Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Less Than 25% in US, 4% in World
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a conversation with someone about greenhouse gases or climate change or pollution or alternative energy (etc) over the past 12 months or so.
Often I hear people start yammering on about how we need to fix cars in order to get a handle on greenhouse gases. And I always postulate that the effects of cars is probably a lot less than they think. Nonetheless, I have never had a number to use to back myself up.
According this article, cars, trucks, and big rigs (ie: everything that drives on the road) only account for ~24% of our greenhouse gas pollution in the USA, and only ~4% of the world's greenhouse gas pollution. These are 2006 numbers.
Clearly there are many other categories (industrial production, heating/cooling, etc) where we are polluting much more than we are with cars. Reducing our pollution from transportation is going to help, but I think there are bigger gains to be had elsewhere first. Just my opinion.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Obama Is NOT A Socialist!
Thanks to Billy Wharton for finally saying what I hoped someone with credentials (ie: other than me) would say for a long time now.
The definitive line:
The definitive line:
...[Obama] is not a socialist except, perhaps, in the imaginations of an odd assortment of conservatives.
Knots - the tie down
I was shown this knot when I was a kid in Scouts and have been using it ever since for just about every possible tie down scenario possible. It works with small ropes and large, heavy loads and light - it's awesome. The only limiting factor seems to be the strength of the materials - the rope, the anchor points, the object you're tying down - as you can use the mechanical advantage in this knot to apply great pressure and sometimes end up breaking things.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Top Tax Bracket
I've been advocating for something like this in Canada for years now. I think it's stupid that our top tax bracket starts at ~120k and goes up to infinity (check out this table of federal tax rates in Canada) (And here are the USA federal tax rates, for comparison). And the rate on that bracket is not all that high, at 29%. We should add another bracket at like 500k at say 32%, and another at 1 million at say 35%.
Actually, they sort of do this already in the US. You can see by looking at the tables I provided in the links that the US feds tax at 28% between 79k and 165k, which is likely roughly equivalent to our 120k+ bracket at 29%. Then they also add another bracket at 33% between 165k and 357k, and yet another at 35% above 357k. I like my numbers above better, but I think they're essentially going after the same idea (I came up with my numbers before looking up the US tax rates).
Does anyone else find it strange that (excluding state/county/provincial/municipal rates) federal taxes in the US are actually higher than they are in Canada, and that they define more tax brackets? Isn't the US supposed to be the land of the economic conservative?
Actually I've also been thinking lately of something more along the lines of a tax 'curve' than using specific brackets, but there's a host of problems with that. If it's linear (a straight line), you still end up with people who could outstrip the curve at some point, whereas if it's not linear, you end up taxing the highest earners so heavily they get nothing. A linear curve seems better to me, but I haven't convinced myself that a 'curve' system would be better than brackets, though I'm still convinced brackets are not serving us well at the momement.
Monday, March 09, 2009
FFVII - the best?
Probably not, on many counts, seen from the perspective of many of the gaming afficionados out there.
Nontheless, it was the first RPG I ever really played (to completion, for instance) and it was certainly the most emotionally moving video game I've ever enjoyed.
Also, limit breaks are wicked cool, materia was a kickass system for magic and weapons augmentation (though I will admit, I can't actually say whether it was better than espers or not), and Sephiroth is probably the scariest badguy I can think of off the top of my head.
Bleeding The Rich? Give me a break....
A great article revealing the stupidity in the hyperbole shooting from the minds of conservatives in America right now. We hear this type of stuff in Canada a lot too. Congrats to the author for doing a bit of simple math to expose the truth of the matter.
UPDATE:
Here's more evidence of the absurdity of the conservative claims of 'soaking the rich':
