Good morning, everybody. Hugh Hefner has saved the famous Hollywood sign. Now, your morning constitutional: Senate Republicans blocked the opening of debate for the financial reform package on a 57-41 vote (with 60 needed for cloture). Sen. Ben Nelson voted against cloture, while Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote to “no” (to allow him to bring the bill for another vote), while Republican Sens. Kit Bond and Bob Bennett did not vote. Chaos erupts in the Ukrainian parliament as the chamber extends the lease on a Russian naval base in Ukraine. The provisional government in Kyrgyzstan...
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Tax rates, visualized
From Weather Sealed, a chart showing marginal tax rates from 1910 to the present. To illustrate, Weather Sealed’s infographic team charted the historical U.S. income tax brackets for singles, adjusted for inflation, from 1910 to present. The colors indicate the marginal tax rate: black for low, red in the middle, and yellow for high. The horizontal axis is the tax year, and the vertical represents taxable income, log-scale, normalized to 2010 dollars with the Bureau Of Labor Statistics’ monthly CPI-U figures. The bracket data comes from The Tax Foundation and the IRS, and the effects of Social Security,...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 26 April 2010
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Fries” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Ross “Do That Thing” Douthat, who writes in his column “Not Even in South Park?”...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 26 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. Lindsay’s been dropped from an upcoming movie because she isn’t “bankable.” The Washington Nationals for the first time since 2005 have an over-.500 record, while the Boston Red Sox are way below that mark. Now, your morning constitutional: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled a vote on financial reform Monday afternoon; Republicans want to wait. Amid complaints of corruption, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has been declared the winner of Sudan’s first multi-party election in 24 years. Al-Bashir also faces charges in the International Criminal for war crimes in Darfur. Austrian President Heinz Fischer, a...
Continue reading...Doctor Who, "The Beast Below"
Amy: So there are other Time Lords, yeah? Doctor: No. There were, but there aren’t… Just me now. Long story. It was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what, I’d love to forget it all, every last bit of it. But I don’t. Not ever. We got a strong introduction to both the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond last week, and this week we got to see more of the Doctor from Amy’s point of view. By now, the audience basically knows the Doctor’s history, and we see bits of Eleven’s personality taking over...
Continue reading...Your Weekend Roundup
So, there were a flood of posts this afternoon, many of them rapidly descending down the page without being given the spot of honor at the top that they deserved. There was some great writing that went on and it would be a shame if anyone missed it. It only seems proper and fitting that they be collected here briefly, so you might see what you missed and peruse it at your leisure this weekend. Lady Blaga brought the insight on President Obama’s likely nominee to fill John Paul Stevens’ Associate Justice spot on the Supreme Court,...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 23 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. Not sure how this happened, but Helen Mirren and Russell Brand will be in the same movie. Now, here’s your morning constitutional: After an oil rig exploded and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities have started worrying about the environmental impact of the incident. Unsurprisingly, newly-minted Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has ruled out running for president in 2012. Only slightly more surprisingly, he endorses Mitt Romney. NATO has endorsed a plan that will set in motion the phased withdrawal of NATO troops from combat roles in the war in Afghanistan and hand over...
Continue reading...It's all about the Benjamins, baby
So, the new $100 bill unveiled by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, is pretty baller. Heck, it’s basically the Avatar of money, what with the spankin’-new 3-D features. Other thing that is awesome: The website for the Bureau is moneyfactory.gov. In other dollar news, according to a recent Marist poll, a substantial majority—79%—think it’s a bad idea to change the face on the $50 bill from Presidents Grant to Reagan. I’ll just point out: This means more people think Obama is a secret Muslim Socialist Nazi Pig-dog than think Pres. Reagan should be on money.
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 22 April 2010
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s from NYTCLOTD factory Gail “The Colander” Collins. In “Dance of...
Continue reading...Meet the next Senator from Nevada and learn about her Chickens for Health Care initiative
Sue Lowden, one of the Republican candidates for the Nevada Senate seat currently held by Sen. Reid, currently holds a substantial advantage in polling, and will likely become the next senator from the Silver State. And, she has quite a novel approach to health care reform. Namely, she wants to take health care back to the “good old days,” when our forebears bartered or haggled for care. Here’s what she said: Let’s change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I’m telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care,...
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