Taxes and other interesting bits

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a good editorial on the inherent unfairness of our tax code. They make some suggestions on fixing it, but until we have public financing of elections we will have legislators beholden to their wealthy donors and we will never see any real reform. In the meantime, I would settle for just repealing the recent tax breaks to the top brackets.

Well, there you go again. The Catholic Church is turning back the clock a few decades in an effort to make sure noone ever again votes for a Catholic politician. At least that will be the end result if the church continues to stick their nose into how legislators vote and try to push the church’s will upon the rest of us.

A very short story in the NY Times details a sex offenders arrest for not updating his registration. This man has been the subject of protests and has had trouble finding housing. I am mixed on this—on one hand, who wants this filth living in their neighborhood. On the other hand, why don’t we just put them in jail for life if we don’t let them have housing anywhere “on the outside.”

The NY Times also covers why hybrid cars are not popular in the Midwest. They barely cover the REAL reason. Honda and Toyota currently manufacture the only hybrids, while people in the Midwest tend to buy American (obviously not 100% but more so than the coasts). And when the American manufacturers such as Ford decide to finally make a hybrid it is an SUV! When Ford decides to make a hybrid that gets 50-60 mpg, instead of what my small car gets in an SUV model, I will be the first in line to buy one.

An interesting program that New York University is undertaking to help liberal arts majors enter the job market. It would allow them to take classes, not applied to their degree, which would help them learn practical skills related to their area of study. I always thought this was what was lacking in education: the “real world” translation of the stuff they were using. This might end the “I will never use this ‘insert course topic here” in real life” whining.