The funny side, via Billy Connolly. Not entirely in good taste.
Monthly Archives: January 2009
Tax cuts for the wealthy
The GOP is right. We desperately need tax cuts for the wealthy as part of a stimulus plan. Not.
The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million, new IRS data show.
The 17.2 percent tax rate in 2006 was the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 largest taxpayers in 1992, although the richest 400 Americans paid more tax on an inflation-adjusted basis than any year since 2000.
A blow against the nanny state
Legalize now!
The audicity of nope
Crooks & Liars captures a great Colbert piece of advice for the Republicans. Watch the video.
Excerpt of Colbert:
Last night—last night’s party line vote was a great start for the 111th Congress. But these hard times demand an even larger meaningless gesture. That is why I am calling on every Republican who voted against this bill to put no money where your mouth is. Refuse to accept a single penny of the eight hundred billion dollars for your Congressional district.
More circular firing squad
Yesterday, I highlighted the remarks of Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggesting that the GOP needs some change. Sure enough, the wingnuts have rapidly turned on their own. I doubt that even the wingnuts are able to come up with an insult more juvenile than this. RedState sounded the alarm for this always-ready-to-battle verbal assault on an apostate, but the site seems to be down at the moment, so here is the Google cache to the war rally heard round the world (or at least that part of the world that subscribes to RedState”s mailing list), together with their oh-so-clever artwork.
Wonkette aptly captures the boy scout attitude of all this.
Quote of the day
From The Economist, via Andrew Sullivan:
Mr Thiessen has written in to let us know that he certainly does not consider “enhanced interrogation” or the treatment of Abu Zubaydah torture, and we should not have implied as much. ABC News has reported that Mr Zubaydah was “slapped, grabbed, made to stand long hours in a cold cell, and finally handcuffed and strapped feet up to a water board until after 0.31 seconds [sic] he begged for mercy and began to cooperate”. (Mr Kiriakou says it took about 35 seconds.) So, for the record, we want to clarify that Mr Thiessen should not be attributed with the argument that torture is effective because he does not believe that these techniques are torture. The Economist disagrees on that last point.
2009: year of panic
Bruce Sterling, a terrific writer on technology, culture and the intersection of the two, has a new essay in Seed. In it he declares 2009 the year of panic. He identifies 7 areas of potential panic (outside banks and derivitives), any one of which could cause social chaos. Read it and be afraid.
Excerpt:
Science. To be a creationist president is not a problem. A suicide cult is the most effective political actor in the world today. Clearly the millions of people embracing fundamentalism like to make up their own facts.
Standards of scientific proof and evidence no longer compel political and social allegiance. This is not a return to the bedrock of faith — it’s an algorithm for ontological anarchy. By attacking empiricism, the world is discarding all of the good reasons to believe that anything is real.
If science is discredited, why should mere politics have any intellectual rigor? Just cobble together a crazy-quilt mix-and-match ideology, like Venezuelan Bolivarism or Russia’s peculiar mix of spies, oil, and Orthodoxy. Go from the gut — all tactics, no strategy — making up the state of the world as you go along! Stampede wildly from one panic crisis to the next. Believe whatever is whispered. Hide and conceal whatever you can. Spy on the phone calls, emails, and web browsing of those who might actually know something.
If that leads you to a miserable end-state, huddling with the children in a fall-out shelter clutching silver bullion, then you can congratulate yourself as the vanguard of civilization.
And if that doesn’t depres you, take a look at the latest GDP numbers.
Side effects of Google
Google’s various tools have a lot of power, and consequences that are not always immediately apparent. For example, Swiss police, using Google Earth, uncovered a large marijuana plantation.
The plantation, measuring almost two acres (7,500 square meters), was hidden inside a field of corn. But officers using Google Earth to locate the address of two farmers suspected of involvement in the drug operation quickly spotted the illegal crop.
“It was an interesting chance discovery,” said Klossner.
Another, though less law-enforcement related, side effect of Google is this, involving the death of an innocent animal.
