WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Oh. My. God:

Children, you really need to watch this amazing Tigerhawk video. Please, please, please watch it.

For those of you who don’t have the stomach, I’ll boil it down for you:

  • I, Tigerhawk, am a hard-working guy who makes a lot of money.
  • I and others of my kind work harder than any of you out there and we are better than you are because you’re lazy.
  • But despite the fact that we’re superior to all of you, you’re all being ungrateful to us… indeed, you want to raise our taxes!
  • Because of this, my feelings hurt.

My personal favorite quote is about small businessmen who don’t earn more than $250,000:

Most liberal bloggers are saying, ‘Well, most small-business people don’t actually earn $250,000, and they’re right in a way. But most of those small business people don’t create any jobs, or they create a few lame jobs.

Again, there is a palpable sense of resentment toward people who are not rich. Small business people who aren’t rich? Pfft, who cares? They create lame jobs. Only Randian Supermen such as myself are worthy of the public’s adoration… and yet the public is showing us disdain! Oh, heavens! I am feeling ever-so-tempted to go John Galt and then you’ll all miss me!

Lisa Schiffren at the National Review watches Tigerhawk’s hilarious sobfest and comes away misty-eyed:

Corner readers, you know he’s right. The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians). They are not robber barons, or trust-fund babies, or plutocrats, or even celebrities. They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties at top law firms, banks, hospitals, and businesses to earn salaries in the solid six figures (or low seven) today — in their peak earning years.

I absolutely love shit like this.

For years, the right has worked tirelessly to portray Democratic politicians or activists as patrician elitists because they went to fancy colleges and went onto become doctors (Howard Dean), lawyers (John Edwards) or successful investors (George Soros). If anything, these figures are the very same people whom Tigerhawk is claiming to champion: they’re highly ambitious people who worked hard to make a lot of money. So what’s the problem with them?

The answer is, they don’t have a chip on their shoulder. Indeed, you could even say they feel grateful that they’ve made a shitload of money! And to make matters worse, they support raising taxes on their fellow rich people because they understand that having a society that is plagued by vast structural inequalities is in the long run detrimental to their own well-being! After all, the unwashed masses are far less likely to rise up and burn your mansion down if they have access to quality healthcare.

But for people such as Tigerghawk, political ideology trumps pragmatic considerations. In their calculus, the unwashed masses are smelly unworthies who are trying to take away the money that rich people are entitled to. Thus, we have the uniquely American phenomenon of the Angry Rich Guy who sees himself as a hard-working everyman whose life is significantly worse than someone who makes $8 an hour washing dishes for a living.

As Roy puts it, “I miss the old days when, if a rich guy wanted his ass kissed, he’d pay someone to do it instead of haranguing strangers on YouTube.”

UPDATE: In the YouTube page comments, TigerHawk writes:

I get the part about civic duty, but I *know* that a great many people have jobs because of my efforts and would prefer some recognition of that to being called greedy and unpatriotic.

See, rich people aren’t really in this for the money — rather, they’re in it for the love.

Tigerhawk, if it makes you feel better, I have nothing against rich people. If you’re a successful person who has contributed something to society, then more power to you.

But please. Do not ask me to feel sorry for you. You’re rich. Again, I repeat: you’re rich. And because you’re rich in the United States, you have to pay less taxes than rich people in every other industrialized country in the entire world. You also have an entire political party (the Republicans) and a large swathe of another political party (the Democrats) who are lining up to kiss your ass on a regular basis. Rich people in this country have it better than rich people in every other country in the world. You’d think they’d be a little more grateful for this fact instead of being perpetually resentful whiners.

 

Comments: 526

 
 
 

It is the height of disrespect and oppression to require that people making the most net income pay a slightly higher rate of taxes on that portion of their income which rises above a pre-determined bracket.

The way Obama is acting is a million, billion times worse than Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and the FARC guerrillas all given superpowers and teleported directly into your head. And I don’t wish to exaggerate, either.

 
 

You know, its almost like they are tacitly acknowledging that being rich doesn’t mean you get to be happy, or at least that poor people are happier than they are. This explains why they want to keep hoarding money until the system fails. They’re only trying to get us all back to that happy poor spot.

Wait a sec, does that make these Galt-types secret marxists?

 
 

Galts are the new Antoinettes!

But they beliebe they’re on the other side. It’s a mobius strip of self-glorification.

 
 

I want a society that is plaqued with vast structural inequalities. It could then be corrected with a WaterPik.

 
 

What kind of engineering discipline pulls a quarter million dollars a year? I don’t think Lisa Schiffren knows what she’s talking about.

 
Till Eulenspiegel
 

But most of those small business people don’t create any jobs, or they create a few lame jobs.

Okay, here’s the thing…a single business owner who nets $250k is pretty impressive. He’s making about 5x more than an employee. It’s probably a multi-million dollar business.

Now, if I vaguely understand the US tax code, if this guy doesn’t want to get taxed at a higher rate for pocketing anything over $250k, he can instead invest that amount back into his business by, say, hiring another employee. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 
 

Absolute must-read smackdown of this bullshit by Hunter at Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/6/10302/42404/660/705140

Like I say, please please PLEASE “go Galt” on us, you fuckheads. Please? Do it NOW. Do you need a ride to the airport?

 
 

Maybe if this fool spent more time working and less time making youtube videos, he could spend more time with the family.

My guess is that he doesn’t actually want to spend more time with the family, but more time with the strippers/butt boys (depending on how he rolls).

 
 

How does this mesh with Joetheplumberism?
How does Randroid nonsense mesh with fundamentalist Christianity?

See, usually the string-pullers in the GOP are able to gloss over this, but as we saw with Steele vs. Rush, there’s no one behind the wheel anymore.

Oh well.

 
Unemployment at 25 Year High
 

I wonder how much further it will go up when a taxes are raised?

The American people are already starting to turn on Obama and his socialist agenda.

 
biff diggerence
 

Aw.

If you need some bucks, sell your children.

The world can always use more sex slaves.

 
biff diggerence
 

Aw.

Didja hear that?

They all did their fucking homework.

Like Nino Scalia.

yeesh.

 
 

And is is possible for a business to grow, create new, non-lame jobs, generate millions in revenue, and still have the owner’s income remain under $250K. I’ve worked at such a company for years.

 
 

This is the same neo-Calvinism we saw here in the SF area during the dot-com boom. “Well, he works 80 hours a week, so he deserves huge compensation!” even if the 80 hours were spent on the phone chatting up potential clients, in hot tubs chatting, on the golf course with clients. And nowhere was considered the quality, value, or social utility of the work in question.

So, if a janitor takes on a second job sorting recycling and works 100 hours a week, does he deserve >$250,000 salary also?

Sure they work a lot — I dated and lived with an associate at L&W, where this guy used to work. They were run ragged and abused, but that was the fault of the corporate culture, which seemed to buy into a brutal and questionable social Darwinism. And many of those late nights were out drinking with clients — mainly 20-something investment bankers who were blowing corporate money on drunken hours in strip clubs (not making this up nor exaggerating).

 
 

Engineers? Is Ms. Schiffren under the impression that engineers have an adjusted gross income of over $250,000??

 
 

Has anyone else noticed that Rand’s ultimate rebellion against “communism” was having the “achievers” run away to join a commune?

Well, a commune with magical free energy and a magical invisibility shield, but still…

 
 

As I was saying to friends when I first saw this, it’s amazing how galling it is to be asked to pay more in taxes, and nobody even appreciates it, leaving people like poor Tigerhawk only with their vast wealth, political power, social privilege and unprecedented degree of liberty to make up for their terrible suffering.

It’s hard to pick out a favorite moment from the endless tears-for-Croesus rant…but I think it’s just the overall tone of aggrievement and entitlement from someone who enjoys a life more privileged than 90% of the population of the planet could ever imagine, but is still pissy because everyone doesn’t thank him every day for being so rich.

I love the part where he reels off a list of people in his financial bracket, and says it’s people like them that make America a place whose future is worth living in. Oh, yes, where would we be without marketing managers? Who wants to contemplate the horror of a world with no product development executives in it?

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Please, please, please watch it.

I’ll try, but this guy is pretty BOOORRRRIIINNNGGGG…

No wait, he’s not just boring, he’s also insanely offensive. First point that made me want to cock-punch this motherfucker was at 0:45 to 1:00-

…all of them rich…the exercise made me wonder “Who’s standing up for these people”…

You fucking smug shitbag – are you really saying that the top 2% of earners in the country are massively under-represented? Are you saying that these poor poor folks, with their quarter million dollar salaries are TEH VICTIMS?!?! Okay, you run with that one – in the current economic situation, you want people to be concerned for your poor colleagues who are having to make do with low six-figure salaries.

 
 

He works 100 hours a week, including the three he spent editing this pathetic video.

As I said on my blog, maybe he ought to try being a housewife with kids, which is only 168 hours a week without pay AND you don’t get three hours to edit video of your fat, pasty-faced ugly ass.

 
 

I used the following in a comment at DailyKos several years ago (All hail, Dark Lord Kos), and variations of Buffett’s comments have appeared in subsequent letters to shareholders ever since.

“Berkshire…will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum equaling 2.5% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003. (In contrast, Berkshire’s market valuation is about 1% of the value of all American corporations.) Our payment will almost certainly place us among our country’s top ten taxpayers…if only 540 taxpayers paid the amount Berkshire will pay, no other individual or corporation would have to pay anything to Uncle Sam.”*my emphasis

*Based on total fiscal 2003 tax receipts of $1.782 trillion, including social security.

540 x $3.3B = $1.782T

He continues, “…We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future – it will mean we are prospering – but we also hope that the rest of Corporate America antes up along with us.”

The entire 2003 Chairman’s Letter is here in pdf. Buffett’s tax comments start at the bottom of page 6, and the whole letter is a very good read if you’re so inclined.

I’ve always respected and admired Warren Buffett because of his track record as an investor and company head, and also because he just seems like a decent guy who proves that you can go out to make a few bucks and still remain a human being with some self-respect.

I also admire his candor. Sure, there’s a side of me that would rather see him shake a few hundred of his fellow corporate execs by the lapels and shout in their faces, “OK, you greedy fuck, the party’s over. Pay your share and no one gets hurt!”

I guess that just isn’t his style.

 
 

to steal from Jon Stewart:

“F*** YOU. I can’t figure out which of these dipshits I’d rather see in jail.”

But I do hope this guy invested all his money. Because you know who stole all his investments? Madoff, Stamford, all the other whiz kids and hard workers at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Yeah, these guys need to be on Ark B. Right behind the telephone sanitizers.

 
 

I also admire his candor. Sure, there’s a side of me that would rather see him shake a few hundred of his fellow corporate execs by the lapels and shout in their faces, “OK, you greedy fuck, the party’s over. Pay your share and no one gets hurt!”

Allow me to introduce you to Warren Buffett’s darker side

 
 

Well, the Alphas have always needed the Epsilons. The Epsilons are happy, knowing their place.

 
 

These fuckers really can spin on a dime, can’t they? Over at Pandagon today, Jesse Taylor quite correctly points out that it wasn’t that long ago the far right were hyping “Small Town Values” as being the only legitimate measure of real Americans. You know: farmers, church goers, etc. To quote:

“Anyone else remember that brief period of time called the last quarter of the 20th century where the conservative movement painted themselves as the enemy of the monied cultural elite, refusing to believe that big New York lawyers and doctors were better than salt of the Earth Midwesterners who worked hard at the things that truly mattered, like going to church, owning guns and not having abortions? That was quaint. “

Now the Right is demanding we swallow the exact opposite, and never mind that the above line was the Propaganda Model of the Day mere months (if not weeks) ago. Gotta give the scum credit for sheer, unabashed shamelessness, if nothing else…

 
 

Because, you know, if you work at something you love doing for 100 hours per week, but don’t make $250K or employ people, you are just a lazy asshole who wants handouts and class warefare!

Why do Republicans (and the obedient media) put business owners on a pedastal? Most I’ve met are greedy assholes that act like they are doing you a huge favor by employing your lazy non-business-owner ass.

Stop being a WATB and actually go Galt! Somebody else who isn’t a WATB will fill your spot very quickly and probably do a better job.

 
 

They claim to see it all as zero-sum (although I know there is a place in the deepest reaches of their humanity that KNOWS it’s not – it’s just that that place frightens them). In order for their fellow humans to gain anything, they have to LOSE something.

It’s exactly the same as the kid who’s terrified that his little brother is going to get a bigger cookie than he is. All the words that would apply in that case – spoiled, selfish, conceited, self-indulgent – apply in this case.

No concern, no shared burden, they lack the emotional maturity to care if someone is suffering, that they could, without suffering any pain or loss whatsoever, help improve the lot of their fellows.

And they are NOT fooling anyone. The mouth-breathing 28% will wail and gnash, but there’s at least a 50/50 chance that America is going to become some kind of Social Democracy in the next 4 years.

And once people HAVE things like social security, health insurance, education support and jobs programs, they typically cannot be induced to give them up…

mikey

 
 

See, sitting on your well-dressed butt in an ergonomically appropriate swivel chair, working and slaving over a computer screen in an air-conditioned office is real hard work, and thus worth a six-figure salary. Whereas getting on your hands and knees to scrub toilets and floors, or being on your feet for eight hours schlepping serving trays and putting up with abuse from six-figure assholes like this TigerLily guy, is definitely NOT hard work and thus not deserving of even a living wage.

I wonder if this perception will change at all once the college-educated laid-off architects and bankers and other white-collared find themselves competing with the unwashed schlubs for those minimum-wage jobs, at which the schlubs will have more job security because they’ve got the seniority?

And WTF does “serious small-business owner” mean? Does this person think anyone who owns a small business is NOT serious? Or are some small businesses more serious than others? Or what? Fucking bunch of wank-heads.

 
 

I’ve actually given up Felching for Lent…

 
 

Pffft.

I work for a supplier to GM. We spent last year working 12-16 hours a day six days a week–even through the summer. And yet it’s workers who need to take concessions for the good of GM and the country. I guess this whiny bitch supports workers at the car companies not giving up their hard won fairly negotiated benefits.

It’s the same fucking thing.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Wheee!!!! I think he’ going to manage a cock-punch a minute. 2:00

If I were president…and I wanted them working FOR me rather than AGAINST me…

If I didn’t have almost eight more minutes of your droning on to torture myself with, I’d check to see if you’ve ever joined the “TRAITOR” chorus. Seriously – this line implies that a 4% marginal tax rate increase is enough to push people into the Fifth Column. Your poor put-upon couple where both are making $180K is going to have to cough up $4400. You’re saying that these people, your “friends” are willing to do what they can to scuttle US economic policy for $4400 – and they’re combined salaries is OVER A THIRD OF A MILLION.

 
 

Well, watching Paul Galt, Mall Cop here on his Segway of justice, I’ve come away with one truth at least.

The rich need to hire better PR guys.

 
 

SELECTED QUOTES from “I DIDN’T DO IT ALONE: Society’s Contribution to Individual Wealth and Success:”

“I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.”

— Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

“My wealth is not only a product of my own hard work. It also resulted from a strong economy and lots of public investment, both in others and in me. I received a good public school education and used free libraries and museums paid for by others. I went to college under the GI Bill. I went to graduate school to study computers and language on a complete government scholarship… While teaching at Syracuse University for 25 years, my research was supported by numerous government grants… My university research provided the basis for Syracuse Language Systems…”

— Martin Rothenberg, founder of Syracuse Language Systems and Glottal Enterprises

“Lots of people who are smart and work hard and play by the rules don’t have a fraction of what I have. I realize I don’t have my wealth because I’m so brilliant. Luck has a lot to do with it.”

— Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, Inc.

“The opportunities to create wealth are all taking advantage of public goods–like roads, transportation, markets–and public investments… We are all standing on the shoulders of all that came before us, and creating a society for our children and those that come after us. We have obligations as part of that.”

— Jim Sherblom, venture capitalist and former chief financial officer of Genzyme

“I feel like there’s no way I’ve done this by myself… Every single person we worked with has contributed to making Hanna what it is today… People in Sweden don’t like paying taxes either, but nobody would ever suggest that you would close schools because you didn’t have enough money to keep them open.”

— Gun Denhart, co-founder of Hanna Andersson clothing company

Where’s the darkness?

 
 

Snarkle, I meant that he’s not such a nice guy that he’s averse to getting into someone’s face. He’s set up a whole foundation (with Bill Gates, Sr) to do precisely that.

 
 

I see that I neglected to quote that part of your post. Sorry.

 
 

You can replace a gerbil with lint?

 
 

As someone who believes we need a socialist presence in this country to act as a counterweight and bulwark against people like this, I can only encourage these “titans of industry”. Their “I work hard” arguments might have gotten undeserved pass when the economy was vaguely good and at least people had their homes.

To make these claims when the economy is bad, working multiple jobs is normal, a huge portion of people are losing their homes, huge amounts of people are laid off, and while arguing passionately against basic level aid while drunkenly spending the bailout money they get on improving their own lives, all while being obviously responsible for tanking the economy in the first place, is finally seeming to break through all the successful McCarthy scare-tactic crap and causing people to wonder exactly what it is that an executive does that makes them 10, 20, 100 times “more worthy” than they are.

Whenever they yell socialism and unfair, they’re recruiting one more person to say “socialism? Why not? Yes, please.”

On an added note, it’s hilarious how they’re aristocratic calvinism is blinding them to the real merit of the New Deal. The point of the New Deal wasn’t to be all socialist, it was to save the rich from themselves. They don’t get that Obama is trying to save them and very very generously too.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

These rich WATBs need a slogan for their “Go Galt” tantrum.

How about:

“Never have so many taken so many balls and gone to so many homes.”

 
Lord Blar-har of the Psychophancy
 

If you lie(pronounced ‘lye’, get it?)-bruls get to say wealth is theft then us stoic, self-denying paper-shufflers should get to throw embarrassing tantrums on cheap video, no?

And if it’s ever proven that my hypothetical extra 3% off the top margin directly helped a struggling family keep their home, well, then you’ll see a tirade, ya pinko brownshirts, and it won’t be pretty (or well-produced).

 
 

I for one love the stupid macho nicknames. “Tigerhawk” indeed. The closest this guy’s ever been to being a “Tigerhawk” was probably the time he saved his company thousands of dollars by screwing his employees out of some tiny little benefit.

I’ve worked for guys like this. They’re the ones who tell the single black employee that there won’t be fried chicken and watermelon at the company picnic, and are surprised at the reaction.

 
 

“Yeah, these guys need to be on Ark B. Right behind the telephone sanitizers.”

That is *exactly* what I was thinking when he was talking.

 
 

I don’t think they expect the mass reaction to the Galt tantrum to be the yawns and “You’re still here? Please leave; you’ve left us quite a mess to clean up” that they are getting.

I hope they take all the Ayn Rand books with them.

 
 

like roads, transportation, markets–and public investments…

I think that’s the big thing right there. These spoiled brats take roads, and transportation, and communications, etc. etc. ( and don’t even get me started on pharmacuticals, for whom universities are the R & D department) for granted.

They are just so damn wonderful that fairies come in the night and build roads, coordinate air traffic, provide the hardware and the standards for communications, well geez there is just no end to their awesomeness.

Tigerhawk = Chanticleer

 
 

And who coaches the local teams? Even that, in my company, more often than not it’s the guys with excellent managerial skills, and that means they’re probably people who make six figures.

Excellent sample selection, Tigerhawk.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Picking up the pace. 2:44

…they’re not wealthy heirs or entertainers…

IOW, please go on despising the Hollywood elite – even though I’m AM arguing that these “dilletantish coupon clippers” should be paying less tax. Then 2:50

…all have worked harder and longer…

His lists contains almost ZERO people who do actual productive work. Accountants, lawyers, managers, sales – “and yes executives”. No wonder why JiSM3’s $50/hour to pick lettuce seemed so reasonable – even at 100 hours a week, it’s be a pay cut for these assholes.
Then at 3:20 when he goes on about the hardships these rich fucks had to go through- fucking cock-punch every other second. Ruthless meritocracy? BWAHAHHAHAHHAHA.
Or at 4:10 when he claims that EVERYONE IN THAT TAX BRACKET WORKS 100 HOUR WEEKS?

the most successful….qualify for Mr. Obama’s opportunity to pay more taxes – ALL can say the same thing.

BWAHHAHHAHAHA. Give me a second to catch my breath, so I can deliver upon thee, a MIGHTY MIGHTY COCK-PUNCHING.

 
 

I also love how they think being a “businessman” has any meaningful skills and isn’t a saturated market. Oh yeah, doctors, civil rights lawyers, research scientists, and the millions of lame people working those meaningless non-job-createy jobs, totally expendable, but business administration will never be able to replace them not in a million years. Yeah, there’s only what, a million people dumping themselves into the MBA pool and most of their subordinates would be better at running their company and expanding it then they would be.

Just because you and your department of human resources believe you’re off limits for downsizing doesn’t mean you couldn’t be replaced with a monkey. But please do leave, all do a boycott at once, I want to see the look on your faces when you’re replaced in an afternoon and the companies run better.

 
 

47 is no time to go emo, dude.

First impression: oh my bloody ears … if this butthurt son-of-a-bitch is so well-to-do, can’t he afford to go get some fucking Dristan or something? Tigerhawk = all sinus, all the time.

