Mallard Fillmore - 04.09.2007

Today’s Mallard Fillmore cites a vague statistic without any source to back it up. I suppose that’s better than citing a source that has nothing to do with the information he’s presenting, which he tends to do, but either way, I’m not sure I believe that “many Americans” don’t think they pay income tax.

What “many Americans” do believe, based on my experience, is that tax refunds are this great way of getting extra money every year. “I got a $1500 refund check - Take that, IRS!”

What many don’t understand is that the bigger your refund check is, the more of your money you allowed the government to keep throughout the year, earning interest on it instead of you. Getting a tax refund simply means that you allowed the government to withhold more than they deserved every week throughout the year.

$1500 put into an online savings account like the Orange Account (earning 4.50% APY) would earn you almost $70 over the course of a year. That’s not an astronomical amount, but it sure would be nice to have that money for yourself instead of letting the government take it.

I would implore everyone to ask your payroll department for a new W-4 form. That’s the form that your employers uses to calculate how much money to take out of your paycheck each week. Then use the IRS’ withholding calculator to determine the actual amount that should be withheld. Then just complete the new W-4 and give it back to your employer.

Friends of mine have actually suggested that it’s better for the government to withhold the money, because that way, we’re not tempted to spend it. Huh? Are we that spend-happy that we can’t make a concious decision to put $30 a week into savings? What if you get a raise? Would you like the government to withhold the entire raise so that you won’t be tempted to spend that too? Maybe the IRS should take all but what you need to live on, and then give it all to you at once in April. Would that help you save money?

Paying the high rate of taxes that we pay is bad enough.  It’s not wise to make the situation worse by letting the IRS earn interest on your money.

Mallard Fillmore - 04.04.2007

I don’t know of any “Big Solar Energy Companies”, although they may exist. Today’s topic is simply about companies profiting from legislation.

It’s easy to hate the energy companies. What they do has a direct effect on all of us in the price of gasoline. Even if we don’t drive a car, price increases in gasoline are reflected in the products we buy, and any transportation we pay for, like planes, taxis, or buses. Seeing that many energy companies made huge profits as we all suffered under high gas prices upset many Americans. The large profits the companies made were mostly from wise investing as opposed to their high proces, but that was largely ignored by the media and the American public. That’s an editorial for another day, though.

The point is, everytime legislation is passed regulating an industry, several companies stand to benefit or lose from the decision. The more legislation and regulation that the government passes, the higher the stake the company has in the decision. Potentially billions of dollars are at stake with the stroke of a governor’s pen.

Even ‘good’ companies, like those promoting alternative energy sources, are in business solely to make a profit. They have just as much stake in the government’s policies as oil companies do, and there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t stoop to underhanded tactics to get their way anymore than other types of companies would.

That said, it kind of makes you think. If there are huge corporations who will benefit from the US government moving towards using alternative energy sources, those corporations have a huge incentive to get the public on their side. I wouldn’t expect these companies to be above using propaganda to meet their ends. Warning the public about the “imminent danger” that Global Warming presents is a great way to do it. These companies would have every reason to promote the potential dangers of Global Warming, whether such dangers actually exist or not.

Now I’m not claiming that talk of Global Warming is all lies or that alternative sources of energy are a bad idea. In fact, I think they’re a great idea. But I do think it’s very important to look at the topic objectively, including who has a stake in each issue. It’s easy to look at ExxxonMobil’s CEO as horribly evil, and a “Green” company’s CEO as only out for good, but it simply doesn’t work that way. Any company can have good honest people running the show, and any company can have sleazy, underhanded people running things (like the National Republican Congressional Committee).

In the end, it all comes down to critical thinking. No company is truly looking out for your best interests. Not the Oil companies and defense contractors. Not the alternative energy providers and conservationists. It’s important for all of us to look past all the propaganda (and most of it just that), and find out the facts for ourselves. Only then, can we really judge a situation for what it really is.

Mallard Fillmore - 03.29.07

Yesterday’s Mallard Fillmore reminds me of those news reports and comic strips that say something like “Only 12% of high school seniors could point to Afghanistan on a map”. These kind of stats are often combined with the number who could rattle of the most recent American Idol winner or the name of Paris Hilton’s dog. The point of such statistics is to show how out of touch American youth are with things that are important in the grand scheme of things, and therefore how globally sheltered they are and how apathetic they may be in the future about world issues.

This particular comic puzzles me somewhat, though, because I don’t quite understand how being ignorant of the ancient Jewish story translates into anything specifically harrowing. If the group polled was seniors in Christian or Jewish high schools, perhaps the point would be that these schools aren’t doing a good enough job of teaching the faith to their students, and that would make much more sense.

