Science Friday: Be Bee Free
DeBee-ing your pad. Below and here.
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Tax Blogging: T-minus 9 Days
Yes, most Americans have an aversion to paying taxes, and some people get positively perturbed about the whole notion. But how does our tax burden compare with other countries as a percentage of the gross domestic product? Stats guru FiveThirtyEight does the math and provides the charts. Hint: don’t complain; we have it easy. But we also have crumbling schools and pot-holed roads and not a fast train in sight. (Spain’s tax burden is average, by the way, at around 36 percent while Sweden and Denmark, the “happiest place on earth,” duke it out for first at nearly 50 percent.)
If we could just have a system where Warren Buffet paid more taxes than his secretary, we might feel better.
Perspective
I’ve been feeling busy and grumpy since the weekend; family and friends left and I miss them. Work is piled high. Today, my tenant’s brand-new AC system broke. Taxes are almost due; there are six trucks at the construction site in my alley. Yuck.
Then I took a moment to make coffee and read Bob Herbert’s column while the water boiled. Once again, he brings me back to reality. I have a job, I have my legs, and I’m not in a war zone. I am lucky; privileged even.
I’m going to give to the Wounded Warriors program, force myself to find some perspective, and get back to work without complaining.
Science Friday: Protecting Bat Caves
Can cave gates protect bats? Below and here.
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The Top April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time
At least as judged by the Museum of Hoaxes. (Oh, you didn’t know there was such an institution?)
I don’t think it made the hoax museum list, and this is embarrassing to admit, but one year I remember falling hook, line, and sinker for an NPR story on exploding maple trees. Those public radio tricksters!
Religion Blogging: Boyle on the Catholic Church
Patrick Boyle, editor of Youth Today, posts a provocative new blog at the Huffington Post on the topic of that all-too-familiar category of Catholics: Lapsed.
Are States Masking Their Debt?
When U.S. state government finances are compared to those of Greece, you know something is wrong: This article in The New York Times yesterday sent shivers up my spine. Here’s the lede:
“California, New York and other states are showing many of the same signs of debt overload that recently took Greece to the brink — budgets that will not balance, accounting that masks debt, the use of derivatives to plug holes, and armies of retired public workers who are counting on benefits that are proving harder and harder to pay. “
State officials are quoted in the story as saying that a Greece-style financial collapse is a “nonissue,” and you’ll be further reassured that Goldman Sachs (yes, the same Goldman Sachs allegedly involved in leading Greece to fiscal chaos) says that states are “very unlikely” to default on their debt.
Wow, I feel better now. Not.
Science Friday: Robot Battles!
Who doesn’t love a robot fight? Below and here.
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Health Care: Done
Health Care Vote: Done.
CBPP: Health Care Reform Will Cut the Deficit
Some have argued that the budget deficit claims of the health care reform law are bogus, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an organization most agree is credible albeit left-leaning, disagrees:
“Careful analysis of these charges shows them to be misleading or inaccurate. They do not withstand scrutiny. […] We now examine the specific claims about budgetary gimmicks and games one by one. “
The full six-page analysis is here.