39 posts tagged “twbb”

Dear America,
I don't claim to be an expert in economics, but I'm certainly impressed by the generic understanding of supply and demand that you have exhibited as you've watched the gas prices rise over the last couple years.  According to the Federal Highway Administration, you are driving less these days - presumably because you're fed up with paying high prices for gas.  Given this reality, it's likely that this has led to more stability when it comes to the price of crude oil on the market.  This, I assume, has contributed to the gradually dropping prices that we are paying at the pump.

The joy of a (relatively) free economy, like the one you are currently a part of, is that the consumer always has the final say in whether the economy fails or succeeds.  If you don't like the price of something, you simply stop purchasing it or, in this case, limit your purchasing.  This will force the producers to limit the prices that they apply to their products and, ultimately, both parties will benefit from a competitive market in which reasonable prices for quality products becomes the standard.

However, this slight deviation from your normal ignorance of the inner workings of our economy appears to have faltered in the realm of politics.

Currently, John McCain is desperately pushing his plan to expand drilling for oil off of the American coastlines.  Inherently, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a potential future where we produce more of our gasoline locally.  That, though, won't do much to alter gas prices - especially in the near future.  According to just about everyone who seems to understand the gasoline-production process, any expansion in our local drilling would take several years to impact us directly, if at all.  McCain's attempt to impress you with his deep understanding of your day-to-day struggle to fill up your gas tank at a reasonable price is certainly an attempt to pander to you for your vote.  Please don't encourage this sort of thing, as you appear to know better than that - remember, supply and demand is the name of the game.

McCain, though, isn't the only politician trying to pull the wool over your eyes.  His opponent, Barack Obama, is now pushing his plan to institute something called a 'windfall profits' tax on the oil companies.  Now, being the good economists that you've demonstrated yourselves to be, you obviously know the difference between regular 'profits' and something called a 'profit margin.'  You are also aware, of course, of the fact that the profit margins for our major oil companies remains at a steady 8% - 10% rate.

This means that our oil companies, who are the only producers available to us for gasoline, would be staring down the barrel of a serious cut into that significantly light profit margin rate in order to pay for Obama's attempt to pander to you.

Now, I'm not trying to tell you who you should vote for because, frankly, I'm not impressed with either plan.  But I did want to address the fact that you are apparently aware (or should be) that the best way to deal with high gas prices is through limiting your use of it.  Congratulations.  Perhaps soon you'll come around to the fact that income taxes are the ultimate in modern techniques of federal enslavement.

Best of luck in November,
W.

As New Hampshire ends its primary election counts this evening, I remain completely uncertain about who I'm going to end up supporting in the 2008 election.  Call me indecisive, but the whole lot of the current candidates don't strike me as anything special.  Nor do they inspire me to much more than a general fear about the future of American politics and policy.

To that end, I think I'm going to start analyzing those that I see as the main candidates facing party nominations on a one-by-one basis until I can come up with some kind of decision.  Lucky for me, I don't think that the nominations are going to be that clear until after the February 5th 'Super Tuesday' election coming up.  That seems like plenty of time to start weeding out the politicians that I don't like.

First, a brief introduction to the three most important issues facing America, in this order:

1. Illegal Immigration
2. War in Iraq (War on Terror)
3. Shrinking the Federal Government
   

Then there's the War in Iraq (and the War on Terror, as a whole).  Whether you like it or not, we're in Iraq right now.  Pulling out all of our troops tomorrow doesn't do anyone any good, and just about everyone in their right mind knows it.  So what to do about it?  Start setting deadlines on the Iraqi government when it comes to American financial support and slowly start settling in as a long-term military force.  If the Iraqi government fails to meet their deadlines, the money may dry up, but we need to remain there.  Let the country go to hell on its own if they can't lead themselves, but an American military presence there, acting as a deterrent for potential Husseins in the future, is essential.  End of story.

