I know I've not made a habit of talking politics here - as a non-linear thinker I often have trouble making a "logical" case for my positions. Anyway, I've been thinking lately about the whole tax scheme in these United States, and I think it's time for a flat, single-rate income tax.

Jim tells me he's been talking about flat taxes for years on HBWT, and pointed me to fairtax.org. BTW - the "Fair Tax" they support is not an income tax, but a sales tax (overview here). Meaning it's very transparent - you know what you're paying and when. An interesting approach.

After some frustrating circumstances at Macrobyte, this site went off the air for a week, as some of you may have noticed. Sorry about that. Everything is back up now, however, thanks to Seth's hard work.

I'm not the only one...

Now that RealPlayer is available for Max OS X, I'm listening to NPR live. Can I just say how cool this is!? I know, I'm late to the game, but this is awesome.

[Via Aaron] Music video from Royksopp, "You Remind Me". The video is done in classic "infopgraphic" style, following an office worker's day. This is one of the most innovative things I've seen in ages, even if the music is fairly classic euro-techno-pop. (Catchy though).

Oy. It's 3 am, and I can't stop blogging. I channel surfed (old-school surfing, with a remote -)) my way through the last few hours while blogging bits and pieces - I think I've gotten most of it out of my system, but I'm making up for lost time here.

I heard a great story on NPR today: Making the Perfect Iced Tea. Although I grew up in Virginia, my parents were both from elsewhere - so I didn't grow up with a traditional Southern Ice Tea tradition. However, my mother did turn me onto one great thing: "sun tea".

I almost posted something earlier today titled "All blogged out". Sometimes I think I lose my "voice", lose track of why I blog. And just as I'm about to write my farewell post, something in my head clicks, and I think "oh, I've got to blog that..."

Doc Searls writes a longish essay on the state of "Big Entertainment v. the populace".

Those who know me know I'm a bit of an experimentalist in the kitchen. This evening while trying to find something interesting to put in an omelet, I tried some Indian ginger pickle. Now I admit this was an odd combination, but you have to admit, you never know unless you try, right?

[via Jim] Poynter.org has anarticle about different kinds of weblogs and the uses they can be put to in the corporate or news world.

As some of you know, and some of you have figured out, and some are about to discover... I've been out of work for about a month now.

I rode another 8 miles this morning, in approx 30 minutes. I don't own a watch, so I have to guess on the time, but the distance is easy to judge. Here in the valley, major intersections are all 1 mile apart, so ust count intersections to find out how far you've gone. -)

I'm posting this in the hope that after Google indexes it, it will help some other poor soul.

I just completed a... 12 hour coffee-powered hack-a-thon. I got a bee in my bonnet about halfway through, convinced I could find a way to get at the content data in a servlet's HttpServletResponse. No dice. I'm implementing (as part of my learning experience) some templating idioms you'll find elsewhere.

Wow. I'm in the process of dredging up some long unused knowledge from my brain, and trying to weld some new knowledge onto it. What a pain -).

Jodi went running this morning. She's out there now, getting fit. We both need it - we've been complaining of our lack of proper diet and exercise, and corrensponding lack of energy, for some time. My bike gets out of the shop today (after a much-needed tuneup) so I'm going to start riding again.

Gilbert (our fair city) is getting it's first rain in 6 months this evening! Jodi and I went out and stood in the street in our bare feet under an umbrella and simply loved it. What a feeling.

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