No, no, no, no, NO! BAD Harper!

An $85 Billion deficit?!? Are you insane?!

You DON'T want to be a second Mulroney. Chretien and Martin executed a spectacular turnaround, and it's taken you all of four years (not even!) to return to debt inflation the likes of which we haven't seen since the mid-nineties.

Now, I'm not saying these aren't difficult times. Markets are weaker, and we're definitely in what counts as a recession these days (growth in single digits, or no growth at all). This, you had no control over. So it's possible we might have run a minor deficit as government spending was curbed. But what I can (and do) blame you for is what you did in times of plenty. Tax cuts galore, to the rich, to businesses - and, worst of all, to the GST.

I grant you, the GST is a minor annoyance when buying luxuries. But it doesn't apply to staples, so it's a sales tax that doesn't hurt the poor. How perfect is that?

But courtesy of a little mathematical legwork done by Mike Watkins, we can see that Harper's been engineering this deficit for months now, and only now reveals it to the public. Harper's taking out an extended mortgage on the strength of our future. Leading economists claim that the Conservative strategy is predicated on a "short, sharp" recession, rather than the prolonged one that appears to be taking shape. But for the sake of argument, we'll say that Harper finds the income, in 2013, to start paying down the deficit right away, at eight billion dollars a year. By the time we pay off the debt accumulated in the upcoming few years, it'd be ~$95B, not $85B - assuming, of course, that the Cons stick to that value.

So low interest rates notwithstanding - the price for this newly-acquired debt is ten billion dollars that could be better employed doing... anything.

Phah!

Smoking Addendum

So, today, on the CBC, in response to this story, one gentleman wrote

Why do non-smokers care?
I don't smoke, and as long as there isn't a cloud of smoke hanging in the air (bad for me or not) what's the difference?
Let people smoke so long as it doesn't affect others.

Now, as you may recall, I had some things to say about smokers. So I couldn't very well let this go by unchallenged:

Well, ordinarily, I'd agree with you, except that in Canada, we've got universal health care. Studies have shown that anywhere from 8-10% of all hospital funding goes to care for individuals with smoking-induced chronic illnesses (emphysema, lung/throat cancer, bronchitis, pneumonia complications, etc.) Now, the two LARGER drains on healthcare are obesity and age. Age... we can't really do anything about. Everyone ages. Obesity, we can work against to some extent, but people can be genetically predisposed to gain weight (granted, not to the extent that some people DO gain weight, but the point stands).

However, there is no reason in the world why anyone should start smoking. Its limited beneficial mental effects are entirely canceled out by the detriment of addiction, and everything else it does is toxic. It creates the concept of the "smoking break", which takes employees away from their desks as often as twice an hour, in some places I've worked. It poisons the user and the air around them as they pass others. It destroys their skin, their clothes, and even any building in which they smoke. Alcohol, in limited doses (particularly red wine) has been shown to have a salutary effect on the health of the imbiber. No such effect has been shown of nicotine - let alone all the other chemicals in cigarette smoke.

So, my stance is this. Smokers can continue to smoke as much as they want, at the cost to their health and their finances - but it has to be out of the public venue, and they have to turn in their health cards. If they're willing to pay for the treatments for the damage they're doing to themselves, damage which is entirely without merit, they can go on smoking. But not on my dollar.

Now, I'm as much for human rights as the next guy - perhaps moreso, depending on who the next guy is. However, I firmly believe that your rights end where my nose begins, and the above was my expression of that. This, of course, led to some angry people shouting back:

I suppose you don't subject yourself to the dangers of automobile travel? Ever flown in an airplane.
Skydive.
Play Hockey
Ski
etc

And I bet you eat commercial food laden with sodium and other additives.

If you can truthfully say you don't have any lifestyle issues that may have connections to health costs, then you can speak on this issue.

However, if you are like most smoke nazi's, the term hypocrite may fit.

{name removed}- a proud Ex- smoker

And...

you say that if people smoke they should hand in their health cards...