Originally, I thought about including civil liberties and whatnot into the third portion of the list, but then settled on shrinking the federal government, instead.  The reason for this is because all of the people running around and screaming about their precious civil liberties don't seem to realize that the slow constriction of civil liberties is inevitable when you have trained your government to grow at an exceptional rate.  A government that's been handed control over things like retirement planning and health care likely won't see a reason why it shouldn't begin meddling in how/when you get on a plane to fly.  The American public has been conditioning our government to spend more and more money while taking over more and more control for far too long.  It's time that we started to shrink the beast down to a more manageable size.

So, there you have it - the three most important topics up for grabs when it comes to my selection for president.  It's not that I don't care about things like abortion and gay rights, but these three things are obviously far more important.  If you disagree with me, please, feel free to post some commentary.

In the meantime, I'm going to be trying out my first candidate tomorrow.  Any suggestions as to whom I should be looking into first will be gladly considered.

In a world where police are now commonly armed with tasers and college students are commonly armed with tunnel-vision politics, I'd just like to point out the wonderful luck that these things both coincided with the proliferation of the digital camcorder.  The future's bright, folks.

When I woke up this morning to read the news that there was footage available of a student getting tased during a John Kerry speech, I couldn't resist clicking the link.  I guess normal people would find footage of that nature to be troubling, but I found it incredibly entertaining.  Here you have Andrew Meyer: an average college student who is very passionate about politics, right?  Wrong.  Andrew Meyer is something of an attention whore.  According to news reports, he maintains a website that includes various videos of himself pulling off obnoxious pranks in public, usually at the expense of others.  Personally, I don't have much against attention whores - I happen to be one, myself.  And I'd happily take a taser shot to the shoulder to make national news, who wouldn't?  Beyond that, I guess that the big controversy over the video is that the police used too much force in trying to detain him.

But what other force would you have preferred them to use?  They gave Meyer plenty of time to calm down and walk out of the auditorium, instead he bounced around like a clown - eventually resulting in the officers holding him to the ground.  At this point, he continues to kick and scream until they finally pull out the taser.  Now, I'd have to ask whether or not anyone would have preferred them to haul him out in a headlock?  Or how about a nice swift punch to the head?  They could always have just pulled out their real guns and threatened to use them - but then you'd be hearing the same arguments your hearing now about police brutality.

As Mr. Meyer begins to parade himself around on every news network that will take him over the next couple of weeks, please make sure that you keep in mind that he did this on purpose.  Don't believe me?  Check out the police reports where he was quoted as saying that the police 'did nothing wrong' and that he would only throw his fit while the cameras were in the same room with him - even going so far as to inquire about whether or not the cameras would be in the jail with him.

In the meantime, there's good old John Kerry in the mix, claiming that he could have handled the situation himself.  That seems doubtful, though.  How's he supposed to handle a situation like that when he can't win a presidential election against someone like George Bush?  And what do you say to someone, anyway, who would suggest that you might've conceded that presidential election because of your ties to a secret society?
No wonder we keep seeing politicians screening their audiences before giving speeches these days - you never know what kind of loonies might show up to try and force a confrontation with police.

For the time being, I'm just hoping to see more students get tased in the future.  Between that and babies playing with cobras, I can think of no better way to pass the time on YouTube.

Orson Scott Card, the author of sci-fi works such as 'Ender's Game,' is a smart guy.  Granted, I've only recently started to take interest in his political musings and I've never had the chance to read any of his books, but he seems like the kind of guy that I could share a couple of beers with and muse over the state of the world for a couple of hours.
That is, if you could convince a Mormon to split a six pack with you.
(Mormons don't drink, you see.  Despite the fact that both Jesus and Joseph Smith enjoyed alcohol, old Joe was something of a control freak when it came to his followers, and alcohol never fit well in that picture.)

However, when I saw one of Card's recent columns, 'Ethnic Cleansing or Amnesty,' on the del.icio.us front page the other day, I had to take offense.  For those of you too lazy to read through the entire column, the point being made is a simple one: the people opposed to the Senate's Amnesty Bill (S. 1639) back at the end of June are near-sighted and ignorant at the best, xenophobic racists at the worst.  Doing what he does best, Card fictionalizes a world where immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants in the United States becomes a reality.  And, really, it's a pretty good read - just like most of the things I've read by him.
However, it's not entirely honest.

