“Malice scorned, puts out itself; but argued, give a kind of credit to a false accusation.”
–Philip Massinger
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Congress Really Is As Bad As You Think, Scholars Say
USA Today posted an article examining the latest GOP terrorist tactic to prevent the government from, well, governing:
Even some conservatives think this is a bad idea:
So once again, the GOP declares nuclear war on the US, but if ever the Dems dare attempt anything that might possibly slow down adoption of the GOP’s radical right-wing agenda, they’ll go screaming “Waah, waah, waah!”
Scott Gessler is just getting started, to name one example.
It provides literally not one bit of evidence for its premise. Understandable, I guess, since if anyone actually talked about why Congress isn’t doing anything, we’d have to find someone responsible, and blaming both sides exactly equally is much easier.
You could write this article the exact same way if you had no idea what a Congress actually was or did.
Vladimir Putin’s world is falling apart
GoDaddy: A glimpse of the Internet under SOPA
SOPA will pretty much end most widespread SAAS services like Salesforce.com because there will be at least one of their customers who violate it. And when they do, we all are shut off as their IP addresses are cut off.
http://www.philly.com/philly/v…
Time to end the war on drugs
So why do we continue to spend lots of money criminalizing drugs when the more effective approach, would also cost us a lot less?
Did you know that your tax bill will be $800 higher in 2011, even if you made the exact same income? That’s because the Making Work Pay credit didn’t exist in 2011.
Background: For 2009 and 2010, the Making Work Pay (MWP) credit was a $800 deduction from taxes for joint filers ($400 for singles) who made less than $190,000 ($95,000 for singles). Congratulations to you if you even knew it existed because it only showed up as an obscure line item on your Form 1040. So, for the past two years, most joint filers paid $800 less in federal income taxes without even knowing it.
Well, that doesn’t exist in 2011 because the credit expired without a whimper. Now, that hit to the middle/lower classes was tempered by the 2% payroll tax cut in 2011. A family with $50,000 W-2 income saved $1,040 in taxes in $20/week increases in their paychecks.
Here’s the kicker: Those families have already spent that tax break. When they prepare their 2011 Form 1040 they’ll realize that maybe they should have saved $800 of that payroll tax break to pay for the elimination of the WPT credit. Oops.
As obscure as this credit was, watch for this to become an issue in 2012 as more people learn the dirty truth about their 2011 taxes and scramble to pay the extra $800 for their 2011 federal income taxes.
Discuss.
Gee, I’m shocked…
What would be interesting is for the Dems to propose continuing this, paying for it with a surtax on millionaires. That would force the Repubs to come out and say tax breaks for the rich, but not the middle class.
If Congress doesn’t act by Jan. 14, the next debt ceiling increase will take place automatically. Where’s all the GOP hysteria this time around? Suddenly they don’t think it’s such a big dealanymore? After all that fuss?
…in my quest to read too much stuff on the interwebz, I discovered this blog doing some research on North Korea:
http://wartard.blogspot.com/
I have no idea who this guy is, but his analysis is spot-on and I like his gonzo style of writing.
I think the thing is that there is a difference between crazy as in personally eccentric and crazy as in divorced from reality in a way that makes it impossible to function without a keeper.
Kim Jong Il may have had plenty of the first kind of crazy but the crazy as a fox analysis seems accurate for a “crazy” dictator who managed to maintain complete control internally and manage external affairs in such away as to survive to be removed from power only by natural causes. Few dictators, crazy or sane, are fairing so well these days.
that the Colorado Board of Education voted (4 – 3) to join the State in the appeal of Lobato.
Do you think it’s possible that they understand the kind of electrical blow back public education will face if the State has to eliminate a large portion of its vital services?
(and, I do think education deserves much more funding, but just like at the federal level, it’s going to require additional revenue and new sources. Cutting alone won’t get it; you can only cut so many trotters off any one pig . . . )
You might be trying to impart reason to a purely political decision.
Not found in the US mainstream media:
http://news.msn.co.nz/worldnew…
merely modern orthodox little girls so they can go to school without being harrassed by ultra-orthodox bullies in Israel.
is one of the major under-reported stories in US media. Why?
Because of the loony proportional representation system in Israel, the fringe religious right parties have to be appeased in order for anyone to form a governing majority but this has really captured the overwhelmingly secular majority’s attention. These religious fanatics don’t just demand hair and neck to ankle cover. They demand that buses in their neighborhoods segregate the sexes and they are even putting up signs demanding the sidewalks be segregated. They stone cars that drive through on Shabbat.
They’re a small minority who have been considered a pain in the ass, like the neighborhood grump who yells at the kids to get off the lawn, in the past but the 90% of ordinary, almost entirely secular Israelis are finally waking up to the fact that pandering to them because they are needed to form majority coalitions has gotten completely out of hand.
American immigrants who consider themselves modern Orthodox Jews and move to these areas soon find out they aren’t anywhere near orthodox enough for these folks. They have exactly the same attitude as the morality police of Iran who terrorize women for allowing a strand of hair to escape their head coverings.
They are as incompatible with a democratic Jewish state as is the insistence, also rejected by the Israeli majority, of a single state solution. And where they get this stuff is a beyond me. As patriarchal as the Torah may be, there’s nothing in it that approaches what these lunatics insist upon. It’s crazy and disgusting.
http://articles.timesofindia.i…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Sad, crazy, and disgusting doesn’t begin to describe this. Does God weep?
that no major contribution to advancing the general welfare in the realms of science, medicine, technology, the arts, government or anything else has ever come from the ultra orthodox equivalent of any religion, certainly not from those wings of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim religions. These groups all represent the worst of mankind’s impulse toward the spiritual with their emphasis on fear of intellectual curiosity, intolerance, dim, joyless view of humanity and insistence on punitive coersion.