Next: one’s ability to actualize an acquisitive, Type-A lifestyle is not an inherent vector for either virtue or superiority. Every despot & dictator in history was a “real go-getter” – as their many victims soon learned. A mere dozen more of us growing up to be slackers, & modern history would be more Disneyland & less A Nightmare On Elm Street.

OMGWTFBBQ: “Heavily taxed” my ass, T-Man – you’d’ve paid a hell of a lot more tax under Eisenhower (or even bloody NIXON) than you’re going to pay under Obama – so get off the fainting-couch & get the hell over yourself. The affluent have a plethora of accountancy & investment avenues by which to pay ZERO net tax, avenues systematically denied to those most in need of their shelter – avenues of legalized theft that the helpful inbreeds at BushCo happily turned into superhighways – & now thanks to the Interwebs, the fucking jig is up. Cry the rest of us a fucking river, rich-boy, & maybe we can all pitch in on a fucking canoe to drift on it. Your sudden spasm of self-pity over finally being asked to give back some of your surplus wealth – coming as it does on the heels of the most massive marathon orgy of mindless consumption & waste in recorded history – bears the rancid stench of either deceit or dementia … & I can’t figure out for the life of me which is more loathsome.

Lastly: ugly perm is ugly.

 
 

“Tigerhawk” indeed.

Hamsterpheasant?

 
 

Some people, once they get a taste of how sweet a life with money can be, get addicted to it. They just want more and more, and there will never be enough. They start to identify with their stuff — the vacation home, the yearly ski trips, the big-ass cars, the boats and Jet-skis; horses and private school for the kids, all that crap — and they start hanging around with others like themselves, who are also into materialism as a measure of self-worth. The others always have more, too, it seems, so the self-identified materialists must keep figuring out ways to get more and more crack money so they have more than the others and then the others are jealous of them instead of vice versa. Well, Obama-nomics is staging an intervention, and they’re going into full defensive/denial/anger mode. It’s for their own good; they just don’t realize it yet. Thus they squawk and screech and strike out in ugly despicable ways. Perhaps putting them into reeducation camps and letting them go cold turkey is called for.

 
 

Disfuckinggusting. I couldn’t watch the whole thing; I had to go vomit.

Someone could make a helluva mashup from that. Make that asshole another leading voice of the GOP a la Rush whatshisname.

 
 

You know the phrase “how the other half lives,” taken title of Jacob Riis’ work? This is someone who has no idea how the other half lives and has no inclination to find out.

 
 

I think he only works 100 hours per week if you include masturbation as “work”.

Got to love the dissing of jobs provided by small businesses. You know, those jobs where the employee actually knows the person who signs their pay cheque, and they have a better chance of being treated as a human being instead of a “human resource”.

I mean, if a small business owner doesn’t have a very high income themselves, might that be because they stick to ethical business practices, or even pay their employees a fair wage? COMMUNISM!!1!!

Of COURSE those rich doctors and lawyers are not trust fund babies! Daddy paid cash! $50,000 for med school? tis’ but a vulgar trifle.

If those lazy bastards didn’t work hard enough as a zygote to be squeezed out of some rich man’s trophy wife’s clopper, then it is their own fault for not being able to pay for a degree, or being unable to beg daddy for start up capital!

 
 

taken from the title

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

OMG! The “lame jobs” quote? 5:10. Does he actually say that the jobs created by small businesses netting <$250K are “lame jobs”? Yes he does, while sneering. I don’t think I can deliver a cock-punch vicious enough to match that fucking bit of self-important assholery.

If you can’t bring yourself to watch the whole thing (and I totally understand) – just fast forward to around the 5:10 mark. Your knuckles will never feel as itchy.

 
 

47 is no time to go emo, dude.

LEAVE GALTY ALONE!

 
 

In the small town where I grew up, just about every bank President is a guy that I went to school with. Typically, they were popular jocks – not big-brained (and they’d be the first to admit it). They just kind of fell into that spot by being liked by so many people. And being basically decent, they’d also tell you it was strictly social convention that got them there (though not in that language).

If one of these fellows had fell into that position without the self-awareness to realize HOW he fell into it, he would no doubt think it was the result of ruthless meritocracy and that he and he alone got to the top without any connections whatsoever (what with banking being “a purely results-oriented industry” (eye roll).

So what we’ve established is not just that the Tigerhawks are not that damn bright, they also lack basic self-awareness. I wish these neurotic doofussii would “Go Galt”.

P.S. Dear Randians, which one of you has invented the magic electricity machine?

 
 

I hope they take all the Ayn Rand books with them.

I don’t. We’re going to need them.

Hollow out a harcover copy of “Atlas Shrugged” and a family of four who have lost their home can live inside.

 
 

“Tigerhawk” indeed.

Hamsterpheasant?

Kittenquail?

Shrewbuzzard?

 
 

Hamsterpheasant?

“Hamsterville! Hamsterville!”

/mildly obscure

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

It really is something to see when somebody’s willing to make this big a fool of himself this publicly in a medium that lasts as long as this one does.

I’m impressed, in a very backward-ass way.

 
Principal Blackman
 

In other news, Bush dead-ender Mark Noonan is holding a discussion on when it will be appropriate to call for Obama’s resignation. The answer he comes up with is October.

I’m not making any of that up.

 
 

I don’t think I can deliver a cock-punch

Doesn’t mikey have a good recipe for cock punch?

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

5:55

…they work harder than everybody else…

John Sidney McCain III thinks you’re wrong. Maybe Tigerhawk ought to spend a season picking lettuce.

Fuck. It’s like he honestly believes that people not earning $250K NEVER do more than the bare minimum. It’s like he thinks that the only people who put in overtime are people with six figure incomes. It’s like he honestly believes that owners of stable businesses with significant profits WORK MORE HOURS THAN ONE THAT IS STRUGGLING.

 
 

I dare any one of those assholes to come and teach for a day in the middle school where I teach. I’ll show them hard work, I will!

“Feh!” on the lot of them. I say, “Feh!”

 
The Three Pillars of the Democrat Party
 

1) Envy
2) Class Warfare
3) Something for Nothing

 
 

The fact is, I can smell your jealousy from all the way over here in my large house, which I’ve earned through years and years of hard work…something you liberals consider a virus. This is how America works, socialist whiners- you work hard and you earn lots of money. Obama doesn’t have the right to tax me, because he’s a Marxist and America isn’t Marxist.

 
 

I wonder if Tigerhawk realizes the shame that his children will feel when they see this video someday, probably while eating his corpse in the rubble.

 
 

You know, they all but sainted (and not without some virtue) the American soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq. How is paying a slightly higher marginal tax rate an unbearable burden in comparison, when both are supposedly to preserve the blessed Country? Or is pitching in all for the other guy?

 
The Three Pillars of the Republic Party
 

1) Yummy
2) Salty
3) Tears

 
 

It’s aristocratic calvinism. It’s the idea that wealth and success can only be because you are one of the elect chosen and thus must have earned it by your inherent qualities and you prove it with your hard works and that everyone else has likewise earned being less than due to their inherent sin.

Mix that with the idea that the rich should be a class above everyone else, an aristocracy that must by their magnificence work harder and be more important than the tripe shop girl and that peasants asking you to pay your share are merely engaging in assault upon your person and you have the sort of privileged wanker that’d make this video.

 
 

OMGWTFBBQ: “Heavily taxed” my ass, T-Man – you’d’ve paid a hell of a lot more tax under Eisenhower (or even bloody NIXON) than you’re going to pay under Obama – so get off the fainting-couch & get the hell over yourself. The affluent have a plethora of accountancy & investment avenues by which to pay ZERO net tax, avenues systematically denied to those most in need of their shelter – avenues of legalized theft that the helpful inbreeds at BushCo happily turned into superhighways – & now thanks to the Interwebs, the fucking jig is up. Cry the rest of us a fucking river, rich-boy, & maybe we can all pitch in on a fucking canoe to drift on it. Your sudden spasm of self-pity over finally being asked to give back some of your surplus wealth – coming as it does on the heels of the most massive marathon orgy of mindless consumption & waste in recorded history – bears the rancid stench of either deceit or dementia … & I can’t figure out for the life of me which is more loathsome.

I am intrigued by your thoughts and would like to bear your children. Except that I’m a guy.

 
 

“Tigerhawk” indeed.

Hamsterpheasant?

Kittenquail?

Shrewbuzzard?”

Gnatslug?

 
 

Tee hee. ‘Class Warfare’. Yep, if people figure out how much upward wealth redistribution has been going on these last eight years, they are going to be just a little annoyed. Too funny.

I’m reminded of the bank robber: “Hey, you can’t take that money! I stole it fair and square!”

 
 

How much do the CEO’s of Sadly, No! Industries Inc. Corp. make? Gavin’s not going to go all John Galt is he?

 
 

Let’s see……
Went to Princeton. Probable privileged background ✔
Law Degree. Probable asshole. ✔
Lawyer running medical device company. Probably knows diddly squat about making anything useful, only how to exploit the knowledge and creativity of actual smart people (the M.D.’s and bio-engineers at Princeton who actually produce things of value) . ✔
Lawyer running medical device company whining about having to pay taxes at rate less than during Reagan admin. WATB ✔

What a fuckwad. Got rich on the backs of others. How many of those devices are paid for by medicare, I wonder. Loathsome piece of shit.

 
 

He’s been watching too much Santelli.

But his long boring whine does fit right in with the 17 part Galt epic youtube that Righteous Bubba found. Could be a coda, even.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

6:15
Good workers – sales reps and managers and “yes even executives”
Bad workers – bus drivers and school teachers

Nice. You run with that Tigerhawk. Fucking lazy ass school teachers, there’s a job that anybody could do – and it’s practically part-time. FUCK YOU! You know any bus drivers or school teachers, asshole?
6:40
More productive with their time, more energetic than “average people”. That’s right, Obama’s proposing to tax the übermenschen – a genetic breed of Man that is for superior to “average people”.

Note that this part of the glimpse into Tigerhawk’s world is about how the übermenschen spend all their free hours doing charitable work and volunteering their spare time to help society. Apparently it’s horrible to (7:05) ask them to “give back”. Afterall, they’re motivated by the feeling that (7:22) they are put on this earth “to make it better” – which they obviously can’t do if they’re paying taxes.

 
 

OMGWTFBBQ: “Heavily taxed” my ass, T-Man – you’d’ve paid a hell of a lot more tax under Eisenhower (or even bloody NIXON) than you’re going to pay under Obama – so get off the fainting-couch & get the hell over yourself. The affluent have a plethora of accountancy & investment avenues by which to pay ZERO net tax, avenues systematically denied to those most in need of their shelter – avenues of legalized theft that the helpful inbreeds at BushCo happily turned into superhighways – & now thanks to the Interwebs, the fucking jig is up. Cry the rest of us a fucking river, rich-boy, & maybe we can all pitch in on a fucking canoe to drift on it. Your sudden spasm of self-pity over finally being asked to give back some of your surplus wealth – coming as it does on the heels of the most massive marathon orgy of mindless consumption & waste in recorded history – bears the rancid stench of either deceit or dementia … & I can’t figure out for the life of me which is more loathsome.

Not even originally posted on our humble thread, but nonetheless: WIN.

 
The Free Market
 

I distribute wealth through natural laws, the government does it through force.

 
The Free Market
 

I don’t “distribute” wealth, I create it.

 
 

It’s aristocratic calvinism. It’s the idea that wealth and success can only be because you are one of the elect chosen and thus must have earned it by your inherent qualities and you prove it with your hard works and that everyone else has likewise earned being less than due to their inherent sin.

Bingo. That’s how the Funamentalist Christians (aka “Christians”) get tied in. Screw clothing the naked and feeding the hungry, they don’t deserve it!

 
 

I don’t “distribute” wealth, I create it.

 
 

#

#

The Market said,

March 6, 2009 at 19:54 (kill)

I don’t “distribute” wealth, I create it.

Not lately, you haven’t you asshole.

 
 

I had to stop at the point when he declared that more often than not it’s his fellow Übermenschen who will be found coaching the little league teams because they’re the ones who have the necessary managerial skills. But I thought they were the hard workers who are at the office on Wednesday nights when there’s practice and on Saturdays for the game. In which case that’s a necessary sacrifice but that fireman or union electrician who’s slacking off on a side job on Saturday so he can’t make it? Why didn’t he get an MBA so he’d have a good excuse for not being there and so that he could make it up to the boy by having the nanny drop his son off for private lessons? The guy who gives the lesson can tell the kid’s missing something inside but no problem because you know, priorities and shit. Joe Sixpack and his wife the teacher have nobody but themselves to blame that it’s the TigerHawk’s of the world who can get their sons a spot on the travel team over a better player with a $1,000 bid on those Yankee tickets at the annual fundraiser and a wink and a nod in the right direction. Ha! These proles will never understand how a meritocracy works.

 
 

OK, I went to a few Ivy League schools, and I know that the type has disproportionate representation throughout, but my experience has been that Princeton in particular is uniquely packed with arrogant douchebags.

 
 

How many of those devices are paid for by medicare, I wonder.

Lots. Lot of them run home nursing setups, too, at outrageous markup. They are making use of a price/value bubble that a more ethical person would have a problem with.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Yep, if people figure out how much upward wealth redistribution has been going on these last eight years, they are going to be just a little annoyed.

Which is why it’s very nice of people like Mr. Tigerhawk to tell them a bunch of names of people just like him and for Ms. Schiffren to point out that they can be found at the golf courses.

Not thinking things through, are they?

 
 

The Market said,

March 6, 2009 at 19:54 (kill)

I don’t “distribute” wealth, I create it.

Wow. With such shitty knowledge of economics, no wonder you’ve done so piss poorly.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

FUCK. 8:15 to get to your fucking point? Sweet Invisible Pink Unicorn in your glorious undetectable obviousness this jerkwad is a wind bag.

Okay, here’s his point. Obama shouldn’t be saying “Hey you rich bastards oughta be giving back a little more, you know – pay it forward so that others can have the chance to make it to where you are.” He should be saying “The Rich are the BESTEST!!!!! Without you folks pulling in your quarter million dollar salaries, we’d all be speaking German. I mean, it’s obvious that you guys are better than Joe Six-Pack. Only you can save America!!!!”

 
 

Not thinking things through, are they?

It’s pretty well established that this point that these jokers are not all that damn bright.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

It’s pretty well established that this point that these jokers are not all that damn bright.

True true. It inspires me to ask “if you’re so damn rich, why ain’t ya smart?”

 
 

I’ve worked for my fair share of small businessmen, as have several people I’ve known, and our experiences have tended to be the same: To a man, these guys were selfish, petty, self-pitying assholes who were incapable of seeing anything apart from how it personally affected them and their own immediate, selfish well-being. And those were the ones who weren’t out-and-out tyrants or bullies…but they all had a touch of the bully in their managerial styles, even the less insane ones. I recall one character who particularly liked to rail against unions, who managed to get the financing to start his company by marrying into money. He was a fine one to talk about “self reliance”.

And no matter how chickenshit their companies (and most of them were nothing to brag about) every one of these clowns just automatically considered themselves to be up there in terms of importance with the likes of Donald Trump and the rest of the Big Money Boyz. There was no sense of proper perspective at all on that front. Self-flattering preeners to a man.

I’m sure there are indeed decent small businessmen out there, but I’ve never encountered one personally.

 
 

But but, fancy school. Proof of my superiority. That’s why we can’t have a level playing field to get into the fancy schools. Cause then, my prestige would be gone, yup, cough, prestige.

 
 

Read this to see how lawyers provide “value” to medical device companies. I checked, it’s not the BaboonWoodcock company, alas.

 
 

It’s pretty well established that this point that these jokers are not all that damn bright.

…and further, that the vast majority of them got where they are because they’re white, male, able-bodied, and had the superhuman foresight to choose to be born to the right parents.

Oh my aching ovaries…

 
 

But his long boring whine does fit right in with the 17 part Galt epic youtube that Righteous Bubba found. Could be a coda, even.

He opens the damned thing saying “Good evening, welcome to the latest edition of TigerHawk TV.” It looks like there are about a dozen episodes total. No way I’m watching any more. This one was more than enough.

 
 

I get the part about civic duty, but I *know* that a great many people have jobs because of my efforts and would prefer some recognition of that to being called greedy and unpatriotic. — Tigerhawk

Oh my goodness, the irreplaceable man! News flash, dude: If Durable Medicare Equipment reimbursement schedules suddenly came into line with actual price, you’d be shit out of luck. Those folks *making* the equipment? Not so much.

Leave it to some numbnuts exploiting a price bubble to think he’s King Of The Fucking Mountain. Say, aren’t we bailing out a lot of sniveling shits like this right now?

 
 

I don’t “distribute” wealth, I create it.

Lately, you’ve just been consuming and digesting it. Guess what comes out the other end?

Now then, is that product more or less useful than government-provided healthcare? You have five seconds.

 
 

As a recovering big firm lawyer, we were not paid because we worked hard. We worked hard, but what separated us from others who put in 70 hours per week is that we were willing to accept large salaries in exchange for any reasonable sense of right and wrong.

 
 

begin rant:

Who the FUCK are these shitheels to tell me that I haven’t worked hard enough? I’ve busted my ASS for over 20 years as an IT professional. Six figures (or low seven)??? WTF??? Hell’s bells, I’d be happy to be making the money now that I was making before I was laid off in 2002 (thanks, Bush Administration, for doing such a BANG-UP FUCKING JOB of keeping us safe, sound, and happy…).

I’m making just barely over half that now…and even then that was just a hair over the halfway point to 6 figures.

FUCK these bastards. They wouldn’t know hard work if it walked up and bit them on their over-privileged, aristocratic, condescending asses.

I’m so fucking tired of hearing/seeing the rich bastards whining about how fucking hard they have it, or will when they’re actually required to put in their fair fucking share…try losing half your family’s fucking income when your spouse loses her JOB because she has fucking CANCER…then losing your HOME…oh, and don’t forget those MEDICAL BILLS, man. Good thing we still have my insurance…for now…And then there’s the REST of the bills…and keeping something resembling food on the table…

My fucking god, I just realized. I’m living in a paradise. How then should I ever be ungrateful to my mega-rich betters, the Lords and Ladies and Masters of my Universe?!?

In case I forgot to mention this earlier, FUCK THEM ALL. Twice.

end rant

 
 

Maybe we should listen to the righties.

They claim we want to take 36% of 250,000 so we could just make it easier on them and do that.

And class warfare? Rich asshole puts his sad gob on the internets. How hard would it be to find him and take his shit?

My plan to balance the budget and stimulate the economy: confiscatory taxes and privateering.

 
 

How about a brief, entertaining interlude to defuse the tension?

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

For Emma-Anne,
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#earnings

Engineers don’t do badly – but that $250K cut-off is almost 4 times the median salary.

 
 

I’m sure there are indeed decent small businessmen out there, but I’ve never encountered one personally.

I’m terribly sorry for you. I’ve worked for a succession of them. In fact, one of them — right now — is essentially subsidising me to type this. (Ain’t my fault if they won’t either give me enough stuff to do or send me home so I’m not costing them hourly…)

I have met a few of the types you describe, including one computer consultant (surprise, surprise!) who ripped off all his clients often to the tune of several hundred dollars a shot because he could snow them with a confident-sounding line of patter, and who once told me there was “no value in pure research.” Yeah, he could fuck off to Aynrandistan, and I’d pitch in to pay for his trip.

My antipathy is not least because my boss bought me a computer — for $750 at the time — from this character, which he put together out of years old components he had sitting around (I checked; never tangle with a technical writer with a current copy of Building and Repairing PCs at Home) and which never worked properly (if you closed the case, the video card would pop out of the mobo), for which he pocketed a $750 cheque. Scratch a vocal, self-employed libertarian, find a grifter and all-round amoral scumbag, every time.

 
 

And class warfare? Rich asshole puts his sad gob on the internets. How hard would it be to find him and take his shit?

No kidding. “warfare”? Give me a break. They haven’t been even robbed yet, much less eaten.

 
 

(endorses Stryx, requests letter of marque)

 
 

This should be played on every media outlet forever…

And who the fuck is “John Galt”?

Oh, That John Galt.

 
 

bc, that sounds like a super-shitty situation. Sorry.

 
 

I have met a few of the types you describe, including one computer consultant (surprise, surprise!) who ripped off all his clients often to the tune of several hundred dollars a shot because he could snow them with a confident-sounding line of patter, and who once told me there was “no value in pure research.” Yeah, he could fuck off to Aynrandistan, and I’d pitch in to pay for his trip.

Which raises another point: If managers making over $250k/year are so damn smart, how come they regularly get ripped off by junk salesmen with snazzy sales pitches?

 
 

Engineers don’t do badly – but that $250K cut-off is almost 4 times the median salary.

Hell, I don’t know that doctors do that well these days. In a lot of cases it’s member of the mutual Fukbum society that arrange such largess for each other. Tax write-off, baby!

 
 

I hate rich people, and this spoiled whining scumfuck is a perfect example of why. Eat shit, motherfucker.

 
 

By all means, GOP, bet on sympathy for people who make $250K+ as your new political strategy. Someone who got laid off, has no health insurance, and is in danger of losing his home is just going to cry buckets over rich folks having to pay higher taxes.

