The moral of the story: stay away from Detroit gas stations

I was just perusing Reddit, and happened across an interesting conversation about Detroit. The original post, which was entitled, “Just drove through Detroit and mistakenly got off the highway to get gas. How does a city like this exist in the western world?,” wasn’t terribly insightful, but I’m enjoying the bizarre comments that the subject spawned, like this one, by someone calling himself Bikkstah:

I’m in the National Guard and our armory is right down on 8 mile. When we drill in the winter, we are usually hanging out at the armory and get cut loose around noon for lunch. A few months ago, one of the guys in my platoon misses the after-lunch accountability formation. We call him and shit, thinking he went AWOL and went home or something.

Turns out he went to the gas station next to the armory to get a pop, was mugged at gunpoint by 3 dudes when he was getting back into his car. They beat the hell out of him, took his phone and cash, then zip-tied him in the backseat. They drove around for hours, using his phone, taking cash off his card at ATMs, and then left him in his car in the middle of nowhere. He was in uniform too. Those people just don’t give a fuck.

We had to beg for cash from the state to put up a giant security fence around the armory because people would come towards the armory while we were there like a zombie apocalypse, begging for cash and breaking into people’s cars in broad daylight.

Does anyone out there happen to have historic data on Detroit tourism? I’d love to see it charted out over time.

Posted in Detroit | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 52 Comments

Surinam toads and how to use them against me

I don’t generally talk about my phobias in public, as I have this fear that they might be used against me somehow. But, I’m going to make an exception tonight, as there isn’t anything else that I’m dying to talk about, other than the fact that Boner from Growing Pains has gone missing. So, if you’ve been reading this site for the past 7 years, just waiting for me to let my guard down, and mention my Kryptonite, here’s something that should fit the bill… I’m petrified of gestating, male Surinam Toads. If you put me in a room with one, I’d confess to killing the Lindberg baby, OJ’s wife, and everyone in between.

Here’s some background from Wikipedia:

Surinam toads are most well-known for their remarkable reproductive habits. Unlike the majority of toads the males of this species cannot attract mates with croaks and other sounds often associated with these aquatic animals. Instead they produce a sharp clicking sound by snapping the hyoid bone in their throat. The partners rise from the floor while in amplexus and flip through the water in arcs. During each arc, the female releases 3-10 eggs, which get embedded in the skin on her back by the male’s movements. After implantation the eggs sink into the skin and form pockets over a period of several days, eventually taking on the appearance of an irregular honeycomb. The larvae develop through the tadpole stage inside these pockets, eventually emerging from the mother’s back as fully developed toads, though they are less than an inch long.

There’s something about larvae growing under the skin that just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe it’s all the urban myths I heard as a kid about spiders laying eggs under people’s skin, but it just freaks me the hell out.

Just writing about this makes me itch.

Posted in Other, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

The Public Option, alive, scratching at coffin lid

I don’t know if it’s for real this time, or if it’s just more political posturing on the part of certain Democrats, but it seems as though the so-called “public option” may not be as completely dead as we’d been led to believe. The following clip comes from The Hill:

…The recess week ended up providing liberal activists and their allies on Capitol Hill with a surprise opportunity to breath life into the proposal to create a government-run health insurance plan – a proposal that had been declared all-but-dead two months ago.

Ironically, it’s a shift that would have been unthinkable before Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) won the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) seat in a special election last month. Though Democrats lost the 60th vote they needed to defeat a Republican filibuster of healthcare reform, they also gained a huge incentive to use reconciliation, a tactic Reid had previously ruled out.

With Democrats gearing up to take a final shot at passing healthcare reform via budget reconciliation rules that require only 51 votes for Senate passage, liberals see an opportunity…

As of today, 18 Senators have signed on to support the passage of a public option via reconcilliation. They include Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-Colo.), who’s credited with pushing the matter in the Senate, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the vice chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. (You can read the letter to Reid here.)… But, as you might recall, we’ve seen initiatives like this fail in the past – most recently last October, when 30 Democratic Senators signed a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging the inclusion of a robust public option in any healthcare legislation that should be considered. But, as it mentions in The Hill article, the political calculus might be different now that the Republican Scott Brown has been seated in Teddy Kennedy’s old seat.

Some, like David Waldman at the Daily Kos, are skeptical. Here’s a clip from his most recent article on the subject:

…With 18 Senators now signed on to the letter urging leadership support of an effort to bring the public option to the floor under reconciliation procedures, things are either looking up for the popular plan’s prospects, or else everyone’s out looking for a freebie, hoping to snap up some progressive creds by signing on to an effort that’s both doomed and the death of which can be blamed on the Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian.

In the scenario where they’re punking us, it’s win-win in terms of the politics of it for the Senators. As long as there aren’t 51 signatories and nobody thinks there ever will be, anyone who wants to look progressive but doesn’t particularly care for the public option can sign on and be in no danger of being called upon to live with the consequences. And if they get 51, well then, what the hell? Go pass it. You’ve got all the cover in the world…

According to political analyst Chris Bowers, though, there may be relatively wide support. The following comes from the Huffington Post:

…Real health care reform is threatening to emerge from the ashes of the Massachusetts special election that exploded the effort in January. A growing movement in the Senate to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to reinsert the public option into a health care reform package that would move through the chamber under majority-only rules depends on just how many votes backers can muster.

“Senator Reid remains a strong supporter of the public option, but it’s always a question of where the votes are,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told HuffPost.

There’s one tried and true way to find out if the votes are there: Hold a vote.