Economic data via Mint
Mint is a handly financial measurement/planning tool that allows you to track all your spending, income and investments. You can also compare your spending patters with others nationally or by location. The number of users of Mint is exploding and as a result they now track finances for a full 1% of all American families. TechCrunch has an article from Mint’s CEO that reveals the state of savings and investment of this large group of users and the impact of the economic downturn. It is not as bad as you might think.
Steve Jobs interview: 1985
In honor of the 25th anniversay of the Mac, Playboy has kindly posted an interview with Steve Jobs from their February 1985 issue. It is well worth a read.
“The Apple offices are clearly not like most places of employment. Video games abound, ping-pong tables are in use, speakers blare out music ranging from The Rolling Stones to Windham Hill jazz. Conference rooms are named after Da Vinci and Picasso, and snack-room refrigerators are stocked with fresh carrot, apple and orange juice. (The Mac team alone spends $100,000 on fresh juice per year.)
“I spoke at length with Jobs both at work and on his only two vacations of the year, in Aspen and at a Sonoma health spa, where he was supposed to be relaxing. Unable to relent in his mission to spread the Apple word, he talked with solemn ferocity about the war with IBM—but then would punctuate his enthusiasm for an idea with ’Neat!’ or ’Incredibly great!’
“The Interview was all but complete when I met Jobs at a celebrity-filled birthday party for a youngster in New York City. As the evening progressed, I wandered around to discover that Jobs had gone off with the nine-year-old birthday boy to give him the gift he’d brought from California: a Macintosh computer. As I watched, he showed the boy how to sketch with the machine’s graphics program. Two other party guests wandered into the room and looked over Jobs’s shoulder. ’Hmmm,’ said the first, Andy Warhol. ’What is this? Look at this, Keith. This is incredible!’ The second guest, Keith Haring, the graffiti artist whose work now commands huge prices, went over. Warhol and Haring asked to take a turn at the Mac, and as I walked away, Warhol had just sat down to manipulate the mouse. ’My God!’ he was saying, ’I drew a circle!’
“But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: ’Older people sit down and ask, “What is it?” but the boy asks, “What can I do with it?”’”
Blago thrown out
The Illinois Senate has convicted Rod Blogojevich and thrown him out of office on a vote of 59-0. He was also banned for life from holding public office in Illinois.
The circular firing squad continues (updated)
Statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver analyzes the willingness of Republicans to double down on a bad situation. It is more than the unanimous no vote on the stimulus package in the House. Much more. It seems that the GOP believes somehow, someway, that the election was a fluke and not a repudiation of their view that the solution to every problem is a tax cut skewed to the wealthy.
Most fundamentally of all, the McCain campaign radically overestimated the importance of appealing to the base. House Republicans may be replicating their mistake. Self-described conservative Republicans represent only about 20 percent of the population. This base is not necessarily becoming smaller; it’s still alive and kicking. What is true, however, is that the (1) base has never been sufficient to form a winning electoral coalition, and (2) that there are fewer and fewer non-base (e.g. moderates, libertarian Republicans, Republican leaning-independents). As these moderates have fled the GOP, the party’s electoral fortunes have tanked. But simultaneously, they have had less and less influence on the Republican message.
Update: Even Mitch McConnell, head Republican in the Senate, is looking for change.
After crushing defeats in back-to-back elections, the top Senate Republican warned Thursday that the GOP risks remaining out of power in the White House and Congress unless it better explains its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists.
“The results of the two recent elections are real, and so are the obstacles we face as a party,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the Republican National Committee on Thursday. “My concern is that unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery.”
“The situation is challenging, but it’s far from irreversible,” McConnell added, a dash of optimism in an otherwise stark assessment of where the Republican Party went wrong as he provided a road map for how it can right itself.
Military judge takes on the President (updated)
How strong are the Dems?
Following up on the zero-GOP vote for the stimulus plan in the House yesterday, take a look at this poll from Gallup. There are only seven states where the GOP is ahead of Democrats in committed voters and leaning voters: Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, and Alabama. Together these states represent 2% of the US population.
Why we shouldn't close Gitmo
Filtered through the lens of The Daily Show.