Victims...

Two things, as this Saturday winds down..

First, (scroll all the way down), my friend Joy seems to have the last word in this discussion. Nicely done.

And Jon Stewart turns his eye on conservative victims as well...

The Daily Show
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Spotted tonight...

A union worker, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across the table, takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea Partier and says: “Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."

Weekend Links

Well, this was supposed to go up over the weekend, but the days have gotten away from me. G-Dog got home from one trip and turned around and left on another, we had some family in from out of town for a brief visit, and then yesterday was so freakin' gorgeous that I spent the whole afternoon outside... and so on... but enough with the excuses -- here are a few bits of interest...

• Gorgeous aerial nighttime shots of New York and Las Vegas!
• Best. Graph. Ever.
• Slow Money -- how would the world be different if the money you spent (even just 1% of your assets) stayed in your local economy?
• The fun and the frightening!
• Food can be grown just about anywhere.
• Best spelling bee contestant ever -- he's awfully composed for someone so young!
• All of Popular Science is now online (137 years worth)!
• Are there any mammals in that sushi you're eating?
• Google search suggestions.

Teabag Day

...And Tax Day will perhaps be forever changed...

Everybody's talking about teabagging this week (much to Rachel's amusement!). Even Chattanoogans, who are notoriously non-activist, had some tea parties today. Events all over the country have been getting a lot of media coverage, but I wonder if at least part of the reason for that is the fact that protesters' choice of language is providing so much amusement for people (and giving at least one poor old woman asthma attacks!).

But besides their unfortunate use of language -- which is a place they keep going back to (more here), deliciously -- conservatives might also be hurting their reputation in another way: their choice of metaphor just doesn't ring true, and so it leaves them looking clueless and petulant. The "tea party" is, I gather, supposed to refer back to the Boston Tea Party (where they dumped chests, not bags, of tea into the harbor (not on the sidewalk) -- tea which had been siezed, not purchased at the nearest Wal-Mart Asian Import Store). The 1773 Tea Party was part of a protest of the the fact that colonists were being asked to pay levies while not being allowed representation by the taxing authority -- but sadly, the reference is willfully ignorant.

The events across the country were not being put together by people who suffer from a lack of representation by the taxing authority. Today's demonstrators had the opportunity to vote for their representatives in government just last fall. I can only assume that these activists took advantage of that civic opportunity, so at this point, they're really just being sore losers. These people put politicians in power who demonstrated an incredible incompetence at running a government over a number of recent years, and then they suffered terrific losses at the polls as a result. That is what makes today's protests not so much like an iconic event that might change the course of history and more like a toddler's tantrum -- complete with the red face, teary eyes, and bulging diaper -- after just 86 days in the minority. As Joe says:

I'm all for fighting against big government. My only question is: why just now? With a few exceptions, where have you guys been?

And, I might add, where are your suggestions as to an alternative course? (Come on, be serious -- if all you're going to say is "shut down the government," then, really, how is that helping?) Given where we are, how should we proceed?

Things to ponder

As this election finally starts circling the drain, here are some things to consider:

Your personal finances and what the two candidates are threatening to do to them. You can check your tax situation using the widget at right, but don't forget to consider what will happen to your insurance as well.

Thoughts on undecided voters from David Sedaris and Mark Morford.

Some thoughts from one of the most irrelevant, least important voters in this election, an un-American, and a failed American.

Dog Whistles.

This is a pretty cool toy: google in quotes helps you figure out what the candidates have said on the issues.

Get your Jon Stewart fix: WTP?

And finally:

Senate Bailout Package

The Senate just lost me.

They're throwing all sorts of add-ons into the new bailout package -- tax breaks for businesses, adjustments in alternative minimum tax, and alternative energy incentives -- which may or may not be all fine and good, but have nothing to do with rescuing our economy from greedy and irresponsible Wall Street crooks.

I have no idea why the Senators are muddying the water with these irrelevant tag-ons to the bill, and I don't trust them. This Congress has a lower approval rating than the worst president ever, and they're playing games with the bill that is supposed to provide urgently needed action to help us avoid an economic upheaval.

Watch carefully, everyone, and see how your Senators behave today. A third of these guys are up for reelection next month. Don't give them your vote unless they earn it.

The Republicans Own This Economy

They got their tax cuts for the financial elite and their deregulation of just about everything. And look where it got us

The week of January 22, 2001, the first of Bush's presidency, the Dow averaged 10,659. Today, it closed at 10,917. In just about eight years of Bush, the market has gained less than 300 points.

And I think as of today, that gain has become a net loss for the Republican economy. And then consider the unemployment rate, the cost of gas, the mortgage crisis, the credit meltdown, the slowly collapsing dollar, inflation, the gradual failure of America's health care system and you realize that the only people who have been doing well under the supervision of the Republicans are the robber barons.

• $83,100,000 - 2007 salary John Thain, CEO, Merrill Lynch (asking for Bank of America to save the company)
• $35,734,422 ($16,237,150 in bonuses) - 2007 salary of Alan Schwartz, CEO, Bear Sterns a year before JP MorganChase saved it from bankruptcy.
• $22,000,000 - 2007 salary of Richard S. Fuld Jr., CEO of the newly bankrupted Lehman Brothers. (largest bankruptcy in America’s history)
• $$please read$$ - Robert Willumstad, CEO, AIG (possible seeing the same fate as Lehman Brothers, bankruptcy. But won’t because its numbers are much larger then Lehman Brothers: Revenue and Net Income are twice as much, Total assets are three time more, and employees are 116,000 (AIG) to 26,200 (Lehman Bros.)
• $18.3 million - (2007 Take Home salary) Richard Syron, former chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac
• $11.6 million - (2007 salary, stock and other compensation) Daniel Mudd, former president and CEO of Fannie Mae
  

As much as he'd like to pretend otherwise, John McCain is running as a Republican. His party did this to this country, and they did it with his help.

