The Truth is Stranger than Gonzo

I Believe in (the End of) Advertising

2011-11-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

I Believe in (the End of) Advertising from Jhave:

OccupyWriters.com piece by Lemony Snicket and hosted by Neil Gaiman

2011-10-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

by Lemony Snicket

Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.

2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.

3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

4. People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.

5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.

6. Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.

7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.

8. Don’t ask yourself if something is fair. Ask someone else—a stranger in the street, for example.

9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, as it is difficult to make oneself heard on the other side of an impressive edifice.

10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.

11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, there might not be room for a safety net if you’re the one tumbling down when it collapses.

13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.

OccupyWriters.com

Neil Gaiman's mirror

"Rick Perry Lurvs Corndogs" from This is... Photobomb!

2011-09-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

"Proposed New Health Insurance Forms Seek To Make Sense Of It All" from the Consumerist

2011-08-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

via the Consumerist:

Proposed New Health Insurance Forms Seek To Make Sense Of It All:

Much about the health insurance business is deliberately byzantine, intended to discourage customers from understanding all the fine details of their policies. But today the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new way of labeling insurance policies that would spell out the costs and benefits of health plans in easy-to-understand language.

"Today, many consumers don't have easy access to information in plain English to help them understand the differences in the coverage and benefits provided by different health plans," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Under the proposed regulations, consumers have access to two forms that will help them understand and evaluate their health insurance choices, including:

*An easy to understand Summary of Benefits and Coverage; and

*A uniform glossary of terms commonly used in health insurance coverage, such as "deductible" and "co-pay."

The forms must be made available to enrollees and potential customers upon request before they buy coverage.

"By making the terms of health insurance plans easier to understand, consumers are less likely to find themselves in health plans that don't meet their needs," said Lynn Quincy, senior health policy analyst for Consumers Union. She says she's "heard too many stories of consumers that purchased a health insurance plan that they didn't understand. Creating this health insurance disclosure will help reduce that confusion much in the same way that recent disclosures for mortgage terms or credit cards have helped to better inform consumers."

To see a PDF of the proposed labels, click here.

Providing Clear and Consistent Information to Consumers about Their Health Insurance Coverage [HealthCare.gov]

"Y U No" from QuickMeme

2011-07-06T04:00:00.001-07:00

Happy Gays: New York Gay Pride Parade

2011-06-28T05:19:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed Josh Gad's report on the Daily Show last night. I'm glad to see that he's still around, and that he's improving:

The Daily Show - Happy Gays - New York Gay Pride Parade
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Also, apparently he's in The Book of Mormon.

"Raw: O'Reilly vs. Stewart Over Common Controversy" from Fox News

2011-05-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Obama / bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

image courtesy of Jay Potts, via Susan Gardner.

Fake Science on "How To Solve The Fossil Fuel Crisis"

2011-04-19T10:24:00.001-07:00

Re: Looking for guys in their 20s

2011-03-07T08:38:00.001-08:00

Hi Tracy,

If you still need some thoughts about this, some of mine are here after a quick introduction:

I'll be 25 on Wednesday, and I got married last July. I graduated college in 2008 with a BS in Cognitive Science. I have since been rejected by graduate schools 10 times and accepted 0. My wife was accepted to graduate school once and rejected once; she ended up dropping out of grad school, but she still makes twice as much money as I do and has an almost infinitely more meaningful job. We're both floundering in ways, going through a "quarter-life crisis" as Hymowitz put it. I'm part of a creative collective, the Bad Mutha Booboisie, but most of my income comes from being a teller, which is less stimulating than second-grade math homework.

I think for the most part, this Hymowithz is on the money. I do think, though, that the "rise of women" and the emergence of "guys" is a spurious relationship brought on more by politcoeconomic factors than by social norms.

If you need some more, please feel free to ask.

Thanks,

Jon Clucas

Sent to you by Johnny Baby via Google Reader:

Looking for guys in their 20s
via Tracy Clark-Flory on 3/2/11

…to share their thoughts on the basic argument in this excerpt from “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys.” E-mail me: tracy @ salon.com.

