Reading

How-to read in bed

       

Not that I don’t love my Kindle, I really do, but I can’t read it in bed without having a light on and, well, I love my husband more.
 
So now I have a Blackberry Playbook running the most excellent app, BookReader by Untangleddev.
 
All you have to do is strip the DRM out of the Kindle mobi files and covert them to epub format, both of which you can do using Calibre, download them to the playbook et viola! reading heaven.
 
Bookreader has a configurable presentation so you can get it *just* right for your own eyes but best of all– you can click-to the in-text web references (those dotted underlines in Kindle are links!!).

American Empire

Republican candidate Rick Santorum is keen to expand the "American Empire".
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0117/How-Rick-Santorum-and-America-can-be-exceptional-Avoid-empire

Like the English centuries ago, he feels it is his nation's destiny to bring Christianity to the heathen and, for their own good, to dominate the 95% of humanity outside of the homeland.

He seems unaware that the United States was founded in opposition to that very concept, declaring their own independence and freedom as fundamental rights. Why does he think the people of the rest of the world want anything less for themselves?
  

All things not equal

Why taxes are good value for the money
  

Reason 1:  Justice … Effort is necessary but not sufficient for success.

All other things being equal, the person making the greatest effort will, over time, have the greatest success. All other things, however, are not equal.

Society has an interest in leveling the playing field and making sure that everyone plays by the same rules. We all suffer, even the rich (eventually) if barriers to entry cause ecconomic stagnation

Reason 2:  Efficiency … Public frameworks make business possible.

“Plug-and-play” environments minimize barriers to entry 

Reason 3: Safety … It is A LOT easier to prevent a disaster than it is to clean up after one

Regulation prevents those gambling on safety from gaining a cost advantage over more responsible players