darkoshi: (Default)
Presidential Election Campaign Fund: This fund helps pay for Presidential election campaigns. The fund reduces candidates' dependence on large contributions from individuals and groups and places candidates on an equal financial footing in the general election. ... If you want $3 to go to this fund, check the box. If you are filing a joint return, your spouse can also have $3 go to the fund. If you check a box, your tax or refund won't change.

In the past, I always checked the box.

This year though, the description paragraph includes a new blurb:
The fund also helps pay for pediatric medical research.

So I did a search. Interesting details about the fund here.
In the past, the fund also helped pay for political conventions, which I hadn't been aware of. In 2014, a bill was passed to stop funding the conventions and instead use that part of the fund for pediatric medical research.

It doesn't make sense to me though, to set aside part of a presidential election campaign fund for medical research. If the government wants to fund medical research, then they should do so on its own merit. So this is the first year I've decided *not* to check the box. Even though it's making me feel slightly guilty. But there's also the issue that I don't like to give money for medical research unless I know it's not being used for animal experimentation. So there.

I was in the minority in checking the box to begin with, as last year only 5.4% of returns had it checked. Apparently candidates aren't making much use of the available funds anymore either, due to the restrictions that accepting the money entails.

.

I planned to use the freefilefillableforms website to submit my data, like in the past years.

The Minimum Computer Requirements page recommends you use Chrome, IE 11, or Firefox 26. It says not to use Firefox 43. My Firefox is 45, which isn't mentioned. I don't like Chrome, so I decided to use IE to be on the safe side.

First I got prompted to update my Shockwave, so I did.

Then on the first page, I started filling in the fields to set up a new account. Every 4th or 5th character I typed didn't show up. It was only a problem in IE, not in my other windows. Considering that I was going to have to type in a bunch of numbers, and I didn't want to have to triple-check and retype everything I entered, I decided to just mail in the paper forms instead. This year, I do have the envelopes for doing that, hah!

(no subject)

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 01:28 pm
darkoshi: (Default)
This vegan ice cream line (Wheeler's Black Label) has a lot of flavors. I wonder where it is sold.

The Scientific American website has a lot of interesting articles. I seem to remember reading some of their magazines when I was a kid. I might have had a subscription for a while; I can't quite recall. I do remember the National Geographic subscriptions my dad paid for, as well as a subscription to an astronomy magazine which I believe I signed up for myself. I bought StarLog magazines at bookstores.

I find myself uncomfortable when I read a scientific article and am finding it interesting, and then it mentions animal experiments being done or having been done, as part of the research. I am against animal experimentation when it involves forced confinement, mutilation, induced illness and/or death. If it's not right to do certain kinds of research on humans, I feel it isn't right to do it on animals either. Yet I do find some of the results of such experiments fascinating... or rather they seem fascinating before I realize what was involved in gleaning the information; afterwards it merely seems interesting. I'm not against learning things and improving the human condition, but personally I feel we could be doing research and learning without treating animals as our disposable test subjects. We might not learn as much as quickly, using alternative research methods, but I think we would still continue learning.

It's one of those subjects there is no easy solution to. Some people will always, and perhaps rightly so, give human interests priority over other being's interests. Like, would it be right to deny humans access to certain places such as wildlife habitats, if they require it for their own subsistence, even if it ends up resulting in certain species or groups of animals dying out? In some cases, it is us versus them; there is no way of having every being on the planet thrive without having other beings suffer and die. In fact, even being vegan, much of my current existence - the products I buy, the things I use, the places I go - has probably in some way or other come at the expense of other beings' welfare.

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