LOL HAY GUISE. Disregard that I… you know what, nevermind, just… check snopes prior to reposting. See bottom for intro to relevant conversation. KTHXBAI.
I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.
To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up… So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00. My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend.
Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads.
Put away money for college – it’ll be there.
Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car – create jobs.
Invest in the market – capital drives growth.
Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves.
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else.
Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.
If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it… instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( “vote buy” ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President. If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!
As for AIG – liquidate it . Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea that can “never work.”
But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.
And remember, thie plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest
Editor’s Note: This was sent to me by my mother. I do have an email address of the original author of this, which I won’t publish here to save them spam. I will try to get a proper credit for this. In the meantime, if you like this idea a lot better than what’s been proposed, start talking about it! Talk about it even if you hate it. Either way, start talking!
Second Editor’s Note: It has come to my attention, thanks to the savvy of commenters and my own lack of homework, that the CORRECT payout, if the money were to be distributed to the approximate 200 million eligible US voters (which was about the number from the 2004 election), it would only amount to 425 dollars, not gorgeously seductive $425,000 previously quoted.
While it’s not the super-happy-fun-time I’d wanted to believe in, this leads to a change in the pre-existing and still very criticial discussion though:
Does that idea get reworked?
Do you cut out any household over a certain income level?
Do you conduct a survey to give citizens a chance to have their case reviewed for their debt to be bailed out just like the government proposed to bail out the debt of these companies?
Is a large scale government bailout at any level simply more harm than good?
Where does the responsibility of the consumers come in?
The responsibility of the companies?
The economy is not quite as easy to ignore as the actual government, because by having money at all you’ve agreed to participate in a system that follows certain rules and flows with trends in things like “buyer confidence” and other frighteningly nebulous concepts. (Which probably make a lot of sense to other, much smarter people, or at least more aneristic people.)
So, let us continue to focus on these issues and work on solutions - right, wrong or indifferent - because as long as we agree to play by these rules, then we’re obliged to learn how to make this game work for us. It’s your life, what do YOU want to do with it?
“Now drugged, and wielding a camera tripod, Blacky begins to charge…””
Last night, while flipping through the channels, my roommates and I came across an exceedingly misleading show entitled “Untamed and Uncut: Goose Attack.” Naturally, we were sold. The boys and I exchanged solemn nods. “Let’s do it.””Would it be weird to watch porn with my roommates? Such, apparently, specific porn? Don’t care. Maybe you missed the title…it contains the words “Goose Attack.” With visions of rampaging men and their equally rampaging and, well, uncut mansticks (too far?) goosing chicks (with, I like to think, perforated wooden paddles), I eagerly clicked “select.”
Well, “Untamed and Uncut: Goose Attack” was not a porn… I suppose I should have guessed. In fact, it was on Animal Planet, though incidentally, the description of the show straight from animalplanet.com is as follows:
Gritty, shocking, compelling, *and always raw*, each half-hour episode takes viewers on a journey around the world to meet the people who’s lives are forever changed by a moment in time with an animal.
I wish I could tell you I made that up.
No, “Untamed and Uncut” wasn’t porn. And it didn’t even feature animal sex (foiled again.) What it was, though, was one of those “when animals attack” type deals. And, just what was the series-documentary covering today? A rampaging bastard (named Blacky, oddly enough) looking something like this:
Dude, Blacky was a Beast; almost the size of an elephant! Motherfucker was raging his way through a little town in Thailand- tipping over motorcycles, throwing trashcans like fucking Donkey Kong and just generally charging around, terrorizing tourists, for three hours… Three Hours! At one point (after poor Blacky had been shot with a tranquilizer dart) the announcer actually said, “Now drugged, and wielding a camera tripod, Blacky begins to charge…” This show rules!
If you’re wondering what the deal with the “Goose Attack” portion of the show was all about… well, a goose attacks a fisherman and his dog. I’d actually seen it before and to this day it gives me visions of being mauled to death by legions of loons every time I go kayaking. Speedy fuckers.
For reference, film evidence of various persons being assaulted by large birds.
