If you’re saying it’s the pickup, sorry, but you’re not correct. The dashcam owner is at fault for the collision and would be entirely liable for it. The pickup wouldn’t be liable in the least.
Take a few moments to ponder why before I get into this…
* * * * *
Road rage is little different from bullying, and bullying tends to be more about asserting dominance. So if someone engages with you in some type of bullying behavior, the onus is on YOU to attempt to disengage.
Note the phrasing: attempt to disengage. Obviously you may not be able to depending on circumstance. And while the dashcam owner, herein “DCO”, did attempt to disengage, he went about it the wrong way.
When an opposing driver, herein “OD”, is being hostile and is in front of us, our natural inclination seems to be to accelerate around and away from them, more or less trying to “run away” from a threat. You should instead brake.
In the above dashcam recording, the moment to attempt to disengage was when the OD swerved into the left lane in front of the DCO. Continuing to move forward, with the OD in front of the DCO, only played into OD’s trap.
NEVER try to swerve around a hostile OD who is in front of you. Brake or let off your accelerator and pull to the shoulder instead.
Had the DCO gone into the back of the truck instead, the DCO would’ve been mostly blameless. And I say “mostly” because, again, the DCO should’ve braked and pulled to the lefthand shoulder when the OD pulled into the lefthand lane in front of the DCO. That the DCO swerved shows situational awareness enough to react. But since brake checking is universally illegal, and the dashcam would’ve easily shown the entirety of the road rage incident, it would’ve come across that the truck was brake checking and put him legally entirely in the wrong.
But the OD being legally in the wrong doesn’t mean the DCO could’ve made a better decision. A better decision that could’ve avoided a collision and the handicaps that come with it.
In the above footage, though, the OD is legally in the wrong for how they were driving, but they are not legally or financially responsible for the collision. That falls entirely on the DCO.
I was looking for a “minimal” Linux distro with a desktop. And why the desktop when this is a virtualization server? VirtualBox’s user interface.
Basically I just got fed up with having to deal with the command-line with VirtualBox. I use VirtualBox on my Windows desktop a LOT, so having that UI for managing the virtual machines on Cordelia is, more or less, something I can’t really do without anymore. Since I have a couple projects coming up for which I want to be able to create and remove VMs more-or-less on-demand.
I’m also using a third-party Pi-KVM from Geekworm to remotely control this system, so a web UI (e.g., Proxmox) isn’t necessary for controlling the virtual machines. Though I will still be using Portainer CE to monitor and control the Docker containers.
With Rocky, I did not like the desktop installed with its “Server with GUI” option. And I didn’t want to mess around in figuring out how to add a desktop to an installation without one. That also meant Arch was definitely NOT in the running here.
But the “Server with GUI” option did mean it was above Linux Mint in the contention. Well above it, actually. My singular gripe with Mint – but also the main reason it exists – is the inability to control what is installed. Meaning I’d be going in and removing a lot of things before I started adding in what I wanted.
That it was based off Ubuntu is the only reason I considered Mint. Since that meant it wouldn’t be too far off what I previously had. And I would’ve been able to use the official repositories for Docker and VirtualBox.
But in trying out Manjaro’s “Minimal” distribution (specifically with KDE Plasma) in a virtual machine, I was very pleasantly surprised at how little was installed. With Docker and VirtualBox also installed, the entire installation footprint on the main boot partition is… not even 10 GB.
Proxmox wasn’t even a consideration.
Why not Proxox?
I’ve already written before on why I decided to move away from Proxmox. So unless those gripes have been corrected – specifically the one about not being able to make incremental updates without going through substantial steps – there’s nothing to discuss.
And I fully understand why Proxmox does that. But I don’t have to go along with it. And I won’t be.
500GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SATA Inland QN322 2TB QLC NVMe
The migration
The 500GB drive is the main OS drive. There were a few things sitting in my home folder that I just moved to the 2TB NVMe. I also copied off the entire /etc/fstab file to the NVMe drive so those could be restored with a simple copy/paste. Then it was a matter of just installing Manjaro with the open source drivers, again using the “Minimal” version of the distro for the smallest installation footprint, going with the KDE Desktop – though I may redo the installation later using the Cinnamon installer.