Things you can do from here:
Subscribe to Tracy Clark-Flory using Google Reader
Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

P ≟ NP, as a joke with Dinosaurs and God

2011-02-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

from Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics, of course. http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1907

The Qu'osby Show

2011-02-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

"The Cosby show . . . cured racism against black people." -Aasif Mandvi

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Allah in the Family

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Good Advice from both Heather Mac Donald and Andrew Sullivan

2011-02-17T16:07:00.000-08:00

"'If Republican-Tea Party rhetoric of fiscal responsibility is mere posturing, a fiscally responsible Democratic plan would force Republicans into the awkward position of arguing against reform that they have paid constant lip service to. But if they truly do mean to rein in entitlement spending, they would (in theory) go along with an Obama proposal to make cuts and would share the political heat. (Of course, Obama himself may not have the slightest interest in cutting the entitlement juggernaut, but still, he has before him a wonderful opportunity to put Republican political rhetoric to the test.)'
This is as plausible as the arguments that it's a political loser for Obama to propose entitlement cuts. Even so, the most compelling reason to put forth a budget that actually addresses the fiscal issues plaguing the United States is that it's the right thing to do. Partisans can always fool themselves into the proposition that public policy is served better in the long run by doing the politically expedient thing in the short term."

"My Son is Gay" follow-up

2011-02-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

Nerdy Apple Bottom continues to be absolutely correct: http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2011/02/03/epilogue/

September 9, 1990

2010-12-09T18:36:00.001-08:00

Some Things. from Tea Party Jesus

2010-11-26T15:42:00.000-08:00

Original: here.

Hi, everybody. My name’s Dave. I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff lately, and I want to talk to you about what I’ve decided.
First, I should tell you a little bit about my life. I’m in my early thirties, born in Illinois, living in North Carolina. I’m married to a seriously amazing woman and we have three kids, a twelve-year-old and twins who just turned three. My wife and I both have retail/service jobs, and even though we both work hard, it always seems like there’s never enough money. We’ve recently finished paying our car off, so that gives us more breathing room, but we still spend so much just to provide a house, food, and electricity for our family that we end up dividing bills into piles: “We need to pay this now” versus “These people can wait a while.”
About a week ago, I had a sudden realization: I’m practically owned by my job. I get up in the morning, I piddle around on the internet until it’s time to go to work, I spend eight hours waiting on strangers (some are fantastic, others have apparently just crawled out of the nearest Morlock cave), I go home and drink or get high and play video games and watch TV until it’s time to go to bed. My entire life is built around trying not to let my job make me crazy. I dress the way they tell me to, show up when they tell me to, say what they tell me to, and I don’t get to do half the things I want to do in my real life because my schedule is tied up with work. That’s a horrible way to live. And now we get to the really insane part:
My life is awesome.
No, seriously. Remember that link I sent you to yesterday? If you’re reading this on a computer, you live better than 99% of the human race. We eat cheap, plentiful food because it’s farmed and harvested by migrant workers, then complain about the same workers trying to take our jobs. We put cheap gas in our cars to drive to our jobs because the teenage children of our poor people are sent to the Middle East to shoot the teenage children of their poor people. We wear cheap clothes and buy cheap furniture for our house because ten-year-olds in China are put to work in factories to make them for us, and there aren’t any laws about how much they have to be paid or how many hours they can be made to work.
Humanity is a pyramid, with the richest few living a life at the top that’s only made possible by the misery of the billions beneath them. And you’re caught between them: you’re comfortable because of the suffering of others, but you’re not really fulfilled because your life is about working to maintain a society where the very richest can do whatever they like.
And our society has evolved (quite unintentionally) to trap you in that life:
For the last half-century, we’ve been working hard to encourage moving to the suburbs, buying a car, and driving to work. In most places in this country, you can’t live without at least one car, which means a loan, insurance, gas, maintenance—thousands of dollars a year.
We’re completely dependent on strangers for our food needs. If our grocery stores disappeared, a lot of us would starve to death.
Health care has become insanely expensive. If you manage to find a job with decent insurance, there’s no way you’re going to leave it. The risk of getting sick or hurt and being ruined financially is just too great.
We have no social safety net. And I’m not talking here about government programs because while it’s great that they’re helping people who need it, they’re not good enough. They’re inefficient and monolithic and slowly but surely being hacked away at because the truth is there’s just not enough money and nobody’s willing to raise taxes. If you lose your job or break your back or your car breaks down or any of a hundred other things happens, you’re screwed. Most of us live one or two paychecks away from disaster. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a position where an extra twenty bucks meant everybody got to eat until payday, but believe me, if you don’t know someone who’s there right now, you know someone who knows someone.
We get stuck. We’re caught in these lives because of fear. Fear of losing our job. Fear of not being able to buy food. Fear of having our car repossessed, which means we lose our job, which means we can’t buy food. We’re ruled by fear because we have no security in our lives.
And fear makes you stupid and selfish. Fear drives you to hoard, to hate, to build walls to keep the Other out. Fear makes you forget that your neighbor is just another human being trying to do his best and transforms him into a lazy, thieving bandit trying to take what’s rightfully yours. Fear makes you watch Glenn Beck/Keith Olbermann tell you that the Democrats/Republicans are monsters out to destroy you and your way of life, when the truth is that most politicians (not all, but most) are mainly interested in being rich and powerful and famous without actually having to work very hard, and will tell you pretty much anything you want to hear to keep their jobs.
We need something better. We need to start helping each other. We need to start working together and taking care of each other. That’s what I want to start doing. Here’s what’s up.
I’m starting a new blog I’m calling Project Neighbor (with a Facebook page for all of us to talk to each other). It’s going to be a place for exploring ways that we can work together, create more security, and live happier, less fearful, more fulfilling lives. I’m not going to ask you to quit your job or move to Montana or, in fact, make any changes in your life that you’re not up to making. I want to experiment with making tiny changes, one at a time. My hypothesis is that enough of us, doing that together, genuinely can make our lives, our countries, and our world better. I’d love it if you all would be willing to help me test that.
Tea Party Jesus isn’t going away (at this point, he feels kind of like that weird, cranky uncle who makes everybody uncomfortable at Thanksgiving dinner, honestly) but I won’t be updating him daily anymore. I’ve decided that immersing myself in as much awful, hateful, ignorant rhetoric as I had to sift through every day just isn’t good for me. It made me a less pleasant person, and I’m not going to do that anymore. You’ll probably see him a couple of times a week from now on.
Some of you are rolling your eyes right now. That’s cool. This might be me being stupid; it really, really might. But I feel like it’s worth exploring. If it’s a dead end, fine. The worst that can happen is we end up helping a few people who need our help. If you’re skeptical, just do me a favor and bookmark the new site. Come back in three months, or six months, or a year. See how it’s going. Re-evaluate it. Never stop taking a second look at things and seeing if maybe you’re wrong about them.
And that includes this thing, by the way, guys. If you think I’m wrong about something, by god, you’d better call me on it. All of us together are so much smarter and stronger and better than any of us are alone. Let’s put that to work.

