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 of Peach” 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 David \”Yawny-Pants\” Brooks, who writes in his column \”The Goldman Drama,\” comparing the characters...
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Tim Wise: "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black"
(Got from Ghost, but since he\’s at work or the bar or something, I\’m stealing it.) Tim Wise nails it: Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters – the black protesters – spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester – these black protesters with...
Continue reading...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
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...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...Diane Wood
As the de facto left-wing short-list candidate for Justice Stevens’ seat on the Supreme Court, Diane Wood has already drawn lots of ire on the right for her supposedly radical views, especially on abortion. Several articles this week make a strong case for Judge Wood– nothing that would persuade right-wingers, of course, but it’s good to see these articulate defenses. On Monday, Glenn Greenwald wrote a lengthy piece on Judge Wood’s record, calling her “a superior alternative” for the seat. He starts with the following analogy, calling attention to the fact that Judge Wood is not actually...
Continue reading...SEC Employees Fiddle With Themselves As Wall St. Burns
An internal audit of SEC employee computer use has uncovered some staggering details about exactly what employees and contractors were doing with their time and their laptops. The results: “During the past five years, the SEC OIG (Office of Inspector General) substantiated that 33 SEC employees and or contractors violated Commission rules and policies, as well as the government-wide Standards of Ethical Conduct, by viewing pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images using government computer resources and official time,” said a summary of the investigation by the inspector general’s office. The aerial view presented in the above...
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
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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