The Guillotine vs. Progressive Taxation

Guillotine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "On 10 October 1789, Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed the following six articles in favour of the reformation of capital punishment:

ARTICLE 1: All offenses of the same kind will be punished by the same type of punishment irrespective of the rank of status of the guilty party.
ARTICLE 2: Whenever the Law imposes the death penalty, irrespective of the nature of the offense, the punishment shall be the same: decapitation, effected by means of a simple mechanism.
ARTICLE 3: The punishment of the guilty party shall not bring discredit upon or discrimination against his family.
ARTICLE 4: No one shall reproach a citizen with any punishment imposed on one of his relatives. Such offenders shall be publicly reprimanded by a judge.
ARTICLE 5: The condemned person's property shall not be confiscated.
ARTICLE 6: At the request of the family, the corpse of the condemned man shall be returned to them for burial and no reference to the nature of death shall be registered.[2]"

   Don't get me wrong. I neither advocate violence nor progressive taxation. While I don't hold taxes in the same dim light as murder, I thought it might be interesting for the Rich to mull a few things over....
   Both the Guillotine and progressive taxation have one thing in common: They were both popularized as a way to keep rich people in their place. The Guillotine was used to punish the rich who wallowed in avarice while the poor floundered in economic victimhood. Progressive taxes are used to prevent this situation. It has been 200 years since the French decided they would rather eat bread than cake and they are just now beginning to hear from the self-aggrandizing pricks who seem to feel entitled to their privilige at the expense of the rest of society. In America, we enacted progressive taxation as a means to avoid rich folks from taking everything, gutting our economy, and letting everyone else scramble for the scraps...unfortunately we forgot to enact ways of keeping them from buying the politicians who would repeal progressive taxes. The CEOs of both Exxon and Valero have publicly stated that as much as 40% of the cost of gasoline is due to speculation: I drive for a living-that costs me $6,000. If you (a vague, general, hypothetical 'you') tried to come into my house to steal six grand I would fucking shoot you-so would several million other Americans-if their dogs didn't get you first. If the police arrived to arrest you if I had merely held you for them (which is optimal, prison is always better than homicide) alot of cops would ask me why I didn't shoot you.
Still think the French are stupid?

Give Us Our Law Back: Montana Fights Citizens United, Corporate Campaign Spending by Gwen Stowe and Jeff Clements

Hell yes...and from ...Montana? Not what we would think of, huh? Sounds kinda 'Progressive' don't it?
Just goes to show ya, that 'rural' folks aren't unsophisticated. And if you think I am saying this in a haughty, city-folk kinda way? I come from a town of 900 in New England. A town where the old guy that managed the town dump, (and who had an 8th grade education) bitch-slapped some developers who thought they could turn a swamp into a 'Building Waste Landfill' back to Jersey by pointing out that they were gonna dump asbestos into the uphill end of our aquifer.
Citizen power and responsibility isn't socialism, it is citizen power and responsibility.

Give Us Our Law Back: Montana Fights Citizens United, Corporate Campaign Spending by Gwen Stowe and Jeff Clements: "In Montana, corporations claim that the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission overturned a century-old anti-corruption law. Now state residents are fighting, all over again, to take their democracy back from corporations."

YouTube - Evidence that great white sharks are peaceful creatures

   Weeellllll, I wouldn't say that any 8gazillion ton, perfectly engineered by Mother Nature predator is peaceful, but it does definitely show why it might not be a bad idea to remain calm and NOT panic when you are floating around in the ocean. Rule one of a predator: Never expend any more effort than is absolutely necessary to catch your food.
  You may disagree-which is awesome, I love people who think that the best way to approach all of life is with the assumption of peace and love-but, either way, this is amazing. This woman is incredible. A tad bit of research found a blog post about this incredible woman and her husband. My brain started to hurt just reading about all they have done together-and according to the blogger, what he wrote doesn't even scratch the surface (no pun intended). While reading the blog about them I realized that I had seen the National Geographic issue about the chain-mail shark suit, and probably seen them on TV.
   Hats off to Ms. Taylor and her husband, the amazing work they do, National Geographic and Coast to Coast AM for bringing this to my attention.

YouTube - Evidence that great white sharks are peaceful creatures: ""

Weiner's Cock Picture and Your Pathetic, Pea-Sized Brain.