 
 

look. this guy has a point. it’s like how i grew up. my dad was a bank vice-president and then after my grandpa retired he became the bank president. he worked really long hours (“schmoozing” with clients you don’t really like that much is still work) and didn’t spend as much time as he wanted to with his family. people who have responsible jobs, who create more wealth than say a janitor or a factory worker could create in ten lifetimes, deserve to be compensated and they deserve to keep the money they make. that’s how tax codes ought to be written.

sorry to be so blunt, but america needs highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters more than we need factory workers and wal mart greeters. the latter take so much back from the system anyway that they ought to pay more in. either that or we just get rid of entitlement programs completely.

 
The Five Pillars of the Republic Party
 

1) Oxycontin and other drug addictions
2) Pedophilia (http://www.armchairsubversive.com)
3) White Collar Crime
4) Hatred Of America
5) Killing innocent people

 
 

I tried to watch the video, but all I heard was:
“Leave Britney alone! LEAVE HER ALONE!”
Did you, perhaps, put up the wrong clip?

 
 

highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters

Says born on third.

Do you even listen to yourself?

 
 

If managers making over $250k/year are so damn smart, how come they regularly get ripped off by junk salesmen with snazzy sales pitches?

They’re used to people telling them what they want to hear, and they make enough money that it’s not exactly real to them anymore (so what’s the big deal about putting a few thou on the ole corporate credit card?), so the first person with a good-sounding spiel who butters them up enough can make a fortune? Helps if the slick salesman comes from a firm with a “good reputation.” Shit, Accenture aka Don’t-Call-Us-Andersen-Consulting did this to government and industry for years, and probably still is, now that it’s had the benefit of an “optics-renewal” name change.

The problem with these overpaid managerial types is they really do believe they’re better than everyone else, and that makes them both gullible and vulnerable. It’s the Dunning-Krueger Effect in action.

 
Inanimate Object Troll
 

Notice me! Notice me! Notice meeeeeeeeeeee!

 
 

I’m sure there are indeed decent small businessmen out there, but I’ve never encountered one personally.

It’s too bad you don’t work for me. It sounds like you’ve have some bad experiences. But back to the article:

Indeed, you could even say they feel grateful that they’ve made a shitload of money!

Well, I haven’t made what you’d call a “shitload”, but I’m doing decently enough, and there’s hardly a day that goes by where I don’t say to myself, “Wow, still in business after all these years. I live to fight another day!”.

That may actually be the fundamental difference between liberal and conservative: there are those who feel a sense of gratitude for what they have (even if they don’t have much), and those who expect gratitude at every turn, whether it’s earned or not.

 
 

sorry to be so blunt, but america needs highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters more than we need factory workers and wal mart greeters.

And yet factory workers and Walmart Greeters receive union minimum salaries or – if they’re really lucky – federal minimum wage, while the highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters are forced to scrape by on whatever six figure salary a multi-trillion dollar federal bailout can cover.

What a cruel world we live in.

 
 

people who have responsible jobs, who create more wealth than say a janitor or a factory worker could create in ten lifetimes, deserve to be compensated and they deserve to keep the money they make. that’s how tax codes ought to be written.

So, Messrs. Thain and Lewis, CEOs of Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, respectively — given the jobs and wealth they’ve destroyed, how ought they be compensated?

 
 

n other news, Bush dead-ender Mark Noonan is holding a discussion on when it will be appropriate to call for Obama’s resignation. The answer he comes up with is October.

But according to the comments there, they shouldn’t have to convince him to resign. His forgery of his birth certificate is sufficient cause for impeachment. Yay!

Looks like stupid is on sale at Walmart.

 
 

My grandfather was a bank vice-president as well—he started out as a loan officer and before that he was a car salesman. Went to night school while working, retired about 18 years ago.

He comes from an era where banks still had responsibility to parties and ideals other than the fastest route to the most short-term profit. He is very dismayed by the behavior of the financial sector in the past decade, and I can’t help but think that he would not have a place in the unrepentant world of greed that exists now in that industry.

 
Department Of Obviousness
 

sorry to be so blunt, but america needs highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters more than we need factory worker

Should those be the financial types who figured out the giant conjob known as “credit default swaps”, or the guys who told people applying for mortgages to lie about their income?

What clueless assholes republicans are.

 
 

who create more wealth than say a janitor or a factory worker could create in ten lifetimes

The janitor and factory worker created real wealth. A lot of the “wealth” created by the banks was only on paper. When the match hit that paper — bye bye! Now they need the janitor (and all the other taxpayers) to clean up the mess. Thanks, banks!

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Incidentally, PWNED by John Kenneth Galbraith:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

 
 

OK, I’ll probably burn in atheist hell for such peurility and blatant self-promotion, but I have to know:

In the last thread, under the pseudonym ‘Teabaggers United’, I claimed that I had been inspired by the Teabagging movement to start a new right-wing activist event based in Cleveland, called the Cleveland Steamer. I didn’t mean it as troll-bait, as it was so patently stupid and false (complete with a gag about ‘getting it off your chest’), but our resident White Knight of the KKK responded apparently in earnest, saying he lived in Cleveland and would ‘love to attend a steamer’.

If this response was faux trollery on anyone’s part, please fess up now so that I can eliminate this from the list of the Funniest Things I’ve Done In My Whole Life.

Thank you.

 
Wyatt Watts III
 

This is all the fault of the old Harvey comic books. “Richie Rich” was known as “the poor little rich boy,” but he’d always be doing something like snorkeling in a swimming pool filled with money or using solid gold water skies to skid around on a lake full of diamonds.

The kid had a dalmation who had dollar signs instead of spots and a freakin’ robot maid, for cryin’ out loud, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him? I guess these days he’d be making a whiny Youtube video.

Scrooge McDuck did some of the same things (he had a swimming pool full of money, too) but at least Disney portrayed him as an a**hole.

 
 

Brad, beautifully observed.

More on going Galt: http://tinyurl.com/b9xtc5

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

> The problem with these overpaid managerial types is they really do believe they’re better than everyone else, and that makes them both gullible and vulnerable.

Ain’t that the truth. I finally started valuing my own abilities when one of my clients told me he was able to get rid of five consultants after he hired me (true story). Another place hired me because of my reputation. I told them that the $750,000 Y2K-compliance proposal that some consulting company gave them was insane.

I did all the work that that insane company told them would take 20 people, 3/4 of a million dollars, and 3 months – in 5 months by myself.

 
 

Wait a second — isn’t this assface amongst those who hailed Not Joe the Not Plumber as a bastion of Americanism? Went on and on about how Joe represented the “everyman” … ?

Well, since Not Joe doesn’t make anywhere near $250K, I guess the “everyman” is actually a lazy ass leech who just needs to work a bit harder.

Or are people like Tigerlily so clinically fucking stupid that they can’t remember the position they took four months ago?

 
 

What’s left to do but eat the rich?

 
 

That may actually be the fundamental difference between liberal and conservative: there are those who feel a sense of gratitude for what they have (even if they don’t have much), and those who expect gratitude at every turn, whether it’s earned or not.

By Jove, I think you’re on to something. I’ve been sitting here lately having survivor guilt because the whole world’s economy is falling to shit…

…and I have a decent job that doesn’t pay even the median income (I make about $28K a year) in a company that’s forecasting 40% growth over the next quarter and we just landed a huge new contract; I’m socking money away not like crazy, but at a good clip (I was dead broke and hugely in debt three years ago and now I have a positive net worth and over ten grand in the bank); my small investment is actually making money (all of $220 so far, thank goodness I didn’t get into mutual funds!); I’ve been able to buy myself some incredibly nice things at fire-sale prices lately (I’ve gotten two real Persian rugs and a Fender guitar, f’rinstance), and I’m not in any way hurting for money. Oh yes, and of all the countries in the world, my country’s banks are safe as houses. Holy crap.

You’re goddamn right I’m grateful. If I were religious, I’d be on my knees thanking God about five times a day (would that make me an Islamocommie?). As it is, I’m having a severe attack of conscience, tempered only slightly by the knowledge that during the last three or so economic downturns, the economy kicked me in the shins, grabbed my ankles while I was down, dragged me away, and rubbed my face into a dirty, rock-encrusted snowbank a bunch of times.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

Law Degree. Probable asshole. ?

Hey!

Actually, can’t argue with that. And I can say with confidence that the type of lawyer who makes over $250,000 generally (though not always) is not performing work that reasonable people would agree has positive social utility.

 
 

To be fair, they’re not entirely “clueless.” They knew what they were doing for the most part and simply thought (for good reason evidently) that they would get away with whatever shit-baggery in which they engaged. Of course, they are certainly assholes no matter how you slice it.

 
 

If this response was faux trollery on anyone’s part, please fess up now so that I can eliminate this from the list of the Funniest Things I’ve Done In My Whole Life.

I don’ think there’s anything wrong with what you did or what you’re doing now. But as much as I’d hate to deprive anyone of adding a gem like this to their list of the “Funniest Things I’ve Done In My Whole Life,” I hope to God that the person responding to you was a parodist!

 
 

Wow … quoted (twice, no less), & someone even wants to bear my mutant spawn to boot!

Those shattered molars & dry heaves WERE worth it after all!

 
 

rofl look at interrogangbang bragging about his 10 k in the bank. wow dude you can almost buy a honda, or put a down payment on a decent watch.

 
One of the great many people, who is too busy working to write more than a brief comment
 

I get the part about civic duty, but I *know* that a great many people have jobs because of my efforts and would prefer some recognition of that to being called greedy and unpatriotic.

And at this point you think I give a shit what you would prefer because . . .

 
 

The troll is eating ramen and jacking off to the “Watchmen” trailer.

 
 

Say, didn’t folks like Tigerbalm here worship at the feet of a failed silver-spoon-in-mouth heir who never did an honest day’s work in his life?

 
 

Whitey! Still up for a steamer?

 
 

rofl look at interrogangbang bragging about his 10 k in the bank. wow dude you can almost buy a honda, or put a down payment on a decent watch.

Wow, aren’t you a barrel of laughs, making a rape joke at a female commenter. Fuck off and die, asshole.

I wasn’t bragging, either, shithead. If you can’t tell the difference between a statement of fact and “bragging,” there’s something desperately wrong with you. But we all knew that already. Shame you didn’t.

 
 

Someday I hope to save enough to buy an Aurora scale model of a Honda. I don’t need a watch because I can tell time pretty accurately by how drunk Mom is.

 
 

Loneoak–thanks for the kind words. Ol’ Tigerwank just kinda pushed the last button I had available today. Arguing with recalcitrant servers, developing brain-cramps, then seeing THAT wanker whining…just put me over the top.

I’d love to see some of those bastards try walking in OUR shoes for a change. My family is in bad shape–but we’re in VASTLY better shape than a lot of people right now. At least I’m still working (for the moment). Things could get so much worse (they’ve done so before), and they could do so at any time. And the Blessed and Holy Republican Governor of My Great State, Our Bitch Mitch®, doesn’t want to accept the money in the stimulus package to extend unemployment benefits. Whoa, THAT’LL certainly help the people of Indiana.

Hmmm…think I feel another rant coming on…better STFU and get back to the whining server (at least it has an OFF switch…).

I know there are those in the rarefied ranks of the rich who are honest, hard-working, and fair-minded. Oddly enough, I rarely see or hear of them griping about what President Obama (oh, how I still love to type that!) is planning…they generally seem to be in favor of doing something, rather than sitting around doing nothing. Perhaps I’m mistaken…surely wouldn’t be the first time.

Signing off, and getting back to my Wonderful Life of Fulfilled Labor and Gratitude to those Rich Fucksticks who Make It All Possible®©!

…bc…

 
 

kiki i am not and have never been a racist or a racialist. i just always liked the white knight in old cartoons–the guy with the shiny armor who charged in and saved the day. plus i tend to try to “save” women with troubled pasts so a friend of mine tells me i have “white knight syndrome”.

 
 

The problem with “eat the rich” as a solution is roughly the same as the problem with eating fish that come out of toxic lakes. Who’d want to take the risk of bioconcentration?

 
 

Slight correction to my previous post. A friend of mine tells me i have crabs.

 
 

he worked really long hours (”schmoozing” with clients you don’t really like that much is still work) and didn’t spend as much time as he wanted to with his family.

And when he was home, he was a raging drunk!

Damn, but if that doesn’t explain half the current Republican party, I don’t know what does.

 
 

i tend to try to “save” women with troubled pasts

In other words, you prey on the vulnerable. Big surprise.

 
 

… my dad was a bank vice-president and then after my grandpa retired he became the bank president.

So your dad didn’t actually earn his position — it was given to him based on him being born to the right parents.

You = Fail.

america needs highly motivated, highly skilled, maybe somewhat unscrupulous go-getters more than we need factory workers and wal mart greeters.

It seems as though tour knowledge of economics is about the same as my four-year-old’s grasp of particle physics.

Answer this, Einstein: Without factory workers, who the fuck will build the items that companies need to sell in order to make the rich people who run and/or own the company more money? Or do you think products are made by elves in some magical land?

Thanks for displaying so well the “born on third base, yet thinks he hit a triple” mindset. It’s people like yourself who ruined this country. How’s about you “Go Galt” and leave us alone to fix it?

Oh, and go fuck yourself while you’re at it, you elitist, amoral ass douche.

 
 

I don’t give a fuck if you’re racist or not. I just want to know if you were genuinely up for the Cleveland Steamer.

 
 

The problem with “eat the rich” as a solution is roughly the same as the problem with eating fish that come out of toxic lakes. Who’d want to take the risk of bioconcentration?

There’s fewer of them. I’m sure we can find a few folks willing to take one for the team.

Maybe if we promised them 50% of any estates they can wrest free of their current owners…

 
The Goddamn Batman Works Twenty-Four Seven Because Crime Never Sleeps
 

Clowns like this are all butthurt because a genuine meritocrat is in office, and so now they have to pretend that they weren’t foursquare behind the Legacy in Chief (who has been stuffed in the back of the proverbial sock drawer) and that their written-off steak dinners with clients and no-wives trips to conventions with their “executive assistants” count as overtime. Or maybe Chickenshit’s real problem is that, now that the FDA may actually start looking at some of the gimcracks that his company stuffs into people, he might have to get his next job based on his merits and not on what school tie he’s sporting. Heaven forfend!

 
 

plus i tend to try to “save” women with troubled pasts so a friend of mine tells me i have “white knight syndrome”

Ok, Sherlock. Define “save” for us, please?

What makes you think they need your, um, small charity?

 
 

Also, what Joe Max said eight miles up. Do not fail to read this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/6/10302/42404/660/705140

 
 

It seems as though tour knowledge of economics is about the same as my four-year-old’s grasp of particle physics.

Should be …

It seems as though your knowledge of economics is about the same as my four-year-old’s grasp of particle physics.

Apparently, my knowledge of the preview feature is the same as blart blart blart …

 
 

“Corner readers, you know he’s right. The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians).”

I don’t think it can be repeated enough that this is bullshit. Even if these people do work hard (which is far from guaranteed) they generally got a helping hand from birth that made sure their hard work got them rewarded.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/Hertz_MobilityAnalysis.pdf

“Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.”

“By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.”

 
 

According to Schiffren, mr opie_jeanne has been sorely undercompensated for lo these 40 years. I suspected that all along but never the magnitude that she describes.

I want to know where he should go to apply for this $250,000 job.

 
 

Thanks for your response, Interrobang, but with all due respect, you actually took the bait from that grade C trolling? C’mon guys, we’ve got to have a bit more self control than that.

Like I said, I’m happy to have what I have. No amount of “Hahaha, you drive a 5-year-old car, looser1!1!” is going to make me envious or resentful, because I simply don’t have that gene. That’s another thing that makes me grateful, come to think of it.

 
 

you gay abortionist demorats just afraid of raw, sweaty, masculine, glistening power of REAL men like Tigerhawk.

 
 

My grandfather lives in a double-wide in Berkeley County, SC. His jobs have usually involved varying degrees of electrical engineering tinkering. He’s currently collecting money from all the usual government services for folks of his age and small fiscal worth.

So, you see, my grandfather is definitely no TigerHawk when it comes to supporting this country. All my grandfather ever did was storm Normandy, after all.

Hey, TigerHawk. Up yours.

 
 

kiki someone explained to me that you were probably having a little laugh at my expense with that one, but that’s okay. i’m a good sport.

i’m always down for any kind of legitimate conservative activism though. someone sure needs to stand athwart these tracks and yell ‘stop’ before too much more damage is done.

 
 

rofl look at interrogangbang bragging about his 10 k

wk:

If this economy keeps getting worse and widespread suffering takes hold, the people you’re spitting on won’t be voting GOP, they’ll be tracking filth like you down for skinning alive and hanging from lamposts.

 
 

tour knowledge of economics

Well, most who participate in the race don’t win. Just sayin’.

 
 

actor i just have a big heart when it comes to women in need. i always try to give them emotional support or any other support that i can. it gets me in trouble sometimes but i believe that even though economic competition may be a zero sum game when it comes to interpersonal relations there is nothing sweeter than the milk of human kindness.

 
 

tour knowledge of economics

That reminds me, I have to start training for that bike race. Lance Armstrong is riding it this year.

 
 

it gets me in trouble sometimes but i believe that even though economic competition may be a zero sum game when it comes to interpersonal relations there is nothing sweeter than the milk of human kindness.

So then you support the idea that people in trouble ought to be lent a hand, and that the best way to identify and help as many as possible is through the government that can collect information best and point them to programs to assist.

I’m glad to hear that.

 
 

kiki someone explained to me that you were probably having a little laugh at my expense with that one, but that’s okay. i’m a good sport.

Awesome! You stupid fuck.

 
 

Any time I ever need a reminder that feeling gratitude for whatever I have is the key to happiness in life I can just contrast interrobang’s comment at 20:43 with Tigerhawk’s unbelievably embarrassing video. And thinking like that tempers my disgust for him a little and actually makes me feel a little sympathy. You have to be filled with self pity and resentment, completely empty in other words, to be so unhappy that you’re staying up until 3AM on a Sunday night writing the script for that video. Poor fuck.

 
 

Because we all saw how compassionate conservatism and a thousand points of light worked…

 
 

Awesome! You stupid fuck.

I have never seen someone win two threads at once before.

 
 

white knight is really, truly and sincerely up for a Cleveland Steamer!

white knight is really, truly and sincerely the biggest stooge on the intertubes!

Hooray for kiki! I’m so happy for you! You should have that list bronzed!

 
 

Can I just say that anyone who would even CONSIDER spending over 10,000 USD on a fucking wristwatch ought to be shot?

My savings arn’t even that big, but I am still thankful I am able to keep my head above the water. It could be worse. It HAS been worse.

You know, I don’t think I have ever seen a right winger express guilt, remorse, or gratitude in any context other than the personal. To them, society just doesn’t exist. Their tax money is raked up by the government and burned, and the road they drive down was built by magic pixies, and the plastic bottle they just threw out of the car window landed in an alternate dimension where a cola bottle half full of piss is like a diamond.

This is what they mean by personal responsibility. The term deliberately excludes social responsibility.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Okay, I’ve had a chance to calm down a bit. So, let’s give Tigerhawk a pass on the first eight minutes of sanctimonious “We Are Better Than You” bullshit and cut straight to the chase.
Tigerhawk thinks Obama should be nicer to the rich, since he is telling them that they’re going to be taxed more. He thinks Barack shouldn’t be rousing the rabble and riding the Eat-The-Rich populist wave. Afterall Obama is supposed to be a uniter not a divider post-partisan or something.

Consider the following exchange between Obama and a hypothetical $250K earner.

Apparently Obama’s answer to all the self-made $250K+ guys – Tigerhawk’s Golden 400, who put in a thousand hours a week and still find time to coach little league:
– Remember how hard it was for you ten years ago? My plan’ll make it easier for you to get to where you are now.
– Helping the economy from the bottle up helps everybody, so more people will be able to afford your plumbing services.

Holy figgity fuck. The people Tigerhawk is most concerned for, those hard workers who put in all that time etc. – that’s who Obama is pitching the plan to. And it’s true, all that pissing and moaning about how hard they had to work in their 20’s and 30’s? Well Obama’s plan HELPS THOSE PEOPLE OUT WHEN THEY ARE IN THEIR 20’s AND 30’s.

 
Whitey McKnight
 

I drain the reeking cesspool of my balls on this whinging bastard’s teeth. May his bottomhole erupt in cancerous gourds. May his privilege turn into a million crabs. It’s self-entitled smug twats like Tweezercock here that make me wish I possessed a pronged agricultural implement.

The fact is, what we’re really seeing (in this 2-hour rant that only takes 9 minutes) is a douchebag of such epic proportions he’s not only bitter that there are people of less accomplishment than himself, he’s bitter there are people of greater accomplishment.

Of course he’d be even angrier to find out I’m fucking his wife while he’s at work blogging.

 
 

actor i just have a big heart when it comes to women in need. i always try to give them emotional support or any other support that i can. it gets me in trouble sometimes but i believe that even though economic competition may be a zero sum game when it comes to interpersonal relations there is nothing sweeter than the milk of human kindness.

Translation- you hover around women with issues like a vulture because you’re a fat nerd and it’s the best you can do.

I’m willing to bet that you’re also one of those guys that wonders why girls always think of you as “just a friend” when you just know you’d be the perfect guy for them.