Would Bruce Tinsley maintain that all students should be taught stories from the Bible and other religious texts? What is it about this particular story involving Sodom and Gomorrah (which are two cities, by the way) that makes Tinsley so shocked that it’s not more well-known? I guess my main problem with the strip is that I don’t quite understand what Mallard is getting at.

I checked out Amazon to see the book Mallard was referring to. In the book’s description, it says:

“[The Author] begins this valuable primer by noting that religious illiteracy is rampant in the United States, where most Americans, even Christians, cannot name even one of the four Gospels. Such ignorance is perilous because religion “is the most volatile constituent of culture” and, unfortunately, often “one of the greatest forces for evil” in the world, he writes.”

Based on that and the rest of the description, it seems that the book is probably pretty even-handed. It seems that the author thinks that religious literacy is necessary in the same way that World History is necessary; it’s important to understand the past in order to fully understand the present, especially relating to various cultures around the world. In this, I absolutely agree. I feel like much of the semi-polarization between Christians and non-Christians in the US recently has been fueled by misconceptions of Christianity’s history and teachings, even by self-proclaimed Christians themselves. A better understanding of all religions would probably be beneficial to all, but if that’s Mallard Fillmore’s point in this strip, it’s not particularly clear.

As for keeping religion out of schools, quite frankly, I don’t see why religion needs to play a formal role in school. However, there’s no good reason to keep religion completely out of schools in an informal capacity (like a Bible club or a Muslim student group). In fact, it would seem that preventing those students who wish to participate in a religous activity would actually be taking away their First Amendment rights.

Despite what many people believe, the Bill of Rights actually says nothing about public schools, or even keeping religion out of publically-owned places and events. It simply keeps congress from respecting the establishment of a religion, or from preventing the free excercise of any religious belief. Preventing (voluntary) religious expression in a school woud seem to be going against the second part of it there.

Religion in schools (and other public places) is a hot button issue recently. What do you think about religion and public schools. Is it a bad idea to mix the two? Would it be breaking the 1st amendment to prohibit voluntary religious expression at school?

What about the book mentioned in the strip…. Do you think knowing religious history of religions you do not subscribe to are important to learn about for cultural reasons or for gaining a better understanding of others? I await your comments.

Family Circus - 3.26.07

Mallard Fillmore - 3.23.07

Prickly City - 3.23.07

Non Sequitur - 3.24.07

Global Warming seems to be the Topic of the Week, as several comics have mentioned it in just the past few days. Billy from Family Circus is even cheering on it’s arrival. Hooray for Global Warming!

It seems everyone has an opinion on Global Warming, and unfortunately, that opinion is often stoked by politicians and other blowhards in the public eye. Research shows pretty definitively that average global temperatures have risen over the past several decades. Many scientists postulate that the reason for this increase invoves man’s presence on earth, and several things we’ve created, gasses we’ve emitted, etc.

Others stand by the hypothesis that the fluctuations in temperature are simply a normal variant in temperature, and are nothing to worry about. They think that in the millions of years since earth was created, a sample size of less than a few hundred years of any data and only a century of hard data is hardly sufficient to make an accurate assessment.

The fact that just 35 years ago, scientists and the media were predicting a new Ice Age says alot about the kind of assessment that can be made with such a small sample of data. Being the shameless sensaltionalists that they are, the media will take every opportunity to blow anything out of proportion, just so they can improve their ratings.

Looking at the problem objectively, either hypothesis could be correct. It’s absolutely true that the sample size we have to work with is far too small to make any definiteve judgements. Still, we are watching the average temperature increase before our eyes, and it’s not a terrible idea to be on the alert and perhaps alter some of our human practices just in case.

The real problem in the Global Warming debate, as well as most other political hot buttons comes down to the politicians. The best way for a politician to gain support for himself or his party is to get the public riled up about a specifc issue. Scaring the America public is even more effective, and both Republicans and Democrats are using these tactics quite often to gain support.

The Republicans have scared everyone about terrorists ending the world as we know it to promote their agendas. Now, the Democrats are scaring everyone about global warming ending the world as we know it. Both of these issues are potential problems, and both are issues that Americans should be concerned about, but instead of making a concerted effort to solve the problems, politicians are doing nothing more than scaring the public, and proposing a ’solution’ that will do very little to correct the actual problem. Now, the politician looks like the good guy, when he or she has actually impeded progress towards actually solving the problem at hand.

Does this sound familiar? The Republicans did it with the war on terror, the Democrats did it with global warming. Both parties have used the same tactic on countless other issues, and the result is always the same. The public is polarized into two camps, politicans get face time on television, and the issue is never actually solved. This happens time and time again.

So what do you think? Is Global Warming a real problem? Should we be devoting all of our recources to solving it, or just try to change our act a bit to stem any potential future problems? Or should we just not worry about it at all? Do you think politicians are to blame for making it a bigger deal than it really is, or are they the only ones really working to solve the problem?

Let me know what you think.