Required Reading

2010-11-20T03:24:00.000-08:00

"The Shadow Scholar" by Ed Dante from The Chronicle of Higher Education

A taste:

"You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.
I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments."

My son is gay « Nerdy Apple Bottom

2010-11-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love the way this woman wrote this blog post and agree with her entirely.

Check it out: http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/

Film Screening, Dinner, Dessert, Dialogue – and drab carpeting? by Jonathan Balash

2010-10-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Balash, president of Spencer PRIDE, one of the hosts of the film screening I mentioned recently, wrote a longer, more eloquent review of the event (as compared to my review) at The View from Hardwood Hills.

Besides here, his review is also reiterated at Joe Wilson's continuation of Out in the Silence.

Film Screening, Dinner, Dessert, Dialogue – and drab carpeting?

by Jonathan Balash

Sunday night I found myself staring at a patch of bland carpeting in the middle of a crowded room. Around me, people discussed important issues affecting the LGBTQI community – a community to which I and my husband Jacob are proud members. And yet I stared at the floor.

Let me step back for a moment and set the stage for you.

We were at the Presbyterian Church Cornerstone Hall in our small Midwestern town of Spencer, Indiana. Spencer is a rural community with a population of approximately 2500. It is situated in Owen Valley along the west fork of the White River, and sandwiched between miles of soybeans, corn, and fields of livestock. The crowd that filled the large open room had come out to attend White River Valley PFLAG’s Out in the Silence Film Screening and Community Dialogue.