Whether or not you feel that you’ve just wasted four minutes of your life reading about my (decidedly satisfactory, though misguided) attempt to catch some silly porn action, I highly recommend you start watching this “series-documentary.” It’s got all the elements of a good “when animals attack” show: gratuitous violence, badly generated computer animation (though the website claims to offer “ground-breaking computer graphic imaging,”) stupid commentators and an obtuse morbidity that’s just damn funny (later in the show, someone says, “I was just waiting for that sickening sound of Stan’s flesh being chopped up by those propellers…”) If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will…
The bathroom was a terrible place to be. All the stall doors were slightly ajar and the terrible placement of the typical office fluorescent lighting gave the shadows life that they certainly wouldn’t have possessed on their own. I kept turning back in terror from what I assumed was a malevolent face in the handicapped stall. The wall by the sink provided me something to look at to occupy my mind, but this too became a source of vile fascination. Whether the talk was all in my mind or if there was someone there I do not know. Kindly and reassuring it spoke to me of demons, and angels, and paths to power sometimes being fraught with dangerous-looking things. There was no need to worry though of course, not if you were prepared. Read the rest of this entry »
I think I’ve been listening to too much Röyksopp lately. For context, I’ve found myself highly enamored of a certain track off their album The Understanding called “What Else Is There?“. It features vocals provided by Karin Dreijer Andersson from an electronica duo called The Knife (whose album Silent Shout has also been on repeat a lot for me) and I have fallen in love with her unique and expressive voice.
That being said, on the with the description. I was in this housing area, all cheap houses, run down and small. Looking on from a short distance, I saw a huge explosion rip through 3 or 4 of the buildings, seemingly at random. I looked to my companions (who defy description right now, just some people, I can’t remember) and ran towards the damage. I’ve dreamt almost this same thing before, I know it. Sudden fire in run down houses, or an explosion followed by fire. It was chewing up the old, dry buildings.
Then it all reset. Same place, no explosion, none of that. I rode in the mind of someone sneaking through these projects, tiptoeing by back doors and noticing as they all swung open by themselves. Screen doors, all, and cats of different kinds peering out from kitchens or living rooms. Sometimes there were people within, all walking away, not noticing that the door was open. The creeping person was a thief and although no entry was made into any of these houses, the big black bag s/he carried filled up. A small rip showed a blue and white striped piece of terry cloth sticking out. Perhaps the dishes wrapped in the towel to prevent noise? Who knows?
Finally coming to an unremarkable house near the end of the rows, the thief enters and discovers an old man and a fluffy white cat. There’s a moment of mutual surprise, then the cat makes a mad dash for the open door, and the thief follows, trying to track it down through these houses while still remaining silent and unseen, still carrying the full bag. The cat dashes under buildings built off the ground, and finally the thief is able to cut it off at an awkward turn near a wall and snatches the beast up, dragging it back to its master.
There’s a short conversation after that, and the old man says he’s not going to rat out the thief. The thief cautions that there may be some dangerous activity.
Cut to a group of about five or six people. Storm clouds are high, thready, and getting darker, turning the sky to a psilocybin vision of broadly patterned marble. The people are holding onto what appears to be the female end of extention cords, which are all tangled together and tied to a central location, looking to be pipes coming out of one of the houses. They stretch the cords into the road, fanning out in an uneven manner over about a 180° area. A stroke of lightning comes down slowly, almost like a weighted streamer: straight down, but wavering in the air. It is viewed from the eyes of one of the group before it hits them. The power goes through the cords and infuses the others. One by one they begin shouting, calling down the lightning on themselves, despite the presence of others on the scene insisting they stop (but too afraid to act).
There was only one left, hesitant, stupid, afraid of the lightning. The others had disappeared, disintegrated or wandered off or something. The one left walked away. It may have come back to the explosion at that point but I don’t recall.
Other points which are unclear to me now:
Pulling a large revolver on someone who wanted to come into a house where I lived. It was large and dull and akward.