Do you even know how much money is taken in from cigarette taxes? These taxes fund the province's health-care system, and infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage systems.

IF cigarettes were causing the government to LOSE money, they would ban it, stop selling it.

"The Auditor General (of Ontario) says the province is losing half a billion dollars in tax revenue to the contraband tobacco trade, but we think it's more like $1 billion," said Steve Tennant, vice-president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association."
--http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1342448

So before you want to start taking rights away of those who smoke, maybe you should consider taking a good look at our government. They are making WAY too much money to stop selling them, yet at the same time spend a bunch of money to produce these "quit smoking" programs.

Does anyone here see the contradiction?

Taxes from tobacco pays for the health care portion of those sick and still has left over monies for other things. Its not a question of to smoke or not to smoke. Its a question of "if people stop smoking, what will the government tax next that will produce the revenue tobacco has"?

I do not advocate smoking, nor do I smoke. I just hate when people make comments like "smokers should have no right"....

Soon it will be, "Fat people shouldn't allowed to eat whatever they want, its costing us all TOO MUCH!"

Now, in short response to the first (longer response to follow) - this is a bit of an ad hominem attack, as my own status is immaterial to the argument I put forth. Notwithstanding, I make efforts to keep myself healthy and do not engage in unnecessarily risky activities.

In response to the second, well, yes, I do know what money is brought in through cigarette taxes. I also know that a 2002 study indicates that the cost to Canada of tobacco use is $17B. To say that this overshadows money brought in by taxation is to understate the fact.

But enough of that - my longer response:

The issue in my mind is not danger - leaving your house is dangerous. It's just that applying your examples to cigarette smoking is a false analogy.

I don't drive for the sake of driving - I drive (sparingly, I might note) to get from one location to another, or to move heavy objects that I cannot carry with me on public transit. I drive as little as possible since I want to minimize my contribution to the pollution that engenders the same chronic lung conditions to which smokers voluntarily expose themselves.

Airplane crashes and skydiving accidents seldom run up hospital bills. Usually, they have one bill. Funerary.

I cook everything I eat at home, and watch my calorie count, weight, and general fitness.

Skiing, playing soccer, etc, can result in injury - but they also promote fitness, which will likely stave off or mitigate the eventual effects of aging. Possibly still a net detriment, but I think that one would have to be called by an actuary. Myself, I prefer cross-country skiing to downhill, so my chance of injury for my preferred method of strapping large planks of pseudo-wood to my feet is somewhat limited.

Now. I do work as a software developer, and therefore my workday is largely sedentary (that is to say, I spend most of it sitting). This, naturally, detracts from my overall health, and may, one day, contribute to the hospital bill my aging self will run up. However, I do my best in my day-to-day life to mitigate the effects of the workday... and while I'm at work, I try to have a good stretch and a brief walk every few hours, when I'm in a lull (as I am now.)

My assertion, however, was not that I am perfect - no one is - but rather that there is NOTHING that can make smoking generally beneficial. The biggest contribution to my eventual demands on the health care system is my job - the means by which I earn the money that I contribute to our health care system. What similar defense can be offered of the insidious cigarette? (Taxation on the purchase of cigarettes, by the way, is orders of magnitude smaller than the costs associated with caring for their victims.)

So yes, I could be better - but I live my life doing my best to contribute to society, rather than take from it. I am acutely aware of hypocrisy, and do my best never to practice it. And I think I am, in fact, entitled to make a comment on those who poison themselves recreationally at the expense of our beleaguered health care system.

Now, in addition to that, there are other costs. The financial cost to a smoker is severalfold: capital loss on the resale value of their house, increased cost of insurance, loss of revenue due to increased recovery time from any injury, and of course, the cost of the cigarettes themselves. This reduction in available funds corresponds directly to decreased taxation on these individuals, further increasing the drain they represent on our economy.

I don't think it's a matter of contention - smoking is an evil that should be forbidden. I think that simply withdrawing health care from those who indulge in it is far too little to do, rather than an overreaction.

