Other people are inconvenienced by any number of things in the news: Wall Street volatility, baseball trades, America's Cup/NY Appellate Court shenanigans, and weather which is actually quite seasonal but still grounds for complaint. I find nothing extraordinary in any of these things but seem to need to be well-versed in all of them. The thing which I did find extraordinary was today's release of the IRS' household income and tax breakdown for 2006. Most folks who create news were flocking to the side of the charts where 1% of wage-earners pay 39.89% of taxes, but I did a double take at the other end of the data, where 50% - FIFTY PERCENT - of wage earners pay just 2.99% of taxes due to their AGIs of $31,987 or less. That's half of the 138,394,754 tax returns from 2006, or 69.2 million people who are feeling the hurt while a bunch of folks complain about the burden. Somewhere along the way we've lost site of the fact that taxes are still less than 100%, where as things like food and shelter are paid for in 100% dollars. So debate the fairness, you top 1%-ers, but don't do it and eat at a restaurant or buy a new car, because that's the luxury for which you are paying and I think that it's plenty fair to share.