This is a trait often found in Conservatives, but I can’t explain the correlation for the life of me.

 
 

actor: i’m a compassionate guy. being compassionate may be one of my weaknesses. i believe in private charity and in helping people out. i don’t believe the best way to help them is by enslaving them to a government welfare state. nor do i believe in financing said state by stealing hard earned money from the innovators who actually go out and do something with their lives.

 
 

If you’re rich
You bitch bitch bitch

 
 

I get the part about civic duty, but I *know* that a great many people have jobs because of my efforts and would prefer some recognition of that to being called greedy and unpatriotic.

You want recognition?

Take a look at your bank balance, you scumsucking pencilnecked geek.

 
Trilateral Chairman
 

the self-identified materialists must keep figuring out ways to get more and more crack money so they have more than the others and then the others are jealous of them instead of vice versa.

Y’know, I grew up in an area that was filled with materialists of just this sort, and I’ve come to the conclusion that all of the economic crises I’ve lived through–all!–have this fundamental attitude at the root. These guys work and work and work, coming up with ever more complicated ways to stuff their pockets with money, until some critical mass no longer understands what’s really going on and the whole thing comes crashing down.

Mind you, the underlying drive is not a bad thing at all when it’s directed towards coming up with new ways to beat cancer or teach students or deliver pizza while it’s still nice and hot.

Fortunately my parents are largely immune to this sort of thing, or I’d’ve grown up to be a very different person. My father definitely has the “Fuck you, I’ve got mine” attitude going on, but there’s a difference. In his case, “mine” refers to his family and his ability to provide what he calls “the best of the essentials” (education, medical care, etc.) and the “Fuck you” is directed at the shallow wealthy snobs who don’t understand why he hasn’t bought the latest $5000 golf club or rushed to make reservations at *the* luxury travel destination of the moment.

My sister and I were talking shortly after one of the market’s bigger nosedives.

“Stock market really fell today,” she said.
“Yep,” said I.
“Would that be our old high school classmates doing things they didn’t understand with money they didn’t really have?”
“Yep,” said I.
“Thought so.”

That was that. It’s happened before and will happen again; that’s what hubris *is*.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Helping the economy from the bottle up
Wow. There’s a telling typo…

 
 

i believe in private charity and in helping people out. i don’t believe the best way to help them is by enslaving them to a government welfare state. nor do i believe in financing said state by stealing hard earned money from the innovators who actually go out and do something with their lives.

Translation: I believe in dropping change in homeless people’s cups. That way, it doesn’t cost me so much, and I feel justified in saying something brave like ‘get a job, you dirty hippie’ at the recipients of my largesse. I would rather have poor people be beholden to me personally than to society at large.

 
 

i don’t believe the best way to help them is by enslaving them to a government welfare state. nor do i believe in financing said state by stealing hard earned money from the innovators who actually go out and do something with their lives.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You mean like Warren Buffet, who is the first to recognize that the nation helped him out more than any other private person?

Where would you draw the line, Whitey? Shall we blow up the interstate highway system and reinsitute the turnpikes of colonial days?

How about dismantling the GI Bill?

Shall we pull all governmental R&D work, the stuff that many businesses have relied on to secure patents to drugs and inventions?

The farm bill? Export subsidies?

Hey, I’m all for that!

 
 

Sort of on-topic (if you squint):

25 feet of of shit in 5 feet of furry or fury or something aka Kathy Shaidle chimes in

Today’s “poor” are the rich Jesus warned you about: fat, slovenly, wasteful of their money and other people’s…

The corner Klo joins in, reminding us that America has the wealthiest poor people oin the world.

 
 

Somewhere in Tigerhawk’s past were some rather tramautic incidents in his junior high school locker room where he was subjected to vicious titty twisters and wedgies and hard-snappig rattails by some mean working class bullies. But he’s getting his revenge now, isn’t he?

BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

 
 

From the video:

These people who make £200K a year, or maybe combine a couple of salaries of £180K to go over the dual income threshold.

You’d think that Tigerhawk (being one of these people of intensely superior ability to whom we must be so deeply grateful) would be aware the two people making £180K a year have a combined salary of £360K, not £250K. Alas, it turns out–to the great surprise of us all, I’m sure–that the gruelling academic work required in order to become a “top professional” at no point involves acquiring a knowledge of basic mathematics.

 
 

actually despite the fact that i’m universally generous, when it comes to romance i am, if anything, probably too superficial. my current lover is an angelfaced hardbody (and she didn’t even know who my family was when we started dating so don’t assume that’s why she liked me either).

 
 

my current lover is an angelfaced hardbody

Store mannequin, huh?

 
 

The corner Klo joins in, reminding us that America has the wealthiest poor people oin the world.

It’s really like watching a freeway pileup in slo-mo, isn’t it? Their house is burning down around them, and they don’t even notice that the bucket they’re using to douse it says “GASOLINE” on the side.

 
 

But for people such as Tigerghawk, political ideology trumps pragmatic considerations. In their calculus, the unwashed masses are smelly unworthies who are trying to take away the money that rich people are entitled to.

Except for when they’re the Super-Sarah, plucky young workin’ mom and co-owner of a small snow-mobile business while holding down a modest public employee salary.

Except for when they’re Joe the (almost-small-business-owner) Plumber.

Except for when they’re the happy non-union salt-of-the-earth Wal-Mart employees.

Except for when they’re the God-Bless-Our-Troops.

 
Thurston Howell III
 

Is it wrong for me to complain that Lovey and I are still stuck on this g*dd*mned island?

 
 

actually despite the fact that i’m universally generous, when it comes to romance i am, if anything, probably too superficial. my current lover is an angelfaced hardbody (and she didn’t even know who my family was when we started dating so don’t assume that’s why she liked me either).

I’m pretty sure that this reply means I win.

Have fun with your blowup doll.

 
 

Store mannequin, huh?

No, Angelfaced Hardbody is the title of her Match.com profile. He hasn’t actually gone out with her yet.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

The truth is that this economy is driven by the investor class you want to demonize, not the poor.

Whens the last time a poor person offered you a job?

 
 

Helping the economy from the bottle up

I have toiled at that very effort for decades.

FYWP

 
 

Angelfaced Hardbody is the title of her Match.com profile

Aw fuck, I just finished paying off the last keyboard…

 
 

Their house is burning down around them, and they don’t even notice that the bucket they’re using to douse it says “GASOLINE” on the side.

Oh, they notice all right — it’s just that plain water is so downscale, while wasting fossil fuels (and burning down the house) is the patriotic thing to do.

 
 

actor i just have a big heart when it comes to women in need. i always try to give them emotional support or any other support that i can.

Translation: I let chicks shit on my man-tits.

 
 

Whens the last time a poor person offered you a job?

I dunno, maybe it was the last time you approached a hooker?

 
 

The truth is that this economy is driven by the investor class you want to demonize, not the poor.

Throw your money at a shovel and see how fast it digs a ditch, asshole.

 
 

Overworked and underpaid, Tigerhawk? Why are you screaming at the Janitor? Too afraid to scream at the guy signing your paycheck? You know, the one whining about only making $10 million a year?

 
 

Angelfaced Hardbody is the title of her Match.com profile.

And her blogging nym is The Anchoress.

 
Angelfaced Hardbody
 

Translation: I let chicks shit on my man-tits.

I’ll be riiiiiiiight over.

 
Justin Hayward-Jablome
 

Knight in White Satin
Always trolling the threads
Threatening to “Go Galt”
But staying here instead.

 
 

Whens the last time a poor person offered you a job?

Will he ever stop tossing softballs?

 
 

(and she didn’t even know who my family was when we started dating so don’t assume that’s why she liked me either)

Please give my warmest regards to Gomez and Morticia.

 
 

Translation: I let chicks shit on my man-tits.

A Cleveland Steamer? YAY!

 
 

And please, I’m tired of explaining this. Make some effort to get it right:

1. If it benefits the managerial, financial, or corporate class, it’s a MORAL ISSUE. Their interests are based on matters of PRINCIPLE, and stop sniggering–you know I mean “abstract values” and not “money from which interest payments are derived.”

2. If it benefits the middle or lower class, it’s CLASS WARFARE.

1. If it benefits those who manipulate abstractions (via lobbying, laws, and manipulation of arcana) it’s EARNED, because we live IN A MERITOCRACY.

2. If it benefits those who actually create, transport, sell, repair, or oversee those operations, of physical objects and/or who aid human beings, it’s EXTORTED VIA SOCIALIST/UNIONIST COERCION WHO DEVALUE THE INDIVIDUAL AND ARE LOOKING FOR HANDOUTS, FEATHERBEDDING DO-NOTHING REWARDS, OR “ENTITLEMENTS.”

Clear? Good. Now, tea time’s over. Back on your heads.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

Here’s what socialism means to most thinking folks:

The little red hen called all of her Obama ‘Stimulus’-supporting neighbors together and said,
“If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?”

“Not I,” said the cow.

“Not I,” said the duck.

“Not I,” said the pig.

“Not I,” said the goose.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did. The wheat grew very
tall and ripened into golden grain.

“Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the duck.

“Out of my classification,” said the pig.

“I’d lose my seniority,” said the cow.

“I’d lose my unemployment compensation,” said the goose.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did. At last it came time to bake the bread.

“Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the little red hen.

“That would be overtime for me,” said the cow.

“I’d lose my welfare benefits,” said the duck.

“I’m a dropout and never learned how,” said the pig.

“If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said the goose.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, “No, I shall eat all five loaves.”

“Excess profits!” cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi)
“Capitalist leech!” screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer)

“I demand equal rights!” yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson)

The pig just grunted in disdain. (Ted Kennedy)

And they all painted ‘Unfair!’ picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the little red hen, “You must not be so
greedy.”

“But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.

“Exactly,” said Barack the farmer. “That is what makes our free enterprise system
so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.”

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I
am grateful, for now I truly understand.”

But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the ‘party’ and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled. ‘Fairness’ had been established.

Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared…so long as there was free bread that ‘the rich’ were paying for.
EPILOGUE

Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.

Hillary got $8 million for hers.
That’s $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn’t remember anything.
IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?
IN GOD WE TRUST!!!

 
 

Er, I meant floaters.

 
 

The truth is that this economy is driven by the investor class you want to demonize, not the poor.

The truth is, this economy is driven by poor immigrants and always has been. Yes, the ones who slave and toil and put their kids into college, who open little shops on the corner and make maybe $15K a year if theyre lucky and have all the kids and every single relative working around the clock.

That investor class, no one here demonizes except the morons who believe the gates to the nation should be slammed in their faces.

 
 

I’m so happy right now.

 
 

Right Wing Realist said,

The truth is that blart blart blart

Because if we rich people didn’t have you scumsucking “workers” around, “making” “things”, we could just sit back and enjoy our… um… things. That you made.

Can you eat money? Fuck guys, I don’t think this commune is going to work out.

 
 

As a former highly paid big firm lawyer, I think it’s rather laughable to think that people like me make society run. Or provide a net benefit. I can’t tell you how many gazillions of dollars in attorneys fees are generated attending useless team meetings or going through boxes of documents. And I can’t tell you how unremarkable — and how utterly replaceable — some of those attorneys commanding the big salaries are. Perhaps its time to start scrutinizing the benefit provided by those at the top of the income scale. Maybe that is what Tigerlily and Lisa Schiffren want us to do.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Except for when they’re the Super-Sarah, plucky young workin’ mom and co-owner of a small snow-mobile business while holding down a modest public employee salary.

Except for when they’re Joe the (almost-small-business-owner) Plumber.

Except for when they’re the happy non-union salt-of-the-earth Wal-Mart employees.

Except for when they’re the God-Bless-Our-Troops.

That was always just window dressing for the rubes.

 
 

That’s $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn’t remember anything.

That was Ronald Reagan but do you understand how an advance works?

The publisher advances against the anticipated royalties. Both Clintons ended up receiving money far beyond their advances.

That means an awful lot of Americans bought the books.

You know, capitalism?

 
 

And to make matters worse, they support raising taxes on their fellow rich people because they understand that having a society that is plagued by vast structural inequalities is in the long run detrimental to their own well-being!

Brad, you’re my hero. Can I please use this post every time someone (like, say, Andrew Sullivan) claims that Bush was an “economic liberal” because he spent a ton of money on tax cuts and the military? You have just summed up the liberal economic policy quite nicely. (In addition, we’ve all found that these policies also stimulate the economy and – gasp! – create jobs.)

P.S. I’m one of those lawyers who is hardworking, and went to decent schools and pays a giant load of taxes, and I DON’T CARE. Being white and middle class with educated parents, I was born with the probability of becoming a well-paid professional. It’s the least I can do.

P.P.S. What about the TRIAL LAWYERS!!!111eleventy!! If they’re millionaires who create jobs and worked hard to get where they are, do they still fail for being TRIAL LAWYERS!!!111eleventy!!!?

 
Angelfaced Hardbody
 

IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?

Dude, I posted a Little Red Hen reference yesterday. Please try to do some actual, original work instead of profiting off the labor of others.

Asshole.

 
 

Please try to do some actual, original work instead of profiting off the labor of others.

He’s a “manager”. It’s his job.

 
 

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I
am grateful, for now I truly understand.”

In the real life version, Barack Hussein X throttled Little Red Hen and tossed her to his blackity black negress wife who fried up Little Red Hen YUM YUM YUM and served her with watermelons stolen from America’s hardworking corporate executives at ConAgra and ADM – Supermarket to the world; cartel to the DOJ.

 
 

While this dbag is whining about having to contribute the only thing he values – money – to society, the funding for my job has been cut by our Republican Governor.

Last year, due to my efforts, a bunch of municipalities in my state saved $2 million dollars. But my job, which pays <$40K, is on the line. And I have to listen to this schmuck whining about having to pay 4 cents more on every dollar over $250K he “earns”.

I’m feeling positively revolutionary after watching a couple minutes of this pathetic whining baby, but not in the way he hoped.

 
 

I’ve just realised that whitey said that someone told him what a Cleveland Steamer was, which means that he didn’t Google it, he must have actually told someone who did know the meaning of the phrase about this hot new right-wing activism trend. Oh, to be a fly on that wall!

 
 

people who have responsible jobs, who create more wealth than say a janitor or a factory worker could create in ten lifetimes,

Gee…. the people he’s talking about create wealth by convincing consumers to purchase useless crap like ATV’s, designer handbags, wide-screen TVs, treadmills, Ann Coulter books, day-glo hunting apparel, GPS systems and baby monitors with the money they earn from their janitor or factory jobs.

 
 

Right Wing Realist said,
March 6, 2009 at 21:24

Here’s what socialism means to most thinking folks:

Yeah, uh, word to the not-so-wise: Don’t follow up a claim about what ‘thinking folks’ believe a political theory means with a fucking fable. I know you guys operate by the theory of governance by anecdote, but come on.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Shorter Tigerhawk:
The Preciousssss. ‘sss MINE. I gotssss mine Precioussss, you can’t have itsssssssss.

 
 

Bush was an “economic liberal” because he spent a ton of money on tax cuts and the military?

What people like Sullivan miss is that the military expenditures advocated by President Bush were aimed primarily at vendors of goods and services used to advance the war effort, not necessarily at improving the lot of the soldiers fighting the war. Bush’s proposed military pay raises barely kept up with inflation, let alone the private sector. Promised funds for military hospitals and healthcare didn’t materialize — until after the Walter Reed scandal hit national TV. There is still a coverup effort being investigated regarding DoD testing of a variety of body armor which, when tested by independent researchers, is clearly superior to models currently approved for use — yet the new armor was explicitly banned and the test results hidden and classified. And don’t get me started on the Bush Administration’s gyrations with respect to veterans’ health care.

Bush spent a lot on the military, but it was only for hardware and for no-bid plum contracts for the well-connected.

 
 

No, no, no…HERE’S how socialism works:

A midget, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar…

You’ve heard that one before?

Carry on.

 
 

Why did that stupid Little Red Hen thing conclude with Bill and Hillary Clinton? I know it can’t be because it’s been being copied, pasted, and emailed around from one blar-har-harring idiot to another for 16 years.

 
 

Bush spent a lot on the military, but it was only for hardware and for no-bid plum contracts for the well-connected.

OM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM!!!!

 
 

The truth is, this economy is driven by poor immigrants and always has been. Yes, the ones who slave and toil and put their kids into college, who open little shops on the corner and make maybe $15K a year if theyre lucky and have all the kids and every single relative working around the clock.

And buy the stuff that creates wealth for the invester class.

 
 

Mmmmmm…. plum contracts…

 
 

Huh, I wonder if they really are true believers that wealth is the only thing that is real. That all merit, all goods are merely wealth (which would greatly explain right-wing attitudes to houses and kids (INVESTMENTS)) and that thus they don’t need the fake people to make those fake goods to have all their whims met and managed cause they have wealth.

I’d really love to see their Galt experiment as they try and use the magic power of wealth without the non-people around to do the important shit. Then I want to close-caption TV to the world without them and see how poorly the rest of the country did without wealth-management.

Maybe we can propose that compromise.

 
 

A midget, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar…

And the priest says, “No, I was just eating some tapioca pudding and I guess a little bit dribbled out on my chin.”

 
 

Bush spent a lot on the military, but it was only for hardware and for no-bid plum contracts for the well-connected.

For Bush it was all about dick size at first. When Cheney built in war profiteering up front, how could he resist?

FYFYFYFYFYWP

 
 

Well, this is all amusing, they’re all jumpin on the Santelli bandwagon – they’re such flocks of followers.

I love all the tsk-tsking about the “distraction” the White House is creating about Rush Limbaugh – played 24/7 by Fox News. Um…listen, idiots, if you’d shut up about it, maybe it wouldn’t be such a “distraction.”

I love how the White House is playing these fools. Damn, it’s funny.

 
Ash Wing League
 

Even people who you expect to be better (if only because you assume that they’re smart) about these things are acting all Galt-like over the tax ‘increase’ (which is only not renewing Bush’s tax cuts).

After 9-11, I thought that a massive federal tax on gasoline — a sacrifice shared by almost all Americans and one that would move the market quickly toward more fuel-efficient cars while giving a swift, sure, serious kick to the gonads of Arab oil countries — was a good idea. It would have financed the very necessary War on Terrorism (in Iraq as well) and we all would have shared the burden, known the reason for it, and seen the changes in the marketplace as America began slowly, wrenchingly moving away from a petroleum economy. (to alleviate the pain at the pump, I envisioned gov’t posters at every gas station suggesting — “Let them eat sand.”)

It didn’t happen. Fine.

Now Obama proposes to go on the wildest, widest, deepest, most impossible spending spree in American history — nothing in history even comes close, not the Manhattan Project, not World War II, not anything — and he’s going to widen entitlements to the lowest- or non-paying citizens and his so-called “middle class” while funding the entire spree on the backs of those who make serious money, often by working the hardest, taking the greatest chances, and being the most creative.

Fine.

My accountant all these years, Van Stowe, has had a simple motto in our accounting practices — don’t be cute; pay the government every cent you think it might deserve and a little more, just to be safe.

Fine with me. Decades of rising income have followed that rule.

No longer.

First, I need a new accountant.

Second, I will finally incorporate. My writing company will pay me a low salary.

Third, every expense I encounter will be itemized. If I buy a book at Borders, it will be for research. If I go to a movie or rent a DVD, research. If I travel to a city, there will be a business reason — even if I have to call readers in their homes to come meet me in a coffee shop. Business trip. Every mile my car travels will have a business reason. These are the simple-minded steps. The complicated ones will take more energy and effort, but will much more effective in terms of lowering my real tax burden as Obama and the Democrats raise my rates.

After all these years of paying every cent I owe and more — it was a form of patriotism, after all — those days are done. I’m going to itemize, deduct, save, shield, protect, cover, and pinch every penny and ha’penny that comes to me.

The government of the United States of America under President Barack Obama has announced itself as my enemy and labeled me as its opponent and target. I’m no longer a citizen who will be allowed to love his country and serve it when called — I’ve been labeled an evil sector of society, good only for pillaging for tax revenue. I’m no longer a citizen doing my part — a very heavy part — I’m now “the rich” to be removed of my “wealth” for the redistribution schemes for same.

Well, we’ll see. The one thing that money does allow its owner to do (and something I’ve never tried to do to this point), is protect itself.

This is a new world and state of mind for me. It may be a long siege and the economy and the country may truly be, as Obama says he wants it to be, “transformed” before it’s over. Or maybe this is pure hubris on Obama’s part and the worst possible sort of careless and unfair overreaching — the kind that will result in massive political reckonings.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m now, for the first time in my life, proclaiming myself a citizen tenth and setting the first nine priorities for my family, my work, my income, my savings, and myself.

Just what makes people act this way? Is it that they don’t realize how the tax system works (see: the recent ABC article about people who’re trying to reduce their earnings to under $250,000)? Or is it that they’re just fucking greedy?

 
 

I wonder if they really are true believers that wealth is the only thing that is real.

Yet, turning on a dime, they’ll tell us that the problem with society is workin’ wimmen, greedy achievers who have to have a fancy lifestyle instead of staying home and having babies, maintaining a simple life so that they can be a one-earner family holding traditional gender roles.

Of course, you take this to the extreme and you end up being like the Duggars, proclaiming your self-sufficent traditional virtues while begging for donations on the internet.