50 Reasons Debra Rufini Should Leave Her E-mail Client Closed

Well, if she hadn't recently e-mailed Dr. Myers, I'd never have seen her original post. Low-hanging fruit indeed! One would argue that this loose collection of half-assed attempts to disprove evolution, straw man attacks and similar logical fallacies, misquotations, begging-the-question rhetoric and plain old-fashioned ignorance was ripe for mockery - and it was, back in July.

Now, it's a bit stale - but back when it was fresh-minted, some other people got it into their heads to give it a turn on the Wheel of Systematic Argument Deconstruction. Here are a few of the best.

• Right to Think - Concise and devastating. Probably my favourite.


• Iron Chariots - This... this isn't just devastating. This is kill the army, salt the earth, and melt the ground to glass. A little bit of overkill, to be sure... but overkill is the best kind of kill.


• Zombie Underground - The June 23rd post. Brief answers, but I can't imagine I'd have the patience to exhaustively take it apart unless I had a few cups of caffeine in me.

Idiocy torn bare for all to see. Always a nice read.

Cheers!

Asshat of the Day - December 10, 2006

Today's special guest will be Guitarman, courtesy of the CBC readers' comments section.

So far (today!) he has violated Godwin's Law, used the term "liberal elitist", used the term "socialist" as an epithet, and claimed that 75% of liberals voted Conservative in the last election.

Sadly, the violation of the Law has been removed by CBC forum moderators, since such behaviour is against their rules, so it cannot be held up as a striking example of why you do not want to be Guitarman.

However, among his other statements:

Back then my friend women didnt work a lot...most of them would stay home and take care of the kiddies..

(In reference to the "good old days".) I suppose that this individual likes the Conservative ideology isn't a huge surprise, really.

Harper has an overwhelming support of Canadians right now....in fact if an election were held today I'm almost 100 per cent confident he would get his majority, because the vast majority of Canadians are so disgusted with the three stooges performances over the last month, that it definitely would be a cakewalk for Harper, regardless if iganatiff is leader of the Liberals/coalition. You're obviously way out of touch with reality lately.

Once again, we see this "la-la-la-la-la-I CAN'T HEAR YOU!-la-la-la" attitude. Given some of his other comments, Guitarman here is from Alberta, which might explain some things.

Regardless, this is how he earned today's title.

I think I'll stop choosing from the CBC commenters. It's too easy.

Medicare and the United States

Alright, US, time to bite the bullet.

Current estimates place the Medicare debt as of 2050 at ninety trillion dollars. That's a quarter billion dollars for every day between now and 2050. It makes the scale of the financial crisis look trivial. This is not something you can let sit.

Now, part of this problem stems from the fact that you've gone and divided your public health care system into two parts: Medicare for the old, and Medicaid for the poor. I'm the first to admit that our (Canada's) healthcare system has its flaws, but at least we're not that stupid. More organizations means more bureaucracy, which means more money gets eaten up in things that provide no benefit to those covered by the plan. It also means more confusion, and, likely, legal fees.

Now, your first problem is glaringly obvious, even to me. Medicare in the United States is supported by a 2.9% income tax, across the board. Now, this one's probably going to hurt, but there's one important step that can be taken immediately - crank up income taxes. On average, 30% of the nation's income is taken in by government of one level or another. I'm willing to bet that, as a nation, you can bring that up to 50% without ever raising taxes on the low-income bracket. An adjustment to your taxes to make them more progressive would do the trick; here in Canada, the highest earners pay around 55% on their income. This is fair because they're still far better off with their 45% than the next bracket is with 50%, and so on down. Under Canadian tax law, you will never earn less by jumping a tax bracket.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but given the announced one trillion dollar deficit your government is running, I don't think sweetness is in your future. (I'm trying to keep this condescending, but I'm going to have to segue to astonished for a moment - the bailout notwithstanding, how in the name of everything that is good in the universe did you manage a deficit that tacks another 10% onto the largest national debt in the world? That's 2.5% of the stock market valuation - for the entire world. Your deficit.)

