event. You should go to: http://www.fivecolleges.net/~hector/comm_dept/ for more alternative news about the tragedy and the war that seems to be brewing.
Do yourself a favor and learn what “tax expenditures” are because that is how the government, after lobbying from special interests groups, give away the store. Here is how the Digest of Educational Statistics describes tax expenditures: “Losses of tax revenue attributable to provisions of the federal income tax laws that allow a special exclusion, exemption, or deduction from gross income or provide a special credit, preferential rate of tax, or a deferral of tax liablility affecting individual or corporate income tax liabilities.”
What does that mean? The government keeps track of how much money is lost to tax breaks in specific instances, some of which are for poor people, but not all.
I am doing some research about these tax expenditures and will be posting some of my findings. You can find out what the tax expenditures were in the 2001 budget here. Download the “analytical perspectives.”
The testing is done, and the Radio Free Blog is in the air. I am using a great perl script called Greymatter to make this happen, along with other scripting tricks to create the quotes and links on the sidebar.
If you get a chance look at the Sunday NY Times (7/29/01), and read an interview in the business section with four “technology pros”. Here is a real gem, which is responding to a question about kids not paying for Web content (music, movies, etc.): “You teach them some values. You can walk into any store and steal something, and kids don’t do it. We’ve got to bring up a generation that understands that if you steal a movie over the Net, and it is “Pearl Harbor,” that is stealing.”
Okay, now what do we do when Microsoft takes public domain computer program code, makes some nominal changes, then they call it proprietary code? What about them apples?!