politics: shuttin’ down the gubmint

The proposed Republican budget: here is the problem. Or, in graphical form:

Apparently the Democrats have agreed to $38 billion of spending cuts (more than before), but the Republicans are now insisting on a rider that defunds Planned Parenthood, which the Democrats (rightly) will not agree to. Planned Parenthood provides lots of services including birth control (which, hey! reduces the number of abortions), and government money isn’t used to fund abortions per the Hyde amendment. So, yeah. This is what the government of the US is going to shut down over. Whee.

links amid the downtime

LiveJournal has been under a DDOS attack/really flaky this week. I know because I keep getting emails LJ for WebOS users. Sorry, everyone!

– SpaceX announced the Falcon Heavy rocket, which is the world’s most powerful (excluding the Saturn V), and launches will only cost ~$100 million. More stats in the press release. Hey, and they use LabVIEW!

– Should You Give Money to Homeless People? – from the article:

The short answer is no. The long answer is yes, but only if you work for an organization that can ensure the money is spent wisely.*

– Perhaps the best Reddit question ever begins with

I like big butts and I cannot lie, but is there some evolutionary reason as to why?

– A Murder Foretold – long New Yorker article about the “ultimate political conspiracy” in Guatemala. Reads like a Tom Clancy novel or something. (but with fewer submarines)

– Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews – this annoys me SO MUCH. Review the book, not the price! If you don’t think the book is worth the price, say so, but some people seem to think no book in the world is worth $15.

The Republican’s tax plan…whoa

I was listening on NPR about the plan and one detail made me do a double-take: they want to lower the top tax rate to 25%. (currently the rates are 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 35%) Going from 35% to 25% sounded like a crazy reduction, especially for a plan that purports to balance the budget.

But, lo and behold, that number is correct. Currently, the 35% rate only goes into effect after the first $375K of taxable income.

Maaaaaybe, if you want to balance the budget but not privatize Medicare, you could not lower the top tax rate to the lowest it’s been since the 1930’s?

shoes!

We got new shoes on Saturday! My old shoes were almost two years old and literally falling apart. I’m pretty tough on them since I’ve gotten in the bad habit of not untying them when I put them on and just cramming my foot in it. As a result, chunks of padding had fallen out, etc., etc.

These new New Balance shoes are soooo much more comfortable on my feet. It feels like I’m walking on air!