I mean, 19% of your federal budget already goes to paying interest on the debt, and I can't imagine that anyone still willing to lend is going to do so at anything but punitive interest rates. So we're rapidly approaching the point where out of every dollar spent by the government, a shiny new quarter goes to paying for the costs of the debt. Not reducing it - just paying for its very existence.

But I digress. Back to Medicare. My proposal was to hike taxes. That's stage one. Then (and I know this word will hurt) socialize healthcare altogether. Medicaid was never a good implementation - too little, too poorly managed. Lay down firm federal guidelines for how the states are to run their healthcare systems, and then take medicine out of the hands of private business. The free market is not the place to go - the free market is what brought you the Financial Crisis, the Housing Crisis, and a host of other Crises that haven't yet burst on the scene. More to the point, you don't want your healthcare providers playing "survival of the fittest". You want them to provide healthcare. Additionally, by socializing healthcare, you take health insurance costs off your populace's shoulders - and thereby add to their take-home income, which you can then tax more heavily with fewer complaints. Pay doctors something that will allow them to get out of med-school debt, but not the ludicrous amounts doctors can charge in your economy. If they want to make that kind of money, they can go to a country that's willing to work itself into the mess you're in now.

If you want, you can make it two-tier, with a free-market healthcare system running wounded. That might take some of the stress off the socialized portion - but in my experience, the socialized system runs pretty well.

Whatever you decide to do, though, oh neighbour to the south, you'd best do it soon - because ninety trillion dollars is a hell of a lot of money. You've got forty years. Better make the most of 'em.

The Conservatives and the Big Lie

I'm going to tell you a story, boys and girls...

Once upon a time, there was a country. It was a big country, but more in terms of landmass than anything else. It was a proud country, though, and kept its cities and its populace bright and shiny.

In this country, there were all sorts of political parties, but for the longest time, there were only two that mattered - the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. One or the other of them always formed the government, but was kept from going completely nuts because of the structure of the country's system of governance.

You see, boys and girls, unlike their neighbours to the south, the citizens of this country don't elect leaders. They elect Members of Parliament. Those MPs, collectively, decide who will run parliament. Who will be the lead, or prime, minister. Now, this means that most of the time, the political party that has the most MPs in the House can choose one of their own as the Prime Minister. But - and here is the first part of the story you should remember, boys and girls - there is no law saying they have to. If they felt that a Member from another party would be a better Prime Minister and hold the confidence of the House, they could decide he or she should be the Prime Minister.

Now, that leads us to point number two. Since the country's inception, a few other parties rose to political prominence, to the degree that they now claim a number of seats in the House to themselves. This makes it possible for a party to "win" an election with less than fifty percent of the seats, since they need only have a larger fraction than any other single party. However, their Prime Minister must then not only secure the confidence of his own party, but that of enough other MPs to make up that crucial fifty percent.

Under this country's system of governance, should the sitting Prime Minister lose the confidence of the House, it is entirely within the prerogative of the other parties in residence in the House to propose a new candidate. If, through some happenstance, the "other" parties happen to make up a larger fraction of the house than the party which formed the government, they are in fact capable of doing this without the aid of any of the MPs from the sitting PM's party.

Finally, in this country, there was an entity known as the Governor General, a representative of the monarchy that once held sway over the country. This post is still important, and holds some power. In the event of a pending loss of confidence, he or she has many options, but three principal ones, delineated here:

• to prorogue Parliament for a short time, on the premise that the disruption is temporary and time will alleviate any problems


• to let the confidence matter go through, fail, and call another election


• to let the confidence matter go through, fail, and hand the government to the opposition to give it a try

These are all options as outlined in the constitution of the country.

