Taxes Versus Charity

I was listening to NPR coverage of the US Republican convention, while playing Civilization V. In a speech by Mike Huckabee he contrasted Obama's and Romney's charitable giving. In Huckabee's numbers Obama gave 2% versus Romney's 16%. Admittedly in the tax returns that Romney released showed he pay taxes at a rate of 15%. More of Obama's income is "earned" than Romney. However the idea to replace public sources of welfare with private sources of charity is a nonstarter. It has already been tried in the 18th and 19th century, read Dickens et al. 

Pet Peeve: the Times versus The Times.

This is a major annoyance of mine. There is an actual difference between the Times and The Times and the London Times. There is no newspaper named the The London Times. There Is the The Times which because of its reputation has spawned numerous copycats/tributes. There is The India Times, The Irish Times , The Strait Times, The Los Angeles Times and of course The New York Times. It has been the practice of people writing from New York to abbreviate The New York Times to the Times this then entails the describing The Times as the London Times. I find this very annoying. It makes a lot of historical research difficult and cumbersome.