Isn’t it considered work to pick up a stone and throw it at a car?
To assault someone you disagree with.
He’s going to try and bring In-N-Out Burger to Colorado. If he pulls this off he’s got my vote (which doesn’t help much as I don’t live in Denver).
In-N-Out Burger was on it.
and less in favor of fast food joints with religious fervor. My $ will not go to Chick-fil-a or In-N-Out
We’ve got locally originated Smashburger and Larkburger as well as Five Guys – why do we need an In-N-Out Burger place?
bringing religion to the exit ramp near you
In-N-Out and Five Guys both make terrific burgers (and Smashburger is really good). But they’re all different and variety is the spice of life.
As to a company’s owner’s religion – I figure that’s their business, not mine. Would you boycott a business because the owner is Muslim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…
And I really don’t see this as a big deal. Definitely not a reason to boycott a company. There’s a store in Boulder that gave over half their floor space to the Obama campaign in the last month of the ’08 election – should Republicans boycott it?
And if you think none of them did, you’re delusional.
This is just another part of the capitalist system as it’s envisioned to work by the Republicans – if you don’t like what a company is doing, either product-wise or socially, you’re supposed to boycott it and even protest it – as publicly as possible, really, since the acceptable capitalist way to change a company’s actions is to threaten their business model.
that is OK. Everyone isn’t going to boycott In-N-Out, chik-Fil-A and Walmart. I am
I refuse to support an organization if some of my money (times lots of other peoples’ money) will be going to opposing causes that I believe in. Similarly, I don’t shop at Walmart.
There are plenty of places to spend my money – why shouldn’t I spend it somewhere that agrees with me more than just on my taste buds?
But that’s different from boycotting a business because of religion. Last I checked I was a Christian, and in addition to the two examples above I’m generally turned off by any store that sticks a Jesus Fish on the store window or by the register. I’d rather not shop at anywhere that promotes shopping by religious affiliation.
Although this does give me a suggestion for a new chick-fil-a line . . . How about the new “Jesus (or Tebow) Fish Manwich”? — two perfectly deep-fried fishes on five loaves of bread — “. . . enough to feed your hungry multitude right through the end of the fourth quarter . . .”
because they brag about it
and they can’t even play football, making a hamburger is not enough “redeeming grace”
I tried one in Orem, UT over the summer. If your competition is strictly fast food, it’s a contender, but if you want a GOOD burger, keep looking.
Larkburger and Smashburger are both a lot better.
Not many burger houses can.
In the olden days, I always knew where my bass player was. He was tripping on acid and at White Castle. Whenever he didn’t show up for rehearsal, we’d send someone to go get him.
I don’t know a thing about In-N-Out. But when I used to work all night at an ice rink, I could always rely on the cops to bring me a sack of White Castle burgers at midnight. Can In-N-Out touch that for product loyalty?
I ate at Chick-fil-a once. Too salty. I don’t care what they believe.
I don’t go east very often. It’s been 15 or so years since my last trip beyond Chicago, and either I never saw one or I didn’t keep an eye out. (Come to think of it, it’s been a while since the last time I really spent time in that city – flown there a few time to visit my wife’s family, but they’re well out of the city.)
I do plan to check them out if I ever chance upon one. We’re going to New England in the summer, if all goes well – are they up there?
When I left Jersey, burgers were 18 cents.
Stop and think what that bought even 35 years ago.
lousy example of a food like product
But oh, the atmosphere…
and the clientele that required a regular police patrol? That’s what I remember of White Castle. (Clifton, at about 2:30am when I got out of work…)
Cheap and open all night.
It leads to a certain interesting clientele.
I used to patronize the one on Bloomfield Avenue on the Montclair/Verona border. It has since been torn down and replaced with a car dealership, the bastards!
The cops used to get a sack of burgers for me (“Buy ’em by the sack!”) when they did their midnight patrol of the parking lot.
Hard to beat a dozen burgers and a coke for about $2.50.
I just take my stand and not spend my money in certain businesses. Sometimes I let them know why their corporate policies, or their product, offends me, sometimes not.
Religious fervor almost always drives me away, politics not so much. The Home Depot can give all they want to Republican causes; I’ll be back. But when Lowe’s goes crazy about Muslims–b’bye.
About burger joints: It’s not the burger, it’s the fries. And no fast food joint does either like a good griller at a regular diner.
From the little I’ve seen, they’re tanned, fit and ready! Great energy, defense, and teamwork. Great passing.
Go Nuggets!
and I happily admit I was totally wrong about Nene! In this new atmosphere with everybody sharing the ball and making plays instead of catering to Carmelo, he’s been spectacular. And Miller and Lawson together…wow! And Harrington! Gallo! The entire team chemistry is fantastic. Even garbage time, most of the fourth quarter in both games so far, looks pretty damn good. The assists! The steals! The fast breaks! The completely unselfish play! Miller’s a court genius and Fernando is whip smart. Great addition. Can’t think of a single player, no matter how far down the bench, I don’t like.
I know the Mavs are struggling and Utah is not at all what it was so we haven’t seen them play an elite team on its game yet but these Nuggets are going to be joy to root for. It’s like getting rid of Carmelo got everybody out from under a cloud.