{"id":1184,"date":"2006-11-03T07:13:20","date_gmt":"2006-11-03T12:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-3-2006\/"},"modified":"2006-11-03T07:24:14","modified_gmt":"2006-11-03T12:24:14","slug":"unrequired-reading-nov-3-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-3-2006","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Nov. 3, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"

Official VM buddy Tom Spurgeon & his brother Whit sacrifice themselves to The Guiding Light in order to chronicle the soap opera’s tie-in episode with Marvel Comics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Two tax articles from Slate: the continuing phenomenon of Bushenfreude<\/a> — those who benefit from the Republican tax cuts but contribute to Democrat politicians, and Bono\/U2’s decision to reduce its tax burden by moving its music publishing company out of Ireland<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 that’s a justice issue,” Bono said at a prayer breakfast attended by President Bush, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and various members of Congress earlier this year. Preaching this sort of thing has made Bono a perennial candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. He continued:<\/p>\n

Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents . . . that’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents . . . that’s a justice issue.<\/p>\n

And relocating your business offshore in order to avoid paying taxes to the Republic of Ireland, where poverty is higher than in almost any other developed nation?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Dan Drezner examines the importance of China in negotiations with North Korea<\/a>. I believe I’ve said it before: When you manage to get the U.S., Russia, China and Japan on the same page against you, you have severely messed up.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

BLDGBLOG<\/a> remains one of the most eerie\/haunting sites out there. This post about offshore oil rigs<\/a> proves my point.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

When we gaze into the Barack, does the Barack gaze back at us?<\/a><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

In honor of the premiere of Borat<\/a>, the UK press has been doing interest stories from Kazakhstan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Reason<\/em> on misreading the Beats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I know enough small publicly-held company execs who would agree with this post: SOX sucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

It’s Ron-Ron’s world.<\/a><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

And in honor of the NBA season kick-off (as it were): Kieran Darcy gives up on the Knicks, about 10 years after I did.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Official VM buddy Tom Spurgeon & his brother Whit sacrifice themselves to The Guiding Light in order to chronicle the soap opera’s tie-in episode with Marvel Comics. * * * Two tax articles from Slate: the continuing phenomenon of Bushenfreude — those who benefit from the Republican tax cuts but contribute to Democrat politicians, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Nov. 3, 2006”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,2,27,26,4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-basketball","category-big-business","category-comics","category-literature","category-politics-explicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-j6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":836,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/agitate","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":0},"title":"Agitate","author":"Gil","date":"February 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The appopriately named Agitator reports that the law firm of Covington & Burling will provide pro bono assistance in Cory Maye's appeal to get off death row. Announcement here. For more about the case, check out the Agitator's previous posts.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2985,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/your-tax-dollars-at-work","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":1},"title":"Your tax dollars at work","author":"Gil","date":"November 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Public-private construction deals: bringing out the best in venality and pettiness: The Bloomberg administration was so intent on obtaining a free luxury suite for its own use at the new Yankee Stadium, newly released e-mail messages show, that the mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aides pushed for a larger suite and free food, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":753,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tanning-is-immoral","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":2},"title":"Tanning is Immoral!","author":"Gil","date":"December 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The House of Representatives passed a tax cut yesterday for the Gulf Coast, to help redevelopment after Hurricanes Katrina & Rita. The \"Gulf Opportunity Zone\" includes tax breaks to help rebuilding in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, including new bond authority and incentives to rebuild houses. However, according to the Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tanning-is-immoral#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2112,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/creative-creation","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":3},"title":"Creative Creation?","author":"Gil","date":"June 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A few years ago, I wrote about the American Jobs Creation Act (here and here), a bill passed in 2004 that permitted U.S. companies to repatriate overseas funds at a reduced tax rate (essentially 5.25%). It was a one-time act, and made some sense, given that the U.S. has one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1014,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-uses-of-failure","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":4},"title":"The Uses of Failure","author":"Gil","date":"July 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my favorite posts ever is actually a From the Editor column from my magazine about my enjoyment of failure. This week, BW has a neat article called How Failure Breeds Success, on how corporations can learn from their mistakes, particularly with product launches gone awry. Intuit Inc. [.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":910,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-on-job-destruction","url_meta":{"origin":1184,"position":5},"title":"More on Job Destruction","author":"Gil","date":"April 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Last July, I wrote about the nuttiness of the American Jobs Creation Act, a one-time tax break for companies bringing overseas profits back to the U.S. (the tax rate on such earnings drops from about 38% to about 5%). Michelle Leder at Slate just wrote about the subject, calling it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}