Entwistle's trial on track for June

The trial of Neil Entwistle is still scheduled to begin on June 2 and is expected to last about 3 weeks, it was announced at a hearing this morning in Middlesex Superior Court. Up to 150 jurors will take part in the jury selection process. Entwistle was not present at today's hearing.

By the way, this is the last day the Superior Court will conduct business in the Cambridge courthouse where it is now located. Over the weekend, the court will move to its new home in Woburn so that the Cambridge building can be renovated. I wonder where they'll keep all the inmates (including Entwistle) who are now staying atop the Cambridge courthouse. They'll probably move them this weekend, but I bet they want to keep Entwistle's transportation plans a secret...

Source:
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-97EAtqx-x88fZ-KnqhdK0hP4XA

Ron Paul for VP

I just had an idea: McCain should pick Ron Paul as his running mate! Paul is the only Republican who hasn't dropped out of the race, so I guess he's the runner-up, of sorts. That would be a great ticket! I know a lot of conservatives consider McCain too liberal, so adding a libertarian-leaning conservative might make the ticket more appealing to a lot of voters. If not, then it would certainly be interesting...

McCain is the winner

It looks like John McCain is definitely the Republican nominee. He won all 4 primaries today, exceeding the 1191 delegates needed, and Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race. Ron Paul didn't, though, good for him! Haha, I know he has no chance to win, but he's definitely my favorite. He didn't do too bad today, either (at least not for him).

Sources:
McCain clinches GOP nomination, CNN projects
CNN Election Center 2008 (Ron Paul)

The problem with the sales tax

In general, I think the sales tax is one of the fairest kinds of taxes. Everyone pays the same percentage of what they buy, unlike with the income tax, which punishes wealthier people by making them pay a higher percentage of their income. There is one big problem with the sales tax, however: stores don't include it in their prices.

The other day I was buying some notebooks in a store, and the total, with the sales tax, came to $11.96. I had two tens, a one, and 90 cents in change. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed to have to break another ten for just six cents. It's not right that stores expect people to add up the prices of every item they're buying and then multiply it by 1.05 (the sales tax in my state is 5%) in their heads. It's not a huge problem for people who pay with credit or debit cards, since it doesn't really matter what the exact total comes to. But when people pay with cash, it can be very important to know ahead of time the exact amount you'll have to pay. What if I hadn't had that extra ten?

Yes, it would be a little more work for stores to include the tax in their prices, but it would not hurt stores as much as the lack of it hurts consumers. Store employees already have to calculate the sales tax; they just do it after the customer has come to the register to make a purchase, not before. It's perfectly reasonable to expect stores to label their products with the real prices.