steve (02/24/83)
#N:zinfandel:8200023:000:2075 zinfandel!steve Feb 22 15:01:00 1983 I have a couple pressing questions I want to throw out for general discussion. 1. The Viking landers on Mars performed several experiments, including one called the pyrolitic release experiment. This consisted of taking a soil sample, heating it up, and finding out what sort of gases were given off. If the gases were such and such, that indicated the possibility of life. Now wait a minute! Who are we to send our spaceships to some other planet with the express purpose of destroying its life? I repeat, we absolutely intended to destroy any life we found there! What if the speck of life so ruthlessly incinerated were the highest form of life on the planet? The only form of life? I've seen plenty of movies in which aliens came to earth and fried us like chickens, and they sure weren't wearing the white hats. What gives and did anybody notice this in 1976? 2. Here in California we have an elected official named Kenneth Cory who is the State Controller, a position akin to Chancellor of the Exchequer for those of you on the east coast. He was up for re-election last year with a primary in June and a general election in November. We have an income tax in California, with refunds generally going out from February to June. The average refund was somewhere around $400, and even renters without taxable income get a $66 renter's credit check. Well, guess whose name is on the envelope, and guess who gets to sign the refund checks! Kenneth Cory, that's who. If I were running for office I'd like to be able to send $400 checks with my name on them to half the population right before the election. There seems to be a built-in advantage here doesn't there? (Guess who won by a landslide.) My suggestion is to have the other half of the population, those owing taxes, write their checks out to Ken Cory rather than to the anonymous "Franchise Tax Board". That might balance things out. Does this go on anywhere else? Replies can go here or to the appropriate specialty group. Or to me. yawn, Steve Nelson decvax!sytek!zehntel!zinfandel!steve