FlamingText

Complete Coincidence Theatre Pt 4 Or Shenanigans Part V

Karl Rove's IT Guru, Mike Connell, died in a plane crash Friday. He was set to testify about his knowledge of election tampering in the 2004 presidential elections in Ohio. Connell's private plane crashed into a vacant home in Lake Township, Ohio. Connell was the only passenger.

Ponzi!

The collapse of the Madoff pyramid scheme illustrates something that I think bears repeating: Remember how for thirty years now, since Reagan, we've been hearing from the Republicans, supposedly the party of economic conservatism, about how lowering tax rates for the wealthy is a sure-fire way to generate growth and jobs? Because when you give a tax break to a billionaire, he goes right out and builds a new factory with it, right?

One could not ask for a clearer illustration than this that the rich are just as likely to blow that extra wad of cash on a sack of magic beans. Can we once and for all agree that the entire concept of trickle-down or supply-side or whatever they've been calling it these days is 100% pure bullshit? Because I recall as recently as a couple months ago being told that anybody who didn't agree with this plan, wherein we would give more money to those who need it least and hope something good happens, was some kinda crazy "socialist." And I wanna make sure that in a year or two when we inevitably hear this strategy brought up again as the answer to all our problems, probably wrapped around an amnesiac "Our abysmal economy today is a result of Obama increasing taxes on the wealthy" argument, it gets summarily dismissed like it should've been in 1979.

The only thing giving tax cuts to rich people yields, has ever yielded, or ever will yield is richer rich people. Concern that the existence of higher tax brackets removes the incentive to be rich seems to chiefly be an issue among the already-rich, although the number of these people voluntarily relinquishing their millions so they can avoid filling out a complicated tax return remains, for the moment, vanishingly small. As long as being rich remains better than being poor, there will be an incentive to earn more money.

And as long as two minus one doesn't equal three, cutting taxes will not increase revenue. The math claiming that high-end tax cuts grow the economy * by such enormous measures that tax revenue increases (the smaller-piece-of-a-bigger-pie argument) has, to my knowledge, never once pencilled out, which might be why the periods where supply-side tax cuts have been implemented are also invariably periods of high deficit spending. The shortfalls caused by cutting taxes from the top down are made up with debt, which for a time can prop up the appearance that the strategy is working as promised.

Is it just me, or does this sound familiar?: A get-rich-quick scheme is pitched to suckers investors by promising unusually high yields based on a remarkable new strategy that nobody ever thought of before.* The money flowing into this operation from new investors finances big pay-outs to the earlier investors, creating the appearance of a profitable venture. The first investors walk away with bulging pockets of cash and the later investors lose everything they invested. It seems to me that deficit spending has allowed for the creation of a pyramid scheme that spans generations.

Microsoft shrugs, asks if you've heard of 'Firefox.'

Evidently Internet Explorer doesn't just suck because it's inconvenient and buggy about displaying markup language. It's also extremely unsafe!

If you are still using IE, please consider stopping. It really is a terrible browser for so many reasons. While I can promise that this site is not vulnerable to cross-scripting attacks, mainly because it has no ads and no outside content --its dullness is its salvation! -- it's just possible some of you may be using your browser for something other than checking this blog. And if you are, use Firefox or Chrome.

The Best! Metal! Video! EVER!!

Although that Chris Dane Owens masterpiece I linked to last post is pretty remarkable, it is still not the Best Thing Ever. No, currently that honor belongs to this video by the band Red Fang, which you can view after the jump.

I have nothing to add.

Dragons, Alligators and Exploding Oil Tankers Menace Epic True Love

I know that the above title sounds like one of those random spam subject lines, but it makes sense if you watch this little gem, trust me. It is spectacular and jaw-dropping in a way that only earnest attempts at grandeur can ever be.  Seriously, go watch it.

It forced me to coin a new term:
Medievage: med·iev·age
Pronunciation:
\me-ˈdē-vij\ n
1. Variant on cleavage, referring specifically to popular modern depictions of medieval costume such as you might see in a Eurovision music video or being worn by female attendees at a Renaissance Faire or Oktoberfest. See also entries for "Saucy Wench Archetype," "Cinematic Depictions of Olden Tymes," "Romance Novel Cover" and "dirndl."