links for 2010-01-14

• William Burroughs’s Stuff
  PG: A great writer as viewed through his photographed possessions.
  (tags: william+burroughs photography literature)
• FedEx Fail
  "When it absolutely, positively has to get... to Canada after two trips to Paris..."
  (tags: fail fedex humor)
• Peter Backus Uses Math to Explain Girlfriend Woes
  "In the paper Backus summarized that on a given night out in London there is a 0.0000034 percent chance of meeting a woman that meets his criteria and who is also interested in him. That makes his odds of finding a girlfriend only about 100 times better than finding an alien."
  (tags: math science humor relationships)
• Who Wants to Tax a Millionaire? - Reason Magazine
  "As income taxes increase on very productive people and small businesses, they will be less willing to hire or keep employees. The top tax rate on business owners who pay taxes as individuals, as opposed to corporations, is now 35 percent. It is already scheduled to rise to 39.6 percent on January 1, 2011, and under the House bill it would rise even higher, to 45 percent on taxable income of $500,000 for singles, $1 million for couples. With state taxes, some combined rates could exceed 55 percent."
  (tags: opinion economics libertarian)