Apr
18
2008

URLs du Jour

2008-04-18

  • Not that we continue to be tax-obsessed or anything, but there's a good op-ed column from Yaron Brook at Forbes convincingly decrying the proliferation of nanny-statism via the tax code. Examples aplenty. The bottom line:
    If government were restricted to its proper functions--police, courts and a strong military to defend individual rights against physical force and fraud--our 66,000-page coercive tax code would be a thing of the past. What's more, a great burden would be lifted, not just from the economy, but from our lives.

    Imagine reasserting ourselves as rational, sovereign individuals, whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness include the right to choose values without asking society's permission--and without chasing our own money, like lab rats sniffing cheese, down the twisting corridors of a labyrinthine tax code.

    What he said. (Via GeekPress.)

  • It's kind of old—three whole days!—but lovers of irony will appreciate Bill Bradley's inside account of how Obama's pop-lefty sociology on bitter small-town voters made it into the Huffington Post, with Arianna Huffington herself weighing in from the South Pacific, where she was vacationing on David Geffen's 454-foot yacht.

    I like to imagine that at some point she said, "No, of course Obama's comments don't sound elitist to me, darling! Don't be silly! … No, I asked around, and nobody else here thinks they're elitist either."

  • Beware! May contain Traces of Peanuts! (Via BBSpot.)

  • Yes, that last item contained, arguably, a pun. Those responsible have been sacked.