Life as We Know It

1. Eliminating the Income Tax Would Stop Outsourcing.

Former Governor Mike Huckabee criticized outsourcing practices that have eliminated much of America’s industrial base. But his solution was bizarre; he promoted the FairTax, which would eliminate the income tax and place a large sales tax on all purchases. The number one reason companies outsource is for wage costs, not taxes. It’s unclear  why Huckabee thinks spiking the costs of all purchases, which is what a national sales tax would do, would impact their behavior.

2. Fantasy Tax Rates. 

Governor Chris Christie claimed that the Democrats plan to raise tax rates to 70 to 80 percent. Yet no one running on the presidential ticket or in Congress has proposed such a plan.

3. We Don’t Give People Reason to Marry.

Rick Santorum said we have incentivized people to “cohabitate” and not get married. In reality, there are between several hundred to a thousand legal rights and even some tax incentives for people who get married.

4. Obscuring Louisiana’s High Unemployment.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal says there are a record number of Louisianans working. This is technically true; however, it obscures the fact that the number is largely a function of changing population; the unemployment rate is still higher than the national one, and persistently higher than where it was pre-recession.

5. Only America Is Dealing With Syrian Refugees.

Huckabee claimed that America is the only county being asked to deal with the refugee issue, ignoring the millions of refugees in countries neighboring Syria and the hundreds of thousands in Europe.

6. Islamic Terrorism is the Nation’s Top Threat.

Jeb Bush named Muslim terrorists as our biggest challenge. In fact, terrorism kills very few Americans; dog bites are a bigger threat to public safety.

7. Christians Are Beheaded…In Lebanon.

Bush also claimed that Christians are being beheaded in Lebanon. Lebanon is actually one of the countries in the region where Christians are best integrated into society and government.

8. Flip-Flopping on the Minimum Wage.

In a move that moderators failed to call him on, Ben Carson said he is opposed to raising the minimum wage, claiming it would harm workers (which is false). But Carson has supported raising the wage for months. It appears he decided to change his mind and pretend he never supported doing so.

9. Telling People the TPP Includes China.

Donald Trump said that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to have “China come through the back door.” China isn’t even part of the TPP, as even Rand Paul seemed to know.

10. Inflating the Number of Much-Maligned Philosophy Majors. 

Senator Marco Rubio implied that too many kids are studying philosophy and not enough are studying welding. As the Atlantic’s David Graham noted, there are “23,210 philosophers in the U.S. And 357,400 welders.”

The client made multiple changes to what was asked of me, naturally pushing back launch date and tests.  My requests fell on deaf ears because they still pushed for the original launch date. They even asked for changes the night before. 

Naturally something broke in production on the day, and they blamed us.

We fixed their problems, and they continued to push for a list of changes and fixes over the next few weeks, holding back the rest of our payment until “it was complete.”

After completing it, they asked for even more changes: “could you do this,” “is it possible,” etc. Fearing that they thought our contract was an all you can eat buffet, I told them to take their project and go. However, we’d fulfilled the contract, and I requested they pay up. Of course, we still had all the code to give them as leverage.

Dead air for a few days.

Client: We have a new developer now. Please give us the code and the details.

Me: We’ll give you the details if you can guarantee our server costs and the payment for the rest of delivering the product can be assured.

Client: I don’t take to blackmail very well. Give us the code and we’ll review it.

Me: This isn’t blackmail. It’s our contract. We’ll give you our work when you pay us for it.

Client: This is critical for us. All our work has been leading up to this. We need that code or we’re going to be losing 40-50 grand every day.

Me: Well, you don’t owe us 40 grand. If you’re losing that much every day, it probably makes sense to pay us.

Life-Saving Drug More Accessible To Lab Rat Than Majority Of Americans 

NEW YORK—Noting that the cost of the pharmaceutical drug places it out of reach for most of the U.S. populace, industry analysts confirmed Friday that the life-saving cancer medication Rizolafan remains far more accessible to a laboratory rat than to the vast majority of Americans. “While this drug has shown considerable efficacy in counteracting tumor growth, U.S. citizens who are currently suffering from advanced pancreatic or colorectal cancer are far less likely to obtain a desperately needed dose than any number of albino rodents locked in cages in a biotech firm’s animal lab,” said Mount Sinai chief of medicine Dr. Martin Aberg, who stated that the average rat infected with the terminal illness could expect to receive as much of the medication as needed, while the thousands of people suffering from the same disease who live in the wealthiest country in the world likely would not.