Well, we knew it was coming

For those who were waiting with bated breath comes the latest in a long series of Palin attention-whoring: Bristol's "auto-bio" tome.

Comments on The BookPage's blog and Amazon are harsh, but honestly -- what did she expect?

Cute kid, though. Too bad Bristol has decided that it's okay to diss the baby daddy.

The IPW Plan to Balance the US Budget

Why do we allow those jokers in DC to take on something so important? It's obvious that their interests benefit themselves and their corporate owners and NOT the electorate who gave them their jobs.

I am in no way an economist or politician. I am, however, a person who has learned to make do with little. One thing about librarians: we are so cheap we even recycle scrap paper. Frankly, I think we as a profession have those on The Hill beat all to hell when it comes to frugality and responsible stewardship of public funds.

So, without further ado, here is the IPW Plan to Balance the US Federal Budget!

• Institute a flat tax rate. Remove loopholes so that corporations and businesses don't have to recruit a team of lawyers and accountants to weasel out of paying their fair share. And to the canard that business has to pay fewer taxes to enable job creation, I say BS. The 10 years of Bush tax cuts, which our obviously sold-out government voted to continue (!) not only did not create jobs, but also led to the highest unemployment rates since The Great Depression. A rational person would realize it didn't work and now it's time to try something different. This part of The Plan has the added benefit of reducing the size of the IRS. A flat rate will be easier to administer because the tax code itself will be less arcane. No need to worry about finding some obscure form -- there will only be one. Since the tax code will be less complex, fewer auditors will be needed to ensure compliance.

• While we are talking about flat rates, another area to address is in cuts to the budget itself. Don't pare away only the agencies that provide services to the poor and elderly; make them even across the board. Perhaps if we weren't busy sending our military to kill people in oil- (and opium) rich countries, there wouldn't be any need to regard the military budget as sacrosanct. That will benefit our foreign policy in that mebbe, just mebbe, the rest of the world won't hate us so much.

• Stop all immigration. Yes, I know, this sounds odd coming from someone with many friends who are either naturalized citizens or resident aliens, but let's face it. More people + fewer jobs = higher unemployment. Now, math was never my strong suit, but this seems fairly obvious to even a second grader. I also question why I visit  the social security or employment office and am served by people with obvious foreign accents.  Many state and federal agencies indicate Veteran status as a preference. In the same vein, then, why doesn't the hiring process for all federal jobs specify US Citizenship as a preference rather than merely asking about it on the EOCC form? I'm not saying that anyone already here should be deported; just close the gate.  This would lessen the burden on INS and free up resources for border patrol.

• Offer tax credits to businesses who reverse/stop outsourcing. There is only one reason jobs are sent overseas and that is money. Money is the only incentive that will either keep jobs here or bring them back. I worked in technical support for AOL several years before they closed the Albuquerque call center (employing 1200 people) in favor of outsourcing those jobs to India. I believe the call center in Oklahoma City was closed as well. No idea how many jobs might have been lost with that closure.

• The next point is possibly the most radical of all and frankly I am amazed that no one has uttered a word of it yet: remove the tax exemption for churches. They are not as altruistic as they seem on the surface; a person seeking aid frequently must first listen to the church's conversion spiel. Clearly the intent is to gain converts more than to feed or clothe the poor and with the exemption, the US government is indirectly promoting it. I say The Fed needs to get completely out of the religion bidness. Or is that whole “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion” just so much lip service?

• Remove agricultural subsidies. They are nothing more than corporate welfare. I know it's very popular right now to demonize poor people, but corporations with their mouths at the public teat are either ignored or rationalized away in some hardscrabble Dustbowl Farmer John fantasy.

• Legalize marijuana and tax it. Pot is, in fact, the single largest cash crop in the country and much is already being grown on federal lands. Legalize it, tax and regulate it. Prohibition for alcohol (a much more dangerous substance, IMO) didn't work, and prohibition on weed won't, either. Think of the law enforcement and jail resources freed up as a result. Think of the income generated. Yes, of course, some crime will still occur, but despite alcohol being legal and regulated, DUI's and liquor store robberies continue.

