Thursday, August 28, 2008

Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC...

My, that man gives a fine speech.

I'm looking forward to reading the whining about it.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Still unbelievable...

In America, today, an annual income of $150,000 is rich. Not wildly, mind-blowingly rich, but rich. That's a weekly paycheck of almost $3,000--before taxes--while the median income would provide a weekly check of about $850.

What does John McCain think the break point to rich--just in income--is?

$100,000--per week.

If you make two and a half times--in a week--as much as the average American makes in a year, John McCain thinks that you're rich. If you make less than that, you're middle class.

The median income earner--firmly middle class, by definition, being right in the middle--makes about three times what the minimum wage earner does. Rich--at $150,000--means that you make about ten times what a minimum wage worker does.

At McCain's barely rich number?

333 times as much.

McCain's barely rich earner makes more than 33 times as much as the real barely rich person. Given the same distribution as really exists, the (mythical) median income earner in John McCain's (fantasy) world earns about $1.4 million per year. And minimum wage would be $250/hr.

And Peacebang wonders why there are some people who are hostile to the rich? It's not the mere wealth. It's the cluelessness and the arrogance--and the effect that cluelessness and arrogance has on the rest of us that stirs it. It's the class warfare that's waged as a normal daily thing on those who aren't making enough money to even exist in McCain's world.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Unbelievable.

McCain's interview with Warren:

Warren: Define rich. Everybody talks about, you know, taxing the rich and -- but not the poor, the middle class. At what point -- give me a number, give me a specific number -- where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it 100,000, it is 50,000, 200 [thousand]? How does anybody know if we don't know what the standards are?

McCain: ... [elliptical chatter]... "I don't want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich.... [more off-topic chatter]... So I think if you're just talking about income, how about five million.

Hear that, America? If you're only making a million bucks a year in income, you're working poor in John McCain's book.

Those of us who make something within sight of the median income ($42,000/yr) aren't even in sight of the poverty level.

More sometime after I pick my jaw off the floor.

Out. Of. Touch.

This so quickly after talking about renegotiating the water compact with other states, in Colorado--which is akin to urinating on a high voltage line.

Utterly. Out. Of. Touch.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Opinions wanted

(Yes, I'm really not blogging as often as I intended. More later. Maybe. No promises.)

That said, I've a question for all three of my readers regarding expectations for public behaviors.

What needful activities should be discreetly performed in public and which should be banished to a public bathroom (or not) and why? I have in mind here things like nursing an infant or giving oneself an insulin injection.

You're free to provide explanations, caveats and qualifiers. Please consider the range of public restroom experiences, gender issues, specific locations (restaurants, parks, theaters...)--the whole thing. Compare, contrast....