With Manjaro installed, the next major step was restoring the fstab entries and mounting the media folders on Nasira.
Then came installing Docker and VirtualBox. My only gripe here being that there is not any official VirtualBox or Docker builds for Arch (and, by extension, Manjaro). I very much prefer that over relying on builds in a distro’s repository, but I think I can live with that. Here are the guides I followed:
The only necessary step I forgot to take before installing Manjaro was completely purging the old Docker folder. For storage space more than performance, I had it sitting on the NVMe drive as well. And I needed it completely gone to avoid conflicts – simple rm -rf (with sudo) and mkdir command combo. Configuring Docker to use that folder is straightforward, especially if you have jq to make the JSON file:
# Install jq with this command:
# sudo pamac install --no-confirm jq
sudo systemctl stop docker # If it's running
sudo mkdir /etc/docker
echo '{}' | jq '."data-root"="/path/to/new/docker"' | sudo tee /etc/docker/daemon.json
sudo systemctl start docker
Side note: if you work with JSON regularly – e.g., creating JSON files for server configurations during deploys – and you’ve never used or heard of jq, you really need to check it out. It can eliminate a LOT of complication. Anyway…
Plex was the only critical Docker container for restoration, but also the easiest to set up. I had everything critical living outside any Docker volumes, with it all being connected in via the -v switch. So getting Plex back online was just a matter of running my update-plex.sh script I first mention in my article about migrating Plex from a VM to Docker:
With the latest versions of Docker, you actually do NOT need to create volumes in advance of creating the containers unless you’re restoring data into them. When running the above script for the first time, Docker will automatically create the portainer_data volume. You do not need to run docker volume create portainer_data first.
I’m sure we’ve all heard this misconception: that if you’re going to slash someone’s tires, slash only three so insurance won’t pay for it. So if you only slash three, you’ll leave them stranded with a big bill to replace the tires. Slash all four, though, and insurance will rescue them from their misfortune.
So let’s get into this.
Will insurance cover slashed tires?
Yes it will, provided your insurance includes it. You typically need comprehensive coverage that includes vandalism, since slashed tires are considered vandalism. So if you don’t have comprehensive coverage, you’re on your own. But you may not be completely out of luck if your insurance will at least pay for a tow to a shop to have the tires replaced. It just means the tires and labor will be out of your pocket.
But if you have comprehensive coverage, that doesn’t mean insurance will still pay for it. Whether they will depends on your deductible.
Replacement cost vs. Your deductible
This is the crux of the matter.
Back in 2007, my car was broken into. Thankfully the only damage to the car was the rear passenger-side window. And my insurance deductible was $500. Replacing a broken window is, obviously, less than $500. It was about $275 out of pocket, if I recall correctly. So my insurance wouldn’t pay for it. Oh well.
So whether insurance will pay for slashed tires is going to depending on the insured’s deductible. If the deductible isn’t substantially more than the cost to replace the tires, then insurance isn’t going to pay for it. But, there’s more…
Other costs
If you slash someone’s tires, the tires aren’t the only cost going into it. Since the vehicle will likely need to be towed, and getting that vehicle towed is going to be harder the larger it is. And with comprehensive insurance coverage, towing is going to be covered. So because of those other costs that go into getting the tires replaced before even getting to the cost of the replacement tires, it’s likely going to be more than someone’s deductible – unless that deductible is sky high.
Plus if you slash three tires, all four still need to be replaced anyway unless the tires are less than about 5,000 miles old. And along with the cost of the tires, there’s also the labor that goes into actually replacing them. Doing a full tire replacement on my wife’s CR-V, for example, came to about $1,500 at Firestone for OEM-equivalents.
And even if only one or two tires are slashed, meaning two to be replaced, there’s still the cost to tow the vehicle and inspect it for other damage.
And speaking of “other damage”, there is also potential damage to the suspension and/or undercarriage that will need to be inspected to determine if additional parts replacements are needed beyond just the tires.
And the cost of all of that which exceeds the deductible would be paid by insurance.
