Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
I’ve got work to do tonight, but I can’t seem to find the energy. So, I’m procrastinating, watching old episodes of The Tomorrow Show, and bemoaning the fact that we don’t have good, substantive late night talk shows anymore, or, for that matter, television hosts like Tom Synder. For those of you unfamiliar with Tom, and his unique brand of chain-smoking genius, here’s a clip:
OK, now I’m heading over to Netflix to move The Runaways movie up in my queue. After having watched this exchange between Snyder and the heavily made-up impresario Kim Fowley, I find myself desperately needing to know more about the evil son-of-a-bitch behind the band.
I’m tempted to have my daughter do it. It is, after all, about time she started pulling her own weight around here.
Seriously, though, would you ever consent to being stuffed into a bag by a stranger?
As for little people, I’m not sure what kind of local population we have these days, but legend has it that, during WW II, Ypsilanti had the world’s largest population of them. Apparently, in the production of the bombers being assembled at the WIllow Run plant, there were certain jobs that could only be performed by little people.
I wasn’t going to post anything here about Christine O’Donnell’s recent debate, during which she seemed to laugh at her opponent for suggesting that the separation of church and state is guaranteed in the Constitution. As the exact phrase “separation of church and state” isn’t actually in the Constitution, I thought that I’d cut her some slack, even though, from the clips I’ve seen, it looks as though she’s both puzzled by the concept, and unaware that the First Amendment states that the government cannot establish a state religion. But, then I happened across this Anderson Cooper segment, and felt as though I had to share it. It’s one thing for a candidate to blank on what the individual amendments to the Constitution say, but it’s quite another to do so after stating on repeated occasions that you are a Constitutional scholar. And, yes, that’s apparently what O’Donnell has been saying in front of Tea Party crowds.
I’m of the opinion now that the Republicans are paying O’Donnell to keep this nonsense coming, as it distracts from other races in which they’re running unqualified candidates. There’s really no reason that we should be talking about her at this point, as she’s down by over 20 points in the polls, and the gap the widening. But yet she keeps managing to show up in the press, and on blogs like this one.
…Four years ago, in a failed Senate campaign, O’Donnell claimed that China had a “carefully thought-out and strategic plan to take over America” and said she knew of this via “classified information that I’m privy to.” In the debate, she insisted that she had indeed received some “security briefs” while working with a humanitarian group that was planning a China trip. There are only two possibilities: She needs to be fitted for a tinfoil hat or she made the whole thing up.
Oh, and I have it on good authority that her father made his living as a counterfeit Bozo the Clown. He’s been quoted in the press as having said, “To be an official Bozo, you had to go to a special school in Texas.” The acorn, as they say, doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
I’m curious to know if there’s anyone out there who doesn’t buy this, and, if so, why not. My sense is that some will say it’s unfair to lay the massive job losses that began in January 2007 at the feet of Bush, pointing to the fact that Congress was in the hands of the Democrats the last two years of his eight year term. But I don’t seem to recall anything that Congress did without his approval during those years that might have caused this to happen. They did, during that time, stop Bush from privatizing Social Security, but I don’t see how that could have led to millions of people losing their jobs. On the other side of the equation, though, I don’t know how much Bush was responsible, as most of those jobs were lost in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis that brought our economy to the brink of collapse. Sure, you could argue that there was lax oversight, and that, if not for the push for increased deregulation, it wouldn’t have happened, but the blame for that, it seems to me, is pretty evenly shared across the political spectrum, and goes all the way back to Reagan. The important thing, from my perspective, isn’t who dug the hole, but that Obama, with no support from the Republicans, got us out of it. And I’m curious as to how anyone could look at these numbers and dispute the fact that he’s done a decent job. Yes, there’s still a long way to go, and the meager gains we’ve experienced these past few months don’t come close to offsetting the years of massive layoffs, but things are finally trending toward the positive.
But, facts don’t seem to carry the same weight they once did. I was just reading that, despite the fact that Obama cut federal taxes on over 95% of Americans, few acknowledge it. In fact, a significant number of Americans seem to think that he’s raised taxes significantly. Here, with more on that, is a clip from today’s New York Times:
…In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.
In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”
Actually, the tax cut was, by design, hard to notice. Faced with evidence that people were more likely to save than spend the tax rebate checks they received during the Bush administration, the Obama administration decided to take a different tack: it arranged for less tax money to be withheld from people’s paychecks.
They reasoned that people would be more likely to spend a small, recurring extra bit of money that they might not even notice, and that the quicker the money was spent, the faster it would cycle through the economy.
Economists are still measuring how stimulative the tax cut was. But the hard-to-notice part has succeeded wildly. In a recent interview, President Obama said that structuring the tax cuts so that a little more money showed up regularly in people’s paychecks “was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut”…
I’d like to attribute to stupidity the fact that people don’t realize that their federal taxes went down under Obama, but, as the author of this piece noted, the cuts were somewhat hidden by design. And, on top of that, it didn’t help that 30 states took the opportunity, during that same period of time, to raise their taxes, effectively canceling out the federal cuts.
