Sunday, June 18, 2006

Recommended Reading

A retired Major General, John Batiste, writes about the ineptness of Donald Rumsfeld.

• Posted at 4:10 PM · LINK

Death and Taxes

We all have the public issues that rankle us. One of mine is the ongoing (and increasingly successful) attempt to do away with the Inheritance Tax. I not only think it's wrong and unfair but I believe the argument for eliminating it is built on a structure of deliberate and calculated lies...starting with calling it "The Death Tax." In this article, Ellen Goodman explains why that's a dishonest way to put it and why the whole thing is a rotten idea.

And I'll link to an old article which ran in Slate and which did not prompt one rebuttal that I saw. Michael Kinsley wrote about how it's a lie to say that money taxed by the Inheritance Tax is money that's been "taxed twice."

I understand why very, very rich people are in favor of its repeal. If I stood to inherit billions, I'd sure prefer that no tax be paid on that money. Heck, I'd prefer that no tax be paid on the check I'm expecting from DC Comics and I'm sure the guy who cuts my lawn would prefer not to pay taxes on the money I pay him each month. But us non-billionaires don't have the clout and connections to ram through our exemption from taxes. So not only don't we get it but we'll probably end up paying in many ways for the tax cut for the super-rich.

Not long ago over lunch, back when I ate lunches, I got into this discussion with one of my more Conservative (and not rich) friends. I said that if the U.S. government was going to forgo a trillion dollars (or whatever eliminating the Inheritance Tax will cost us), I'd prefer that the cuts be spread out over the entire population and not all given to the family that owns Wal-Mart. It seems to me that people who actually work are at least as deserving of tax relief as people who inherit it. My friend came back with the usual accusations that "my side" (I was talking about just me) loves taxes, would raise them as high as we could, wants to soak the rich, blah blah blah. I don't get why he feels this way. Isn't cutting taxes for everyone still cutting taxes? Apparently not. It's only a tax cut if it goes to people who don't need the money.

• Posted at 3:03 PM · LINK

Post Mortem

Last April, we had a brief discussion here and also here about the origin of the oft-bootlegged office poster with the laughing guys asking, "You want it WHEN?" A consensus emerged that it was the work of cartoonist Henry Syverson and that it probably derived from the laughing characters he drew for years, chuckling atop the cartoon page in each issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Well, Russ Maheras has just sent me the above scan from the March 29, 1958 issue. The heading is credited to Mr. Syverson so for me, that pretty much proves it. Thanks, Russ.

• Posted at 12:32 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

The next few days, I think I'm going to be linking to old commercials here. Today's is a spot produced by and starring the great Stan Freberg. Stan didn't exactly invent the funny commercial but he perfected the form to the point where other ad agencies used to (and may still) talk about doing "Freberg style" spots for their clients. No one else could ever quite pull it off because along with the more obvious shortcomings, they lacked Stan's courage and confidence. Who else could talk a sponsor into making a huge investment in commercials that didn't even mention the product's name out loud? But he did, as you'll see...

• Posted at 12:06 AM · LINK