Tennessee’s Crack Tax Sticker

Leave it to Tennessee to have one of the sneakiest, and some say unconstitutional, ways to make money off of illegal drugs.

Seems that all illegal drugs in the state of Tennessee are required to have an unauthorized substances tax stamp. A person with over a gram of an illegal substance must purchase (anonymously, of course) stamps in person at the Department of Revenue. Here’s a description of Who is required to pay the tax from the State of Tennessee website:

The tax is due by any dealer who possesses an unauthorized substance upon which the tax has not been paid as evidenced by a stamp available from the Tennessee Department of Revenue. A "dealer" is any person who possesses one or more marijuana plants or more than 42.5 grams of marijuana, seven or more grams of any other unauthorized substance that is sold by weight, 10 or more dosage units of any other unauthorized substance not sold by weight, or any illicit alcoholic beverage.

Tennessee makes the most money from illegal drug seizures without the stamp. Since the tax was enacted in 2004, no seizures made have had the stamp affixed, meaning the State then taxes the offender at up to 10 times the amount of the stamp cost. That’s where the legality of the tax comes into question. Read the fill story over at Time.com.

The following article on Geek Idiot (5 Reasons Why the PS3 Isn’t Selling) really caught my attention. This past weekend, I had an old Nintendo NES out checking cartridges and cleaning it up. Carter was fascinated by the old Zapper light-gun and was playing with them.

I popped in Wild Gunman and he immediately started playing. Now, he didn't make it far, but he was having a blast. I took the Zapper and started playing and he picked up the spare (which was not plugged in) and started playing with me. Just a few minutes later, Jill's dad showed up and he and Carter started playing and kept on playing for a while. Never in a million years would I imagine him playing a video game, but here he was playing the game, because it was with his grandson (and he was having fun, too).

So, reason #1 really made sense to me and I think it explains why the Wii has been such a big hit this past holiday season.

Families want to play together. Gaming has become a national past time in many households, but unfortunately many families also feel a disconnect because of gaming. Kids usually lock themselves in their rooms to play the latest games while parents wonder how they can spend more time with the kids. I’ve heard of parents trying to get into gaming, but there is such a strong disconnect between hardcore games and casual games that often times they simply give up. Enter the Nintendo Wii. When Nintendo made it known that they were targeting casual gamers this also meant people who never really got into gaming because it didn’t appeal to them. Seeing how Nintendo Sports works and its hard for any parent to pass it up thinking of how great it would be to finally play a game that the whole family can get involved in. Instead of creating a next-gen console, Nintendo has created the new dinner table for the 21st century… Read the full article