However, the leader of the dominant party at the time of this story, boys and girls - he wanted to trick the good citizens of the country! When the other parties - who had more MPs in the house than his party did - decided to team up to remove him from office, he squawked that it was undemocratic, and unconstitutional! He played up the fact that the citizens had voted for him, not them! But as evidenced above, the citizens had voted for both, since they voted MPs into the house, not Prime Ministers!

He cried that what the country needed now was stability, not another election - discounting the fact that it was fully within the powers of the Governor General to simply turn the government over to the other team, and avoid the hassle of an election altogether!

Yes, the cowardly leader even pressured the Governor General to use the prorogue option, thus forestalling any chance of a no-confidence vote.

Will this story have a happy ending, boys and girls? I don't know, yet. But I can hope.

Idle Thought Inspired by a CBC Comment

In response to a comment by one HenryDavis...

To everyone who has their panties in a wad, loosen up, or go change them. For those on the left, why isn't a person of color up for the Liberal leadership? Same question for the NDP. Maybe you should take a few lessons from the Americans that you so love to bash. Might be that they are far more enlightened than you can ever hope to be.

The answer here is pretty simple. A cursory look at data from the 2006 US census shows us the following:

• 12.4% of the US population is comprised of African-Americans


• 4.4% of the US population is of asian descent


• 6.4% fall under "some other race"

All of this excluding Hispanic/Latino Americans, who are grouped with Caucasians in this particular chart. So, with that large portion of the US population aside, 23.2% of the US population are members of a visible minority.

When we compare this to Canada's 2006 Census, we find:

• 2.5% of the Canadian population is comprised of African-Americans


• South Asian and Chinese descent make up 4 and 3.6% of the population, respectively

And, if you look at the totals, including Hispanics/Latinos, 16.2% of the Canadian population are members of a visible minority.

If you're referring exclusively to individuals of African descent when you refer to "people of color", Mr. Davis, the reason that no such individuals have risen to positions of prominence in the various federal parties is due to a paucity of choice, since, in the US, you have forty-seven times the population to choose from. Even speaking in terms of a percentage of the whole, you have just shy of six times the choice.

Let's have a quick look at a demographic in which the US and Canada are on equal footing. Sex. Hands up, which country has had its highest office held by a woman? I thought so. Hands up, which country has had the leader of any federal political party be a woman? Mmmhmmm. And hands up, which country has had the longer time in which to do so?

I rest my case. "Far more enlightened", my ass.

Asshat of the Day - November 15th, 2008

Now, what with Vancouver's municipal elections going on today, you'd think my beef was with them. Say, with Marc Emery getting more than a thousand votes and placing a narrow fourth among the mayoral candidates. (Come on, people. I know you like pot, but seriously, the guy isn't qualified for the job!)

But no. On the whole, I'm not totally displeased with the way that turned out, and the polling itself was carried out courteously and efficiently. Points to the CoV for that.

No, the gentleman who proved himself to be so idiotic, so aggravating, so... asinine as to have won himself the title for today? A gentleman named Roddy, who chose to flaunt his idiocy in the comments attached to a Gizmodo post about the first of US president-elect Obama's weekly YouTube addresses.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I actually quite like Obama. The man clearly has a head on his shoulders, he's using modern avenues of communication, and he seems to have the political gumption to effect some of the change he's talking about. I don't think he'll live up to all of his campaign promises, but I think he'll do some serious good, both to his country, and to the world as a whole. And I'm all for that.

But even if I hated the man, I'd like to think that I'd find good ol' Roddy's comments repugnant. Let's dig in with both hands and see what we've got here:

"Change Change Change" is the moto.

Who wants a change to even more liberal ideas such as baby killing, socialism, and higher taxes? Sounds like a change for the worse to me.

Gizliberals? I lose respect for you :(

So, let's start with the buzzwords here. "liberal" is a good start, followed by "baby killing", "socialism", and "higher taxes", in the same breath. So, we've established that this is someone who watches Fox News with reverent awe, and covers his eyes when any other show appears. That aside, let's move on.