I am the secretary of our PFLAG chapter and the president of Spencer Pride, Inc. Alongside our chapter president Judi Epp and a few core PFLAG members, I had spent a significant amount of time over the past two months planning for the event. We kicked off the evening with a member of the Presbyterian Church who said a short welcome and prayer. Then, Judi and I introduced ourselves, PFLAG, and finally the film itself. After I pressed play and adjusted the volume accordingly, I stood back with other PFLAG members to take in the impressive crowd. We had planned on 25 people attending the event, but we all secretly had hoped for 50 people. I counted more than 50 in attendance and shared a few excited glances with Judi.

But that wasn’t it. The door opened and members of the church’s youth group filed in. Now we were at 55. Wait – again the door opened. 59. 60. 63. And so on, the door kept opening until our crowd reached 77 people! I was beside myself that our community could fill a large room for an event focused on gay and lesbian issues! Young and old, church-goers and secularists, students and teachers, the room filled with diversity. Our members quietly scrambled to add more chairs as each new couple or group entered the lowly lit room where the film was playing.

Quickly we doubled our food order from the local Pizza Hut.

Mary L. Gray speaks to the crowd Sunday evening.

As you may already be aware, Out in the Silence is a critically-acclaimed documentary that focuses on the issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals who live, work, and love in a small rural community in Pennsylvania. Ever since we had been introduced to the film several months ago through an e-mail from our field coordinator, Brooke Smith, our chapter had wanted to hold the film screening and community dialogue. There are so many parallels between the film and our own local community.

The film stirred up a lot of emotion among the attendees. At moments there were tears, while at other times the sound of laughter filled the room. Most of the audience kept their eyes focused on the screen as the various storylines unfolded. I kept pinching myself that we had such a great turnout! Our PFLAG members scrambled to cut ice cream cakes that had been donated by our local Dairy Queen.

The movie ended and after a brief break where we served food and refreshments, the crowd returned to their seats as I introduced Mary L. Gray, a distinguished Indiana University Professor of Communication and Culture and author of the recently published book Out in the Country. Mary’s research about rural LGBTQI youth is well-known to us and we had met her at a previous event. She was also recommended by the filmmakers of Out in the Silence, so we were excited and honored to have her participate in our event. First, Mary laid the ground rules – use “I” statements, respect one another, etc. – then she had us all move our chairs in to a large circle. She then began to facilitate the dialogue.

Dialogue topics ranged from the film itself to teen suicide to religious perspectives on homosexuality. The crowd represented both sides of nearly every topic, with the passions of one person often leading to the unease of another.

Hence the carpeting. And my shoes. I realized how I should have given them a fresh coat of polish before I came to the church.

I am an out – and very outspoken – man. Yet something as simple as talking about an issue so close to my heart can be difficult to do. Quotes from the Bible were read and it was made quite clear by several attendees that surely no good would ever come from my identity as a homosexual man. I know better than to believe these things, of course, but it doesn’t make them any easier to hear.

I was playing a good host, smiling and looking attentively around the room during the conversations that were comfortable to me. Yet the moment that the Bible was quoted, my eyes trailed back to the floor. Was this to hide weakness? Insecurity?

As the dialogue continued, I realized how difficult it must have been for the conservative Christians to attend this event, surrounded by mostly LGBTQI affirming individuals as well as a whole assortment of LGBTQI-identifying people. I admired their bravery at coming to our event. I doubt I would have been willing to do the same had the situation been reversed.

I began to be more conscious of my view, and I started to keep my head up regardless of the topic. It was wonderful to hear so many people who were willing to stand up for their gay sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and friends.

Judi spoke from her heart near the end of the discussion. “Some people – like myself – choose to live the truth. Some people choose to live a lie. And some people can’t choose either. So they can’t live at all. That’s just unacceptable.”

Her words sent a message deep inside of me. As she said them, I looked around the room and saw the nodding heads of a few people who still clenched bibles in their hands. Although all we could agree on was that discrimination and violence toward youth was unacceptable in our community, I knew that would be a great place to start.

It was important for us all to have taken part in the event. For those individuals who were already affirming, it was important for them to see what challenges still exist in our community. For those individuals who were “against the very premise of the event” (direct quote), it was important for them to see that we aren’t just hiding in the shadows. We have supporters. And for those of us who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, it was important to see and understand both of those things.