Conclusion
So yeah, the idea that insurance won’t pay out if you slash only three tires is definitely not true unless the insurance coverage doesn’t include vandalism, or the insured has a sky-high deductible.
Given the details that have come out about the shooter that attempted to take out Trump, or rather… the surprising LACK of information on him, there’s one possibility that really needs to be considered, which is played into with Wikipedia’s move to have a separate article about the kid as I pointed out: his motivation wasn’t political, but for notoriety….
No one has been able to pin down any motive. Statements about his political beliefs are all over the place. He was a registered Republican but gave to left-leaning causes… That kid was probably looking to be remembered for something.
And now he will be. He’s basically… gone viral because of this.
Which is actually MORE scary, when you think of it. That someone would consider such an act not because of ideology, but to “go viral”. That so much attention gets foisted onto the perpetrators of events like this that it only sets the stage for someone else to try this, also knowing they’ll be remembered for years because of it.
Notoriety breeds copycats. And the prospect of going viral has caused people to do some pretty despicable things. Probably about time we take another very hard look at where social media has taken us.
It’s been noted time and again that giving notoriety to the perpetrators of mass homicide events and attempts at mass homicide events breeds copycats. People who want notoriety because they feel invisible or unwanted by society. Want their name remembered even if it’s for evil reasons.
Which is why a lot of media organizations have taken stances against giving notoriety to those perpetrators.
So why is Wikipedia doing the exact opposite here?
Now that the party has somewhat died down around the recent social media phenomenon of women saying they’d rather run into a bear in the wild than a random man, let’s look into why this is a symptom of a much greater problem in society.
And what is that problem? Risk perception and assessment.
In short, “I’d pick the bear” is another demonstration that people are really, really bad at understanding and perceiving risk, let alone assessing it. I said such in the comment on this video by The Prim Reaper:
My opinion on this whole matter is it’s also a symptom of a greater problem regarding risk assessment and perception. It goes beyond a woman’s perceptions of how much in danger she might be at any given time. That any woman would suggest she’s safer with any random bear as opposed to any random man means that those women really have absolutely no idea how to assess risk.
And it’s a problem not just with this. As we saw during COVID, people can be scared into complying with some very draconian laws and regulations all in the name of “safety” because they don’t understand how to evaluate risk. And I see the same in plenty of other circles as well.
First, let’s get this out of the way. Women, if you think you’re safer with a bear than with a man, you are demonstrably insane, completely out of touch with reality. While your absolute risk of being attacked by a bear is very, very remote, that is only because the likelihood you’ll actually encounter a bear in the wild is also very, very remote. Even if you regularly walk trails where bears live, the chance you’ll encounter a bear is remote.
And even if you did encounter a bear in the wild, what is the likelihood it’ll attack you? That depends on quite a few variables, one being how recently it ate. And if the bear you’re encountering is a cub… well your risk of getting attacked just went through the roof.
Whereas women encounter men all. the. time. Since, you know, we’re half the population. Yet the absolute risk any woman will be attacked by any man is actually fairly remote. And I mean genuine crimes here, not the crime of a man merely looking at a woman.
But how can you assess that risk? There’s a LOT of bad data out there, with everything condensed down to aggregate statistics that remove any nuance, however slight, making it largely not possible for the most part. And it’s nuance that’s needed to properly assess risk – such as the nuance that you have to actually encounter a bear to even have a risk it’ll attack you.
Sure in every major city there are regions therein where you likely shouldn’t go, where doing so will all but invite a higher risk you’ll become a victim of some crime or the need to defend yourself. And those areas tend to be readily apparent just by looking at them.
That doesn’t mean your risk of being victimized isn’t zero outside those areas. But your risk does drop substantially. Aggregate statistics, though, can make the opposite look true. And even within those areas, your risk of becoming a crime victim depends on details – i.e. nuances – that aggregate statistics leave out.
But if anything showed just how bad we are with risk assessment, along with acting like aggregate statistics actually mean anything more than just being an aggregate of something, that would easily be the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rather than try to enumerate all the things that went wrong, I’ll just give you Bill Maher’s “New Rule” segment from April 2022:
But there are plenty of areas in which we basically strap the entire idea of risk assessment and evaluation onto a rocket and launch it on a one-way trip away from Earth as if it was Voyager III.