And, while we’re on the subject of woefully incorrect beliefs held by the American electorate, I thought that I’d also share this clip from an article by Bruce Bartlett on the results of a small, informal poll of Tea Party enthusiasts.
…Tuesday’s tea party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times higher than they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median was 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.
To follow up, tea partiers were asked how much they think a typical family making $50,000 per year pays in federal income taxes. The average response was $12,710 and the median was $10,000. In percentage terms, this means a tax burden of between 20% and 25% of income.
Of course, it’s hard to know what any particular individual or family pays in taxes, but according to the IRS tax tables, a single person with $50,000 in taxable income last year would owe $8,694 in federal income taxes, and a married couple filing jointly would owe $6,669.
But these numbers are high because to have a taxable income of $50,000, one’s gross income would be higher by at least the personal exemption, which is $3,650, and the standard deduction, which is $5,700 for single people and $11,400 for married couples. Owning a home or having children would reduce one’s tax burden further.
According to calculations by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional committee, tax filers with adjusted gross incomes between $40,000 and $50,000 have an average federal income tax burden of just 1.7%. Those with adjusted gross incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 have an average burden of 4.2%.
Even though the tea partiers were specifically asked about federal income taxes, it’s possible that they were thinking about other federal taxes as well, such as payroll and excise taxes. According to the JCT, when all federal taxes are included, those earning between $40,000 and $50,000 have an average tax rate of 12.3%, and those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 pay a rate of 14.5%.
In short, no matter how one slices the data, the tea party crowd appear to believe that federal taxes are considerably higher than they actually are, whether referring to total taxes as a share of GDP or in terms of the taxes paid by a typical family.
Tea party goers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.
As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president. And given the economic circumstances, it’s hard to imagine that a tax increase would have been enacted last year. In fact, 40% of Obama’s stimulus package involved tax cuts. These include the Making Work Pay Credit, which reduces federal taxes for all taxpayers with incomes below $75,000 by between $400 and $800.
According to the JCT, last year’s $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year. The Tax Policy Center, a private research group, estimates that close to 90% of all taxpayers got a tax cut last year and almost 100% of those in the $50,000 income range. For those making between $40,000 and $50,000, the average tax cut was $472; for those making between $50,000 and $75,000, the tax cut averaged $522. No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama’s policies….
And these people vote…. So, yeah, I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re kind of fucked… Thanks, FOX News for obliterating the concept of reality.
The following quote is taken from a letter written by Drummond Pike, the founder and CEO of the Tides Foundation, to the Chairmen of the Boards of GEICO, Zurich Financial, Chrysler, Direct Holdings Americas, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Lilly Corporate Center, BP, and The Hartford Financial Services Group, all of whom support Glenn Beck’s television program with their advertising dollars. Drummond, as you might recall, was recently targeted for assassination by an enthusiastic and well-armed disciple of Professor Beck’s.
…To say we were “shocked” does not adequately describe our reaction. Imagine, for a moment, that you were us and, had it not been for a sharp eyed highway patrolman, a heavily armed man in full body armor would have made it to your office with the intent to kill you and your colleagues. His motive? Apparently, it was because the charitable, nonpartisan programs we run are deemed part of a conspiracy to undermine America and the capitalist system, which is hogwash…
I respectfully request that you bring this matter of your company’s sponsorship of hate speech leading to violence to the attention of your fellow directors as soon as possible. I believe no responsible company should advertise on Fox News due to its recent and on-going deplorable conduct.
While we may agree to disagree about the role our citizens and our government should play in promoting social justice and the common good, there should be no disagreement about what constitutes integrity and professionalism and responsibility in discourse - even when allowing for and encouraging contending diverse opinions intelligently argued. This is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue. No one, left, right or center, wants to see another Oklahoma City.
The next “assassin” may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands. The choice is yours. Please join my call to do the right thing in this regard and put Fox News at arm’s length from your company by halting your advertising with them…
On FOX News yesterday, Republican candidate for Senate, Carly Fiorina, said, if elected by the people of California, she’d fight to make Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans permanent. When pressed by Chris Wallace on what she’d cut in order to cover the $4 trillion budget shortfall that would result, though, the failed former CEO of HP couldn’t name a single program that she’d axe. But that’s kind of what you’d expect, seeing as how the American people, despite all their red-faced ranting about “big government,” really don’t want to see the programs that they rely upon cut. (The reality is that they like social programs. They just don’t like them for everybody else.) So, Republican candidates like Fiorina perform the requisite Kabuki - saying that they’ll substantially cut back government programs if elected, with no intention whatsoever of actually following through. I don’t suppose that surprises anyone, but I thought that it was worth mentioning.
Dylan Ratigan was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Friday, when the subject of Bill O’Reilly’s now infamous “Muslims killed us on 9/11” comment on the View came up. Here’s what he had to say.
What’s odd to me isn’t what he said, but how his comments are met by his fellow panelists. It’s like they’re kind of scared.
