17 November 2011 - The Mad Filkentist (original) (raw)

| | November 17th, 201106:33 am - First use?"At the hall's end was a teleconference room." — Poul Anderson, "Robin Hood's Barn," 1959 (read in The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 3: The Saturn Game, from NESFA Press).I wonder if this was the first published use of the word "teleconference."(1 comment | Leave a comment)06:49 am - Posturing on Capitol HillAccording to CNN, "A group of two dozen millionaires stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday, demanding lawmakers raise their taxes." I have trouble believing this picture of their "storming" the place as if in a comedy-thriller, tossing guards aside while wearing immaculate suits and ties. But that's CNN's silliness; the real issue is the silliness of these rich Occupiers: "We want to pay more taxes," said California millionaire Doug Edwards, a former marketing director for Google.He does? The government will be glad to accept his money. I think there's even an IRS form for voluntarily paying extra taxes. If he was "storming" Congress check in hand and the guards kept rising from the floor to shove it back at him, the article doesn't mention it. For that matter, I haven't heard that Warren Buffett, who's constantly grousing about his low taxes, has made any such donation. A quick web search doesn't turn up a mention of one.What they really are saying is that they want other people to pay higher taxes. There's nothing unusual about rich people wanting their rich competitors taxed more. But they should stop pretending that they want to give the government money which it's refusing to take.(10 comments | Leave a comment)**10:58 am - A brief note on Occupy Wall Street**Occupy Wall Street has made it fully clear today that it's out to interfere with other people's freedom of movement, not to speak out.On the other hand, I don't have a lot of confidence in the New York City cops' ability to act uniformly with due restraint in such situations, so I won't be surprised if some innocent people get abused or not-so-innocent people get treated more harshly than their crimes merit. But the Occupiers plainly started the aggression.(Leave a comment) | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | LiveJournal.com | |