The Goat Pen

"Amy Winehouse is dead."

and no one is shocked

She definitely should have been pulled from the death pool. Talk about an unfair advantage.

it would be funny if she died of some shit not drug related - like a spider bite

How much does Cincinnati love reality TV? This much. http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2011 ... /107220314

TheBigMook wrote:

"Amy Winehouse is dead."

I love once again explaining to my kids why drugs should be used in moderation. Maybe now they will get it.

I would just drive my nieces and nephews to whatever Metropolitan shithole was close (North Ave in Baltimore, North Philly, Soundview Bronx, some parts of the SWATs in ATL) and show them the dudes/women who made drugs a daily part of their routine. It always was an effective exercise.

If any of them ever would have not caught on, I would have taken them to some Wards in NOLA. I've never seen more impoverished circumstances in this country. I couldn't even believe it was America...and this was before the storm.

Tonight's Entourage

[spoiler=]I'm an extremely calm cat. However, if my wife separated from me and stayed in the house I was paying for and I found out she was now dating some other dude. No telling what kind of dramatic shit I'd be doing. It would not be minor.[/spoiler]

If my wife would let me (she won't), I'd take my kids to Haiti or the Dominican Republic to show them what real poverty is like. There is a reason we have a social safety net, so that our poorest citizens aren't like in other countries.

Owlman wrote:If my wife would let me (she won't), I'd take my kids to Haiti or the Dominican Republic to show them what real poverty is like. There is a reason we have a social safety net, so that our poorest citizens aren't like in other countries.

I don't think anyone is against making sure our poorest are taken care of.

The real problem to me is the ever growing segment of people that aren't poor (regardless of setting a dollar amount to determine poverty levels) but don't pay federal or any meaningful F.I.C.A. taxes, can't afford to send their kids to college, don't purchase large ticket items, etc. 50 years ago these people just made due without government assistance but with the advent of medicare, social security (growing from a supplement to a retirement plan), and various other programs, we no longer take care of just the poorest, but we have a structure in place where people are not incentivised (is that a word?) to look within the family or community to rise above it. They now look first to the federal government, who based on the constitution never had an obligation to address that within our society to begin with. These people are primarily the service sector class of employees along with a healthy dose of the small manufacturers who employ maybe 10 - 20 people in the shop. The $9-$12 an hour people who with a spouse may pull in $28 - $40K a year and are trying to raise a family on it.

That represents a HUGE chunk of America, and by and large these people while not receiving full blown benefits, on the whole never contribute equally or more than they take out from the system. Now don't misunderstand me, I don't begrudge those people for getting what they need. A teacher who pulls in $40K a year deserves as much quality of life as a garbageman pulling in $80K, but the fact remains that our tax structure is setup so that at a federal level, these incomes don't pay in a significant amount, especially if they are able to itemize housing, health and child care.

A recent example of that is seeing unemployment benefits extended to 2+ years in the economic downturn. Then we have the idea of mandatory health insurance with a government subsidy for those that can't afford it - which translates to subsidized health care for about 40 million Americans.


as a side note, once again FUCK Fox News and their new term for the wealthy - calling them the "Job Creators". The majority of jobs created in this country come from small business and these are people who make 250K a year and have to sink much of that back into their business to keep it afloat.

We've lived in an era where the wealthiest of American citizens have become richer, and the divide between the wealthy and poverty class is at its greatest since WWII. They have had the benefit of republican created tax break after tax break and they haven't created shit for the working class.

Maybe there is some correlation between giving tax breaks to the wealthy and the creation of white collar jobs but I don't see it.

Either we have a progressive tax in this country or we don't but right now I don't see a balance. Low earners have no obligation, high earners have less of an obligation than they should, and the $120K - $225K incomes appear to be carrying the lion's share.

Maybe there is some correlation between giving tax breaks to the wealthy and the creation of white collar jobs but I don't see it.

I think this may have been somewhat true years ago, when the primary investment was in other companies in this country, and your success depended on their success. But when the primary investment is betting which way money goes, when the investment is not depended on the success of corporations, then I don't see many jobs at all being created by the wealthy.

By the way, there is a difference between wealth and rich. Rich work for the money trading hours for dollars, wealthy, the money works for them. Most small businesses are rich, not wealthy. They were the ones who because of a difficulty in negotiating power(or just indifference), did not provide health care for their workers.

when I see Steve Wynn complaining about regulation and the health care bill at the same time he's making record profits and paying less in taxes, I can't help but cringe. There will be very little if any effect on a corporation of his size (unless he somehow has not been providing health care access for his 1000's of workers).

Oh, and I think it's the range between 60,000 and 200,000 that are paying the lion's share

Big tax breaks for the wealthy were more effective creating jobs when we still made most of the things we bought in this country. Many of the Fortune 500 relies heavily on selling things made in China or Thailand (Wal-Mart) or drilled outta the middle east like Exxon or Conoco-Phillips.

Even our automoakers (GM and Ford) are bringing in a ton of parts and supplies from overseas. Plus, with automation and computers, hiring more staff isn't necessarily the best way to grow those type of businesses with more cash from less taxes.

Jesus, I wrote a very long post about Warren Buffet's million dollar challenge and what I know about the "job creator" myth that helps out my industry tremendously. However, I got a call and when I finished and hit "Submit" it didn't take.

Fuck. I'm not typing it again.

However, I'll just say Owl did a decent job of saying what I was gonna say...and it's weird to me because it's like every day experience tells me one thing, but the general populace believes another that's basically false. The thing is, most people believe the falsehood...thereby making it essentially true.

All the while, the billionaires will keep paying 15%.

Beavis and Butthead are back, bitches!

[youtube]iX4aeCZWhTY[/youtube]

And another generation of retarded teenagers is born.

That is of course the whole joke of the thing. The replacement of videos with Jersey Shore is fucking brilliant, btw.

"This is like a family tree. If your family was made of whores."

eCat wrote:

The real problem to me is the ever growing segment of people that aren't poor (regardless of setting a dollar amount to determine poverty levels) but don't pay federal or any meaningful F.I.C.A. taxes, can't afford to send their kids to college, don't purchase large ticket items, etc.

Incorrect, the REAL problem is the rent too damn high!

The saddest scene of all time:

[youtube]rgySx1MhzAo[/youtube]

At long last, finally someone investigates the Alabama leprechaun.

http://tosh.comedycentral.com/video-cli ... share_copy