Seinfeld & Superman: Together Again

And now I bestow upon you the coolest link I’ve found in more than a month. Drumroll please… The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman. Yes, despite what you might have heard, I do accept gifts.

Cartographer of the Human Body

Saw this amazing piece of work over on kottke. It’s a map of the human body that actually looks like a road map. Very cool.

Giving Back

Speaking of music, how about Marcus Pimpleton. Despite being brought into the world by parents unready to care for him, through the kindness of strangers and his own hard work is a success story in Seattle. Now he’s a music teacher giving it back to the school that gave him so much. I love stories like these.

Let’s Move Porn to Red Light Domain

This might surprise some of you, but there’s a ton of pornography on the Internet. Yeah, really. For years now, parents everywhere have clamored for a separate domain for this material so that they could more easily control the content their children view. The ACLU, among others, have fought this saying it hinders the pornographers right to free speech. I guess that’s the only thing they teach their lawyers to say. Anyway, there is a push for the .xxx domain which might actually happen. But it’ll only be valuable if we can move all the current porn to this domain. Contact your legislators if you care about this topic. Me? I’m sick of the porn-people invading my email box. Guess I’m with Bill Gates (he wasn’t the first) on the pay-per-email idea.

The Reality of Tax Cuts

The following is a story that has made the email rounds for a couple of years now, but does show how some people view cutting taxes.

Tax Cuts—A Simple Lesson In Economics
This is how the cookie crumbles. Please read it carefully.

Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

Since you are all such good customers, he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”

So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share”?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

I only got a dollar out of the $20, declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10!”

Yeah, that’s right, exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”

That’s true!! shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when
I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

Wait a minute, yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Economics
536 Brooks Hall
University of Georgia

For the Movie Addict

Everyone watches movies. But not everyone is an addict. FilmWise is for the addicts… who say, know all the lines from Caddyshack by heart. (“This is my friend, Mr. Wang. No offence.”) Or, can recite the 6 Degrees of Separation from not just Kevin Bacon but also The Rock. And don’t miss FilmWise’s Quizzes… very tough, but fun.

Orson Scott Card Critiques ‘Passion’

I’ve already mentioned how psyched I am that Ender is coming to the big screen. Apparently, Orsen Scott Card, in addition to his fiction works, also gigs it at The Ornery American as a featured columnist. In this column, he reviews ‘Passion’ with an artist’s eye and an intelligent mind. To say this guy was smart, would be an insult.

Answers About Jesus

Everyone has a perception of Jesus. We’re all influenced by what our friends say or what we see about Him on TV. Regarding Jesus does a great job of letting us learn about the most pivotal figure in human history. As C.S. Lewis said, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic or who he said he was. Being just a “good man” wasn’t an option he left open to us. We should take time now and again to investigate these claims for ourselves.

Iraqi People Say, “Life is Better”

It’s far from perfect, but life in Iraq is much better according to a recent national survey. Public security is still at the top of list of priorities going forward. And while the public predominantly agrees in a centralized government, as of now they’re concerned about who the people are that will occupy positions of authority in their nation. They don’t believe the current governing council is “legitimate”. Hopefully, elections some time next year will build faith in this new to the Middle East form of government.

I’m Biased Against Media Bias

How can the media act surprised when people call them biased? It’s alll so obvious simply from the way they title their stories. Here’s an Associated Press (AP) story titled, “Two States Deal Setbacks to Gay Marriage“. Other more neutral titles weren’t chosen:

• Califormia Supreme Courts Upholds Existing Laws on Marriage
• Massachusetts Approves Amendment on Marriage Definition

But David Kravets is showing which side he’s rooting for when he uses the phrase “delivering victory” like they somehow ordered a pizza. Another exerpt, “The amendment, which would strip gay couples of their court-granted marriage rights” uses the harsh verb “strip” like violence has been done. It’s no accident that Kravets and many other journalists frame the issue thusly, it’s because they’ve given up trying to appear impartial and, like the cause they’re championing, they are out of the closet.

Media bias is a bad thing. Everyone having the knowlegde that it exists is a good thing.

Drop In Teen Pregnancy

When health groups recommended that in order to reduce lung cancer, people should smoke less tobacco, the world applauded.

When health groups recommended that in order to reduce unwanted teen pregnancy, unwed teens shouldn’t have sex, the world stood agast.

That’s not feasible, they would cry. But why the double-standard? Certainly it’s a complicated issue. Every issue involving human beings is complex. But to toss out the obvious solution showed isn’t compassionate or productive. It’s good to see that a portion of our country’s future is getting the message. [via Thunderstruck]

Basketball Exam, Georgia Style

I’d be remiss if I didn’t link to Jim Harrick Jr.’s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball exam. So easy it’s rediculous. I mean, everyone knows that a basketball court has four goals, right?!? Getting a perfect score isn’t anything to brag about.

T-Mac Blows Up

62. That’s the load of points that T-Mac dropped on the Wizards. That’s a franchise record. That’s a career record. It’s not Wilt’s 100 or Robinson’s 71 but it’s nothing to sneeze at either. It’s a shame that Orlando is in such a sorry state-of-affairs.

Voluntary Collective Licensing

With all the controvery swirling around digitalized music, it takes a sharp mind to come up with a reasonable solution. It seems to me that the folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have found one. They call it Voluntary Collective Licensing (VCL) of Music File Sharing. Now, I’m no expert on this complex topic so I could be completely off-base endorsing it, but I do know the record labels have brought us to a place where 1) our choices are limited; 2) the artists we do get are overpaid, while the others go unnoticed; 3) we don’t have the proper rights to what we do buy. VCL sounds like a good thing to these ears.

An Interview with God

If you could ask God a question or two, what would they be? I wonder what mine would be if I were truly given that opportunity. No doubt, I’d be surprised by His answers. Would I even hear His words, or would I be distracted by His presence? The Interview with God is one artist’s rendering of what it might be like. Reminds me of another short movie called The Journey, I saw years ago.