The Great Republican Tax Increase of 2011

Fact: George W. Bush signed and enthusiastically supported a bill to raise all of our taxes in 2011. Living people, dead people, working people, unemployed people, rich people, poor people. And this bill was supported by, like, every Republican in the US Congress at the time.

So why can't the Democrats just start talking about how "my opponent voted for/supported/supports the Republican Tax Increase of 2011. I voted against/was opposed to the Republican Tax Increase of 2011. And in fact, I support the legislation President Obama has introduced to stop the Republican Tax Increase of 2011 and to give every American a tax cut. My opponent doesn't support this bill, he's trying to stop it."

If a Democrat is asked about the "Bush tax cuts," why can't he respond "yes, you're asking about the Republican Tax Increase of 2011. My opponent voted for/supported..."

Everything I've stated here is true. Even the richest people in the world benefit when the taxes on the first $x of their income are reduced. Obviously, it's not the whole entire truth because the Republican Tax Increase of 2011 did contain some tax reductions, which were in effect for several years before 2011. Some people who are opposed to Obama's legislation to stop the Republican Tax Increase of 2011 support alternate legislation. But it's true. This is the kind of rhetorical device that's used in politics all the time, and far less truthfully true assertions are put forth in the political arena all the time. Sometimes, even, outright lies. It's true, and it forces the Republican candidates to make the long-winded explanations and arguments in rebuttal.

But it seems to be the Democratic way to aways want to bring knives -- no, not knives, sporks -- to gun battles. The fact that they haven't been out there framing the debate in this way for the past six weeks or six months is kind of sad, kind of pathetic, and you kind of deserve to lose when you're so incompetent and inept at the basic tasks of your job.

Feel free to share this post with anyone in any position to persuade the democrats to start a serious framing exercise. For once. I will be proud and honored when John Boehner has to point to my blog to justify his support of the Republican Tax Increase of 2011.

Game 8 of the World Series

So a few weeks ago I posted an ode to Australian Rules Football, which you can enjoy here.

I've now been introduced to one of the, um, odder customs in the sport.

I happened on, rather by accident, the wonderful news that ESPN Classic was doing live coverage of this year's Grand Final. Among the participants, the St. Kilda Saints, whom I'd seen in person win a controversial upset victory during the first round of the playoff series three weeks ago. Well, great game. The Saints fell behind pretty badly in the second quarter, but slowly and steadily made their way back in the second half, and then they go ahead by a goal late in the 4th quarter, fall behind by one point, get that one point back, and we end regulation time dead even at 68-68.

Well, imagine if it's game 7 of the World Series, the game is tied 4-4 at the end of 9 innings, and Bud Selig comes on the field to say it's such a great game that we're going to come back tomorrow and play another one.

You don't have to imagine it, because that's the current rule in the AFL. Finish the grand final tied, and everyone gets to come back next week to do the whole thing over again. I don't quite know whether to laugh or cry, stay up past 3AM for the grand finale of the Grand Final, and I get to do it all over again in a week.

The good news is that all of you now reading this blog post have several days to find out which part of the ESPN empire will broadcast the do-over, and you can all experience the joys of watching AFL.

But really, this is kind of way way weird.

The Unbearable Darkness of E-Books

So once upon a time, and not that long ago really, I could look at my Nielsen Bookscan numbers and know that I was really and truly getting my weekly report card. Now, it's hard to be sure if I'm even getting an incomplete.

And it's all because of those darned e-books.

With Tanya Huff's permission, let us look at her excellent series of "Valor" military sf novels.

Two years ago when Valor's Trial came out in hardcover, I could very easily look at those numbers and look at the numbers for the hardcover of The Heart of Valor from the year before, and I could see that it was good. Over the first few weeks, hardcover sales of the 2008 release were up something like 40% from the year-before book. And now I'm looking at the release of The Truth of Valor, and that's up by 25% from what The Heart of Valor did in 2007, but it's down 15% from what Valor's Trial did in its first few weeks in 2008. Down 15%!!

Panic time? Well, no...