The discussion ended after 45 minutes when Mary brought it to a close and thanked everyone for coming out to participate. “I was struck by the level of commitment from everyone in the room to continue the conversation, even when it was clear that there was disagreement,” Gray explained to me after the event. “I believe conversations like the one we had tonight bring us one step closer to better supporting LGBT and questioning youth because these discussions help us see the genuine concern we have for each other and our community members. It's inspiring.”

Judi, our chapter president, had the following to say about the dialogue: "Our intention was to start a conversation about being gay or lesbian in the rural Midwest and we certainly did that! The attendees represented a wonderful cross section of the local community and thanks to our facilitator everyone who wanted to speak was given an opportunity to do so.”

Once the dialogue finished the hall began clearing out. Approximately 20 people remained and continued the discussion in smaller groups. My husband Jacob was in one of these groups, being questioned by several conservative Christians that he had known in years past. I had checked on him to make sure that he was ok (which he was) and then I went back to standing near our PFLAG/Spencer Pride informational table answering questions that were posed to us by the departing crowd. Within half an hour the crowd had dwindled to only our members who cleaned up, debriefed, and then went home for a long night’s rest after a fruitful evening that had taken us months to organize.

I reflected on the experience out loud with Jacob on the way home, and then again silently to myself in the time since then.

“We hope this is the beginning of a continuing conversation with this community,” Judi told me today, with determination in her voice. “Our November meeting of the White River Valley PFLAG will be the next opportunity to continue the important conversation that began Sunday night.” The November meeting’s theme will be “Continuing the Conversation: Reflections of Being Lesbian or Gay in A Small Midwestern Town.”

I hope that we have a nice turnout at our meeting now that we’ve gotten good publicity from the film screening. I even hope that a few people show up who were among those bible-quoters from Sunday night’s event. I think we can all learn from one another. At least we have a place to start.

And I promise that I won’t be looking down next month. I’ll be looking forward to the next steps in bridging the gaps within our small community. Spencer doesn’t have a GLBT center or any cute bookstores with gay pride flags flying out front, but it does have people who are willing to communicate with one another about challenging issues.

What more could I ask for?

"New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified" from Blogga Please

2010-09-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

by Bill Maher

New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.

And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn't believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben -- so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn't know Broadway Danny Rose was still working.

Ben whines in his article about how he's worked for every dollar he has -- if by work you mean saying the word "Bueller" in a movie 25 years ago. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest, it's just that at a time when people in America are desperate and you're raking in the bucks promoting some sleazy Free Credit Score dot-com... maybe you shouldn't be asking us for sympathy. Instead, you should be down on your knees thanking God and/or Ronald Reagan that you were lucky enough to be born in a country where a useless schmuck who contributes absolutely nothing to society can somehow manage to find himself in the top marginal tax bracket.

And you're welcome to come on the show anytime.

Now I can hear you out there saying, "Come on Bill, don't be so hard on Ben Stein, he does a lot of voiceover work, and that's hard work." Ok, it's true, Ben is hardly the only rich person these days crying like a baby who's fallen off his bouncy seat. Last week Mayor Bloomberg of New York complained that all his wealthy friends are very upset with mean ol' President Poopy-Pants: He said they all say the same thing: "I knew I was going to have to pay more taxes. But I didn't expect to be vilified." Poor billionaires -- they just can't catch a break.

First off, far from being vilified, we bailed you out -- you mean we were supposed to give you all that money and kiss your ass, too? That's Hollywood you're thinking of. FDR, he knew how to vilify; this guy, not so much. And second, you should have been vilified -- because you're the vill-ains! I'm sure a lot of you are very nice people. And I'm sure a lot of you are jerks. In other words, you're people. But you are the villains. Who do you think outsourced all the jobs, destroyed the unions, and replaced workers with desperate immigrants and teenagers in China. Joe the Plumber?

And right now, while we run trillion dollar deficits, Republicans are holding America hostage to the cause of preserving the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 1% of people, many of them dead. They say that we need to keep taxes on the rich low because they're the job creators. They're not. They're much more likely to save money through mergers and outsourcing and cheap immigrant labor, and pass the unemployment along to you.

Americans think rich people must be brilliant; no -- just ruthless. Meg Whitman is running for Governor out here, and her claim to fame is, she started e-Bay. Yes, Meg tapped into the Zeitgeist, the zeitgeist being the desperate need of millions of Americans to scrape a few dollars together by selling the useless crap in their garage. What is e-Bay but a big cyber lawn sale that you can visit without putting your clothes on?