Wheels within wheels, man – talk about spinning.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Or is it that they’re just fucking greedy?

I think it’s that, pretty much.

It also doesn’t help that for Mr. Tigerbalm’s entire adult life, American media has idolized nozzles like him. No wonder they think they’re all that.

 
 

Here’s what Capitalism means to most working folks:

The little red hen called all of her Obama ‘Stimulus’-supporting neighbors together and said,

“If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?”

“I!” said the cow.

“I!” said the duck.

“I!” said the pig.

“I!” said the goose.

“Fantastic! All of you can do the work, and I’ll create a market for our wheat!”

“Will you help us reap our wheat?” asked the other animals.

“Not I”, said the little red hen, “For I have important work to do! For if we are all reaping the wheat, who will be the manager?”

“Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the other animals.

“Not I,” said the little red hen, “I am busy making us all millionaires! Based on my projections, you should produce enough wheat to make 500 loaves of bread, and we can leverage the future price of the bread by bundling your bread and everyone else’s bread into a big pool, and then selling tranches of the pool to all of our neighbors!”

The other animals stood back, going all like “What the fuck?” and went on about their work.

They baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. The little red hen came out of her hen house, screeching and shouting.

“This is only 5 loaves!” she said.

The other animals replied, “of course it is, that’s all we could get out of the wheat we produced. You only thought we could get 500 because you don’t know jack shit about farming or baking.”

Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the other animals, “Well, now we have to borrow 495 loaves of bread and give it to little red hen, because she has insufficient capital to cover her obligations. And you will all have to work to pay it back”.

“What? Fuck her, and fuck you!” said the other animals.

“I’m sorry. I know. I get it! But we must not yield to the politics of the moment.”

 
 

And the priest says, “No, I was just eating some tapioca pudding and I guess a little bit dribbled out on my chin.”

And the penguin said “oh no! It’s only ice cream.”

 
 

The last one. This has been another round of SATSQ

 
 

These are the simple-minded steps.

that phrase doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.

 
 

Engineers making more than $250,000 a year, hahahahahaha pull the other one

 
 

And the troll wins another thread.

 
 

And the troll wins another thread.

In what way? Or are you planning to award him his Cleveland Steamer personally?

 
White Male, Jew of Liberal Fascism
 

I’m just back to Soviet Canuckistan, after spending three weeks in the depths of South Carolina. Where the weather, unfortunately, sucked, but that’s another story.

Being back here makes me wonder something, and I wonder if any of my fellow Sadlynaughts has ever wondered the same thing.

OK, let’s start by granting the wingnut premise that taxes are higher here in Canada than they are in South Carolina.

Exactly WTF are South Carolinians getting with the extra money that they save in taxes that is so fucking wonderful, anyway?

Are they any happier than folks are here? I don’t think so. They sure seem to be pissing and moaning a lot about Obama and socialists and all the usual rightwing shit.

Are they any healthier than we are? Apparently not, to the naked eye, their obesity rate certainly seems to exceed ours. And I’ll bet they pay a lot more for their health insurance than we do here in Ontario where I live.

Are their TV shows any better than ours? No, basically, they get all the same shit we do, except not so much Masterpiece Theatre- type highbrow stuff. And god, the TV and radio news is fucking awful… you’d think the world ends at the US borders, and the number of Media Nincompoops With Opinions is staggering.

Is their food any better than ours? No really… the southern diet is different than ours but seems to include a lot of high-fat stuff. I liked eating stuff like Po Boys and Hushpuppies as a novelty, but I certainly wouldn’t make a habit of it.

Is the music they listen to any better than ours? Only if you consider country and western superior to symphony orchestras.

Do they buy more books than we do? Hard to tell in just a brief visit, but a trip to the local bookstore was not too inspirational in terms of the stuff that got the most prominent display there… it looked like the usual sort of paperback shit you see people reading on airliners.

To the untrained eye, the ONLY place where South Carolina completely outclasses Canada is in the sheer number and enthusiasm of its TV and radio preachers.

So maybe religion is the real beneficiary of low taxes??? I don’t know.

But I really, really, doubt that the average South Carolinian is really doing significantly better than the average Ontarian, economically, or in any other way.

 
 

I dunno, I think the trolls have been roundly trounced in this one: admitting to desiring Cleveland Steamers and inspiring a brilliant satire fable.

 
 

Huh, I wonder if they really are true believers that wealth is the only thing that is real. That all merit, all goods are merely wealth (which would greatly explain right-wing attitudes to houses and kids (INVESTMENTS)) and that thus they don’t need the fake people to make those fake goods to have all their whims met and managed cause they have wealth.

You know what it really is? These people know that if there was truly a level playing field, they be sunk. What if that kid on my bus who is working 3 jobs to try to pay for college didn’t have to do that? What could he accomplish if he didn’t have to work so hard merely surviving and could actually spend his time bettering himself? What if parents without insurance didn’t have to put off medical care that might be necessary? How much more productive could they be when they don’t have that stress? How much better can a poor kid do in school when they are having three meals a day? How much better can a poor kid do when their parents also get an opportunity to get a degree?

People like Tigerhawk would shit their pants if this were actually a meritocracy. There’s always someone smarter and better coming down the pike, and they want to try to make it impossible for that smarter and better person to be working class, or brown, or female, or an immigrant, or anything other than another white, connected frathole.

 
 

Third, every expense I encounter will be itemized. If I buy a book at Borders, it will be for research. If I go to a movie or rent a DVD, research. If I travel to a city, there will be a business reason — even if I have to call readers in their homes to come meet me in a coffee shop. Business trip. Every mile my car travels will have a business reason. These are the simple-minded steps. The complicated ones will take more energy and effort, but will much more effective in terms of lowering my real tax burden as Obama and the Democrats raise my rates.

I know people like this. I have relatives who lived like this. I know one in the twilight of her years.

And I have to say, she is the most miserable, unhappy person, without shred of joy or pleasure in her life. She hasn’t given a dime to any cause, any person she’s not related to, nor does she spend a dime on herself for anything other than necessities. She talks about her investments and her aches and pains. She doesn’t play, have hobbies, travel, gossip, giggle, laugh. She “minds her own business” – which means she never comforts another soul in pain, and nor does anyone comfort her in her pain. She has amassed a rather nice chunk of wealth that she hopes will go to her children, but they really wish she’d spend some of it on her own comfort instead. I hate to say it, because she’s a relative, but when she dies, very few will attend her passing, and they will not have much to say about her.

I sincerely wish people like Tigerhawk a future like this.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties

Wow. These people are stupid.

 
 

Exactly WTF are South Carolinians getting with the extra money that they save in taxes that is so fucking wonderful, anyway?

B,b,but, they have FREEDOM!

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Exactly WTF are South Carolinians getting with the extra money that they save in taxes that is so fucking wonderful, anyway?

That’s where I think the whole Reaganomics argument falls apart. We now have nearly 30 years of evidence that when you cut taxes on the rich, they don’t hire people with the savings, which was kind of a big part of the idea.

Scientific method, d00dz! Hypothesize, test, refine, repeat.

Unlike the faith-based wingnut method of hypothesize, assert, demonize dissent regardless of outcomes.

 
 

If this is how stupid they get because they’ll have to pay an extra 3% of taxes on everything they make over $250,000 startingin 2011, then I say: fuck that. End the Bush tax cuts now. And increase the top marginal rate to 40%. Let’s hear the motherfuckers really squeal.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

I dunno, I think the trolls have been roundly trounced in this one
But the thread is mortally wounded. Heck, if ’tweren’t for PeeJ, I’d have been sure the thread was done for.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

And increase the top marginal rate to 40%. Let’s hear the motherfuckers really squeal.

I’d say 50% – you know, where Reagan put it.

 
 

hypothesize, assert, demonize dissent regardless of outcomes.

Fair warning: I am going to steal this and spread it all over the intertubes.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

Here’s what socialism means to most thinking folks:

Right. Most thinking folks read things that sound like The Little Golden Book of De-Kulakization.

It’s always amusing to listen to stupid people try to talk smart.

 
 

TigerHawk

Hey! I remember that magazine! I would get every issue that had Parker Stevenson of the Hardy Boys on the cover (he was my fave!).

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Fair warning: I am going to steal this and spread it all over the intertubes.

Help yourself! It is public property, paid for by government research grants. (True story – I typed it while waiting for a govt-funded experiment to run.)

 
I Recite Categorical Tautologies Ergo I Smart
 

See, rational thinking people understand how the world works, which is that rich people should pay no taxes and that everybody else should be grateful and will kiss their pinky rings if given the chance, just like the great English philosopher John Locke predicted.

Aristotle similarly said in his seminal Nickelodeon Ethnics that blacks because most often are found to be poor in the world should not be president. Well look who is president. Ooohhh….yeahh, awkward moment. Sorry.

Capitalists of the World, Unite!

 
 

Apparently you marxists don’t understand America’s Founding Principles. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By punishing the most productive members of our society through high tax rates you are not only harming the poor by preventing the creation of new jobs, you are also in violation of our Nation’s Foudning Principles.

The government has no right to punish hardwork and entrepeunership, to do so goes against the very principles upon which this Nation was Founded. The government that governs best governs least. Something Obama and the Democrats should be reminded of everyday.

 
 

You liberals can have my tax money when you pry it out of my cold, dead, hands.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

That dentist eager to slash her income from $320,000 to $250,000 would avoid the pain of paying an extra $2,100 in federal taxes. But she’d also deprive herself of an additional $70,000 in income!

She’s going to take a net loss of $67,900 just to spite Obama? America is truly a great country. Just look how much money you can make without even being able to count.

America must have the richest morons on earth.

 
 

Good idea libs, act like the governments of Western Europe and punish the rich. Western Europe is in a spiral of self hatred for everything upon Western Society is based. By turning to socialism they feel as though they can address “past wrongs.”

If Obama and the Dems take their policies from Europe, you’ll see how fast the American people will make them suffer for it.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

you are also in violation of our Nation’s Foudning [sic] Principles.

The government has no right to punish hardwork and entrepeunership [sic]

Parody troll wins the Mr. Peuniverse contest.

Prize: the entire Oxford English Dictionary and a bottle of Provigil™.

 
 

The government has no right to punish hardwork and entrepeunership, to do so goes against the very principles upon which this Nation was Founded.

You mean the principles like “promote the general welfare”?

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

The government has no right to punish hardwork and entrepeunership, to do so goes against the very principles upon which this Nation was Founded

Remind me again where the Founding Fathers said America should become a bunch of corporate criminals, selling each other worthless paper documents and getting multi-million dollar bonuses handouts for doing so?

 
biff diggerence
 

Gary Ruppert

Don’t worry. We will.

 
 

Poor TigerLily.

It seems he’s got things bass ackwards. Anyone who’s ever earned six figures or more in a year knows that to even get to that level, you have to have help. There might be a very few individuals out there who are making $100K or more as “free agents” with absolutely no part or full-time help from a secretary, assistant, etc…but I guarantee there aren’t many. The reason being that there’s only so many hours in a day, and if you have enough work to generate $100K in income, it quickly becomes clear that your time needs to be focused on getting the business in and it’s not productive, money-wise, to be spending your time on clerical or other similar routine tasks. Better to pay someone else to do it, so you have more time to chase the money.

So…why isn’t he crying about how “unfair” it is to have to pay workers to assist in generating that extra income? They cost a hell of a lot more than 4%, and worthless lazy slobs that they are, you can’t even approach an income of $250K without them. And while you may be a munificent being for “giving them a job”, what they’re giving you – the opportunity to make a shitload of money – is worth more, since essentially you’re asking the sacrifice of their time – a slice of their life, the only one they’ll have on this earth – so that you can live high on the hog.

Yes, you are so put-upon.

 
 

US GDP 2008 1.4% growth
EU GDP 2008 1.5% growth

Um, Dale?

 
I Recite Categorical Tautologies Ergo I Smart
 

Hahahahaha someone with the audacity calling themselves the “English Language” cannot even spell “moran” correctly. Sheesh.

 
 

It is not the governments responsibility to take our hard earned money to care for the poor. That is the responsibility of indiviuals, through private acts of charity. Anything else is tyranny, the very injustice that caused Our War for Indepedence.

 
 

while waiting for a govt-funded experiment to run

Truly? What field of endeavor? Animal, vegetable, mineral or mechanical? Can you eat it or wear it?

 
 

Next: one’s ability to actualize an acquisitive, Type-A lifestyle is not an inherent vector for either virtue or superiority.

That’s major win. I’m stealing it for my next paper. Hope the peer reviewers aren’t SN! fans.

As for wealth redistribution, every day billions of dollars are transferred from the poor to the rich. Wealth redistribution has always worked that way, global capitalism just makes it easier.

 
 

You liberals can have my tax money when you pry it out of my cold, dead, hands.

As I said yesterday, ALL YR WALLET R BELONG 2 US

 
biff diggerence
 

that caused Our War for Indepedence.

(1,776 Ohms)

 
 

TigerHawk

Hey! I remember that magazine! I would get every issue that had Parker Stevenson of the Hardy Boys on the cover (he was my fave!).

Oh, SNAP!!!!

TigerBeat it is!!!! And damn if that ain’t some funny shit on several different levels.

 
 

“Um, Dale?”

Two words. Democrat Congress.

 
 

It is not the governments responsibility to take our hard earned money to care for the poor. That is the responsibility of indiviuals, through private acts of charity.

We tried that for 150 years and ended up with famines in the Ozarks and Appalachia and the elderly dying in our streets.

 
 

Scientists work hard to go to good schools, put in long hours for crap pay (post-docing), and work quite a bit harder than most of the country. If they’re lucky enough to land a tenure track position, they’ll make a decent upper middle class income, but they’ll never be rich. They bring a hell of a lot more benefit to society than most MBAs, and they do it because they love it, not for the money.

I’m sure there are plenty of other professions with similar meritocratic and hard work requirements, and mediocre pay scales.

 
 

Two words. Democrat Congress.

Oh, so the same Congress that will import European methods? You know, the folks that had a better economy than we did?

 
 

PeeJ said:
“What a fuckwad. Got rich on the backs of others. How many of those devices are paid for by medicare, I wonder.”

Americans are exposed to seven times more radiation from diagnostic scans than in 1980, a report found on Tuesday as experts said doctors are overusing the tests for profit and raising health risks for patients

Who could have imagined?

 
 

I’m sure there are plenty of other professions with similar meritocratic and hard work requirements, and mediocre pay scales.

Teachers.

 
 

Rich people in this country have it better than rich people in every other country in the world. You’d think they’d be a little more grateful for this fact instead of being perpetually resentful whiners.

I don’t think it’s true that USer rich folks have it better here than anywhere else.

There is nothing about USer society that a sufficiently rich person couldn’t replicate easily anywhere they liked.

And, in a place like Saudi Arabia, a rich person can actually own another person, or several, if they wish.

Just sayin…

 
 

I’m sure there are plenty of other professions with similar meritocratic and hard work requirements, and mediocre pay scales.

Cops and firefighters.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

Two words. Democrat [sic] Congress.

Two words, 50% failure rate.

Parody trool has an attention span about as long as Roger Moore the Octopus if s/he thinks a Democratic Congress passed (and George Bush signed) the laws that wrecked the economy, and that it has all happened since January of 2007.

I dunno. Maybe it sounded better when Rush said it.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

Okay, back to Tigerhawk. It’s not just the unbridled sense of entitlement and epic lack of empathy. The “Angry Rich Guy who sees himself as a hard-working everyman whose life is significantly worse than someone who makes $8 an hour washing dishes for a living” thing is pretty darn bad – but…

But the insistence that these shitbags who refuse to fork over one more penny in additional taxes are somehow the true spirit of America. That these unconscionably selfish pricks are not only “harder working” “more productive and energetic” – basically better in every way – but that they are also the most generous.

Hey – looky, directors of the boards of charitable institutions are all rich fucks! That means it’s really people making less than $250K that are selfish. It’s the well-paid managers that donate time to coach softball or whatever – therefore it’s bus drivers and school teachers that are the ones that only think of themselves.

 
 

Parody trool

Parody drool?

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

What field of endeavor? Animal, vegetable, mineral or mechanical? Can you eat it or wear it?

Computer Stuff – so no, nothing edible or wearable. Researchy. The sort of thing that may be really useful in a decade but isn’t much to look at now.

 
 

You liberals can have my tax money when you pry it out of my cold, dead, hands.

You make that sound like a BAD thing?

Hells’ bells, bubba, I’m willing to wait. And I’ll gladly cut off your dead hands for the money in ’em, even if it got all wrinkled from your clutching it.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

But the insistence that these shitbags who refuse to fork over one more penny in additional taxes are somehow the true spirit of America.

That is astoundingly galling, and the more so that for most of the time since 1980 it’s been true.

 
 

I don’t think it’s true that USer rich folks have it better here than anywhere else.

I don’t think the Saudi example is great because it’s such a repressive society that all sorts of fun is not possible, like going out drinking or dancing.

 
 

Gary Ruppert is serious business.

 
 

“Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784. FE 4:15, Papers 7:557

 
 

Computer Stuff – so no, nothing edible or wearable. Researchy. The sort of thing that may be really useful in a decade but isn’t much to look at now.

You make that sound like a bad thing. Dr. Kenobi pere was researching biomass 30 years ago, and green bioprocessing of livestock waste 15 years ago. If there’s a worthwhile application, sooner or later someone will find your work useful.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

I have one word to all the socialists on here:

Hands off my wallet.

 
 

Bubba:

Actually, in Saudi Arabia, the rules against drinking basically don’t apply to rich foreigners, as long as they have the good grace to be subtle about it. Those laws are there for social control of their own people, which is a means to an end (becoming stinking rich) so they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to enforce those laws when a western billionaire fancies a drink.

 
Reverend Dragon-King Shaw Moore
 

…like going out drinking or dancing.
Even if this was not a law, which it is, I’m afraid I would have a lot of difficulty endorsing an enterprise which is as fraught with genuine peril as I believe this one to be. Besides the liquor and the drugs which always seem to accompany such an event the thing that distresses me even more, RB, is the spiritual corruption that can be involved. These dances and this kind of music can be destructive, and, uh, RB, I’m afraid you’re going to find most of the people in our community are gonna agree with me on this.

 
 

I don’t think the Saudi example is great because it’s such a repressive society that all sorts of fun is not possible, like going out drinking or dancing.

Prohibitions, like taxes, are just for the little people.

If you got the dough, you can make any kinda bread you wannd, anywhere you wanna.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

Here’s more info on “going galt”, basically going form a net produce to a net welfare sponge parasite:

http://pursuingholiness.com/2009/03/going-john-galt/

 
 

Hands off my wallet.

Let’s see you make us.

 
 

Maybe instead of paying yourself another $50K, you could hire someone else to be hard working.

 
 

A few academics can get pretty fucking well off. Not from their university salaries but mostly from consulting. These professors tend to be found in the biological and engineering sciences. And as in pro sports where the vast majority of young athletes will never make it big, the vast majority of academics – even in those aforementioned fields – spend their lives making a decent but not fabulous salary just doing what they love.

The ones who really make the big big bucks are generally former academics.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

You make that sound like a bad thing.

I didn’t mean to, though I do get a bit self-effacing about my line of work because it doesn’t produce tangible results right off and may never. I think I’ve internalized a bit of the ambient wingnuttery about the value of research that’s been floating around for so long, even during the Clinton years.

 
 

Actually, in Saudi Arabia, the rules against drinking basically don’t apply to rich foreigners, as long as they have the good grace to be subtle about it.

Well sure, but who wants to be subtle?

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

Hands off my wallet.

This is exactly why we’re taking your guns away first.

 
 

I don’t think the Saudi Southern Baptist example is great because it’s such a repressive society that all sorts of fun is not possible done in public, like going out drinking or dancing.

[/Editorial suggestion]

 
 

A year and a half ago I moved from a very, very affluent area where I had lived for 15 years to what most Americans would call a slum.

I’m speechless after watching that.

 
 

Yeah, but in Saudi Arabia you wouldn’t have been able to make that money in the first place, you see.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

I have one word to all the socialists on here:

Hands off my [sic] wallet.

Which is sadder? The fact that that’s four words, not one, or the fact that there’s still one missing?

 
 

If I hadda guess, and “going Galt” were a real threat then, on the evidence, I’d hafta say –from the totally clusterfucked state of current conditions, the ones who were gonna do it already did, 30 years ago, when raygun stole the ’80 election from Carter. The saw the writing on the wall, said fuck it, and went off doing interesting shit.

 
 

thing is, when someone “goes Galt” the wingnuts despise them: Homeless people with cell phones!

Just a clever Galt-er, surviving on under $250,000 a year by going to soup kitchens, using a cell phone because you can’t get a land-line installed in your car.

 
 

A midget, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar…

And you’ve got peanut butter on your forehead!!

 
 

Hey, Right Wing Realist, eat me!

 
 

From the comments in the Holiness link above:

Public sector workers do NOT pay taxes

Um….really? Then what’s that deduction from my paycheck?

 
 

Not from their university salaries but mostly from consulting. These professors tend to be found in the biological

My dad brings a lot of contract research money into his department. The university takes a fat cut, and he uses the rest to buy equipment and other resources needed to do the work, plus hire a grad student or two part-time to do some of the labor. He doesn’t see any of the consulting bucks himself, but the university has treated him well in terms of pay because of the dollars he brings in. I always thought he should bail out and do consulting full-time, but he’s never been interested in that. Something about businessmen being assholes and not wanting to answer directly to them day after day.

