Wednesday 31 October 2007

Finally! A Rich Guy I can get behind

Don't read this post yet. Just watch the video (you might have to scroll down the page to get to it).

Warren Buffett is awesome. I cannot hate a rich person who is willing to give up some of their wealth when they see the horribly unfair monetary treatment they get. And I don't say this because I live on a measly $20k per year in an expensive city. I usually qualify for a tax refund anyway. But people like my parents, who *do* end up paying the government well more than what they need to keep to save for retirement and live somewhat well as it is - well, they deserve lower taxes. That's it.
And they know they ought to be keeping more of their money. But because they themselves choose to *believe* the conservative (read: 99% of the fuckall wealthy) rhetoric, they think that the only solution to their problem is to get rid of taxes altogether. We should not be surprised that the fuckall wealthy are riding on the 'get rid of taxes' wagon. We *should* be surprised that our parents, the media that informs them, and the government fail to communicate clearly the sheer surfeit of money that the wealthiest people in our country pull in for themselves, and the relative lack of money they must funnel back into the public domain.
I am not advocating communism here. We all pay money to the government so that we can have streets to drive on, people to help us in emergencies, people to make sure our air is clean and our products are safe, parks and sidewalks to walk on, schools for our kids with already-underpaid teachers - not to mention the (comparatively inexpensive) public services that are necessary to provide for the underprivileged. Don't even get me started on the relative lack of money given for welfare/food stamps/homeless shelters/"handouts" that the conservatives are always railing about. (But if you *are* interested to see where your taxes are going, look here). As I said, we all already pay money to the government, and that is not going to change. I just think that the wealthy should not get special treatment that helps them get wealthier at a faster rate than our parents. And I think #3 wealthiest dude in the country backs me up here.
Unfortunately, unless Mr. Buffett has the cajones to fork out the millions of dollars it would take to get lobbyists in Washington changing the tax code (as if I needed anything more to support my assertion that the wealthy are heavily invested in, well, their money), his words will stay only words.

Thursday 25 October 2007

The Fires

So, fire + evacuees + old terrorist confession = an excuse for Fox news to get your brain thinking more Bushily.

I read it on RawStory (which includes the original Fox News broadcast in all its racist fear-mongering glory), but this youtube video gives you the lighthearted version. Keith Olbermann makes it seem okay, or at least a little laughable, that Fox News took a 2003 terror warning and made it look like these fires all around L.A. were started by Al Quaeda.

Now you just sit, and think. Families are being evacuated, homes are being lost, firefighters are being injured, and all our lungs look like freshly-paved asphalt. And Rupert Murdoch and the conservative media machine want to use all this to make you spend your money on bombs and guns and private soldiers, send your family overseas to kill and get traumatised, and then vote Republican in 2008.

Are you angry yet? Yeah, me too.

Wednesday 24 October 2007

hundred dolla bills y'all

Just read from this article from RawStory that the Iraq/Afghanistan war effort, over the next decade (and possibly including what we've already spent - that part isn't clear) will cost more than $2 trillion, with over $700 billion in INTEREST - because we are spending borrowed money.

W.T.F.

No, seriously, let me write that all out:

$2,700,000,000,000.00 total

$705,000,000,000.00 in interest

RawStory estimates that this amounts to $8000 per person in this country. And I thought Republicans were meant to be fiscally conservative. Yeah, that's right Republicans, you just got told. Feel the shame.

Monday 22 October 2007

omgzzz

I've been out of contact with too many people for too long. I needed to go off the grid for a couple months to study for an exam. But that stage of my life is so over - because I passed. And I never have to worry about it again. So stay tuned for more awesome blogging from yours truly.