"The point is, I was chairman of the commerce committee. Every part of America's economy, I oversighted. I have a long record, certainly far more extensive of being involved in our economy than Senator Obama does."

PS: aren't you glad we didn't let them privatize social security? Where would the nation's retirement fund be after the last few days on Wall Street?!? And do you really want to put these Keystone Cops in charge of your health care?!?

Gah!

I went to Atlanta with a friend today to do some shopping (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Costco! Yippie!)* and we shopped so efficiently that we thought that we'd be able to get back home early. Then we got stuck behind this. Being on I-75N was like hanging out in the parking lot outside the mall in the week before Christmas. But we managed to get off the interstate and drive past the snarl on surface streets, so we didn't have to wait until the lanes were clear to get home. And just as we were pulling into Chattanooga, we heard on the radio that they'd just opened up one lane to traffic.

But it's been another beautiful, t-shirt-&-shorts kind of day, so I can't complain too much -- especially since my friend so skillfully navigated us around the traffic snarl, saving us from an extra hour of just sitting out on I-75.

*Dear Tennessee: think of all the tax revenue that's lost to the state every time I have to drive down to Georgia to shop (today's total was $9.11, and that was at Georgia's much lower rates), simply because puritanical states like Tennessee won't allow the sale of wine in grocery stores, making the state much less attractive to some very cool stores that happen devote a substantial amount of real estate to their wine selections. It's an incoherent and uncivilized law, and should be changed ASAP!

$43,000,000,000,000

A few notes from Kos...

Word on the street is that Katherine Harris will be making a big campaign announcement on Hannity tonight (or maybe she'll just be hoisting her boobs around again).

Update: She's staying in and using an inheritance to finance her campaign.

Another state has fallen in the face of the fits thrown by fundies. This time it's Washington giving pharmacists permission to discriminate against customers based on their religious beliefs. I really like this suggestion:

I recommend a guerilla campaign of vegans infiltrating supermarkets nationwide and refusing to ring up slabs of Midwestern beef because it offends their tender sensibilities.

And here's a shocking figure from David Walker, the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office:

The federal government's obligations, current liabilities, and unfunded fiscal commitments are over $43 trillion and rising. . . . Yes, that's trillions with 12 zeros rather than billions with nine zeros.

That's $43,000,000,000,000.

Want to know what your portion amounts to? Well, how much you got?!?

No, I'm serious:

The estimated net worth of American families is slightly over $47 trillion, and nearly all of it---90 percent---would be needed to cover government's current obligations.

So, figure out 90% of your net worth, and that's how much you, personally, owe the Chinese (and whoever else has been buying all our debt) because of Bankrupt Bush.

This admistration must be stopped. We maybe can't get rid of Dubya at the moment, but we can take away his rubber-stamp Congress in this year's elections. We can't afford three more years of irresponsible republican spending and tax cuts for millionaires.

141 programs Bush wants to cut or kill

Those PBS programs are worthless! Ernie and Bert SUCK! Ken Burns is such a loser!

Those ungrateful students can get through college without any loans (gosh! Bush got through Yale without any loans -- if Georgie can do it, why can't any of these other lazy kids?!?).

Who needs those those damn Amtrak trains when we got hummers?! We can drive from LA to Frisco, or from NYC to DC! If our air transportation system is ever shut down again, we'll manage without the trains!

Please, God -- we can live without all these stupid programs, just so long as Paris Hilton gets more tax cuts!!!!!

Think about this next time you shop at Wal-Mart

Those low prices you're paying are brought to you courtesy of the Tennessee taxpayer. That's right -- our tax dollars are funding the corporate welfare that allows the largest corporation in the world to rake in even more profits.

CHATTANOOGA -- A study shows that thousands of Wal-Mart employees are on TennCare, the state's expanded Medicaid program, providing fodder for critics who say the retail giant and other businesses are shifting costs for low-paid employees onto the backs of taxpayers.

Perhaps we can think of a way to use our tax dollars to finance our schools, rather than turning the funds over to Wal-Mart shareholders. In the meantime you are, of course, encouraged to shop elsewhere.
(via Bubba).

Tax reform

Yesterday I also attended a press conference held by Tennesseans for Fair Taxation that followed last week's release of the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission's report & recommendations. Another talented local blogger offered some thoughts yesterday:

This is a no-brainer. The only argument anyone can even make against it is the trumped up charge that the Tennessee Constitution forbids an income tax (it doesn't, and if it did, it would be worth amending it for the purpose). The standard argument that it is a tax increase doesn't hold water, because after taking into account the sales tax decrease, 4 out of 5 households - anybody making $75,000 or less, will pay less in taxes.

Check out the full post and discussion by following the link! I join smijer in urging Tennesseans to flog this issue in your local papers and with your state representatives. We can't afford to postpone properly funding government services any longer. We're either dead last or close to it in just about every category comparing Tennessee education and services to other states, and our governor is attempting to bail out of state-provided health care for our poor. Please, let's not wait to find out what rock bottom feels like!