I'm kinda sorry I asked.

But kinda glad I did.

lay it on me babe.
tell me something i don't know.
blow my fucking mind
genius in hiding.

or

shut up.

// i searched your arguments.
you're medicated.
and
you're still an idiot.
congrats.

Jerkass, all of your salient points in the last post on page 6 are drowned out by your ironic-or-is-it? use of of "babe." Sorry.

So very true. And "drowned" is very apt. Need water.

that map is deceptive, it looks like a massive landslide but he won by 5%

Elections have consequences, but they aren't the final word.

And the media has been far from one sided, unless you are only watching MSNBC.

I could really go for some Culvers.

1. 5%, 10%, whatever%. Doesn't change the reality of the situation and using that map as a reference, it reflects WI's voting record.

2. "Elections have consequences, but they aren't the final word"
Sounds like something a losing politician would say. I guess prove me wrong when this doesn't pass the senate.
And I highly doubt this will be reversed if a democrat governor eventually gets elected. The damage is done and politicians need to get re-elected.

3. I can't say I'm a media junkie, but everything I hear and see (NYTimes, NPR) just describes the protesters without any indication of what the situation is really about. And I don't care enough to dig deeper.

I do get giddy in anticipation every morning hoping that the drama will escalate. I'm buying what they're selling.

Really? What's the attraction? It's no where near the horseshit you'll get at McD, but if I'm eating fast food, spending $10 on a pseudo-diner meal surrounded by diabeetus Darryls isn't easy to swallow. I haven't eaten anything there that makes me crave that place. What am I missing?

I've only eaten their twice, so I might be clouded by vacation related nostalgia. But I really liked my burger and it was like $6 for a full meal.

The food is fine (compared to the beautiful burgers I grind myself).
You didn't get ice cream or custard or frozen fatty milk product?

Why did they only use 3 colors for this graph. Can't tell the difference between top 20 and second 20.

Justseeds has put up some great graphics that are free to use. Thought some of you might dig them.
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2011/02/posters_in_support_of_wisconsi_1.html

for example:

Oh, he did.

what a little weasel

Just to be fair and I'm not sure it's true here but I suspect it is, the way this data is typically presented to show such disparities is highly flawed. The biggest problem is that it typically is pre-tax and pre-government bennies. In other words, people use data that ignores all efforts to date to fight the war on poverty to argue for more government redistribution.

Pre tax and government benefits, the average HHI in the top quintile is 14X the average in the bottom quintile. After tax & benefits, it drops to 3-4X. It's a huge difference.

I don't think the argument boils down to just wanting "more government redistribution".

And the point of the graph is to show a trend, anyway, and I'd be interested to know if that general trend would really be any different if taxes and benefits were taken into account. Do you really think those completely offset the widening gap?

Fucking poor people gettin all rich on government cheese. LEECHES.

I'm not trying to argue that the chart is completely irrelevant. There's a point to be made about the outsourcing of jobs overseas, recent excesses in CEO compensation (although I do think compensation committees are doing a better job lately), and the greater propensity of single parent/single earner families in poor households but any discussion of the data is usually quickly followed by a policy prescription of more redistribution, and it's crazy to base that argument on data that discludes existing redistribution.

I also do believe the trend would look different if you take taxes and benefits into account.

i wonder how many government cheese sandwiches I had as a kid. i'd guess 500. haha.

I'm a bit ashamed I ate slice of the store brand American slices on my omelet the other day. The only reason we have it is to give the dogs pills.

reposting this from hpn

really good read that continues on through the comments

Best thing I have heard about all of this is:

A CEO, a tea partier and a public employee are at breakfast. There's a dozen donuts on the table. The CEO takes 11 donuts for himself, leaves one on the table, points at the union worker and says to the tea partier: "he's trying to steal your portion of that donut."

fixed

Holy fuck, people in this country complain too much. Just shut up an take it: You aren't that important. I promise.