14 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Today's helpful hints (lots at the link):

   Save on booze by drinking cold tea instead of whisky. The following morning you can create the effects of a hangover by drinking a thimble full of washing up liquid and banging your head repeatedly on the wall. 

    

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2. So DIA finally has EV chargers installed (no info on their website though). But they put in 120 volt (I assume the 12v is a typo) chargers instead of 240 volt ones. That's fine for people parking and flying out.

   But for drop off/pick up (which is what I and many others mostly do), what's needed is the faster charge because what's needed is just 5 minutes at the faster rate to have (barely) enough to get home.

   What they have is a good start. But they hopefully will soon add faster chargers in the short term parking lots. After all, there's a lot of EVs out there now.

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   1. Boo hoo.

      Rephrase – affluent early adopter is dissappointed that he can't get what he wants, where, when and how he wants it.  Do users pay to use those chargning stations?

       

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3. For those people here that can only see the negative in everything, this video is for you:

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   1. Sure – technology is amazing.
      Somehow doesn't seem to justify the bizzare wealth and income distribution. Or the lack of econmic mobility.

      But hey- it you're not rich, blame yourself.

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   2. Yup….Appreciate the miracles of technology today.

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4. Now is the time (actually, it's long past the time due to Republican obstructionism) for government at all levels to assault all our obsolete infrastructure and invest in new technologies that can return us to being world leaders in beneficial and efficient technologies. Thousands of "shovel ready" project were proposed years ago, and most still await funding. 

   I just did my taxes and am contributing mightily to this society at both the state and federal levels. Are the rich, so profoundly helped by our modern society, willing to help pay for it as well?

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5. Income inequality is on most American's radar. 

   They rightly see it as a problem that is holding back society as a whole. 

   But, as the problem becomes more clear, and some action becomes more likely, we seem to have let up on the fact the we still need to tax the rich at levels commensurate with their wealth and income. I hope they realize they can't take it with them. 

   Thomas Jefferson suggested taxes increase at a geometrical rate on the most wealthy among us:

   But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? These lands are undisturbed only for the sake of game. It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.

   The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise.

   Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed.

   It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

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   1. How about starting with eliminating caps on SS taxes.  Besides being the most regressive they're also the most straight up without all kinds of opportunities to pile on deductions or use other techniques to whittle them down. That wouldn't even be asking the rich to pay a higher percentage of income, just the same percentage as the little people.

      It wouldn't be a complete solution but it would be a good start. A compromise could be raising the cap dramatically instead of complete elimination for starters. In light of the growing gap it's kind of hard to argue that richer you get the smaller percentage of your income you should pay in. The same percentage can hardly be characterized as anti-rich redistribution.

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6. Just got this e-mail request from Sen. Bennet and his good friend Tom (that's right, not Mark) Udall. So at least Bennet is for something progressives like. Tom Udall of New Mexico seems very progressive compared to his cousin Mark. I get progressive oriented e-mail requests to sign various petitions (and, by the way, please also send money of course) from cousin Tom all the time.

   That’s why I’m teaming up with my colleague and friend, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, to push for a constitutional amendment designed to counter the effects of Citizens United.

   On this important anniversary, stand with us to support our constitutional approach to end Citizens United. Add your name today.

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7. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife were just indicted on corruption charges.

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   1. 14 of them. Very serious as well as very sleazy. They claim they did nothing illegal but at best it paints them as an incredibly grasping shallow pair, actually asking to be given things like a Rolex. They say all the luxuries that were heaped on them were in no way payment for favors in return but that looks pretty laughable considering the circumstances and chain of events.  Not a good week for Republican Governors. One looks personally corrupted by sheer greed on a grand scale and the other looks like a extortionist thug. 

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8. Background checks are working in Colorado. Almost 400,000 of them.

   Some were denied the privilege of buying a gun, and I'm glad that they were denied:

   A total of 7,351 applications for both private and retail sales were denied in 2013, at a rate of 1.85 percent. The denial rate in 2012 was 2.14 percent. The most common reasons for denial varied: 1,412 were due to an arrest or conviction of assault; 381 because the applicant had a restraining order against them; 166 for arrest or conviction of sexual assault; and 41 were because of a homicide conviction, and arrests or convictions for other crimes.

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   1. Funny how the right will no doubt poo poo mere hundreds or even more than a thousand denials (they'll fixate on the modest sounding percentage) to those who shouldn't be able to purchase fire arms while waxing hysterical over the need to pour whatever resources it takes, and no matter how many legitimate voters are prevented from voting by draconian measures, to prevent even one case of possible voter fraud out of the entire voting population.  Of course, the latter is a number that couldn't even be expressed as a percentage without a whole lot of zeros first.

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