 
 

The sort of thing that may be really useful in a decade[…]

You make that sound like a bad thing. [..]If there’s a worthwhile application, sooner or later someone will find your work useful.

Heh. My math major buddies and I agreed (at a table adorned with a finite but uncountable number of beer bottles) that the highest aspiration a mathematician could have was to formulate a theorem that did not and never would have any practical use whatever.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

“Um….really? Then what’s that deduction from my paycheck?”

Your paycheck comes from taxes on private sector workers like me, you moocher parasite. The taxes you pay aren’t really taxes because you get your check from the government to begin with.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

Government workers (aka leeches) are net consumers, not net payers of taxes–both during their working years and (especially) afterward in the form of pensions and benefits

 
Everyone in the US Military
 

Your paycheck comes from taxes on private sector workers like me, you moocher parasite. The taxes you pay aren’t really taxes because you get your check from the government to begin with.

Go fuck yourself, asshole.

 
 

my sister got shipped off to a college where nobody was allowed to dance or wear shorts, you couldn’t be in your room with anyone of the opposite sex with the door closed and racial mixing was unofficially but strongly discouraged. after two semesters she transferred up–it was just to dartmouth but it was still the happiest day of her life when she finally left that place for good.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

Defense spending is Constitutional.

Firefighters and police officers are paid for by LOCAL taxes.

Every other government worker is a leech.

 
 

WOW! That was fucking RIVETING. No way this guy will be able to “go Galt” what with all the networks lining up to shower him with lucrative talk-show host gigs.

 
 

Sigh. If only they’d had youtube 250 years ago. Don’t you think the members of the French aristocracy could have created some very entertaining responses to the disrespectful accusations of the commonfolk?

“Why my good, misguided people. Is it too much to expect some appreciation for our profligate spending? Nothing creates more value in our economy than stitching our brocaded satins and emptying our chamberpots, does it? Such lame jobs, but good enough for you. clearly God wouldn’t have put us in such elevated positions if we weren’t uniquely deserving.

 
Everyone in the US Military
 

Defense spending is Constitutional.

We’re not leeches. Go fuck yourself.

Maybe we should come over and do some MOUT training in your house.

 
 

the highest aspiration a mathematician could have was to formulate a theorem that did not and never would have any practical use whatever.

You and G. H. Hardy.
“A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.”

 
 

Right Wing Realist said,
March 6, 2009 at 22:44

You better pray that the safety net doesn’t disintegrate completely, ’cause if it does, you’re the second one who’s going to be swinging from a lamppost.

The first one, of course, will be TigerHawk.

 
 

Right Wing Realist said,

March 6, 2009 at 22:45

Government workers (aka leeches) are net consumers, not net payers of taxes–both during their working years and (especially) afterward in the form of pensions and benefits

You flunked math.

 
Right Wing Realist
 

I’ll give you an example of stimulus waste–

My locality is going to build a new bus “transfer” station for its city buses. Now, I ALREADY SUBSIDIZE buses for poor people who do not pay their fare share (they should be paying much more in fares a ride) and now they get a new “transfer station” that ISNT N EEDED.

Why don’t they fund it themselves if they need it so much? Just more pork.

Unlike the leeches I pay for EVERY CENT of my transportation.

 
 

oh and actor to answer your question the things i think the government should spend money on: roads, a police force, mail delivery, and a small military. i’m the last of the pre-louisiana purchase jeffersonians.

 
Everyone in the US Military
 

Why don’t they fund it themselves if they need it so much?

Thanks for the body armor, ammunition and MREs, you ungrateful sack of shit.

 
 

Thanks, SC. Surprised I never saw that Hardy citation before. Or maybe I did but but those years of toiling at the economy from the bottle up have taken a toll.

 
 

Right Wing Realist said,

March 6, 2009 at 22:50
Unlike the leeches I pay for EVERY CENT of my transportation

Right, you paid for the road and the lights and the signs and …

Really, the best thing you could do for yourself right now is to STFU.

 
 

Watching this video, for me, is an amazing vindication of left-wing values. Why? Because blogospheric wingnuts want you to believe that rich people like this braying ass are somehow better than you. Tigerhawk as some kind of role model . . . no. Just . . . no.

 
 

you moocher parasite

This from guy with oxymoronic nym on public-money-developed internet.

What?

I heard this thread was mortally wounded.

 
 

To El Cid: Proportionally the rich pay a lesser percentage of taxes on their income than the middle or lower classes. Ask Warren Buffet, he paid less of a percentage on his taxes than his secretary.
Now where is the oppression? The middle class median income has not gone up in the last 10 years, whereas the rich has seen a 300 % increase. Look at what one CEO of a medical insurance company did, he gave himself an 64 % increase in salary over the past two years and then raised fees by 20% for all the company insurers. It’s not that the rich deserve what they make by working hard, innovative ideas and new research and design. If they had the economy would not be in this shape. It’s that they make their money for the company by outsourcing jobs to different countries, laying off employees or lowering employee salaries. Then they steal, lie and cheat to get the riches. In fact most of the rich are morally banckrupt, unethical and should be know as robber barons.

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

Government workers (aka leeches) are net consumers

Hopefully your child gets to play with a lead-coated toy from China. Then we can see how “self-reliant” you are when you cure your kid’s cancer all by your lonesome.

What a stupid motherfucker you are.

 
 

Your paycheck comes from taxes on private sector workers like me, you moocher parasite.

Izzat so? Good luck with those deteriorating water mains.

 
 

Who CARES where the money comes from? As a matter of fact, it comes out of a big printer owned by the government. Its ALL government money.

All that matters is that people are given some of that green paper when they perform some sort of labour or provide some sort of service (known as doing “work”) which is of benefit to society in some way.

People who spend their time orchestrating gigantic financial scams and finding ways to turn human suffering into profit, they can just sod off. They don’t deserve ANY money.

Replace all the salesmen and managers with a magic 8 ball, then send those useless empty suits out into the streets to pick litter up.. For which they would be paid a living wage, because that IS a useful thing for them to do.

 
Dragon-King Wangchuck
 

I heard this thread was mortally wounded.
PENIS.

 
 

If I could avoid it, I never “worked” a day in my life. I don’t like “work,” and never did.

Of course, I defined “work” as things I wouldn’t do unless I were getting paid to do them. Soldiering was one of those thing. Teaching high-school and selling Kirbys door-to-door were others. Masonry.

I never lost a job in my life, either. I knew where every last one o’them sumbitches was the day they run me off.

For a while, I was a union carpenter, and the labor was hard and dangerous, but it was fun, too. The jobs were interesting. Not “work,” per se, not odious. I spent about two months cutting and hanging fascia-board–pretty boring, really, and repetitive–on a big industrial park outside Seattle. part of a crew, but this part was just me and another guy. We talked philosophy and literature all day, got stoned at lunch. He was a Nietzsche-an; I’m a Marcus Aurelius stoic.

It got to be work, after a while (about 10 years). So I went back into thinking for a living. That’s pretty much always been fun for me.

No, I’m not rich. Matter of fact, I am close to being poor. Retired. Well, “officially” retired. Social Security. Medicare next year. Don’t have much disposable income. I drink cheap scotch so i don’t have to drink cheap beer (anything the top twists off of is “cheap beer” except Abita).

But I digress….

 
Food Manufacturers Of America
 

“oh and actor to answer your question the things i think the government should spend money on: roads, a police force, mail delivery, and a small military. i’m the last of the pre-louisiana purchase jeffersonians.”

Good philosophy! Oh, by the way, we have some tainted juicy beefburgers to sell you. We GUARANTEE you’ll love ’em!

 
 

I heard this thread was mortally wounded.

Y’know, I go out for a nice lunch, take a quick nap, and come back to find this.

You crazy kids.

 
 

In the words of objectivist Canadian supergroup Rush: “Show me, don’t tell me!”

 
 

Lipstick: Sometimes I think you’re a double agent from our side. Your responses are always so inelegant, impolite and devoid of either entertainment or analytic value that it seems like you must be deliberately trying to make the liberals look bad.

Your team is in control of the whole government right now save the last bastion of common sense, the judiciary. How come you’re still so spiteful and bitter?

 
 

I’m hungry…anyone got a bag of dicks?

 
 

Yes, why don’t the people who don’t have any money pay for everything?

What a failure of imagination, RWR, to not be able to see what would happen if all those poor people couldn’t get to work anymore. From your perspective, that would just make them even leechier, until no one came to pick up your trash or clean your office, or work in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant. What a sad person, who loves money more than anything else.

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

Your responses are always so inelegant, impolite and devoid of either entertainment or analytic value that it seems like you must be deliberately trying to make the liberals look bad.

Seeing as “your side” has been 100% wrong about everything – economic, political, environment, social, etc etc etc – since the dawn of America, I consider that high praise.

Thanks! You must’ve taken 100% of your daily dose of Rush Brand Oxycontin today to give such accolades out.

 
 

I’m confused by Tigerhawk’s calculus:

The rich and successful can’t help it. They were practically born that way.
The rich and successful demand satisfaction!

So they want to be thanked by the Prez for how they were born. Obama actually ought to do this as he’s signing the Reparations for the Descendents of Former Slaves Act.

 
 

oh and actor to answer your question the things i think the government should spend money on: roads, a police force, mail delivery, and a small military. i’m the last of the pre-louisiana purchase jeffersonians.

Mail delivery? When there are so many better *koffkoff* private enterprises out there, like UPS and Fedex?

Roads? Why?

Because Eisenhower thought it would be smart, like the Germans? You mean that whole European Socialism thing has its advantages?

He also thought public education was a good idea, because it kept our kids competitive and it did, until the Republicans defunded it in the 80s.

And a federal police force? Are you, um, surrre you want to do that?

Now, if you’re going to allow for frivolities like roads, mail and a police force, then why not fund healthcare, which has the added bonus of keeping more people paying more taxes longer to fund the other things we need?

Or how about those R&D factories, where, you know, the Internet was conceived?

Or how about, as someone amusingly posited here, food inspections? Or toy inspections? Or customs?

 
A Perfectly Good Mirror
 

Your responses are always so inelegant, impolite and devoid of either entertainment or analytic value

What am I, chopped liver?

 
 

So they want to be thanked by the Prez for how they were born.

Great. Give ’em each 40 acres and a mule.

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

Yes, why don’t the people who don’t have any money pay for everything?

You made me think of one of my favorite quotes:

“A conservative is someone who believes the problem with our economy is that poor people have too much money.” – Bob Orben, speechwriter for Gerald Ford

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

My math major buddies and I agreed (at a table adorned with a finite but uncountable number of beer bottles) that the highest aspiration a mathematician could have was to formulate a theorem that did not and never would have any practical use whatever.

Heh. Computer Scientists are only a tiny bit more engaged in the real world, ambitions-wise. I definitely see the appeal, tho.

 
 

Surprised I never saw that Hardy citation before.

Something along similar lines from J. B. S. Haldane:
I think then that the tendency of applied science is to magnify injustices until they become too intolerable to be borne, and the average man whom all the prophets and poets could not move, turns at least and extinguishes the evil at its source.

 
 

Great. Give ‘em each 40 acres and a mule.
Give them six feet of soil; or if they are tall, another foot.
No, wait, that was Harald Hardradi.

 
 

Government workers (aka leeches) are net consumers

Actually, I am curious about this. See, most government workers do the same kind of things other workers do.

Government janitors push broom just like private sector janitors do, government plumbers unclog toilets just like private ones do – you can’t tell me that some Adminstrative Analyst pushing paper in a private sector Insurance company has any more intrinsic value than an Administrative Analyst pushing paper in a state Department of Parks office does.

You’re still getting clean floors in your courthouse, public toilets that flush, and someone is reviewing the annual expenditures for mulch in the state park. You’re still getting the value of the work.

So why the hate? Are you advocating that someone shouldn’t be reviewing the spending of public funds? Shouldn’t be maintaining government assets? Shouldn’t be providing services to the public?

 
 

I definitely see the appeal, tho.

If nobody knows what you’re doing, then nobody knows when you make mistakes. It’s the overarching principle of the Iraq war.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

And a federal police force? Are you, um, surrre you want to do that?

Of course. Its function will be to keep the proles in line, while the Randian superfops can do whatever they want.

 
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure. It would make more sense to privatize education and set up more trade school for the youths who, let’s face it, aren’t going to be doing too much with their lives. Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

Let corporate interests take a shot at running the schools, since they’re the ones creating most of the jobs anyway. And for the really talented economically disadvantaged students, schools like the one I attended always had a generous financial aid package for anybody who could get admitted.

Frankly this seems like a no-brainer.

 
 

the last bastion of common sense, the judiciary.

So are they still “activist judges” now that they have common sense?

 
 

Corporate State propaganda has become so pervasive that even modestly (seeming) intelligent commentors such as ‘white knight’ and rwr cannot see how they themselves are enveloped in determined by, and emissaries for it…

 
 

I hate rich people, and this spoiled whining scumfuck is a perfect example of why. Eat shit, motherfucker.

This.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

If nobody knows what you’re doing, then nobody knows when you make mistakes.

I will admit to taking advantage of this principle from time to time. However, not very often – the people I work for are a) smart enough to spot bullshit and b) nice enough to inspire loyalty.

 
 

g,

It’s the same logic that goes into thought processes in the private sector, too.

The support staff, they don’t generate income or sales leads, so they’re the first to be considered when the chopping block is dragged out.

Nevermind that a) if the sales staff worked harder and/or smarter, they might increase sales by a much larger percentage and b) the sales people don’t wash the coffee cups or tote up the expenses or do peoduct quality reviews.

It astounds me that the right wing can be so lax in thinking that humans might suddenly become more, you know, cooperative and communal after a layoff wave. If anything, they become more territorial.

 
Rhetorical Question Department
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure.

You mean you don’t have a rebuttal for being pwned on your previous 42 points and want to bring up yet-ANOTHER topic?

I’ve never met somebody who loves being used and pwned like you do. What are you, mentally ill or something?

 
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure. It would make more sense to privatize education and set up more trade school for the youths who, let’s face it, aren’t going to be doing too much with their lives. Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

I don’t believe you’re going to get any traction with your privatization movement for at least a decade. Especially not after the Wall Street meltdown. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Republicans have stopped talking about privatizing Social Security.

Y’all almost got away with ruining the elderly and the soon-to-be-elderly in this country. No way you’re going to get away with ruining our kids now.

Forget it. Ain’t going to happen now. Not anytime soon, anyway.

 
 

cdc i was referring of course to good men like scalia and thomas. activist judges are still scourges.

 
 

i’m the last of the pre-louisiana purchase jeffersonians.”

“Last of” being the operative phrase.

 
 

think then that the tendency of applied science is to magnify injustices until they become too intolerable to be borne, and the average man whom all the prophets and poets could not move, turns at least and extinguishes the evil at its source.

Foucault postulated that the ‘human sciences’ were instruments developed in the interest of the State for predicting, interpreting, and ultimately,of course, controlling their citizens. Viz; the panopticon and Bentham’s “Liberal” intentions.

 
 

the youths who, let’s face it, aren’t going to be doing too much with their lives

Here’s where the disconnect is. You’re placing too much value on wealth accumulation. One reason I’ll never be wealthy is that I don’t love money enough. Sure, I’d like more, but I approach that whole “pursuit of happiness” thing the only way I know how. And it doesn’t necessarily include a six figure salary.

…Perhaps I won’t amount to much. 🙂

 
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure. It would make more sense to privatize education and set up more trade school for the youths who, let’s face it, aren’t going to be doing too much with their lives. Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

Let corporate interests take a shot at running the schools, since they’re the ones creating most of the jobs anyway. And for the really talented economically disadvantaged students, schools like the one I attended always had a generous financial aid package for anybody who could get admitted.

Frankly this seems like a no-brainer.

I’m not sure if you realize you just pwned yourself, Whitey.

We tried private education for the first hundred odd years of this country and it failed miserably. Education has been shown to be the single biggest factor in higher incomes in any nation.

Higher incomes means higher tax revenues to pay for cops, the military, roads, you know, the stuff you find so important.

indeed, defunding education would force the rich to pay even MORE in taxes for the things they now take for granted.

 
 

Frankly this seems like a no-brainer.

I told you to stop with the softballs floaters already.

 
 

interrobang: are you me from an alternate universe? I actually had to check the author’s name multiple times to make sure it wasn’t me that had posted.

 
 

ryan don’t talk like that. the great thing about this country is that if you find what you love and keep doing it long enough, you will make something of yourself. that’s something my dad and grandpa taught me and i really believe it! just keep your nose clean and keep working at what you want and as long as you’re smart and deserving, good things will come your way. it’s only the people without that creative spark or drive who wind up living like zombies.

 
 

Let corporate interests take a shot at running the schools, since they’re the ones creating most of the jobs anyway.

I couldn’t let this one go by without commenting.

Are you certain you want companies funding education? You want commercials instead of education?

And don’t call that a scare tactic, because it’s happened already. Remember Channel One?

 
 

just keep your nose clean and keep working at what you want and as long as you’re smart and deserving, good things will come your way.

Could you define “good things”, Whitey?

because I think Ryan already said they were there.

And seriously, if you believe that only hard work will win you the American dream, well, just ask anyone in foreclosure where hard work got them.

 
 

Look, I know that telling people not to feed the trolls is mostly done in frustration and will never be taken seriously, but could we please stop the nym-changing business? The problem is spiraling out of control again, to the point where killfiles are not helping much.

The St. Jesus thing was nice, too…

 
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure.

It’s my experience that folks who make that proclamation either do not know what “public education” these days is intended and designed to do; or they do know, but are maintaining a facade of outrage because they must also then recognize their own participation in it.

The purpose of “school” since it became universal–since it was no longer the exclusive province of elites, the last century or so–has been to ensure as much as possible that children are prevented from escaping whatsoever socio-economic niche into which they were born. “School” does this by providing a whole catalogue of ‘justifications”–test scores, grades, permanent records–which are the retroactive/post facto evidence for decisions made about children long before they ever entered a class-room. School functions as a sorting system, assigning the “lower orders” to the uses to which they are best suited to serve the rich.

 
 

So why exactly have the trolls begun addressing us as though we personally collect their taxes? Has the recession led to an outbreak of neo-Dillingerism in the banks of the Blartland?
(ohpleaseohpleaseohplease)

 
 

One of those “good things” is an emblem on the back of my car with the Darwin amphibian humping the Jesus fish. I get tailgated a lot.

 
 

white knight said,

March 6, 2009 at 23:08

Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

Frankly this seems like a no-brainer.

And hereby you have illustrated you are the right person for the job.

 
 

actor you raise some intersting arguments. your skill to engage is impressive. better than so many of the dimmer bulbs that flail and flicker ’round here.

 
Good Man Clarence Thomas
 

Who moved my porn?

 
 

So why exactly have the trolls begun addressing us as though we personally collect their taxes?

I believe it is a pre-emptive fear reaction, to wit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

I suspect that they fear the proles are getting a bit out of hand, and since they see that harsh words and direct orders to fall back in line aren’t working, they’re changing their tack just a bit.

If the new approach fails, then soon they will start experimenting with bribery.

 
 

One of those “good things” is an emblem on the back of my car with the Darwin amphibian humping the Jesus fish. I get tailgated a lot.

WHIPLASH! Sue the fuckers…

The operant metaphor for the acquisition of wealth in the USofA is the Lottery. It’s all luck, but the winners believe they won because of their virtues.

 
 

Whitey, I’ll give you credit for sticking in there and presenting your case, such as it has been.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

If the new approach fails, then soon they will start experimenting with bribery.

Cynically speaking, isn’t that bribery kind of what the Porkulus is all about? A relatively non-disruptive way of preserving as much of our richocracy as is possible without giving too much to the proles or allowing it all to descend into chaos?

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

…of course, I see the stimulus pkg has beneficial effects too, but it doesn’t go anywhere NEAR as lefty as the shrieking heads of the right think it does.

 
 

actor you raise some intersting arguments. your skill to engage is impressive. better than so many of the dimmer bulbs that flail and flicker ’round here.
….

Whitey, I’ll give you credit for sticking in there and presenting your case, such as it has been.

Um, WTF?

This smells like dirty sockpuppetry. And not the good kind

 
 

I swear, Stryx, it ain’t. At least on my part.

 
 

If White Knight isn’t a parody troll, I’ll eat Rush Limbaugh with ketchup. I mean, “Frankly this seems like a no-brainer.”? C’mon, people.

 
 

woody that’s an interesting point re the lottery. at boarding school i always noticed a strong strain of calvinism that seemed to be largely implied but seldom overtly stated. i believe in “making it” on my own and i’m proud of what i’ve accomplished!

actor: thanks! i really want to do whatever i can to create the kind of world i want to live in, one where virtue and intelligence are rewarded rather than a welfare state in which zombies pass through life half-asleep.

 
 

OMG…this is just a week for discovery of the weird and wild online it seems. Damn. Has this guy surfaced before, or is he new to the mock-tastic team here? I just wish I had time right now to watch this one….I’ll do that when I get back….I almost can’t wait….

