Zen and the Art of /.*/

It’s bad enough that the IRS is buying 60 shotguns at a time, but now the Department of Education?!

Well, I think the almost year-long exchange with the economics department of CSB/SJU is finally over. While they were gracious and fair in the exchange, it appears that they will persist in their perpetuation of quack economics.

You can read about it in the last few exchanges here:

An Open Letter to the Economics Department of CSB/SJU

While it’s unfortunate that my proddings did not have the desired effect, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, people on both sides of this debate have been going back and forth for a century…

From the disarmingly-named “FedBizOpps.gov”:

I am the licensed charitable gambling manager for the Osseo Fire Department Relief Association.

I write to you today to express my bitter disappointment and profound concern over the state of charitable gambling in Minnesota.

The event that precipitated my correspondence to you today is the fact that myself and two of my fellow paid-on-call / volunteer firefighters spent seven hours this past New Year’s Day holiday performing the newly-required Annual Physical Inventory and Cash Count, instead of enjoying the much-needed holiday with family and friends.

(Salutations and closing omitted)

I just received a 2010 calendar in the mail from you. What in God’s name are you doing sending calendars to constituents?!

Apparently the bitter irony of the US Constitution superimposed on the cover was completely lost on you.

How was this calendar (and the surely countless others that were sent out) paid for? I can think of only three possibilities:

(Salutations and closing omitted)

I would like to take the opportunity during this (relative) lull before the next session to share with you a few of my thoughts and concerns.

As I’m sure you’re aware–and as more and more people are becoming increasingly aware–we, as a state and as a republic, are in dire straits. One could go on endlessly listing all of the seemingly-intractable problems we are facing. The combination and synchronization of these endless problems would appear to be catastrophic.

I recently received a forward from a family member:

A Little Boy’s Explanation of God — Fabulous!!! Out of the mouths of
the Babes–I certainly don’t think an adult could explain this more
beautifully!

Nice article (over at HuffPo, of all places) detailing how the Federal Reserve has the entire economics profession eating out of the palm of its hand.

Charlie Sheen sits down with the president…and BARRAGES him with inconvenient truth! Holy shit, batman. I wish there was a video–I would have liked to see him squirm. His response, or lack thereof, is extremely telling. Hope? Change? Nope. New puppet, same puppet masters.

Update: Stupid. Just saw the small print. Cool article anyhow… Pretty much how I would expect it to go down.

Great article by Jake Towne over at C4L.

The list goes on and on and on. I’m baffled that people continue to think that we somehow need the federal income tax… Wake up.