In my most recent post I had suggested that it was more than a little strange that John McCain, the guy that actually has seen Mitten's tax returns, hadn't said anything in defense of the guy that came in second to Alaska Spice in the 2008 republican Veepstakes (think about what THAT says about Rmoney for just a moment). Well now, Senator McCain has corrected that and come out with a statement saying, in essence, not much, really. Oh, the words sound like a solid vouch for the not-yet-confirmed republican nominee, but when you re-read the actual words, they don't say what he wants you to think they say. "Nothing in his tax returns showed that he did not pay taxes". Senator McCain's statement is very carefully parsed indeed. You see, everyone pays some taxes, property taxes, sales taxes etc etc, but not all of us pay Federal and State taxes, especially those of us that are very, very rich and have a cadre of lawyers and accountants to ensure that fact.
I would, however, like to thank Sen. McCain for bringing the tax return issue to the front-burner again, especially after the M$M spent the entire past weekend fawning over Mittens pick for V.P., a former social-security recipient that wants to demolish the very same safety net that he so handsomely benefited from in his formative years. (More on that would-be granny-killing hypocrite later). But what Senator McCain's bluster and baloney still doesn't answer is the one, most obvious question of all: If Mitten's tax returns are perfectly legitimate, and they show that he did pay taxes and by default that Harry Reid is completely and utterly full of shit, why doesn't he just release them and PROVE IT?
I find it hard to believe that a republican would eschew the opportunity to knock a Democratic politician's dick in the dirt, especially someone like the Senate majority leader. As mendacious as Rmoney is, a man who has shown he is not beneath approving campaign commercials that are entirely truth-free, I cannot believe that he continues to endure the battering that his secrecy is causing, when the alternative would be the modern-day equivalent of having photographic evidence of your opponent being found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.
It just doesn't add up. Unless there's something so naughty in those returns he has to keep them secret or risk losing much more than just a general election.
Stay tuned kiddies...this is far from over...
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
I'm beginning to think Mittens doesn't have a 'tax problem'' at all...
...I think he has a 'crime problem'...
When even the festering cesspool of lies and mis-direction laughingly calling itself Fox "news" has Obama beating Rmoney by 49 - 40 in their most recent poll data, you get the sense that the as yet not-nominated republican candidate, is in some pretty deep shit.
He is being taken to task about the outright lies in his campaign commercials, but this time these criticisms have come from traditionally republican-supportive media outlets, and NOT the so-called 'liberal media'. His campaign has already pulled out the "war on religion" card in some markets, which is traditionally used to motivate the bible-thumping base just before the election not typically used before the party convention, and he steadfastly refuses to come clean about his tax returns.
Willard 'Mitt' Rmoney may be many things but stupid isn't one of them. He must surely know how this continued stone-walling is causing his campaign to rapidly take on water, so why not release them and face the music?
George Will, a conservative commentator no less, made his once-a-campaign salient point recently, that Rmoney as a businessman is used to looking at risk v. reward all the time, and has obviously done the calculations regarding his tax returns and concluded that NOT releasing them will cause his campaign LESS damage than releasing them would. Everyone immediately started to try and guess as to what could be so toxic in those returns that his campaign would be better off taking the hammering that it has, rather than just throw the raw meat to the baying hounds and let them have at it for a few days. Surely it can't be as simple as the fact that he just paid alot less in taxes than everyone else, can it?
Look, he's a rich guy that likes to pay minimal taxes, we get that, that's the game the rich have always played, so sure, if he releases them and it shows that he paid an effective tax-rate of 0.00% for the past ten years he'll take a hit, but he'll use that as a badge of honour amongst his supporters. He'll use that as an excuse to say that the tax-code needs to be revamped, and that everyone should pay lower taxes and that's why he's running for office. He would actually be able to turn it into a positive for his campaign.
Unless, of course, his effective tax-rate isn't the only issue.
I know enough about the tax code and the IRS to not fuck with either, and I take my yearly fleecing with as much good grace as possible, but when you're rich you can hire lawyers and accountants whose sole function is to do precisely that. Their job is to fuck with the tax code and the IRS as far as possible, without winding up with their clients wearing silver bracelets and getting a one-way ticket to Club Fed. This is how the rich keep their money, by classifying regular income as 'passive investment returns' or 'dividend reinvestments' or 'refunded asset depreciation allocations' or any number of other gobbledygook sleight-of-hand card tricks, but ALL of them have one thing in common. They are all at least vaguely legal. Which leads me to believe that Willard isn't worried about fallout from paying less taxes than most folks that hold down two minimum-wage jobs nowadays, or the fact that he used offshore banks to hide some of his money, I think he's worried that his accountants have done such shady stuff over the last ten years that if the IRS took a real hard look at them, never mind losing the election, he could wind up losing his freedom...
And one last thing to ponder, of all of the people that are calling the Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid a 'dirty liar', or that his comments asserting that Rmoney hasn't paid any taxes in the last ten years "belittle his position in the Senate", bear in mind that none of them are speaking from a position of authority. None of them have actually seen the returns. The one person that HAS seen those returns, Senator John McCain when he vetted Mittens for a potential VP slot in 2008, hasn't said a single word about whether Harry is telling the truth or not. And in this case, that silence definitely speaks volumes.