Sadly, No!, you have truly turned me evil. I now have the unbearable desire to photoshop everyone’s head onto something, and I can’t even shop worth a damn! EVIL I TELL YOU, EVIL!!

 
 

This has been a good thread.

I enjoy watching trolls eat D-CON troll bait.

 
 

My apologies if somebody in the previous 384 comments pointed this out, but:

Part of Richard Nixon’s anti-Semitism was just good old-fashioned SoCal parochialism & xenophobia, but another reason was more interesting & similar to the sources quoted above.

Jews were derided as “limousine liberals” by Agnew, Nixon et al because they often sided w/ the underdog, were active in the Civil Rights movement, etc. (And recall, this is only 2-3 decades after the Holocaust, so reasons for Jews to identify w/ the underdog & oppressed classes may’ve been more evident/ pressing than today).

But subscribing to the notion of hierarchy and Social Darwinism so beloved of Repukes, Nixon just couldn’t stomach the idea of being near the top of the social pyramid & trying to help those lower down the chain rather than kicking them in the teeth so they didn’t reach your level.

Well, this latter attitude certainly hasn’t changed in the last two decades.

 
 

Cynically speaking, isn’t that bribery kind of what the Porkulus is all about? A relatively non-disruptive way of preserving as much of our richocracy as is possible without giving too much to the proles or allowing it all to descend into chaos?

Actually, IMO the Porkulus was passed late last year. I believe this photograph expresses my sentiments on the matter more clearly.

http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=2113173

I was thinking more along the lines of bribery coming *from* wealthy individuals when I posted that comment.

 
 

Um, WTF?

This smells like dirty sockpuppetry. And not the good kind

actor and whitey sittin’ in a tree…

 
 

And it’s also odd that WK appears to know how to use capitalization in one post, and the next, not so much. So c’mon, fess up: who’s playing WK?

 
 

This smells like dirty sockpuppetry. And not the good kind

Yeah no shit. It’s incredibly pathetic.

This has been a good thread.

No, really, it hasn’t.

I enjoy watching trolls eat D-CON troll bait.

And now the entire place is poisoned and crawling with trolls. Congratulations on that, fucktard.

 
You Can't Put Lipstick On A Repig
 

rather than a welfare state in which zombies pass through life half-asleep

Yeah, I never liked the people that worked on Wall Street either.

 
 

I suspect that they fear the proles are getting a bit out of hand, and since they see that harsh words and direct orders to fall back in line aren’t working, they’re changing their tack just a bit.

To quote a fine wingnut phrase from a little while back:

Noose. Tree. Some assembly required.

 
 

Hardcore Pr0n is serious business.

(Hey, I’m trying here, people!)

 
 

I’ve been assigned by my corporate overlords to play WK today.

Seeing a mighty personality like me on S,N! might amaze you libs, but you forget one thing: I NEVER get tired of bloviating anywhere I can.

 
 

David Sirota asks a good question: If Private Health Insurance Is So Awesome, Why Would It Lose a Competition With Gov’t Health Care?

Mitch McConnell doesn’t come out of this one very well. Surprise surprise surprise.

 
 

Christ, Simba.

This is my first post on this thread, and I’m a fucking SN! regular from way back before the Sammich/fat suit controversy.

You guys seriously need to chill the hell out. You don’t own the internets, and beseeching others to do your bidding (or not) tends to get the exact opposite of what you say you want.

SN! are a free-fire zone. Always have been, always will be.

You don’t like – don’t participate. Its that simple.

 
 

mark: in the 1960s a lot of the nouveau riche (and nouveau riche used to be a codeword for either “jewish” or “texas oil money”) felt like they could never be accepted by the gop. unfortunately this fear probably wasn’t baseless. this is why they ended up bankrolling the democratic party and it was this bankrolling of the dems that drew so much ire from guts and glory style politicians like president nixon. nixon’s hostility was an unfortunate part of his character. it also put him in the weird position of hating both the bluebloods and the nouveau riche.

as decades passed, more and more members of the “new money” finally started to feel accepted in the gop, which is why we see more texas oilmen and affluent jewish families in the gop ranks today than in say 1960. the gop definitely paid the price (in terms of both a brain drain and a financial drain) of being too slow to embrace worthwhile individuals regardless of their creed or background. it’s an error we simply cannot continue to make.

 
 

That is to say, SN! comment threads are a free-fire zone.

 
 

This is why wealthy blacks and hispanics are flocking to the GOP banner as we speak.

 
 

“Public education” is a miserable failure.

And you are exhibit A: No teacher ever sat you down to explain what a Cleveland Steamer is.

Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

Go mix a bucket full of ammonia and bleach and then we’ll listen to this inane point.

 
 

to say nothing of teh j00z.

 
 

This is the problem right here. White Wizard has equated “affluent” with “worthwhile individuals”.

Myself, I equate “affluent” with “having a shitload of money”

 
 

It would make more sense to privatize education and set up more trade school for the youths who, let’s face it, aren’t going to be doing too much with their lives. Why should someone who is going to sweep floors for a living have to struggle through chemistry?

And naturally, you know exactly which ones won’t ever amount to anything and aren’t worth educating…

 
 

it’s an error we simply cannot continue to make.

And yet you do.

My Hispanic wife thinks that the GOP’s “outreach” to her demographic is either t3h funn@y or pathetic; she hasn’t decided which yet.

Here’s a hint: your fellow travelers aren’t very good at telling legal Hispanic immigrants from illegal ones. And not everyone with brown or beige skin who speaks Spanish is from Mexico.

 
 

This is my first post on this thread, and I’m a fucking SN! regular from way back before the Sammich/fat suit controversy.

Whatever. At least I have the balls to post under my own usual pseudonym.

It looks like it’s time to step back from this place again until the trolls finally step over the line (again) and the management starts intervening. I appreciate that Gavin and Seb have lives and such but that does not excuse the people who make the problem worse.

 
 

Wait a second — isn’t this assface amongst those who hailed Not Joe the Not Plumber as a bastion of Americanism? Went on and on about how Joe represented the “everyman” … ?

Not Joe The Not Plumber is the perfect “working class heroes” for the butthurt rich, though. He’s not too bright and he’ll say any goddamn thing you want him to as long as you keep tossing him treats, and given he’s so goddamn stupid, you might have to breakdown for a new bass boat but that’s probably it. That’s probably what the country record with Arron Tippin was, if not the trip to Israel to show the Liberal Media how real reporting was done. And all it cost him was his dignity.

 
 

he’ll say any goddamn thing you want him to as long as you keep tossing him treats, and given he’s so goddamn stupid, you might have to breakdown for a new bass boat but that’s probably it. That’s probably what the country record with Arron Tippin was, if not the trip to Israel to show the Liberal Media how real reporting was done. And all it cost him was his dignity.

Here’s that bribery thing I was talking about.

Hey, whatever happened to that plumbing business he was going to buy?

 
So NOT The SN Thread Police But Meh
 

Remember, those who do not learn the history of troll-infested threads are doomed to repeat them.

 
Anonymous Coward
 

It’s all fun and games until you start taking the trolls seriously.

 
So NOT The SN Thread Police But Meh
 

P.S. Limpuke is fat and nJntP is an idiot.

 
 

And naturally, you know exactly which ones won’t ever amount to anything and aren’t worth educating…

Of course. The poor ones and the dark ones. Duh

 
 

Pecan crusted catfish with Blackberry ketchup

1/2 cup (about) all purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
1 large egg
4 6- to 8-ounce catfish fillets
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place flour on large plate. Whisk milk and egg in shallow bowl to blend. Sprinkle catfish fillets with salt and pepper. Lightly coat catfish fillets in flour. Dip into milk mixture. Coat 1 side of fish with pecans. Lightly coat second side with flour.

Heat 1/2 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 fish fillets to skillet, nut side down, and cook until nuts begin to brown, about 2 minutes. Turn fish over; cook 1 minute. Using metal spatula, transfer fish, nut side up, to rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with remaining fish and 1/2 tablespoon oil. Bake until opaque in center, about 10 minutes.

Blackberry ketchup

2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tangerine, zest grated
Directions

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the berries, vinegar, and water to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain out the seeds and return the liquid to the saucepan. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt, cayenne pepper, butter, and grated tangerine rind. Simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Let cool.

 
The TrooF (Iz Out There)
 

I could be just about anybodies.

 
 

kenobi–hey, we have a long way to go still. a lot of party oldtimers aren’t comfortable with change and there’s residual paternalism and even racism. but, unfortunately for you guys, a whole lot can change in 18 months or so, just in time for midterm elections when you’ll be the ones running against a wrecked economy and an angry voter base.

 
 

don’t talk like that. the great thing about this country is that if you find what you love and keep doing it long enough, you will make something of yourself. that’s something my dad and grandpa taught me and i really believe it! just keep your nose clean and keep working at what you want and as long as you’re smart and deserving, good things will come your way.

And if you try REALLY HARD when I feed you this bowl full of spider droppings and coal shavings, you can make DIAMONDS out of it when it comes out the other end!

Srsly, fuck off and die.

 
 

The operant metaphor for the acquisition of wealth in the USofA is the Lottery.
I have a theory that the popularity of lotteries around the world is correlated with the level of poverty. Completely unbased on empirical evidence.
FWIW, the operant metaphor for the acquisition of wealth in New Zealand is the gold rush. Or perhaps the cargo cult.

 
 

“my current lover is an angelfaced hardbody

Store mannequin, huh?”

Nah: Methinks Tighty-Whitey is posting online from prison.

 
 

If any of you Sadly clowns would educate yourself about economics, you’d realize that TigerHawk’s assumptions are correct. The rich are being put through a blender by your Anointed One, and pretty soon they’re going to get tired of it.

 
 

Remember, those who do not learn the history of troll-infested threads are doomed to repeat them.

Some good ol’ Friday night trooooof telling that was there.

OK, a question. I have a head that desperately needs to be photoshopped onto a body—but WHICH body? PLEASE give me some good body suggestions!! It’s fine that you don’t know the head pic. I just need some good bods. That means amusing bods. Or non-human bods even.

Pretty please with a Gary Ruppert on top?

 
 

kenobi–hey, we have a long way to go still. a lot of party oldtimers aren’t comfortable with change and there’s residual paternalism and even racism.

You have a longer way to go than you think.

I supported Reagan in the 1980s, and voted for Bush pere when I was in the Army. Hell, I fucking enlisted during Reagan’s administration. I’m a gun-owning disabled Army veteran who was raised in and still resides in the Deep South. If anybody’s your target demographic, I am.

And y’all ran me the fuck off.

If you want to know why, I’ll go into detail, but suffice it to say that — to paraphrase my former Governor, I didn’t leave the GOP — the GOP left me. And the Democrats have been willing to listen to the things that I and people like me have to say. Michael Steele thinks that you need to do a better job of selling your message. I say bullshit.

You need to do a better job of shutting the fuck up and listening to what your constituency has to say. If you can’t, don’t or won’t do that, then you will continue to lose elections.

but, unfortunately for you guys, a whole lot can change in 18 months or so, just in time for midterm elections when you’ll be the ones running against a wrecked economy and an angry voter base.

Unfortunately for you guys, you’ve *already* lost a lot of your base, and you are not giving any of us even the least reason to come back. It isn’t enough for a candidate to get elected on anger alone. It takes an angry electorate plus a candidate who can connect with voters and make them see that good things are just around the corner.

You haven’t got one of those. And you’re not about to get one, not when everyone in your party is lining up to blow Rush Limbaugh.

 
 

In case it hasn’t been mentioned yet, Tigerhawk is also a big fan and bloggy friend of Megan McArdle. I’ve wrassled with him a few times, and I have to admit, he’s capable of laughing at himself. He’s an idiot, but he’s not as thin-skinned as most of his ideological fellow travelers.
This doesn’t excuse anything, just worth noting.

 
 

Kenobi- You will not be missed. Socialism of Obama’s sort has no place in the GOP, which embraces free markets and free people. All you want to do is put citizens in the chains of Government, your only solution. To EVERYTHING

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

I have a theory that the popularity of lotteries around the world is correlated with the level of poverty.

Yes, plus inversely with the level of education (which is itself correlated with the level of poverty, isn’t it).

 
 

Kenobi- You will not be missed.

I bet you missed my ass on November 4th, bitch.

Socialism of Obama’s sort has no place in the GOP, which embraces free markets and free people. All you want to do is put citizens in the chains of Government, your only solution. To EVERYTHING

See, there it is again. You don’t even know what my issues of interest are. You don’t even bother to ask. All the GOP can do is lecture people.

Not a problem. Go on losing, bitches.

 
 

HTE st00pid! IT BURNZEZ!!!1!

 
 

Wait, the GOP’s stopped hating on lawyers? When did this happen?

 
 

I bet you missed my ass on November 4th, bitch.

You liberals seem to think that there’s only one election. Well I hate to slap you with some bad news but the Messiah better watch out for 2010 and 2012. And we don’t need you to take back DC from the socialism

 
 

If any of you Sadly clowns would educate yourself about economics, you’d realize that TigerHawk’s assumptions are correct. The rich are being put through a blender by your Anointed One, and pretty soon they’re going to get tired of it.

Yea, and go, um, where?

Canada? LOL!

 
 

Socialism of Obama’s sort has no place in the GOP, which embraces free markets and free people

And who have gotten their asses kicked around the fucking block in the last two elections with just your particular flavor of lying bullshit as their message.

, Just thought I’d remind you of that.

 
 

Similar wingnuttia from this side of the border. It’s astounding how out of touch realtors (used to gobbling huge profits on inflated properties) are. This former conservative politician watches as an audience of realtors blames the reticence of consumers on the media…if only they’d stop reporting the real layoffs and the real downturn we could all pretend it wasn’t happening and spend until our eyeballs popped.

The economist and I were of the same belief, and said so: There will be no real estate recovery so long as people fear the future. And that ignited the room. Everyone else argued passionately all housing needs to recover is confidence – which will come when people stop hearing about damn layoffs and problems. If there is one culprit, they concluded, it is not the realtor, the banker, the developer or the borrower, but the wretched media.

Then, lunch.

About the time uniformed wait staff in gloves were bringing in silver trays of dainties, Chrysler Canada was announcing 1,200 more people would be losing their jobs down the 401 in Windsor. In Hamilton, 1,500 steelworkers heard their mill would be shut for at least a year. Maybe forever. In Toronto and London, TV stations and newspapers shed more workers, as did Conoco in Calgary. And, everywhere, the owners of an unknown number of small companies regretfully told employees they had to go home.

As I left the club and wandered among the Benz and Bimmers, I wondered how this session will be reported. There is no end in sight, just beginnings. But oh, what a nostalgia for those days of greater fools.

Those pesky “damn layoffs” and the stoopid journalists who report them.

From what reptilian source did their brains evolve?

 
 

Please, people, he/she/it has no problem being shown to be a fool.

He/she/it just wants to prevent us from talking amongst ourselves.

i know, I know, I’ve done it too. but it’s gotten to the point where anybody who sees a thread over 200 comments just stays away.

Thank Sadly for the killfile!

Although kiki rules forever for the Steamer Pwnership. I was certain that was a parodist.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

From what reptilian source did their brains evolve?

…if they did evolve. Lordy.

So, these lumps are claiming that if the media didn’t report about layoffs, the laid-off workers wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a job anymore and would buy a new house?

 
 

You liberals seem to think that there’s only one election. Well I hate to slap you with some bad news but the Messiah better watch out for 2010 and 2012.

A friend of mine is a probation officer. She has a sign up in her office which I find appropriate for this moment:

“If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”

 
 

You liberals seem to think that there’s only one election.

There’s only one that counts until 2013. And you lost it.

Well I hate to slap you with some bad news but the Messiah better watch out for 2010 and 2012.

What, is jesus running for the House?

Seriously, the GOP better worry about 2010. Right now, given the seats that will be in play, it is *impossible* for the GOP to retake the Senate, even if they sweep every seat (which they won’t). And if the GOP keeps up its temper tantrums and its kneeling servicing of Rush Limbaugh, you won’t make up any ground in the House, either.

Remember how long the Great Depression went on. And then recall that FDR got elected four times in a row during that part of American history. Numbers and history are on our side. And public sentiment will be, too. Obstructionism never wins the hearts and minds of Americans. Ask Newt Gingrich about that.

And we don’t need you to take back DC from the socialism

Suits me. But don’t count on it happening any time soon. Especially if you keep running voters like me off.

 
 

Most liberal bloggers are saying, ‘Well, most small-business people don’t actually earn $250,000, and they’re right in a way. But most of those small business people don’t create any jobs, or they create a few lame jobs.

Warren Buffett gets $100,000 a year in salary. LAME!

Seriously, though, I thought the Righties were supposed to be anti class war, and here they go trying to start one. Do tell us again how much better you are than people who get paid less and why you shouldn’t have to pay taxes.

 
 

Also, why do none of these people ever have lips?

 
 

i believe in “making it” on my own and i’m proud of what i’ve accomplished!

the point to which you’re being ostentatiously blind being: you didn’t do it on your own. Nobody did.

 
The English Fucking Language
 

Your paycheck comes from taxes on private sector workers like me, you moocher parasite. The taxes you pay aren’t really taxes because you get your check from the government to begin with.

Even if we ignore dumbass’ conflation of multiple layers of government (and taxation) into “government,” dumbass’ assessment would also apply to anyone working at, say, Lockheed-Martin on the F35, not to mention everyone in the military.

Every man and woman in uniform is a “moocher parasite” to a Republican. Their spending cannot drive the economy, supposedly, because it comes from the “government,” which I guess is why communities work so hard to keep military bases around.

 
 

“If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”

There’s more herpes to have?

 
 

You folks didn’t get the memo.

This rant is from TigerBeat, not whatever manly-man handle he’s assigned to himself.

Ahem.

One of the more offensive of his assumptions is that it is the “worthy” who are rewarded with high incomes. Bullshit. There are plenty of companies out there who take the ideas of their mid and lower level employees, run with them, and make beaucoups money. Because they “own” that employee’s “intellectual property”, you see, and need offer no further compensation. So the business owner or CEO racks up a hefty salary increase or bonus as a result of an idea by one of his proles. I suppose TigerBeat’s response to that would be that the business owner or CEO deserves that profit for recognizing a good idea and running with it. But how hard is it to implement a really good idea if you’re in a position to make it happen? Not all that hard.

This is of interest to me because I’m starting a new job with a construction company on Monday. And me being the lazy, layabout pie in the sky dreamer type who doesn’t have an MBA…while digging through information on the stimulus plan and other stuff…I’ve figured out a way that this company could build and sell its houses at $5K – $8K more, qualify its buyers to spend the additional money, still offer the buyer a lower monthly expense for mortgage + household bills, qualify the buyers for an additional $2500 in tax credits or more (in addition to the first-time buyers tax credit), generate a $2000 tax credit for the company on each house they build, and well, it’s a great fucking idea. And while I’m going to be sure it goes to someone at the top of the company so they know whose idea it was, and while I’m going to be very upfront in asking if there’s a potential bonus or money incentive in it for me if my great idea pans out…even if there’s not, I’m going to pass the idea on.

Because it’s a great idea, and they need to use it. It will be nice if I make some extra scratch out of it, but even if I don’t, it will be really cool to see my great idea put into practice.

For some of us, that’s where we find rewards, not just in money, but in figuring out how to do things better and smarter.

THOSE are the people who keep this whole bitch afloat, not the ones that are creeching about my money, my precious money.

 
A Killfile In Every Pot
 

Thank Sadly for the killfile!

Seconded.

 
 

the great thing about this country is that if you find what you love and keep doing it long enough, you will make something of yourself. that’s something my dad and grandpa taught me and i really believe it! just keep your nose clean and keep working at what you want and as long as you’re smart and deserving, good things will come your way. it’s only the people without that creative spark or drive who wind up living like zombies.

So your creative spark and drive has gotten you where you are today – troll-posting on a humor blog?

 
 

Why do these folks keep trying to have it both ways?

If the Free Market harnesses your self-interest and creates jobs (even “lame” ones), you don’t get credit for it — it’s like wanting credit for keeping the rainforest alive because you exhale carbon dioxide.

 
 

You liberals can have my tax money when you pry it out of my cold, dead, hands.

SIGH. promises, promises…

 
 

Comment from TigerHawk’s blog:

I voted for Obama, but demonizing people like us for no apparent purpose than cheap political points makes me regret my vote.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/03/we-hear-from-other-precincts.html

I was once a proud liberal, but after 9/11, I became outraged by Chpaaquiddick (/M. Berube).

By the way, take a look at the other comments at that post. Funny stuff.

 
 

So, these lumps are claiming that if the media didn’t report about layoffs, the laid-off workers wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a job anymore and would buy a new house?

Similar to the view of CPAC participants, only they were a little more blatant, cheering the prospect of the death of multiple newspapers.

 
 

Yea, and go, um, where?
Canada? LOL!

Paraguay is apparently popular. And the great thing about the world-wide Intermesh is that a sufficiently wealthy person can always buy favoured-status citizenship in some foreign country where the locals show proper deference to money, and can STILL post video clips to complain about the unpatriotic nature of left-wingers in his/her previous home.

I found Paraguay in the atlas, but where the hell is Guay?

i believe in “making it” on my own
So I, but I don’t boast about it.

