E-mail Foward
Source unclear. I'd love to know who originated this so I could credit them appropriately.


Subject: Democrat Economics

If you don't understand the Democrats' version of tax cuts (and you are
not alone), this will explain it for you: 50,000 people go to a baseball
game, but the game was rained out. A refund was then due. The team was
about to mail refunds when the Congressional Democrats stopped them and
suggested that they send out refund amounts based on the Democrat
National Committee's interpretation of fairness.

After all, if the refunds were made based on the price each person paid
for the tickets, most of the money would go to the wealthiest ticket
holders. That would be unconscionable.

The DNC plan says;

People in the $10 seats will get back $15, because they have less money
to spend. Call it an "Earned" Income Ticket Credit. Persons "earn" it
by demonstrating little ambition, few skills and poor work habits, thus
keeping them at entry-level wages.

People in the $15 seats will get back $15, because that's only fair.

People in the $25 seats will get back $1, because they already make a lot
of money and don't need a refund. If they can afford a $25 ticket, then
they must not be paying enough taxes.

People in the $50 luxury seats will have to pay another $50, because they
have way too much to spend.

The people driving by the stadium who couldn't afford to watch the game
will get $10 each, even though they didn't pay anything in, because they
need the most help.

Now do you understand? If not contact Representative Richard Gephart or
Senator Tom Daschle for assistance.

A couple hundred years from now, when our society functions on the level of cavemen...
It won't be because of a nuclear bomb or some other cataclysm. It'll be because we became too busy filing complaints to get any actual work done.

Speaking of Assholes
Lucky for me this guy throws in an ad hominem attack (The best-case scenario for these kids is a life of service to advocates of mass immigration — cleaning the Wall Street Journal's offices and mowing Michael Barone's lawn.) so I can dismiss him as a crank instead of having to waste time on his arguments.

Can you imagine the implementation team for this guy's policy wishlist? Yeah, we don't think you're developing enough, so we'll send you back to Mexico. Tons of intellectual stimulation there. Look, people come to this country for a reason, and their judgment is usually pretty sound.

In a perfect world kids would get all the intellectual stimulation, all the language skill drills, every little bit interaction they could and more. In this world, parents have been working two or three jobs for years. If this is the real problem, don't you think there'd have been a lot of blithering idiots who grew up in the 1930s and '40s and didn't have their parents around?

What the f*ck?
Who the hell is this guy? And is he single? Maureen Dowd, call your yenta.

One of two things is about to go away...
With this court decision, it's only a matter of time before either public sidewalks go away completely (too expensive to maintain) or the ADA itself does (good intentions, terrible law). The former would be a fiasco; the latter a relief.

So Islamic fanatics want to kill us all and we have nothing better to do than worry about whether our sidewalks are good enough. Go, Supremes, go!

"Because we are all Arizonans."
That's the line used in radio commercials (heard on the web streaming of the baseball game I'm listening to) that a tribe took out to thank voters for getting an Indian gaming initiative on the ballot.

While I fully agree with the sentiment, it seems oddly misplaced in the situation. My best guess is that the ballot initiative gives this tribe the privilege to open casinos, a privilege not enjoyed by other people.

Don't get me wrong: If letting Indians have exclusive casino rights somehow balanced out all the injustice they endured with the expansion of this country, then I'd be all for it. Seems like least we can do. It's still not exactly a unifying thing. Or maybe it is. We join together in the attempt to make money off each other, which sounds sarcastic except that I'm highly in favor of our trying to make money off each other. For various complicated reasons first explored by Adam Smith, this somehow results in all of us being better off.

A week or so ago Slashdot had a thread about Amazon and some bitter ex-employee. This degenerated into people from the non-U.S. resenting Amazon in particular (for not being "quirky", for not having a "soul") and the U.S. in general for daring to always want things to be bigger and better.

Let me put it this way: I love the fact that this country enjoys such a high standard of living, and especially the fact that it comes basically from people working their asses off and getting rewarded for doing so. This is one thing about which I'll never be embarrassed about my country.

What he said.