How Herman Cain's proposed "9-9-(0)-9" tax plan would affect taxpayers

I don't plan to blog about this candidate, because I think he'll be another "flavor of the day" ephemeral news story,  but this graphic of his tax plan was too striking to pass up.  I suspect it's not the "9s" that generate this disparity, but rather the usually-unmentioned "0" percent tax on capital gains.  Click (twice) to view.

p.s. - I couldn't get the image to embed in a readable form, so I had to hotlink it, and it may undergo linkrot in a few days.

From Ezra Klein's column at the Washington Post, via Reddit.

Kayaker encounters a blue whale

YouTube link. 

Via Neatorama.

Yet another proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

YouTube link. 

There are many such proofs.  This one is achieved by folding a piece of paper.

By an almost certainly unrelated coincidence, the length of the video is 3.14

Via The Dish.

Committed to improving automotive fuel economy

Your next new car may not have a spare tire.  As cited by a WKOW television report:

Manufacturers are beginning to phase out spare tires from their new models. Some General Motors cars come instead with a tire repair kit that can patch small holes.

Automakers say roadside assistance plans will cover major tire punctures and spare tires aren't needed much anymore. According to car website www.edmunds.com, 14 percent of new cars are coming without spares. This can cut down the car's weight, making it easier for manufacturers to stick to tighter fuel economy standards.

See?  It's not about cutting costs - it's about improving fuel economy.

Harvest time

Some of you will remember a post I wrote in late summer showing our vegetable/herb garden out back.  This week temperatures have plunged, and a freeze or frost is predicted within days, so it's time to rescue what we can and put the gardens to sleep for the winter.

Shown above are some of the indeterminate tomato plants which provided us with lots of sweetness and vitamins and lycopenes through the late summer and fall, and eventually overtopped steel cages 7 feet tall.  The plant at the right center still had 35 tomatoes on it yesterday; the almost-ripe ones are now stored in bags.  The green ones will go to friends who like to fry them.

Some of the better herbs have come inside to live under a gro-light for a while longer.

Shark massacre in a marine wildlife sanctuary

As reported in The Guardian:

Colombian environmental authorities have reported a huge shark massacre in the Malpelo wildlife sanctuary in Colombia's Pacific waters, where as many as 2,000 hammerhead, Galápagos and whale sharks may have been slaughtered for their fins...

"I received a report, which is really unbelievable, from one of the divers who came from Russia to observe the large concentrations of sharks in Malpelo. They saw a large number of fishing trawlers entering the zone illegally," Bessudo said. The divers counted a total of 10 fishing boats, which all were flying the Costa Rican flag.

"When the divers dove, they started finding a large number of animals without their fins. They didn't see any alive," she said. One of the divers provided a video that shows the finless bodies of dead sharks on the ocean floor.

The sanctuary covers 8,570 square kilometres of marine environment that provides a habitat for threatened marine species – in particular sharks. Divers have reported sightings of schools of more than 200 hammerhead sharks and as many as 1,000 silky sharks in the protected waters, one of the few areas in the world where sightings of short-nosed ragged-toothed shark, known locally as the "Malpelo monster," have been confirmed. In 2006 Unesco included the park on its list of World Heritage sites...

Colombia's navy sporadically patrols the waters and maintains a small outpost on the 1.2 square metre island, which is 36 hours from the nearest port. 

Scum.

Photo via animals, animals, animals.

p.s. - one has to admire the resourcefulness of the Colombian navy for maintaining an outpost on an island that small...

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