 
 

Killfile sez:

LA,LA,LA,LA,LA,LA,LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

 
 

Even if we ignore dumbass’ conflation of multiple layers of government (and taxation) into “government,” dumbass’ assessment would also apply to anyone working at, say, Lockheed-Martin on the F35, not to mention everyone in the military.

Every man and woman in uniform is a “moocher parasite” to a Republican. Their spending cannot drive the economy, supposedly, because it comes from the “government,” which I guess is why communities work so hard to keep military bases around.

But you see, these jobs don’t belong in the “moocher parasite” variety because they’re “in the Constitution.” So just like that, the wingut fighting brigade has made your argument go poof.

 
 

Lesley, that is CRAZY! Did you hear the “This American Life” radio program last weekend? The debt load in the nation right now is ~100% of GDP for only the second time in recorded history of the country, the first being 1929. We are not going to be consuming our way out of this mess.

 
 

Paraguay is apparently popular.

Paraguy and Übermensch get all the chicks, goddamn them.

 
 

But you see, these jobs don’t belong in the “moocher parasite” variety because they’re “in the Constitution.” So just like that, the wingut fighting brigade has made your argument go poof.

I’d like for them to show me what the Founders had to say about standing armies in peacetime.

 
 

Reality isn’t serving the interests of the greedy, tigrismus, so it must be suppressed.

For example, from this week alone

Unemployment Rises to 8.1% in February, Highest in 25 Years as 651,000 Jobs Lost
…a surge likely to send more Americans into bankruptcy and force further cutbacks in consumer spending. Employers eliminated 651,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Losses have now exceeded 600,000 for three straight months, the first time that’s happened since the data began in 1939. Revisions to the previous two months lopped off an additional 161,000 positions. Today’s report indicates the economy may need additional federal measures to help stop what may become the worst recession in the postwar era. The jobless rate has now already reached the level the Obama administration projected as an average for the whole year. While President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan aims at creating or saving 3.5 million jobs, today’s report showed the U.S. has now already lost 4.4 million since the recession began in December 2007, with more declines coming.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeAEIkN7ROJ0&refer=home

U.S. Jobless Claims Exceed 600,000 for a Fifth Week
The Labor Department today reported 639,000 first-time unemployment applications, the fifth straight week above 600,000. The number of new U.S. jobless claims and the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits both dropped more than expected last week, though they remain at elevated levels and are unlikely to fall substantially in the coming months. The number of people claiming benefits for more than a week fell slightly to 5.1 million from 5.12 million, after rising to record-highs for five straight weeks. Analysts expected 5.15 million continuing claims.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aanaFt_TxFEM&refer=economy
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090305.wusjobs0305/BNStory/Business/home

Job losses adding to U.S. foreclosure rates: 48% of subprime mortgage holders are behind on payments or in foreclosure
…and the rate for homeowners with all mortgage types hit a new record, new data yesterday showed. But that’s not the worst of it. The reckless lending practices in states like Florida, California and Nevada that were the epicentre of the U.S. housing crisis are no longer driving up the nation’s delinquency rate. Instead, the foreclosure crisis now is being fuelled by a spike in defaults in states like Louisiana, New York, Georgia and Texas, where the economies are rapidly deteriorating and thousands are losing their jobs. A record 5.4 million American homeowners with a mortgage of any kind, or nearly 12 per cent, were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported. That’s up from 10 per cent at the end of the third quarter, and up from 8 per cent at the end of 2007.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090306.IBUSMORTGAGE07/TPStory/TPBusiness/America/

Mortgage Delinquencies Rise to Record on Job Losses: 4th quarter 2008
Americans fell behind on their mortgages and banks seized homes at a record pace in the fourth quarter as unemployment rose to a 15-year high and real estate values tumbled. Mortgage delinquencies increased to a seasonally adjusted 7.88 percent of all loans, the highest in records going back to 1972, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today. Loans in foreclosure rose to 3.30 percent, also an all-time high. The U.S. real estate market lost $2.4 trillion in value last year, according to First American CoreLogic, and unemployment jumped to 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the highest since 1993. As the recession enters a second year, unemployment is becoming a major cause of delinquencies, said Jay Brinkmann, the Washington-based trade group’s chief economist.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aWD5qV_yNFiM&refer=us

Economic gloom deepening: US Federal Reserve
The United States spiralled deeper into recession at the start of 2009, forcing widespread cutbacks and layoffs among everyone from blue-collar workers who once churned out construction equipment to white-collar professionals like business consultants and accountants. The Federal Reserve Board’s new snapshot of business activity nationwide, released Wednesday, showed the economic picture darkening over the last two months and revealed little hope for a quick turnaround. Ten of the 12 fed regions said economic activity worsened, while the Philadelphia and Chicago districts said economies “remained weak.” …Looking ahead, business people rated the prospects “for near-term improvement in economic conditions as poor, with a significant pickup not expected before late 2009 or early 2010.” The survey summarizes information from businesses and others supplied to the Fed’s 12 regional banks. The information — most of it anecdotal — was collected on or before Feb. 23.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090304.wbeigebook0304/BNStory/Business/home

U.S. factory orders fall for record sixth straight month: January drop smaller than predicted
The Commerce Department said Thursday that demand for manufactured products dropped by 1.9 per cent in January. That was smaller than the 3.5 per cent drop that economists had been forecasting but it was still the sixth consecutive monthly fall, a record number of declines for a data series that goes back to 1992. The weakness in January included a big plunge in orders for transportation equipment, reflecting the continued troubles facing auto makers who are struggling with the weakest sales in decades.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090305.wfactoryorders0305/BNStory/Business/home

U.S. services sector continues to shrink
A private measure of the U.S. services sector shrank in February for the fifth straight month as the recession deepened. The Institute for Supply Management, a Tempe, Ariz.-based trade group of purchasing executives, said Wednesday that its services index fell to 41.6 last month from 42.9 in January. The February reading was slightly above economists’ expectations. …any reading above 50 signals growth, while a reading below 50 indicates contraction. The index has fallen steadily since August as the economy deteriorated. About three-quarters of Americans work in service-providing industries, such as hotels, retail, education, health care and financial institutions. Only one industry — arts, entertainment and recreation — reported growth in February, according to the survey. Fourteen others registered contraction.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090304.wISM0304/BNStory/Business/home

Obama administration launches housing program …designed to help up to nine million borrowers stay in their homes through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090304.wobamahousing0304/BNStory/Business/home

Mortgage Bankruptcy Legislation Approved by U.S. House May Aid 1 Million
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=akFgFGFBhDp0&refer=home

Citigroup, Once World’s Biggest Bank by Value, Sees Stock Decline Below $1
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aPu.Dqb0LCR4&refer=us

Banks That Shunned Subprime Ask Why They’re Paying for Wall Street `Greed’
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=adfq4I9V1W6k&refer=home

…Retail Hiring Tanks…
…retail jobs are disappearing at a faster rate in this recession than in any other since the U.S. government began keeping track in 1939. While total employment declined 2.6 percent from December 2007 through January, the retail industry shrank a record 3.7 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was the largest difference between all job losses in a recession and those in retail.
…In December, when 1.54 million retail workers were unemployed, there were 299,000 openings, according to the labor statistics bureau. That added up to 5.2 seekers for every position, compared with 2.2 a year ago and 2.8 in the recession of 2001.
While retail sales rose in January by 1 percent when people took advantage of post-holiday price reductions, in February they likely slipped by 0.4 percent, a Bloomberg survey of economists showed. In December, during the worst Christmas shopping season in 40 years, retail sales plunged 9.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Commerce Department.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqi56SIrpK.g&refer=us

…except for Walmart. Company attributes increased sales to people trying to “live within their means”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aEs2KXfogrD4&refer=us

Layoffs Deepen Pool of Applicants for Jobs Driving Big Rigs
For years, a shortage of drivers was the single biggest problem for the trucking industry. Con-way, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. and other companies spent millions of dollars annually trying to attract applicants for a notoriously unappealing job that involves spending weeks on the road, sleeping in cramped cabs and showering at dirty truck stops. Annual driver turnover has routinely approached or exceeded 100%. …Now, these trucking companies suddenly have more applicants than jobs, thanks to a recession-driven jump in applications from the ballooning ranks of the unemployed and a decline in the number of trucks on the road as freight volumes plummet. In January alone, the industry, which employs roughly 1.32 million people, lost 25,000 jobs, according to the American Trucking Associations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123569446738788385.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo

CIBC report estimates half of US auto plants are surplus; TD estimates a third
A new report warns the U.S. auto industry will undergo a massive correction that will yank 25 million cars off American roads over the next five years and kill 200,000 more jobs as half the country’s 51 auto plants are permanently shut down. [Industry consultant] Dennis DesRosiers said…a more realistic scenario is 10% to 15% of U. S. auto plants closing over a decade, rather than half over five years as CIBC predicts. History suggests auto sales will also recover quickly, to traditional levels in no more than three years, he said. A report last week by Scotiabank economist Carlos Gomes said one-third of all vehicle assembly plants in North America are surplus based on current production volume plans. The industry has lost 560,000 jobs since 2000.
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1346420

Take that pill with your finger sandwiches on silver trays, piggies.

 
 

One of the more offensive of his assumptions is that it is the “worthy” who are rewarded with high incomes.

It also assumed that “worth” is strictly determined by the money demanded for it. Paris Hilton makes a lot of money. Is it something that contributes to the overall public good? Maybe yes, maybe no – there are probably lots of waitstaff, decorators, music electronics firms that gain some revenue from the parties that Paris Hilton promotes.

But the “work” she does is show up at a party. It’s not the value of the “work,” it’s the perceived value of the person doing the work. She does it, she gets six figures a pop. I do it, meh.

Is she a hard worker? Well – she probably puts in her time networking self-promoting, negotiating, But she’s basically being paid to do something she’d do for free if someone didn’t offer her money for it.

 
 

but where the hell is Guay?

In Scotland!

 
 

The guy’s just pissed off because he lost his upper lip somewhere (perhaps it’s stuck to his ass?).

Of course, I’m speaking as a a not very real entrepreneur who has only created a few lame jobs, not as an honest to god captain of industry and true American rich person.

 
 

The dollar tax increase these guys are looking at on $350K income is four times the domestic partner penalty on a quarter that income.

Yeah, cry me a river.

 
 

but where the hell is Guay?
In Scotland!

The national bird of Guay is the Keet.

 
 

The rich are being put through a blender by your Anointed One, and pretty soon they’re going to get tired of it.

But by then they won’t be rich anymore, so it’s all good!

 
 

put through a blender
That’s probably the easiest way to fit the camel through the eye of the needle.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

So many comments, has anyone made the “Axis of Guay” joke yet? If so, I aplogize. If no, consider it made.

This tidbit in the Corner had me cryin’:

serious small-business owners

Yeah, none of those ex-hippie, moonbat business owners!

I’m looking at you Ben and Jerry… if those are your real names.

 
 

Soylent smoothies!

 
 

In the blender!

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

the great thing about this country is that if you find what you love and keep doing it long enough, you will make something of yourself. that’s something my dad and grandpa taught me and i really believe it!

I believe that too. Probably everybody else here does as well.

Your mistake is assuming “make something of yourself” = become rich.

 
 

Hmm, was I serving the country better when I was a waitress for minimum wage plus tips, or when I was a parasitic moocher Army sergeant?

 
 

Jennifer, congrats on the job.

Also, if your new construction company needs some energy efficient, sustainable home designs, I’d love to talk….

See, I’m one of those useless, lame small business owner architects who doesn’t contribute jobs or money or anything to the economy.

 
 

believe that too. Probably everybody else here does as well.

Your mistake is assuming “make something of yourself” = become rich.

Word, Rusty.

I’ve been running my own gig for over a dozen years now, and after the last year and a half of watching the construction industry tank, am not making near market rate for my experience.

However, I have designed projects throughout the city I live in, changing the urban landscape and helping to redevelop areas that were once written off as friendly fire casualties in the white flight suburban boom. As well as designing projects for moderate income families that have done more to help them move towards middle class than all the hedge fund managers in the world. Yeah, it’s rewarding in a non-monetary way.

Not saying I didn’t cash the checks, mind you.

 
 

I’m all for putting the rich in blenders. Makes them easier to digest.

 
 

Rich Bastard Margaritas. Salty tears around the rim.

 
 

Plus, Peej, I am totally trying that recipe. Thankee.

 
 

In Spain guay means cool.

 
 

See, I’m one of those useless, lame small business owner architects who doesn’t contribute jobs or money or anything to the economy.

a fellow architect! Well, I’m not AIA, but I did earn the degree – and graduated right into the middle of Reagan/Poppy Bush’s real estate meltdown…and since then my career has taken several different paths, none of them involving apprenticeship and sitting for the exam, though I’ve done little design projects all along.

 
 

I’m all for putting the rich in blenders. Makes them easier to digest.

That’s what you’d call a bloody something.

 
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
 

That’s what you’d call a bloody something.

A bloody nuisance?

 
 

I love the anagram – ARGs. It suits them perfectly. Like the sound they make wailing about the injustice: “ARG…….” Onomatopoeia.

 
 

If you scream ARG over a discordant background track, it becomes Yoko-onomatopœia.

 
 

Bloody Nuisance!

Tequila, blood orange juice, and bitters. Very very bitter. Serve in a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with salt tears.

 
 

A bloody insurrection?

or

A bloody discharge?

 
 

A bit late to the party, but

The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians). They are not robber barons, or trust-fund babies, or plutocrats, or even celebrities.

Yes. Absolutely, yes. I think you liberals must not know much of this people, but this is 100% correct.

 
 

Bloody Bore is on tap tonight ladies and gentlemen.

 
 

“Bloody Bastard,” or, if it’s chunky enough to require a spoon, “Eat the Rich”.

 
 

Pureed Authentic sounds good to me too.

 
 

That would be ‘Fake Tartare’.

 
 

“Don’t Worry Kyoko” is one of the fucking best rock-n-roll records ever made.

 
 

it becomes Yoko-onomatopœia

YOU. BASTARD. LEAVE. YOKO. ALONE!

 
 

MzNicky nails it. That whole Yoko companion album to John’s “Working Class Hero” or whatever it was rocks like few others. And w/ Ringo on drums, yet.

 
 

My work here is done.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

That’s what you’d call a bloody something.
A bloody nuisance?

Bloody good idea!

Jennifer, is it… solar panels????

 
 

For one brief (yet amusing moment) I confused Tigerhawk with Tigerwolf, the severely gynophobic gay furry who asserted that anuses are self-cleaning, unlike disgusting nasty womanholes.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I think a better nym for Tigerhawk would be:

WOLVERINEWOLVERINEWITH WINGS!!!!

GLUTTONGLUTTONWITHWINGS!!!

The glibertarian ethos was perhaps best summed up by Stiff Little Fingers, thusly:

Gimme a nation where people are free
Free to do and free to be
Free to screw you before you screw me

 
 

I agree with a lot of what Mr. Tigerhawk says. What he seems to forget is that a lot of people work hard and a lot of hours and that working hard and a lot of hours does not necessarily qualify you for richdom or sainthood (the same thing) in the USA.

Another thing Mr. Tigerhawk disregards is that we have in this country a sort of “progressive income tax” not in the sense that progressives like it but in the sense that the “marginal rates” go up with the more you earn. The “marginal rates” in this so-called progressive income tax structure have long since been flattened so that if you earn $249,000 in taxable income, you do not pay much more if you earn $250k in taxable income.

And that is just the thing. We tax “taxable income” in the USA not “gross income” or “adjusted gross income” which means you get to deduct a whole lot of things before you get to “taxable income”. Anyone who is making $250K gross who cannot come up with enough deductions, exclusions and credits to reduce their income to a taxable income that gets taxed at a much lower lever is a fool. So what are you Mr. Tigerhawk?

 
 

“I have one word to all the socialists on here:

Hands off my wallet.”

Unless I’m in an airport restroom in Minneapolis…in that case, it’s in the front pocket….and, um, sure, that’s a roll of quarters in there too

 
 

did anyone catch Jon Stewart last night mocking Fox News’ dire prognostications. THE COUNTRY WILL GO BANKRUPT, YOUR KIDS WILL BE IN DEBT FOREVER etc etc ad nauseum.

Stewart helps them along:

“Your dog will die!”

“Your house will sink into the earth! …your wife claimed by the King of the Mole people…as his bride.”

“If this budget is to pass, masturbation will cease to work.”

 
 

If only anuses were self-bleaching. Then…um…. I got nuthin. I just wanted to mention anus bleaching.

 
 

Enormous disembodied SELF-BLEACHING

 
 

Enormous disembodied SELF-BLEACHING anus.
I so did not press Return just then.

 
 

“The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else”

I worked as a package sorter for two years. When Tigerpuss has moved two tons of freight (no, I’m not exaggerating) off a trailer in 90 degree heat, 60% humidity, and no air circulation, then he’s welcome to come talk to me about “working hard”.

“than someone who makes $8 an hour washing dishes for a living.”

I’ve done that, too. Tigerpuss wouldn’t last a shift before crying to go back to being a desk jockey at a lawyer’s firm. Mmmm, another splash of 140 degree water on my hand!

 
 

I thought I would watch the video, now that I’m not at work and can do such things. But about 1 minute into it, the sense of entitlement and self-absorption just made me turn it off. Gawd. Poor him!

What exactly is it he does for a living?

I wonder if he pays people to make and serve his food. Bet he eats a lot of Snotchos.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I wonder if he pays people to make and serve his food. Bet he eats a lot of Snotchos.

And so it begins

 
 

Damn, I had a lot of fun commenting out there at ol’ T-Hawk’s place. Thanks for the heads up.

Honestly, he seems like an OK rich guy to me, and like Brad, I have nothing against them. But you have to read the Randian-retardness out there to really appreciate it.

I’m satisfied I killed the thread.

We are in some serious deep shit.

 
 

They are helpless when faced with my masterdebating skills.

I actually sucked it up and watched the whole video, which is how I came away with the sense that Tigerhawk wasn’t a complete dick. But most of his commenters sure are, no question about it.

Assholes. Tigerhawk is simply a version of bubble-boy. I think he means well, since he seems to be willing to cough up if the POTUS sucks his dick hard enough.

Craptacular.

 
I am SO tired of their shit
 

Republicans moan
And Republicans bitch:
Our rich are too poor
And our poor are too rich

 
 

There’s all kinds of awesome contained in these two paragraphs:

LONDON (Reuters Life!) – British health officials said on Friday they were investigating 400 potential cases of food poisoning linked to top-rated Fat Duck restaurant, run by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal.

The award-winning restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, is known for its chemistry-inspired dishes such as bacon and egg ice cream and snail porridge, with many courses frozen in liquid nitrogen.

 
 

Dot,

I think you meant roll of dimes.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

See, I’m one of those useless, lame small business owner architects who doesn’t contribute jobs or money or anything to the economy.

Hey, so was my dad! He worked hard his whole life building up a respected, successful firm. Employed numerous professionals, treated them fairly, did good work on time and under budget. Did pretty well most years, though not $250K well (in adjusted dollars). Put three kids through college. Pillar of our community, loved by everyone who knew him. The church was packed for his funeral.

He was, in TigerHawk’s words, a loser.

 
 

Oh. Good. Gawd.

Please, all you telephone sanitizers, please, teach us all a lesson and “go Galt” and waste no time about it.

 
 

My life experience tells me that assholes like Tiger earn their money not because they’re superior, or harder working, but because their “careers are so spirit snuffing and de-humanizing that they have to pay that much to get assholes to do them.
Don’t tell me what hard work is jerkoff. There is a difference between hard work and opportunism. A good teacher puts more work in his/hers career than you could comprehend.
I’ve spent time amidst the two percenters on the trading floor. It is a nest of vipers. They are the dregs of humanity. You try to apply lipstick, but you are just a hyenah trying to look like a lion.

 
whitey mcnighty
 

I like to try to prey on women who have troubled pasts because they are possibly vulnerable and susceptible to a little masculine control and power trippin on their poor lil old selves. Problem is they just seem to up and leave before I have a chance to inflict the full power of my teaching and correcting skills upon them.

 
 

Not even originally posted on our humble thread

Y’know, that confused me … until I went to the link to TiggerHawk’s blog. Some beautiful soul crossposted my bile (way up yonder @ 19:33) to help me share my “love” with Mr. I’m-Being-Demonized – thank you, whoever you are.

The thought of his delicate little nose crinkling in disgust is going to have me smiling all weekend.

 
 

“Apparently you marxists don’t understand America’s Founding Principles. Blar blar, Jefferson wanted an American aristocracy, blar etc.”

I’m almost convinced that the shit peddled here by these trolls is really being ghost-written by cool guys (and gals!) who just want to make them look stupid. Nobody could actually think these things, could they? And then speak them aloud? In public?

 
 

TigerHawk–Thanks for the 4-point summary as I began playing my tiny violin soon into this guy’s video.

I gather these hard-working, 6-figure guys should be America’s heroes and rewarded with more tax cuts, or hell, allowed tax-free salaries. Poor things–they’re working 100+ hour weeks for the betterment of the country. We’re going to tax you even more for boring us to death.

 
 

what if this dude really doesn’t have much money. what then? I really wonder.

 
 

Don’t worry Tigerhawk, there’s always tax evasion.

http://which-ways-up.com/2009/03/how-to-protect-the-rich/

 
 

(comments are closed)