The talk about the new cigarette tax (which I’m having an amazingly difficult time finding a story on) has me thinking about vice taxes. The general rationalization is that you put a tax on naughty behavior, that you can’t outlaw, in the hopes of decreasing demand.
What happens when it works though?
What makes sense to me is you take tobacco taxes and use them to fund smoking cessation programs. That way when the tax pool dries up from people quitting, the demand for the programs dries up.
So what are they going to spend the new tax money on? SCHIP, a program that has nothing at all to do with smoking.
What you’re left with is the government saying, “smoking is bad, so we’re going to encourage you to quit,” but whispering, “please don’t, we really need the money.”
Filed under: Me by mattstocum on 2009/03/31 Comments
A 9 year old girl is raped by her step-father, becomes pregnant with twins, and then has an abortion. I don’t care where you stand on abortion, there is no way a 9 year old can be expected to carry twins to term. The pregnancy would have killed her, and the fetuses.
Of course the Catholic church does what it always does, freaks out in the most absurd way. The local bishop excommunicated the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the abortion, but not the girl because she was too young. So she’s too young to be excommunicated, but not too young to be a mother, got it. Also missing from that list is the man who raped his 9 year old step-daughter. And the Vatican is backing the bishop’s decision.
How fucking detached from reality are these assholes?
“Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified.” How about the life of a fucking 9 year old rape victim? That’s not worth protecting?
I can’t wait until these assholes have gone extinct.
Filed under: Me by mattstocum on 2009/03/12 Comments
Nice to meet you. I am Matt Stocum. I am from Philadelphia. I am an office worker. I work for Drexel University.
I would like to talk about my trip to Japan. Last April, my friend had a wedding in Japan. My friends went to Japan. We went to Tokyo, Gifu, and Nara. Tokyo was very busy.
The wedding was in Gifu. It was confusing. We couldn’t understand the ceremony at all. There was sake and orange fish. This is a picture of Mat and Kaori.
After the wedding, we went to Nara. My friend fed a deer cracker to a deer. This is a picture of that.
This concludes my speech.
Filed under: 日本語 by mattstocum on 2009/02/21 Comments
I got the weirdest piece of mail ever yesterday. AARP sent me a membership request. That’s right, the American Associate of Retired Persons wants me to join their ranks. According to their website, “AARP is a membership organization leading positive social change and delivering value to people age 50 and over through information, advocacy and service.” Did I sleep through 22 birthdays?
I spent the weekend in NY visiting my grandpop and family. It were good times, but I’m glad to be back home. I took today off work so I could get some laundry done, and go grocery shopping for the week. The weather made me wish I had brought my bike with me to NY, oh well. Next time maybe?
I decided my walls are still too bare, so I printed out and posted the following two images:
From Dresden Codak
and
From xkcd
And now, time to play some guitar.
Filed under: Me by mattstocum on 2009/02/09 Comments
T won’t stop bitching that I haven’t blagged in a metric fort-night (71 days to be precise). So here is me blagging.
Today I fought with a printer and lost, fought with a VTC and won, and ate lunch. Also, I need to buy climbing shoes. My toes are trying to escape from my old shoes. That’s bad mmmKay. What else do you want to know T? I mean, I’m kinda talking to you on IM right now, so I really don’t know what the point of this is. Maybe someone else will be amused…Who reads this anyway?
That’s my homework to everyone, if you read my blag, leave a comment saying you read it. I need to know people!!! This is important, I need to know how ePopular I am.
Also, if anyone wants to start laying a claim to me for Friday night, you should do it now. I think I’ve got plans for the next 7 billion years.
So bus etiquette question, who all is a young male obligated to offer a seat to? Should it be any old person? Any woman? Only old women? One day I offered my seat to a woman who looked like she was in her 50s, and I think I offended her with the implication that she couldn’t stand.
There you go folks, two homework assignments. Both due by Friday at 5pm or else you will lose 50% credit. After Monday no late submissions will be accepted.
I’m gonna stop tying now because I think I stopped making sense 247 words ago.
Filed under: Me by mattstocum on 2009/01/28 Comments
I’m watching Iron Chef America, and the theme is curry. I need some curry recipes.
I cleaned my room today, which has been a long time coming. My desk was a hot mess, and now it’s actually clean. I should have taken before and after pictures, but I got two more bags of trash leaving my room. I think I’m getting close to having nothing left to throw out. Maybe a few more things to drop off in my mom’s basement. I like when my room is clean.
Ryan and I finally gave in last week and ordered satellite TV, hence the previous comment about watching Iron Chef America. It’s nice to not have the TV go out just because a Septa bus drove by.
Filed under: Me by mattstocum on 2009/01/25 Comments
