Credit where Credit Due

What I don't get is why they specifically tax alcohol and tobacco at a high rate to discourage use, but tax income. Wouldn't they want to encourage people to use more "income"? Unless that's the point, which I'm starting to think. payday loans? subprime loans? I'm guessing poorer people use more credit? in my time, you couldn't get credit unless you didn't need it. strange days have found us.

quote of the day: (comment at Zero hedge)
"Can't wait to have my iPhone, iPad, Macbook air in my Apple backpack and the Apple watch on my wrist so i can check my Twitter and Facebook account, while riding my Segway."

to the Starbucks, to drink three dollar coffees. because free WiFi...

Russian Orthodoxy

response to a comment on Peter Frost at Unz Review

http://www.unz.com/pfrost/the-last-push-back-against-liberalism/

"What Putin really needs to do is to Prussianize and Protestantize the Russian Orthodox Church and culture in general.”

I’m pretty confident that this will not happen, by Putin or anyone else. Whether or not this assertion is true, I lack the intellectual chops to debate, but the Orthodox take their religion seriously to an extent that westerners can’t really understand. They are very prickly about it and talk of things that happened a thousand years ago like it was yesterday.

I first went to the Saker blog to try to understand what the hell (almost literally) was going on in Ukraine, but stayed, fascinated by a window on a really complicated social and historical environment forged by hundreds of years of tribal warfare and hatreds, but I was most surprised by his really strong views on, and support for his Church. Americans can’t really grasp this, I think. Many of us that even consider ourselves religious don’t approach this level of seriousness and generally view other, or even non- religions quite tolerantly. We are wide and shallow with respect to beliefs, comparatively (and to our advantage, until recently, in my opinion).

Their faith is most likely why there even is still a Russia in existence and why it will probably continue after America becomes Brazil. We would do well to follow their example in some respects, and if our story ever gets even as fractionally horrendous, I hope we can