Short Takes

Posted by Paul J. Amore on 05.18.2009

One-liners that occurred to me over a weekend of newsreading.

Federal income tax works something like this: 15% for the first $8,000 or so, 20% for the next $17,000, and so on. My pay stubs have a year-to-date line for what I've gotten paid. I don't take deductions, since I don't have kids or own a home. So why have I never had a year where neither the IRS nor I owed the other money?

Just about everyone agrees that an abortion itself is a bad thing. Just about everyone agrees that sex is a good thing. You see the problem?

Too many people think that the proper attitude toward business is to find the amount of tax that would force them to shut down, and tax them $0.01 less.

I don't like how the right wing is going after Nancy Pelosi. This is the sort of character assassination we saw for eight years against George Bush. But more than that, it just builds up Obama even more.

I think when we have elections, we should also vote for Coolest Person In the Country. Maybe then we could vote for the officials based on merit.

The left wants to use government to achieve the good. The right wants people to do good on their own. Who stands up for doing the bad? Cigarettes, alcohol, fast driving, television, debauchery, and laziness are bad, but people want to do them. Maybe they're not so bad after all.

Is it better to have a complete solution to part of the problem, or a partial solution to all of the problem?

I really wish there were a pundit out there who I agreed with on all the issues, so I wouldn't have to do so much thinking myself.

On some issues, I'm very close to President Obama. For example, he wants a world where no countries have nuclear weapons, and I want one where only one country—America—has them.

Can we get a good vice president for once? We've had quality veeps for all of 8 months since the turn of the 20th century: Teddy Roosevelt for 6 months, and Harry Truman for 2.

We need more verdict options in criminal trials. Ones like "He did it, but don't punish him," and "So guilty that we should just take him out and shoot him right now."

"It's illegal" is not an argument for or against anything. Ideally, it's what you get to say after you win the argument.

Imagine time-travelling back to 1961 when the Berlin Wall is built and telling someone that the wall, and the Communist ideas behind it (both literally and figuratively) will be broken by Ronald Reagan. It would be like saying, "Terrorism ended in 2050; thank goodness for Will Smith."

Speaking of the future, how much do you want to bet that Microsoft, Apple, and Dell will be asking for bailouts from President Barack Obama IV in 2109?

A sitcom where the husband acted to the wife the way that wives act toward their husbands on the sitcoms we have now would make billions. . . and be protested off the air after half a season.

My problem with universal health care, universal sufferage, and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that they're so universal. No idea is so good that it belongs everywhere at every time.