What Card has overlooked in his column is the possibility that people who were opposed to the 'path to citizenship' proposition by Ted Kennedy/John McCain/George Bush don't want immediate deportation.  Personally, I've not met anyone who really finds the idea to be attractive, let alone feasible.  What I keep hearing about is the simple implementation of a strict employer crackdown.  That is, if you hire an illegal immigrant to do work that a legal immigrant/American could do for a better wage, you get to pay some kind of fine and possibly spend some lonely nights behind bars.  In time, such a move would illustrate that the Federal Government is actually serious about the laws that they're passing in Washington, thus deterring other employers from engaging in the hiring of illegals and, eventually, drying up the job market that has been sheltering so many millions of illegal immigrants who are living 'in the shadows.'  Thus, Card's entire column becomes a statement of exaggeration in painting opposition to the bill (a majority of Americans, by the way) as seeking out an immediate deportation of all illegals.

Consider, for a second, the possibility that the illegal immigrant population in America - the same population that currently costs the federal government a net fiscal loss of $10 billion a year - might slowly trickle south back across the border into Mexico as businesses slowly close up their job availability for illegals.  Imagine, likewise, the jobs left unfilled by such a slow migration.  Now by this point, assuming that you've read Card's fictionalization of an America without the permanent indentured servitude of illegal immigration under it's boot, you might think that all of those jobs would go unfilled - thus resulting in the rise in produce prices that doomsday prophets like Card envision.  Unfortunately for Card, the reality would be a little bit different, as illustrated by the abandonment of the Bracero Program in the 60s:

"And of course the theory was that...ending the program would end the industry.  And it was a farily important industry in parts of California.  And there was lots of testimony in Congress about why the program has to be continued, because there's no other way to get the work done.

For better or worse, the program ended.  And I think the important thing to take away is how fast the industry changed:  in the early 1960s, 85 percent [were] braceros picking the tomatoes.  By 1970, the industry had completely mechanized and roughly doubled in size.  It's now since increased in size.

What happened?  Well,l they made a tomato that was not round but instead oblong.  They made a machine to harvest and sort them.  And the two together wound up lowering costs." - Philip Martin, Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis

Mr. Card, I'm afraid that you've got this one wrong.  Big time.

There is no constitutional right to good parenting in the United States.  Sadly, there are children everywhere in this country who suffer the burden of abusive and neglectful treatment at the hands of their parents on a daily basis.  In America, you are granted the liberty to raise your children in whatever way you see fit, just so long as their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not infringed upon.
Elvira Arellano doesn't seem to understand that.

For those of you who might've missed the big news over the weekend - professional child-exploiter, fraudster, and illegal alien, Elvira Arellano was deported back to Mexico amongst much fanfare and media play.  Over the last year, Elvira has been holed up inside of a church in Chicago in order to avoid being deported, claiming sanctuary so that her son wouldn't have to go back to Mexico with her.  She went so far as to suggest that her son's constitutional rights would be violated by her absence, were she to go back to her country of origin.

What's really surprising about Arellano's story isn't so much that she's hypocritical enough to jeopardize her son's childhood by putting him in the same position that millions of other anchor babies are now in while simultaneously painting herself as the doting mother who would do anything to protect her child - what's surprising is how many people are actually taking her seriously.  In the last few days I've heard her compared to famed civil rights activist, Rosa Parks.  Yeah, because the plight of a segregated African American who's forefathers were forced to come to American and sold as property has anything to do with a woman who came to American willingly, got paid to work here, and committed identity theft.  Somehow, there are people out there who see this as a decent comparison.

Yet I haven't heard anyone mention the striking similarities between this woman and the airhead that is Cindy Sheehan - yet another child exploitation expert.

Ultimately, I'm anxious to see what comes of this story.  Mostly, I'm anxious to see this woman continue to fight for her son's imaginary right to good parenting.  And, if she wins, I certainly hope that they do something to punish her for being so neglectful of his rights by putting him in this position in the first place.

