A Dragon in Sheep’s Clothing

So in the past couple of days I’ve mocked the I.R.S. to my family and coworkers, only to find out today that they weren’t as far off track as I thought.

They sent me a letter which I received on June 30. The letter was dated June 30. Either the I.R.S. has magic mail or they postdated the letter. Anyhoo, it stated how much I will receive, and that I should receive my tax incentive money by June 27. Um yes, three days earlier.

So I’ve been mocking the system a bit. I was expecting a paper check, so I figured it would be another couple of weeks before it arrived. Plus my taxes were likely slowed down this year, because it’s the first time I had enough deductions to itemize them and the first time that I actually owed federal taxes. By the end of the day, I decided to look at the letter in a good light — at least it was evidence that I was in the system somewhere!

Well, the I.R.S. has one up on me now, because I just checked my bank account and found that they deposited my share of the wealth on June 27, as noted in their magic mail. Silly me. Thank you, I.R.S. I shall happily contribute to the economy on vacation next week.

• Dilbert comic strip archives
  All the Dilbert you ever need.
  (tags: comic cartoon funnies Dilbert)
• Scientists to unlock sweet secrets of chocolate (MSNBC)
  “Government scientists are launching a five-year project Thursday aimed at safeguarding the world’s chocolate supply by dissecting the genome of the cocoa bean.”
  (tags: biology science research chocolate)
• Sodas of The Times - Root Beer - A Drink in Search of a Frosty Mug - NYTimes.com
  #1 is my home state’s Sprecher Root Beer.
  (tags: soda rootbeer taste judging)

On news.BBC.com today, this headline and blurb caught my attention:

Harman pushes discrimination plan

Harriet Harman sets out plans to allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority candidates.

Um, isn’t this what we call affirmative action?

I clicked to read more, and was stopped quickly by the second paragraph:

She said firms should be able to choose a woman over a man of equal ability if they wanted to - or vice versa.

Again I stumble. Why wouldn’t they be able to do this already? Is there currently something in the UK that says they have to choose a man over a woman? So why is it a big deal to tell firms that they’re allowed to choose women?

On to the next line:

The new Equalities Bill will also force employers to disclose salary structures in a bid to close the gender pay gap.

Disclose salary structures to whom? Unless that third party has the authority to make companies “close the gender pay gap,” this has no purpose — except for letting everyone look at the salaries and shake their heads while doing nothing.

The plans, which will be adopted first across England then Wales and Scotland, will also ban all age discrimination.

Finally, something that makes sense to me.

Although if you really think about it, making it illegal to discriminate based on age - old or young - is incongruant with the first part of this bill, which would encourage firms to discriminate based on gender.

Is legislation really the answer to “the ol’ boy network?” Has is really worked in the U.S.? And are the governments which set these bills in place prepared to revise them in 50 years when the make up of the population is much different?

Like antibogon, I wish there was an online text-searchable Dilbert archive — let me rephrase, a free online text-searchable Dilbert archive. At the moment I wish I could find a 3-panel strip where Alice has her annual review. Unfortunately, Google text and images searches have been unsuccessful, and I really don’t relish going through the Houston Chronicle Dilbert archives one at a time.

• Biofuel use ‘increasing poverty’
  “The replacement of traditional fuels with biofuels has dragged more than 30 million people worldwide into poverty, an aid agency report says.”
  (tags: biofuel corn ethanol gasoline crops income)