Let's look at just the Kindle. 2008 it's a novelty item not yet into its second generation just starting to get caught up on the orders from its first several months of existence. Now, though we don't know exactly the Wiki entry for the Kindle reports a number thru the end of 2009 between 1.5 million from outsiders and 3 million from informed insiders. Shall we all agree by now that sales are almost certainly over 2 million? Amazon in its fudgy statistic kind of way has told us it now sells more Kindle books than hardcover books, which isn't exactly the same as saying that Kindle sales outpace hardcover sales on any given book.

And that's just the Kindle. There are millions of iPads sold, and I can iBook Truth of Valor for $11.99 in seconds. And then we've got the Nook and the Kobo and all kinds of other gizmos and gadgets all with apps that allow me to read to my Android from my SmartPhone while sitting on my Desktop and balancing my Laptop with my other hand with all of these devices probably wirelessly syncing to one another.

And there is no Bookscan for e-books, at least not yet. The sales for e-books are totally opaque. Even more opaque than was once the case for print books, where I can visit stores and count copies on Friday vs. copies on Monday.

So what, really, does it mean that the hardcover edition of Truth of Valor is down 15% from the hardcover edition of Valor's Trial? It means nothing, nothing at all!

Did the e-book business also drop 15% like the hardcover did? Well, fat chance of that. I'm certain that more people have purchased e-books this year than two years ago. But by how much? If I think e-book sales have doubled, then a 15% drop is a smaller drop. If I think e-book sales quadrupled, which they may well have, then the 15% drop on Nielsen Bookscan for the hardcover becomes an increase in total sales inclusive of e-books. The 15% "decrease" could actually be a 15% increase, all dependent on those e-book sales increases.

Why can I even contemplate the thought that e-book sales might have quadrupled in two years? Well, for a new book like Tanya's the print sales are still the lion's share of copies sold, but every month more and more little tidbits like these... For Elizabeth Moon's Hugo-nominated Remnant Population, the e-book sold three times the number of copies as the trade paperback on her most recent royalty statement. For David Louis Edelman's Jump 225 Trilogy, which are wonderful very tech-oriented novels very well-suited to an e-book adapting audience (I think they're the first set of books to really take the conceptualization of William Gibson's Neuromancer and bring it along into today), I've seen numbers for Kindle sales that are about equal with the Bookscan scales, so total e-book sales could well exceed those of print.

Hence, when I'm looking at Tanya's statements, there's this big gaping hole of uncertainty where I know the e-book numbers are up but I've no way to fill in that blank right away. And it's hard to even say when I can. Depending on if an e-book vendor reports monthly or quarterly, or with a 15 day, 30 day or 45 day lag, the first royalty statement I get for this book could reflect e-book sales for one month to 30 September of for three months thru 30 November or anything in-between.

Suffice to say, I hate this. I like information, I feast on information, and here I don't know, instead I compare the Kindle store rank to the bookstore rank on Amazon, guess what it means, then read tea leaves. And there are more and more instances like with the new Tanya Huff book where I have to recognize the presence of "known unknowns." And while the example here has a two year gap between books in series, the growth in e-book sales is now so strong that I can't even trust 2010 over 2009 comparisons.

This I can trust: if I negotiate a deal tomorrow with a publisher, and I'm looking at a 5% or 25% drop in hardcover sales, the publisher will almost certainly try and tell me that the sales are down by 5% or 25%, and hope I'll ignore the fact that the e-book sales are up by 300% or 400% and the total sales actually increased by 10%.

Bottom line, more and more, day by day, the print side of things isn't the full story for the publishing business.

If you haven't yet tried Tanya's Valor books, the place to start would be with the DAW omnibus edition of A Confederation of Valor, which has the first two books for just $8.99. Tanya served in the Canadian Naval Reserve, so she knows her stuff. Book Loons says in reviewing The Truth of Valor, "Tanya Huff writes the best space opera around." Night Owl reviews says "the Torin Kerr books are my favorite novels in this genre." And Book Yurt thnks "Torin is definitely who we'd all like to have our back when the shit hits the fan."

