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October 09, 2004

Son of Nixon is Back From Hiatus...

...and he still wants to know: If John Kerry is so down on "tax cuts for the rich," why did he choose to pay the lower state tax rate in Massachusetts, rather than the voluntarily-selected higher tax rate?

I'd like to know too.

You know who doesn't want to know?

Mark Fucking Halperin, that's who.

posted by Ace at 06:23 PM

Comments

Andrew Sullivan claims he still hasn't decided:

ME TOO: Josh Chafetz reflects on where he is in this race. Bottom line: "Undecided ... but leaning more towards Kerry than I was before." That's where I am. Josh's arguments are very close to my own thoughts as well. I cannot support Bush but I'm amazed I'm this close to considering favoring Kerry as president. I'm not there yet. Don't rush me. But after two debates, I feel far more comfortable with the thought of him as commander-in-chief than I once thought possible.

Posted by: Mark on October 9, 2004 06:45 PM

I'm shocked, Mark. And I'm not easily offended either.

Posted by: Joe R. the Unabrewer on October 9, 2004 07:23 PM

Am I the only one that noticed Kerry's comment at the debate friday night that was rank elitist classism. He said that 'looking around at the audience' that probably only himself, Bush and Charley were wealthy tax payers. To me that smacked of acute snobbery especially coming from a man who married his money.

Posted by: Philip Nord on October 9, 2004 07:45 PM

Andrew Sullivan will decide who to support. . . on November 3rd.

Ace-- didya see Drudge? We may need to rename Akron "Urinetown":

http://garfieldridge.blogspot.com/2004/10/exercise-your-first-amendment-rights.html

Cheers,
Dave

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on October 9, 2004 08:23 PM

Andrew Sullivan is a liar. I have a plan that will take his right to BS away. I have a plan to see he pays his fair share of taxes. I have a plan to pay for his mother's abortion of him (she did raise the afterbirth). I have a plan to make him vulnerable to sneak attacks for neocons. I have lots and lots of plans. Nov. 3rd I'll explain them BWAHHAAAAHHHHAAA!

Posted by: Roundguy on October 10, 2004 12:54 AM

Note that Kerry is now beating Bush in Prescott Bush's old CT stomping grounds, despite the fact that Republicans outnumber Democrats. And the despite the fact that Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy REALLY help the wealthiest in Fairfield County where the richest 1% are getting a 485,000 tax cut over 6 years from borrowed Chinese money, compared to bedrock Republican Kansas's richest 1% only getting 186,000 in China-loaned kickbacks - because the top 1% in Kansas make a mere 747,000 in family income a year.

The reason is they are happy to scoop up the money Bush is borrowing to give to the rich, but moderate Republicans in the NE, Illinois, and the West Coast share few of Bush's values. They think he is a radical conservative and trapped in a Religious Right moral environment - so they think Kerry is more palatable on many issues.

Why don't the wealthiest moderate Republicans give it back if they think Bush went too far in busting the budget to reward the richest?

Because - They didn't get in the richest 1% by just giving undeserved government largess away. And if someone is stupid enough to give the rich a windfall profit, their nature - Democrat like Soros, moderate like the Republican Microsoft multimillionaires, or bible-thumping "Go Dubya!" Republican texas oilmen - is to pocket the money.

Posted by: Cedarford on October 10, 2004 01:27 AM

Let me suggest a meme concerning Mr. Mark Halperin.

It can be found here.

Posted by: Natalie on October 10, 2004 12:22 PM

Cedarford.

You are so full of bullshit hyper-PRETEND-intellectualism- newspeak that you can't see the forest for the trees.

If I said to you that Fairfield County is liberal because all the old paleo-con bluebloods have died and they let their kids be educated by fucking ivy league commies, you'd say:

"despite the fact that Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy REALLY help the wealthiest in Fairfield County where the richest 1% are getting a 485,000 tax cut over 6 years from borrowed Chinese money, compared to bedrock Republican Kansas's richest 1% only getting 186,000 in China-loaned kickbacks - because the top 1% in Kansas make a mere 747,000 in family income a year...."

BLAH BLAH BLAH FRICKIN' BLAH

Where do you work, Cedarford? What do you do for a living??

Posted by: lauraw on October 10, 2004 09:21 PM

-Not to mention all the celebrities and other assorted phonies that live there now, and the New Yorkers.

Sorry, Cedarford. Have had a bit of VO tonight.

But if you and I were in a restaurant, I'd order the green beans, and you'd order the Haricots Verts.

Posted by: lauraw on October 10, 2004 10:06 PM

I think Mr. Cedarford is actually the attorney for the Fruit Fucker 2000, first mentioned hyar:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-07-11&res=l

and continuing hyar:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-02-11&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06-04&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06-06&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06-09&res=l

thankfully ending hyar:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06-11&res=l

I think. I seem to recall there being another episode about a giant Fruit Fucker, but I haven't found it yet.

Posted by: Mr. Bowen on October 10, 2004 11:45 PM

Oh yeah, here it is. Fruit Fucker PRIME. Revel in teh funnay, my friends.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-04-02&res=l

Posted by: Mr. Bowen on October 11, 2004 12:22 AM

Am I the only one that noticed Kerry's comment at the debate friday night that was rank elitist classism. He said that 'looking around at the audience' that probably only himself, Bush and Charley were wealthy tax payers.

How odd that he did not add his wife, Teresa, to the list.

Posted by: Mark on October 11, 2004 12:28 AM

Lauraw - And you are too blind to see the Neocon's high water mark was a long time ago and tax cuts for the wealthy have failed to generate trickledown, jobs, and just as important, failed to generate loyalty in their prime beneficiaries.

VO or not - if you evaluate the fiscal prudency of borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China, Japan, the UK bankers, Saudi Arabia, and France to reward the richest Americans - with no appreciable gains to ordinary Americans - that is a whole different thing than fairly rebating a budget surplus to those who paid the taxes that generated that surplus...and you should have the brains to understand the difference.

Posted by: Cedarford on October 11, 2004 01:53 AM

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Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
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A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
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Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]