Yelling and throwing things at a group of young, grinning hooligans who heaped things in the middle of the yard and doused it in gasoline, intending to set fire to the whole property
Counciling a very angry young man, sharing tales with him. We were both in Civil War era dress. I slowly went from persuading him to stay, to comforting, to seducing. Anything to distract him from this blind fury.
A master/husband type figure appearing during the “seduction” phase, unperturbed by the scenario.
Also, for your convenience here are the lyrics to “What Else Is There?”
It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here
It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions
Roads end getting nearer
We cover distance but not together
I am the storm I an the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions
I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish
It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for
I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there
Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together
If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have a flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions
There’s no room where I can go and
You?ve got secrets too
I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish
Note: These are just what I found online, I know there is a verse or two missing and maybe a few lines wrong. Care to help me flesh that out?
A clear and flagrant disrespect for all things was extruded from the two young men chatting back and forth on the mostly empty train car and left the air palpably unclean. Crisp suits, slick and greasy hair, shifty bright eyes, and utter animal stupidity were readily apparent upon a quick glance. Typical upper-class white boys with no sense of purpose beyond where their dicks will be by the end of the night or who they can roll under the bus to get the next raise. No love except the long-since-abandoned love for mother, and a lust for money and the status associated with it that they assume is love. Read the rest of this entry »
April Fools’ Day, one of the most loathsome and wasteful days the calendar year has to offer, has come and gone. Most everyone seems to have survived, thankfully.
DeviantArt, known for being a haven of artists producing works ranging from hackle-raising (no pun intended) furryfan art to really goodphotography, decided to celebrate this traditional day of asshattery by pranking all of its users. The accomplished this feat, not by Rickrolling everybody and their brother, but by taking care of exposing the masses to another already-mostly-expired internet meme.
For the duration of April first, all DeviantArt user pics were changed to a looping animated gif of a Mudkip, which displayed the phrase “so I heard you like mudkips??”. (Well, more or less anyway.)
It was of course only a joke and DeviantArt returned everyone’s avatars to normal when it was April 2nd. April Fools’ Day was pretty uneventful for yours truly, I think I would have liked to have had a little omigod hax! rather than an entire day of waiting for someone to do something awful to me. Anybody out there get meme bashed or otherwise tricked this past April 1st?
All this talk of Mudkips (and having to troll around Google Labs for something work related) got me to thinking, just how popular is this whole “mudkips” thing, and what about rival Pokémon meme, Seaking? Well, the results are in!
The winner for longest running search item? Seaking.
Current most popular? Mudkips.
Overall though, I’d say the winner is Seaking by a huge margin. Fuck yeah, Seaking!
Although I couldn’t help but notice, when adding Slowpoke (Hey guys, am I late?), I got some articles too. Talking about some hybrid Lexus. Funky. In typical Slowpoke fashion, this search lags way, way behind the others. Fitting, really.
Search result totals (as of a few minutes ago):
Seaking - 1,110,000
Slowpoke - 624,000
Mudkips - 359,000 for mudkip, 122,000 for mudkips
Clearly, even though there’s a rise in popularity of the newer gen meme fodder, Mudkips, there is a serious lack of content for this topic. Although to be fair, I think Encyclopedia Dramatica probably has the subject covered well enough for us all. If you don’t know that ED is not safe for work then you haven’t been around the block. So I’ll tell you right now, that it’s not safe for work, and if you’re really very worried about that, then you should probably not go around the block. They do however have a link in there for a PDF on scientists’ attempts to study the development and regeneration of axolotls, which as we learned earlier today, are the closest thing we get to Mudkips on this side of our Quantum Reality Tunnel. Science will find a way though, it always does. Yay science!
Anyway, all of that was really just some blatent search related infoporn, exposing me for the meme-addled child I truly am. Do they have support groups for this kind of thing?
That said I have prepared a lovely little something to give to the one you’d like to get all cuddly-wuddly with for this (contrived, commercialised) Valentine’s Day. It works well as a wallpaper for 1600×1200 displays. I may edit this later to include other, more common screen sizes, so be on the lookout.
Please enjoy! The majority of this was constructed using photoshop brushes located over at brusheezy. They’re absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend checking them out at your next earliest convenience.
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