Because of the rules surrounding budget reconciliation, the process that would allow health care reform to move through with 51 votes, any Senator may bring up an amendment to the package. An opponent of the amendment will then likely make a point of order and argue that the amendment violates the “Byrd Rule” and is out of order. If the parliamentarian sustains the point of order, the amendment would need 60 votes to pass. But if he deems that it complies with the rules of reconciliation — that it has a substantial effect on the budget and is germane to the legislation — then the amendment passes with a majority vote.

Chris Bowers, who has been counting votes based on public responses and private correspondence, counts at least 45 votes for a public option. Democrats would need to find five more, with Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie…

So, if Bowers is right about the numbers, it sounds like there may be hope yet, especially when a member of Democrat leadership like Chuck Schumer has voiced support. Of course, it could all just be a trick meant to motivate the Republicans to enter into negotiations… Regardless, the next few weeks should be interesting.

update: It looks as though the White House might be on board. This comes from the Wall Street Journal:

…White House aides have begun to make the case that passing a bill through reconciliation isn’t an extraordinary move, noting that it was used frequently under President George W. Bush. Mr. Obama also argued Friday that recent price increases by insurance companies demonstrate the need for such an overhaul…

update: It’s being reported that Senator Alren Specter just signed on, making it 19 that are pushing for a public option via reconcilliation.

update: And then there were 20. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) just signed on.

Posted in Health, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Anti-government violence in Texas

I’m kind of curious as to why, when it’s an angry white man flying his plane into a federal building, it’s not considered an act of terrorism?

For those of you who haven’t heard, Joseph Andrew Stack, 53, of Texas, flew his Piper Cherokee PA-28 into an IRS building in Austin this morning.

Are white men in their 50’s automatically given a pass, or do you think it has more to do with not wanting to ignite the furor of those of the far right who might sympathize with Stack and his jihad against “big government”?

It’s kind of funny when you think about it, how the Republicans have no problem insinuating that Obama and other Democrats are terrorists, but how they get all up in arms when the same label is used against their party faithful, like the man who recently murdered abortion doctor George Tiller, when they use violence to bring about political change… which, to me, seems the very definition of terrorism.

But we don’t yet know where Stack, today’s attempted mass murder, stood on the political spectrum. Certainly, based on the “fan” groups that popped up today on Facebook, it’s a distinct possibility that Stack was an anti-government teabagger, but, to my knowledge, no photos have yet surfaced of him at a Tea Party rally, carrying a gun and waving around a sign about how the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of tyrants… I suspect that might be coming, though.

As for what Stack believes, I’ll let him speak for himself. The following is a clip from the message that he left behind:

…I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well…

Nothing changes unless there is a body count. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at ‘Big Brother’ while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough…

Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.

Sounds like teabaggery to me, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 78 Comments

Raising the top marginal tax rate

When I sat down here tonight, in my tattered blogging leotard, my intention was to write something on the apparent effectiveness of Obama’s stimulus spending, and the possibility that his recently proposed budget would “shift $112 billion away from the nation’s top earners in 2012.” But, while trying to find a way to connect those two threads, I got sidetracked. I’ve been spending the last hour and a half reading about marginal tax rates, and it’s really fascinating stuff.

Before we jump into things, did you know that the marginal tax rate on America’s top earners, which is now 35%, was 92% during the boom years of the early 1950’s? (You can see a year-by-year breakdown here.)

But, as Nate Silver points out, it’s not just the rate itself that’s important. You also have to consider when it kicks in. Here’s a clip from his article on the subject at FiveThityEight.com:
taxthresh3

…What the discussion over the top marginal tax rate ignores, however (and what Ygelsias picks up upon) is that this rate has been assessed at very different thresholds of income. In 1940, for example, the top marginal tax rate was 81.1 percent — but this rate only kicked in once you made $5,000,000 or more in income, which is equivalent to about $75,000,000 in today’s dollars.

But today, the threshold where the top tax bracket kicks in isn’t $75 million, or $5 million, or even $1 million … it’s a mere $357,700. The progressivity of the tax code stops there…

The median top income tax threshold since 1913 — adjusted for today’s dollars — is a little over $1.3 million, almost four times higher than it is now. This is one thing that advocates of more progressive taxation (of which I am one) need to keep in mind: although the top tax rates have been much higher throughout much of the country’s history, they also kicked in at much higher thresholds of income than the ones we see today…

So, now I’m wondering what the logic could be behind making our top marginal tax rate kick in at $357,700. I can’t imagine that a large majority of American people wouldn’t enthusiastically support a higher than 35% tax on those making $1 million or more a year. One wonders how much revenue we’d bring in by implementing a 40% tax on those making over $1 million a year, and a 50% tax on those making more than $5 million. If we could do just that, I’m guessing it would be enough to, at the very least, get our high-speed rail infrastructure started, pay down some of the national debt, and put several thousand more teachers to work in our public schools (decreasing class size, and improving outcomes).

I understand that the top 1% of wage earners are, by definition, powerful people, and generally get what they want, but surely, facing the budget crisis we’ve now got in front of us, sooner or later someone in government is going to have to step up and propose it. Hopefully, Obama has the balls to be that person.

Here, for those of you who care about such things, are my high-level thoughts on taxes… I think:

• We should work to make the taxes on working class Americans as affordable as possible
• We should reinstate the inheritance tax
• We should institute a federal gas tax
• We should allow the Bush tax cuts to expire

If you have other thoughts on U.S. tax policy, please feel free to leave a comment.

Posted in Economics, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Connect

BUY LOCAL... or shop at Amazon through this link Banner Initiative Sea Serpent