Current Affairs

Wasn't it just Friday when I was worrying about government wanting to start charging us for services such as police and fire protection on a per-use basis? Shows how little imagination I have:

The top 10 reasons to scrap the tax code. They're all valid, but I think this is the most important:

10. Laws Should Rest on Principles of Justice

In all the stories about Somalian pirates seizing (however briefly) the first U.S.-flagged ship in a couple of centuries, there is a lot about the drama of the piracy itself, and what the ship's mission was usually just gets a line or two, if that. It was carrying tons of food relief on behalf of the World Food Program. The cargo was destined for Uganda and Kenya and, ironically, Somalia. And the untold story is that many ships wouldn't be endangered and crews in jeopardy if we rethought our aid-to-Africa concepts a little.

This is disheartening:

Only a slight majority of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

The tea parties that are springing up across the country are a good sign that the spirit of protest is alive and well. March in protest, even carry a sign. But that should probably be the end of it. Don't do something silly:

Is this headline just a clever play on words, or could it be true?

House passes bill too gross to talk about

It could, indeed, be true, so click on the link if you want details other than the fact that this is "not the same thing as throwing a coke at someone."

There must be plenty of puppets in the General Assembly and city and county councils throughout Indiana. But at least Hoosier puppet masters are smart enough to stay in the background and keep the strings hidden:

Pay attention, slackers. A survey says 30 percent of your are late for work at least once a week, and 12 percent at least twice a week. You mostly blame traffic (33 percent), lack of sleep (24 percent) or having to deal with the kids (10 percent). But some excuses are just brilliant, such as "My heat was off so I had to stay home to keep my snake warm" and "a groundhog bit my bike tire." My personal favorite, though:

What a strange, strange magazine Newsweek is becoming. First, it told us we are all socialists now. Then, it told us to just accept radical Islam as a fact of life. Now, it trumpets "the end of Christian America":

To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

I've always thought it would be interesting to visit Vietnam as a tourist. Strange and unsettling, maybe, but interesting. I can't imagine what it took for John McCain to go back to the Hanoi Hilton:

He pointed to another tiny cell -- about 6 feet by 3 feet (1.8 meters by 0.9 meters) -- with nothing more than a bed frame with no mattress, just a straw mat. He told his colleagues it looked much like the one in which he was held.