It leads to the question of why people are so paranoid. Why has the idea of our risk perception and assessment become, largely, that if the risk isn’t zero it’s all-but-guaranteed to happen?
Simple: media hype.
Not just news media, mind you. Over the last 20 years, more and more people have been informing their worldviews online instead of through what has been called “traditional media”. And through “independent media” as it’s been called, narratives matter more than the truth. Which is why that’s now become the case with “traditional media”.
Because reality is boring. Scaring the shit out of people drives ad revenue.
And it’s through online content consumption that notions like this are perpetually reinforced despite not being true in the least:
Because what men fear most about going to prison is what women fear most about walking down the sidewalk. #YesAllWomen
And the narrative that women can’t walk out of their homes without fear of being raped is pervasive in modern society to the point where women feel they’re safer with bears than a random man.
Let’s not forget about “Schrodinger’s rapist”. This presented the idea to women that it was basically a coin flip of whether any random man would rape her. Remember the discredited “1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault” statistic? Apparently that has been upgraded to “over half of all women”. No, seriously:
The source being cited with those entries in the 2016/2017 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which doesn’t say “Over half of women and almost one in three men have experienced sexual violence…” Instead it’s 1 in 5 women who have allegedly suffered sexual violence. And even that number is likely drastically overstating reality since it makes it sound like the United States is worse than some of the worst countries in the world and gives the impression that women literally cannot live anywhere without fear of someone raping them…
A corollary to this is “stranger danger”. Despite the fact the vast majority of child abductions are custody related, there’s still this pervasive myth that your children are always in danger of being abducted unless you’re watching over them every moment of every day. And mothers, in particular, are suffering the brunt of this since mothers are more likely to be castigated by the public or arrested by the police for taking their eyes of their kids for a moment.
And the helicopter parenting spurned on by the “stranger danger” phenomenon has led to some impaired outcomes with kids. It’s probably more destructive than absent fathers since helicopter parenting impairs a youth’s chance to increasingly assert their independence as they get older and reach adulthood.
Despite the fact that fatal interactions of blacks with police are extremely rare – No, seriously, they are extremely rare – paranoia runs rampant due to the over-hype of the media of incidents like the Philando Castile shooting, Eric Garner’s death, and the Michael Brown shooting.
Turns out that what drastically increases your risk of being killed by a police officer is violently resisting arrest or presenting a weapon. Same with shooting at police, such as the case of Dexter Reed when he emptied a magazine shooting at them. If you’re calm and cool in your interactions with police, regardless of your skin color, everything should go smoothly.
Statistics prove time and again that a public school is the safest place for a child to be, safer than being at home or being transported between home and school. Yet the anti-gun left has regularly called public schools “shooting ranges”. And the media over-hypes the notion as well by making it sound like it’s only inevitable that a mass shooting will happen at every school in the United States with bullshit like this:
There isn’t a standardized definition of a “school shooting”, which allows anti-gun groups to overinflate the numbers such that any shooting that occurs on or even nearby any school campus is counted, regardless of whether students were even in danger. Someone commits suicide in a school parking lot in the middle of the night? School shooting…
Again, scaring the shit out of people drives ad revenue.
In all seriousness, the risk that any children will be caught up in a school shooting scenario is so low that it really shouldn’t be scaring anyone. The Columbine-style spree shootings on school campuses is so unlikely an event that the Mother Jones spreadsheet that tracks spree shootings with 3 or more deaths includes, as of this writing, only 23 school events since 1982. About one every other year. Our schools are definitely not “shooting ranges”. And your kids are far, far more likely to die being transferred to and from school, especially if they are not being transported in a bus.
And the same with mass shootings. There is no standardized definition of “mass shooting” either, allowing for drastically inflated numbers to be reported. Something even Mother Jones, who is far from a right-wing publication, has called out. And a very striking omission from the Mother Jones spreadsheet is the 2024 Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting in which only one (1) person was killed.
