Lousy day today: had to deal with a flat tire on somebody else's car. I was stuck outside for about an hour dealing with it. Part of the problem was that the jack wasn't appropriate to the hard point (it's a Volvo), so I tried to jack it up from the frame, which was partly rusted, and so failed.

Luckily for me, my head was not squashed like a pumpkin. But the car's lower frame is a little hosed, even if the door still cleanly opens and shuts.

That was around 1:00 PM, and it put a damper on the rest of my day. A few Caesars (vodka+clamato juice) have sort-of helped, but I haven't wanted to work since then, and my only attempt at work resulted in committing the changes to the wrong bug, so I quit.

I'll try again now.

I've never thought hard about income tax, so I don't have an opinion on whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. My brother-in-law, who frequently skims the Economist, claims that income tax distorts the economy more than consumption taxes do. Perhaps.

But it really gets me when people confuse wealth and income; when the confuse the quantity with its first derivative. Don't they get simple calculus? Check out this site:

The wealth of the three most well-to-do individuals now exceeds the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries.

So what?! Income is in dollars/year and wealth is in dollars -- they're not comparable quantities. Your brain should be screaming "UNIT ERROR!" when you try to write this.

Sheesh.