When the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform bill was pulled from the floor of the senate last week, I could almost hear the collective sighs of relief from across the country.  What was originally celebrated as a bipartisan compromise, carefully crafted by only those most egalitarian senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy behind closed doors (you can see an embarassingly glowing Washington Post review of it here), went down in flames because there just wasn't any support for it.  So it goes.

The manner in which the bill failed, though, is what's really interesting to me.  Originally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acted as a co-sponsor of the bill while he had full faith that the American people would passively sit by and watch the legislature pass the horrid thing.  However, when things had proven to be more difficult that he'd originally planned, he then attempted to distance himself from it.  As with all failures in the last six years in Washington, Reid started to push this off on President Bush on Thursday in suggesting that it's up to Bush to bring more Republicans in on the bill.
What's more, Bush seemed to be more than willing to step up to Reid's challenge and start pushing for the bill.

Ultimately, I'm curious about the motives Reid has in trying to pin this on the President.  Is it because he recognizes that the majority of the public is against it?  And what happens if Bush does gain the votes needed?  Will the Democrats be able to continue to support it if it will not provide a victory for the President?

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

In 2004, a man by the name of John Seljan was convicted of attempting to travel overseas to engage in illicit sex with minors.  When he was originally arrested in October of 2003, he admitted to taking at least three trips annually over the last 20 years to Southeast Asia in order to "educate" children sexually.  At the time of the arrest, he was found with over 100 items of kiddie porn, some actually of himself engaging in sexual acts with the victims.  Seljan's attorney, Alan Stokke argued that Seljan only touched young girls and, therefore, wasn't guilty.

In 2005, three young men, Greg Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner, and Kevin Spann, were each sentenced to six years each in jail after being found guilty of a gang rape that they'd committed and filmed in 2001.  The video included these three gentlemen sodomizing the young woman, passed out after having had too much to drink, with various household items including, but not limited to, a pool cue, a Snapple bottle, a lit cigarette, and a can of apple juice.  They were laughing and posing for the camera.  The defense attorney for all three defendants, Alan Stokke, suggested that the victims mental anguish might not have anything to do with the rape, but be the result of other factors.  He later went on to suggest that, because the victim was unconcious, she couldn't feel anything and wouldn't have even been aware of the event had it not been videotaped.

Alan Stokke is an asshole.
And it would seem that the gods of irony and/or karmic retribution recognize this.

Stokke

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Allison Stokke.  She's the pole vaulting internet sensation that every drooling, lonely, under-sexed male on the world wide web seems to be obsessing over.  And for obvious reasons.
She also happens to be the daughter of Alan Stokke, southern California's favorite pervert defender.

However, Ms. Stokke didn't ask to be put in the position of internet sex icon - she was forced there.  You see, the photo of her to the left ended up being linked to on the wrong blog at the wrong time which, in turn, found its way to another blog with a different readership and then to another blog and another and another and on and on until it ended up here.  Most of the postings regarding the attached photo weren't necessarily inspired by her track record as a winning pole vaulter at her high school.  Instead, they focused more
 on the fact that she'd recently turned 18, despite still being in high school.
  Interestingly, after having made it into the Washington Post, the focus seems to be actually moving from her to her father, albeit just slightly.

Now, please don't misunderstand me here - Allison Stokke doesn't deserve the kind of creepy internet-stalker spotlight that she's received.  Furthermore, I understand that my having posted the original photo of her that inspired her unwanted internet stardom is only compounding the problem.  However, I just can't help myself when it comes to douchebags getting their comeuppance.  Just try and tell me that the following quote from Alan Stokke's wife doesn't reinforce your belief that, indeed, there is a God and that he's got quite the sense of humor:

"All of it is like locker room talk," said Cindy Stokke, Allison's mom. "This kind of stuff has been going on for years. But now, locker room talk is just out there in the public. And all of us can read it, even her mother."

Kind of makes you wonder if she pays any attention at all to what her husband does for a living.

Douchebag: 0
God: 1

My mother made it back to the east coast without a hitch and, with any luck, I'll make it back to my daily blogging habit with similar results.

