“In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled. In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years. The greater part of basic research, especially for technology and health care, has been conducted with government money. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported. Corporations use highways and shipping lanes and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business.” —
Atlas Shrugged Off Taxes (via azspot)
This is why I get so mad when our so-called titans of industry threaten to “go Galt” and move to someplace where they won’t have to pay any taxes. You’ve ALREADY pretty much stopped paying taxes! The government you claim to hold in so much contempt is propping you up at every turn! And you’re STILL bitching!
(via shorterexcerpts)
I’ve had similar questions about “rice milk,” whatever the hell that is. The first time I saw it in the grocery store, I asked Holly “How do you milk a rice?” and she laughed so hard she had to take a minute to compose herself.
(Source: lunacentric, via celesteboldlygoes)
Redhead Mondays: Tiffany Stenger.
Redhead Mondays: Rose Leslie.
Anonymous asked: Hey Jenny, I'm trying to read the classic Urban Meyer blog...how can I get access? Can you send it to me?
Public access has been restored. I made a lot of my Internet presence private while I was doing the job-search thing, but now that I’ve been hired, I guess I can make all that ish public and reveal to my new overlords what a horribly irresponsible decision they’ve made.
[video]
If you’ve ever listened to one of his appearances on Paul Finebaum’s radio show, you already knew Tim Brando was pompous and staggeringly self-important, but if you haven’t, he was kind enough to remind all of us yesterday.
The tweet (since deleted) Bomani Jones RT’d above was blurted out in the course of a demi-rant about NBA player Jason Collins publicly announcing his homosexuality. The point Brando started out making was that he didn’t think Collins qualified as a “hero,” and while I don’t necessarily share that sentiment, I can kind of see where Brando was coming from. Everyone’s threshold for “hero” is different, and not everyone who demonstrates courage (which I think Collins clearly did) necessarily meets that threshold. If your minimum bar for hero status is saving someone’s life or risking one’s own, then Collins, while courageous, doesn’t quite qualify.
But then Brando had to go lay the self-pitying “being a Christian White male over 50 means nothing in today’s society” rap on us, and we saw the subtext of his disdain for Jason Collins. Once upon a time, old white guys completely and unequivocally ran the show in this country, but now non-Christians, women, African-Americans and even — gasp! — gay people are getting equal time, attention and credit. Oh, lordy, what’s a middle-aged white guy to do?
What Brando never bothered to explain is what being a white Christian male over 50 meant. (Probably because he didn’t feel like he should have to explain it, which is part of the problem.) More specifically, he didn’t explain why being a white Christian male over 50 should mean anything more than being, say, a 34-year-old gay black guy. Brando insisted over and over again he’s bigoted toward neither African-Americans nor gays, and I don’t doubt he sincerely thinks that. But if you’re gonna expel the amount of carbon dioxide Brando did to downplay the importance of Jason Collins’ public revelation, then turn right around and ask where’s your credit for being a white Christian family man, the obvious inference from that is that you think you deserve more credit than a guy such as Collins. I mean, it’s fine for African-Americans and non-Christians and gays to think they’re decent people, they just better not go around thinking they’re as special as us white guys are, right?
Again, Brando deleted the tweet later on that evening, so at least he wised up enough to recognize that that was a dumb thing to say out loud. Whether he realizes that it was a dumb sentiment to hold in the first place, though, is anyone’s guess. Having been exposed to Brando’s smug self-importance in the past, my guess is “no.” Sadly, he isn’t the first person on the list of entitled white guys who just don’t get it, and he’s far, far away from being the last.
Redhead Mondays: Deborah Ann Woll.
House Republican’s Propose To End 40 Hour Work Week Law
House Republicans have introduced a bill that would end the 40-hour work week, dismantling an important component of the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 and hurting middle-class families across the country.
Sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (AL), the dubiously-titled “Working Families Flexibility Act” (H.R. 1406) would remove the requirement that employers pay a cash premium for overtime work and instead allow them to offer employees compensatory time off. The effect would be an FLSA that is undermined of its only incentive against excessive hours and a cheaper way for employers to demand mandatory overtime.
Eileen Appelbaum, a senior economist with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, says the bill’s major effect would be to hurt workers, “likely increasing overtime hours for those who don’t want them and cutting pay for those who do.”
IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger wrote a letter to Congress encouraging them to vote against the bill.
“Employers can already work within the existing laws to allow workers adjusting work schedules around family needs without changing the 40-hour workweek,” Buffenbarger wrote. “‘Comp time’ proposals let the employer decide whether workers can use any accrued compensatory time. Additionally, nothing would prevent the employer from forcing workers to take time off individually or limiting whether workers can use the compensatory time at all if it is too burdensome to the work-load.”
The bill was referred to committee and could come to a vote in the House as early as next week.
The capitalists sure have become more brazen over the last couple decades.
I’m honestly shocked this didn’t happen sooner. Hell, even the most brazen queers can learn something from Republicans about absolutely not giving a fuck. There’s no way this will pass, but I bet within the next year or two we get a slightly watered down version that gets hailed as a great compromise.
Serious question: Why don’t conservative Republicans want ordinary people to make any money?
I mean, every time Obama (or any Democrat, really) proposes something that could have even a tangential effect on small businesses, they whip out the ol’ “You’re anti-business!” trope — companies won’t be able to hire more employees, they may have to lay off some of the ones they have, it’s going to hurt the economy, etc.
But now these same conservatives come along and propose this bill that basically says your employer can make you spend more time away from your family during the week but they don’t have to pay you any more. How does this help employees? How does taking money out of their pockets do anything positive for the American family or for the economy?
You don’t even have to be pro-union to be frustrated about what Martha Roby is trying to pull here. And to couch it in terms of adding “flexibility” for working families — the disingenuousness of it makes my skin crawl. This is an attempt to allow companies to work their employees harder and pay them less. Period. If you don’t understand why that would be a very bad thing not just for working families but for the entire country, I direct you here. And if after reading that you still don’t understand, then enjoy your Rolls-Royces and your champagne cellar. I don’t know what to tell you.
(via shorterexcerpts)
Fixing to start my new job in … about an hour, actually. Thus bringing an end to about a week-and-a-half between-jobs period where I could sit around the house, drink beer and watch Braves games in the middle of the day if that was what I wanted to do (and it frequently was).
I don’t know if “have beer fridge installed in my office” is something I want to bust out with my new boss on the first day, though. Maybe that’s a second-day, how-are-you-settling-in, gettin’-to-know-ya kind of conversation. You don’t want to rush a new working relationship.