Former Senator, current Republican presidential contender, and well-known douchecanoe Rick Santorum is frothy at the mouth because Google is not changing the ordering of their search results like he wants them too. Sex columnist Dan Savage’s highly publicized and highly successful 2003 campaign to re-define “santorum” as a byproduct of anal sex and the subsequent Google-bombing of the term has resulted in a hilarious (well, from my perspective) and damaging first page of search results. Savage’s efforts, prompted by devoutly Catholic Santorum’s anti-gay comments have proven to be a pain in the presidential candidate’s ass. Continue reading
Commentary
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“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that,” President Obama said yesterday. I agree with Obama on this one. Then I read an interesting Fact Check piece titled: Are Rich Taxed Less than Secretaries?
According to this article, the data tells a different story. Stephen Ohlemacher writes, “…the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more in taxes than the middle class or the poor… They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.”
So just how big is the million dollar earner group and what percentage do they fork up to Uncle Sugar? In 2009, 237,000 households filed taxes with the IRS in amounts of $1 million or more in income. Of that amount less than 1% paid no taxes at all. Continue reading
Conservative attention whore and white-guy crybaby Andrew Breitbart told a group of Tea Party members in Lexington, VA. Friday that conservatives will win a civil war because “we have all the guns.” When the crowd laughed enthusiastically at his comment, Breitbart added, “I’m serious.” He then went into a whine about how people are mean to him on Twitter and how he hates union members. He also stated that members of the US military have approached him and “have his back.” Video after the jump. Continue reading
My wonderful employer, in their generous wisdom, decreed late in the evening last Friday that contractors need to take five days of unpaid time off (also known as a furlough). This means that I have been taking a staycation this week.
I’m just glad I had to work Saturday night, so I saw the email, which was sent Friday at about 10 pm. I would not have been pleased if I had done my usual Monday morning pre-work routine, just to find out that I wasn’t working that day.
I don’t mind taking time off, even though it’s not paid. When I was a regular employee, I never took all the time available to me, so now that no paid time off is “available,” it really doesn’t make a difference.
How did I waste this golden opportunity? Did I spend my time productively? Let’s take a look, shall we? Continue reading
Polio was one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. In 99% of cases, it causes no symptoms or very mild symptoms and may go effectively unnoticed, making it easy for people to be unwitting carriers and spreaders of the virus and leading to an explosion of polio epidemics in the early 20th century as transport improved, population density in cities increased and it became easier for a virus like polio to reach a critical mass of people. Meanwhile, in that last 1% of sufferers polio infects the spinal cord, leading to paralysis or death. Even worse, young children tends to be particularly susceptible, leading to polio becoming known in some areas as infantile paralysis disease. There is still no known cure for polio.
In 1952 in the United States alone, polio caused 3,145 recorded deaths and 21,269 recorded cases of mild to disabling paralysis.
Income inequality has been spiking in the United States particularly, but the industrialized world generally for thirty years, since the rise of Reagan/Thatcher conservatism. This isn’t a coincidence. What follows is my prescription for fixing the mess. Continue reading
Piedmont Hills High School principal Traci Williams implemented a dress code in her San Jose, California school. Ms Williams felt that many of her students were dressing inappropriately and began conducting dress code sweeps in her school. At Piedmont Hills High, shorts or skirts must be lower than mid-thigh.
Apparently the principal is really cracking down, at least according to this student. Senior Izak Joubert claims the enforcement of the rules is “extremely stricter” this year, but there are some teenage girls who “look kind of ridiculous wearing their underpants to school.” Note to Principal Williams: you may have bigger fish to fry than short skirts.
The problem with liberals is they have no backbone. They believe in live and let live instead of live and let die. Ron Paul says that if someone wants to carry the risk of not having insurance then they should also carry the consequences which might be as much as death. But when you look at this a bit closer you will see that Ron Paul actually just fixed the entire healthcare crisis. Continue reading
A Hinds County, Mississippi Circuit Court Judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Kathryn Stockett as it was filed after the statute of limitations had run out. The suit claims that the author used the likeness and the life story of her brother’s nanny to write The Help without permission. The judge who dismissed the suit did not comment on the claim’s merits. Continue reading
I got an instant message from one of the young writers in the newsroom yesterday (Saturday).
This one will tear your heart out, she wrote, sending me a cut of a boy, born less than a month after 9/11, speaking in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday — a message to his firefighter father who died on that terrible day. Patrick Mate Lyon told that packed church, and all the cameras and microphones and pens taking notes he wished he could have known his dad. Continue reading