Speaking of mothers, it appears that Cindy Sheehan has decided that she's found enough fame and fortune in the death of her son, Casey, to finally warrant a return home.  What's more, it appears that the limelight wasn't really something worth enjoying for her - as she is now pointing out the uniquely human tendency to hypocrisy on both sides of the pro/anti-war debate.  She posted an official announcement to end her position as the 'face' of the anti-war movement on Daily Kos, entitled 'Good Riddance, Attention Whore.'
With a title that fitting, it hardly seems worth commenting on any further.

In related news, Sheehans good friend, Hugo Chavez, is having some trouble controlling the opinions of his citizens regarding a recent shut-down on an opposition television station in Venezuela.  He is now threatening to continue shutting down opposition media within the country, regardless of public opinion.  Curiously, while Sheehan seems more than happy to suggest that Bush is planning a slow-motion facist takeover of America, she doesn't have much to say about the Venezuelan President and his skewering of public opinion.  Go figure.
Looks like she's as guilty of the hypocrisy she cited in resigning her post at the head of the anti-war movement.

Personally, I'm estimating a maximum of six months before she's back out protesting, chomping at the bit to make more profit on the tragic death of her son in Iraq.

Well, the second round of debates for the Republican hopefuls took place today, but I ended up missing the broadcast because of some 'productive playtime' I had to attend after work.  Ultimately, I don't think I missed too much, having briefly reviewed some of the post-debate commentary.  It sounds like the candidates just did some more shuffling around the issues - this mostly because they already know who is going to be staying and who is going to be going in the next year.  No surprises until then, you see.
By the way, 'productive playtime' is management-speak for 'drink beer on the company dime while socializing with your co-workers.'  I really probably would have had more fun watching the kiddie-glove debate.

While at my 'productive playtime' meeting, I somehow found myself involved in a conversation about class envy with a couple of the girls in my office and quickly discovered that, while the two of them shared my interest in one day becoming independently wealthy, we differed insofar as I don't lay all of the problems that America has at the feet of those whom I would like to join the ranks of.  That is to say, it's not the fault of the upper or middle classes that we have a lower class.
Apparently this idea is pretty unpopular around these parts.

When I started to point out the fact that American tax payers are suffering under a progressive tax system that raises tax demand on citizens as they progress into higher income rates, I was stared at with deep distrust and was even told 'that's a load of crap.'  When I mentioned the fact that the people in the highest tax brackets in America are paying for most of the welfare funding in America, via their income tax, I was actually told 'I don't believe that for a second.'  Really.

While I realize that the young women to whom I was speaking will never so much as read this entry, I'd like to do you, kind reader, the favor of clearing things up - just in case you suffer under this same misconception.  Wealth envy and class warfare are two marketing ploys that seem to work on Americans.  Don't ask me why, but I get the distinct impression that the tax system in America is a complete mystery to most.  This is why the government is so damned successful, I suppose, in spending all of our hard-earned dollars - because you aren't paying attention to how much of your paycheck is actually being stolen from you by Uncle Sam.

The current federal income tax system works with six different tax brackets.  Each of these six brackets represents an income level.  At each different income level, there is a certain percentage tax rate applied to the earnings.  As the tax bracket (the income level) gets higher, so does the percentage charged for income tax.  For example, if you earn $0 - $7,550 per year, you are taxed 10%, but if you earn $7,551 - $30,650 per year, you are taxed 15%.  Now, because this is automatically deducted from your paycheck by your employer, you generally don't get to see how much you're actually being charged.  Sure, they print it on your paystub, but you're an American.  If it's not on American Idol or in Cosmo, you likely aren't paying attention or reading it - you're just happy to have some cash flow for all of your hard work.

The government, though, knows that there's always some studious citizen out there who might start to realize that their take-home pay and the amount that they are actually earning don't quite add up.  This studious citizen may even be tipped off by the fact that the chunk of money removed from their paycheck before they've even received it seems to increase as they become more and more successful at earning their money.  This could upset them, and that might lead to questions - questions regarding why so much must be taken from that citizen, what that money is actually being used for, so on and so forth.
Luckily, the IRS built in an excuse to, hopefully, confuse our studious citizen.  This is called the marginal tax rate, and it's supposed to make you calm down before you get really angry about all of your money that is being wasted on pork-barrel spending in Washington.