Stay tuned kids...this could get mighty interesting...
When even the festering cesspool of lies and mis-direction laughingly calling itself Fox "news" has Obama beating Rmoney by 49 - 40 in their most recent poll data, you get the sense that the as yet not-nominated republican candidate, is in some pretty deep shit.
He is being taken to task about the outright lies in his campaign commercials, but this time these criticisms have come from traditionally republican-supportive media outlets, and NOT the so-called 'liberal media'. His campaign has already pulled out the "war on religion" card in some markets, which is traditionally used to motivate the bible-thumping base just before the election not typically used before the party convention, and he steadfastly refuses to come clean about his tax returns.
Willard 'Mitt' Rmoney may be many things but stupid isn't one of them. He must surely know how this continued stone-walling is causing his campaign to rapidly take on water, so why not release them and face the music?
George Will, a conservative commentator no less, made his once-a-campaign salient point recently, that Rmoney as a businessman is used to looking at risk v. reward all the time, and has obviously done the calculations regarding his tax returns and concluded that NOT releasing them will cause his campaign LESS damage than releasing them would. Everyone immediately started to try and guess as to what could be so toxic in those returns that his campaign would be better off taking the hammering that it has, rather than just throw the raw meat to the baying hounds and let them have at it for a few days. Surely it can't be as simple as the fact that he just paid alot less in taxes than everyone else, can it?
Look, he's a rich guy that likes to pay minimal taxes, we get that, that's the game the rich have always played, so sure, if he releases them and it shows that he paid an effective tax-rate of 0.00% for the past ten years he'll take a hit, but he'll use that as a badge of honour amongst his supporters. He'll use that as an excuse to say that the tax-code needs to be revamped, and that everyone should pay lower taxes and that's why he's running for office. He would actually be able to turn it into a positive for his campaign.
Unless, of course, his effective tax-rate isn't the only issue.
I know enough about the tax code and the IRS to not fuck with either, and I take my yearly fleecing with as much good grace as possible, but when you're rich you can hire lawyers and accountants whose sole function is to do precisely that. Their job is to fuck with the tax code and the IRS as far as possible, without winding up with their clients wearing silver bracelets and getting a one-way ticket to Club Fed. This is how the rich keep their money, by classifying regular income as 'passive investment returns' or 'dividend reinvestments' or 'refunded asset depreciation allocations' or any number of other gobbledygook sleight-of-hand card tricks, but ALL of them have one thing in common. They are all at least vaguely legal. Which leads me to believe that Willard isn't worried about fallout from paying less taxes than most folks that hold down two minimum-wage jobs nowadays, or the fact that he used offshore banks to hide some of his money, I think he's worried that his accountants have done such shady stuff over the last ten years that if the IRS took a real hard look at them, never mind losing the election, he could wind up losing his freedom...
And one last thing to ponder, of all of the people that are calling the Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid a 'dirty liar', or that his comments asserting that Rmoney hasn't paid any taxes in the last ten years "belittle his position in the Senate", bear in mind that none of them are speaking from a position of authority. None of them have actually seen the returns. The one person that HAS seen those returns, Senator John McCain when he vetted Mittens for a potential VP slot in 2008, hasn't said a single word about whether Harry is telling the truth or not. And in this case, that silence definitely speaks volumes.
Stay tuned kids...this could get mighty interesting...
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Prometheus: Back to the future from the past in the future
I'm not going to give you the back story because I'm sure you've all seen at least a thousands tv commercials for it so here, in brief is my review...Spoiler alert? Why bother, nobody reads this blog anyway so who's going to have anything spoiled for them...
I give it a solid B+...which in this day and age of interminable Adam Sandler flicks, Vampire romances, and relentless cartoon/super-hero sequels, here was a movie that really tried to stand out...and it succeeded...sort of...
I really wanted to like Noomi Rapace's character because she's a great actress, but I simply didn't buy-in to the relationship with her partner...there was another one of those "I'm going to try and eat your face off because that's how passionately-in-love people kiss" scenes, which was totally unbelievable...and the rest of the time the supposed knowing glances flashed between the two lovebirds were more reminiscent of a sudden 'did you remember to let the cat out' moment rather than a 'I connect with you at a molecular level of love, man' emotion...
Idris Elba with an American accent...what a waste...I think his lines would have sounded soooooo much better in his natural accent...think 'John Luther In Space'...with guns...and aliens..what could go wrong?
Charlize Theron was apparently just there to try and look highly efficient and erotically pent-up as the ships' Commander besides, as it turns out, all she really wanted was a damned good rogering anyway...
All the other scientists got eaten...we all knew that was going to happen, right?
Which leaves Michael Fassbender's performance as David.
One word. Spell-binding. (okay, technically that's two but you get my point).