Vaccines are easily the best advance in public health ever, even more so than the discovery of antibiotics, allowing us to end the scourge of smallpox and polio – though polio is not quite completely extinct in the wild. Yet vaccine injuries and the discredited vaccine/autism link are continually proliferated by anti-vaxxers. Not COVID vaccine skeptics, mind you, because the COVID “vaccine” wasn’t actually a vaccine, but people who take something merely being called a vaccine as if you’re injecting autism into kids.
And on that front is also the people drastically overstating the risk to public health by those who don’t vaccinate. The TV show “House” helped that along by stopping short of outright stating that a mother who doesn’t vaccinate her child is condemning the child to a very early death. Despite the fact your risk of contracting any vaccine-preventable illness in any developed nation is… remote. Influenza is an obvious exception. And same with measles unless you’re in North America.
And contracting one is also not the death sentence it once was, at least in developed nations. Diphtheria outbreaks once wiped out households. Now we can treat it with antibiotics.
Being anti-vaccine is definitely a luxury, a privilege of living in a developed nation because vaccines have wiped out most of the greatest threats to public health. But the same can’t be said about handwashing. COVID brought this to the forefront. But as Bill Maher says in the above segment, people were taking it too far.
Because people were so afraid of COVID that they thought contracting it meant, at the least, a coin flip on whether they would be hospitalized, and probably another coin flip on whether they’d survive it.
Again, reality is boring. Scaring the shit out of people drives ad revenue.
And so we have women believing they’re safer with bears. Sorry, ladies, but you’re not Goldie O’Gilt.
During the Reagan years, the Supreme Court decided Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 US 837 (1984). And yes, it’s named for thatChevron. This ruling created was is called the “Chevron deference” or the “Chevron test”. To be brief, this is the Supreme Court decision that has allowed decades of ambiguous laws to remain on the books.
Now the deference didn’t allow the regulatory agencies to just write whatever regulations they wanted out of whole cloth. They still had to be authorized by statute.
The issue came down to what to do when the statute was somewhat vague or had potentially multiple interpretations. Rather than kicking the statute to the curb and throwing the problem back onto Congress to resolve, the “Chevron deference” allowed regulatory agencies to decide for Congress how the statute should be interpreted.
We saw this, most notably, in King v. Burwell. I wrote about that here.
So Chevron needed to be overruled to end that deference. In short, if a statute could be interpreted multiple ways, or there are demonstrable conflicts within the statute, Congress should be resolving that, not the regulatory agencies. So with Chevron out of the way, hopefully that’s what’ll happen. That the Courts will start declaring more statutes as unconstitutionally vague, shifting the burden onto Congress to amend the statutes in question to alleviate any ambiguities.
But as the Supreme Court would also note, the Federal judiciary has been, since Chevron was first handed down actually, turning away from it. Meaning it was really only a matter of time before it was explicitly overruled – similar to how Trump v. Hawaii explicitly nullified Korematsu, a decision even more wrongly decided than Plessy v. Ferguson.
Of note as well are the States that have explicitly barred their own Courts from using the Chevron deference – Arizona and Florida – or their Courts have issued rulings effectively nullifying Chevron within their own jurisdictions – Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
And now with Chevron out of the way, Congress will need to do their job and write clear and unambiguous statutes rather than leaving it up to the regulatory agencies to do their work for them.
And also of note is that the decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo protected any prior decisions and rulings that relied on Chevron, regardless of at what Court, from being vacated. That does not mean those prior decisions cannot be revisited, and Chevron being overruled means those prior cases cannot be relied on as precedent to the extent they relied on Chevron. Only that those cases aren’t also explicitly overruled merely for relying on Chevron.
Thankfully I don’t really see these much. I last addressed a similar concept about 7 years ago, so let’s revisit since this one is calling out specific statutes.
And whomever made this is showing a Florida driver license, and the two noted statutes are from Florida’s books. So let’s start with those.
I am not required to sign [any citations] – §318.14(2)
Except as provided in ss. 316.1001(2), 316.0083, 316.173, and 316.1896, any person cited for a violation requiring a mandatory hearing listed in s. 318.19 or any other criminal traffic violation listed in chapter 316 must sign and accept a citation indicating a promise to appear. The officer may indicate on the traffic citation the time and location of the scheduled hearing and must indicate the applicable civil penalty established in s. 318.18. For all other infractions under this section, except for infractions under s. 316.1001, the officer must certify by electronic, electronic facsimile, or written signature that the citation was delivered to the person cited. This certification is prima facie evidence that the person cited was served with the citation.
