I agree with most of your post, but I would disagree that ethanol production is not subsidized. When the government requires gasoline distributors to buy ethanol, that is a subsidy - even if not a cash payment or tax break.

So fuel gets more expensive and meat gets more expensive...

It's like the environmentalists and PETA teamed up and won :)

Yeah, I'm originally from a part of the country that was impacted by Sandy, and I got into an argument with a co-worker over subsidies for beach fill projects. While I agree that we'd be better off without subsidies, I take offense when people pretend that only the beach communities benefit from federal money. I mean, when's the last time you traveled through a suburb that paid for it's own highway system? Most of those suburbs made a developer very rich when taxpayers funded a highway through farmland.

And I'm convinced it's unavoidable. Even if the Federal government were limited to defense and courts, we'd still have certain places getting more benefit from base and prison locations, not to mention the way government contracts get granted. This is why I tend to favor limiting the size and scope of the government unless the benefits outweigh the additional monkeying around with the free market.

Yes, it completely throws people! A small glimpse into the life of a lefty...

Only the videos work for Khan Academy, not the exercises.

Adblock+ kills Flash ads, so they aren't an issue at all.

Well, I disagree. My daughter can look up anything she wants about space or animals on National Geographic. Sure, she can also watch crap - but when she does it too much, I tell her "no more videos" and she listens. I can log her in to Khan Academy and let her explore math that is beyond what they are teaching in school. I'm right there in case she needs help, but it gives me more one on one time with my younger son. He's at the age where he constantly wants to be read to. Both son and daughter are doing extremely well in school - though my son is quite young to make that sort of statement. I would have to buy a set of encyclopedias to get just a fraction of the usefulness of the computer, and I doubt it would be as fun for the kids.

I just gave them my old (2004) Mac G5 with parental controls and a very restrictive whitelist for internet. When it dies, maybe I'll do what you suggest.

Yeah, different world. Of course, my six-year-old is reading books that I read 3 years later, so I can't really complain.

In my daughter's school, the "real" homework doesn't start until 1st grade.

I'm too cheap for that. They get occasional access to a Kindle and that's it :)

Please continue reading. I was referring to the TOTAL tax burden: Federal, State, Local. You were only looking at the Federal chart, which has been bouncing along at about the same rate since the 50s.

I moved my mouse over to the left. I'm a righty, so it took a while - but now I figure I can get 20 years out of my left hand. :)

Yes, this is the case. It took me a while to realize that Apple no longer ships Flash with Macs, and so I was using YouTube sans Flash for about a month. It works on some videos, but not on others.

Kids sites, educational or otherwise. All seem to use flash. IIRC, Khan Academy as well. If you have kids, you "need" Flash.

Federal Income Tax is down - almost every other tax has increased. Local wage taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes... It took the recent financial crisis to knock us back down to 1970s levels, but expect that to ramp back up as the economy recovers. Just prior to the financial crisis, we were at an all-time high for total tax burden as a percentage of GDP.

Got my numbers here.

True, but there is a failure and then there is a FAILURE. Lights going out... that's an oops. Trunk line overheating and starting a fire during the Superbowl... that's worse. Transformer exploding during Superbowl... that's worse, too. So, yeah, the system failed - and maybe putting the circuit breaker in-line makes a problem more likely. But it almost certainly makes the failure less severe.