I haven't seen Anthony Weiner's cock-and neither should you. Not because he shouldn't have sent a picture to a chick he wanted to bang, but because: IT IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS YOU FUCKING RETARDS! If any of you think that it is any of your business, or that it actually matters for even one second please rush out to the nearest gun store and purchase something very large and powerful, take it home, put it in your mouth and pull the trigger. The world is DONE with people like you. Your idiocy is literally destroying this planet and everything on it.
   I am a grownup. I think about grownup things from time to time. Like nuclear terrorism, the erosion of civil liberties, how the hell we are going to feed 12 billion people because we are too fucking stupid and lazy to put a piece of plastic on our genitals. I am a grownup and a single man-I think about sex a lot too, if I a grown woman I am attracted to wants to send me a picture of her va-jay-jay that would be just fine and dandy with me. I would enjoy it. I sometimes look at pictures of naked women for my own personal enjoyment-and ya know what? Sometimes I look at porn too. You know why? Because I am human, a grownup, and I love having sex with women. Hot, dirty,nasty, sweaty, porno sex. Sweet, loving, sensual sex.  'Hey I'm bored, wanna fool around?' sex.
sex.sex.sex.sex.sex.sex.
And so do you. It is one of the things we do....apparently not often enough either, by the looks of it.
If a woman who I was attracted to wants to send me a picture of her privates then so be it. I welcome it. You know what I won't do? SHARE IT WITH THE FUCKING WORLD TO EMBARRASS HER! Ya know why?
Yep. because I am a grownup. And I have better things to do-and SO DO YOU ASSHOLE!


   Weiner  is only pissing away a wonderful career if you IDIOTS push it in that direction. Ted Kennedy committed murder and had a wonderful career. 
   What everyone is trying to say with this colossal moronity, is that in a nation where we are currently engaged in a massive civil rights battle over the sexuality of people who used to be considered 'abnormal', a perfectly normal, heterosexual act is now ruining a man's life? How intelligent does that make any of you? %90 of the gay men that read this have cock pictures on their phone-and I bet at least half of the women do too.This is only an issue because he pisses off Republicans and they aren't used to encountering anyone other Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich with a testicle larger than a fucking  grape....and they are not just turning this back on the Dems., they are tricking the Dems. into turning it back on themselves! What a bunch of weak pathetic pieces of garbage you people are being. You should be going after the bitch that leaked this photo with torches and pitchforks, but instead, you sit at home diddling yourselves to the cock pics on your iphone.
Don't tell me you aren't.
You just gotta keep shooting yourselves in the foot, don't ya?
Got hypocrisy America?

   This is exactly why we are $14trillion in debt, bogged down in endless war, financially enslaved to people who who may or may not want to see us destroyed and/or enslaved, and left wondering why we have such deep, empty caverns in our souls. Caverns we fill up with Snookis and Real Housewives and shitty music and cheap, sweatshop produced 'goods' that suck the life out of our country and the money from our wallets.
For FUCK'S sake, what the hell is wrong with you people?

Time Magazine and Their Disgusting Osama Bin-Laden Cover....

   Now that much of the excitement, flush of relief, and initial controversy (including the mandatory conspiracy theories) surrounding the death of Osama Bin-Laden has died down, I would like to make some observations. 

   Yes, opinions are like assholes-and I can be an asshole, but I have some things to say about the matter and some related matters that I have yet to hear anybody speak about. 

   I am not saying I am the only person to bring this up. I am certain (-and hopeful) that in the analysis of this enormous event other people have mentioned the things I am going to mention. My concern is that I haven't heard  these things said yet and I think they are things that should be a more important part of the conversation. 

   To point up just why I think I have solid ground (or soap box) to stand on, let me give you my background on the subject of the killing of Bin-Laden....

   I was born a news junkie, into a family of highly educated news junkies. I was brought up to love my country to death even after excoriating her for her flaws-flaws which usually are the result of bad human behavior from my own fellow Americans. In another life I would have been an intel analyst, one of the minor support character-types in a Tom Clancy novel-and because I would have loved it so much, I would have fucking excelled at it. I read fast, I learn fast, and I can keep a ton of raw info bouncing around my brain and call it up on little notice.