And Sept 30, we get word of this rave review from BlogCritics.org "Huff has taken the genre light years beyond what anybody in the past could have imagined it being. This is not just a good book for its genre, it's a good book—period."

the anti-rant

I complain a lot about things I'm not happy about, so I'd like to take a quick moment to say some nice things about Skechers.

I had a problem with a pair of dress shoes I got from them. I noticed during BEA at the end of May that there was a flapping noise when I was walking, which I ignored for a few days and then kind of looked at the shoe and noticed that the leather by one of the buckle seams was coming apart near the seam and slowly spreading. Not happy-making, I'd just started wearing the shoes for my London Book Fair trip several weeks before, and maybe had worn the shoes for a total of ten, twelve, fifteen days when I needed dress shoes. Shoes shouldn't fall apart that quick, usually I wear the soles down from putting miles on a pair of shoes long before other parts of the shoe start to fall apart.

I eventually got around to taking a picture of the shoes, and I wrote a letter to the head of Skechers to say I was not happy. I couldn't just return them because I'd purchased them some months before, and I'd worn through pair #1 from that purchase before starting in on pair #2.

Well, a few days later a real human person called from Skechers to say that they were sorry to hear about my experience. They wanted to take a look at the shoes, and sent a call tag for Fed Ex to pick them up from me. And then after they looked at the shoes, they said they would happily send me a new pair. And then when I told them what style I wanted (that particular no longer in the warehouse) they did in fact quickly send me a new pair.

Am I happy the shoes fell apart, of course not. Though since I've mostly worn Skechers for several years now, I knew it wasn't something that happened all the time. And when I had an issue and pointed out a problem, their customer service was quick, polite, helpful, and got the job done. And which keeps the customer, and which gets them some thanks and gratitude from the crockety angry ranty side of my blog.

quick newsy notes

The Kindle will soon be available in Best Buy.

The Wall Street Journal is said to be starting up a book section for its Saturday weekend edition.

The NY Times had actual science fiction novel reviews in the paper a Friday back and may do this on a regular basis. The column is from actual sf writer Jeff VanderMeer, and this is the seriousestish coverage of the field from the Times in years.

The Kobo reader is rolling out a desktop computer app.

Not doing the usual linkage because I am still on the road and these filtered in from different places.

news of the day

Borders announced it's earnings, or more exactly the size of its loss for the most recent quarter. Same store sales dropped 7%, not good, but not as steep as other recent reports, but would have been worse if not for an uptick in cafe sales.  Web site sales increased by big percentage but from small base.  They are closing a store in San Francisco near the Giants' ballpark, and are happy to have around a half dozen other leases for underperforming stores like this, DC store I blogged about a couple weeks ago etc. I haven't visited this SF store, may try on my layover heading back from WorldCon. And good or bad, Borders will open Build a Bear workshops in some of their stores. There is now also a two-tier Borders Rewards program, a paid program like the Barnes & Noble program which will offer more discounts, free shipping etc.  while also continuing the current free program.

In other store closing news, Barnes & Noble is closing its large flagship store opposite Lincoln Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  The store's original fifteen year lease is expiring, and rumors are the asking rent was at least doubling and maybe tripling. This is the 4th Manhattan BN to close in the face of larger rent in recent years.

On the eReader front, Samsung is introducing a reader into the UK market that will be sold via WH Smiths, which runs many travel stores that tend to be small and some much larger stores on malls and main streets, or "high street" in the local parlance.   Amazon is supposedly making an arrangement with Staples to start selling the Kindle.     

when your doctor runs the Waystone Inn

You know from some of my other posts on these subjects that I have very passionate feelings about the direction our country is taking on matters of so-called security. These manifest themselves with particular, and sometimes and unfortunately ill-advised and untimely and misdirected passion, when a hotel in the US demands a photo ID at check-in.

We don't, or at least so I thought until I was reading the NY Times about the Lake Shore Limited, need papers to travel in the country.  If we need papers to check in at a hotel, then we need papers.

Beyond that...   the reasons a hotel will give for this are basically the same, that the person checking in with my credit card isn't actually me, so I am being protected by the hotel from credit card fraud and/or identity theft.

