The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Excuse Me, Veronique, You’re Stepping On My Narrative

Posted on | April 30, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

No bandwidth for the video, but Veronique de Rugy threatens a few cherished notions over on Reason.TV:
Myth 1: Wealthy people pack up and move when their taxes increase.

. . .taxes have little impact on cross-state migration. Instead, the migration impacts of unemployment are much greater. Overall, the results suggest that taxes do not cause out-migration, but they do influence the choice of destination for some migrating households, such as retirees.

Myth 2: Blue states are big government states and red states are small government states.

Only 10 blue states are net recipients of federal subsidies, as opposed to 22 red states. Only one red state is a net payer of federal taxes, as opposed to 16 blue states. Another blue state pays in as much as it gets.

Here I’d like a bit more granularity. VA looks like a mendicant, but, when you’ve got Norfolk and attendant bases, the numbers can be argued. In favor of BRAC, sure.
Myth 3: The federal income tax may be progressive but the rest of the tax system is not, particularly the payroll tax.
Read the whole thing. Once people are done gawking at the Wedding of the Century, this is the kind of sober analysis we’ll need going forward.

Category: Taxes

Porn Is The Third Question

Posted on | April 30, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Dr. Joy Bliss at Maggie’s Farm poses a question, but I have two that precede hers:

  1. Why are we here?
  2. What is the point of sexuality?
  3. Are gentlemen into porn?

Forty-odd years on, I’m realizing that life is not Star Wars. Starting off a few episodes in might be good for dramatic tension, sure. However, ignoring or blindly accepting default answers to the initial parts can lead to dodgy results.In dealing with people who seem committed to Not Getting It, arguing on their turf and offering prescriptive answers buys little. Who likes to hear the ideologue that sounds more intent on convincing himself than anything else? Go at them with questions and a bit of humor, and let them lead themselves to water. Perhaps they’ll drink. Porn? I can’t lay any claim to sainthood, but I haven’t had the attention span for that or video games in many years.

Update: Linked at The Pirate’s Cove.

Category: Sex

How About Those Hats, Huh?

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 36 Comments

Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice — the daughters of Prince Andrew and Fergie — upstaged their cousin William at the royal wedding when they appeared in truly spectacular hats. Eugenie’s hat looked like a spotted owl feasting on plums, or perhaps a squirrel stuck in a rose bush, while Bea’s hat inspired comparisons to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That hat’s so crazy, it’s got its own Facebook page.

Despite her unfortunate hat, it is rumored that Beatrice, 22, will likely be the next royal to wed — she’s been dating her 29-year-old boyfriend Dave Clark for four years — while 21-year-old Eugenie is dating a bartender, Jack Brooksbank, 24.

Eugenie seems to have inherited her mother Fergie’s tendency to chubbiness. (There were some rude comments when Eugenie was photographed in a bikini in 2009.) But don’t believe those silly rumors that Eugenie will soon have her own PrincessPudgy.com site . . .

UPDATE: I blame the commenters for this:

Quick: Somebody send an e-mail to Andrew Sullivan and tell him we’ve found the magic womb he’s been looking for.

Category: Celebrities, Great Britain

Uganda: Inflation Sparks Riots

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 8 Comments

A 3.8% inflation rate is enough to make Americans complain about rising prices. Now imagine 14% inflation in Uganda — a much poorer country — and you have a formula for political disaster:

KAMPALA, Uganda — This capital city was brought to a virtual standstill Friday as angry protesters set up roadblocks, setting them ablaze throughout Kampala, and the police and military cordoned off neighborhoods in the largest and most violent day of protests since the demonstrations started nearly three weeks ago. . . .
Kizza Besigye, the opposition politician leading protests who was partially blinded after being violently arrested Thursday, was allowed to fly to Kenya on Friday for medical attention, according to the news station Nation TV, after initially being rebuffed. . . .
Troubles in this relatively peaceful and easygoing East African country began this month when Mr. Besigye called for demonstrations against rising commodity prices less than two months after Mr. Museveni handily won re-election after 25 years in power. . . .

The Christian Science Monitor quoted a small business owner in Kampala:

“The prices are only going higher and the anger growing,” Ssentongo said. “This is not going to end soon.”

Besigye is a demagogue, exploiting the people’s anger over inflation by claiming it is the result of government corruption, but the government’s harsh reaction — and the discontent over rising prices — have made him a sympathetic figure. Here is a video report from Al-Jazeera:

And here is a video report from a Ugandan network:

Let me ask you something: Do you believe that the government in Kampala is causing their inflation? Or does it occur to you that when the Federal Reserve pursues a blatantly inflationary policy, that this is a very large stone thrown into the global economy, so that the ripples are felt severely in places like Uganda? And Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain . . .

Not to sound too much like a tinfoil-hat crank or anything, but there are times when the phrase “international bankers” is not just for conspiracy theorists. And this may be one of those times.

Category: Economics, Uganda

Germany Thwarts Terror Plot

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 4 Comments

Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican reports:

Early Friday morning Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA)in Dusseldorf and Bochum arrested three young men who had allegedly planned an attack with homemade bombs. They are attributed to the terrorist organization al-Qaida.
An attack had been imminent…

CNN has more. Speaking of Germany and the Religion of Peace™, you will recall the video of the courageous woman who stood up to Islamic radicals in Frankfurt. It has been revealed that her name is Heidi, she is a Christian, and she has been interviewed by a German blog:

Hatred is the wrong answer in any case. . . . We have to go back to our Judeo-Christian roots, which are a blessing for our country to this day.
We not only had two world wars. Germany is the land of poets and thinkers. It is the land of the Reformation. Here was the Bible of Marin Luther translated into German. Then the printing press was built. Many inventions, progress were caused by our people. We should remember this is important. I love my country. I love Germany. . . .
I know that we need to have a spiritual as well as a political response to Islam. The Christians in Germany and Europe need to wake up!

That’s a rough computer-assisted translation from the original German.

Category: Germany, Islam, Terrorism

Obligatory Video: Donald F–ing Trump

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 19 Comments

Honestly, I ought to ignore this, but it’s already everywhere else so I might as well do it:

“Listen you mother f***ers we’re going to tax you 25 percent“

Y’know, there’s good populism — defending the honest interests of ordinary people against corrupt machinations of the elite — and then there’s bad populism: Bully-boy nonsense that appeals to idiots who can’t be bothered with facts. Read more

Category: China, Donald Trump, Economics, Taxes, Video

‘They Really Enjoyed My Pain’

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 17 Comments

“What really struck me was how merciless they were. They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.”
— Lara Logan, CBS News, recounting her Feb. 11 sexual assault by a mob of hundreds of Egyptian men in Cairo

Category: Crime, Egypt

A Jimmy Carter Apology

Posted on | April 29, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

I am sorry, country, for the fact that my school produced Jimmy Carter. At least I no longer have to apologize for him calling himself a Baptist. His attempts at torquing the Sermon on the Mount to serve as a Political Science text are fine blog-fodder, but poor policy.
Jimmy, you’ve got a mafia regime in the Norks. Self-sacrificial love is fine in a purely personal context. You might even find a way to love Lady GaGa, at a high enough level of theological abstraction. But aiding and abetting thugs is just not a political solution, will only prolong the North Korean agony, and reveals you for a guy who really, really needs to retire. Maybe you and BHO could golf.

Update: Rhetorican introduce J.E.C.’s Certainty Principle: ‘The consequences of tyranny are never the tyrant’s fault.’

Category: Uncategorized
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