One of my biggest regrets, at least politically speaking, is that I invested as much as I did in the John Edwards campaign. It sounds incredibly naive in retrospect, I know, but I really believed that he was sincerely running because he wanted to stand up for regular Americans, and bring morality and integrity back to the White House. He was a charismatic son of a bitch, and I ate it up. Fortunately for all of us, though, he imploded before he could do too much damage. It’s an embarrassing chapter in my life that I’d like to put behind me, but some folks won’t let me. My friend Eric just forwarded me the following picture, taken a few evenings ago by his cousin, at a bar on the campus of the University of North Carolina. It’s a little dark, but that’s John Edwards, getting the number of a co-ed… I could care less that the guy gets laid. That’s not what makes me feel sick. What bothers me is that this, at least as far as I can tell, is how he spends his time these days, instead of traveling around the country advocating on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. I could have accepted the lying and the philandering, if, after getting caught, he owned up to what he’d done, and continued the RFK-inspired campaign that he’d begun. If he’d continued to work on the problem of poverty without the White House as an objective, I’d still support him to this day. The reality is that he probably never really cared, though. It’s hard to accept, but it looks now as if the whole thing was a very calculated act of political theater.
Last night, I went to a cool little foodie event in Ann Arbor put on by the folks at Tracklements. The event, which brought together a number of budding local food businesses, like Farrell Fruit, EAT, The Brinery, and the new Zingerman’s endeavor San Street, was held at the Pot and Box flower shop. As proceeds went toward one of our favorite local non-profits, FLY Children’s Art Center, and as unlimited beer was promised, I was enthusiastic about attending. What’s more, it gave me a chance to finally check out Pot and Box, which is owned by my friend Lisa Waud. I’d met Lisa about a year ago, when she took a class on blogging that I was giving for 826 Michigan. She hadn’t opened her storefront yet, and was thinking about ways to use social media to get the word out about her company. I promised her that, at some point in the future, once the shop was open, I’d come out with my video camera and shoot an interview. Well, that’s what I did last night, after filling up on buffalo sliders and steamed pork buns. Here’s the result.
And, yeah, I mentioned the unlimited beer, right? (Linette was driving.) Oh, and the woman we joke around about firing at the end is my friend Beth, who works for Lisa. And, as far as I know, Lisa didn’t let her go.
Anyway, if you want to deal with a great florist, I can’t say enough about the work that Lisa, Beth, and others on the Pot and Box team do. Not only are the great with plants and flowers, but they’ve got a really good sense of what it takes to be successful in this economy. By using the web, and by actively building relationships with the local foodie folks, they’ve accomplished more in their first year than I ever thought possible. It’s really incredible to see what they’ve done, and to watch the way they creatively leverage their space on Felch Street to host cool events such as this one. We could use a few dozen more entrepreneurs like Lisa.
What do people with OCD do when they get together… I’d usually be reluctant to answer, but, in honor of OCD Awareness Week, I thought that I’d let you in on a little secret. A lot of what we do, when we’re not critiquing the work of actors pretending to have what we have, is size one another up, assessing each others talents relative to our own. And, by talents, I mean one’s OCD related quirks. I’ve never been a great athlete, but I imagine they go through a somewhat similar process upon first meeting a competitor. I’m ashamed to say that I’m kind of an elitist when it comes to OCD. Without getting too much into specifics, I don’t generally respect those who place significantly lower than me on what I’d call the misery index. (Remind me to tell you one day all the things that factor into the OCD misery index.)
I remember being in a group therapy session once, where the doctor in charge circulated a form for people to sign in on. I was amazed at the number of people who signed in with the communal pen, which had to be teaming with germs and disease. I remember thinking, “We don’t have any true superstars in this group.” At the time, though, it wasn’t like it mattered. Even if we had someone incredible, with totally brilliant rituals, and completely debilitating obsessions, there wasn’t a professional arena for them to compete in. Apparently, however, that’s changed recently, with the advent of reality television. My friend with OCD in Pittsburgh on occasion sends me clips from a show called Obsessed. Here’s the most recent one that he’s brought to my attention.
My friend is convinced that the guy is faking, and I’m inclined to agree. He’s drawing way too much attention to himself. But, maybe it’s just that an overzealous producer got involved and convinced him to be more flamboyant than he would normally. As someone with OCD, though, it rings completely false, and I’m wondering what kind of safeguards they have have in place at A&E to make sure they aren’t scammed. At least, I can’t remember the last time I stood on a street corner and announced to everyone around me that I was about to commence a performance. Maybe they don’t care, though. Maybe they’d rather have actors who can really sell the product that they’re pushing, which is mental illness porn. My friends try to stand up for shows like this, telling me that, had shows like Obsessed existed when I was small, it might not have taken 25 years for me to get help, and maybe that’s valid, but I think it’s hard to deny that someone is being exploited here in order to sell advertising. And I think that’s worth discussing this OCD Awareness Week… And, if you don’t want to discuss that, here’s something else. How come there’s an LGBT History Month, and a Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, but those of us with OCD just get a single week? I mean, I love my gay friends with all my heart, but is it fair that they get eight weeks to my one? No offense to Dental Hygienists, who also get a week, but I think that we deserve more.
