(mostly political)
The Obama Internet fund-raising forward seems to be a complete fabrication. While we're here, does this really even count as a gaffe? If the next president serves two full terms then he'll leave office late January 2009, or eight years, six months from now. Since 8.5 > 8, "eight to ten" is a perfectly reasonable shorthand for "eight-and-a-half." Don't stoop to this kind of fluff when there's much more compelling anti-Obama case to be made on substance.
On the other hand the Irena Sendler story is true. Even at that it's not Al Gore's fault that the Nobel committee chose him over a worthier nominee; it's the same group that chose Rigoberta Menchu (now known to have faked her autobiography), Mikhail Gorbachev, Le Duc Tho, Jimmy Carter, and of course Yasser Arafat.
Speaking of Gore he recently suggested a very bad idea.
The best rebuttal to this post about Tony Snow and 401K plans would seem to involve some logic similar to that of Pascal's Wager. If you save a lot and die early, what's it to you? You're dead either way. But if you under-save and life long, oy.
Maybe as a non-Catholic I don't have the privilege to enjoy this as much as others would, but the Onion man-on-the-street responses to pope decries materialism are fantastic!
Tax rate factoids: As of 2005 the richest 1% of Americans had 21% of the income and 39% of the tax burden; the richest 5% of Americans had 36% of the income and 60% of the tax burden.
I've been thinking about my biggest reasons (in pecking order) to vote for McCain rather than Obama, and in particular the thought experiment of which candidate to support if everything else were equal but they had each other's positions on Iraq. (Given their biographies and primary campaigns maybe there's no way for that even to make sense.) I think we're at the point where their domestic views (mainly taxes and health care) would matter more to me.
And finally... it did my heart good that the comments to this drunk driving simulator story included the obvious WKRP reference so quickly.
Posted by Matt Bruce at July 22, 2008 06:40 PMIrena Sendler sounds like a good candidate for the Presidential Medal Honor of Freedom, which has the advantage of being given at the discretion of one individual and which, unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, isn't limited to one a year.
I can't find any record that she was given one after her accomplishments came to light, though.
This is the drawback to discussions like this, as fun as they are... and the same reason why the National Geographic letters column got so tedious. "You forgot [X]!" when the world is all about choices, subjectivity, and various goals and purposes being served by different vehicles. Al Gore's connection to "peace" is surely sketchy, but on the other hand, while Sendler's missions were heroic and amazing, strictly speaking, when is the Nobel Peace Prize given to people who did things like what she did? They go to people who a) publicized their issues to make themselves more effective and amplify their message (not her game; she worked in a few years of intense crisis, not on a simmering problem the world ignored for decades) or b) were professional peacemakers.
Food for thought. I remember when Al Gore got the award, the common complaint was that he didn't "deserve" the newspaper coverage because a deceased serviceman had won the Congressional Medal of Honor the same day. Some people were still fighting the 2000 election, and it wasn't the usual suspects.
Posted by: M.S. at July 26, 2008 05:50 PMPresidential Medal of Freedom, sorry.
Posted by: M.S. at July 26, 2008 05:51 PM"Tax rate factoids: As of 2005 the richest 1% of Americans had 21% of the income and 39% of the income tax burden; the richest 5% of Americans had 36% of the income and 60% of the income tax burden."
It's a really important distinction, and it's one the WSJ includes in the chart. Sales taxes are regressive, payroll taxes are capped.
Posted by: M.S. at July 26, 2008 05:56 PM