Middle-of-the-night Catchup
Without further delay, my massive catchup session.
Stephen Colbert’s Roast of Bush
There are many valid criticisms that can be made about Bush and his administration. A lot of these criticisms are funny. Stephen Colbert apparently couldn’t find any criticisms that were funny and valid, so he filled his performance with some that were valid, but unfunny, some that were slightly funny, but invalid, and a few that were invalid and unfunny. Of course, the left-wing extremophiles considered them all to be valid and funny, and so the fact that most people ignored Colbert’s mediocre performance became a giant conspiracy. Remember how loyally these nutjobs followed anti-Semetic anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, even when her rhetoric strayed into the realm of hate speach, racism, intolerance and irrationality? The basic idea is this… “if someone is more-or-less on our side, and has access to a microphone, we must ignore everything else, and deify them.” They’ve started up a goddamn website thanking Stephen Colbert for his forgetable performance. Let it go… he sucked.
Tax Cuts
Some talking blob of tofu was on the news discussing the recent tax cuts, and who would benefit. Her words were pretty much ripped from this article verbatim:
Here’s how the cuts break down: If you earn between $27,000 and $47,000 a year, which is middle income, your tax savings will average $20.
If you earn $47,000 to $82,000, you save $115.
Those with an average income of $82,000 and over will receive savings of roughly $2,099.
But the biggest savings go to the biggest earners. The top 1 percent of wage earners will receive a $13,849, and the top 0.1 percent will save an average of $82,000, which is why this bill was so controversial.
ABC News: Tax Bill Moves Forward
The tax cut is, of course, made to look like the poor are getting screwed and that the rich are getting a free ride. It’s simple: those who pay more taxes, get more back, when taxes are (fairly) cut. If you pay $1 in tax and I pay $10 in tax, wouldn’t a $0.50 tax cut for you and a $5.00 tax cut for me be more fair than a $1 tax cut for each of us?
Phone companies providing phone logs to NSA
I don’t like my records being turned over to the government, but I do like that the companies were not forced to do it (reportedly Qwest refused… good for them). If you don’t like it, move to Denver, or sue Verizon.
Update: After looking into it further, it looks like providing these records to the government without a warrant is probably illegal. And Qwest was reportedly pressured with loss of government contracts. So the government and the companies that broke the law should definitely be accountable for this. I’ll say more in a subsequent post.