He absolutely makes the movie. You are never quite sure what his character's agenda is, which is weird 'cos he's a robot and they're supposed to be programmed right? But he is without doubt what drives the movie. Sure there are slimy monsters penetrating the orifices of various unwilling hosts, and sure there's the question of just who these 'Engineers' really are, but at the end of the day, the only person you care about is David, and he's silicone based. And that's why the movie is ultimately a bit of a let-down. The over-arching theme in the whole movie is about mankind finally figuring out the answer to the ultimate question of who, or what, created us, and in the end the only person really worth caring about was the bloody robot...
Oh, and the movie blatantly sets up at least one more sequel (a banner trailing from the spaceship as the credits started to roll saying "If the box office take is enough we'll see you in 2014" would have been only marginally less obvious..) which i find insulting and annoying, but at least it's not going to be another fucking Die Hard movie so it does have that going for it...
If you're into the franchise I don't think you'll be too disappointed after all it is way better than anything they produced after Aliens, and if you're just looking for a gloriously filmed sci-fi thriller I don't think you'll be let down either. Definitely worth the price of admission.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
How to write good...
Because no-one reads this when they're my words, I'll steal someone else's..namely Frank L. Visco...
1) Avoid alliteration. Always.
2) Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3) Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4) Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5) Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6) It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
7) One should never generalize.
8) Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said " I hate quotations."
9) Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
10) Be more or less specific.
11) Understatement is best.
12) Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
13) Don't be redundant. Don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14) Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
15) One word sentences? Eliminate.
16) Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
17) Who needs rhetorical questions?
I hope to incorporate these rules in my future writings so that you, dear reader, might enjoy them more and tell all of your friend about this blog so that one day, I too can get paid for writing as good as I can.
1) Avoid alliteration. Always.
2) Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3) Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4) Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5) Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6) It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
7) One should never generalize.
8) Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said " I hate quotations."
9) Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
10) Be more or less specific.
11) Understatement is best.
12) Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
13) Don't be redundant. Don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14) Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
15) One word sentences? Eliminate.
16) Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
17) Who needs rhetorical questions?
I hope to incorporate these rules in my future writings so that you, dear reader, might enjoy them more and tell all of your friend about this blog so that one day, I too can get paid for writing as good as I can.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Bigots and zealots and liars, oh my!!
So North Carolina has banned the marriage of same sex folks, even though fucking your cousin is still perfectly legal (just not the gay ones). The problem with this hateful, bigoted, backward-ass legislation is that it invalidates ALL civil unions....even those between a man and a woman....too bad they didn't spend as much time reading as they did hating in that state otherwise they might have caught that one before it passed...
As previously stated AZ has officially gone completely off the deep end with it's hatred of *insert special interest group here*. This week Governor Jan Brewer, who for all the world does a very passable impersonation of Skeletor's wife, banned state funds going to Planned Parenthood, because, you know, nothing says 'Save the Children' quite like not giving free pre and post-natal health care to women that can't afford it.
But the real winner for me is in the 'bald-faced liar' category. May I present to you one Jonah Goldberg. This particular right-wing ass-carrot has a new book out, if by 'book' you mean page-after-page of nonsensical ramblings of the under-developed brain of a person who's sole claim to fame was that his mommy tried to get President Clinton impeached for getting a blow-job from a fat Jewish chick.
The title of this monumental waste of trees and ink is "The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas", which sounds ominous, bookish and semi-retarded all at the same time. That's not the problem though, the problem pops up on the dust-jacket of the book where, it is claimed, Jonah Goldberg has "twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize". Why is that a problem you ask? The answer is simple. Jonah Goldberg hasn't been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Ever. When challenged about it his response was a typical right-wing knee-jerk of "I didn't do it, it's someone else's fault".
Hey Jonah, I have an idea, the next time you want to write an entire book about someone else's "dishonesty", I'd suggest you don't put your own lies on the front page.
Cheers!
As previously stated AZ has officially gone completely off the deep end with it's hatred of *insert special interest group here*. This week Governor Jan Brewer, who for all the world does a very passable impersonation of Skeletor's wife, banned state funds going to Planned Parenthood, because, you know, nothing says 'Save the Children' quite like not giving free pre and post-natal health care to women that can't afford it.
But the real winner for me is in the 'bald-faced liar' category. May I present to you one Jonah Goldberg. This particular right-wing ass-carrot has a new book out, if by 'book' you mean page-after-page of nonsensical ramblings of the under-developed brain of a person who's sole claim to fame was that his mommy tried to get President Clinton impeached for getting a blow-job from a fat Jewish chick.
The title of this monumental waste of trees and ink is "The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas", which sounds ominous, bookish and semi-retarded all at the same time. That's not the problem though, the problem pops up on the dust-jacket of the book where, it is claimed, Jonah Goldberg has "twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize". Why is that a problem you ask? The answer is simple. Jonah Goldberg hasn't been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Ever. When challenged about it his response was a typical right-wing knee-jerk of "I didn't do it, it's someone else's fault".
Hey Jonah, I have an idea, the next time you want to write an entire book about someone else's "dishonesty", I'd suggest you don't put your own lies on the front page.
Cheers!
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