    On the morning of 9/11 I was awakened by my girlfriend violently shaking me to consciousness on the couch. When I first opened my eyes I looked at her sitting rigid and tensely puffing on a cigarette. She looked sidelong at me and and pointed at the TV. I turned my eyes just in time to see the second plane hit. The first two things that went through my head were "wow! Thank God it wasn't a nuke..." and "Osama Bin-Laden". I was shocked, but not all that surprised. I knew who Bin-Laden was long before 9/11. He was first indicted in the US on June 8th, 1998 and placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list 364 days later. I had seen his face on the wall in Post Offices many times.

   I didn't lose anyone on 9/11, but it ruined my life financially-something from which I am just now, a decade later, starting to recover from. That being said, before I go any further, let me be clear, I hold Osama Bin-Laden personally responsible for his part in that. I know it is a selfish thing to say, but in addition to the evil he did, he harmed me and millions of others in more subtle ways. That is my bias. The man was scum. Period.

   I have to say I can see the point made by people whose belief is in non-violence and less use of kinetic warfare as a foreign policy tool. I can also see how people could interpret the killing of Bin-Laden as being on shakey legal and moral grounds. I don't agree, but I see their point I love them for their ability to not act on their more basic instincts. If there can be an argument made that it was a violation of the law then it should be followed though to it's conclusion-which, if it went to a trial would undoubtedly lead to a jury to find anyone charged as not guilty.

   Based on my education and experience, I don't think Bin-Laden qualified as a human being. I know the law sees it otherwise, but I don't believe there would have been any other way to handle him that would have caused less problems than this chosen course will. 

He was an animal walking around in a human skin-suit. 

I think he liked the power of taking life just the way serial killer does. 

Given his obvious intelligence, charisma, and leadership skills, if he had been more Gandhi and less Che Guevara, he might have had an influence over events that yielded net-positive results-especially considering his wealth and connections. 

Instead, he chose evil. 

True, ego-driven, megalomaniacal evil. 

He chose terror. He chose to strike fear into his enemies and even considered other Muslims, women, and children as enemies leaving scars on more than one nation, more than one age group, and more than one nationality. 

   One of my friends pointed out something while watching the kids in Georgetown climbing the rafters screaming 'VICTORY!': SEAL Team 6 killed the physical manifestation of the monster under the bed for just about any American under the age of 25. Not showing  pictures of his dead body takes away the power he could have extended from beyond the grave-and I am sure he figured we would parade the pictures around like we did with the bodies of Hussein & Sons thereby extending his power from beyond the grave.

   Not long after the killing of Bin-Laden, Time magazine put out a special edition commemorating the death of Bin-Laden. Perhaps they felt it was their duty-and perhaps it was, but the execution of this 'duty' is one of the most horrendously tasteless things I have ever seen in the mainstream press.

   The Time cover (and I am sure they are aware of this) shows him not as a person but as a disembodied, floating head, with a red 'X' spray painted across his face like a thug whacked by other thugs. It elevates him and lowers the people involved in the decision and  the raid and paints a picture that this is a game, that, as a nation, we are just childish in our approach to this. I am quite certain that the good folks whose boots are on the ground don't see it that way. I am equally sure those who lost their loved ones -or their ability to walk, or speak, or think clearly don't see it as a game either. They saw it as a deadly serious duty to their nation and the World. If they want to put up a picture and X-out OBL's face, then so be it,  they did all the work-all of it. Not the people at Time, not all the people who never watched the news, or failed to donate even a few meager cents to the USO or some other organization. I sure as shit had no part in it. This entire nation didn't mobilize and volunteer and insist on implementing a draft to flood foreign lands with millions of our soldiers to create a secure environment for the men and women out hunting the terrorists. No, we just reaped the benefits of their work-and then a bunch of folks ran around pounding their chests like monkeys as if they actually accomplished something. I don't want to diminish any sense of national pride in the folks that actually did the work, but this Time magazine cover is akin to some worthless gangbanger crossing out the tag of a rival he aims to kill-and most of those guys are either psychopaths or pussies. 

Neither are a label I want slapped on my country or my countrymen. I am ashamed that this cover may paint that picture of our troops. I have known a whole lot of men who have killed in combat-it was not a game to them.

   Time Magazine is was part of the face we give to the World as ours. After this disgusting display? I am not reading Time anymore-or at least until they find some way to redeem themselves.