What a petulant, whiny bitch.
Archives for May 2005
A Real Clunker
Sounds ot me like Kingdom of Heaven is a real clunker.
*** Update ***
Ebert seems to like it.
On a related note, has Orlando Bloom ever been in a movie where he is not wielding a sword?
More on Intelligent Design
Via Richard Bennett, this excellent essay on what ‘Intelligent Design’ really is:
Their premise seems to be that as long as they don’t explicitly name the “designer”–as long as they allow that the “designer” could be a naturally existing being, a being accessible to scientific study–that this somehow saves their viewpoint from the charge of being inherently religious in character.
But does it?
Imagine we discovered an alien on Mars with a penchant for bio-engineering. Could such a natural being fulfill the requirements of an “intelligent designer”?
It could not. Such a being would not actually account for the complexity that “design” proponents seek to explain. Any natural being capable of “designing” the complex features of earthly life would, on their premises, require its own “designer.” If “design” can be inferred merely from observed complexity, then our purported Martian “designer” would be just another complex being in nature that supposedly cannot be explained without positing another “designer.” One does not explain complexity by dreaming up a new complexity as its cause.
By the very nature of its approach, “intelligent design” cannot be satisfied with a “designer” who is part of the natural world. Such a “designer” would not answer the basic question its advocates raise: it would not explain biological complexity as such. The only “designer” that would stop their quest for a “design” explanation of complexity is a “designer” about whom one cannot ask any questions or who cannot be subjected to any kind of scientific study–a “designer” that “transcends” nature and its laws–a “designer” not susceptible of rational explanation–in short: a supernatural “designer.”
I find it a grave insult to the English language that something as stupid as ID should incorporate the word ‘intelligent’ in its title.
Don’t Mess with the DMV
For your enjoyment:
Jesus Christ is hoping to move to West Virginia, but he
A Modern Outrage
You work hard. You pay your bills. You pay your taxes. Quick question:
A new tax break for corporations is allowing the biggest American drug makers to return as much as $75 billion in profits from international havens to the United States while paying a fraction of the normal tax rate.
The break is part of the American Jobs Creation Act, signed into law by President Bush in October, which allows companies a one-year window to return foreign profits to the United States at a 5.25 percent tax rate, compared with the standard 35 percent rate…
Though the companies stand behind their accounting, financial analysts and tax lawyers say that the drug makers’ claim defies reality and that their profits come mostly from sales in the United States. But the I.R.S. lacks the resources to challenge the companies effectively, the analysts and lawyers say. As a result, the six major companies – Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wyeth and Lilly – collectively pay a federal tax rate of less than 15 percent on their worldwide profits, with some companies paying much less…
During this window, returning money to the United States is to the advantage of the companies because they can spend the cash here rather than having to use it overseas as tax laws generally require. Lawmakers have said their main intention for the law was to encourage American companies to build new operations and hire workers. Congress passed the law in response to pressure from the European Union to resolve a long-running trade dispute.
Although the act is intended to create jobs, Pfizer said last month that it would cut its annual costs by $4 billion over the next three years. Pfizer, which will repatriate at least $28 billion under the act, did not say how many jobs it planned to eliminate, but analysts expect the company to shrink its work force by thousands of people. Mr. Senyek said the law would create an insignificant number of jobs because companies can easily work around provisions in the law meant to stop them from using the money for dividends to shareholders rather than new hiring.
After the break expires, companies will probably go back to stockpiling profits overseas as they wait for another tax holiday in a few years, tax lawyers say.
You charge outrageously high prices for drugs in the United States (spare me the R&D nonsense), fight anything that stands in your way- like government negotiating power in the Prescription Drug Pill, you stash your profits overseas in tax shelters by lying about where you profits arise (understating them domestically and padding them overseas)- and in return, our elected representatives allow you to get a complete pass on your tax dodge, in fact, they even go so far as to pass a law telling you to “Come on back now, you hear?” And you do, where you dump your profits, trim your workforce to increase the profit margin, and then wait for this bill to sunset, at which point you start stashing profits overseas again.
Corporations are already soulless whores without a conscience. Is it too much to ask that the administration and Congress not aid and abet them?
I fully expect some idiot, within two comments, to make the following statement in the comments section:
“Without the drug companies, we wouldn’t have drug X, so you should stop railing against them.”
Nonsense- without the current drug companies, there would be new drug companies. You think if we quit coddling a few big corporations the demand for medicine is going to stop?
*** Update ***
This is the absurd nonsense I am talking about:
John Cole decides that normal economics doesn’t apply when it’s all about the evil drug companies. I’m not particularly happy with using fascist economics to counteract communist economics but it’s somewhat better than the “Atlas Shrugged” alternatives of just letting the companies go down the tubes.
You aren’t letting normal economics apply. Otherwise you wouldn’t be creating tax holidays so they could sneak home their profits.
And notice the silly rhetoric- if you think lying to the IRS, hiding profits, fudging the books- all that good stuff this legislation now tacitly endorses, if you think that is wrong- you think drug companies are ‘evil’ and you are using ‘fascist economics.’
Bullshit.
From the story:
Though the companies stand behind their accounting, financial analysts and tax lawyers say that the drug makers’ claim defies reality and that their profits come mostly from sales in the United States. But the I.R.S. lacks the resources to challenge the companies effectively, the analysts and lawyers say…
Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, said that in 2004 it had only $4.4 billion in pretax profits in the United States, compared with $9.6 billion internationally, though most of its sales came in the United States. The company says that its profit margins on international sales were almost three times as high as on American sales.
Exporting ProfitsOther companies reported similar trends. The biggest imbalance occurred at Eli Lilly, which reported that it had about $200 million in profits from United States sales in 2004, compared with $2.8 billion in profits from sales everywhere else.
Because they report relatively low United States profits, the companies pay little in American taxes compared to their profits. Pfizer reported paying only $1.2 billion in state and federal income taxes in 2004, 9 percent of its worldwide pretax profit. Excluding a one-time payment related to its plans to repatriate money it has sheltered overseas, Lilly reported paying just $37 million in state and federal taxes last year, only 1 percent of its worldwide pretax profit.
If you find that offensive, and you think the government legislation legitimizing this behavior is wrong, congratulations. You are a fascist.
More here.
Greatest Line Ever
From Blog Nashville:
“You can’t call a son-of-a-bitch a son-of-a-bitch without calling him a son-of-a-bitch.”
Wisdom to live by…
The Newer, ‘Softer’ Baldilocks
Don’t fool yourself. Just because she is out of uniform, she will probably still kick your ass.