Don't Try This At Home...

Wife’s comment: “This not a Mythbuster’s lab. Don’t try this at home. Puchaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhahahahahaha!”

So what idiotic thing did I do to my self with the microwave? An urban legend in the making: On my toasted bagel I spread cashew butter as an alternative spread. It was a little dry, so I decided to add some honey. Unfortunately the honey was a solid, sugary lump in the bottom of the squeeze bottle. No problem, I’ll just nuke it for a few seconds. 20 would have done, but no, lazy ass that I am, I hit the add 1 minute button and walked away.

Now I knew it was a little too hot when I took it out, but all my past experience with honey in a squeeze bottle told me that it is thick and slow moving and you have to patiently squeeze and wait for it to ooze out. New experience tells me that when you nuke it for 1 minute it shoots out like a molten honey volcano. It nailed me in the arm, producing a 2^nd degree burn which I hosed for 5 minutes with cold water, then iced for about an hour and a half before the pain was under control. Fortunately my curious 4-year old was on the other side of the volcano.

I’ll say it again: Don’t try this at home! (Do it at work :-) )

Update: 1/28/2007

Thirteen days have passed since this failed mythbusters experiement, and I still have a scab on my arm. It is almost ready to come off and return to normal skin...Can you believe this?

Our Liberal Gubna

My question is, how does someone go from being a captain of Wall Street to being a liberal? Answer, buy your way into the governor’s office. While Governor Jon Corzine’s feel good state of the state address was chock full of common sense ideas for property tax relief and fiscal sanity, we’ve heard a lot of this stuff before over the last 20 years, and nothing gets done because the unions don’t want to give up their free lunches at the people’s expense, and they essentially wield the power to elect a governor or block them from election. Since all politicians strive to get elected, they cave in to the considerable power that the unions wield, and the status quo survives.

Gov. Corzine’s speech also praised his “Successes,” in his first year. Why the quotation marks around successes? Well here they are: providing funds for stem-cell research, reforming the child-welfare system, supporting same-sex civil unions and creating needle-exchange programs for people who are HIV positive or have AIDS. Obviously to the extent that New Jersey’s child welfare system was reformed, I support that because adults who can’t take care of themselves have been producing and harming their children for as long as I have being paying attention, and DYFS or whatever they are called now have stood by and watched. While I am not against stem cell research, I don’t’ want to pay for it. If private companies and universities believe it is a worthwhile endeavor, and it may well be, let them pay for it. I believe like global warming, the hype is ahead of the science, and any liberal agenda I am suspect of, especially when it involves science.

As for same-sex civil unions, while I am not anti-gay, I am pro-family. Consenting adults should be free to do what they want in private, and they can take care of many issues with their own legal work such as wills. I think marriage in general is a good thing, and chipping away at it is bad. Some would argue same-sex civil unions don’t chip away at marriage, I but I think it does, because the next step is same sex marriage.

Needle-exchange programs inherently condone drug use, because they say essentially, well we can’t stop you from shooting up, so here are some clean needles to shoot up with so you don’t’ spread HIV. I think we should try to stop people from shooting up. In my mind, smoking a joint now and then isn’t any different from knocking back a few shots, but shooting up is a one way path straight to hell. So why support it?

So based on that, I would say the only thing the governor has accomplished this year is to raise the cost of living for all of New Jersey by raising the sales tax, which hits business as well as citizens.

So while he talks a good game, the governor will be judged by results. I am waiting impatiently while the noose of taxes tightens around my neck.

Speaking of sane tax policies...

The New Jersey governor, Jon Corzine, together with Senate President Dick Codey and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts announced they have agreed to try to enact a 4% cap on property taxes. The league of municipalities has come out against the proposed legislation, because they want to spend your money on their salaries and pensions.

My property taxes have been increasing $1000 per year since 2001, when they jumped $2500 retroactively. That’s a clip of 9.5% to 10% a year. Unless something is done, I will likely pay $1000 a month in property taxes alone this year for my small 4 bedroom house, an amount unheard of outside the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.

My message to the league of municipalities: “Fuck you! I don’t want to run faster on the treadmill to pay your salary and benefits.” I would leave New Jersey in a heartbeat if I thought I could. If Gov. Corzine can push through this 4% cap, and the 20% property tax reduction (down from 30% in his campaign lies) I may actually be able to afford to stay in New Jersey without being a high muck-a-muck at a bulge-bracket investment bank.

Read the Newark Star Ledger article.

Sane Tax Policies

A bi-partisan bill introduced into the senate calls for abolition of the dreaded AMT, the tax meant for the rich that has been snaring more and more middle class Americans in it's tangled web. Read about it here. The bill may not pass the house and senate because there is a perceived drop in tax revenues. I say "perceived, " because the that's how the Democrats think. They link lower tax rates mean less tax revenues, when the opposite is really true. Why? Because when people keep more of their money, they are motivated to make more, save more and spend more. The more they make, the more income is there to be taxed. The more they spend, the more robust the economy is, which creates jobs which in turn creates more incomes tax revenue. The more they save, the more capital is available for business investment in the form of stocks, bonds and bank loans. If the government keeps the money, it doesn't stimulate the economy because government is a drag on the economy, and because government spending doesn't stimulate GDP the way private handling of the funds does.

But the Democrats don't understand that. There view of life is tax people with money and give it away to people who don't have money in the form of entitlements and government programs which will in turn eliminate poverty, which will make America a great country and we can all feel good about ourselves. But that won't actually happen because the poor will waste any money they get as will the government, and they will remain poor. But I digress.

Elimination of AMT will be good for the middle class, good for America, and even good for the poor, because jobs will be created that they can have if they want them.