1. Obama wants to increase abortion to a later term in preganancy. Any abortion is murder and later term is more abominable.

2. Socialism comes by increasing socialism of our banking system (in progress), socialism of our health care, socialism of our education (done), socialism in our taxes (steal from rich, give to poor to make all equal), socialism in our thoughts (taking away free speech, guns, etc, espcially with the "hate crimes bills" and "fairness doctrines", and socialism in our national programs. More government control is always bad. I prefer freedom.

3. Don't go along with the liberal spewed lies. Even obama says 150k in certain speeches. Liberals raise taxes in many areas, not just income tax. We are taxed to death and it will get worse. Lower taxes boost the economy. Higher taxes stiffle it. Our national debt cannot be corrected at this point no matter what, so they will attempt to hyperinflate and tax us with this unseen tax.

America is going down the toilet even faster (repubs and demoncrats are mostly all liberals now)

So, with point #1, our intrepid contender suggests that he's the type who believes that chemical abortion three days after conception would also be murder. Interesting point put forth by another poster - here is someone who, apparently, believes that what routinely happens in doctors' practices and abortion clinics is murder. And what does he do against this heinous serial-killing scheme? He posts to a largely unrelated topic on a gadget blog. Surely, he will go down in the annals of history as a hero.

Point #2 makes it clear that socialism arises from ... socialism. Just socialism broken up into its forays into various subsets of the country as a whole. Apparently prohibiting hate speech is an act of tyranny on a par with hunting down thoughtcrime, and that people should be free to not be educated, starve to death, or die from a lack of healthcare, because this is preferable to "government control". Presumably, this gentleman also objects to red lights telling him that he should stop.

Point #3 is particularly good. We start out with an exhortation not to believe "liberal spewed lies" (clearly, liberals spew lies with the silver tongues that we don't have). Then we proceed to "liberal raise more than income taxes" - which may well be true, but how does that "steal from the rich", as postulated not three sentences earlier? Surely luxury taxes only tax those who purchase luxuries. These may be the rich, but the purchase of luxuries is always optional. If you object to the tax, don't buy the stuff! And then, for a capper, we have "Our national debt cannot be corrected at this point no matter what..." - this is truly rich. The national debt can't be fixed, so the government... shouldn't try? Just go to the various creditors and say, "Well, we're never going to pay you anything, so you may as well forget it!"? Seriously, Roddy, old boy, what the hell?!?

There followed a thorough (though not quite this thorough) debunking of our man Roddy's points, and then he had to stick his big nose in - which was hard, given that his head was, by now, so thoroughly wedged up his own ass...

Abortion is murder. It is premeditated killing of a defenseless infant. This is sick sick sick. I don't understand how anyone thinks "Pro-choice" (for choice to kill) is better than "Pro-life" (for life). Deceived you are...

Yoda, you are not. Let's go look at "infant". Let's see...

infant (n.): A very young human being, from birth to somewhere between six months and two years of age...

Hmm... that doesn't seem to support your cause there, Roddy. But that's the Wiktionary, and I'm sure that's been watered down by we liberal types. How about something a bit more staid, dependable... how about Cambridge?

infant (n.): a baby or a very young child

Hmm... a bit more nebulous, maybe you could work with "baby" there... oh, no, a subsequent search on "baby" suggests that the word only applies to human offspring after birth.

Well, one more try - how about Princeton?

infant (n.): a very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk

Oooh, sorry, Roddy. That's three. You're out.

So, what do you have for us next?

I shun both demoncrats and republicides. They are both liberals. I am a constitutionalist conservative where I don't think judges can change law, but uphold law. All law should be based on God's law (the God of Israel) and seperation of church and state is to keep state out of church, not the other way around.

Ah-hah! So what we have here is not your ordinary asshat. What we have here is a my-god-is-the-right-god theocratic asshat. Who can't spell, among his other failings. Who believes that the current crop of US Republicans are too liberal. (Perhaps there haven't been enough burnings of heathen books for his liking?) Let's see what else he has to say...