So what does all of this mean? Well, as mentioned in the heading for this, the implication given in the sign is that a person receiving a citation is not required to sign it. Doesn’t matter what the citation is for. Whereas the statute clearly says otherwise.
The violations requiring a mandatory hearing, meaning you’re also required to sign the citation, include:
a crash involving the death or “serious bodily injury” of another person,
failing to stop for a school bus where required,
failing to properly secure a load in a vehicle or trailer, or
exceeding the posted speed limit by 20mph or more
And the “criminal” violations in chapter 316 of the Florida statutes would be those classified as misdemeanors and includes, among other things, reckless driving and “aggressive careless driving”.
And if you are required to sign the citation and refuse, that’s a second-degree misdemeanor under §318.14(3).
I am not required to hand you my license – §322.15
(1) Every licensee shall have his or her driver license, which must be fully legible with no portion of such license faded, altered, mutilated, or defaced, in his or her immediate possession at all times when operating a motor vehicle and shall present or submit the same upon the demand of a law enforcement officer or an authorized representative of the department. A licensee may present or submit a digital proof of driver license as provided in s. 322.032 in lieu of his or her printed driver license; however, if the law enforcement officer or authorized representative of the department is unable to immediately verify the digital proof of driver license, upon the demand of the law enforcement officer or authorized representative of the department, the licensee must present or submit his or her printed driver license.
(2) Upon the failure of any person to display a driver license as required by subsection (1), the law enforcement officer or authorized representative of the department stopping the person shall require the person to imprint his or her fingerprints upon any citation issued by the officer or authorized representative, or the officer or authorized representative shall collect the fingerprints electronically.
In subsection 1, the relevant words here are (emphasis mine) “present or submit the same upon the demand of a law enforcement officer”. This means if the officer tells you to hand over your license, you MUST hand over your license. There is no jurisdiction in the United States I’m aware of where that is not the case as laws regarding traffic stops are more-or-less universal, with some exceptions related to what may or may not constitute probable cause. And the officer will be inspecting your license and calling it in to make sure you are in lawful possession of a valid driver license card.
Thus I am not opening my window
Yes you are. Because…
I will comply with clearly stated lawful orders.
…lawful orders include commanding you to roll down your window to such an extent that the officer can see and identify you and verify that you are the person depicted on the driver license. As already mentioned, it is a lawful order for the officer to command you to hand over your driver license.
On proof of insurance, though, Florida statute doesn’t require you to actually hand over the proof of insurance, but merely display it to the officer. And most of us probably don’t carry a paper copy of our proof of insurance anymore, instead relying on an app from our insurance company. Which is how I do it, relying on the GEICO app – though there has been a time or two when even that hasn’t cooperated.
And, ultimately, a law enforcement officer always has the option to order you out of the vehicle, and they don’t need to state a reason.
Refusing to obey the commands of a law enforcement officer is a first-degree misdemeanor under §843.02. And as already stated, if you are required to sign the citation and refuse – which the above clearly indicates they may refuse – that’s a second-degree misdemeanor under §318.14(3). Both of which subject you to arrest, and the officer will use whatever force is necessary to effect that arrest. And if you resist, that only ups the charges more. And if you are arrested, your vehicle then becomes subject to a search incident to an arrest.
I’ve said before that you don’t need to be infinitely cooperative with an officer, but don’t be an asshole during the traffic stop either. And don’t have a sign like the above in your car window. It just makes you an asshole. And guarantees you’ll get a citation every time, so forget about being let off with a warning.
One of the many complaints the rest of the world has with the United States, and it’s one on which I share some sentiment, is with a particular part of our tax policy: that we don’t include sales taxes in the shelf price. And there are a couple reasons why, starting with…
More than one tax
One thing much of the rest of the world forgets or never understands is the United States is a federated constitutional republic of 50 sovereign States. Note that word: sovereign. Each State has sovereignty separate from the United States. Each State has its own laws separate of everyone else. Meaning they all have their own taxes.
