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A radical independent surveys the passing parade. |
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Bahs of Positivism
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Tuesday, July 23rd, 2008
Richland County (S.C.) Council voted last night against placing a sales tax referendum on the November ballot. The Columbia State newspaper misleadingly posted this headline on its front page this morning: Council rejects funding for buses. What the council rejected was; asking voters if they wanted to raise the prices of goods and services in the county by a half-billion dollars over a period of eight years to help fund public bus transportation, road widening, bicycle paths, sidewalks, etc. That is the amount another 1 percent sales tax is projected to produce. The question is not dead. Council has until mid-August to revisit the matter of a referendum, although no regular meetings are scheduled in August.
Speaking of
inflation, Zimbabwe is demonstrating to the world what a first-class
hyperinflation looks like. In the early 1920's Germany put on the inflation show. Prior to WW1 a dollar would exchange for four German marks. In November, 1923, the exchange rate became one dollar for 4.2 trillion marks!! The boys at right are German lads playing with bundles of paper money in 1923. Photographers probably have similar pictures of small boys in Zimbabwe today doing creative things with bundles of that nation's nearly worthless paper money.
Barrack and Michelle Obama were portrayed negatively in
a cartoon on the front cover of The New Yorker.
< Now, Vanity Fair gets in on the fun by picking on John and Cindy McCain. She's holding a tray of pills, he's on a walker, and the Constitution is burning in the fireplace. Steel yourself. All this will become much more intense after Labor Day. What caught our eye was the price of Vanity Fair. $4.50 for one thin magazine? We fondly remember when a good hardcover BOOK could be bought at that price.
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