The marginal rate taxation is a little hard to explain - essentially, it means that you are taxed for each tax bracket individually.  If you happen to earn somewhere within the third tax bracket, you are only charged the first tax bracket rate on any money that is earned within that first bracket.  You are then charged the second tax bracket rate on any money from there to the third bracket.  Does that make sense?
Probably not.  The tax system is supposed to be confusing - this way even the studios citizen will become so flustered they couldn't possibly remain angry about all of their missing cash.

Once you've thrown in the opportunity for the state to charge you further income tax at their own rate, deductions to be made for Medicare and Social Security (which you likely won't ever see paid back to you in your lifetime), you can slap on a significantly higher percentage rate of taxation.

Now, if you've actually made it this far into the post, you can pat yourself on the back - you're a studious citizen.  Stop me if I'm wrong, but if we are to function in a system where the vast majority of American tax dollars are actually produced by the top earners, wouldn't it make sense to recognize these individuals who have actually made it that far?  Doesn't it make sense to celebrate the fact that these people pushed themselves into higher-earning positions, despite a system that penalizes them for that success, while shouldering the biggest of the American tax burden?

Sure, there are always going to be spoiled children out there (Paris Hilton, I'm looking at you), but doesn't a parent have the right to raise their kid in any way they see fit?  And, to that end, isn't it your right to make enough money to one day afford the opportunity to tell Paris Hilton off to her face?
I know I certainly plan to exercise that right at some point.

Do yourself a favor and take a look at your next paystub and do some math before you take it to the bank.  How differently would you feel about our government spending if you actually had to hand them that cash on April 15th instead of just doing a bunch of paperwork to document the money that they'd automatically stolen from you over the year?

I can guarantee you that it'd put an end to seeing Congressional approval ratings at 29% and Presidential approval ratings at 33%.  Hell, if people actually realized how much they were paying for the status quo in Washington right now, I sincerely suspect that we'd find every politician there uprooted and replaced with a fresh compliment of public representatives.  Go figure.

First and foremost, I want to direct your attention to a recent post made by my good (internet acquaintance) friend, dox^2.

He points out, quite accurately, the troubling similarities between both the situation in Darfur and the current situation on the ground in Iraq.  Likewise, he's gone on to point out the hypocrisy of some who criticize America for not making a move to aid in Darfur while criticizing America for doing just that in Iraq.
Now, don't you just wish that my political ranting was that straightforward and understandable?

Unless you've had your head buried in the sand over the last week, you're probably wholly aware that former CIA Director, George Tenet, is soon to be releasing a book attempting to pass the responsibility for the intelligence failures leading up to Iraq over onto someone else.  He's been doing his rounds in the media, conducting interviews and apologizing like a guilty school-yard bully sitting in the principal's office.  I think that Christopher Hitchens summed it up best in his most recent piece over at Slate:

The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies. His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had done—namely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle. It's for this reason that the CIA now has to rely on torturing the few suspects it can catch, a policy, incidentally, that Tenet's book warmly defends.

In other news, Bush issued his second veto ever on the surrender treaty that had been tied into a troop funding bill today.  And, while I find myself disagreeing with the President on almost everything he's done (or avoided doing) domestically in his second term, I'm going to have to agree with him that broadcasting a plan for a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq is ludicrous, at best.  Furthermore, I think he's been beyond civil in the matter - just the fact that there was even a suggestion that a withdrawal timeline be made official is something that should have been squashed from day one.

You don't win most fights in the first round.  And you certainly don't win most wars in the first couple of years.  The sad fact of the matter is that our presence in Iraq is something that Americans need to accept as a semi-permanent reality.  Focusing on pulling out immediately is only going to further damage that precious international reputation that all of our politicians seem so obsessed over these days.  What really should be at the forefront of our spending bills is some sort of outline regarding how we spend the remainder of our time on the ground there - whether that be 2 more years, or 20 more.