• Use open source software. My god, how many millions does the government hand over to Microsoft for operating systems buggier than a swarm of locusts? In my experience, there is little difference for the casual end user between a Linux and Windows interface. IT staff would certainly appreciate the change because rank and file employees could no longer “customize” their systems, the likelihood of downloading virii will decrease and their jobs overall will be much simpler. Plus they won't be shelling out millions to one specific company with ridiculous restrictions on its user licenses. My system runs free SuSE Linux and OpenOffice. I just bought a new computer for my son (who can't seem to think outside the Windows box) and spent nearly $200 just for Windows. And that's just for 1 system. Multiply that by the number of computers used by the federal government and you get...some really big number (hey, I did say that I'm not much on math).

• Perhaps the most obvious solution of all is to establish and maintain ethical and efficiency standards for each agency.

There, wasn't that easy? It didn't take months of bickering or threatening anyone's reproductive choices to dream this plan up. It's fair across the board and actually reduces the size of more than one agency. If I can come up with a simple plan like this, why is it that our 600+ representatives making $174k annually cannot?

Bueller? Bueller?

"Life After Dancing"

Sigh...should have known it was just a matter of time.

Come on, Bristol Palin is only 20 and surely she couldn't have had more than a year since the whole dancing gig. Although I must confess that a few of the statements in the NY Times article have me wondering about not only authorship of this item but the reason it exists at all. I noticed that Palin the Elder's oeuvre was mentioned at the top of the article, with links given to them reviews of them and to the HarperCollins site.
Could this be nothing more than a marketing ploy? After reading Bristol's Facebook rant, I have trouble imagining that she is capable of authorship. Furthermore, I recall that there was some discussion about who the real author of heSarah's books was.

Per the NYT, 

Bristol Palin is writing a book. Not Afraid of Life will be released this summer by HarperCollins, the publisher of Sarah Palin’s books, Going Rogue and America By Heart.

 Why do I anticipate that this will be a tome with a heavy right-to-life theme and sounding absolutely nothing like her Facebook posts?

PS  – The saved images of the flame war seems to have largely disappeared from the Interwebz. I was able to locate a copy of the transcript (posted as jpg to preserve the interactions). As I do not own the copyright to the image I am unable to post it. Email me for a copy).

Your Virtual Self and the Job Hunt

I recently received this very interesting and informative article by Susanne Markgren on how to manage your online presence. Certainly, it can be no secret to anyone by now that employers can, and do, search for information about you online. That's only fair; I do the same thing to potential employers before I even bother to fill out their application. Frequently I find information about them which indicates financial woes or other issues that cause me to look askance at some aspect of their management or stability. Who wants to go to the trouble of moving to some place and end up being left high and dry?

As few years ago, as a lark, I googled myself and was amazed that a quote of mine in the local newspaper had been picked up and run in American Libraries. Some took offense at my comment and used the quote as a reason to vilify me. I don't find that online discussion any more, which is just as well. But the thing I have to wonder about is this:

We are told that resumes have to be concise because poor employers are inundated with hundreds of applications and they apparently have no more than 30 seconds to spend looking at any one of them. How, then, is it possible that these same overworked employers have the time to spend googling us and making judgments based on blog entries, Facebook status updates and the like?

I refuse to apologize for having an opinion and expressing it. Those libraries who fear my thoughts lack a fundamental conception of intellectual freedom.

Will it be a merry Christmas for Borders, Barnes & Noble?

Holiday shopping season seen as decisive to survival of bookstore chains

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40719268/ns/business-retail/


Why don't these chains diversify and break out into other media to distribute in electronic formats? I realize that paper formats are slow and expensive to produce, but I prefer the singularly sensual feeling of scanning the pages, subconsciously dog-earing the corners as I prepared to turn the pages. I have been known to read in pools, rivers and bathtubs. The loss of a book, though sad, is not insurmountable.