The illegal taxation program known as the “drivers responsibility program surcharge” looks as though it may have  been hobbled a bit. It’s about time!

Scott Henson and other petitioners presented a petition, and proposed rule changes to the  existing program on the 9th of August. Hopefully, they will be adopted. Read more from his Grits post: Suspending drivers licenses for ‘economic crimes’ problematic here and abroad. There are links to the petition, and the proposed rule changes in the post.

Our legislature needs to further deal with this by dismantling this ridiculous, missguided, and unlawful program, Legislators, please do away with this travesty! It is a tax, it is not legal, it is responsible for making 6 to 10% of Texans criminals because they can’t afford to pay! While you are at it, please refund the money to the individuals who have  payed thus far!

Rupert Murdoch is leading the charge to charge for online news! After losing millions in the online news sector, the media mogul has decided that it is not his companies service that is the problem, but the free news, advertising model that is to blame for the massive failure.

What’s hard to understand here is that while most media news outlets are suffering a major drop in subscriptions, how a business man like Murdoch, involved as he is in the media, could have missed knowing that subscribers are no longer subscribing!

There is plenty of evidence that the online, advertisement funded, model works. Could it be possible that Murdoch and the other media companies may be suffering from something else? Could it be that the moment by moment, on site reporting of individuals through such mediums as Twitter, is eroding the main stream media’s fan base? Could it be that that the American public would rather decide for itself what is news and what is not? Could it be that the general public is no longer paying attention to the media because it perceives it as biased? Well, of course not! It must just be the wrong monetary model!

I suspect that Murdoch will find that the subscription model will be less successful than the advertising route. The fact is, that if no one is willing to pay for your product, it matters little how you choose to monetize it. The main stream media is becoming irrelevant, and will continue it’s downward spiral in the toilet bowl of our culture, unless it wakes up and takes a look at the real cause of it’s flushing!

Ok, you can accuse me of being as late with this update as the print media, and TV coverage, but I have been busy, and news is not my livelihood.

I sat up late several nights as the main stream media covered the death of a couple of our media icons ad nauseum, but I was not engaged in such important pursuits, I was engaged in something the media considered far less important. I was wasting my time online getting fresh updates from Iranian dissidents as they went to the streets of Iran’s major cities protesting the results of the presidential election. This news came to us in real time, as blow by blow accounts, many from the dissidents themselves!

As a side note, and in a related story, the main stream media might want to start watching the skies over Jordan and Iraq, they will in all likelihood soon be host to Israeli jets headed to Iranian nuclear sites! Also watch for streams of Iranians headed toward the Afghan and Iraqi borders.

Sorry Mr. Hinton, this was not a murder, it was a suicide! The autopsy results are in, and the wounds were self inflicted. TV and radio could learn some valuable lessons here as well:

• The main stream media has long determined what’s news, and what’s not, and were able to shape the events of the world, and the way people looked at them by suppression and exaggeration. Digital media has been able to allow individuals to have that choice.
• They were as unprepared for digital media as scribes were for the printing press.
• The speed with which digital media is able to “scoop” print media makes last nights news obsolete by the time a daily newspaper hits the stands.
• The “democratic”  nature of the Internet offers news and views from multiple perspectives rather than the monolithic spin for which print media has become infamous.
• Interaction is possible with digital media, interaction which is far better than the watered down versions offered by newspaper “readers comment” sections.

I could go on for pages about this, but why? The people who need to hear it the most, consider the general public, of which I am a part, to be ignorant and unable to decide anything on their own!

Let us know where to send the flowers.

The man “affectionately” known as the “Crash Dummy Bandit” managed his own personal bailout this week hitting several banking and credit institutions in an area from the Metroplex to Tyler.

While we can not condone the methods he is using, and find them appalling, we still can’t help but wonder if they are all that much different than the ones the men in Washington are using.

Driving While Stupid

I have said this before on this blog, that if the State of Texas does not do something about the drivers who talk and text on their phones while driving, they should release everyone ever convicted of driving while intoxicated, apologize, and refund all their losses! Even the borg like creatures with devices that require no hands to operate. People who use these devices have the automobile operating portions of their brains turned off just like the people who use the devices requiring hands to use.

This little rant resulted from a KLTV story tonight on the subject. We invite opposing veiws to comment if you think you can stand the humiliation and ridicule that will follow.

Illegal Taxation: Drivers Responsibility Program Surcharge

An issue that our legislature needs to deal with is the dissmantleing of the ridiculous, missguided, and I might add, illegal tax otherwise known as the drivers responsibility program surcharge. Legislators, please do away with this travesty! It is a tax, it is not legal, it is responsible for making 10% of Texans criminals because they can’t afford to pay! While you are at it, please refund the money to the individuals who have  payed thus far!

UnTarp Tarp

Now onto Federal stupidity. It is time to do something about the insanity going on with our money. It would have cost less to solve the mortgage crisis if we had just bought everyone a home! It is ridiculous! We are being saddled with a huge amount of tax debt, and the money is being given by, and to the idiots who got us into the mess to begin with. As poor as I think Mr. Bush’s performance has been, and as incompetent as it was to actually sign this ridiculous bill to begin with, we can’t lay it all off on him. This problem goes back, at least to the Clinton administration for loosening the lending requirements. This is a result of the stupidity of both parties, and is a good argument for the introduction of a third party, along Libertarian lines. Neither current party has the moral authority to stand against the socialization or nationalization now that both parties have contributed to the fiasco, and that is frightening.

Interfering with the free market system is always a mistake, and giving money to banks to set on it instead of loan it is a big fat charlie foxtrot!

Jefferson complained that people were wanting more banks in his day, now we know why!

Read More:

Full-size cardboard figure causes NJ bank standoff

Why the bank bailout sucks:

Let me see…

• I have to pay more tax money so that an inefficient government agency can give it to banks who will try to loan it back to me at inflated rates.

• It flies in the face of every solid economic principle in history.

• The original intention, although somewhat misguided, was to relieve the homeowners of some of the debt burden, and this has now been completely reversed.

• The banking bailouts have been of such a nature, that the federal government now owns a huge portion of the private banking industry. it is yet to be seen which one is the least efficient at operating them.

• The entire system is artificial to begin with, and now it is being propped up by more tax money.

There are hundreds of other reason this bailout sucks, so if you have some, feel free to post them in the comment section.