three-letter initialism

Though the US Internal Revenue Service is in fact a federal agency and not a largely autonomous entity like the Federal Reserve Banking system, deriving authority from its expanded charges but accountable to no one, America I think is poised to endow this other creation, the IRS, with similar dreadful powers. I suspect (and hope) that the intent is not as scary and grasping as some are making it out to be, but like other familiars of industrial and puritanical helpfulness that have grown out of bounds and terrorize the public much more than the unseen forces that they claim to combat (the TSA, FBI, DEA, FDA, EPA, CIA, NSA, DHS—and the DOT, the FED and IRS). Buried within a broader transportation bill to ensure continued funding for the US interstate highway system, rappelling its way through the US Congress, there is a clause (open of course to broad interpretation) that grants authorities the power to revoke one’s passport should the bearer be found delinquent (these two words cover an entire spectrum of meaning) on tax obligations.

 In theory, under this unholy alliance, a border patrol officer could bar an individual owing $50 000 in back taxes from leaving the US but I suppose that there is a large potential for such powers to uncoil and become much broader and more restrictive in terms of freedom of movement. This is the same mentality that has unleashed scads unending of rarified dollars on the world markets and driving inflation, or that has created a tax-regime that put such an administrative obligation on foreign banks (to do the jobs the IRS couldn’t manage itself) that doing business with Americans is becoming a liability, not remorsefully unburdened. What of the some 30 000 US soldiers or 98 000 government employees, many of whom are working overseas, that owe taxes? Is movement stopped for them as well? I imagine that enforcement would have to be equitable and without exemption, so no individual would feel targeted and singled-out because of his or her views. Everyone benefits in some way from the services, security or stability that government provides through tax revenue and again no one can simply shirk their duty, but (again) if America was earnest about taking in what’s owed them, they would go after businesses and corporations who’ve profited the most off of the market environment that the US has created and not devise a new mechanism to rustle the pockets of private citizens for diminishing returns. One further hopes that the helix of the secretive no-fly list or the battlefield Earth judgments of the National Defense Authorization Act (DE/EN) does not join up with the one of this collection-service, since then we would all be put in the dark.

birthday paradox or pigeon-hole principle

The Pope celebrated his birthday today with an appropriately Bavarian entourage of well-wishers bringing some characteristically German traditions to Rome. He was treated to quite a few performances from this delegation. The Pope, the first German to hold the office in over a thousand years, shares his birth date with another, though perhaps less famous, German citizen, hailing from Erfurt, the city where Martin Luther was ordained and the Pope visited last September: Germany’s first test-tube baby (sogennante Retortenbabies, which sounds especially cruel, although test-tube is bad enough, as if they were sea-monkeys or kangaroo-joeys).

No details were disclosed on that young adult born in 1982 spent his birthday. I wonder what these two Aries would think of one another. The star or the conditions that one is born under of course is not everything, and the birthday problem refers to the very human propensity to make something out of a not so unlikely coincidence, whereas it would be more statistically remarkable if a randomly assembled and relatively small group did not have a few individuals that shared the same birthday. Still, I wonder what these two might have in common and what they might learn from one another.

776.012

tribute or bread and circuses

I think that the Olympic Games have officially become more commercialized than Christmas or guilt. Since the Australian games of 2000, as the Guardian reports, the International Olympic Committee has been making exponentially greater demands of its host cities for enforcing the market capitalization of official sponsors.
For the upcoming event, authorities have been given an onerous charge of making sure no opportunist, ambusher (I suspect that such draconian measures created ambush-marketing in the first place) or bystander have the potential for profit by association with a date, place or Zeitgeist of what is supposed to be a celebration of culture, sportsmanship and human achievement. Not only are pubs not permitted to invite customers to watch the broadcasts on their premises or even dare suggest that they are in fact physically located near a venue (or cohabitate in the same dimension), players and spectators are not allowed to share footage or photographs over social networks under threat of criminal punishment. Given also the marked increase in surveillance, security theatre and hassle (a rise for a place already one nation under CC-TV) and the mysterious prohibition against athletes shaking-hands, a prophylactic for some unnamed social disease, being picked as the setting for this and other large-scale, officially sanctioned happenings does not seem such a great trade-off.

inútil

Retronaut curated a series of funny comic book panels depicting rubbish superpowers (but does include this image of this Legion-hopeful being summarily rejected). What would your highly specific and apparently of limited utility superpower be? There are unfortunately more and more situations when Colour Kid's abilities could prove useful.