| Wednesday, June
11, 2003
I have a lot of work to do. Meanwhile I have opened a new TOPICS
page on SPACE ACCESS, prompted by
something in today's MAIL. In putting all that space access stuff
together, I had to go through some of the recent mail.
I am astonished at just how much good mail, over what a wide variety of
topics, I get. I like to think my replies add something to all that, too.
The statistics for this site indicate a lot of traffic. It's not
entirely reflected in the subscriptions, and
I suppose that's no accident since we run this place like public radio, you
pay if you want to, but it isn't required, but I do have the right to
nag you a bit and lay a guilt trip or two on you.
But when I read in the newspapers about prominent "bloggers"
and the like I find many of them have fewer readers than we do. Many of
those support themselves with advertisements. I don't intend to do that --
it's a lot of work and would require a staff, and there's the conflict of
interest issue. I am more interested in why no one outside the readership
seems to have heard of this place. Not that we have an uninfluential
readership, and I am sometimes astonished at the places I get mail from. I
suppose I'm merely grousing here: I spent more time organizing the space
access topics page than I had intended, saw all the mail and realized how
much of that needed organizing, and thought I probably ought to get better
software that organizes things on its own.
And that will require work and time I don't have, and that's
depressing. Anyway, I have done some organization on space access, and I
think it represents the best you will find on prizes, x projects, and
space access technology you are likely to find anywhere.
Maybe next project will be to organize the war material and what to do
in Iraq; but at least we have a head start on that.
Meanwhile, if you have an idle moment, go find a couple more readers,
and get one of them to subscribe so I can justify the work I've just been
doing here...
=====================
Israel, Palestine, and The Road Map
The newspapers today have much about Israel and the Road Map given the
terrorist attacks and the Israeli retaliations. Bush is "upset"
and unhappy with Israel for their reactions. I can understand his
frustration. I also suspect this is not the last time he will have those
feelings.
It takes two to make peace, and when the principal organizations
among the Palestinians make it clear they intend war, and send their
minions out to bomb civilians, there's not a lot of negotiation to
do.
Hamas and Hezbollah have to be defeated.
Unfortunately, I doubt Israel can do that on its own; but it is that
path that those recent retaliations imply. Israel has said "we will
take care of the matter" and did not ask for cooperation from the Palestinian
Authority, doubtless because they didn't think it would do any good.
They have reason to be skeptical. The Palestinian Authority Prime
Minister may be sincere in his desire to come to some peaceful resolution,
but it is not clear that he will be allowed to do what that takes, which
is wholesale suppression of the groups called "freedom fighters"
by many Palestinians and "terrorists" by all Israelis and most
of the non-Muslim world. By suppression I mean military operations, apprehensions
and confinements in prisons and concentration camps, executions, and assassinations;
and I can't think any Palestinian official can do that. He won't have the
loyalty of his own police and fighters, and cooperation with Israel will
be seen as treason by most of his own people.
A referendum in the Palestinian territories, and probably in most of
the Arab areas of pre-1968 Israel as well, would, in a secret ballot,
be for the extirpation of Israel and the transportation of all Israeli
Jews to Florida and New York: to drive Israel into the sea. Since that
isn't going to happen, "democracy" in the West Bank isn't going
to happen, at least not democracy with government power. And since the
Arab elements within Israel have far more children than the Israelis, over
time Israel itself is going to have problems remaining both Jewish and
democratic.
So I wonder if there is any possible "Road Map" that doesn't
involve ethnic cleansing under some other name. At some point Jews from
the settlements are going to have to either get out, or forcibly move
their neighbors to Lebanon and Jordan; and at a later time, Arab citizens
of Israel will themselves have to be expelled, either to a walled off
Palestinian area that may or may not be called a state, or again to
Lebanon and Jordan and Syria.
Israel's problem is not military means and military might. They have
all they need to do that. It's the total intransigence of an alienated
population that no longer believes there is a future. When teen-age girls
study martyrdom rather than motherhood, you have reached a turning point.
We can wish Bush well with his Road Map, and God knows he sincerely
wants to see peace in that troubled area of the world; but I have no idea
how to get there, and I don't think he knows how either.
This Saturday we are having lunch with the retired Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem. He is the first Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem born there, of
Arab Christian ancestry. I have known him for some years. We will see if
he has any notion of a way out. I can hope.
On taxes and taxation, the following exchange in a discussion group I
am part of:
>Hi--
> >A recent letter to the Wall Street Journal claimed that the
bottom 50% of tax payers paid only 3.9% of the federal income taxes
collected. (I'm not sure of the year referred to, but there's no reason to
think that the percentage--whatever it is--varies wildly year to
year.)
> >Is this astonishing claim true?
> >Best, > >Steve
Yes, that is ballpark. I posted some data on this a
month or two ago in response to a similar question by G. C. It is pretty
easy to google up more data on it. Try stuff like
http://www.google.com/search?q=federal+i
ncome+tax+bottom+50+percent&btnG=Google+
Search&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off
http://www.google.com/search?q=federal+income
+tax+percentage+paid&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=
en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=federal+
income+tax+relative+burdens&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.claremont.org/writings/precepts
/20020415hinderaker_johnson.html
The data for 1999 show:
*
The top 1 percent of taxpayers earned 19.5
percent of all adjusted gross income, but paid 36.2 percent of all federal
personal income taxes. *
The top 10 percent of taxpayers earned 44.9
percent of all adjusted gross income, but paid 66.5 percent of income
taxes. *
On the other hand, the bottom 50 percent of
taxpayers earned 13.2 percent of all adjusted gross income, but paid only
4 percent of income taxes.
Also see the report here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincome.html
where for 2000 it was only 3.9%
From another:
Yes. See http://www.cato.org/research/fiscal_policy/2002/factsfigs.html#taxes
Scroll down to Share of Federal Individual Income Taxes Paid by Income
Group, 1999
Although to be technical, I think it should say "bottom 50 percent
of households"; many of those households don't pay income taxes at
all, so they're not "income tax payers." They may of course pay
sales, payroll, or property taxes.
Now let's talk again about "tax cuts for the rich" given you
CANNOT give a tax cut to the poor (although you can of course pretend that
a handout check is a 'tax cut' as apparently they are about to do).
Ah well. The glories of democracy.
Regarding the Iraqi War, from listening to talk radio and country music
stations, I get the impression that the war is over revenge: they blew up
some of our buildings so we broke some things and killed some people and
now we're going to pump enough oil to make them all pay for it.
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