In Defense of Taxes

A libertarian tried to educate the good people over at Slacktivist. That led to the following exchange I wanted to share:

Ron paul is the 21st century candidate, the others are still living in the 80's and 90's. that style is over. it may go one for a while longer but it's done. Why are we sending 33% of our paycheck to washington so they can subsidize corn and start wars in counties none of us will ever likely visit?

Because I like living in a fucking civilization instead of being a bondsman of the local fief.

Because I don't care to owe my soul to the company store.

Because I have a fucking job that takes up a sizeable chunk of my time, so I don't really have enough left over to research every product I buy to make sure that the meat is made of actual meat and the milk is made of actual milk and the peanut butter contains only a modest amount of insect parts.

Because I have a chronic medical condition and when I ask "How much do my pills cost," there is no reason on earth that a completely free market wouldn't answer "Well, how much is your life worth to you?"

Because I successfully completed 10th grade history, and therefore know that without the civil rights act, the only reason african-americans would not still be sitting in the back of buses is that there would be no buses.

Because I think buses provide a useful service.

Because there are many women I care about, and I think it's nice that they have legal recourse when their boss decides that his position entitles him to the occasional grope.

Because I can do basic math, and know that if I had to separately pay for my roads, my schools, my fire protection, my police protection, to have my air cleaned enough to be able to breathe, to verify the safety of the food, drugs, and products I buy, to lay sidewalks where I might like to walk, to have my trash hauled away, if I had to pay private companies for all those things, it would cost pretty much every dime I make.

So I'll happily pay 33%. Because I'm not a fucking moron.

Source is a very long thread.

I Broke a City Bus Today

Ever since work decided to play 52-pickup with our offices, I've had the good fortune of having near door-to-door service on Calgary Transit. This is pretty good, especially with Calgary's unseasonably warm weather going away. I know exactly when the bus arrives, so I don't spend a lot of time waiting in the ass-biting cold. Even if I do miss the bus, I can just go back into my office.

Today's bus ride home was uneventful aside from the last two minutes of it. I rang the door to be let off and the bus driver pulled in to the curb to let me off. We then ran directly over a solid mound of ice that was twice as high as the curb. This bounced the bus into the air (as well as me, I was standing in the aisle waiting for it to stop) with considerable force and was followed by a sick crunching sound as the frame of the bus immediately behind the front right wheel landed on the mound.

A split second later the rear right tire hit the mound for another roller-coaster bounce which was also punctuated with a crunch as the frame behind that wheel came down on the mound.

The bus stopped at the appropriate stop. I managed to keep my feet during this brief but shaky event. The driver and I exchange "Wow, that was a wild ride" remarks. Then he attempted to open the door (the bus is a community shuttle, it only seats 22 and only has a front door for normal passenger access).

"Try to push it open", says the driver.

I do so, to no avail.

"Maybe if I put my shoulder into it," I suggest?
"Go ahead."

This too did not work.

Next, the driver restarted the bus, which does something to the hydraulics that sometimes allows stuck doors to operate. However it did not work this time. Looking at the door, it was clearly out of alignment with the door frame. Whether it got knocked out of place or the frame was bent I'm not sure.

Finally he flipped the emergency release for the door and reefed on it until it was open enough for me to get out.

"I'm happy I can get out, but I'm sad that you need a new bus. Thanks for the ride"

Montengarde 12th Night

The most important thing about Montengarde 12th night is that it's not Kingdom 12th night.

The event was fun and well organized. The activities were the usual for M12N (there's not a lot of room for innovation at this event, sadly) and court had moments that were sometimes fun, sometimes touching and sometimes both.

( Not so much emo as the after-effect about broadcasting one's emo... )

Anyway, back to M12N. The event stewards seemed to have really looked at previous events with an eye towards using what worked and ditching what didn't and innovating where stagnant. The menu was pre-described, so people could make an educated decision about whether to eat on or off-board. The feast was simple, but tasty. This gave everyone a satisfying meal, on time, with plenty of left-overs.

Attendees had the ability to set their seating arrangements prior to the tables being set out (on a white board) which eliminated most of the drama that occurs during the mad rush to set up tables. Drama wasn't entirely eliminated (the Stewards had to move a few people around at the last minute to make everything work), but it was the least hectic I've ever seen table set up happen.

Related to the seating was the fact that the Stewards did not make a big deal of people moving around after the fact. As one stated to me (paraphrasing) "Each table of six is getting six person's worth of food. If you want to crowd 8 people around your table knowing that, it's not my concern". I like this, it shows they didn't sweat the small stuff.

Court saw a number of gentles getting awards they deserved. It also saw a bunch of people vying for sergeantry. I kind of want to do this, but my lack of talent convinces me not to. Plus I'm not entirely sure what the sergeantry does. Oh well, It's too late to decide for this reign, and I'm not going to make that commitment for the next reign until I know who they are.

I got lots of nice visiting in, talked to people who I haven't had a lot of time for of late (and vice-versa), and helped out a small amount. The only real downside (aside from the bad timing of the event in relationship to my issues) is the people who couldn't make it. Oh well, there's always next time.