Looky here!! A work-from-home-Friday video on Friday!!

I’ll warn you, it’s extra-super-long. That’s because after I talk about Halloween and politics, I added in the high-lights from a couple of previous Friday recordings that never got posted.

So, not extra-super-long, but extra-bonus-goodness! (See! It’s all about the spin!)

This isn’t a white board quip. It’s not a quip at all, actually, just a turn of phrase that cracked me up today. So I’m posting it under Conversation Enhancements.

…enough icing to make even the most die-hard sugar addict develop a facial tic.

From Cake Wrecks.

I’m getting dangerously close to burnout on the political news. I’m still passionate about it, but with nothing really new happening and both parties playing an awful lot of the same, old, tired, political games, it’s hard to stay interested. Thus, today’s quip is an old, tired, political one.

Anyone who is capable of being elected president should on no account be allowed to do the job.
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

If you don’t know what the chocolate drive is all about click here and here and here and here.

I just got word from my old buddy Adam. He’s now stationed in Illinois, but he put me in contact with Captain Scott Black in Iraq who will receive and distribute this year’s chocolate crop. So, once again, I’ll have a box out at my work and in “the Loft” (the youth room at Glenview Baptist Church).

If you can’t get to one of those places, then you are left to contribute money. You can use the link at the bottom of the sidebar to do that. Again, my company has graciously offered to pay for all the shipping. So, any donations will be used to purchase chocolate at the lowest prices I can find (including after-Halloween and after-Christmas sales).

Chocolate in any form will be gladly accepted, but the wounded warriors, understandably, prefer full sized candy bars over the small “snack” sizes.

I caught a very interesting bit of trivia on the radio this morning and I couldn’t wait to share it.

I knew that the word “silhouette” was French because it’s retardedly spelled (stupid French). But I didn’t know it’s origin was economic.

A silhouette is an image portrayed in shadow, a void that implies an object rather than the object itself being portrayed. In the late 18th century, if you couldn’t afford an expensive portrait, you could settle for a silhouette portrait in which your profile is traced from your shadow.

Here’s where it gets interesting. (I promise.) The word “silhouette” comes from Etienne de Silhouette who was the French finance minister the late 1750’s. Back then France was at war with England and they were running out of money. So Silhouette came up with an idea that sounded great on paper (or in speeches).

There were a few really rich people in France and a whole bunch of poor people. So, rather than try and tax a bunch of poor people, Silhouette decided to only tax the rich, and he taxed the snot out of them. He taxed them to the point that the wealth of the few was nearly spent. They were forced to melt down their golden trinkets and silverware in order to pay the taxes.

With much of the wealth spent, no one could afford painted portraits, so they resorted to cheap shadow paintings. It became a running joke that Silhouette had turned France’s wealth into a shadow of what it had been before. And the shadow paintings became known as silhouettes.

I wonder what item will be called an obama after he taxes the wealth of America into oblivion.

…

In case you were wondering (or even if you never have) I found a great resource to help you understand exactly how taxes are paid in the U.S.

The National Taxpayers Union breaks down the percentage of taxes paid by the taxpayer’s percentile of AGI. (That’s adjusted gross income, the number calculated by your 1040 tax form.)

In 2006, the top 1% of earners (that’s the 3 million richest people in the U.S., with an average income around $400,000) paid almost 40% of all the taxes that the government received, while the bottom 50% (150 million people with an average income less than $32,000) paid less than 3% of the tax receipts. And this is with all the Bush tax cuts in place! And Obama still wants to raise taxes on the rich. Apparently he thinks that they need to pay even more. 50%? 60%? Maybe he should do like Silhouette did and make the richest 1% pay all 100% of the taxes.

How exactly does he expect to make poor people richer by making rich people poorer? It didn’t work in France and it won’t work here either.