Fair share?!?

I just shouldn't go to CNN anymore.  I don't know why I bother.  I never really blog about politics, so this is just more of a vent, which I had to do for my own sanity after reading that Hilary Clinton says the rich aren't paying their fair share.  Seriously?  Okay, let's just take the most cursory of glances, done by simply Googling "tax bracket by income."

Taxable income from 34,000 to 82,400: 25%.  82,400 to 171,850: 28%.  171,850 to 373,650: 33%.  373,650 and up: 35%.  I'm not sure where her fictional "rich" cutoff is, but it's clear that the rich are paying substantially more than their fair share.  Even with a flat tax, the rich would pay far more than lower earners.  But with the current graduated rate of taxes, they pay exorbitantly more: a higher percentage of their income, and much, much more in total dollars.  Where is the fairness here?

And they don't get anything extra for these dollars.  It's not like there are high income bracket roads, or 35% tax rate public schools.  At least when you pay more for a good airline seat you get a faster check in line.  Her assertion is asinine.  Many wealthy people willingly choose to help those less fortunate than them.  It's called charity.  Clinton's blathering goes on to cite Brazil as an example to strive for.  Really?  Here are a few facts about this nation she wants the US to emulate:

* Brazil is not in the top half dozen nations in the world in GDP.

* Their biggest industry, by far, is oil and gas operations, to the tune of nearly five times the revenue of their next biggest industry, which happens to be mining.  How does this jibe with Clinton's environmental beliefs, I wonder?

* The 2010 Brazilian minimum wage is $510 reals per month, with an additional half month's salary in June and December.  This is the equivalent of around $300 US.  Per month.  Are we going to knock the US minimum wage down to $2 an hour in our pursuit of a Brazilian economy?

* Brazilian tax rates: 27.5% for everyone who earns over 43K reals (about 25,000 US).  Corporations get hit to the tune of 34%.

I'm looking for any part of this that looks appealing and I'm not seeing it.  How about we stop giving out mortgages to people that can't afford them, pass a flat tax, abolish the IRS, continue with a little free market system called "capitalism" that actually rewards success, and see how that works out for a while?

28 awesome things from 2008

There are always tons of "best of" lists right around New Year's Day. Here is one more. Instead of a Top 10, or a Top 100, or anything so rigid and structured, here are just 28 things from 2008 that were awesome. They are not comprehensive, and they are not in any order. But they are awesome.

• Season four of Lost, especially on Blu-Ray.
• The 2008 World Champion Boston Celtics.
• The Dark Knight, especially Heath Ledger's brilliant performance.
• Season three of Dexter.
• Metallica: Death Magnetic and LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Dustin Pedroia: Sun Devil, Red Sock, and AL MVP.
• Iron Man.
• Tropic Thunder.
• The Robert Downey Jr. resurgence in general.
• Rock Band 2.
• My second straight Chatham Bluefish Diamond Mind baseball championship.
• Scream Queens on VH1.
• Terra Naomi's acoustic hair band covers.
• The fact that a new GNR album actually came out, and it's good.
• Friday Night Lights, and the fact that it is still on TV at all.
  
• Survivor and The Amazing Race still being fairly entertaining.
• Pretty much everything AJ McC does, including his hilarious exploding vocabulary.
• Sierra Mist Free Cranberry Splash. Try some with vodka and thank me later.
• ZaZa pizza in Little Rock. The huge high heat woodburning oven is the key.
• The fact that a new movie theatre (with an Imax screen) opened right down the street, even if I don't get to go there as often as I'd like.
• That a guy who kind of rocks won American Idol.
• The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.
• Tina Fey, both on 30 Rock and SNL.
• Van Halen LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Catching my first Red Sox game in way too long, with a rooftop table under the Budwesier sign.
• Two Vegas trips, an AZ fire up, and a Cape Cod vacation (with the Boston trip in the middle of it).
• Lots of cool shows on the Food Network. Seriously.
• WiiFit.

And eight things that were not so awesome:

• 18-1. Still pisses me off.
• The ASU football season. An entirely different kind of letdown.
• The Sox losing game 7 of the ALCS when they clearly could have been champs again if just a couple of guys stayed healthy.
• Watching shitty teams flounder in the 2008 NFL playoffs while the superior Patriots sit at home. Sickening.
• The economy, including our old house still being on the market.
• The disgusting New York Yankees offseason spending spree.
  
• Heroes. Season one started great, and since then it's been pretty bad. And yet, I continue to watch.
• The complete tabloidization of the American media. Didn't CNN used to be a respected news outlet? Now they are People magazine with some news thrown in. Go ahead, check the website right now. What's on there? A video of Harrison Ford getting his chest waxed, apparently. And network news shows are just as bad. I cannot do it. I basically hate the news, now. I really do. Thankfully technology exists that lets me consume only what I want, for the most part. Okay. Rant over. I hope everyone has a great 2009.
  

The Diablo Cody Backlash

Latest 'It' Talent Feeling Backlash

Boo hoo.

It's an odd situation. Screenwriters almost never get any recognition, so I should be fundamentally happy for her to begin with. And yet I'm not, for a couple of reasons.

#1. I haven't even seen "Juno" yet and I'm already kind of sick of it. It's wonderful that this little movie has made $125 million, but I'm already tired of the dialogue just from the snippets, clips, commercials, and promos that I've seen, and that's absurd. If I have to hear poor Rainn Wilson say "this is one diddle that can't be undid, home skillet," one more time I think I'm going to snap.

#2. It might be a fantastic screenplay. At least on some level, I'm pretty sure it is. And that's great, for the movie, for her, and for independent film in general. Did she deserve the Oscar? Maybe. Probably, even? Who knows. But the sheer amount of attention she's getting is absurd, and I just want to know if she'd be getting it all, or anything close to it, if A) she didn't look like she does B) she didn't have "former stripper" on her resume, and C) she hadn't changed her name to the ridiculous moniker Diablo Cody.

Maybe I should change my name. Lucifer Laramie, perhaps?

Anyway, I've already got Juno in the Netflix queue. But I'll be perfectly happy if I don't see her name again until the movie's credits roll.

CNN demonstrates a stranglehold on the obvious

Every day I vist CNN.com to get a feel for the relevant news going on in the US and the world. I'm not a hardcore news guy by any means--I almost never watch the local or national network news, because a quick glance at the CNN headlines tells me everything I need to know.

Usually.

Yesterday they offered up two "news stories" with such screamingly obvious headlines that the stories seemed better suited to "The Onion." And they are:

Study: Rock Stars More Likely To Die Young

Men Want Hot Women, Study Confirms

Log on tomorrow for CNN's three part expose: The Earth Really Is Round, or perhaps their early morning story: The Sun Comes Up.

Ridiculous.