Private and Public

[Jim McCoy]

Apologies for the political nature of this message.  To compensate, here is
a little ObTechincal:

	So far the Blum-Blum-Shub PRNG has been pointed out to me as one of
	the better ones availble.  I have a copy of a version for bc and am
	considering recoding it in C.  Has anyone already done so or is
	there something better I should consider?  The goal of this is to
	generate random one time pads for a DC network (and the output rate
	of the BBS generator worries me a little, but I want to start with
	"secure" and work to "fast" in later versions.

And now the political:

an41418 at anon.penet.fi (wonderer) writes:
> 
> I disagree that income tax is a bad thing. What other way
> does the government have of maintaining fairness across
> income tax levels. Someone who only makes 15k a year should
> not be expected to pay as much as someone who makes 200k.

Wny not?  Are they consuming different amounts of government 
services?  There are really two kinds of taxes, those that seek 
to tax people based upon thier use of certain items and services
(which is fairly constant among all members of a society) and
those that seek to tax people so that the governement can 
redistribute part of thier earnings to those who did not earn as 
much.  

The idea of "fairness" you cite is a very relative term.  Life is
not fair, so why should we try to pretend it is?  The truth is, the
people who really get screwed are those in the middle.  The poor pay
little in taxes, and the rich are either powerful enough (to get tax
loopholes put into laws) or smart enough (or can hire someoen smart
enough...) that they pay very little in taxes.  That leaves the people
in the middle to shoulder the burden.

> Income tax generates too much revenue to be that easily
> dispensed with. Given the financial trouble our country
> is already in, I hate to think of the consequences to
> the budget if income tax disappeared. 

Maybe the government would collapse and disappear.  Not a pretty
thought, but considering how much financial trouble to this 
country has been _cuased_ by a bloated government, maybe something
to consider... :)

> Note: I do not enjoy paying this tax, but I'm glad to know
> that the people making a lot more than I am are contributing
> more.

Why?  Are you jealous of thier wealth?  Do you seek to vindicate
some perceived wrong?  Do you think they consume more services 
from the government than they would otherwise pay for through
usage taxes?  Just curious...

jim