But within each State, we also aren’t paying just one sales tax.
Every State empowers their counties and municipalities to enact their own taxes to raise revenue for their own expenses. Property taxes are a classic example. As is sales taxes. Five States do not have a statewide sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.
But in every city in every other State in the United States, you’re subject to the statewide sales tax and the city sales tax where the transaction takes place. You may also be subject to a third tax, that being the county level. And possibly additional “local option” taxes or other special sales taxes.
Okay, not really a valid excuse. Just include all of that in the shelf price, right? Well that’s not so easy because of math. More specifically…
Fractional pennies and rounding
This is the main crux of the matter. Let’s lead with an example.
On a recent grocery store run, I bought just 1 item for $12 – it was a take & bake lasagna. The e-receipt shows three taxes applied to it: 2% to Kansas, 1.48% to Johnson County, and 1.38% to Lenexa. On the one item, that came to about 58 cents in sales taxes.
And calculating those three taxes, the 2% one is straightforward, just 24 cents. But the 1.48% and 1.38% include fractions of a penny – 17.76 cents and 16.56 cents, respectively. So the total is 58.32 cents, which gets rounded off at the register. And as most items on the shelf are not even dollar prices, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have factional pennies coming into play. With the lasagna, if the shelf price was $11.99 instead of an even $12, the sales taxes would be 23.98 cents, 17.74 cents, and 16.54 cents.
So including the sales taxes in the shelf price introduces a bit of a dilemma when you start talking about far more than just one item.
Round down and you deprive the government of tax revenue it’s entitled to by law when you aggregate that rounding across billions of line items per day. With the lasagna, rounding down would mean 17 cents and 16 cents on the county and city taxes, respectively, or 57 cents total taxes collected. And if the shelf price was $11.99 instead of an even $12, it would be 56 cents total since the 23.98 cents would be rounded down to 23 cents.
Round up, though, and the government collects more than the law permits. Which is illegal.
Round off at all, up or down depending on where the numbers fall, and it could go either way. In the example with the $11.99 shelf price, all three taxes would be rounded up, meaning, again, the government would be collecting more than the law allows.
The best way to ensure the tax calculation is fair to all parties involved is calculating the sales tax across the aggregate totals of eligible items at the register, then rounding to the nearest penny. This also avoids the complication of having to account for fractions of a penny in the inventory and pricing systems, which likely aren’t coded to accommodate that. Along with separate values being tracked for each sales tax collected, meaning separate aggregations.
It’s just easier, overall, and more fair calculating the taxes on the subtotal.
Sure it does mean you can’t know till the final total how much you’re going to be spending, and people have been burned by that. But that’s also why you should keep a ballpark percentage in your head of how much over the shelf price you’ll likely be paying for something.
If you’re only paying one sales tax, and that sales tax doesn’t result in fractions of pennies (which can only happen if all shelf prices are even dollar amounts), including it in the shelf price is relatively easy. But we aren’t doing that in the United States.
But that also doesn’t mean we’re doing sales taxes wrong, which is largely the implication whenever anyone points out that the United States is doing something different from the rest of the world.
Yeah, obviously not. Sure they might have the same result, but they aren’t identical in operation.
The first command automatically removes all files matching the wildcard, similar to holding the trigger on a machinegun, with Ctrl+C to interrupt the operation before it completes being the same as removing your finger from the trigger before the magazine is emptied. The second list of commands is removing each file you want to delete individually, which is the same as pulling the trigger for each round you want to fire.
And the equivalent of a bump stock is taking the second list of commands and putting it in a script.
The Supreme Court got it right here in ruling that bump stocks don’t convert a semi-automatic firearm into an automatic firearm. Just as putting a list of rm commands in a script doesn’t make it the same as an rm command using a wildcard.
Now the Supreme Court did NOT say that bump stocks are protected by the Second Amendment. They said only that the ATF exceeded its authority in conjuring a rule that attaching a bump stock to a rifle makes it a machinegun. Congress can still act and make bump stocks illegal – though I doubt they will since all legislative attempts at Congress failed.
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