Giz put in the article they are liberals, so I called them on it. Liberalism is akin to satanism imho...

Guh-wha? Liberalism? Satanism? Akin? Is? Sorry, I understand all the words you just wrote, but together... it feels like I've spilled something crazy on my screen. Oh wait. It's you. What else have you got for us?

You either have liberal republicans or more liberal democrats. I disown both and think we need a new party that actually believes in the constitution and in God. This country is not the same by a long shot as was intended...

I believe this would be an appropriate response, but to summarize - not only were the American Founding Fathers not a Christian body, but they actively worked to keep God out of the workings of the new country altogether. So "as was intended" is a popular but totally false assumption.

(In response to another user's post:)You're wrong in every point. www.infowars.com for some enlightenment

You can go to InfoWars yourself if you want to, dear reader. I've been once. I'm not going back. That's too much, even for me.

Raising taxes on the rich is bad because it's the rich paying most of the tax already. Raising taxes yields a slowing economy and less tax revenue. Income tax is unjust as is property tax and a death tax. We're serfs to the government.

Obam-a is stacking his cabinant with anti-gun people and has also voiced limiting guns himself. Look into it more plz. Free speech will be curtailed as has all thru his campaign on people who protested him. Check out the evidence.

Well, Roddy, me boy, little thing - money earned as income is, presumably, representative of the value you've added to your society. By taking a little of that and redistributing it through the provision of services, your government can provide all the things that modern societies so enjoy. Like roads, telecommunication networks, farms, and everything else the government has to subsidize, since they're too colossal for private industry to gather around. The alternative, I suppose, would be a 75% tax on all goods and services, but I'll bet you'd whine about that too. I just bet you would.

As for the death tax - see, that's to avoid the lower classes becoming serfs. I can't think of a better tool against class stratification. Look at it. It follows that if someone gathers a ton of money and passes it on to their children, the fortune will continue to grow and gather more money to it. If money (representative value) is gathered in the hands of a few, they become an aristocracy. It's just a short step from aristocracy to "nobility". But if each generation is largely in charge of earning their own way? Suddenly, you've stirred things up. But stratification is good for budding theocracies, so I suppose I can see where you're coming from. It's not a nice place, but I can see it.

Also, "check out the evidence" without providing citations? In the age of Google? déclassée, Roddy.

*deep breath*

After that point, he appears to have shut up. However, I would argue that in the space above, he more than earned the title of Asshat of the Day.

And we're back in the saddle again. See you all tomorrow!

Well, I'm Back!

Yup. Just when you (my multitudinous readers) thought I was gone, finished, kaput - I'm back.

Y'see, I've been having a busy time with work and other concerns eating up my daylight hours, so I haven't had time to give this blog the love and attention it deserves. But recently, I've been reading things that have pumped the kinetic energy of my blood up to and beyond the boiling point.

So we will be returning to irregularly-updated Asshats of the Day, with special posts reserved for those who truly, deeply deserve it. They're out there. They're not even waiting.

So let's get down to business, eh?

A Poem

Not my usual fare, I know, but this isn't so much a rant as recognition of a brilliant rant by another:

I proudly am an atheist;
I do not share your views.
Imagine how insulting,
When I watch the evening news
And I see you point at folks like me
Indignantly, with rage,
As if we were the lepers
Of a less enlightened age!
No need to watch your language
Or to treat us with respect—
Because demonizing us is still
Politically correct.
You’d never talk like this regarding
Blacks, or Gays, or Jews,
But with atheists, just look at all
The language that you use!
“Obama is a terrorist”—of course
The claim’s obscene;
But “Hagan is an atheist”?
The worst you’ve ever seen?!?
Comparing her to me is now
The lowest of the low?
It’s good I don’t believe in Hell—
I’d tell you where to go.
-- A comment posted on Greg Laden's Blog

This was posted in response to this video, and this subsequent video. What a world it is that we live in.