Should We Be Drawing a Message?

For those who believe that there's a divine hand behind lightning strikes....

• Lightning strikes six-storey Jesus statue in Ohio, burns it to ground

• Ship fire halts oil capture in Gulf, BP says ("A bolt of lightning struck the ship capturing oil from the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, igniting a fire that halted containment efforts in another setback for the embattled company in its nearly two-month struggle to stop the spill, the company said.").

Thank you, Globe and Mail, for your comprehensive coverage of bolts from the blue.

"Consumption Taxes" and Cheating the Tax Man

In response to an increase in taxes, the Globe and Mail has published an article, quite literally, offering Tips for cheating the harmonized sales taxman. Some of the ideas are actually about avoiding taxes, not evading or "cheating", but assuming provincial tax laws are similar to those of U.S. states, some of the ideas would cross the line into the illegal.

A couple of years ago I commented on how people, especially the wealthy, could cheat a "FairTax" system. But needless to say, I'm not The Globe and Mail and "FairTax" is an idiotic fantasy. It's interesting to see how the concept of "cheating" high sales taxes on goods and services can become mainstream.

Is...what?

Not a mistake I would have historically expected from the Globe and Mail.

What's perhaps even more interesting is that a moderator cleaned up some of the comments, but left (presumably lacking authority to edit) the headline. I suspect this is a continuation of the modern media's focus on immediacy crossed with budget cuts for professional editing staff.