Another of my favorites, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, "I don't know where they're going to get all this money, because we're running out of rich people in this country." Actually, we have more billionaires here in the U.S. than all the other countries in the top ten combined, and their wealth grew 27% in the last year. Did yours? Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit. Here's the truth: When you raise taxes slightly on the wealthy, it obviously doesn't destroy the economy -- we know this, because we just did it -- remember the '90's? It wasn't that long ago. You were probably listening to grunge music, or dabbling in witchcraft. Clinton moved the top marginal rate from 36 to 39% -- and far from tanking, the economy did so well he had time to get his dick washed.

Even 39% isn't high by historical standards. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91%. Under Nixon, it was 70%. Obama just wants to kick it back to 39 -- just three more points for the very rich. Not back to 91, or 70. Three points. And they go insane. Steve Forbes said that Obama, quote "believes from his inner core that people... above a certain income have more than they should have and that many probably have gotten it from ill-gotten ways." Which they have. Steve Forbes, of course, came by his fortune honestly: he inherited it from his gay egg-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor fag-hagging father, who inherited it from his father. Of course then they moan about the inheritance tax, how the government took 55% percent when Daddy died -- which means you still got 45% for doing nothing more than starting out life as your father's pecker-snot.

We don't hate rich people, but have a little humility about how you got it and stop complaining. Maybe the worst whiner of all: Stephen Schwarzman, #69 on Forbes' list of richest Americans, compared Obama's tax hike to "when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Wow. If Obama were Hitler, Mr. Schwarzman, I think your tax rate would be the least of your worries.

Get the scientists working on the tube technology, immediately. Chop, chop, let's go.

2010-09-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Obama Seeking $50 Billion For Infrastructure

Finally! The second decree: no more pollution, no more car exhaust,
or ocean dumpage. From now on, we will travel in tubes!

Kickstarter

2010-08-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

I first heard of Kickstarter when I saw an ad for Pioneer One on The Pirate Bay.

I was intrigued and amazed by the idea. The Kickstarter model works much like traditional investing, except the risk is monumentally less. Each project on Kickstarter has a listed goal and a deadline. Backers pledge their funding in exchange for guaranteed rewards, which the backers will receive if the project reaches its funding goal by its funding deadline. If not, the backers do not pay their pledges and no one is obligated to anyone else.

At the moment, The Adventures of Hero has a Kickstarter drive running to publish the third volume of the trade paperback. Check it out, check out Kickstarter, and help some cool projects get off the ground!

Neutered Arizona Immigration Law, Immigrants in Continued Mexican Standoff

2010-07-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

by David Wolinsky from Indecision Forever

Even though the Arizona immigration law's most controversial parts were found unconstitutional yesterday in a temporary injunction by Federal Judge Susan Bolton, the "less contentious" parts of the law are in effect today. Other states like Utah are expected to adopt the tweaked version of the law, but neither side of the dust-up in Arizona is backing down.

University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach, who not only helped write the law but has worked to train Arizona police officers in immigration law, presumably clad in an American flag sweatshirt and matching bandana, was quoted as saying…

"It's a temporary setback. The bottom line is that every lawyer in Judge Bolton's court knows this is just the first pitch in a very long baseball game."

Interesting choice of words. And who on the Arizona Diamondbacks will be throwing out that pitch? Could it be Esmerling Vásquez or Jordan Noberto from the Dominican Republic? Or maybe Juan Gutiérrez from Venezuela?

And what about all the American pitchers who won't get the chance to throw out that first pitch because it's being thrown out by one these immigrants who're willing to throw it out earlier, faster, harder and for less money?

I was a writer for 3 years, then I pretty much gave it up. . . . How do I get my spark back?

2010-07-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Sara Benincasa suggests:

Thankfully, I made a chapter delivery schedule with my editor, so I know I have a deadline. Maybe you need a deadline, too, even if it’s for your own blog.

I diagree.
Dear Writer-for-3-Years,
You definitely need a deadline. That's the only way most things ever find their way onto Fear Goggles.

USA Type-B

2010-07-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

Scott Adams proposes sub-countries. They sound like states within the US, except starting from the ground up.

If one of these gets started for real, let me know and count me in.