I would reasonably guess that fraud is most likely to occur for a spur of the moment booking.  But certainly in my circle, most -- not all but most -- people book well in advance  And the hotel knows things about you or your reservation. As an example, you are a member of the hotel's reward program and are paying with the card that was used to guarantee the reservation or a card that is in your profile with the hotel chain or staying at a hotel or a region where you often stay or staying in conjunction with a conference or other group event.

For almost all of my own bookings, the chances of either credit card or identity fraud would be along the lines of "I lose my bag at the airport, someone steals bag, notices a printout of my hotel reservation, decides it's a good rate, and would be nice to pretend to be me and stay at hotel under my name." The odds of this happening are not good. If it did happen, the odds that the credit card company would be informed of the theft, could notice at the card was authorized at the hotel after it was stolen, could inform the local police and arrest the miscreant while he is in "my" room at the hotel -- the odds the crime would result in somebody being arrested are better than the odds of the crime ever happening in the first place.

If anyone wants to provide me with the percentage of credit card fraud that takes place in hotels vs gas stations or retail or as fraudulent telecommunications charges or the like that shows my analysis to be wrong, please do let me know.  When someone did ring up charges on my card, it was at gas stations, Walmart, etc., not two nights at a hotel.  If someone has facts to show the percent of fraud on advance vs newish reservations, I'll happily correct.

More than one hotel tells me if a charge is contested they need to have checked photo ID to avoid having a chargeback, and I don't know if that can be confirmed.  In my experience the credit card industry wants to encourage you to use your card for more things in more places. It isn't so long ago I had to sign for small purchases under $25 at one merchant I frequent.  Not any more.  Not so long ago you couldn't use your credit card at McDonalds or the local movie theatre but the credit card companies worked with these places to get the cards working.  The card companies feel they have much better ways of detecting fraudulent use than some clerk at the Four Points by Sheraton in Times Square detecting a fake Idaho drivers license.

Oh -- if a hotel refuses to let you check in for a night without a photo ID, try and eat at that same hotel's fancy restaurant and pay with that exact same credit card on that exact same day and see if they'll ask for a photo ID at the end of your nice expensive dinner. This happened to me recently at a Manhattan hotel. I wasn't even staying there but wanted just to put the incidentals for a third party on my card.  The same meal I couldn't pay for one way, they were perfectly happy to have me pay for the other way. Could someone please give me the logic for that which wouldn't start to totally collapse in and twist on itself?

I was watching at a hotel recently while an entire water polo team was being checked in merrily giving their photo IDs. Did they have a ringer?  Someone snuck in to the team bus who wasn't on the team?  They were actually a ring of credit card thieves? This isn't airport security where for all my rants I don't go along with the argument that you never check grandma. Because then, yes, the bad guys will recruit grandma.  This is just stupid. This is stupid like proofing grandma and grampa before selling them beer at a ballpark. I hate being next to drunken louts at a ballpark, but that's stupid.  And having a water polo team all show photo IDs to get their keys is stupid. If one of them later contests the credit card charge, the manager at the hotel can call the coach and the school and have words with them. I strongly doubt that's a conversation he'll have to have.

And this stuff isn't without a cost. You don't pay all the costs of your driving because there's the gas fumes people breathe in or the hidden subsidies of the road system. Here, everyone spends more time checking in at the hotel. Maybe you don't notice that but think of every checkout line you are on and then think on that line if every single credit card purchase requires a photo ID.  It's not like two $89 nights at a hotel is more costly than a lot of trips we have to Target to do the back to school.

No, I'm sorry, but no hotel should require a photo ID as a condition of check-in. It's an insult to the guest, it makes visiting a hotel like visiting a doctor where first thing you must do is show your insurance. It protects against a not so existent threat. It's an infringement on our liberty. And if everyone started to complain about this instead of acting like it's perfectly reasonable maybe they would stop.

Plenty of hotels don't ask for ID and seem to survive. Those that do should clearly inform at the reservation process.  I will choose hotels that have honest guests, that don't require me to show my papers, instead of hotels that host criminals.