Irony is a quirky event: you never know when to expect it, but when you see it, you have to laugh.  I follow the news, occasionally, from Alaska by reading the Fairbanks and Anchorage newspaper websites.  A nice short story in the Fairbanks paper made me do a double-take and then laugh heartily.

It appears that there was some sort of lottery in Alaska, and the beneficiary of that lottery was a group called STAR – Standing Together Against Rape.  That seems innocent enough right?  Sure.  But the story goes that the winner of the $500,000 jackpot had volunteered to give $100,000 of his winnings to that charity. WOW that’s quite a gesture.

Not surprisingly the charity has revealed that it never received the donation, as promised.  I suppose the lottery winner realized that the $500,000 reduced to $350,000 after taxes didn’t leave him much to work with.  So far so good, right?  You’d think that alone was newsworthy.  Here’s where the irony comes in.

The winner of the lottery, Alec Ahsoak, as described by the newspaper is a “convicted sex offender.”  I don’t know the exact details of Mr. Ahsoak’s conviction – but suffice it to say it is quite ironic that someone convicted of some type of sex crime a) bought a lottery ticket to benefit a rape group, amazingly b) won the grand prize and c) promised to donate some of his winnings back to the charity and then ultimately never did! That’s irony – for sure!

newsminer.com • Promised Alaska lottery gift undelivered

File this in the “it’s news to me” category: Radio stations DO NOT pay royalties for playing artist’s songs!  So after the “stink” the RIAA made about web radio stations NOT paying royalties (and forcing them to do so) they now are saying it would be unfair to make traditional radio stations do the same!

Please – are you kidding me?  Why should a web radio station pay and a traditional station not?  Hey folks, times are a changing, and using an old phrase: “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander!” Can someone explain the logic of this to me?

Bono: Radio Should Pay for Songs, Like Web Does - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

One of my favorite online publications to read, The Wall Street Journal, recently sent me a notice that it was time to renew.  Fair enough, it’s been a year, and for the quality of the publication I don’t mind spending money to read it.  So I read through the notice a little closer and realized that the renewal cost was $197!  That’s right, almost $200 for the privilege of reading the Journal!

I felt insulted.  First off, the website is NOT free of ads.  You still run into them everywhere on the site, and frankly if I’m going to pay anything for a site, I want it to be ad-free.  Secondly, with the depth of information on free websites, how can they possibly charge that much?  Finally, when I queried their customer service about the high rates and whether there were any options I received an e-mail that seemed almost robotic, if not plain insulting to the intelligence of a WSJ reader:

As of February 1, 2009, the price of an annual Wall Street Journal Online subscription has increased for renewing subscribers.

Rising operational costs force us to charge a bit more for your annual subscription. WSJ.com not only has most of the content in the WSJ newspaper, but many additional online-exclusive features. Over half the site is online-only content produced by more than 60 dedicated WSJ.com editors.

WSJ.com is really a great value. For around 40 cents a day* - WAY less than the price of a cup of coffee - the work of the finest news organization in the world is at your fingertips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Way less than a cup of coffee?  PLEASE.  Now if they want to lower the cost back to the wonderful price I first paid a couple of years ago of $79 I can completely justify that.  I’m going to express my disdain by simply not renewing.  Hopefully Murdoch & Company will begin to get the message.

The State of Washington, has attempted over the years any numbers of ways to increase taxes.  Just yesterday the sales tax increase went into affect for Sound Transit.  A King County resident can expect to pay 9.5% sales tax now on most purchases (food excluded, of course.)

Now hear me out: sales tax revenue grows with general inflation – so theoretically the increasing costs of government are compensated for by the fact that the cost of goods is going up, resulting in higher tax revenues.  Add to that scenario that the population is constantly growing, and revenues on a natural basis continue to go up (likewise the demand for government services goes up.)  To me, it seems, like we have a natural balance here.

So, what irritates me about taxes is once they start, they DO NOT STOP, and they continually get bigger and bigger.  I can remember when sales tax was about 5.5% – so what has that additional 72% increase in sales taxes done for us?  I’m not sure!

The article below talks about a income tax on the ‘wealthy’ of “just” 1%.  Yeah, right – first off – 1% will start to go up, and more importantly, what was “wealthy” today will be tomorrow’s upper middle class!

I guess I can understand the legislature’s predicament – and the need for revenue – but why can’t government plan and “save” money for emergencies?  We had a rainy day fund, but it was a fraction of the billions needed to balance the budget.  We need to change the way we run government in this state and actually build reserves for the times we need it.

Washington State voters – think twice before you open this box – once that “tax bug” escapes there will never be a repeal – and, yes, it will grow in size and scope!

Politics | Key senator working on state income-tax proposal | Seattle Times Newspaper