: "A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his 'wife', after he was caught having sex with the animal."
All things considered, it might slow the divorce rate down a bit.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Joe Bageant: Adam Smith Meets Cousin Ronnie's Boy
Joe Bageant: Adam Smith Meets Cousin Ronnie's Boy:
"Regardless of media-manufactured underclass hallucinations as to class, only one class is paying half a week's wages or more for a single doctor visit to a member of the other class. Only one class is counting on Social Security for its entire retirement income (at least 64% of Americans and rising, by last count.) Yeah, yeah, more than half of Americans are invested in the stock market through 401Ks etc. we are told. But only at a few thousand dollars per household. When it comes to the much-ballyhooed stock market, 10 % of Americans split the national hog between themselves, tossing the ears to the other 90%. At this point bona fide pinkos may be excused from reading the next paragraph. You've heard it a million times, but I just can't help myself, comrade.
Cometh the old familiar numbers so oft heard, but worth repeating in hope that their meaning may by mysterious courses known only to God, take spark in the football besotted minds of my fellow underclass mutts: The richest 10 percent of families own a little over 85% of all outstanding stocks, 87% of all financial securities, and 90% of all business assets. If you throw in assets such as homes, checking and savings accounts, CDs and money funds, and pension accounts, then 20% of Americans own 83% of all wealth. The bottom 20% have no assets, no net worth at all. Put simply, the top 20% eat the cake, the middle 60% eat the crumbs and the bottom 20% get to lick the plates while they do everyone else's dishes.
Most true liberals know these numbers by heart. So do conservatives, although conservatives these days seem to take perverse glee in them. They usually explain them in terms such as those of Michael Medford, who cherry picks Will and Ariel Durant's pop history books for gems like: 'Concentration of wealth is a natural result of concentration of ability and special attributes [one immediately thinks of George Bush and Paris Hilton] … "
"Regardless of media-manufactured underclass hallucinations as to class, only one class is paying half a week's wages or more for a single doctor visit to a member of the other class. Only one class is counting on Social Security for its entire retirement income (at least 64% of Americans and rising, by last count.) Yeah, yeah, more than half of Americans are invested in the stock market through 401Ks etc. we are told. But only at a few thousand dollars per household. When it comes to the much-ballyhooed stock market, 10 % of Americans split the national hog between themselves, tossing the ears to the other 90%. At this point bona fide pinkos may be excused from reading the next paragraph. You've heard it a million times, but I just can't help myself, comrade.
Cometh the old familiar numbers so oft heard, but worth repeating in hope that their meaning may by mysterious courses known only to God, take spark in the football besotted minds of my fellow underclass mutts: The richest 10 percent of families own a little over 85% of all outstanding stocks, 87% of all financial securities, and 90% of all business assets. If you throw in assets such as homes, checking and savings accounts, CDs and money funds, and pension accounts, then 20% of Americans own 83% of all wealth. The bottom 20% have no assets, no net worth at all. Put simply, the top 20% eat the cake, the middle 60% eat the crumbs and the bottom 20% get to lick the plates while they do everyone else's dishes.
Most true liberals know these numbers by heart. So do conservatives, although conservatives these days seem to take perverse glee in them. They usually explain them in terms such as those of Michael Medford, who cherry picks Will and Ariel Durant's pop history books for gems like: 'Concentration of wealth is a natural result of concentration of ability and special attributes [one immediately thinks of George Bush and Paris Hilton] … "
Joe Bageant: Goodbye Terry Gross, We Niver Knew Ye
Joe Bageant: Goodbye Terry Gross, We Niver Knew Ye:
"Big corporate sponsors do nothing that does not yield a return on investment, nothing that doesn't buy some desired result. Thus, denial and distraction are what those sponsorships from Hewlett Packard and Monsanto really buy. At the same time the denial is all but spotlighted with the fluff and slop that replaces real coverage and demonstrates cooperation to the administration and sponsors. Stuff like 'This I Believe.' Or that overt sop, Marketplace, where happy jock stockbroker types Kai Ryssdal, and that hyperactive airhead in Texas (I forget his name) play pocket pool with each other over the day's market numbers, happily promoting the liberal capitalist notion that the second law of thermodynamics is false and that growth and consumption can be infinite in a world of diminishing resources."
"Big corporate sponsors do nothing that does not yield a return on investment, nothing that doesn't buy some desired result. Thus, denial and distraction are what those sponsorships from Hewlett Packard and Monsanto really buy. At the same time the denial is all but spotlighted with the fluff and slop that replaces real coverage and demonstrates cooperation to the administration and sponsors. Stuff like 'This I Believe.' Or that overt sop, Marketplace, where happy jock stockbroker types Kai Ryssdal, and that hyperactive airhead in Texas (I forget his name) play pocket pool with each other over the day's market numbers, happily promoting the liberal capitalist notion that the second law of thermodynamics is false and that growth and consumption can be infinite in a world of diminishing resources."
The Blog | Eric Alterman: The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth | The Huffington Post
The Blog | Eric Alterman: The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth | The Huffington Post: "As the new millennium dawned in 2000, the American economy presented an extraordinary portrait of success. For the previous four years, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had grown at an average real rate of 4.2 percent, a figure well above the 3.2 percent average for the post-World War II era. Unemployment, at 4.2 percent, was well below the postwar average. Inflation was minimal. To top it off, by the end of 2000, the federal government had produced surpluses for three consecutive years--a minor miracle, not seen since the late 1940s. From 1993 through 2000, the U.S. economy created over 23 million new jobs. The federal government was not only able to pay down trillions in accumulated debt; it had money left over to help cope with looming crises in Social Security and Medicare."
Lick My Silent Sports Car / How much has Big Auto lied? Take a drive in this four-wheel electric orgasm, and find out
Lick My Silent Sports Car / How much has Big Auto lied? Take a drive in this four-wheel electric orgasm, and find out:
"Did you already calculate that if even a fraction of the $300 billion -- a truly staggering amount -- we've wasted on BushCo's failed and disgusting war could have gone to revolutionizing our nation's energy infrastructure (like, say, funding large-scale development of the Roadster's technology), instead of annihilating a pip-squeak nonthreatening nation over its oil reserves while simultaneously serving as the most successful terrorist-recruitment poster in world history, the United States could be considered the epicenter of integrity and invention once again? Of course you did."
"Did you already calculate that if even a fraction of the $300 billion -- a truly staggering amount -- we've wasted on BushCo's failed and disgusting war could have gone to revolutionizing our nation's energy infrastructure (like, say, funding large-scale development of the Roadster's technology), instead of annihilating a pip-squeak nonthreatening nation over its oil reserves while simultaneously serving as the most successful terrorist-recruitment poster in world history, the United States could be considered the epicenter of integrity and invention once again? Of course you did."
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